Paradigm is a research-driven investment firm based in San Francisco, specializing in the cryptocurrency sector. Founded in 2018 by Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam, the company aims to support innovative companies and protocols from their inception, often at the idea stage. Paradigm emphasizes a builder mentality, with many of its team members having experience in developing tools and protocols that play a significant role in the crypto ecosystem. The firm is committed to advancing the frontier of cryptocurrency through both investment and the creation of open-source software. Research is central to Paradigm's approach, as the firm believes that deep understanding fosters innovation and progress. Rather than solely providing financial support, Paradigm actively engages in collaboration, whether it be through producing research papers or offering product and business strategy guidance.
Across is a cross-chain bridge secured by UMA's optimistic oracle for L2s and rollups. It also optimized for capital efficiency with a single liquidity pool, a competitive relayer landscape, and a no-slippage fee model.
Sorella Labs
Seed Round in 2024
Sorella Labs is a technology company specializing in blockchain solutions. It is developing a decentralized protocol for on-chain liquidity markets, with a primary focus on addressing the Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) issues prevalent in the Ethereum ecosystem. The company employs advanced algorithms and blockchain analytics to identify and mitigate MEV-related attacks, ensuring fair transaction prices for DeFi users and enhancing the overall security and efficiency of the Ethereum network.
Conduit
Series A in 2024
Conduit operates as a platform focused on providing crypto native infrastructure aimed at supporting developers in the cryptocurrency space. The company collaborates with leading crypto engineering teams to develop a comprehensive suite of tools that facilitate the creation, deployment, and maintenance of smart contracts, particularly on the Ethereum network. By offering a visual programming environment, Conduit enables developers to build, test, and deploy smart contracts efficiently, utilizing various programming languages and libraries. This streamlined approach enhances the overall development process, empowering builders in the rapidly evolving field of cryptocurrency.
Axiom
Series A in 2024
Axiom enables smart contracts to securely compute over Ethereum's whole history, including transactions and receipts. Developers can send on-chain queries to Axiom, which are automatically completed with ZK-verified responses delivered back to the developer's smart contract.
Blast
Venture Round in 2023
Blast is an Optimistic Rollup-based Layer 2 network.
Flashbots
Series B in 2023
Flashbots is a research and development company dedicated to improving the efficiency and transparency of Miner Extractable Value (MEV) in blockchain ecosystems. The company focuses on creating tools for miners and searchers to extract MEV in a more transparent and efficient manner. Flashbots aims to mitigate the negative impacts of current MEV extraction techniques, which can pose existential risks to state-rich blockchains like Ethereum. Their goal is to establish a permissionless, transparent, and fair ecosystem for MEV extraction and redistribution.
EDX Markets
Series A in 2023
EDX Markets operates as a digital asset marketplace. It caters to the needs of both crypto-native firms and large financial institutions. The company trades in various cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. EDX Markets combines innovative technology with financial services to enable safe and compliant trading of digital assets. It also provides trading resources and a UAT Environment for its users. The company is also known for its focus on hiring crypto talent, as stated by its CEO, Jamil Nazarali.
Conduit
Seed Round in 2023
Conduit operates as a platform focused on providing crypto native infrastructure aimed at supporting developers in the cryptocurrency space. The company collaborates with leading crypto engineering teams to develop a comprehensive suite of tools that facilitate the creation, deployment, and maintenance of smart contracts, particularly on the Ethereum network. By offering a visual programming environment, Conduit enables developers to build, test, and deploy smart contracts efficiently, utilizing various programming languages and libraries. This streamlined approach enhances the overall development process, empowering builders in the rapidly evolving field of cryptocurrency.
Ribbon Finance
Venture Round in 2022
Ribbon Finance creates structured products that deliver sustainable yield using financial engineering for DeFi. The company allows investors to profit when the price of ETH goes above.
Optimism
Series B in 2022
Optimism is a decentralized infrastructure platform focused on enhancing Ethereum's scalability and transaction speed. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York, the company operates as a public benefit corporation, balancing the financial interests of shareholders with the broader needs of the community and society. Optimism develops open-source software that enables developers to build on the Ethereum blockchain more efficiently, utilizing zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the validity of state updates. By promoting fair access to public goods on the internet, Optimism aims to create a responsible and sustainable ecosystem that benefits both businesses and the wider community.
Aztec
Series A in 2021
Aztec specializes in developing privacy-focused technologies for Ethereum-based transactions. It is renowned for creating PLONK, a leading standard in zero-knowledge proofs, enabling fast, private interactions on the public blockchain. The company's research team has made significant contributions to Layer 2 solutions on Ethereum and possesses extensive expertise in deploying intricate cryptosystems within Web3 environments. Aztec Network recently unveiled an advanced version of zk.money, showcasing its Aztec Connect SDK's ability to facilitate seamless integrations with prominent DeFi protocols like Lido and Element Finance. The company is currently working on building a secure, encrypted blockchain secured by Ethereum.
Parallel
Venture Round in 2021
Parallel is a Sci-Fi Card Game based on the Ethereum blockchain. Parallel is an application that provides users with the opportunity to purchase, collect, and showcase digital blockchain collectibles.
CoinSwitch
Series C in 2021
CoinSwitch is a leading cryptocurrency exchange aggregator based in India, designed to simplify the complexities of cryptocurrency trading for everyday users. With over 20 million registered users, CoinSwitch enables individuals to easily invest in a variety of cryptocurrencies through a user-friendly platform. Users can make one-time purchases or set up systematic investment plans, allowing for flexible investment strategies. In addition to trading, CoinSwitch provides educational resources that help users understand the cryptocurrency market and make informed decisions. The platform features the Crypto Rupee Index, which aids users in analyzing market sentiments. Committed to expanding accessibility to cryptocurrency, CoinSwitch aims to establish itself as a comprehensive wealth-tech destination for Indian investors, facilitating a seamless experience for managing all aspects of their crypto transactions.
Euler Labs
Series A in 2021
Euler is a non-custodial lending protocol built on Ethereum that allows users to lend and borrow a wide range of crypto assets without relying on a trusted third party. The platform offers a capital-efficient solution for earning interest on crypto holdings and provides mechanisms to hedge against market volatility. By utilizing reactive interest rates informed by control theory, Euler's system adapts in real-time to market conditions, enabling users to manage risk effectively. This innovative approach allows clients to engage with a diverse array of crypto assets while minimizing risk exposure.
dYdX
Series C in 2021
dYdX is a decentralized exchange that provides traders with a secure and efficient platform for various financial activities. Established in 2017 by Antonio Juliano, a former engineer at Coinbase and Uber, dYdX operates on audited smart contracts on Ethereum, ensuring transparency and security without relying on a central authority. The platform offers a range of trading options, including perpetual, margin, and spot trading, along with borrowing and lending pools. Users can earn interest on deposits or take loans at nominal fees, enabling them to trade on margin with customized leverage. dYdX aims to create an open financial system, granting users access to vital financial tools while facilitating fully collateralized loans for short-selling.
Lido
Initial Coin Offering in 2021
Lido is a developer of an open-source liquid staking platform that enhances the Ethereum network's block validation capabilities. The platform addresses challenges related to initial cryptocurrency staking by allowing users to stake their assets and receive synthetic native tokens of equivalent value. These tokens can be utilized across various decentralized finance applications, enabling users to earn yield while maintaining liquidity. Lido's middleware operates on the Ethereum blockchain, ensuring perpetual access through multiple interfaces and channels.
Bitso
Series C in 2021
Bitso is a cryptocurrency exchange platform founded in 2014 and headquartered in Mexico City, Mexico. The company specializes in facilitating the buying and selling of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, providing users with a marketplace where they can trade fractions of various digital assets. Bitso's platform is designed for ease of use, allowing customers to conduct transactions and make payments via mobile devices. By focusing on the fintech and blockchain sectors, Bitso aims to enhance accessibility to cryptocurrency trading for users in Mexico and beyond.
Gitcoin
Venture Round in 2021
Gitcoin, established in 2017 and headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, operates a platform that connects open-source developers with funding opportunities. The platform, built on the Ethereum network using Solidity, enables developers to monetize their work in various programming languages, including Python, Rust, Ruby, JavaScript, and Solidity. Gitcoin fosters a symbiotic relationship between developers, maintainers, and financiers, promoting the growth of open-source projects and the community. The company's grants management platform offers decentralized allocation infrastructure and smart contract-based funding mechanisms, facilitating efficient capital distribution and community-driven innovation within blockchain ecosystems.
BlockFi
Series D in 2021
BlockFi, Inc. is a financial services firm that specializes in providing wealth management products for cryptocurrency investors. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in New York, BlockFi offers various services, including interest-bearing accounts for Bitcoin, Ether, and Gemini Dollar, as well as USD loans secured by clients' crypto assets. The company allows clients to trade cryptocurrency pairs and provides tailored lending solutions for both individual and institutional clients. By facilitating liquidity for blockchain asset holders, BlockFi aims to enhance transparency and efficiency in digital financial markets. The organization employs a robust infrastructure that integrates with multiple blockchains, positioning itself to adapt and expand its product offerings in response to the evolving needs of its users.
Opyn
Series A in 2021
Opyn is a decentralized protocol that facilitates options trading on Ethereum and ERC20 tokens. It allows users to earn premiums or express views on assets through the trading of options, specifically offering European, cash-settled options that automatically exercise upon expiry. Opyn's options, known as oTokens, are ERC20 tokens that can be traded on any decentralized exchange adhering to the ERC20 standard. The platform initially launched with Opyn v1, which established the first live ERC20 options protocol, enabling users to create, buy, and sell options for any ERC20 token. Opyn v1 continues to operate on the Ethereum network, providing a venue for American, physically settled options, while ongoing developments aim to expand the range of ERC20 options available. By optimizing capital efficiency and promoting inclusive trading practices, Opyn enhances the overall experience for the trading community.
CoinSwitch
Series A in 2021
CoinSwitch is a leading cryptocurrency exchange aggregator based in India, designed to simplify the complexities of cryptocurrency trading for everyday users. With over 20 million registered users, CoinSwitch enables individuals to easily invest in a variety of cryptocurrencies through a user-friendly platform. Users can make one-time purchases or set up systematic investment plans, allowing for flexible investment strategies. In addition to trading, CoinSwitch provides educational resources that help users understand the cryptocurrency market and make informed decisions. The platform features the Crypto Rupee Index, which aids users in analyzing market sentiments. Committed to expanding accessibility to cryptocurrency, CoinSwitch aims to establish itself as a comprehensive wealth-tech destination for Indian investors, facilitating a seamless experience for managing all aspects of their crypto transactions.
Synthetix
Seed Round in 2020
Synthetix is a decentralized synthetic asset issuance protocol based in Australia, established in 2017 by Kain Warwick. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, it facilitates derivatives trading in decentralized finance (DeFi) by enabling the creation of synthetic assets that provide exposure to real-world currencies, commodities, stocks, and indices. The platform offers unique financial instruments such as perpetual futures and options markets, allowing users to trade synthetic forms of assets with infinite liquidity. Synthetix operates a peer-to-contract trading system and utilizes a distributed collateral pool, ensuring transparency and accessibility for customers seeking on-chain exposure to various decentralized assets.
Reflexer
Seed Round in 2020
Reflexer Labs, founded in 2020 and based in the USA, is a decentralized finance project focused on developing low-volatility collateral to enhance the stability of the DeFi ecosystem. The company specializes in creating a volatility-dampened synthetic instrument that leverages control theory within smart contracts. This innovative approach allows for the automatic adjustment of collateral supply, mirroring the price patterns of underlying assets while maintaining reduced volatility. By doing so, Reflexer aims to provide a stable and secure foundation for businesses operating in the decentralized finance space, helping them minimize the risks associated with investment losses.
Yield Protocol
Seed Round in 2020
Yield is building a decentralized lending protocol to bring fixed-term, fixed-rate lending to decentralized finance. Yield was founded by Allan Niemerg in 2020 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.
Keep
Venture Round in 2020
Keep Network, established in 2017 and based in George Town, Cayman Islands, specializes in creating interactive links between public blockchains and private data. The company's core product, tBTC, is a decentralized bridge enabling users to securely and anonymously transfer their Bitcoin to the Ethereum network, facilitating participation in decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. Keep Network's technology, an off-chain container for private data, allows smart contracts to leverage the full power of public blockchains while maintaining data privacy.
Keep
Initial Coin Offering in 2020
Keep Network, established in 2017 and based in George Town, Cayman Islands, specializes in creating interactive links between public blockchains and private data. The company's core product, tBTC, is a decentralized bridge enabling users to securely and anonymously transfer their Bitcoin to the Ethereum network, facilitating participation in decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. Keep Network's technology, an off-chain container for private data, allows smart contracts to leverage the full power of public blockchains while maintaining data privacy.
Optimism
Seed Round in 2020
Optimism is a decentralized infrastructure platform focused on enhancing Ethereum's scalability and transaction speed. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York, the company operates as a public benefit corporation, balancing the financial interests of shareholders with the broader needs of the community and society. Optimism develops open-source software that enables developers to build on the Ethereum blockchain more efficiently, utilizing zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the validity of state updates. By promoting fair access to public goods on the internet, Optimism aims to create a responsible and sustainable ecosystem that benefits both businesses and the wider community.
Flashbots
Seed Round in 2020
Flashbots is a research and development company dedicated to improving the efficiency and transparency of Miner Extractable Value (MEV) in blockchain ecosystems. The company focuses on creating tools for miners and searchers to extract MEV in a more transparent and efficient manner. Flashbots aims to mitigate the negative impacts of current MEV extraction techniques, which can pose existential risks to state-rich blockchains like Ethereum. Their goal is to establish a permissionless, transparent, and fair ecosystem for MEV extraction and redistribution.
MakerDAO
Venture Round in 2019
MakerDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that operates on the Ethereum blockchain, specializing in the development of a stablecoin known as Dai. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, with additional offices in Copenhagen, Denmark, MakerDAO aims to minimize the price volatility of Dai by utilizing collateralized debt positions and autonomous feedback mechanisms. The company enables users to access a low-volatility, collateral-backed cryptocurrency, promoting financial inclusion and stability. In addition to Dai, MakerDAO has introduced MKR, a token that serves multiple purposes within its ecosystem, including governance and system recapitalization. Through its innovative approach, MakerDAO seeks to provide a decentralized digital currency that maintains its purchasing power, making financial services accessible to users worldwide.
Compound
Series A in 2019
Compound is an open-source interest rate protocol based in San Francisco, California, that facilitates the development of new financial applications for developers. Founded in 2017, it operates a decentralized finance lending platform designed to create efficient money markets through real-time asset management. The protocol, built on the Ethereum blockchain, employs a series of open-source smart contracts that algorithmically adjust interest rates based on the specific supply and demand of each asset. This enables users to access liquid, transparent, and predictable interest rates, making it a widely adopted system with thousands of users and numerous applications integrating its functionalities.
Ignite
Series A in 2019
Ignite is a blockchain company founded in 2014 by Ethan Buchman in Berkeley, California. It specializes in providing open-source tools for blockchain development, notably through Ignite CLI, a rapid prototyping tool that allows developers to create new blockchains efficiently. With just two command-line interface commands, developers can launch a simple Cosmos SDK-based blockchain in less than five minutes, significantly reducing the time and complexity typically associated with blockchain development. Ignite also focuses on enhancing blockchain application development through a consensus algorithm and peer-to-peer networking protocol, promoting greater speed, security, and scalability for distributed applications. By lowering barriers to entry for developers, Ignite aims to enrich the blockchain ecosystem and foster innovation within the space.
Coinbase Global
Secondary Market in 2019
Coinbase Global, established in 2012, operates a leading cryptocurrency exchange platform in the United States. The company facilitates transactions, buying, selling, and storage of digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin for both consumers and merchants. Coinbase offers a range of products including Coinbase.com, a user-friendly platform for bitcoin transactions, a global digital asset exchange, merchant tools, and custodial services. The company, headquartered in San Francisco, California, aims to provide a safe and regulation-compliant entry point into the cryptocurrency economy.
Namebase
Seed Round in 2018
Namebase operates an open-bidding domain marketplace that facilitates the buying, selling, and management of top-level domains and HNS coins. The platform simplifies the process of utilizing next-generation domain names, allowing users to host websites while also enabling them to receive cryptocurrency through their domain names. This innovative approach caters to both traditional domain management and the growing interest in blockchain technology, positioning Namebase as a key player in the evolving digital landscape.
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