Participated · Equity · May 2025

Asigna is a non-custodial smart multisig vault designed for secure Bitcoin asset management across the base layer, metaprotocols, and Layer-2s. It protects over $1.1Bn of funds and enables teams, DAOs, and institutions to manage shared Bitcoin treasuries and participate in Bitcoin DeFi while minimizing hacks and conflicts. Asigna integrates with execution environments such as Stacks, Arch, Citrea, and Botanix, and supports interactions with dApps, decentralized exchanges, bridges, and metaprotocols including Ordinals, Runes, Alkanes, BRC-20, and Rare Sats. The company is launching a major v2 upgrade adding Embedded Apps and a developer SDK, allowing users to interact with Bitcoin-based applications directly from within the multisig environment. Asigna also released a Connection SDK and Multisig SDK for third-party developers to connect multisig wallets, create, sign and execute transactions, sign messages, manage funds, and deploy or call contracts. New features include a customizable portfolio dashboard, direct swaps between Bitcoin assets and BTC, sub accounts, email notifications, governance and customizable signer permissions, privacy mode, and advanced UTXO management.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2024

USDh is a stablecoin developed by DeFi protocol Hermetica on the Bitcoin layer-2 Stacks network. Hermetica secured roughly $3 million in liquidity for USDh through a collaboration with Bitcoin lending protocol Zest, which Hermetica says will make USDh the largest stablecoin on Stacks. Hermetica and Zest plan to offer yield on USDh by lending against sBTC, the bitcoin-backed bridging asset used to bring BTC into the Stacks ecosystem. Hermetica said the initial liquidity boost could create a short-term window of higher yields, with projected APYs as high as 50% and a current average APY of 18%. The article notes that the $3 million is small relative to dominant stablecoins like USDT and USDC, highlighting the relative infancy of Bitcoin DeFi. Stablecoins are framed as integral to the crypto economy and important to Bitcoin's evolution into a network that can support DeFi capabilities.

Participated · Seed · May 2024

Zest Protocol provides a lending protocol built specifically for Bitcoin, enabling users to deposit BTC through native Bitcoin transactions and then engage in lending or yield-generating activities. The company leverages upcoming Stacks Nakamoto and sBTC blockchain upgrades to create a fully Bitcoin-native lending experience. Using sBTC’s peg-in wire format, users deposit BTC to fund their balance on Zest Protocol. Its lending infrastructure is currently live on Stacks mainnet with Stacks market as it prepares for the sBTC launch. The company says it will use the funds to expand operations and development efforts. Zest Protocol is based in George Town, Cayman Islands and raised $3.5M in seed funding.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2024

Velar is building Velar Artha, a decentralized perpetual derivatives exchange (PerpDEX) on Bitcoin that enables trustless perpetual derivatives trading using BTC as non-custodial collateral. The PerpDEX will support up to 20x leverage and aims to unlock dormant Bitcoin liquidity for advanced DeFi use cases. The product is slated to launch in Q2 2024 on Bitcoin Layer-2 protocol Stacks, and Velar plans to explore integrations with other leading L2s and scaling solutions. Velar’s broader suite includes a Uniswap v2-inspired AMM DEX for swaps and liquidity pools, yield-generation tools, and a token launchpad for Bitcoin-based projects. The company raised $3.5M in seed funding to accelerate development of these flagship products. The team is led by Co-Founder and CEO Mithil Thakore and Co-Founder Aravind Sathyanandham.