Led · Seed · Jun 2024

Ordinox is a DeFi application chain that uses the Tendermint consensus engine, the Cosmos-SDK state machine, and the GG20 threshold signature scheme (TSS). The team plans to build an automated market maker (AMM) specifically tailored for BRC20 and Runes token standards. The company completed a $1 million Pre-Seed financing to support product development. Proceeds from the round are earmarked for building the AMM and related infrastructure. The articles do not disclose operating metrics such as revenue or user counts. Technical design and the planned AMM are the primary focus described in the coverage.

Participated · Equity · May 2024

Zeta Markets is a DeFi derivatives trading platform that leverages Solana's censorship-resistant infrastructure. The platform provides price updates, liquidation mechanisms, rapid on-chain settlement, and ultra-low fees for derivatives traders. It is designed to promote liquidity and enable non-custodial, low-collateral derivatives trading. Zeta emphasizes fast settlement and on-chain clearing to reduce friction for traders. The company recently attracted outside capital, indicating investor interest in its product and growth trajectory. Zeta Markets is a decentralized platform built on Solana that facilitates liquid, non-custodial, and natively under-collateralized derivatives trading. It allows traders to post a fraction of the full price of futures and options while supporting cross-margining so traders can account for all holdings and share profit and loss across positions. The protocol leverages Solana’s censorship-resistant infrastructure to provide sub-second pricing updates, liquidations, trade execution and settlement with gas fees under $0.01. An on-chain options market maker (OMM) prices and quotes all options and futures in real time to guarantee liquidity. At launch the platform will offer options and futures for popular cryptocurrencies and include institutional-grade features such as an orderbook and matching engine powered by Serum, instant settlement, portfolio cross-margin, and sub-second mark-to-market updates. The company plans to accelerate development, grow the business, and encourage composable project integrations.

Led · Seed · Apr 2024

Inference Labs combines AI and Web3 to build infrastructure for efficient AI verification and automated liquid restaking strategies. The company has launched Omron.ai, a Bittensor subnet that integrates smart contracts, validator and mining nodes to support Liquid Staking Token (LST) and Liquid Restaking Token (LRT) activity. Omron enables users to create restaked ETH positions by contributing LSTs or ETH and select (re)staking services via an aggregation interface, producing ERC20 restaked tokens that can earn rewards and provide training data to the subnet. Inference Labs intends to use the funds to develop a network for AI verification using a Proof of Inference consensus, to grow the team, and to fast-track product development to catalyze an ecosystem. The company is led by co‑founders Colin Gagich (CEO) and Ronald Chan.

Led · Seed · Mar 2024

OrdinalsBot builds infrastructure and developer tools for the Bitcoin Ordinals ecosystem, including an inscription tool, the Scribe on-chain blogging platform, and a premium API for analytics, collection management and marketplace integration. The team launched as the first automated inscription service in the Bitcoin Ordinals space and has expanded into features for collection mints, BRC-20 launches, lazy minting, and complex indexing such as parent-child hierarchies. OrdinalsBot plans to launch a Trio Marketplace to centralize Ordinals access and will ramp up hiring across functions with a focus on BTC developers. The company says the new capital will help reset dynamics and infrastructure within blockchain to bring new opportunities to the Ordinals and BTC ecosystem. Financially, OrdinalsBot completed an oversubscribed $3M+ seed round as a fast follow to a pre-seed raised less than five months earlier, bringing total funding to over $4.5M. The announcement was released from London. OrdinalsBot builds ordinals infrastructure and recently launched a Software Developer Kit (SDK) to help developers integrate ordinals functionality into their projects. The company says the SDK enables companies and individuals to store data on Bitcoin and serves as a building block for Web3. OrdinalsBot was founded in February 2023 by Brian Laughlan and Toby Lewis and is based in the UK. The startup raised more than $1 million in a Seed funding round to improve ordinals infrastructure. Founders stated the funding and investor support will help them become a premier Bitcoin infra company. The company emphasized renewed developer interest in the space as a catalyst for its plans.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2024

ALEX develops a decentralized finance layer tailored to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The protocol leverages Layer2 solutions, cross-chain bridges, oracles and additional infrastructure to enable Bitcoin-native DeFi. The team intends to continue building its financial layer on Stacks. The company completed a strategic financing to fund continued protocol and infrastructure development. The article does not disclose operating metrics such as revenue or user counts. The financing is positioned to accelerate ALEX's technical roadmap on Bitcoin-focused stacks. ALEX is deploying its mainnet on Stacks to bring permissionless DeFi to Bitcoin, offering fixed-rate, fixed-term lending and borrowing without risk of liquidation. The platform also includes an advanced decentralized exchange, yield farming, and a launchpad where community members vote on token listings. ALEX’s native token $ALEX opened at $0.32 for the Stacks community on January 10 and will be available for staking at mainnet on January 17. On testnet, over 19,000 unique addresses accessed ALEX and more than 110,000 transactions were processed. The protocol has completed audits with CoinFabrik and Lease Authority and aims to activate dormant bitcoin holdings, citing the potential to mobilize over $1 trillion of idle bitcoin. Financially, ALEX has secured recent financing including a $5.8M round and an additional $2M oversubscribed private round, and plans a retail IDO.