Etherealize, an Ethereum-focused infrastructure startup, has raised $40 million in a funding round led by Electric Capital and Paradigm, with participation from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation. The investment marks a rare move by Buterin and the Foundation to directly support a commercial venture.
The company positions itself as an institutional-grade product, business development, and marketing arm for the Ethereum ecosystem, with a mission to ‘reshape Wall Street’ and onboard traditional finance into Ethereum through research, content, and product offerings. Its core infrastructure focuses on tokenized asset issuance, management, settlement, and automated compliance, with plans to integrate zero-knowledge proofs for enhanced privacy.
Etherealize emphasizes its team’s deep expertise in both Ethereum technology and traditional finance. Key personnel include Danny Ryan, a former Ethereum Foundation core contributor who played a significant role in The Merge and the Beacon Chain launch. The technical team is led by Zash Obront, former co-founder of Scribe Media and a security researcher, alongside engineers with experience at Circle, Stellar, Tesla, and Rivian.
The leadership team includes CEO Vivek Raman, a former credit executive at major financial institutions including Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, who later worked at Celsius and BitOoda. Product CEO Jay Katz and credit operations lead Jennifer Laino bring decades of experience in financial services, including roles at Lehman Brothers, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Blackstone.
Etherealize aims to bridge Ethereum and traditional finance by developing institutional-grade solutions, particularly in the credit and lending sectors, potentially leveraging stablecoins for on-chain settlement systems. Unlike decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, these products are designed as tailored solutions for financial institutions.
The company also plans to act as an advocate for Ethereum and its Layer 2 ecosystems, effectively taking over market-oriented activities that the Ethereum Foundation has historically underprioritized. With institutional interest in tokenization growing, Etherealize seeks to capitalize on this trend while advancing Ethereum’s broader adoption in traditional finance.
