Participated · Seed · Jan 2026

Paycrest is building infrastructure that converts stablecoins to local fiat currencies, addressing liquidity constraints that hamper day-to-day payments and remittances in Africa. By smoothing the on- and off-ramp between digital dollars and naira, the startup aims to make cross-border and domestic payments faster and more affordable. The company positions itself at the intersection of traditional finance and web3, attracting interest from both specialised crypto investors and generalist VCs. Its core product centres on providing reliable liquidity pools and settlement rails for merchants, consumers, and other fintechs that need instant conversion between stablecoins and local currency. Although still at the pre-revenue, pre-product-market-fit stage, Paycrest’s ability to secure external financing underscores investor confidence in its technical approach and market opportunity. The fresh capital will be channelled toward product development, regulatory compliance, and initial market roll-out. No operating metrics such as user numbers or revenues have been disclosed.

Participated · Series A · Aug 2024

Cartridge builds tooling and infrastructure that enable developers to create provable onchain games and autonomous worlds at scale. It is a core developer of the open-source Dojo framework and offers flagship products to augment the developer toolset, including Controller (a smart contract wallet) and Slot (a managed Rollup-as-a-Service). The company is led by CEO Tarrence van As. Cartridge raised $7.5M in a Series A to support its growth. The firm intends to use the funds to expand operations and accelerate development efforts. The financing underscores demand for specialized infrastructure in onchain gaming and autonomous virtual worlds.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2024

ZKX is a decentralized exchange that makes perpetual futures trading social via PVP battles, copy trade pools and gamified competitions. The protocol leverages an appchain to deliver high scalability and high-speed APIs, combining centralized exchange efficiency with DeFi self-custody. ZKX launched its native $ZKX token on KuCoin, Gate.io and Bitget and introduced staking and an airdrop to reward users and early adopters. The token has a total supply of 100 million with 33% unlocked at launch; staking lets users earn a share of platform revenue and supports governance. The team plans to expand cross-chain interoperability and broaden presence across multiple L1 and L2 ecosystems in 2024. ZKX has raised $7.6M to date from a mix of strategic and earlier investors to accelerate protocol growth and feature rollout. ZKX builds an open-source, permissionless derivatives trading protocol on StarkNet (StarkWare’s L2) that leverages ZK rollups. The protocol aims to address DeFi challenges such as over-reliance on oracles, difficulty bootstrapping liquidity for new derivatives, and centralized listing mechanisms. ZKX plans to launch its mainnet in Q4, followed by its first product: an exchange enabling crypto derivatives trading on StarkNet with built-in rewards, liquidity provisioning, and support for complex trading strategies. The company raised $4.5M in seed funding to support further development of its core offerings, DAO funding, and continued growth of the ZKX ecosystem. ZKX was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Founders named in the articles are Eduard Jubany Tur, Naman Sehgal, and Vitaly Yakovlev.

Participated · Series A · May 2024

Switchboard operates an oracle platform that gives developers full control over the data they import to blockchain applications, allowing them to configure bespoke oracle networks or tap into pre-built feeds for common use cases. Its permissionless architecture and on-demand model enable latency-sensitive users to call up just-in-time data feeds, improving efficiency and security for decentralized applications. Since launching in June 2021, the platform has attracted more than 100,000 users and secured over $2 billion in total value. Led by CEO Chris Hermida, the company emphasizes customization and scalability to support a wide range of Web3 projects across multiple chains. With its latest capital infusion, Switchboard plans to expand operations and accelerate product development, broadening both its oracle catalog and developer tooling. The $7.5 million Series A round brings additional resources to deepen partnerships with layer-1 ecosystems such as Solana, Aptos, Sui, and Starknet. Although revenue figures were not disclosed, the company’s traction metrics underscore growing demand for flexible oracle solutions within the on-chain economy.

Participated · Seed · May 2024

Focus Tree is a Web3 social focus application aimed at helping millions reduce phone usage. The app is positioned as a Web3-native social "focus" platform. The company announced it completed a $2 million seed round led by Sfermion, with participation from Volt Capital, Psalion VC, StarkWare, Typhon Ventures, Foresight Ventures and others. Focus Tree said the first phase of a community airdrop will begin in 72 hours. The financing and product update were reported on May 20, 2024.