• Wingbits

  Led · Equity · Jan 2025

  Wingbits is a decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) startup focused on the aviation industry. It aims to offer rewards-based flight tracking using cryptographically-secured Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) receivers. The company’s model leverages hardware secured by a decentralized network and is described as a blockchain equivalent of cloud computing services offered by Big Tech. Flight tracking today relies on a global network of volunteers who install home antennas to collect flight data, while companies sell that data to airports, airlines and other organizations, generating hundreds of millions in revenue and volunteers receive nothing in return. Wingbits has raised $5.6 million in the reported funding round, taking its total backing to $9.2 million. The round was led by Borderless Capital and Bullish Capital; Bullish Capital’s parent, Bullish Group, is also the owner of CoinDesk. Wingbits builds a global flight-tracking network that shares revenue with community contributors via a blockchain-based, performance-driven rewards model. The platform captures flight-tracking data from antennas maintained by amateurs and hobbyists and remunerates individuals based on performance, coverage and uptime, with global leaderboards. The company has grown its network from 40 antennas at the end of 2023 to 1,600 less than a year later, and an investor cited a broader community of around 100k aviation hobbyists. Wingbits raised a $3.5M seed round and will use the funding to expand its engineering team, broaden its product offering, and increase sales and marketing efforts. The founding team includes Robin Wingardh and Alex Lungu, both with senior Klarna experience, and early backing from Antler. By incentivizing and rewarding the community, Wingbits aims to create one of the world’s largest and most reliable flight-tracking datasets to help improve delays, optimise routes, and drive efficiencies in aviation.

• BabylonChain

  Participated · Equity · May 2024

  Babylon is developing Babylon Trustless BTCVaults, an infrastructure layer that keeps Bitcoin locked on its base chain while enabling external protocols to verify collateral and enforce unlock or liquidation conditions through cryptographic proofs. The system relies on witness encryption and garbled circuits to allow Bitcoin to efficiently verify zero-knowledge proofs, preserving self-custody and eliminating intermediaries. By doing so, Babylon targets a market in which less than 1% of all BTC is currently wrapped for on-chain use, aiming to activate vast amounts of otherwise idle Bitcoin. The company positions BTCVaults to power borrowing, lending, stablecoins, insurance, credit issuance, and other structured products that demand secure collateral. Babylon also plans to expand the utility of its BABY token, which could facilitate coordination among vault providers, integrations, and end-user applications. Institutions may benefit from reduced counterparty exposure and simpler tax and compliance workflows because BTCVaults avoid asset transformation. To accelerate development and scaling, Babylon has raised $15 million from a16z crypto.

• Babylon

  Participated · Equity · May 2024

  Babylon is a blockchain project that designs security sharing protocols intended to build a Bitcoin-secured decentralized world. The project aims to use Bitcoin as the security foundation for a decentralized ecosystem. It was founded in 2022 by Stanford Professor David Tse and Dr. Fisher Yu and is based in Palo Alto, CA. The team comprises consensus protocol researchers and experienced layer 1 engineers from around the world. Babylon completed a $70 million funding round led by Paradigm, with significant contributions from Bullish Capital, Polychain Capital and other investors. The raise was described as a sign of strong momentum in the Bitcoin economy; Professor Tse's credentials cited include membership in the U.S. Academy of Engineering and major IEEE awards. Babylon is a blockchain project founded in 2022 in Palo Alto by Stanford Professor David Tse and Dr. Fisher Yu. The team is developing a Bitcoin Staking Protocol that converts bitcoin into a decentralized staking asset without requiring a soft/hard fork, bridging, wrapping, or third-party custody. Babylon published a litepaper in July outlining its native trustless Bitcoin staking and intends to allow Bitcoin holders to earn PoS yields while providing crypto-economic security to PoS chains. The project argues that enabling Bitcoin as a staking asset can increase security for emerging chains and reduce inflationary pressure from high staking rewards. In addition to the staking protocol, Babylon is developing Bitcoin Timestamping and Bitcoin Data Availability protocols as part of a broader security-sharing roadmap. The team comprises consensus protocol researchers and experienced layer-1 engineers led by prominent academic and blockchain founders.

• ether.fi

  Led · Series A · Mar 2024

  Ether.fi operates a liquid restaking protocol that lets users restake staked ether on EigenLayer and receive eETH, a liquid token that preserves staking exposure while enabling DeFi use. The protocol supports redemptions rather than only speculative deposits, which the company says differentiates it in the restaking market. Ether.fi reports a total value locked of $1.66 billion, highlighting significant user adoption of its restaking service. Led by CEO Mike Silagadze, the team aims to expand native restaking rewards and broaden access to decentralized finance opportunities. The company was founded in 2021 and is based in George Town, Cayman Islands. Total capital raised to date is $28.3 million, indicating early-stage funding traction alongside strong protocol TVL. ether.fi is a Cayman Islands-based liquid staking protocol focused on decentralization and non-custodial staking. The protocol enables stakers to retain control of their private keys while delegating validator operations to node operators. Led by Founder & CEO Mike Silagadze, ether.fi positions its product as a building block for web3 infrastructure. The company raised USD$5.3M and plans to use the funds to increase hiring across the next six months and to build partnerships with custodians, centralized exchanges, crypto wallets, and hardware wallet apps. To support validator operations at launch, ether.fi will partner with node operators Kiln, Finoa, DSRV, and Allnodes, while Obol will serve as its official Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) partner. The protocol emphasizes decentralized, multi-operator validation as a core use case for DVT.

No current team members are available.