Alameda Research is a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm that provides liquidity in cryptocurrency and digital assets markets. It was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Central and Western, Hong Kong.

Alameda Research

Accel is an early and growth-stage venture capital firm that powers a global community of entrepreneurs. Accel backs entrepreneurs who have what it takes to build a business.  Accel’s vision for entrepreneurship and business enables it to identify and invest in the companies that will be responsible for the growth of next-generation industries. Accel-backed companies include Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Lookout Security, MoPub, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, Vox Media, and others.

Accel

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. provides investment banking, securities, and investment management services, as well as financial services to corporations, financial institutions, governments, and high-net-worth individuals worldwide. Its Investment Banking segment offers financial advisory services, including advisory assignments concerning mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense, risk management, and restructurings and spin-offs; and underwriting services comprising public offerings and private placements of a range of securities, loans, and other financial instruments, and derivative transactions. The company’s Institutional Client Services segment provides client execution services, such as fixed income, currency, and commodities client execution related to making markets in interest rate products, credit products, mortgages, currencies, and commodities; and equities related to making markets in equity products, as well as executes and clears institutional client transactions on stock, options, and futures exchanges. This segment also engages in the securities services business providing financing, securities lending, and other brokerage services to institutional clients, including hedge funds, mutual funds, pension funds, and foundations. Its Investing and Lending segment originates longer-term loans; and invests in debt securities, loans, public and private equity securities, real estate, consolidated investment entities, distressed assets, currencies, commodities, and power generation facilities. The company’s investment management segment provides investment products and services, as well as offers wealth advisory services, including portfolio management and financial counseling, and brokerage and other transaction services.

Goldman Sachs

General Catalyst is a venture capital firm that provides early-stage and growth equity investments. The company provides ongoing momentum that accelerates ideas, careers, and companies toward standout success.

General Catalyst

Breyer Capital is a premier global venture capital and private equity investor focused on catalyzing high-impact entrepreneurs in the United States and China. Founded by Jim Breyer in 2006, Breyer Capital makes long-term, idea-driven strategic investments in its chosen core areas: social media, entertainment/media, digital health, and financial technologies.  Breyer Capital actively partners with a diverse set of companies including early-stage startups building breakthrough technologies, fast growing companies, and established worldwide leading corporations. Its team enjoys helping to frame strategic investments anchored by the passion of founders and owner/operator teams, the insights of its network of world-class investors, and a conviction that artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual reality will transform technology and investment opportunities globally.

Breyer Capital

Pillar VC partners with unstoppable founders from the moment of inception, providing the first capital. The firm is committed to helping founders grow with their companies, investing in their personal and professional development with connections, coaching, and community. From university spinouts led by first-time founders to serial entrepreneurs, backing the next generation of big, meaningful companies in Boston. Pillar VC is open to high-potential ventures of any type, with the bulk of our portfolio related to machine intelligence, AI, hardware, enterprise software, blockchain, quantum, digital health, and synthetic biology.

Pillar VC

Alumni Ventures Group provides high-quality, diversified venture portfolios to individual investors who previously haven't had access to VC. It helps accredited alums from top entrepreneurial schools invest together in the ventures of fellow alums. The firm backs companies with an alumni connection and an institutional lead investor with expertise in the space. AVG also offers focused funds that allow any accredited investor access to a venture portfolio, diversified by type, sector, stage, and geography. Beth Obermiller, Michael Madden, and Mike Collins co-founded the firm in Manchester, New Hampshire in 2013.

Alumni Ventures

Oak Investment Partners is a multi-stage venture capital and private equity firm. Oak focuses on high-growth opportunities in the Information Technology, Internet and Consumer, Financial Services Technology, Healthcare Information and Services, and Clean Energy sectors. It is specialized in investments in buyouts, spinouts, growth equity, mid-to-late stage financings to private businesses, and PIPE investments to public companies. It generally, targets investments between $10 million and $150 million. Since 1978, the firm has invested $9 billion in over 525 companies around the world, earning the trust of entrepreneurs with a senior team that delivers steady guidance, deep domain expertise and a consistent investment philosophy. The firm also specializes in startup investments, emerging growth, recapitalization, industry consolidation. It invests in wireless communications, information technology, enterprise software and services, software outsourced services, broadband and consumer Internet, digital media and new media, semiconductors, financial services information technology, healthcare services, clean energy, and consumer retail and restaurants sectors. The firm primarily invests in the United States with selected investments in Europe, Israel, India, South Korea, and China. Oak Investment Partners was founded in 1978 and is based in Greenwich, Connecticut with additional offices in Norwalk, Connecticut, Palo Alto, California, and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Oak Investment Partners

Pantera Capital is an investment firm focused exclusively on Bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the space. The company believes that Bitcoin has the potential to transform the way people use money and that it will do for payments what the Internet has done for communications and commerce. Until 2014, Pantera focused on global macro hedge fund investments. The firm was founded in 2003 by Dan Morehead, who was a chief financial officer and head of Macro Trading at Tiger Management. The firm has since shifted its investment advisory services to focus exclusively on Bitcoin, other digital currencies, and companies in the space. Shareholders include Benchmark, Fortress Investment Group, and Ribbit Capital.

Pantera Capital

Digital Currency Group builds and supports bitcoin and blockchain companies by leveraging insights, network, and access to capital. Based in Stamford, Connecticut, DCG has been an active seed investor in the digital currency industry with 150+ investments in over 30 countries. In addition, DCG owns and operates CoinDesk, the top media and events platform in the blockchain space, Genesis Trading, the industry's leading bitcoin brokerage firm, and Grayscale Investments, the largest digital currency asset management firm.

Digital Currency Group

FSV provides insights and capital to entrepreneurs re-inventing the multi-trillion dollar financial services industry and building innovative companies, strong brands, and world-class teams. FSV primarily makes early stage investments but will also consider promising growth stage investments.

Fenway Summer Ventures

IDG Capital is an investment firm that funds early- to growth-stage companies in the technology sector. Today they work with private equity and venture capital fund managers, investment advisors, and business entities from around the world. Their limited partners include many internationally reputable investors, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, institutional investors, major charities, university endowments, family offices, and business luminaries. IDG Capital brings a powerful combination of global perspective and local experience to investment management. As long-term value investors, they are highly skilled at mobilizing global resources to address local needs, especially for Inbound and outbound opportunities in China and the rest of Asia. Their highly skilled team has an in-depth understanding of the Chinese market and enjoys close relationships with many influential business leaders.

IDG Capital

As part of the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs, GS Growth is the firm’s investment platform dedicated to providing preferred equity and mezzanine capital to high-growth companies. As of June 2019, Goldman Sachs' investing groups (Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, Principal Strategic Investments, and Private Capital Investing) have combined to form the GS Growth team. The team targets investments of $20-250 million.

GS Growth

BoomStartup is an Utah-based mentorship-driven seed Accelerator focusing its efforts on providing money, mentors, and markets for its energetic tech entrepreneur participants.  In 2014, we were rated the #12 Accelerator in the USA

BoomStartup

Baidu is a search engine that enables individuals to obtain information and finds what they need. Baidu offers functional online search, Tieba community search, industry-based vertical search, mp3 search, portal channels, and instant messaging services. Its products include Baidu Webpage, Baidu Video, Baidu Map, hao123.com, BaiduPedia, Baidu Input, Baidu Toolbar, TTPlayer, Iqiyi, and Sky Software.

Baidu

China Everbright Investment Management Ltd.

China Everbright Investment Management

Established in 1995 as the first joint venture investment bank in China, China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC) is a leader in providing comprehensive financial services including investment banking, capital markets, institutional and individual securities sales and trading, fixed income, asset management, private equity, individual wealth management and research.

CICC

CreditEase is a business consulting firm that offers wealth management services. It caters areas such as wealth management, credit management, microfinance investment, and microcredit loan origination, and servicing. It operates a peer-to-peer platform that connects lenders with creditworthy borrowers, enabling under-banked students, professionals, and farmers to get loans. The company was founded in 2006 and is based in Beijing, China. CreditEase is a leading FinTech conglomerate in China, specializing in inclusive finance and wealth management, including payment technology, marketplace lending, crowdfunding, robo-advisory, insurance technology, and blockchain products and services. CreditEase actively engages with global FinTech innovators through business incubation, commercial cooperation and investment.

CreditEase

Tusk Venture Partners is the only venture capital firm at the nexus of technology and regulation. TVP is an early-stage venture capital firm based in NYC, focused on investing in technology startups operating in highly-regulated markets.

Tusk Venture Partners

Fenbushi Capital is the first and most active blockchain-focused venture capital firm in Asia.  Founded in Shanghai in 2015 by veterans across both blockchain and traditional financial industries, it has to date supported over 80 leading projects across 4 continents leveraging blockchain technology to reshape myriad industries such as finance, healthcare, supply chain, and consumer goods.  Fenbushi’s mission is to drive healthy and sustainable growth in the global blockchain ecosystem, and actively works as a long-term strategic partner to its portfolio projects.

Fenbushi Capital

CE Innovation Capital has been investing in Fintech, Web3 and AI since 2016.

CE Innovation Capital

Bitmain is a manufacturer of Bitcoin mining hardware and other related services. Bitmain was founded by several of the digital currency industry’s earliest players, and their team is comprised of passionate and pedigreed engineers, financial experts, and Bitcoin enthusiasts. Bitmain is headquartered in Beijing and has offices in San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, Chengdu and Shenzhen.

Bitmain

Blockchain Capital helps entrepreneurs build companies and projects based on blockchain technology. The firm provides founders with capital, domain expertise, partnerships, recruiting, and strategy. Blockchain Capital is an active venture investor in the blockchain industry and has financed 170+ companies and projects since its inception. Blockchain Capital invests in both equity and tokens and is a multi-stage investor.

Blockchain Capital

To Kenz Capital is a research and investment company of the next generation, with a focus on emerging technologies and the metaverse. To Kenz is a digital currency investor with high-quality capabilities in understanding investors need.

To Kenz Capital

COIND is a company that manages crypto assets. The company invests in both liquid and illiquid tokens that are emerging repositories of value and based on revolutionary technologies. COIND was founded by successful investors, engineers, and technology entrepreneurs. Prior to COIND, they founded six companies (five of which were purchased), invested in over 100 technology startups with a combined market worth in the tens of billions, and worked as executives at Facebook, Google, and Twitter. COIND's founders have been personally investing in cryptocurrencies since 2013, and were among the first to believe in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero.

COIND

Buck Stash is a venture capital firm that specializes in seed, early, mid, and late stage investments. It prefers to invest in the social media business and technology sector, with a focus on software, back-end infrastructure, Internet infrastructure, cloud computing, enterprise software and services, consumer, business Internet, mobile Internet, consumer Internet, cloud computing, data-storage, social network browsers data-storage, consumer electronics, networking functions, software related biology, biotech, and medicine companies at the intersection of computer science and medicine

Buck Stash

We invest in partnership with our search firm, Intersection Growth Partners, in the most compelling fintech companies

Intersection Fintech Ventures

Fidelity is a privately owned investment management firm that serves a wide range of clients. It offers services including IRAs, rollovers, annuities, discount brokerage, retirement planning, estate planning, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, and life insurance. They serve individual investors, businesses, financial advisors, and institutions. The firm manages equity, fixed-income, and balanced mutual funds and invests in public equity and fixed-income markets. It also conducts in-house research to inform its investment decisions.

Fidelity

Valor is an investment firm that focuses on cross-border financial and investment opportunities. The firm operates across two investment strategies Growth Equity and Venture Capital. It was founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York, United States.

Valor Capital Group

Atlas Merchant Capital LLC (“Atlas”) was founded in 2013 by Bob Diamond, who has more than 30 years of experience in global financial services, including senior executive positions at major global financial institutions. It was founded to participate in the compelling opportunities available to those nimble institutions able to navigate today’s complex regulatory environment and changing global patterns of wealth.  Atlas takes a merchant banking approach to global financial services investments with a particular focus on Africa and Investment Management. The investments are long-term and in partnership with management, leveraging the experience and operating expertise of the Atlas team to create value for businesses, employees, shareholders and local communities.

Atlas Merchant Capital

Marshall Wace is a hedge fund manager specializing in global long/short equity. The firm has investment management offices in London; New York; and Hong Kong.  Marshall Wace LLP was named Management Firm of the Year by the EuroHedge Awards 2011, reflecting the strong performance delivered by a number of our funds during the year. The firm is dedicated to the objective of providing its clients with a persistent, risk-adjusted return on their investment. Through a range of products, investors can select funds offering variable sources of alpha and beta, in different combinations, from equity markets around the world. Marshall Wace brings together two distinct but complementary approaches to asset management. First, traditional, fundamental long/short investing grounded in stock-specific analytical research, and secondly, Marshall Wace TOPS (‘MW TOPS’), the pioneering, and proprietary, systematic, alpha capture strategy.

Marshall Wace

Willett Advisors LLC manages the philanthropic assets of Michael R. Bloomberg, including the assets of Bloomberg Philanthropies. The firm’s objective is to achieve long-term capital appreciation through the construction of a diversified investment portfolio.

Willett Advisors LLC

FTX Exchange is a cryptocurrency exchange company that develops a platform for professional trading firms. They strive to build a platform suitable for professional trading firms and intuitive enough for first-time users. FTX supports quarterly and perpetual futures for all cryptocurrencies, leveraged tokens, and OTC. FTX was incubated by Alameda Research, a top cryptocurrency liquidity provider. Because of this, FTX has had industry order books from day one.

BlackRock is an investment management company that provides its services to a diverse range of clients, including institutions, intermediaries, foundations, and individual investors. The firm operates as a global asset manager, overseeing and advising on a wide array of investment portfolios. In addition to its role as an investment manager, BlackRock is also known for its technological innovations and solutions that support various aspects of the financial industry. The company's multifaceted approach encompasses investment management, financial technology, and serving a broad spectrum of clients in the financial ecosystem.

BlackRock

Founded in 2018, Fin Capital is a global asset manager focused on full lifecycle investing in B2B Fintech Software companies. Fin Capital is passionate about rolling up its sleeves and partnering with repeat entrepreneurs that have deep financial services experience, differentiated products, and a global mindset. Fin is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, London, Miami, and New York. To learn more, visit www.fin.capital.

Fin Capital

Circle

Disrupting the traditional financial system using blockchain

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

KuCoin is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers users the ability to buy, sell, and trade a number of DeFi tokens (over 700 tokens as of May 2022). The platform provides spot trading, margin trading, P2P fiat trading, futures trading, staking, and lending services. It also offers a community-built public blockchain named KuCoin Chain (KCC) that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and ERC-20 smart contracts. The chain leverages a proof-of-stake consensus system and operates as a DAO governed by its native token “KCS.” As of May 2022, it served over 18 million users from over 200 countries around the world.In June 2022, KuCoin launched a non-custodial decentralized wallet. The platform features cross-blockchain integration and enables users to buy, sell, and trade a number of tokens in the KuCoin ecosystem. Though the wallet is offered as a browser extension, at the time of launch, the company also stated that a mobile application was in development.Key customers and partnershipsKuCoin partnered with the Pyth network, a Solana-based Oracle solution that provides trusted and verifiable market data to dApps, in May 2022. This partnership enabled KuCoin to offer real-time prices of trading pairs listed on KuCoin to Pyth network and bring crypto market prices on-chain.Funding and financialsIn July 2022, KuCoin <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11783">raised over USD 10 million </a>through a strategic investment from Susquehanna International Group. In addition to the investment, the two companies entered a partnership to help incubate and build networks for crypto startups and projects primarily built on the KCC chain, KuCoin’s community-backed blockchain. KuCoin also stated that the funds will be used to upgrade its infrastructure, develop its product offering, and support the expansion of the company's global footprint and employee base.

MSafe is a DeFi wallet-as-a-service provider that offers multi-signature wallet solutions centered around security, interoperability, and decentralization. Built using Move, a dedicated programming language for Web3 applications, the company first deployed the multi-signature wallet on Aptos mainnet in October 2022. Individual users or teams can integrate MSafe with any move-based dApps and securely co-manage their digital assets. MSafe went on to launch on the Sui network in May 2023.Funding and financialsIn January 2023, MSafe<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15519"> raised USD 5 million</a> in seed funding led by Jump Crypto to develop its product portfolio, increase product adoption, and expand its team.

OpenTrade is a DeFi protocol that offers on-chain structured financial products in the form of liquidity pools for US treasury bills, investment-grade commercial paper, and supply-chain financing. It sources short-term investment-grade financial assets from its global network of financial institutions, asset managers, and B2B networks and structures them into yield-bearing on-chain financial products. Built on Circle’s DeFi and payments infrastructure, the platform enables users to deposit USDC or EUROC stablecoins into on-chain liquidity pools. Users receive ERC-20 tokens in their own wallets representing a pro-rata claim on the net asset value (NAV) of the liquidity pool and its underlying financial assets. Funding and financialsIn May 2023, OpenTrade <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18276">raised USD 1.5 million </a>in new funding led by Sino Global Capital to expand its operations and launch its liquidity pools in the second half of 2023.In April 2024, the company raised USD 3.2 million in seed funding from a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), CMCC Global, Draper Dragon, Ryze Labs, and Plassa Capital, to expand its operations and development efforts.

Superform offers a cross-chain yield aggregation protocol built on LayerZero that enables users to access multiple DeFi protocols. Protocol developers can list their vaults or liquidity pools on the platform to grow their asset base and investors can deposit their funds into these vaults to earn yield. Moreover, the platform also provides users with a tokenized representation of each deposit that allows for a variety of yield combinations.The protocol operates across seven Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible networks, including Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and Polygon, and aims to expand to other blockchains.Funding and financialsIn February 2024, Superform <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26461">raised USD 6.5 million</a> in seed funding led by Polychain Capital. The company planned to publicly launch its flagship platform within Q1 2024.

Securitize offers a platform that enables enterprises to raise funds by issuing tokens on assets such as equity, funds, fixed income, and real estate. Securitize is an SEC Registered Transfer Agent that is integrated with a number of regulated US-based marketplaces. The platform features a blockchain-based decentralized protocol with live issuers and provides users with both primary and secondary marketplaces for purchasing and trading issued tokens. Additionally, the company also offers know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering services (KYC/AML), capital management services, and a number of yield funds for users to invest in.In June 2021, the company also launched an asset management subsidiary, “Securitize Capital” as well as two cryptocurrency yield funds. In June 2023, Securitize announced that it had begun tokenizing equity in Mancipi, a Spanish real estate investment trust, with plans to launch secondary trading on the Avalanche blockchain in September. This was reportedly the first natively tokenized equity issuance under the European Union’s pilot regime for blockchain technology. In September 2023, the company launched tokenized feeder funds for Hamilton Lane's (an investment management firm) direct equity, evergreen senior credit, and secondary funds.To broaden its product offering, Securitize acquired stock transfer agent Pacific Stock Transfer (PST) for an undisclosed sum in February 2022. The company also expected to expand its own tokenization offering to clients of PST. The company went on to <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21117">acquire Onramp Invest</a>, a wealth management platform for digital assets, for an undisclosed amount in August 2023. Securitize will leverage the acquisition to enable registered investment advisors (RIAs) to offer tokenized investments via the Onramp dashboard.Key customers and partnershipsAs of March 2024, Securitize’s digital platform served over 500,000 users. During the same period, the company partnered with Blackrock to support the development of the latter’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund.In November 2024, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/36325">partnered with Elixir</a>, a blockchain network for crypto exchanges, to launch liquid staking tokens for tokenized securities, including BlackRock's BUIDL. The partnership introduces sToken, built on Ethereum's ERC-4626 standard, allowing institutional investors to convert their real-world assets (RWAs) into deUSD while maintaining yield earnings.Funding and financialsIn April 2024, Securitize <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29051">secured USD 47 million</a> in new funding led by BlackRock, to accelerate product development, expand its global operations, and bolster its partnerships across the financial services industry.

Huma Finance offers a DeFi lending platform that enables users to borrow against their future income via an on-chain factoring market. Users can borrow against receivables such as pay stubs or invoices. The platform also provides features for users to tokenize and trade their cash flows, launch lending pools, and automate underwriting. The company launched the platform in February 2023, in collaboration with its launch partners—Circle, Request Network, and Superfluid. Funding and financialsIn February 2023, Huma Finance <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16610">raised USD 8.3 million </a>in seed funding co-led by Race Capital and Distributed Global to continue the development of its platform and expand into new markets.

Eliminating financial intermediaries by directly connecting individuals and businesses

P2P Financial Platforms

Crowdcube is an award-winning equity crowdfunding platform headquartered in Exeter, UK. Established in 2011, it operates a sector-agnostic platform that enables individuals to invest in start-ups, early-stage, and growth businesses in exchange for equity stakes. The platform facilitates equity investments as well as convertible loans across Europe, with over 25% of its pitches coming from businesses based outside the UK.
In 2021, Crowdcube facilitated 234 announced funding rounds amounting to GBP 198 million invested into UK companies, making it the most active investor in the UK equity market that year. The company does not exclusively invest in companies eligible for government tax relief schemes like EIS or SEIS. Individual investors can purchase equity stakes for as little as GBP 10.
Crowdcube allows entrepreneurs to register and pitch for free on its platform. Once a business successfully raises its target funding amount, Crowdcube charges a fee of 7%, along with a 1.65% investment fee and a 5% fee on any profits made by investors. It was a founding member of the UK Crowdfunding Association.

Cryptocurrencies

KuCoin is a global cryptocurrency exchange platform that facilitates trading in over 700 cryptocurrencies across more than 1,200 trading pairs. Launched in September 2017, the Seychelles-based exchange has rapidly grown to become one of the largest crypto trading platforms, serving over 30 million users across 207 countries and regions.
KuCoin's platform offers spot trading, margin trading with up to 125x leverage, and futures trading with a range of USDT and coin-margined contracts. Its technology utilizes a robust trading engine capable of handling millions of transactions per second, ensuring high liquidity with daily trading volumes surpassing USD 10 billion and tight bid-ask spreads as low as 0.001%. KuCoin supports fiat-to-crypto purchases through various integrated gateways, including P2P trading, credit/debit cards, bank transfers, and over 50 fiat currencies across 70 payment methods.
To cater to diverse user needs, KuCoin has expanded its product offerings to include features like pre-market trading, allowing users to trade over-the-counter before new token launches, and one-cancels-other (OCO) orders that execute one of two specified orders based on market conditions. The platform incorporates advanced security measures, such as industry-leading protocols, multi-signature wallets, and collaborations with custodial partners for asset insurance and storage.
In addition to trading services, KuCoin provides opportunities for passive income generation through its staking and lending products, supporting over 200 cryptocurrencies. The exchange has also facilitated over 20 initial exchange offerings (IEOs) through its KuCoin Spotlight launchpad, allowing users to invest in vetted crypto projects.
Furthermore, KuCoin has developed innovative offerings like KuCoin Pool, one of the world's largest Bitcoin mining pools, and KuCoin Wallet, a multi-chain crypto wallet for Web3 exploration. The exchange has also successfully ventured into the NFT space with Windvane, a decentralized NFT marketplace, and KuCoin IGO, a platform for in-game NFT offerings.
In March 2024, KuCoin and two of its founders were charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and violating the Bank Secrecy Act. Despite the charges, KuCoin remains committed to regulatory compliance and continues to expand its global operations.

A decentralized version of the web powered by the blockchain

Web3 Ecosystem

<div>
 
 Lens Protocol is a decentralized social (DeSo) project developed by UK-based Aave, an open-source liquidity protocol. The Lens Protocol platform is deployed on the 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/786111">
 Polygon
 </a>
 network and aims to provide users control of their content and the ability to monetize it. In May 2024, the company announced plans to launch 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/29435">
 Lens Network
 </a>
 , a layer-2 network to host Lens Protocol and other Web3 social media apps.
 
 
 Lens Protocol uses three layers of NFTs: LensHub, FollowNFT, and CollectNFT. A LensHub NFT is minted when a new profile is created, which is linked to a wallet address (multiple profiles can be created for a wallet address). These are upgradeable contracts that record a user&rsquo;s content, including likes, comments, and reposts, as well as their audience relationships. A user&rsquo;s original content (post, comment, repost) is known as publications, which can be customized with features like price and the ability to collect it for a certain period of time or a particular number of times. Meanwhile, a corresponding CollectNFT is created when a user collects a publication for the first time. In addition, when a user follows another user, a FollowNFT is created.&nbsp;
 
 
 Furthermore, Lens Protocol allows Web3 developers to build or connect social applications on top of its platform, which are deployed on Polygon or other EVM-compliant networks. Moreover, the platform is designed with modularity at its core, which allows users to transfer their social graph across the many social media applications built on top of it. It launched its own scaling solution 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18025">
 Bonsai
 </a>
 , to improve the processing speed of transactions by handling its 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/786111">
 Polygon
 </a>
 transactions off-chain at no cost. Users can, however, use the Bonsai network for transactions or the Polygon network directly.
 
 
 As of April 2023, Lens Protocol was in closed beta, with 3.4 million NFTs (new profiles) and had an average monetization of roughly USD 50 per profile.
 
 
 Aave, through Lens Protocol, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15100">
 acquired Web3 gaming developer Sonar
 </a>
 for an undisclosed amount in December 2022. Sonar was formed out of Y Combinator in 2020 and has developed a namesake mobile Web3 metaverse gaming app that has ~20,000 monthly active users, as of December 2022. Following the acquisition, the company had planned to integrate Sonar with the Lens Protocol, with existing Sonar users being able to mint Lens profiles to create a singular identity within its metaverse and log into the game using the same.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In November 2022, Lens secured 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14781">
 investment from FTX Ventures
 </a>
 , but the amount and the use of proceeds were not disclosed. It raised a further 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19238">
 USD 15 million in seed funding
 </a>
 in June 2023, in a round led by IDEO CoLab Ventures. These funds were earmarked towards its development and expanding its ecosystem.
 
</div>

Lens Protocol is a composable and decentralized social network serving the Web3 community. It enables creators to build their own web3 social media platforms and accounts, giving them control over their connections with their communities and also ownership over their content.

Superform is a non-custodial yield marketplace. The protocol enables access to Erc-4626 vaults using any Evmchain.

Huma Finance the on-chain credit platform connects high-performing receivables with global financing.

Skyfire, a financial stack designed to enable autonomous agentic AI commerce, is to establish the first fully autonomous, open agentic AI economy in history.

Rhinestone is building a platform to enable a secure ecosystem of smart account modules and, with it, permissionless wallet innovation.

The idOS is an open-source, decentralized identity system empowering users with data security, self-sovereignty, and control in web3 applications.

Securitize is modernizing capital markets by enabling digital securities, making it easier for eligible investors to own, manage, and trade digital securities within designated capital markets for equity, funds, fixed income, and real estate. Securitize is the only SEC Registered Transfer Agent integrated with multiple regulated US-based marketplaces with a working protocol and live issuers. The company also offers KYC/AML and capital management services. Securitize, Inc. is not a registered broker-dealer and does not make any endorsement of offerings.

Kravata is the first crypto as a service company in Latam. Our capabilities will enable any business operating in Latam to launch compliant crypto solutions in a fast and low-cost way, through their app or website, via a simple API integration.

zkMe builds zero-knowledge (zk) Identity Oracles for truly decentralized & anonymous cross-chain credential verifications. No personal information is ever processed by anyone but the user themselves. Data leaks & misuse by the service provider are impossible; full interoperability & reusability result in a superior ID solution. zkMe’s is the only FATF compliant KYC provider to be fully decentralized, offering a full suite of products from anti-bit/anti-sybil, to KYC and more

Hourglass is an operator of a financial marketplace intended to trade locked-up DeFi assets.

OpenTrade is an institutional grade platform for digital dollar lending and yield products. It provides a technology platform, blockchain protocol, API, legal framework, and bankruptcy remote banking and custody infrastructure that enables Web2/Web3 Fintechs to offer fully embedded stablecoin yield products to their customers and better manage their own treasury.

TipLink helps send crypto with a link. Someone with crypto can create a account and send that link to anyone over any platform. It’s like buying a gift card, connect the client's crypto wallet of choice and create a account by depositing how much they want to send.

MSafe develops a multi-signature, non-custodial digital assets management solution built on Move. They focus on true decentralization, enhanced security, and full interoperability.

Revio was founded in 2020 to help businesses collect more revenue, through reducing payment failures and recovering lost revenue. Through a single API, we optimise merchants’ payment stacks with locally-optimised payment methods and smart payment routing, failover, and retries. We understand that there is more to getting paid than accepting payments, and believe that how you engage customers when trying to collect a failed payment is as important as when you are trying to acquire them. Our Recovery solution builds on this insight, empowering businesses with data-driven omnichannel interaction workflows to recover at-risk revenue from their customers.  Today, we’re helping some of Africa's largest brands and fastest-growing startups increase their revenue through increased payment success rates, customer retention, and lifetime value. Locally grounded but globally relevant, we aim to be the go-to revenue recovery and growth partner for businesses across emerging markets.

Veax is a provider of a traditional finance-empowered decentralized exchange.

WalletConnect enables secure connections between decentralized applications and users' wallets. It facilitates communication and transaction signing without exposing private keys. It serves the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.

Fluidity Money is a blockchain incentive platform that rewards users with yields for using their cryptocurrency. It seeks to solve DeFi's utility problem by introducing a novel incentive mechanism that rewards users for on-chain transactions. Users can wrap stablecoins in Fluidity in exchange for the fluid counterpart of that stablecoin. This can be USDC, for example, which becomes fUSDC. This works with a variety of stablecoins, including DAI, USDT, and Frax. The yield distributed via transactions is derived from lending out the underlying assets on money markets. When USDC is wrapped, fUSDC is created, and the principal is lent out.

Arf is a liquidity platform for financial institutions in cross-border payments, offering short-term, revolving, and digital asset-based credit lines. Committed to transparency, Arf aims to enhance access to liquidity for cross-border financial institutions worldwide. Arf was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Steinhausen, Switzerland. Regulated in Switzerland, Arf has teams in Istanbul, London, and New York.

Blackbird Labs is a web3 hospitality technology platform that should directly connect restaurants and customers. Founded by Ben Leventhal in 2022, Blackbird Labs is based in New York, United States.

Hyperlane platform helps developers connect applications across blockchains.

Slide enables apps to serve web3 experiences to their users. Users of slide enabled apps buy crypto and nfts with a credit card, take custody of and manage assets without to deal with extensions or private keys, and transact with assets across any blockchain.

Noba is a technology company building a more open global financial system. They offer a mobile application that enables users to access, hold, send, and receive information. This gives organizations a financial incentive to recruit and keep talent. Use the power of digital currency to shield the team against inflation.

END-Labs is a blockchain development studio developing Web3 lending infrastructure. It specializes in creating a suite of blockchain-based products to power a new approach to finance.

Optic, an AI Drug Discovery company, based in San Francisco. Our proprietary a ligand-based and target-driven molecular search engine Bioptic.io identifies compounds by their activity-expressing fingerprints. It offering a novel approach to finding diverse set candidates. Our pipeline includes multiple pre-clinical stage programs, showcasing our commitment to practical, AI-driven solutions in cancer therapy.

XLD is a borderless decentralized network that delivers financial services to emerging markets.

KuCoin is a global cryptocurrency exchange for numerous digital assets and cryptocurrencies. Launched in September 2017, KuCoin has grown into one of the most popular crypto exchanges and already has over 8 million registered users across 207 countries and regions around the world.   Known as ''People’s Exchange'', KuCoin operates in Seychelles, providing users with 24/7 multi-language customer services. Meanwhile, KuCoin has established about 19 local communities in North America, Europe, SEA and other regions, providing users with highly localized services.   As the home of crypto gems, KuCoin has supported over 420 projects with 790+ trading pairs. A number of projects like ICP, BOSON, AERGO, RNDR, and DAO had a primary listing on KuCoin.   In November 2018, KuCoin announced $20 million (USD) round A funding from IDG Capital and Matrix Partners. In 2021, Forbes Advisor named KuCoin as one of the Best Crypto Exchanges.

Nomad is a novel approach to blockchain interoperability that leverages an optimistic mechanism to increase the security of cross-chain communication.

Kado is developing payment infrastructure for web3 and the future of digital money. It offers consumers and businesses solutions for easier access to and utility of stablecoins. It enables users to convert fiat to cryptocurrency using a variety of payment methods, avoid centralized exchanges, and transfer funds directly to their self-custody wallet.

Slope Finance develops a mobile decentralized exchange and wallet that allows users to access Solana Pay, engage in decentralized finance, manage non-fungible tokens visually, and perform token swaps. Slope Finance is a full-stack platform built on Solana that includes the sectors of DEX, Wallet, and NFTs, offering users speed, near-zero transaction fees, and an intuitive interface. Slope Finance enables users to create new or import existing Ethereum and Solana wallets, as well as store and clone assets with a single click.

Trace Finance empowers Payment Facilitators, Crypto & Cross-border companies with best in class FX, Non Resident accounts and cross-border payments. Companies such as Dlocal, Volt.io and Okx are processing their local and cross border payments with us. Our mission is to provide faster and better payments globally for enterprises.

BCB is Blockchain 4.0 which integrates Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Virtual Reality, Robotics and hardware to create a smart city solution that interconnects cities across distances and improves the quality of life for people, businesses and governments.  BCB Innovation Pte Ltd is a Singapore registered company, founded by GBCI Ventures Pte Ltd. With more than 500 staff and seven offices across seven countries, BCB visions to create and support the economies of 1000 smart cities of the future.  For more information, visit https://www.bcbchain.io

NFTGo is a NFT data aggregator where users can find information about NFT, including NFT Drops, ranking, whale tracking, NFT search engine, market data, transaction data, and many more.

XY Finance creates a customizable widget that can be easily integrated into DApps. Plug to create a single UI that simplifies cross-chain operations and allows access to more users from other chains. It leverages its composable APIs to tap effortlessly into full cross-chain functions and offer users optimized web3 execution services.

Crowdcube is an equity crowdfunding platform for entrepreneurs of start-ups and growing businesses. Crowdcube enables individuals to invest or loan in small companies in return for equity or an annual return. As an investment crowdfunding platform, Crowdcube enables entrepreneurs to raise finance with the added benefit of being backed by the crowd. For investors, Crowdcube provides a way to handpick a stake in an innovative business that traditionally would have been restricted to corporate investors. Since Crowdcube first pioneered equity crowdfunding in 2011, a total of £300m has been invested through the platform from a crowd of over 390,000 investors, with more than £230m successfully invested in 520 raises. Businesses like the challenger bank Monzo, which raised £1 million in a record-breaking 96 seconds, as well as household brand names such as River Cottage and the Eden Project along with venture capital-backed businesses such as JustPark, eMoov, Sugru and Chip have all successfully raised growth funding from the crowd.

Circle is a financial technology firm that utilizes stablecoins for payments and e-commerce. Circle uses blockchain technology with Circle Pay to ease and improve how users send money. Circle expands its services with a crypto-currency investment product with Circle Invest, enabling anyone to buy and sell crypto assets. It provides crypto-coins and offers OTC trading services via Circle Trade. Its crypto-trading desk provides one of the largest global liquidity pools for digital asset trading and averages $2 billion in monthly volume. Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville founded Circle in 2013. $140 million from investors including Jim Breyer (Facebook), Goldman Sachs, IDG Capital (Baidu, Tencent), General Catalyst (AirBnB, Snapchat) and Accel Partners backs the company, with its headquarters in Boston, and branches in New York, San Francisco, Dublin, London, and Hong Kong.

Circle is a leading fintech company specializing in stablecoins and blockchain-based financial services. Its flagship product, USD Coin (USDC), is a fully-reserved digital currency backed 1:1 by cash and cash equivalents, allowing users to convert money into a format for faster, cheaper, and more secure transactions in digital environments. As of June 2022, USDC had over USD 55 billion in circulation, and Circle projects this figure to reach USD 110 billion by the end of 2022.

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Circle is a leading financial technology company focused on developing digital currency solutions and blockchain-based infrastructure for the internet. Its flagship product, USD Coin (USDC), is a fully-reserved stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. As of March 2023, USDC had over USD 43 billion in circulation, making it one of the most widely held and liquid digital currencies globally.

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Circle specializes in digital currency infrastructure and services. Its Web3 developer tools include a comprehensive platform with APIs and SDKs for building dApps, along with its Smart Contract Platform for blockchain integration.&nbsp;

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Lens Protocol

Faction

ConsenSys

Digital Finance Group (DFG)

Fabric Ventures

Borderless Capital

Blockchain Coinvestorsqq

Caliber Ventures

Foresight Ventures

Re7 Capital

Wintermute Ventures

Superscrypt

G-20 Group

Bodhi Ventures

Avail

A decentralized alternative to traditional social networks that operate on independently run servers on the blockchain. These are community-owned and reward user participation.

Superform Labs

VanEck

Polychain

BlockTower Capital

Amber Group

CMT Digital

Maven 11 Capital

Heartcore Capital

Hypersphere Ventures

AngelDAO

Dialectic

Node Capital

DeFi Wonderland

UpTop Capital

Organizations and protocols that allow individuals to lend their crypto assets and take out collateralized or uncollateralized loans from to/from these projects

Shinami

Race Capital

Coinbase Ventures

6th Man Ventures

Mysten Labs

Aptos Foundation

Sony

To integrate USDC into Soneium, a Layer 2 platform built on Ethereum, enabling seamless digital payments and cross-border transactions, and empowering the creative economy.

Circle

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