Participated · Seed · Sep 2022

Rated Labs is an Ethereum-based oracle and datasets provider that offers node and node operator ratings, data pipelines, and the company’s described "most comprehensive" infrastructure dataset for Ethereum. Led by CEO Elias Simos and founded in 2022, the London-based startup launched its first product and has attracted nearly 150k unique visitors to the Rated Explorer. Its Rated API has processed 60M calls across 45+ integrations, and the company lists partnerships and integrations with staking-ecosystem participants including Lido, Liquid Collective, Metamask Institutional, Chorus One, Stader Labs and Nexus Mutual. Rated Labs raised $12.89M in a Series A, and intends to use the funds to expand operations and scale its offerings to additional blockchains including Polygon, Cosmos, Polkadot and Solana. The company’s product and traction position it to target infrastructure and staking ecosystem actors as it expands beyond Ethereum. Rated Labs is a Greek-founded Web3 infrastructure project that provides detailed data and context on validators and node operators. Its core product is a network explorer and data layer that aims to surface historical performance and reputational context for validators, addressing current difficulties in measuring validator performance. Currently in a pre-release version, Rated Labs offers an explorer for Ethereum Beacon Chain and Prater validators and validator operators, allowing users to browse and compare entities. In the coming weeks the team plans to unveil a first version plus a more powerful network operator explorer, an API, and resources on rating methodologies, research and downstream integrations. Founded in 2022 by Elias Simos and Aris Koliopoulos, the company says it will use the capital to accelerate its mission for greater transparency and to grow the team. Simos previously worked as a protocol specialist at Coinbase and Koliopoulos has experience in social media and content platforms.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2022

Grove, previously known as Pocket Network, is a crypto infrastructure service provider that delivers services to stakeholders in blockchain infrastructure. The company rebranded from Pocket Network to Grove. According to the article, Grove recently secured $7.9 million in financing. Investors named in the report include Fidelity's Avon Ventures, Placeholder Capital and Druid Ventures. The article characterizes the funding as a strategic investment. No operating metrics or additional financial terms were provided in the article. Pocket Network is an infrastructure middleware protocol that provides decentralized cloud computing and abundant bandwidth on full nodes to applications across more than 20 blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana and Harmony. The protocol coordinates and distributes blockchain data at scale, enabling developers to integrate blockchains into web, mobile, IoT and other applications. Usage and network activity have grown rapidly: monthly relays rose from 89 million a year earlier to 5.5 billion in December, with over two billion relays in a single week and daily peaks above 300M relays. The network is served by over 18,000 nodes run by hundreds of independent parties. Pocket Network reported total network revenue exceeding $56,000,000 in December, placing it among the Top Five revenue producers for blockchains and blockchain applications per Token Terminal. The company plans multi-jurisdictional expansion into the Asia-Pacific region and aims to scale to trillions of relays per day and hundreds of thousands of full nodes within five years.