Participated · Equity · Apr 2022

Leap is a non-custodial super wallet for the Terra blockchain that aggregates dApps, staking, DeFi, NFTs and other services into a single platform. The product emphasizes ease of use and safety with a web2-style consumer interface and best-in-class security; as a non-custodial wallet it does not store users' private keys. Existing capabilities include in-wallet swaps at best prices, fiat on-ramps, cross-chain transfers, and NFT collection viewing (floor price metadata coming soon); the platform is currently available as a browser extension with iOS and Android apps announced/launching shortly. Leap plans to integrate gaming, identity, social, commerce and interactive media experiences and to build a scalable, permissionless in-wallet Dapp store for mini apps. Founded in November 2021, the team is focused on expanding engineering and design resources to advance product development. The company recently completed a financing to support team growth and continued product work.

Participated · Series B · Mar 2022

Hex Trust is a Hong Kong-based provider of digital asset custody services founded in 2018. The company is known for its proprietary bank-grade platform, Hex Safe, which delivers decentralized finance and prime trading solutions to financial enterprises, digital-asset firms, and other organisations. Hex Trust was founded by Alessio Quaglini, Marc Amez-Droz, and Rafal Czerniawski. According to reports, the company raised $88 million in a Series B round that increased its capitalization to $300 million. The articles do not disclose revenue or user metrics. Hex Trust operates Hex Safe, a licensed custody platform for crypto assets. The company recently secured $10 million in fresh funding to bolster market infrastructure and security frameworks for Hex Safe. The round was led by Animoca Brands with participation from several crypto and institutional investors. Hex Trust said the capital will fund expansion in Singapore and Vietnam and establish a footprint in Europe and the Middle East. The custodian also noted it recently obtained a license to provide custodial services from the Monetary Authority of Singapore under the Securities and Futures Act. Investors from Hex Trust's March $6 million Series A also took part in the latest investment. Hex Trust operates a bank-grade custody solution, Hex Safe™, providing custody and treasury management services for virtual currencies, security tokens and NFTs. The company said a strategic investment from Cyberport will enable it to scale operations and recruit talent across Hong Kong and wider Asian markets. Hex Trust plans to enhance its licensing framework to address growing institutional demand for digital assets in Asia and to expand operations into European markets through a partnership with SIA. Management emphasized staying focused on improving Hex Safe™ and on enabling digital-asset adoption by regulated financial institutions and banking platforms. Prior to the Cyberport investment, Hex Trust completed a March 2021 Series A, raising $6 million in capital from a group of investors. Cyberport is managed by the Hong Kong SAR Government and is Hong Kong’s largest tech hub, which Cyberport says helped attract co-investments from professional investors into Hex Trust. Hex Trust is a Hong Kong-based digital asset custody service provider founded in 2018. The company helps banks, financial institutions, and corporates maximize digital asset management. In March 2021 it launched a secure way of storing non-fungible tokens. Hex Trust recently completed a $6 million Series A round led by fintech-focused QBN Capital with participation from multiple crypto and venture investors. Proceeds will be used to advance its Hex Safe offering, establish a compliance section, and recruit talent. The company plans hiring in Hong Kong and Singapore to support these initiatives.

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 · Jan 2022

XION is a modular Generalized Abstraction layer designed to remove crypto onboarding friction and enable developers to build consumer-ready Web3 products. The protocol integrates USDC as its primary transactional currency to provide predictable pricing across ecosystem interactions. XION’s Meta Accounts remove the need for direct private key management while remaining non-custodial, enabling familiar Web2 onboarding methods like email and biometrics, cross-device use, key rotation, multi-factor authentication, and account recovery. The project says it is launching mainnet and aims to expand developer tooling and consumer applications. During testing XION created more than 1.3 million Meta Accounts, processed over 15 million transactions, and attracted an ecosystem of over 150 projects. The new capital will be used to accelerate development and grow the global ecosystem. Burnt Finance began as a crypto startup that famously burned a Banksy artwork and the NFT they minted for it. It developed a decentralized auction protocol on Solana and is now launching a DeFi-oriented NFT marketplace offering English, Dutch and Buy Now auctions. The marketplace will integrate DeFi features such as NFT lending, liquidity mining with staking incentives, fractionalization and GameFi to provide permissionless access with low fees and fast speeds. The company reports a 160,000-user waitlist and says its Spark testnet processed over $100 million of trading volume in seven days. Burnt Finance plans to expand to additional blockchains including Terra and other EVM-compatible layer-one protocols. It previously raised $3 million for its auction protocol in a round led by Multicoin and Alameda Research and incubated by Injective Labs. Burnt Finance is developing a decentralized auction platform for NFTs that runs on Solana. The project evolved from the “Burnt Banksy” stunt, in which the group burned an original Banksy and sold its NFT on OpenSea for $400,000 after buying the physical work for $95,000; that stunt drew coverage from CBS, BBC and The Guardian. The team says high Ethereum gas fees and network congestion made minting and bidding prohibitively expensive, so it chose Solana for faster performance and lower transaction costs. The platform will use Solana Wormhole to connect ETH and ERC-20 tokens to SPL tokens to enable cross-chain interactions. Burnt Finance has raised $3 million to build the protocol and is being incubated by Injective Protocol. The company cites both technical and ecosystem reasons for selecting Solana as the auction layer.