Participated · Series A · Jan 2022

BCB Group is a London-based digital asset technology provider that offers business accounts, cryptocurrency services, foreign-exchange market liquidity, and custody to many of the world’s largest crypto-engaged financial institutions. The company operates a platform aimed at payments and market infrastructure for institutional clients. It plans to use new capital to expand payments and market infrastructure across more regions and to acquire strategic stakes in critical infrastructure partners. Financially, BCB Group has closed a $60 million Series A, the largest Series A in the UK blockchain industry, and previously completed a strategic funding round in March 2021. The company positions itself as a connector for the global crypto industry, servicing large crypto-engaged financial institutions and building deeper infrastructure for market growth. BCB Group is a U.K.-based business banking challenger for the crypto industry that provides payments, trading and treasury services. The firm launched a treasury services offering aimed at crypto-curious chief financial officers last month. Management says BCB is profitable and has seen about 19-times volume growth over the past 12 months, processing over $4 billion in payments and trades in February 2021. The recent capital raise is intended to fund the pursuit of additional regulatory licenses and support international expansion. BCB plans to seek more licenses in the U.K., EU and Switzerland — including the Swiss Fintech license, which ties into the Swiss National Bank — and to push into Switzerland and Singapore. The company raised $4.5M in the latest round and expects to raise a larger $10M–$15M round later this year.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2021

Index Coop is an on-chain crypto index-fund builder organized as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that issues exchange-traded-fund-like tokens such as the DeFi Pulse Index. Its family of funds — including metaverse, leveraged ETH and leveraged BTC strategies — holds nearly $420 million in crypto assets, a figure that has occasionally eclipsed $500 million. The protocol has attracted over 31,000 wallets and has generated over $2 million in lifetime fees while currently earning $17,222 in daily fees. Core contributors say the DAO has fended off prior "vampire attacks" and is preparing to respond to a planned fork and incentive-driven siphon attempt by Enso Finance. Index Coop also boosted its treasury earlier this year with a $7.7 million investment from Galaxy Digital and 1kx. The team emphasizes passive, low-friction crypto-native products that mimic traditional passive investment vehicles. Index Cooperative is a DAO that develops and oversees a collection of structured decentralized finance products and tokens, including the DeFi Pulse Index (DPI). Its products act as on-chain, ETF-like tokens allowing retail and institutional investors to gain complex exposures without manual replication (for example, a token representing 2x ETH exposure). Since launching in October, the Index Cooperative has reached $150 million in assets under management and passed $1 million in cumulative revenue. The DAO comprises individual DeFi experts, business development personnel, marketers and stakeholders such as Set Labs and DeFi Pulse, with varying governance power among participants. The group says it will use the $7.7 million funding to hire more engineers, expand its ETF-like products onto other blockchain networks, and reinforce the protocol’s long-term financial stability. Index targets both retail and institutional investors and positions itself as a market leader for on-chain ETF-like products.

Participated · Series A · Sep 2021

Yellow Card builds stablecoin payment infrastructure and Global USD Accounts that let businesses hold U.S. dollars, manage treasury operations, swap stablecoins and send or receive local-currency payments across its network. The company has processed more than $10 billion in transactions, supports over 50 currencies and holds licences, authorisations and registrations in 22 jurisdictions across North America, Europe and Africa. It counts strategic partnerships and customers including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Coinbase, Western Union and others. Yellow Card is focused on expanding its stablecoin rails to enable faster cross-border transactions and to connect banks directly to those rails. The company plans international expansion into Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Its recent financing has brought total equity funding to more than $120 million, which the company says will be deployed to scale product rollout and geographic reach.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2021

Pintu is a cryptocurrency trading app launched in April 2020 that markets itself as Indonesia’s leading homegrown crypto assets platform, focused on first-time investors — primarily Gen Z and millennials. The app offers spot trading in over 66 tokens, Pintu Staking for its Pintu Token, and Pintu Earn which advertises up to a 15% APY paid hourly with no lock-up and instant top-ups/withdrawals. It includes educational features such as Pintu Academy and runs active community channels (790,000 members across Telegram, Discord, Instagram and TikTok). Pintu is registered and licensed by Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappepti). The company reports over four million app installs (up from 500,000 in May 2021) and doubled its team to about 200 in 2021. It plans to use new funding to add more tokens and supported blockchains, expand products and Pintu Academy, and increase hiring. Pintu is an Indonesian crypto assets platform and licensed broker (BAPPEBTI) that offers trades on 16 cryptocurrencies and has a low minimum investment of 11,000 IDR. The app emphasizes education for first-time investors through features like Pintu Academy and prioritizes accessibility for deposits and withdrawals. In the first half of 2021 Pintu reported 3.5x growth in app downloads and a 4x increase in active traders, driven in part by increased retail interest in crypto. The company plans to add more coins, including NFT tokens, and is selective about listings based on market cap, longevity and liquidity. Pintu is preparing new features such as Pintu Earn (an interest-bearing crypto account) and e-wallet integration, and intends to pursue aggressive hiring to support product development. It plans to focus on expanding within Indonesia before entering other Southeast Asian markets. Pintu operates a mobile-first cryptocurrency trading app designed to reach mass-market, first-time crypto users with an easy user experience and educational materials. The company is a licensed cryptoassets broker, registered under Indonesia’s Bappebti and the Ministry of Communication and Informatics. Pintu was founded last year by Jeth Soetoyo and is led operationally by COO Andrew Adjiputro. The team says many Indonesian retail traders view crypto as a top asset class and that retail users are primarily aged 20–35. Pintu estimates Indonesia processed about $10 billion in cryptoasset transactions last year, mostly through retail investors. The new funding will be used for marketing, hiring and product development.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2021

Messari provides market intelligence products combining analysis, data, news, and tools for individuals and institutions to improve transparency and participation in crypto. Led by CEO Ryan Selkis, the company develops offerings for measuring protocol health and usage. It has launched Protocol Metrics to standardize transparent data comparisons across networks and a Data Apps marketplace for customized data sets. Data Apps is in beta and available to select Enterprise users, with broader Enterprise availability planned. Messari also hosts Mainnet, an annual summit that gathers crypto leaders for product demos, workshops, and networking. The company intends to use new funding to expand its team and further develop its product suite. Messari builds a cryptoasset industry disclosures library and data analytics platform that enables investment professionals to evaluate opportunities in the emerging asset class. Led by CEO Ryan Selkis and based in New York City, the company combines formerly disparate market intelligence functions into Pro and Enterprise product suites used by Coinbase, Gemini, BlockTower, and Chainalysis. Since its founding in January 2018, Messari has launched an array of qualitative and quantitative data, research, and compliance products for crypto funds, infrastructure providers, and token creators. The company closed a $21M Series A to expand the global reach of its Pro and Enterprise suites and to triple the size of its engineering and research teams. It plans to introduce new offerings to streamline participation in decentralized projects and their communities and to grow its institutional footprint and its community research and educational content. Messari will also produce Mainnet 2021, its annual summit, which it will host September 20-22 in New York City.