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 · Series A · Feb 2022

Qredo operates a Layer 2 protocol that enables instant cross-chain swaps and settlement on supported blockchains while avoiding Layer 1 frictional costs. Its Gen 2.0 multi-party computation (MPC) removes vendor risk and single points of failure tied to centralized custody and private key management. The platform targets institutional investors, enabling secure access to digital liquidity pools and participation in DeFi. Qredo has integrations such as MetaMask Institutional and was chosen as a technology partner in El Salvador. Financially, the company announced an $80 million Series A that values Qredo at $460 million and reported $120 million raised in the prior 12 months. Proceeds are earmarked for future acquisitions, retail product development, and geographic expansion. Qredo provides a blockchain protocol and product suite that enables access to Layer 1 blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum over a Layer 2 network. Its technology allows secure participation in cross-chain liquidity pools, collateralized derivatives trading, and cross-chain atomic swaps. Qredo’s version 1 mainnet is live and the network operates 24 nodes across six tier-4 data centers in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Chicago and London. The company plans to launch version 2, move toward a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), and enable validators to earn QRDO governance tokens through a revenue-sharing mechanism. The $11 million seed funding will be used to double the R&D team and hire additional C-suite talent ahead of the version 2 launch. Qredo emphasizes speed, security and compliance to facilitate institutional entry into DeFi.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2019

Audigent operates a first-party data management platform (DMP) and data agency that builds full-stack solutions for entertainment, sports, lifestyle and DTC eCommerce customers as well as retail/CPG partners. Its core products include a verification suite and a deep insights data platform powered by its cookieless identity solution, HALO IDTM, plus cookieless PMP products. The company provides verified, opt-in data from major publishers, influencers, athletes and artists and serves large brands and global media agencies. Audigent plans to broaden the reach of its cookieless PMP products and HALO IDTM and to expand sales and marketing efforts globally. It also intends to accelerate the expansion of data and inventory monetization tools for premium digital publishers. The company is led by ad tech and entertainment veterans Drew Stein, Brian Brater and Matt Griffiths and lists clients including Warner Music Group, Condé Nast, Universal, Penske, a360 Media and Fandom. Audigent provides a first-party data monetization platform and DMP focused on the entertainment, sports and lifestyle verticals. The platform purges fraudulent IDs and duplicates through verification, offers auditability across multiple blockchain ledgers, and delivers ownable audience banks to increase conversion. Its proprietary system automates the building of valuable audiences and segmentation across large first-party data sets using deterministic 1-to-1 insights, and exposes those audiences as DMP segments, SmartPMPs, or a full data-driven managed service. The company is led by adtech and entertainment veterans Drew Stein and Brian Brater and sells data products to brands and media agencies. Audigent raised $6.7M in the Series A described here, bringing total funding to $14.5M; it plans to use proceeds to expand sales and marketing and to continue innovating its core platform and proprietary data products. Audigent builds adtech that optimizes video ads by adapting music and backing tracks to individual users based on music data. The platform targets fans by genre and artist and can swap in real or similar music to improve engagement across platforms such as YouTube, Hulu and Facebook. Musicians can log onto the platform to monetize their work and see how their ads are performing; the company says it can yield attractive royalties. The project began in December 2015 and the company is launching its service at the Music Biz conference in Nashville, Tenn., armed with data obtained through a partnership with a music industry leader. For the time being Audigent is self-funded via a $400,000 friends and family round. Cofounders are Jon Gosier, Shelton Mercer, Brian Brater and Drew Stein, who bring backgrounds in sales, data science, the music industry and adtech.

Participated · Seed · Jun 2019

Azarus builds overlay games that turn livestream broadcasts into massively multiplayer experiences, starting with trivia overlays for League of Legends. Its core product challenges viewers to answer attention-based questions and make predictions during streams, and rewards players through the Azarus Store. The company launched a League of Legends trivia overlay as the first of several titles slated for 2022 and is partnering with prominent League streamers to drive adoption. Azarus plans to expand to the top 10 games on Twitch and develop a fan-based economy integrated with its rewards catalog. The platform already offers over 25,000 digital rewards, including Riot Points and League-themed content, and expects to reach tens of millions of viewers through new streamer and esports partnerships. Financially, Azarus closed an additional $4 million in seed funding to support these product and partnership expansions. Azarus operates a Twitch-integrated "smart challenge" platform that invites streamers and viewers to participate in games based on streaming data, with every challenge notarized on the blockchain. Winners receive tokens that can be redeemed for in-game items, currencies, and other digital assets in the Azarus marketplace. The platform uses the EOSIO protocol and emphasizes a scalable, consumer-friendly implementation of blockchain technology. A pilot program will let select streamers award tokens to viewers for correctly answering questions about their streams. Azarus launched in late 2018 and currently works with Rainbow Six Siege streams, with plans to expand to other games. The company raised $1.8 million from several crypto VC funds, providing early-stage financing to support its product and expansion plans.