The promise of a decentralized internet future requires a new, decentralized tech stack.We take a broad definition of infrastructure – whether you are building a token-based network or a web3 SaaS product, we want to back founders who are building foundational technology across security, information storage, and identity management. This includes enabling technology to address widely unsolved problems such as scalability and privacy, as well as solutions for specific use cases such as tooling for game developers and user-owned profiles for decentralized applications.
Crypto.
Backing founders building the next generation of the internet.
Investing in Crypto
We believe crypto will shape the next generation of internet contribution, collaboration, and ownership. We're a small team of former entrepreneurs and operators that invest selectively, bring a long term mindset and decades of experience building enduring marketplace and network-effect businesses, and commit to deeply supporting founders along every step of their journey.
We are currently focused on the following areas:
The Backbone.
The Open Financial System.
The crypto financial system has grown to process hundreds of billions of dollars across decentralized finance protocols and networks. DeFi unlocks a marketplace of innovation around money, built on a foundation that eliminates gatekeepers and verifies and enforces transactions with code. Following the progress on primitives like liquidity and lending, we see opportunities for more granular identity and risk models, expansion of on-chain assets and payments, and additional financial products. As DeFi products get more sophisticated and complex, we will also need consumer-friendly mobile interfaces that streamline access to a suite of products, and the developer tooling that enables it.
The User-Owned Internet.
We have only scratched the surface when it comes to the potential of NFTs. We believe the next wave of gaming, entertainment, and social applications that implement web3 design principles (including incentive alignment and data ownership), will play a large role in onboarding the next cycle of adopters. Additionally, upleveling the utility of NFTs (identity management, token-gated membership, contracts/agreements, on-chain physical assets) will take web3 further mainstream.
The Emerging Crypto-Economy
As participation on the internet has increased, it is now easier than ever to find niche content or communities but along the way, there has been one missing ingredient that crypto can solve: financial alignment. DAOs are financially aligned internet-native collectives of friends, talent, labor with incredible potential – one day, we could see DAOs accomplish feats that only corporations or governments were able to coordinate at scale. DAOs are just one early emerging area, as we believe the money-native aspect of crypto will unlock incredible design opportunities for new community, network, marketplace, and even nation-state models.
Companies.
Building trusted web3 exchange infrastructure
0x Labs is a global technology company at the forefront of blockchain adoption and the architect of trusted web3 exchange infrastructure 0x. With a mission to “build a tokenized world where all value can flow freely,” they help businesses eliminate the complexity of accessing decentralized markets across all layers of the Web3 exchange stack.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto
First Partnered:
Series B
2022
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Mike Duboe, Sarah Guo, Seth Rosenberg
HQ:
San Francisco, CA
Leadership:
Amir Bandeali, Co‑Founder and Co‑CEO
Will Warren, Co‑Founder and Co‑CEO
Building a Better Blockchain.
Founded by Bram Cohen, the inventor of the BitTorrent network, Chia Network is building a better blockchain and smart transaction platform which is more decentralized, more efficient, and more secure. Chialisp is Chia’s new smart transaction programming language that is powerful, easy to audit, and secure. The blockchain is powered by the first new Nakamoto style consensus algorithm since Bitcoin launched in 2008. Proofs of Space and Time replace energy intensive “proofs of work” by utilizing unused disk space. Chia Network supports the development and deployment of the Chia blockchain globally. Chia Network supports chia developers and supports the enterprise use of chia with software support and chia lending.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto
First Partnered:
Series A
2017
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Seth Rosenberg
Leadership:
Bram Cohen, Founder & CEO
NASDAQ: COIN
Creating an open financial system for the world.
Coinbase is the easiest place to buy, sell, and manage your cryptocurrency portfolio. Our mission is to create an open financial system for the world.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto, Fintech
First Partnered:
Series D
2017
Current Status:
Public
Investors:
Josh McFarland
HQ:
San Francisco, CA | USA
Leadership:
Brian Armstrong, CEO & Co‑Founder
A scaling and privacy solution for Web3.
A low-cost, decentralized, EVM-compatible infrastructure for Web3 applications that supports configurable privacy.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto
First Partnered:
Series A
2021
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Seth Rosenberg
HQ:
San Francisco, CA | USA
Leadership:
Ben Fisch, CEO
Charles Lu, COO
Jill Gunter, Chief Strategy Officer
Benedikt Buenz, Chief Scientist
Decentralized naming and certificate authority.
Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol where every peer is validating and in charge of managing the root DNS naming zone with the goal of creating an alternative to existing Certificate Authorities and naming systems. Names on the internet (top level domains, social networking handles, etc.) ultimately rely upon centralized actors with full control over a system which are relied upon to be honest, as they are vulnerable to hacking, censorship, and corruption. Handshake aims to experiment with new ways the internet can be more secure, resilient, and socially useful with a peer-to-peer system validated by the network’s participants.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Social Networks
First Partnered:
Series A
2018
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Mike Duboe, Christine Kim
Home to the next generation of digital creators.
Magic Eden is the #1 NFT marketplace on Solana. Our mission is to be the destination for discovering, trading, and creating NFTs. In its first two months since launch, Magic Eden has done ~$200M in trading volume to become the dominant NFT platform on Solana.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto, Marketplaces
First Partnered:
Series A
2022
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Mike Duboe, Christine Kim
HQ:
Mountain View, CA | USA
Leadership:
Zhouxun Yin, Co‑Founder
Jack Lu, Co‑Founder
Fast, reliable web3 indexing.
Real-time, flexible blockchain data APIs. No rate limits. Low latency. Multi-chain.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto
First Partnered:
Series A
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Reid Hoffman, Asheem Chandna
HQ:
Mountain View, CA
Leadership:
Sridhar Ramaswamy, Founder & CEO
Baris Gultekin, Founder & CPO
Todd Wang, Founder & CTO
Nathan Wiegand, Founder & VP
NFT fraud detection
Optic is a content recognition engine for web3. We build AI infrastructure to detect NFT counterfeit across blockchains. We’re on a mission to bring transparency to NFT market, protect communities from fraud and inspire authentic collaboration. Our AI engine is used by major NFT marketplaces, starting with OpenSea to detect and remove NFT copymints and other harmful content in their catalogs.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
AI/ML, Infrastructure
First Partnered:
Seed
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
David Thacker
HQ:
San Francisco
Leadership:
Andrey “Dobry” Doronichev, CEO
Your Home for NFT Media.
Pinata’s mission is to help creators provide an experience worth paying for.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Marketplaces
First Partnered:
Seed
2021
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Mike Duboe, Christine Kim
Leadership:
Kyle Tut, CEO
Matt Ober, CTO
A browser-based metaverse built for everyone.
A web-based metaverse built on the Solana blockchain. With a focus on a dense city center and zero-friction UX, Portals is an immersive social space where you can explore, build, and gather with others. With easy build tools and built-in communication features, players can customize immersive virtual spaces and experiences—such as residences, offices, or storefronts—in a downtown metropolitan area. Players gather, collect, build, explore, participate in economic activities, form communities, play user-built games in the arcade, and work towards building the best city in the metaverse.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto
First Partnered:
Seed
2022
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Mike Duboe, Christine Kim
HQ:
Metaverse
Leadership:
Adam Gomez, CEO
Jacquie Chang, CPO
Chris Lund, CMO
A learning platform for users to become contributors in web3.
In a space of immense speculation and infinite noise, RabbitHole is paving the way for web3 users to become contributors in DAOs. RabbitHole equips users with on-chain credentials that represent their proven learnings based on their immutable wallet transaction history. DAOs use these on-chain credentials from RabbitHole to filter for contributor talent that wants to participate in DAOs rather than speculate on tokens.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto
First Partnered:
Series A
2021
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Mike Duboe, Christine Kim
HQ:
New York, NY
Leadership:
Brian Flynn, CEO
The #1 NFT horse racing game built on @0xPolygon!
The mission of ZED is to create an ecosystem where collectible digital assets hold value and have use in an exciting and ever evolving gaming and wagering environment. At ZED, we truly want to give meaning to digital asset ownership that everyone can understand. We are hellbent on creating an emotional connection with your digital asset, something you can nurture and create a legacy with. ZED is just the beginning.
Market:
Crypto
Sector:
Crypto
First Partnered:
Seed
2021
Current Status:
Active
Investors:
Mike Duboe
Leadership:
Chris Laurent, CEO
Featured Episodes
Known as the “AWS of Web3”, Alchemy’s platform powers most of the top web3 applications around the world. The idea came to founders Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau following their own frustration when building a crypto analytics tool. Seeing that developers around the world needed a toolkit to enable the next wave of innovation, they set out to build Alchemy. Launched in 2020, the company’s platform quickly became an indispensable tool for developers creating projects with blockchain technology, including the top NFT platforms such as Open Sea and Makerspace. Greylock investor Christine Kim spoke with Viswanathan for Greymatter’s new crypto-focused series Mint Condition. You can read a transcript of the conversation here: Bringing Web3 to the World
Greylock investor Christine Kim discusses the current Web3 landscape. Kim, who focuses on a range of consumer technology and marketplaces, sees a future where blockchain technology is the underlying infrastructure (and driving force of innovation) across nearly every industry. Kim is also the co-creator and co-host of the Web3-specific podcast Fungible Times with fellow Greylock investors Sarah Guo and Mike Duboe.
You can read a transcript of this episode here: The New Computing Paradigm
Greylock general partner Mike Duboe speaks with Zhuoxun Yin (Zedd) and Jack Lu, two of the co-founders of NFT marketplace Magic Eden. The company, which just raised its Series B round, provides a platform for people to discover, collect, and trade NFTs on the Solana ecosystem.
You can read a transcript of this episode here: Magic Eden | The Community-Centric Marketplace
Greylock investor Seth Rosenberg talks with Espresso Systems COO Charles Lu and Chief Scientist Benedikt Bunz. Espresso, which just came out of stealth, is opening a new world of possibilities when it comes to scalability, decentralization, and configurable privacy for Web3. Greylock co-led the Series A with Electric Capital.
You can read Seth’s blog post about the investment and the transcript from this podcast here: Privacy and Scalability for Web3
Audio version of Greylock investor Seth Rosenberg’s essay “Bringing DeFi Lending Mainstream.”
Crypto hype and speculation got us into the current chaotic winter. But the core infrastructure remains, and is still ripe for the innovation that will take us into the next crypto summer. There are many real use cases across financial services that can not only usher us into a more secure, inclusive, and efficient financial system, but also return trust and ownership to those for whom crypto was created in the first place – the users. Rosenberg unpacks the use case of defi lending to illustrate how this can be done.
You can read the essay here: Bringing DeFi Lending Mainstream
While the short-lived hype of NFTs centered on static jpeg files, there are actually far more use cases that can be deployed for the technology. Omaha-based Pinata has developed a platform that enables web3 app builders to store, manage, and build more functionality into NFTs. Pinata CEO and co-founder Kyle Tut sat down with Greylock general partner Mike Duboe to discuss the company’s inception, the current web3 ecosystem, and Pinata’s ultimate goal of serving content at scale for NFT projects.
You can read the transcript from this interview here: Getting Creative at Scale
Perspectives.
Market
Crypto Jobs.
Our talent team is always looking to connect with engineers, product managers, and designers who considering an early stage start-up as a next move in their career. Learn more about open roles at Greylock-backed crypto companies.