Tagged: web3
30 results
Chris Lipowicz
Chris Lipowicz is the CEO of Elementus, a New York based blockchain intelligence company that helps hedge funds, financial institutions, government agencies, and legal teams interpret what happens on-chain. An enterprise operator with more than 20 years of experience building revenue and operations teams, he came up through real estate and security technology firms including Building Intelligence and Cherre before moving into crypto data. He argues that on-chain activity is public but hard to read without the right tools, and positions Elementus as the layer that turns raw blockchain data into real-time, compliant, risk-aware decisions.
Chris Yu
Chris Yu is the co-founder and CEO of SignalPlus, a Hong Kong-based software firm building institutional-grade trading and risk-management infrastructure for crypto options and derivatives. A former macro trader at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, he spotted that crypto options represented less than half a percent of perpetual-contract volume and set out to close that gap. Since founding SignalPlus with James Shan in 2021, Yu has grown the platform into a tool used by firms including Cumberland, FalconX, Galaxy, and Goldman Sachs, and helped expand the crypto options market several times over.
Blackbird Labs
Blackbird Labs is a New York-based restaurant technology company that pairs a consumer dining app with a blockchain-based payments and loyalty network. Founded in 2022 by Resy and Eater co-founder Ben Leventhal, Blackbird lets diners check in at participating restaurants, earn a rewards currency called $FLY, and pay their bill through the app, while giving restaurants lower payment-processing fees and direct ownership of their guest data. The company runs its own layer-2 network, Flynet, and operates in New York, San Francisco, and Charleston with roughly 1,000 restaurants on the platform.
Burnt
Burnt is a New York-based Web3 company and the core team behind XION, a Layer 1 blockchain built to make crypto invisible to everyday users. Founded by Anthony Anzalone - better known as the artist-provocateur 'Burnt Banksy' - the company uses 'generalized abstraction' to remove wallets, private keys and gas fees so that people can sign in with an email or a face scan and pay in USDC. Burnt has raised more than $36M from investors including Animoca Brands, Circle Ventures and Multicoin, and pitches XION as consumer-grade infrastructure for brands like Uber, BMW and others. In 2026 the XION network rebranded to Verona.
DeFi Devs
DeFi Devs is a Miami-based blockchain and AI development company that serves as the lead community developer of the Accumulate Protocol, an identity-based, delegated-proof-of-stake blockchain built for decentralized finance, digital identity, and enterprise tokenization. Founded in 2021 as a subsidiary of Inveniam Capital Partners and led by Factom founder Paul Snow, the firm builds infrastructure for cross-chain atomic transactions, human-readable addresses, and hierarchical key management, positioning Accumulate as an 'Internet of Blockchains' that bridges regulated real-world assets onto decentralized rails.
Emperia
Emperia is a London-based immersive commerce platform that lets brands and retailers build browser-based, cross-device virtual stores that blend e-commerce accessibility with gaming-style engagement. Founded in 2019 by Olga Dogadkina and Simonas Holcmann, its no-code, SaaS platform has powered virtual retail spaces for Dior, Bloomingdale's, Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss and Christie's, reporting sharply higher conversion versus traditional online storefronts.
Fintiv
Fintiv is an Austin-based fintech infrastructure company that builds patented, white-label digital wallet ecosystems for telcos, banks and brands. Formerly known as Mozido, it pioneered the Trusted Services Manager (TSM) system for NFC tap-and-pay and says it has deployed wallet ecosystems across more than 35 countries. Today it positions its stack as a bridge from Web2 payments to Web3, adding digital-asset tokenization, real-time clearing and cross-border rails alongside its long-held mobile-wallet patent portfolio.
Metaversal
Metaversal is a Miami-based Web3-native merchant bank for the digital culture economy. Founded in 2021 by Yossi Hasson and Daniel Schmerin, it acquires and builds around blue-chip NFT intellectual property and now originates NFT-backed art loans and on-chain GPU financing tied to the AI compute buildout. Backed by a $50M Series A led by CoinFund and Foxhaven, the firm sits at the intersection of NFTs, lending, and AI infrastructure.
Ohanae
Ohanae is a New York-based fintech company building regulated market infrastructure for tokenized securities. Its Web3-powered platform combines asset tokenization, a US-dollar-pegged stablecoin (Ohanae Coin), self-sovereign identity, and an alternative trading system with automated market maker technology to handle the full lifecycle of digital asset securities - from issuance and Regulation A+ crowdfunding through custody, clearing, settlement, and secondary trading. Founded by Greg Hauw, the company operates FINRA-registered broker-dealer Ohanae Securities LLC and targets the multi-trillion-dollar OTC securities market.
OP Labs PBC
OP Labs PBC is the core software development company behind Optimism, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, and the OP Stack, the open-source framework that powers the Superchain - a network of blockchains including chains launched by Sony, Uniswap, Kraken and (until 2026) Coinbase's Base. Founded in 2019 out of the nonprofit Plasma Group, OP Labs raised $178.5M from Paradigm and a16z at a $1.65B valuation and structures itself as a Public Benefit Corporation committed to scaling Ethereum's technology and values, including funding open-source public goods.
Phyllo
Phyllo is a universal API that gives developers and businesses secure, creator-consented access to data across hundreds of social and creator platforms - YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, LinkedIn, Substack, Shopify and more. Often described as 'Plaid for the creator economy,' Phyllo maintains live data feeds and returns a normalized dataset covering identity, engagement, content and income, so companies building influencer marketing tools, creator-focused fintech, and brand-safety screening can integrate once instead of wrangling dozens of individual platform APIs.
Startale Group
Startale Group is a Singapore-headquartered Web3 infrastructure company building the onchain stack for finance, entertainment, and consumer applications. Led by founder and CEO Sota Watanabe - who also created Astar Network - Startale operates a vertically integrated portfolio spanning the Sony-backed Ethereum Layer 2 Soneium, the Astar Network, the Strium blockchain for tokenized securities and real-world assets, the JPYSC and USDSC stablecoins, and a consumer Startale App. Backed by Sony and SBI, the company aims to bring Web3 to billions by bridging traditional finance with onchain systems.
Greg Hauw
Greg Hauw is the founder, chairman and CEO of Ohanae, a New York based fintech building regulated infrastructure for tokenized securities. Through Ohanae Securities, an SEC/FINRA registered broker-dealer, he is working to bring blockchain settlement, digital custody and around-the-clock trading to the over-the-counter securities market. A veteran of venture-backed security and networking startups since the late 1990s, Hauw pivoted Ohanae into asset tokenization in 2018 and holds FINRA SIE, Series 82 and Series 24 licenses.
Hugo Finkelstein
Hugo Finkelstein is the co-founder and CEO of Rise, a global payroll and compliance company that lets businesses pay contractors and employees across 190+ countries in local currency, stablecoins, or crypto. What started at Babson College as a campus buy-and-sell app turned into a career in crypto community-building and, eventually, a payroll platform that has processed more than $1 billion in payments. Rise raised a $6.3M Series A in November 2024 led by Draper Associates and Polymorphic Capital, and Finkelstein has become one of the clearest voices arguing that the real stablecoin use case is not trading, it is payroll.
Jelena Djuric
Jelena Djuric is the co-founder and CEO of Noble, a blockchain built for issuing and moving stablecoins natively across the interchain. She started Noble in early 2023 with Stefan Coolican and John Letey after years working across the Cosmos, Dfinity and Celo ecosystems, and after helping found the Canadian Web3 Council. Noble powers native USDC on Cosmos and now connects roughly 50 blockchains, has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, and raised a $15 million Series A led by Paradigm in late 2024. Djuric's stated ambition is to make stablecoins as easy to send as a Venmo payment.
Jing Wang
Jing Wang (Jinglan Wang) is the co-founder and CEO of OP Labs, the company that builds and maintains Optimism, one of the largest Ethereum Layer 2 scaling ecosystems. She helped turn a small nonprofit research effort, Plasma Group, into the OP Stack, an open-source framework that now powers a majority of Ethereum's Layer 2 activity and is used by chains from Coinbase, Uniswap, World, Kraken, and Sony. Known for championing retroactive public goods funding and a collaborative, inclusive leadership style, Wang has guided Optimism through a $150M Series B and its evolution from a single chain into the vision of a networked 'Superchain.'
Maggie Wu
Maggie Wu is the CEO and co-founder of VelaFi, a stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure company that helps businesses move money across borders faster and cheaper than traditional banking rails. Born in China and now based in Frisco, Texas, she built her name in Latin America, where her earlier venture TruBit grew to more than 300,000 users. In January 2026 VelaFi raised a $20 million Series B led by XVC and Ikuyo, with backing from Alibaba Investment and BAI Capital, pushing total funding past $40 million as the company expands from Latin America into the United States and Asia.
CoinList
CoinList is a San Francisco-based crypto platform that gives investors early access to new token sales and blockchain networks before they list on exchanges. Spun out of AngelList in 2017, it pioneered compliant token distribution with KYC/AML and accredited-investor verification, and has run primary sales for projects including Filecoin, Solana, Near and Algorand. In 2025 the company began shifting to a fully non-custodial, onchain model that delivers tokens directly into user-controlled wallets.
DPS - Digital Postal Service
DPS (Digital Postal Service) is a Delaware-registered SaaS company that modernizes certified communications using AI, blockchain, and Web3. Its flagship platform, CaseMail, lets businesses send, track, and certify both email and postal mail with tamper-evident, court-admissible proof of content, mailing, and delivery. In 2021 the U.S. Postal Service certified CaseMail as the first producer of blockchain-generated ePostage labels, and the company has issued more than 3 million certificates used as evidence in U.S. courts.
Lava.ai
Lava.ai is a San Francisco software company that runs a Realtime AI customer-engagement platform for sports teams, live-event venues, retailers and large enterprises. Its engine ties together ticketing, point-of-sale, mobile wallets, apps, parking and live game feeds through 250+ integrations, then uses AI to deliver personalized offers, membership perks, stored-value rewards and clienteling 'in the moment.' Co-founded by TIBCO founder Vivek Ranadive and former TIBCO executive Wen Miao, Lava counts more than 50 franchises and brands - including the NBA, Real Madrid, the LA Rams and the Cleveland Browns - among its users.
Concept Labs
Concept Labs (formerly Concept Art House) is a San Francisco-based creative and Web3 studio that builds NFTs, digital collectibles, and games for the world's biggest brands and IP. Founded in 2007 by James Zhang, the company spent over a decade producing art for AAA game franchises before pivoting to Web3, and has shipped more than 1,000 games and collectibles for partners including UFC, the NFL, the International Olympic Committee, Gucci, and Frank Miller's Sin City. It raised a $25M Series A in 2021 led by Dapper Labs.
DELV
DELV, formerly Element Finance, was a research-driven DeFi company that called itself 'the factory for DeFi.' Founded in 2020 by Will Villanueva and Jonny Rhea, it built open-source infrastructure for fixed- and variable-rate yield - most notably the Element Protocol, the Hyperdrive AMM, and the Council on-chain governance framework. Backed by a16z, Placeholder, and Polychain Capital with about $36.4M raised, the team pursued the idea that reliable fixed rates were essential to mainstream DeFi adoption. After a March 2025 Hyperdrive vulnerability and a conclusion that the product had not found market fit, DELV wound down operations in June 2025 with no reported loss of user funds.
Futureswap
Futureswap is a decentralized, non-custodial protocol for leveraged perpetual trading, letting users take long or short positions on crypto assets with leverage while liquidity providers earn fees and token incentives. Built by a small San Francisco team led by founder Derek Alia, it launched on Ethereum in 2020, later moved to Arbitrum and Avalanche for lower-cost transactions, and pioneered an AMM-based design that plugs into pools like Uniswap and Trader Joe. Backed by roughly $13.5M from investors including Ribbit Capital, Framework Ventures, True Ventures and Placeholder, it was governed by the community via its FST token.
Huma Finance
Huma Finance is the first PayFi (Payment Financing) network, a blockchain protocol that lets businesses and payment providers borrow stablecoin liquidity against real-world receivables and invoices, settling cross-border payments and card transactions in seconds instead of days. Liquidity providers deposit USDC and earn double-digit yield sourced from the fees borrowers pay for that instant settlement. Founded in 2022 and built natively on Solana, Huma has processed more than $4.5 billion in transaction volume and launched its HUMA governance token in May 2025.
PraSaga Foundation
PraSaga Foundation is a non-profit blockchain organization building SagaChain, a layer-one blockchain that replaces smart contracts with programmable 'smart assets' - first-class objects that model real-world things directly on-chain. Founded in 2017 by Michael Holdmann and David Beberman, PraSaga pairs a natively sharded architecture with a hybrid Proof-of-Work/Proof-of-Stake consensus and a Python-based developer stack (SagaOS, SagaPython) to target the scalability, cost, and usability limits of first-generation chains. Its native SagaCoin uses a dynamic monetary policy aimed at stable purchasing power. A public development testnet went live in 2025.
Slingshot
Slingshot is a San Francisco-based crypto trading app that lets people buy, sell, and swap hundreds of thousands of tokens across multiple blockchains from a single USDC balance - hiding the usual friction of wallets, bridges, and gas fees behind a clean consumer interface. Founded in 2020 by Coinbase alum Clinton Bembry, it raised roughly $18M through a Ribbit Capital-led Series A and was acquired by NFT marketplace Magic Eden in April 2025.
Thesis*
Thesis* is a Bitcoin-focused venture production studio founded in 2014 that builds companies and protocols in-house rather than investing in outside teams. Operating under the banner "Money is power, Bitcoin is empowerment," it has incubated a portfolio spanning Bitcoin infrastructure and consumer finance - including tBTC (a decentralized, trust-minimized bridge that tokenizes Bitcoin on Ethereum), Mezo (an on-chain Bitcoin banking layer backed by the MUSD stablecoin), Fold (a Bitcoin rewards app), Acre (Bitcoin staking), and Taho (a community-owned web3 wallet). Led by CEO Matt Luongo, Thesis raised a $21 million Series A in 2021 and has become one of the most prolific studios building Bitcoin-native financial products.
Try Your Best (TYB)
Try Your Best (TYB) is a community rewards platform that lets consumer brands turn their most obsessed fans into a measurable, on-chain loyalty layer. Founded by Outdoor Voices creator Ty Haney in 2021, TYB rewards shoppers for participation - reviews, referrals, user-generated content, challenges and purchases - with collectibles, brand coins and access to exclusive drops. Around 200 brands including Glossier, Rare Beauty, Poppi, Urban Outfitters and Saie use TYB to reach roughly two million users, mostly Gen Z women, with the company reporting higher purchase frequency and lifetime value for participating customers.
Upland
Upland (Uplandme, Inc.) is a blockchain-based metaverse game that maps virtual properties onto real-world addresses, letting players buy, sell, develop and trade digital real estate as NFTs. Founded in 2018 and launched in 2019 on the EOS blockchain, it blends Monopoly-style property trading with city building, a player-driven economy, and its own tokens (UPX and the ERC-20 Sparklet). Backed by $27M in funding led by Animoca Brands, the Mountain View company has grown to 3M+ registered wallets and partnerships with brands such as FIFA and the NFL Players Association.
Matt Smolin
Matt Smolin is co-founder and CEO of Hang, a New York-based customer engagement and loyalty platform now positioning itself as an AI marketing system for restaurants, beauty and apparel brands. Hang originally launched in 2021 as an NFT-powered membership platform and raised a $16M Series A led by Paradigm in 2022, with backing from Tiger Global, Kevin Durant's Thirty Five Ventures and MrBeast's Night Ventures. Under Smolin, the company has moved past its web3 branding into AI-driven segmentation, campaign automation and loyalty for brands like Just Salad, Jeni's, Boba Guys and Taziki's.