Participated · Equity · Apr 2024

Mezo, built by Thesis and led by founder Matt Luongo (also Thesis CEO), is a permissionless Bitcoin economic layer that amplifies Bitcoin infrastructure while preserving BTC-first principles. Its core product facilitates cheap, efficient transactions and provides access to real-world applications through Thesis-built components like tBTC for trust-minimized bridging. The protocol supports staking via stBTC and Acre, Thesis’ Bitcoin-in, Bitcoin-out staking platform. Mezo will use the new capital to accelerate technology development and grow the BitcoinFi ecosystem, including integrations with partners such as Acre and wallet providers to enable Bitcoin “log in” via hardware and web wallets like Unisat, OKX, and Xverse. Ledger plans to integrate Mezo directly into its suite of products, with further integration details to be disclosed. Operational metrics reported to date include $124.5M in total value locked and 2,152 Bitcoin deposited in the protocol; total funding now stands at $30M following Mezo’s April 2024 launch. Mezo is a permissionless Bitcoin Economic Layer launched by Thesis, a NYC-based venture studio, and led by CEO Matt Luongo. It provides a neutral smart-contract infrastructure that is Bitcoin-native and aims to enable cheap, fast transactions for diverse user-centric use cases. Mezo uses a Proof of HODL mechanism that rewards users with yield and increases HODL Score multipliers the longer bitcoin deposits are locked. New users receive five one-time invitations to onboard friends, with reciprocal earnings tied to the size and duration of invited users’ deposits. Mezo plans to go live with ecosystem support from Thesis-built tBTC for trust-minimized bitcoin bridging. The company intends to use the recently raised capital to expand operations and accelerate development efforts.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2022

EvolutionIQ’s core product is an AI-powered Claims Guidance system that actively monitors open insurance claims and directs frontline operators to cases needing attention, new actions, or complex decision-making. The guidance aims to help claims handlers make more accurate decisions, improve claimant experience, shorten claim durations, and reduce claim losses and expenses. EvolutionIQ’s solution is being integrated with Guidewire ClaimCenter to provide a unified workflow and streamline data transmission between systems. The company has entered a strategic partnership with Guidewire to make it easier for shared customers to deploy AI in the claims handling process and to influence industry technology standards. Guidewire’s involvement includes a strategic investment and listing EvolutionIQ as a Solution partner in Guidewire PartnerConnect, which EvolutionIQ says endorses its Claims Guidance offering. EvolutionIQ is a New York–based AI-powered claims guidance platform that monitors open insurance claims and guides examiners and adjusters to the right actions. Its platform uses proprietary machine learning and natural language processing to understand complex bodily injury and recovery and to provide real-time predictive accuracy and explainable AI. EvolutionIQ’s software actively prioritizes claims that require attention, new actions, or complex decision-making and delivers daily guidance to frontline operators. The company says it dramatically increased its customer base and tripled contracted revenue in 2022, and that every pilot it completed turned into a production customer. EvolutionIQ reports significant recurring revenue and has limited its fundraising to minimize dilution. The company plans to use the Series B proceeds to expand engineering, data science, product, and customer success teams and to expand internationally. EvolutionIQ offers a decision-intelligence platform that analyzes historical claimant data and third-party information to surface and prioritize "high-opportunity" claims for insurance examiners. The platform targets complex, long-running health-related claims (short-term disability, long-term disability, workers' comp and P&C) and presents explainable, actionable insights so adjusters can focus on the cases with the largest impact. EvolutionIQ monitors open claims to flag cases that need attention or have fallen through the cracks, and translates model outputs into plain-language guidance for frontline operators and managers. The company emphasizes explainability to mitigate bias and make its AI outputs usable in regulated insurance workflows. EvolutionIQ counts top disability carriers, property-casualty carriers and third-party administrators among its customers, including Reliance Standard, Principal, Sun Life, Argo Group, Matrix Absence Management and FullscopeRMS. The company was cash-flow-positive in 2021 and plans to use new capital to expand engineering, data science, product and customer success teams and to accelerate customer acquisition as it explores new insurance categories.