Participated · Series A · May 2022

Elwood Technologies, founded by British hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard, offers a platform aimed at giving institutional clients access to cryptocurrency markets and liquidity venues. The company is led by CEO James Stickland. Its platform targets institutional demand for crypto and aggregates connectivity to liquidity venues. Elwood plans to use new capital to meet increased institutional client demand and to expand its products and global operations. The round values the firm at about $500 million, according to people familiar with the terms. The investor mix includes both traditional financial institutions and digital-asset technology providers, which company leadership says underscores institutional interest in crypto.

Participated · Seed · Apr 2022

GamerGains Lab is building the first-ever token and cryptocurrency-based play-and-earn platform serving hundreds of millions of traditional PC and console gamers. Built by gamers for gamers, the platform aims to turn typical gameplay into opportunities to earn crypto rewards without requiring a digital wallet or previous crypto experience. The company emphasizes an easy-to-use interface and an automated contest lifecycle that it describes as impartial, transparent, and featuring instant payout settlement. GamerGains closed a $5.8 million seed round to support development of the platform. The financing is intended to create an accessible on-ramp to Web3 for traditional gamers, and the company announced the round from Miami, FL.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2022

Founded in 2021 and based in Brazil, Trace Finance provides regulated infrastructure that connects local banking rails, foreign exchange, compliance, and stablecoin settlement to enable institutional cross-border payments. It operates under licenses in the U.S. and Brazil and partners with banks in Mexico, Colombia, Europe, and Asia, and plans to pursue additional licenses in Singapore, the U.S., and APAC. Trace has processed more than $10 billion in institutional cross-border volume to date and serves as the main infrastructure provider for the top four global payment providers operating in Latin America, including dLocal. The company has expanded headcount from 25 employees at the start of the year to 48 and is developing new settlement products. Trace plans regional expansion across Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and later into Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2021

Elementus offers a blockchain data intelligence platform that enables investigation of on-chain activities, identification of risk, and discovery of market intelligence. Its system provides a complete data set plus sophisticated tagging and attribution capabilities. The company emphasizes a data-first core and proprietary algorithms to deliver a granular view into the flow of funds. Elementus positions its product for financial services and crypto exchanges to use blockchain data strategically and with high confidence. Max Galka is the company’s CEO. The company plans to use new funding for hiring and new product development. Elementus builds blockchain compliance and data analytics solutions and a crypto‑forensic platform aimed at government agencies, financial institutions, researchers and investors. Its forensic tools support market intelligence, security‑vulnerability detection and identification of bad actors. The company says it is developing an institutional‑grade intelligence platform with search speed comparable to Google and data insight similar to Palantir. It raised $12 million in a Series A to advance that platform. Elementus has ties to Palantir: its president Greg Barbaccia previously worked at Palantir for a decade and its chief strategy officer Chitra Ragavan was once a senior adviser to Palantir's CEO. Palantir added Elementus to its Foundry for Builders Program, providing access to Foundry to "turbocharge" the startup's analytic products. Elementus provides a blockchain-powered analytics platform for institutional asset managers, financial services organizations, and government agencies. The platform supports Bitcoin and Ethereum, including stablecoins. The company was co-founded by Max Galka, Mike Kalomeni, and Nuria Gutierrez. Elementus raised $3.5M in seed funding led by Morgan Creek Digital with participation from Avon Ventures, Stage 1 Ventures, Robot Ventures and angel investors. The company intends to use the funds to extend its capabilities and grow its team with data scientists. Charles V. Senatore joined as an advisor and Anthony Pompliano joined the board of directors.

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.