Crane is a London based VC firm investing and building seed and early stage intelligent enterprise and deep technology businesses across Europe. Our strategy is to support founders in building and executing their go-to-market strategy.

Crane Venture Partners

FinTech Collective is a global, early stage venture capital firm backing entrepreneurs who are rewiring the way money moves through the world. Founded in 2012 with offices in New York City and London, the firm has deep experience investing across capital markets, wealth and asset management, banking, lending, payments, insurance, and DeFi. The managing partners of FinTech Collective met in their mid 20’s and helped build, scale, and successfully exit four fintech businesses.  Backed by some of the world’s leading institutional investors, FinTech Collective manages close to $1b in regulatory assets. Over the last decade the firm has had 10 exits, taken one company from pitch deck to public markets and invested in 96 portfolio companies including well known firms such as Anyfin in Stockholm, Flutterwave in Lagos, IMMO in London, Minu in Mexico City, Mondu in Berlin, Simetrik in Columbia, and several important businesses in NYC including MoneyLion, NYDIG, Ocrolus, Quovo (acquired by Plaid) and Vestwell. The firm publishes a weekly newsletter, delivered every Saturday, which provides a tightly edited rundown of global fintech news, along with a bit of original analysis (available at fintech.io/newsletter).

FinTech Collective

We back founders who are reimagining the world. We invest $1-10m early, in those building daring adventures across Europe.  Our partners have worked in leading Silicon Valley startups since the dawn of the Internet and have collectively amassed over 50 years in tech on both sides of the Atlantic. We are a small team of investors and startup operators who typically make just a small number of new investments per year, so every relationship matters. We appreciate that success is not built overnight; we are in it for the long haul. We are humble, curious, open and straightforward — having learned from both mistakes and successes. Read about our thesis-driven approach to investing and what you can expect when working with us on our website.

Mosaic Ventures

Atlantic Labs is a European first round investor, headquartered in Berlin. We believe entrepreneurs shape the future, and work hard to support ambitious founders throughout their entire entrepreneurial journey.  Since 2013, we have led over 150 first round investments – backing category creators such as Soundcloud, GetYourGuide, Clue, Vimcar, Zenjob, Choco and Wandelbots. Emerging technologies excite us as much as startups tackling social challenges. Recent investments have focused on decarbonisation, artificial intelligence, and industrial automation.

Atlantic Labs

BlueYard invests in founders with transforming ideas that decentralize markets and empower humanity. Typically $1-3m as an initial investment; active around the world.  Most active in crypto / web 3 (e.g. Protocol Labs, Filecoin, Open Zeppelin, Radicle), technologies that help us overcome our largest planetary challenges (e.g. Marvel Fusion, Meatable, Dance), frontier biology to help us live long and prosper (e.g. BitBio, Biofidelity) and vertical software un-bundling monopolies (e.g. Pitch, Wonder).

BlueYard Capital

Semantic Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests in open markets and networks. It was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in London, England.

Semantic Ventures

Inflection Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in the open economy's undiscovered frontiers. They are a group of varied venture capitalists and entrepreneurs located in Berlin, Boston, and Munich, who are supported by a global network of innovators. They initially invest between $500k to $1.5M in founding money across a variety of equities and cryptographic assets. They are mostly focused on European markets, although they have a worldwide mission.

Inflection Capital

Fabric is a venture contributor building and backing the boldest ideas in Web 3, to create a more fair, productive and sustainable economy—an Open Economy.

Fabric Ventures

Inflection is a first-check venture firm investing in the open economy. We are a team of venture investors and entrepreneurs with diverse backgrounds based out of Berlin, Boston, and Munich complemented by a global network of innovators. We perceive ourselves as a startup company, not an established venture fund. We incentivize our founders and community through ownership. We take risks and experiment. We run nodes, govern crypto networks, write code, and scale DAOs.  Our investment process is radically transparent and doesn't take more than 10 days from initial call to an investment decision. ''Which school did you go to?'', ''You are too early.'' or ''Who else is investing?'' are sentences you won't hear from us.  We initially invest between $500k and $1.5M in the earliest stages across equity and cryptographic assets of all sorts. We cover European markets first but have a global mandate.

Inflection.xyz

We are ParaFi, an alternative asset management and technology firm that operates liquid and venture strategies focused on the digital asset ecosystem. Founded in 2018, ParaFi was among the earliest institutional investors in the blockchain industry and has evolved into a trusted partner by leading institutions globally.

ParaFi Capital

We are long-term backers of early developer teams building toward an open, decentralized and more robust architecture of tomorrow’s web.

Greenfield

In late 2020, Gnosis announced plans to fully decentralize into a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). Today, the GnosisDAO treasury has effective control of over 150K ETH and 8 Million GNO tokens, with the GNO tokens vested over 8 years.  A year later, in 2021, the xDAI and GnosisDAO communities voted to combine their vibrant ecosystems to create the Gnosis Chain: An Ethereum forerunner companion that addresses scaling issues through solid engineering. Gnosis Chain is the associated execution-layer EVM chain for stable transactions. It uses the xDai token and includes a wide-ranging group of projects and users. The Gnosis mission has always been centered on experimentation and building decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem. When Gnosis was founded in 2015, it focused on building prediction markets to enable worldwide access to accurate information. While creating the prediction market platform, it became clear that Gnosis needed to build the infrastructure required to support it.  As a DAO, Gnosis uses the products that it creates to transparently guide decisions on the development, support, and governance of its ecosystem. Gnosis Safe (multisig and programmable account), Cow Protocol (formerly CowSwap and Gnosis Protocol), Conditional Tokens (prediction markets), Gnosis Auction, and Zodiac (standard and tooling for composable DAOs) are all products incubated by Gnosis. Their success is demonstrated by the recent spin-out of Cow Protocol and the formation of SafeDAO. By combining needs-driven development with deep technical expertise, Gnosis has built the decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem.

Gnosis

Bloccelerate is a global accelerator and a fund focused on investing in blockchain companies all over the world. They bring together a decentralized community of advisors, mentors, and developers to facilitate the blockchain ecosystem.

Bloccelerate VC

Spartan is a blockchain advisory and asset management firm that specializes in hedge funds, venture capital, and fundraising.

The Spartan Group

Borderless partners with early-stage founders to accelerate access, bootstrap adoption and create value across the Algorand and EdgeFi ecosystems.

Borderless Capital

We back visionary teams and companies that are in pursuit of a better global financial system, with an aim to foster the growth of the world’s most promising projects in the emerging technologies sector. Leveraging both our deep understanding of the ecosystem and our extensive industry connections, we are able to put capital to work efficiently, supporting the next wave of trailblazing blockchain, Web3 and DeFi innovators.

TRGC

Stake Capital provide highly available and secure blockchain validation services for all the leading proof-of-stake networks.

Stake Capital Group

IOSG Ventures is a pioneering crypto fund founded in 2017 that invests in the future of Web3. As a thesis-driven firm, we assist founders in developing community-driven protocols that are primed to transform the crypto landscape. Our portfolio comprises a wide range of innovative and high-potential investments, including ZKRU (Scroll, StarkWare, Arbitrum, zkSync), Security Auditing(Runtime Verification, Hexens), MEV (Flashbots, Blocknative), DeFi/NFT-Fi (1inch, MetaMask), FOG (Big Time, Illuvium), and a number of industry leaders including Arweave, Cosmos, Celestia, EigenLayer, Scroll, zkSync, Nil Foundation, and Mina, etc. We are passionate about investing in crypto-native paradigms that have the potential to transform the future of the industry, whether you’re building infra, middleware, security, gaming, or social platforms.

IOSG Ventures

Skynet Trading is a digital assets trading and investment firm in the crypto capital market.

Skynet Trading

Circle Ventures invests in projects that accelerate global crypto innovation and adoption in service. They foster crypto innovation by assisting founders and teams that are committed to open access, financial inclusivity, and programmable commerce, all of which may contribute to global economic success.

Circle Ventures

Re7 Capital

Modular Capital is a crypto investment firm with a fundamental and thesis-driven approach.  Founded in 2022 by James Ho and Vincent Jow, Modular has its headquarters in San Francisco, United States.

Modular Capital

Wintermute’s mission is to enable, empower and advance the truly decentralized world for more transparent and efficient markets and products. We believe in a future that is decentralized and not controlled by few dominant players or ecosystems. We invest with the goal of building a world, where various trading platforms, chains, and products co-exist, enabling various use cases, competing on token designs, and ultimately solving for a diverse, decentralized future. As one of the largest players in DeFi, we support projects where we know we can be true value-adding, develop a partnership and help influence the positive outcome consistently, throughout bear or bull market cycles. We do not target large ownership stakes, decentralized ownership is an important prerequisite to transitioning to Web3. We invest flexibly from the ideation stage through to later stage growth funding and we adjust ticket sizes accordingly. We have ambitious price targets for our investments, meaning we are in for the long term.

Wintermute Ventures

ProtoCap is a fundamental investment firm that invests in crypto protocols and blockchain enabled companies.

ProtoCap

Scytale is an industry-leading digital asset manager and is actively looking for investments in early-stage blockchain and crypto projects.

Scytale Digital

A high conviction investment firm backing frontier founders.

Edessa Capital

Arrington Capital is a thesis-driven firm invests in digital assets.

Arrington Capital

Centrifuge

Founded in 2017, Centrifuge creates better technology for financial products. Centrifuge provides asset managers a way to tokenize, manage and distribute their funds onchain and investors better access to a diversified portfolio of high-quality tokenized assets.

<div>Berlin-based Centrifuge offers a platform (based on the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchains) that allows users to tokenize their real-world assets into the DeFi ecosystem. The platform helps tokenize assets such as invoices, real estates, cars, and royalties in the form of NFTs and allows asset-owners to generate liquidity from otherwise illiquid assets without having to rely on an intermediary such as banks. Centrifuge offers the Tinlake app, which opens up assets to investors through its marketplace. As of May 2022, Centrifuge had a total locked value (TVL) of USD 84.8 million.&nbsp;</div>

Disrupting the traditional financial system using blockchain

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Exclusive: Centrifuge raises $15 million in oversubscribed funding round

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 Berlin-based Centrifuge offers a platform (based on the Ethereum and Polkadot blockchains) that allows users to tokenize their real-world assets into the DeFi ecosystem. The platform helps tokenize assets such as invoices, real estates, cars, and royalties in the form of NFTs and allows asset-owners to generate liquidity from otherwise illiquid assets without having to rely on an intermediary such as banks. Centrifuge offers the Tinlake app, which opens up assets to investors through its marketplace. As of May 2022, Centrifuge had a total locked value (TVL) of USD 84.8 million.&nbsp;
 
 
 In June 2022, Centrifuge launched Centrifuge Connectors, a cross-chain solution for accessing liquidity across DeFi protocols.The solution enables the creation of a number of combinations of both pooled and split liquidity. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/14203">
 In November 2022,
 </a>
 Centrifuge raised USD 4 million in a strategic funding round. The funding was expected to be channeled toward growth. The company was planning to wind down its marketplace &ldquo;Tinlake&rdquo; by end-2022, and replace it with a multi-chain experience for investors.
 
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MakerDAO is a DAO (governed through the MKR token) that manages the Maker Protocol.Developed on the Ethereum blockchain, the Maker Protocol allows users to place their funds (through cryptocurrency) as collateral in exchange for its stablecoin DAI, which is pegged to the USD. DAI can be used like any other cryptocurrency and even as savings since holders of DAI are entitled to a return based on the DAI Savings Rate (DSR). The DSR is determined by members of the DAO using a mix of public and proprietary market data.MakerDAO offers access to investing and borrowing DAI through the Oasis app which was developed by some of the creators of Maker Protocol. In addition, the Maker Protocol is available for developers of DeFi apps who can build apps to facilitate earning, investing, and borrowing DAI. As of May 2024, the Maker Protocol had integrated with over 400 applications ranging from payment systems to gaming platforms. MakerDAO generates revenue through stability fees (akin to interest payment on borrowed DAI) and liquidation fees which is an additional charge that occurs when the value of the submitted collateral falls below a set liquidation amount.In April 2022, MakerDAO announced that it was bridging to StarkNet, a reportedly cheaper and faster zero-knowledge (ZK) overlay chain built by StarkWare. Along with its expansion on Ethereum, the DAO had planned to move toward a multi-chain offering with this rebuild. It planned to roll out this offering in four phases, beginning with a simple bridge between the main blockchain and StarkNet’s Layer 2.In February 2023, the company <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16269?industryIds=64">launched a new lending platform</a> named Spark Protocol, to enable users to borrow, lend, and stake DAI, the protocol’s stablecoin. The platform, which is a fork of Aave's version 3 (v3), will be built by Phoenix Labs, a research and development company formed by the DAO. Additionally, the company also announced the deployment of etherDAI, a liquid staking derivative for Ethereum that will be pegged to the value of ETH. Furthermore, in March, MakerDAO went on to<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17322"> approve several new proposals </a>that make changes to both its governance structure and the investment of its treasury. These changes divide the DAO’s current structure into smaller self-governed and self-sustained units named SubDAOs, which will also have their own tokens in the MakerDAO ecosystem. Moreover, the proposal also planned to increase the protocol’s revenues by investing a part of its reserves (worth USD 7 billion) into real-world assets and money-market funds.The platform outlined its plans for a major update (named Endgame) in May 2023. The launch was proposed to take place in five phases and will ultimately lead to the creation of a new blockchain. The road map is as follows: 1) launching new branding and website as well as upgraded versions of Dai and MKR tokens; 2) launching six Maker SubDAOs, specializing in user acquisition, decentralized frontends, and collateral allocation; 3) introducing new AI tools to assist governance, including tools for summarizing, interpreting, and generating governance proposals; 4) enabling rewards for governance participation; and 5) deploying a new blockchain to house backend logic for SubDAO tokenomics and MakerDAO governance security. The first phase of the update is expected to be rolled out in the summer of 2024.In August 2024, the protocol followed through with the first phase of its plans by <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/32993">rebranding itself under the new name "Sky"</a>, and launching new versions of Dai and MKR tokens named the USDS and SKY. Funding and financialsAs of May 2024, MakerDAO had around USD 8.1 billion in total value locked (TVL). The company’s most recent funding round was in April 2020 for an undisclosed sum. Previously, the company had raised USD 27.5 million through the sale of its MKR token to Dragonfly Partners and Paragon to expand its operations to Asia.

MakerDAO

Founded by former executives of Qualcomm, Solana Labs is the developer of the Solana blockchain, which uses the native cryptocurrency SOL. The company enables developers to create decentralized applications in its blockchain and is capable of carrying out 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) with a theoretical upper limit of 710,000 TPS for the architecture. As of May 2024, the blockchain averaged around 2,400 TPS. This is in contrast to Ethereum’s average of between 13 to 15 TPS. In addition to transaction speed, Solana also has other advantages such as lower transaction fees and improved scalability, given its proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and underlying architecture. The mechanism also enables users to stake their SOL and earn yields for validating the network. Solana provides the ability to create specialized tooling and programming functionality to tokens through <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/25910">Token Extensions</a>. This allows developers and businesses to establish rules for tokens, such as dictating their functionality and determining their holders, as well as embed features like whitelisting, automatic transfer fees, and confidentiality provisions for transfers.Solana also provides guides and a content aggregator website for developers to discover tools to create dApps on its blockchain. As of May 2024, more than 440 dApps were created on Solana, ranging across use cases such as DeFi, NFTs, and gaming. It also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/18094">launched a ChatGPT </a>(a chatbot built on OpenAI's GPT model) plugin to allow developers and users to query the blockchain for on-chain data. The plugin works through the ChatGPT interface and allows users to perform various tasks such as checking wallet balances, transferring tokens, and purchasing NFTs.Key customers and partnershipsWeb browser developer Opera partnered with Solana in December 2021 to integrate the blockchain and create a built-in crypto wallet onto the Opera browser to improve accessibility to dApps hosted on the blockchain.As of May 2024, the company served several enterprise clients such as Shopify, Asics, Helio, and Tiplink.Funding and financialsThe total value locked (TVL) in DeFi projects across the Solana blockchain amounted to USD 4 billion as of May 2024. The company raised USD 314 million through an initial coin offering (ICO) of SOL. The ICO was co-led by Polychain Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. The funding was to be used to create a venture investing arm, a trading desk, and support the development of new applications in its blockchain.

Solana

Swiss-based Eidoo is a developer of a wallet that supports cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with tokens such as DAI, MKR, AAVE, and UNI, among others. In addition, Eidoo provides a DeFi marketplace that integrates with its wallet, allowing users to trade any tokens that they hold. Eidoo also offers a debit card that allows the conversion of digital assets into fiat currencies, such as the GBP and EURO, and spending or even withdrawing cash from ATMs.Eidoo began with the proprietary token EDO, which it also used to raise USD 27.9 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017. The token was then upgraded following its merger with blockchain oracle provider Provable Things to establish pNetwork, the infrastructure that facilitates cross-chain interactions between multiple decentralized apps, governed by the token PNT. To obtain an Eidoo debit card, users are required to stake PNT ranging from 20 to 200,000 for various service tiers.Eidoo had several applications such as virtual account numbers to deposit money and obtain a tokenized representation of their deposit as well as features to buy, hold, and trade NFTs in the roadmap as of December 2021.

Eidoo

Synthetix is a DAO (governed by holders of its native token SNX) that offers a platform on which users can trade and vote on the creation of on-chain synthetic assets, which are derivatives based on real-world assets. These synthetic assets enable traders to capture the price movements of assets such as cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, stocks, and commodities, among others, with zero slippage. The protocol allows users to stake SNX as collateral for the debt pool and earn weekly rewards. As of April 2022, Synthetix had USD 642 million in total value locked (TVL).Additionally, Synthetix also offers the opportunity for developers to build on top of the platform to tap into its liquidity as well as develop decentralized perpetual futures, options markets, deal coordination markets, and more. As of December 2021, the protocol served large DeFi platforms including 1inch, Curve Finance, Yearn Finance, and Paraswap.In February 2023, Synthetix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16609?industryIds=64">deployed version 3 (v3) of its platform </a>on the Ethereum mainnet. V3 reportedly offers more efficient architecture that enables developers to create products that offer a liquid market for any financial derivative, as well as more complex decentralized applications. Additionally, the solution also offers staking and differentiated debt pools, to enable stakers to earn fees from supplying collateral to specific asset pools. The company went on to deploy its protocol on Base, an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain developed by Coinbase, in April 2024. Moreover, the company announced plans to launch a new perpetual futures exchange named Infinex in the following months.Funding and financialsIn March 2023, Synthetix <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17267">received an investment of USD 20 million </a>from DWF Labs, a Web3 venture capital company. Synthetix plans to use this investment to drive volume for its protocol across both centralized and decentralized exchanges and invest in product development.

Synthetix

Compound is an open-source lending protocol built on Ethereum that allows developers to build DeFi applications for functions such as deposits and lending. Compound offers adjusted money market interest rates based on asset-specific supply and demand and supports a number of Ethereum-based assets for users to take collateralized loans and lock-up assets without borrowing. Locked assets are automatically liquidated if an independent oracle determines that the price has dropped too low. Additionally, since assets are stored in a shared pool, even users with liquidated collateral can claim tokens if they are able to repay the general pool. Compound also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13038">offers borrowing services</a> for institutional clients that allow them to borrow USD or USDC at a fixed annual percentage rate of 6% using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether as collateral, with a loan-to-value of 90%.As of April 2024, Compound had a total value locked (TVL) of USD 2.3 billion. The protocol is governed by its native-token COMP, which along with a variety of other digital assets that are a part of the Compound ecosystem, are supported by Coinbase Custody, a crypto asset custodian. In August 2022, Compound launched a version of its protocol named “Compound III” which features a single borrowable asset. Users can supply collateral that can never be withdrawn by other users (except during liquidation) and borrow USDC.In May 2022, Compound<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10267"> received a B- credit rating from S&amp;P Global Ratings</a> on its enterprise credit facility which offers 4% annually on deposits of the stablecoin USDC. Notably, Compound claims that this is the first time an "institutional DeFi" product has been scored by a major credit rating agency.Funding and financialsCompound’s last funding round was in November 2019 where it raised USD 25 million in a Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z crypto fund to help the company further decentralize the protocol by enabling crypto exchanges and custodians such as Coinbase to maintain the protocol going forward.

Compound

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

Organizations that allow individuals to invest in tokenized financial and real assets

Organizations that provide fully decentralized insurance products

Organizations that apply NFTs across areas of finance such as documentation and non-fractionalized ownership records for assets

Decentralized exchanges that help connect buyers and sellers of DeFi tokens without the need to rely on an intermediary

Organizations that provide digital wallets for users to take custody of DeFi tokens

Blockchains and related protocols that allow developers to build DeFi apps

All companies within this industry are either blockchain-based platforms or offer blockchain-centric services

Promotes financial inclusivity, allowing those that won't traditionally have access to credit to raise funds

Companies with the infrastructure segment offer solutions for users to build decentralized applications

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Centrifuge, a protocol for tokenizing real-world assets, has raised $15 million in a Series A investment round. The funding was jointly led by Greenfield and ParaFi Capital, including contributions from Borderless Capital, ProtoCap, Edessa Capital, and Wintermute Ventures. The round of investment grew the company's total funding to approximately $31 million. 

The company declared its plans for the newly raised capital, aiming to use it for product development, creating new integrations, expanding its ecosystem, and hiring more employees. Further, it also announced its intentions to develop a lending protocol for real-world assets for institutions on Base, a network based on the Ethereum layer-2 technology, created by Coinbase. 

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Centrifuge

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