Fortune magazine reported on the evening of September 3rd, Beijing time, that Etherealize has completed a $40 million funding round led by Electric Capital and Paradigm, with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation. Electric Capital and Paradigm are never stingy about splurging in the Web3 space, especially within the Ethereum ecosystem, and both are major supporters of public companies backing Ethereum's DAT. However, it is exceptionally rare for both V神 (Vitalik) and the Ethereum Foundation to participate directly.
Etherealize is sparing in its self-description. On its X (Twitter) bio, it calls itself the "Institutional product, BD, and marketing arm for the Ethereum ecosystem," and its website only states the vision of "Reshaping Wall Street" and "Bringing the world to Ethereum by providing research, content, and products." Product-wise, Etherealize is targeting institutional-grade infrastructure, offering services for the issuance, management, and settlement of tokenized assets, along with corresponding automated compliance infrastructure, and plans to introduce privacy features through zero-knowledge proofs.
According to Etherealize's own account, it possesses an engineering team deeply knowledgeable about Ethereum, leadership with decades of experience in financial institutions, and channels for dialogue with the SEC, Treasury, and Congress to help shape regulations. Western investment institutions have always been generous in betting on large B2B ventures, but such a substantial investment in a startup like this is clearly a bet on the team. The author also found some clues within the team composition.
The most prominent figure in the Etherealize team is undoubtedly co-founder Danny Ryan, who made significant contributions to The Merge and the launch of the Ethereum Beacon Chain but left the Ethereum Foundation team in September last year. In his farewell letter on Github, Danny Ryan stated that his departure was for personal reasons. Perhaps at that moment, he also realized that merely nitpicking on technical details couldn't advance Ethereum further, and the right path was to use his technical capabilities to assist a team that could bring Ethereum to the world.
On the technical side, Etherealize's co-founder and CTO, Zash Obront, was previously a co-founder of Scribe Media, which provided book publishing services. He joined Snowcap Technology as a security researcher in August 2021; the company focuses on security, offering services in AI, VPN, WiFi, and enterprise system security.
The other two founding engineers responsible for technology also have impressive backgrounds. One, Alec Charbonneau, previously worked as a product manager at Circle, the "first publicly listed stablecoin company," and later as a software engineer at Stellar, which, like Ripple, focuses on settlements. The other engineer, Alex Wilton, previously held product manager roles at Tesla and at Rivian, another electric vehicle company that raised over $10 billion in 2021.
Product CEO Jay Katz's resume is closely related to strategy, having worked in companies across finance, software, smart hardware, law firms, and consulting. His LinkedIn information shows his actual position was CEO of a lending market solutions company. Working with him is credit operations lead Jennifer Laino, who has extensive experience in the financial industry, having served as Assistant Vice President at Lehman Brothers, Vice President at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Advisor at Blackstone.
Co-founder and CEO Vivek Raman also has years of experience in financial lending, having held executive roles in credit businesses at Morgan Stanley, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura. In September 2021, he joined Celsius, which collapsed during the 2022 bear market, as a Senior DeFi Researcher. Afterwards, Vivek Raman joined digital asset investment bank BitOoda, which completed its Series A funding in early 2023, as Managing Director. At BitOoda, he focused on introducing institutions to the Ethereum and L2 ecosystem.
Clearly, Etherealize's plan to "bring Wall Street to Ethereum" initially targets the credit sector. The author speculates that its implementation path might involve launching a lending system settled on-chain, potentially incorporating stablecoins. Of course, such products differ from DeFi and might only provide solutions for financial institutions.
For marketing and operations, Etherealize has chosen individuals with more experience in the Web3 space. Marketing lead Valeria Salazar previously served as Head of Marketing Strategy and Head of Developer & Ecosystem Relations at Phi Labs. The business operations manager is Morgan Takach, who was previously Head of Strategy & Operations at Polyhedra.
Etherealize's claim that its team has rich experience in both Web3 and finance is not without basis, and it coincidentally catches the trend of institutions experimenting with asset tokenization. Reshaping finance with Ethereum is a story that has been told repeatedly since the beginning of DeFi Summer. Even now, as traditional institutions are testing the waters with on-chain assets, we still cannot determine the exact market size of this business. However, building a bridge between Ethereum and Wall Street is itself a direction worth exploring for Ethereum.
Beyond specific business operations, Etherealize has also explicitly stated on its website its desire to act as Ethereum's "spokesperson" to promote global adoption of Ethereum and the L2 ecosystem. Overall, Etherealize is taking over the "go-to-market" aspects that the Ethereum Foundation did poorly, handing them to a commercial company. The specific outcomes are worth anticipating.
