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.
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.
PDF Solutions is a Santa Clara semiconductor analytics company that turns the firehose of chip-manufacturing and test data into decisions. Its Exensio platform connects fabs, foundries, OSATs and fabless designers, normalizing data across silos so customers can ramp yield faster, catch defects earlier and run AI/ML models on the factory floor. Founded in 1991 and public since 2001 (Nasdaq: PDFS), it serves 130+ semiconductor companies including TSMC, Intel, Qualcomm, Analog Devices and DENSO.
Ondo Finance is a U.S.-based blockchain company that brings traditional financial assets - U.S. Treasuries, money-market funds, stocks and ETFs - on-chain as tradable, yield-bearing tokens. Through products like OUSG (tokenized short-term Treasuries), USDY (a yield-bearing dollar token) and Ondo Global Markets (tokenized U.S. equities), it aims to make institutional-grade financial products accessible to anyone, anywhere, around the clock. The company is also building Ondo Chain, a blockchain purpose-built for regulated real-world assets.