Segment: DeFi / Business Model: B2B / Stage: Seed
Purpose: Enabling autopay with crypto
Problem: As more web3 businesses hold crypto on thier balance sheets, they want to be able to use this as funds to pay for services and products. In order to do that today these companies need to manually pay every time
Solution: Payment rails for crypto that allow autopay, removing the need to manually approve every transaction (think Stripe for crypto)
Team:
Traction:
- Funding: Raised $4m seed round in Mar 22 from a16z, Archetype, A.Capital Ventures, CoinList and angels Lauren Stephanian, Paul Veradittakt, Imran Khan and Alex Svanevik
- Progress: Testing with alpha customers right now with an intended full launch in June. Current focus is on the ethereum blockchain
Positive Signals:
- Investors: a16z is a great stamp of approval and strong angel investors
- Team: Eleni and Shane were at bloXroute labs, a DeFi trading tools and mempool platform, so bring a high level of knowledge and a strong skillset
- Comparable: The concept isn’t groundbreadk, but we have seen this become such a norm in TradFi and Web2, but not fully solved for in Web3 - the problem is real and likely to be a great business to make out of it
Risks:
- Competition: There are a few players here, MeanFi, Diagonal and Superfluid - it’ll be interesting to see how they carve out the market and who comes out on top. Is it a one-player-wins-all?, probably not, but likely have one or two big players