The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Feb 2024

Superform operates a decentralized marketplace where projects can list vaults linked to yield opportunities on Ethereum and scaling solutions such as Arbitrum and Base. It launched SuperUSDC and the SuperVault product line to provide automated, non-custodial yield management for USDC, using an algorithm optimized on platform data to allocate assets. The platform has seen interaction from over 100,000 digital wallets and currently hosts 768 vaults, and Superform says the SuperVaults feature was built in response to user demand for a more curated selection. Superform is not available to U.S. residents and positions its product roadmap around expected growth in stablecoins and evolving on-chain utility. The company emphasizes verifiable on-chain products and alignment with established stablecoin issuers to address user caution about yield-bearing stablecoin products. Superform Labs operates a universal yield marketplace that enables users to discover vaults, manage positions, and get instant access using any token from any chain. Protocols can distribute vaults omnichain by supplying just a contract address, with no additional code or deployments required. The product is live in Early Access across seven chains: Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Polygon and BNB Chain. The company positions itself as a cross‑chain infrastructure layer for vault distribution and yield aggregation. Financially, Superform recently closed a $6.5M seed round led by Polychain Capital, indicating early investor traction. More information is available at www.superform.xyz.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2022

zkLend is an L2 money-market protocol built on StarkNet that combines zk-rollup scalability with Ethereum security. The team plans a dual-product approach: Artemis, a permissionless lending offering slated for Q3 2022, and Apollo, a permissioned KYC/AML solution expected to launch early next year. The protocol adopts an ouroboros incentive model and highlights features such as double-sided borrowing and collateralisation factors, protocol-to-protocol lending, and variable liquidation fees. zkLend’s native token, ZEND, will enable staking for governance, booster rewards, and claims on interest income earned by pools. The team cites experience across traditional finance, fintech, exchanges and leading DeFi protocols and intends to serve both retail DeFi users and whitelisted institutional clients. The company announced a $5M seed round to fund the product launches and expand the team across technology, marketing and business development.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2022

Diagonal is developing an all-in-one Web3 subscription payments platform that helps merchants and creators collect payments on Ethereum. The product suite aims to handle wallet connections, payment processing, accounting, and subscription notifications. Diagonal builds on Superfluid infrastructure to enable streaming payments that settle instantaneously with limited gas fees. The team plans to initially release a public beta on Ethereum layer 2s Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism. Leadership has said the company intends to establish a DAO to handle protocol governance in the future. Diagonal recently raised $2.5M and is led by CEO Tony Rosler.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2022

Ceramic, developed by 3Box Labs, is a decentralized platform for blockchain application data that enables developers to decentralize application databases and make data universally composable and reusable across web3 apps. The platform adds behaviors to static data files so they can be composed into higher-order data structures and distributed across a decentralized network. Highlighted use cases include decentralized social media, crypto gaming, portable self-sovereign identity services, shared data schemas, interoperable application storage, and open web services without new accounts. Ceramic debuted in beta in June and has been used by thousands of web3 developers and integrated with more than 400 applications. 3Box Labs raised $30 million in a Series A to continue development of Ceramic. With the new capital the company said it intends to hire more than 25 employees across engineering, product, and community roles.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2022

Potion Labs develops the Potion Protocol, a mathematical risk-management layer that allows DeFi liquidity providers to price options based on the Kelly Criterion and aggregates those curves to deliver optimally priced options to users. The company positions the protocol as an essential tool for managing crypto-asset risk, promising deeper and more reliable liquidity markets. To launch the protocol, Potion Labs is rolling out ‘Potion Unlock,’ an on-chain community game that releases the code into the public domain via an NFT mechanism. Ahead of this release, the team completed a $12 million limited pre-sale of the NFT collection, and a wider public NFT sale is planned. Potion Labs previously secured a $3.2 million round in August 2020 from top-tier DeFi investors. The founders emphasize a community-first approach to building Web3 public goods and plan to continue R&D on new decentralized services. Based in Barcelona, the company aims to set a regulatory and governance template for future protocol decentralizations.