Crypto-finance company Unchained Capital has closed a $2.995m seed financing round.
A number of strategic investors participated in the round, including Michael Komaransky, formerly of Cumberland Mining; Brian Spaly, a angel investor and co-founder of Bonobos and Trunk Club; Mike W. Erwin and Whurley of Ecliptic Capital; and Ezra Galston of Starting Line, an early venture investor in the crypto sector.
In addition to making investments in the seed round, Komaransky, Erwin and Galston will all join Unchained Capital’s board.
The company, which lends cash to long-term crypto-investors, said the capital will go towards expanding its team and innovating its proprietary financial services and wealth management offerings.
Unchained has expanded its lending capabilities by announcing Ethereum-collateralised (ETH) loans in addition to its previous ability to lend against Bitcoin (BTC). This means that individuals and businesses who want both to hold crypto-coins and to access immediate fiat funds have greater choice.
“Accepting ETH as collateral has been high on our priority list since the beginning – lots of customers have asked for it,” said Joe Kelly, CEO, Unchained Capital. “When it comes to accepting new forms of collateral, our first thoughts go toward security. Unlike other crypto-lenders out there who utilise exchanges, third parties or single-signature addresses for collateral storage, we wanted to make sure we offered the most secure storage solution possible before releasing our ETH loan product.”
Using an open-source smart contract for the cold storage of collateral funds, Unchained Capital’s vault requires multiple signatures and hardware wallets for security.
“Crypto assets are now a nearly $500bn asset class, but are functionally invisible to the existing financial system,” said Ezra Galston, founder of Starting Line. “Holdings won’t enable consumers to obtain a mortgage, gain credit or serve as collateral. Unchained is bridging that gap.”
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