$40 Million Funding, Vitalik Buterin Joins as Investor, Etherealize Aims to Become the "Ambassador" of Ethereum

Original Article Title: "Raised $40 Million, Vitalik Buterin Participates, Etherealize Aims to Be the 'Face' of Ethereum"

Original Article Author: Eric, Foresight News

Fortune magazine reported on the evening of September 3rd, 东八区, that Etherealize has completed a $40 million funding round, with Electric Capital and Paradigm leading the round, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation participating. Electric Capital and Paradigm are known for their generous investments in the Web3 space, especially within the Ethereum ecosystem, and both are key supporters of Ethereum-based decentralized autonomous trusts (DATs). However, it is rare to see both Vitalik and the Ethereum Foundation involved in a project together.

Etherealize is concise in its self-introduction, describing itself as an "institutional-grade product, BD, and marketing department for the Ethereum ecosystem" in its executive summary, with a vision on its website focusing on "reimagining Wall Street" and "bringing the world into Ethereum through research, content, and product offerings." On the product side, Etherealize targets institutional-grade infrastructure, offering services for tokenized asset issuance, management, settlement, and corresponding automated compliance infrastructure, with plans to introduce privacy features through zero-knowledge proofs.

According to Etherealize, it boasts an engineering team with deep Ethereum expertise, a leadership team with decades of experience in financial institutions, and channels to engage with the SEC, Treasury Department, and Congress to help shape regulations. Western investment firms are known to bet big on large B2B businesses, but such a substantial investment in a startup like this is clearly a bold move, and the author has discovered some clues from the team composition.

The most prominent figure in the Etherealize team is none other than the co-founder Danny Ryan, who made significant contributions to The Merge and the Ethereum Beacon Chain rollout but left the Ethereum Foundation team in September of last year. In his farewell letter on Github, Danny Ryan stated that his departure was for personal reasons, perhaps realizing at that moment that merely nitpicking on the technical side would not propel Ethereum further. He believed that the right approach was to assist with taking Ethereum to the world through a team whose technical capabilities could drive the project forward.

On the technology front, Etherealize's co-founder and CTO Zash Obront was a co-founder of Scribe Media, a book publishing service, and joined Snowcap Technology as a security researcher in August 2021. Snowcap Technology specializes in security services such as AI, VPN, WIFI, and enterprise systems.

Two other founding engineers responsible for the technical side also have impressive backgrounds. Alec Charbonneau previously served as a product manager at the "first stablecoin stock" Circle, which had a successful IPO, and later worked as a software engineer at Stellar, which, like Ripple, focuses on settlement. Another engineer, Alex Wilton, has worked as a product manager at Tesla and at another electric vehicle company, Rivian, which raised over $10 billion in funding in 2021.

Product CEO Jay Katz's resume is closely tied to strategy, having held positions at companies in industries such as finance, software, smart hardware, law firms, and consulting firms. His LinkedIn profile indicates his actual title as CEO of a lending market solution. Working alongside him is credit operations executive Jennifer Laino, who has extensive experience in the financial industry, having served as an assistant vice president at Lehman Brothers, a vice president at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and an advisor at Blackstone Group.

Co-founder and CEO Vivek Raman, who also has many years of experience in the financial lending sector, has held senior credit roles at Morgan Stanley, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura. In September 2021, he joined Celsius and served as a senior DeFi researcher during the 2022 bear market. Later, Vivek Raman joined BitOoda, a digital asset investment bank that completed a Series A funding round in early 2023, as the General Manager. At BitOoda, he focuses on bringing institutions into the Ethereum and Layer 2 ecosystem.

Etherealize's plan to "bring Wall Street to Ethereum" clearly targeted the credit sector early on. The author speculates that their implementation path will involve launching an on-chain settlement lending system that may combine stablecoins, among other elements. Of course, such products are different from DeFi and may only provide solutions for financial institutions.

In terms of marketing and operations, Etherealize has chosen individuals with more experience in the Web3 field. Marketing Director Valeria Salazar previously served as the Head of Marketing Strategy and Developer & Ecosystem Relations at Phi Labs, while Business Operations Manager Morgan Takach, who served as the Head of Strategy and Operations at Polyhedra, was also selected.

Etherealize's description of its team's rich experience in both Web3 and finance is not unfounded and aligns well with the current trend of institutions exploring asset tokenization. The story of Ethereum reshaping finance has been told since the beginning of DeFi Summer, and even as traditional institutions are increasingly venturing into on-chain asset issuance, we still cannot be sure of the true market size of this business. However, bridging Ethereum and Wall Street is an exploration-worthy direction for Ethereum itself.

In addition to the specific business, Etherealize has also clearly expressed on its website the intention to act as an “Ethereum Ambassador” to promote the world's adoption of Ethereum and the L2 ecosystem. Overall, Etherealize aims to hand over the "go-to-market" part that the Ethereum Foundation didn't do well to a commercial company, and the specific effects are worth looking forward to.