Participated · Seed · Nov 2023

IntentX operates an OTC marketplace and decentralized exchange that relies on a solver network to create markets and facilitate trading. The company emphasizes an intent‑based technology approach and a multi‑solver solution to deliver improved UX for traders. Recent strategic partnerships with active market makers aim to enable integrations and tighter product alignment. IntentX received investment from the Mantle Ecofund and highlights plans for deployments and integrations on the Mantle L2 chain. The team says it will leverage strategic partners, new products, and integrations to build what it calls the most complete DEX. The raise and partnerships are positioned to support upcoming deployment plans and market maker integrations. IntentX operates a full-chain OTC derivatives trading protocol and has released an Open Beta of its platform. The protocol offers trading for more than 180 perpetual currency pairs. On the platform, market makers can concentrate capital via instant liquidity to fulfill specific trade requests. The company completed a $2.5 million seed financing to support its operations and product development. Investors in the seed round include Magnus Capital (lead) and several crypto-focused funds and trading firms. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2022

Tea is a unified package manager, universal interpreter and virtual environment manager built to simplify how developers install and manage software packages. The company launched a CLI last month to challenge incumbents such as NPM and Homebrew and has attracted roughly 16,000 developers who have authenticated their packages with Tea. Tea was formally founded last November in Puerto Rico by Max Howell and Timothy Lewis and emerged from stealth in March backed by $8 million in funding, including participation from the venture capital arm of Binance. The team plans to build a web3 protocol that uses digital contracts and issues NFTs to package maintainers to evidence work and direct rewards, with the protocol’s core components remaining optional. Management says the protocol is expected to be available sometime in 2023 and that Tea will offer revenue-generating services on top of the protocol, including enterprise security and license-management tools. Tea builds an open-source web3 platform to automate sponsorship and compensation for open source developers. Its product issues utility tokens tied to projects and uses digital contracts so sponsors can receive perks like special access or license agreements guaranteeing developer support. Tea maintains a decentralized, immutable graph that registers projects and their dependencies; the company will bootstrap that graph from Homebrew. The platform adds a security layer to notify users and owners when parts of a stack break and includes a slashing mechanism to transfer project control if maintainers are unavailable. Tea describes its model as a "loyalty scheme" and uses an inflationary mechanism to allocate rewards proportionally across the ecosystem. The company is Puerto Rico–based and was co-founded by Max Howell and three fellow engineers; it announced an $8 million seed financing led by Binance Labs.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2014

Fon operates a global, crowdsourced WiFi network and reports more than 14 million hotspots in over 200 countries. Founded in February 2006 by serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, who serves as CEO, the company partners with major telecoms including BT, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, Proximus, MTC, MWEB, Oi, SoftBank and Telstra. Fon maintains offices in Madrid, London, Tokyo and New York. The company positions itself as a global WiFi leader and is pursuing a global growth strategy. Its recent financing activity includes a growth capital loan intended to support that expansion. Fon builds a global crowdsourced WiFi network by enabling people to share part of their private broadband via devices like the Fonera router. It is developing a "social" Fonera integrated with Facebook that will let friends and retail customers access WiFi via likes/check-ins, and a separate shop-focused Fonera for stores. Qualcomm has entered a strategic relationship to integrate Fon into Atheros chipsets and the Atheros SDK so third parties can include Fon access. Fon reported just over 12 million hotspots worldwide, grew 50% that year, and claims about 10% penetration in markets like Belgium and the UK, with a target of 35 million hotspots by 2016. The company pursues carrier partnerships (for example BT in the UK) and is talking to U.S. carriers to expand into the U.S. and target business/enterprise users. Fon has raised nearly $72 million since being founded in 2006. Fon sells consumer WiFi routers that enable homeowners to share bandwidth as publicly accessible hotspots. The company positions that network to serve growing demand for mobile WiFi from smartphone and tablet users. The new financing is intended to support expansion in the US and other markets. Fon was founded in 2006 by serial entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky. Prior to this round the company had raised over €40M in earlier financings. The product and expansion focus aim to capitalize on increasing mobile data demand. Fon deploys consumer WiFi routers (Foneras) that let users share bandwidth with other "Foneros" for free roaming access or charge guests and retain 50% of fees. The company reports about 170,000 active routers worldwide, with leading markets in the UK, Japan, France, Germany, and the U.S.; the UK alone has more than 70,000 BTFon members. Fon partners with telecom operators (notably British Telecom and Neuf) to enable roaming broadband offers and is preparing a launch in Russia with telco Sistema. Product plans include a Fonera 2.0 router (with a USB port for media sharing) due in June and an 802.11n router slated for December. Financially, this latest infusion is part of a multi-round raise that has taken the company’s total funding to more than $50 million. The company intends to use the new cash to fund the Russia launch and the new router rollouts. FON sells a €34.44 ($48.70) WiFi router and its core product is a community WiFi model where customers who share their home connection gain access to other members' hotspots. The company claims roughly 500,000 members but reports about 190,000 active hotspots, suggesting not all members host a hotspot. FON’s distribution strategy relies on carrier and location partnerships to expand coverage; it has signed deals with chains, ISPs and operators such as Neuf Cegetel and Time Warner. The company is pursuing wider UK reach through a deal with BT, which has more than 3 million broadband customers and will invite them to join FON’s service. The announcement indicates a revenue-sharing arrangement with BT, though the terms were not disclosed, and questions remain about how FON will monetize the free router distribution. FON faces competition from mobile broadband providers and emerging technologies like WiMax that could limit demand for shared WiFi.