coindesk.com
Cashmere, a company which offers enterprise wallet management for Solana blockchain users, closed a $3 million seed round on Monday. The round valued the company at $30 million.
Investors in the seed round included crypto venture capital firms Coinbase Ventures and FBG Capital, as well as startup incubator YCombinator.
Cashmere aids companies in the secure storage of their crypto assets, protecting the assets even if “hot” wallets like the Solana-based Phantom or Slope get compromised, according to a statement.
Cashmere allows firms to leverage multi-signature signing to jointly control their company wallets. In a multisig signing scheme, several wallets need to approve a transaction before the funds can be moved out of Cashmere. This removes a single point of failure, resulting in a safer self-custody option, says the company.
The project’s new fundraise comes as wallet security on Solana has become a major concern. Just last week, a hacker accessed over eight thousand Solana wallets, draining over $5 million in funds.
Read More: Solana Wallets Targeted in Latest Multimillion-Dollar Hack
“We built Cashmere to offer Solana users institutional grade security without having to rely on cold storage solutions,” said Cashmere co-founder Shashank Khanna. Cold storage, while safer than hot storage, can be impractical for businesses or institutional treasuries, which are typically managed by a team.
“Soon after our launch six months ago, we saw big name startups like NFT marketplace OpenSea organically sign up for our product," added Khanna. He says Cashmere’s clients also include crypto hedge funds, NFT projects and gaming companies.
In November 2021, Cashmere raised a $650,000 pre-seed round led by Wonder Ventures and Notation Capital.
Other participants in the current $3 million seed round include Volt Capital, Project Serum, Global Founders Capital, CreditEase and SOMA Capital.
Cashmere co-founder Charlotte McGinn told CoinDesk the company plans to use the funds to hire additional engineers and launch a premium product for institutions later this year.
“Crypto began as a space of highly technical people who are comfortable with encryption and hardware wallets,” said McGinn. “However, as it’s gained more mainstream adoption, we’re seeing a hugely unmet need for secure solutions for less technical people.”