Early Backers¶
Reserve received early support from several angel investors and crypto-oriented funds. We are extremely grateful to these early backers for taking the leap of faith and supporting this project when it was merely an idea.
COINBASECoinbase is a digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco and originally incubated by YCombinator. Coinbase Ventures is an early stage venture fund, focused on investing in blockchain related companies.
DIGITAL CURRENCY GROUPBased in New York, DCG is one of the most prolific blockchain groups in the world. Subsidiaries include Genesis: a trading firm, Grayscale: an authority on blockchain investing, and CoinDesk: a major blockchain news outlet.
GSRGSR is a liquidity provider for complex digital assets. It was one of the first market-makers on Ripple’s Consensus Ledger and is integrated with several top digital asset exchanges.
CRYPTO LOTUSCrypto Lotus is a cryptocurrency hedge fund based in the San Francisco Bay Area, founded by fellow members of the Effective Altruism movement who originally educated Nevin about bitcoin back in 2011.
REFACTOR CAPITALRefactor is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in founders solving fundamental human problems. They have invested in dozens of biotechnology and public health startups.
DISTRIBUTED GLOBALDistributed Global is an early fund in many respects. They were one of the first groups to enter crypto investing, one of the first funds to develop a stablecoin thesis, and they wrote the first check to Reserve.
PREANGELPreAngel is an investment fund focused on early-stage internet startups, which has invested more than 300 million yuan in over 300 technology companies in the US and China.
BLOCKTOWERBlocktower is a leading cryptoasset investment firm, which has raised over $140 million from lead investors Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures.
NEO GLOBAL CAPITALNGC is the strategic investment vehicle of the NEO foundation. It invests in inspiring projects related to blockchain and is a large institutional owner of cryptocurrencies.
ROCKET FUELRocket Fuel is a group of strategic, value-added investors, including experts in business strategy, product, marketing, blockchain implementation, recruiting, and more.
VELORUM CAPITALVelorum Capital is an LA-based Venture Capital firm that invests in companies advancing technology in Manufacturing, Space Systems, Energy, Biotech, Communications, Materials, and Robotics.
ARRINGTON XRP CAPITALBased in Seattle, Arrington XRP Capital was founded by Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch; serial entrepreneur, Geoffrey Arone; and Heather Harde, founding TechCrunch CEO.
DDCDivergence Digital Currency fund is a multi-strategy crypto fund based in Los Angeles and San Francisco, founded by Adam Struck and Yida Gao of Struck Capital.
FENBUSHIFenbushi was the first China-based venture capital firm that exclusively invests in Blockchain-enabled companies. General partner Bo Shen co-founded Invictus Innovations, the team behind BitShares.
SAM ALTMANSam is the president of YCombinator, co-founder and co-chairman at OpenAI, and a prominent angel investor. He has invested in Airbnb, Stripe, Reddit, Asana, Pinterest, Zenefits, Instacart, Optimizely, Change.org, among others.
PETER THIELPeter is a co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund. He founded and funds the Thiel Foundation, which aims to further breakthrough technologies and improve humanity’s long-term future.
JACK SELBYJack was a member of the founding team at PayPal, responsible for taking their operations international. He is Managing Director at Thiel Capital and Managing Partner at High Frequency Entertainment.
MATT BRIMERMatt is a co-founder of General Assembly, which provides courses in mobile and web development, data science, and product management, and was acquired for $413 million in 2018.
JAMES GLASSCOCKJames is the founder of Elephas Ventures. He is former SVP of Business Development at Machinima and Warner Bros and a cryptocurrency investor since 2013.
ERIC M. JACKSONEric was VP of marketing at PayPal and is the author of The Paypal Wars. He is a co-founder of TransitNet, co-founder and CEO of CapLinked, and was founder and CEO of WorldNetDaily Books.
LUCY WANGLucy is an active investor in the machine learning, big data, and AI ecosystems. She’s also an expert data scientist, having developed economic models and trade signals at Bridgewater.
JEFF MORRISJeff is Director of Product and Revenue at Tinder. He has invested in companies including Lyft, Compound Finance, Blockfolio, Ocean Protocol, and CryptoKitties.
GEORGE SAMMANGeorge co-founded an early bitcoin trading platform. He writes blog posts as long and detailed as ours on blockchain and distributed consensus topics.
MAX RISMANMax is Portfolio Manager at Claragh Mountain Investments, which invests in liquid exchange-traded products. He has over 20 years of experience in credit, equities, and commodities.
CHRIS BLAIRChris founded the Morgan Stanley Technology Fund in 1996 and Blair Asset Management in 1998. He was a founding Director of Healthy Kids International.
MAJA VUJINOVICBefore starting OGroup, Maja was previously Chief Innovation Officer of Emerging Tech & Future of Work at General Electric.
SPENCER GREENBERGSpencer is the founder of Spark Wave and ClearerThinking.org. He is a mathematician, an entrepreneur, and previously founded an algorithmic hedge fund.
RAPHAEL OUZANRaphael is is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Thrive Capital. He is an Israeli entrepreneur and seed investor, specializing in fintech, cybersecurity, and crypto.
DEMETRI KOFINASDemetri is the creator and host of the weekly podcast Hidden Forces. He previously was creator and executive producer of the international news program Capital Account.
CRAIG CLEMENSCraig Clemens is a copywriter, brand strategist, and co-founder of Golden Hippo Media, which has been one of the fastest growing private companies in the USA, scaling to 800 team members across 6 offices with no outside capital.
JOSH HANNAHJosh Hannah is the previous co-founder of wikiHow and eHow, and the previous CEO and co-founder of Flutter.com, which merged with Betfair in 2002.
SUMEET SINGHSumeet is an associate at Nyca Partners, a venture capital and advisory firm exclusively focused on applying innovation in financial services into the global financial system.
GORDY BALGordy spent over a decade building advertising technologies that have transacted over a trillion clicks online. After launching multiple successful digital marketing companies, Gordy turned his focus on to Conscious Capital.
DAVID SICADavid is a principal at Nyca Partners, and previously was a director at VISA.