Led · Seed · Jun 2022

Laevitas is a data analytics platform that implements quantitative finance models to analyze crypto-asset derivatives markets, including futures and options. Launched in early 2021 by Hassen Naas, a former World Economic Forum project specialist, the company is incorporated in Canton Vaud and runs a distributed team of 20. Its platform serves more than 2,000 daily active users as well as several hedge funds, market makers and trading firms. In the coming months Laevitas plans to launch a new user interface, additional features and integrations with leading projects to enable seamless access to data and analytical tools. Its product roadmap includes pricing for crypto exotics, risk management using spot/vol ladders, spread analytics and volatility curve construction. The company says the seed financing will fund expansion of its analytics and research suite and growth of users and ecosystem partners, with a particular focus on DeFi derivatives, options pricing and risk management.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2022

Orderly Network is a remote developer of a permissionless liquidity layer for Web3 trading led by Ran Yi. Built on omnichain infrastructure, it enables deep liquidity for any asset across multiple blockchains and avoids the risks of wrapped asset movement through cross-chain bridging. The platform empowers developers to create a comprehensive array of financial products for traders of any level. It currently supports six chains: Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Ethereum mainnet, and Mantle. Orderly recently raised over $5M and says it will use the funds to bolster its capabilities and continue its innovation and growth trajectory. During its seed round the company secured $20M from institutional investors including Pantera, Sequoia China, Laser Digital, Dragonfly, and Jump. Orderly Network is a permissionless, decentralized exchange protocol and modular ecosystem built on NEAR, using an on-chain order book. Its platform includes a risk engine, matching engine, and shared asset pools designed for composability so dApps can build on top. The protocol supports financial instruments such as spot trading, margin trading, perpetual swaps, lending, and borrowing. Founded in April 2022 and incubated by NEAR and WOO Network, Orderly focuses on enabling modular dApps to utilize its on-chain order-book architecture. The company plans to use recent funding to recruit across key functions, develop and enhance products, grow the Orderly ecosystem, and establish partnerships. To enhance liquidity, Orderly will launch community lending pools allowing token holders to lend assets to market makers with single-sided liquidity provision and sustainable yields.

Participated · Seed · May 2022

Branch is building a browser-based, free-to-play game that blends mechanics from Animal Crossing, Minecraft and Runescape. Gameplay centers on player-owned islands tokenized as NFTs, each with different composites of virtual resources that can be crafted into items or structures. The "earn" component comes from players paying others to harvest materials or reselling crafted items as NFTs on secondary marketplaces. The company emphasizes keeping crypto out of sight so many players may not even know what an NFT is, aiming to attract investors, grind-focused players, and casual gamers. Branch plans a full release slated for the summer and intends to build the final product iteratively, week-by-week, with close community participation. The startup has raised a $12.5 million seed round to fund development.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2022

Crypto Raiders is a dungeon-crawler role-playing game built on the blockchain that rewards players with NFTs. Built on Polygon, it features a retro style, randomized NFT loot, and a play-to-own model where players buy characters and mobs, go on missions, build teams, and discover NFTs they own. The team emphasizes transparency, a community-driven approach, and making the NFT market more accessible through gaming. Founders Nick Kneuper, David Titarenco and Matt Powell created the game to fill a gap in NFT gaming and have focused on building a loyal community. The company announced $6 million in funding co-led by DeFiance Capital and Delphi Digital to accelerate development. Management says the capital will be used to expand art, music and narrative teams and to speed launches of bigger dungeons, new play modes and stronger blockchain integrations.

Led · 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.