A Web3 startup in San Francisco has raised over $20 million in total funding, including a recent Series B round, to develop a crypto wallet despite a continued downturn for the industry.
Zerion was founded in 2016 by CEO Evgeny Yurtaev, COO Vadim Koleoshkin and CTO Alexey Bashlykov, and they have raised more than $20 million in total funding, according to PitchBook.
That includes a $12 million Series B round led by Wintermute Ventures, the company announced Wednesday.
"Raising was definitely harder than in the beginning of the year," Yurtaev told me via email. "However, deals are still happening, and smart investors are doubling down. … Zerion stood out because we have successfully navigated a few market cycles before and during the consolidation phase our market share is actually growing."
The company says it is building a noncustodial "smart Web3 wallet and investing tool" that allows anyone to manage decentralized finance investments and nonfungible token assets. Noncustodial wallets give users more control over managing their accounts and keys, making them more decentralized but also potentially more complicated, and riskier, to manage, according to crypto news website CoinDesk.
Zerion has processed $1.2 billion in transaction volume and has 220,000 monthly active users, according to its website. That's up from $600 million and 200,000 users about 15 months ago, when TechCrunch reported on Zerion's Series A round.
“There are a bunch of different tokens and protocols in the DeFi space… In theory, it’s supposed to be easy to navigate, but in reality, it’s all a mess … We try to demystify them,” Yurtaev told TechCrunch last year.
While the startup is principally registered in San Francisco, the company describes itself as a "fully remote" business, according to its website, and touts a team of more than 40 people spread across 15 countries including the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Italy, France, Israel, Vietnam, Argentina and Uzbekistan.
Cryptocurrencies reached a $922 billion market cap globally on Wednesday, according to Coinmarketcap.com, down from its peak of more than $3 billion at the end of 2021.
One of the most well-known Web3 and crypto-fueled businesses — Miami-based Yuga Labs — is under investigation by the SEC, which is evaluating whether NFTs created and sold by the company should be regulated like stocks. The SEC is also looking into how the associated ApeCoin token was distributed, according to Bloomberg. Yuga Labs created the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club collection of NFTs.
