@RapydGlobal joined Funders' portfolio 💼 Funders.vc participated in Rapyd’s Series F round alongside @TargetGlobalVC, @BlackRock, @generalcatalyst, @Fidelity and other leading investors. Why we backed Rapyd: ▫️ World-class team with proven fintech scaling experience ▫️ Concrete unit economics tailor-made for the business model ▫️ Product is a category-defining global payments stack Rapyd is setting a new standard for the global finance stack. And it's a true pleasure to be a part of their journey.

Congratulations to the @renesisfi team on a new victorious achievement 👏 And huge thank you to @pivotintelHQ for organizing this demo day! It is incredibly rewarding for us to watch your continuous growth. Not a long time ago we've celebrated team's success on @Cointelegraph Demo Day in Cannes, and now we have one more reason to be proud of our portfolio company. This win is definitely well-deserved, and we wish you even more remarkable milestones ahead✨

Projects reaching new All Time Highs across key metrics based on @artemis data ↓ @Polymarket (Prediction Markets / Spot Volume) @OndoFinance (RWA / Tokenized Equities) @provenancefdn (RWA / Institutional Lending) @Ripple (Institutional / ETF AUM Native) @avax (L1 / Non Sybil Users) @trondao (L1 / Daily Txns) @tradexyz (DeFi / Daily Perp Txns) @hyperlendx (DeFi / Daily Fees) Looking at this data it becomes clear where the capital is actually flowing. The market is currently evaluating projects based on their actual usage right now rather than future promises. Take @Polymarket where a daily volume of $818M shows that the platform has clearly found its audience. People are starting to use prediction markets as an alternative information source and a tool for gauging probabilities. This is no longer just trading tokens for the sake of trading but a working product with a clear use case. We see a similar picture in the RWA and institutional sector as @OndoFinance crosses the 74K tokenized equities holders mark lending pools on @provenancefdn exceed $19.4B and @Ripple native ETF AUM hits $819M. To us this means that institutional interest in on chain assets has moved into a practical phase. The assets backing these protocols are becoming strong enough to sustain deep liquidity. Layer 1 metrics also confirm this trend with 705K real unique users on @avax and 14M daily transactions on @trondao showing that the infrastructure is being used exactly as intended. People simply need a reliable environment for fast transfers and stablecoin operations. As for the DeFi segment isolated records like 1.23M transactions on @tradexyz and peak fee generation on @hyperlendx definitely deserve attention. But looking at the bigger picture the market logic right now is straightforward. Capital and the mass user base are parking where the product has already proven its necessity and built sustainable economics.

Sharing a quick market update and some thoughts on the weekend drawdown 👨‍💼 It is worth noting that the situation is already stabilizing: we already see a significant pivot with fresh inflows into both bitcoin:native and ethereum:native ETFs. Trading volumes are picking up and asset prices are slowly recovering. What we are seeing is not an isolated issue with a single position but rather a broad crypto market stress test. Over the weekend bitcoin:native took a heavy hit briefly touching the 60K USD zone which triggered a cascading selloff. This pressure is affecting not just bitcoin:native and ethereum:native but also related assets that rely on broader risk appetite and liquidity. What drove this sharp correction • Heavy outflows from Bitcoin ETFs. This is crucial because ETFs have been the primary engine for institutional demand in recent months. When capital exits these funds the market loses a consistent buyer amplifying the downward pressure during a drop. • Capital rotation into hotter traditional plays like AI semiconductor stocks and large IPOs. This does not mean crypto fundamentals are broken but right now Bitcoin is simply losing the battle for liquidity and investor attention. • The market also reacted poorly to the MicroStrategy and Michael Saylor news. The actual sale was tiny just 32 BTC for roughly 2.5 million USD which is nowhere near enough volume to crash the market. Symbolically however the news stung. The firm has long been viewed as a permanent holder. As a result the market began repricing the risk around Strategy and its preferred shares rather than the sale itself. The drop was then accelerated by leveraged liquidations. Once BTC broke key support levels it triggered an automatic unwinding of leveraged longs speeding up the descent. This is exactly why the drawdown felt so sharp and emotional. Despite this there are solid arguments that the market is closer to stabilizing than to facing another leg down. • Bitcoin 14 day RSI dipped into oversold territory below 30. While this does not guarantee an immediate reversal it typically indicates the selloff was overextended leaving room for at least a technical bounce. • A massive chunk of leverage has already been flushed out. It hurts in the moment but markets usually emerge healthier after these cascades with fewer forced sellers fewer overheated longs and a much lower risk of another steep drop. • The long term crypto infrastructure thesis remains fully intact. Reports from @CoinbaseInsto, @SiliconVlyBank, @PwC , @wef , @Grayscale and @BlackRock continue to highlight the exact same structural drivers institutional integration regulated access via ETPs and ETFs stablecoin expansion tokenization and custody networks. Bottom line our current game plan is to avoid panic selling not anchor to the absolute bottom prices carefully reevaluate positions using fair value metrics and wait for liquidity to fully stabilize.

The headline about record capital inflows creates the illusion of a broad bull market but the deal structure reveals a severe concentration of liquidity. We are seeing a classic flight to quality scenario. Institutional capital has absolutely returned and is ready for aggressive deployment but strictly allocates massive checks to market winners and proven infrastructure projects.

The @waibsummit Monaco 2026 kicks off tomorrow and Funders VC is thrilled to participate. Our Founder and GP Marfa Shishkina will be on site on June 9 and 10 at One Monte Carlo. If you are a founder investor or building an exciting Web3 and AI product send a DM. Let us find some time for a coffee and a productive chat. See you in Monaco 👋

May Pulse Check Provenance Ecosystem Six weeks ago we highlighted how the @provenancefdn architecture is reshaping the private credit sector. Today fresh data from Artemis confirms that institutional capital migration onchain is happening even faster than anticipated. Core Growth Metrics The network TVL experienced a massive ( 92.0%) surge over the last 14 months hitting an absolute peak of $25.75B. In just the last month alone the network added $1.34B in total value. Simultaneously the lending portfolio broke all historical records. Daily active lending loans reached $19.18B. We are seeing a clear trend acceleration of ( 20.6%) over the past 4 months with $945M added to the loan balance in May alone. This capital growth is matched by user adoption as the network now hosts over 77K participants generating upwards of $316K in monthly chain fees. Strategic Roadmap These figures represent real economic activity rather than speculative volume. To sustain this momentum the project is focused on executing a three step plan 1. Reworking HASH tokenomics to capture economic value more efficiently 2. Creating deeper utility mechanisms for asset holders 3. Actively attracting third party participation and developers to the platform Such fundamental dynamics prove that the real integration of traditional finance and blockchain has already begun. We continue to closely monitor the progress of infrastructure solutions in this segment.

Thrilled to be part of this event 🎊 We cannot wait to see all the amazing projects and ambitious founders. Make sure to register and join us.

We at @FundersVC have said this multiple times before but the fundamental math behind airdrop farming is completely broken. Recently @Delphi_Digital dropped a massive report tracking 5 years of data across 6 major tokens and 3.7 million wallets. Now the data officially confirms a few harsh truths about why the classic airdrop model is dying → The cost of sybil attacks approaches zero With AI and agentic internet wallet creation and behavioral mimicry collapse into a simple API call. Filters stop working when the intelligence used to evade detection is the exact same intelligence used to detect it. → The CAC math becomes inescapable Arbitrum paid over 1.16 billion dollars to users who left within a month. Maturing crypto projects will simply refuse to fund the worst customer acquisition channel in software history. → The next generation of issuers will not airdrop Tokenized treasuries RWA platforms and regulated DeFi institutions do not have the cap table flexibility or the legal appetite to send tokens to anonymous wallets. The most interesting part here is that everyone looks at the standard 30 day retention metrics but the report shows this is only half the truth. By day 90 between 78% and 94% of wallets across tokens like solana:JUPyiwrYJFskUPiHa7hkeR8VUtAeFoSYbKedZNsDvCN , ethereum:0xb50721bcf8d664c30412cfbc6cf7a15145234ad1 and ethereum:0x1f9840a85d5af5bf1d1762f925bdaddc4201f984 have fully dumped their allocations. So instead of hoping for another massive stimulus check from protocols the market needs to realize that outliers like @jito_sol or @HyperliquidX were just coincidences driven by unique conditions and not repeatable models. Our investment team is confident that the market cycle has already shifted. Today we are seeing the emergence of strong promising projects that attract liquidity and users not through artificial incentives but through the fundamental value of their architecture and real market utility.

Full list of lending protocols with over $1B in TVL providing the deepest liquidity for complex DeFi strategies right now ↓ @aave - TVL $13.10B The best choice for positions above $500K offering minimal slippage and stable institutional liquidity across all major networks. USDC supply 3.29% | borrow 3.99% USDT supply 2.68% | borrow 3.60% @Morpho - TVL $7.00B The highest rates on stablecoins through isolated markets but requires mandatory pool diversification to maintain liquidity depth. USDC supply 3.68% to 4.22% | borrow 4.12% USDT supply 3.21% to 3.52% @sparkdotfi - TVL $4.98B Channels the Sky Savings Rate providing predictable governance set yields without market volatility. USDC supply 3.60% USDT supply 2.50% | borrow 3.40% @DeFi_JUST - TVL $3.24B Dominates TRON with the largest TVL on the network offering investors the lowest fees for high frequency transactions. USDT supply 1.32% | borrow 3.02% @kamino - Dynamic live rates on platform TVL $1.40B Up to 95% LTV in eMode on Solana with built in auto compounding vaults. The absolute best choice for aggressive looping. @compoundfinance - TVL $1.22B The longest track record since 2018 featuring isolated borrow markets in V3 and battle tested conservative durability. USDC supply 3.02% | borrow 3.83% USDT supply 2.63% | borrow 3.53% @VenusProtocol - Dominates the BNB Chain with competitive rates and low transaction fees for the entire ecosystem. USDC supply 2.48% | borrow 4.31% TVL $1.10B The decentralized lending sector has transformed into a transparent highly liquid alternative to the global interbank market. The combination of Aave V3 and Morpho Blue forms a monolithic foundation guaranteeing the deepest exit liquidity for safely closing large institutional positions. Meanwhile Kamino unlocks aggressive leverage application on Solana and JustLend makes high frequency transactions on TRON practically free. Smart investors only need to properly align their yield requirements with the unique architectural risks of each platform.

We discussed this exact scenario at conferences following the @DriftProtocol and @KelpDAO exploits, as practice directly confirms that auditors are critically lagging behind algorithmic systems. As a result, software code verification has ultimately become nothing more than a marketing tool. However, condemning the entire decentralized finance sector ignores the actual threat statistics. Ninety percent of capital losses occur due to operational security failures and successful social engineering, where mundane access leaks destroy more liquidity than actual protocol vulnerabilities. The industry will survive only if it shifts its focus from endless code audits toward strict institutional standards for private key control.

The Evolution of Agentic AI and the New KYA Standard • Enterprise deployment: AI agents are operating in production at a corporate scale. The baseline deployment model has shifted from simple assistants to autonomous workflow executors. • Operational uncertainty: Agents lack a verified owner, restricted permissions and an end to end activity log. This creates a systemic risk for compliance, auditing and incident investigation. • Infrastructure layer: A new Know Your Agent (KYA) infrastructure layer is emerging. It includes identification, permission granting, real time behavior monitoring, pre deployment model verification and attack prevention. The integration of agentic AI in 2026 is no longer a question of technology viability but strictly a matter of secure management in a production environment.

Spent the last few days at Doers Summit Limassol and it was a genuinely fantastic experience. The event organization was top tier. We focused heavily on the Web2 and fintech segments, had dozens of meaningful conversations and were impressed by the density of interesting founders and ambitious people building from Cyprus and across the region. Our Partner Alexander Alemaskin joined the jury panel to review a number of early stage startups during the pitching sessions: • Local founders are moving away from generic apps to solve practical regional challenges like logistics, hiring and resource optimization. • The ecosystem is shifting from startup theatre toward grounded businesses focused on operational efficiency, automation and AI enabled workflows. • Cyprus continues evolving into a dense regional hub connecting talent and capital flows across Europe, MENA and the CIS. Massive thanks to the organizing team at @DoersSummit for putting together such a high value networking ecosystem.

Top AI and compute-native projects by market capitalization, cross-checked across @glassnode , @coingecko , and @CoinMarketCap ↓ @NEARProtocol (Near Protocol / Ethereum) @bittensor (Custom L1) @DfinityToday (Custom L1) @render (Solana) @AskVenice (Base) @virtualprotocol (Base / Ethereum) @GoKiteAI (Avalanche / Custom L1) @grass (Solana) @graphprotocol (Ethereum / Arbitrum) @akashnet (Cosmos) Current market data suggests that institutional liquidity in the AI and compute-native segment remains concentrated across these protocols, although exact rankings vary depending on the data provider and category methodology. What remains consistent across the major analytics platforms is a fragmented infrastructure landscape: capital is not loyal to any single ecosystem and continues to follow execution efficiency, liquidity depth, and compute availability. Rather than a single AI supercycle, the market increasingly looks like a competition between underlying networks for the base layer of the emerging machine economy. @HyperliquidX and HIP-3 should currently be viewed as an emerging infrastructure angle rather than a confirmed core leader of the AI sector, at least for now 😅

Institutional capital is well acquainted with foundational RWA projects. Market participants actively utilize Tether Gold, BlackRock BUIDL, and Hashnote USYC. However a new tier of early protocols is currently emerging with strong dynamics and the potential to compete with recognized leaders. Let us examine ten projects demonstrating the highest growth over the past 90 and 180 days. 1. @Neutrl (sNUSD): tokenized yield strategy issuer grew by 1421.3% over 180 days. 2. @PreStocks (ANTHROPIC): equity tokenization platform recorded a 743.9% increase over 180 days. 3. @GetYieldFi (vyUSD): yield strategy protocol grew by 176.3% over 180 days. 4. @paretocredit (ParetoFAL USDC): onchain credit fund added 154.3% over 180 days. 5. @DinariGlobal (USD ): tokenized fund provider increased its capitalization by 127.4% over 180 days. 6. @onrefinance (ONyc): onchain yield generation instrument grew by 76.7% over 90 days. 7. @protocol_fx (fxSAVE): yield strategy issuer added 58.7% over 90 days. 8. @VNX_Platform (VNXAU): tokenized gold provider showed a 43.0% growth over 90 days. 9. @NestCredit (YNRWAX): credit fund increased its metrics by 214.9% over 90 days. 10. @piku_dao (USP): yield strategy issuer grew by 128.8% over 90 days. The tokenized asset market is systematically diversifying beyond sovereign debt. Capital is actively seeking alternative yield strategies and onchain credit instruments. Emerging protocols successfully attract liquidity through highly flexible capital allocation models. This trajectory confirms the willingness of smart money to accept calculated risks for improved margin performance. The institutional environment is transitioning from basic asset custody toward the construction of complex portfolio strategies. Data source: research by @RWA_xyz.

Did anyone actually track @grovedotfinance and understand its core architecture? The protocol launched in June 2025 as a capital allocation layer within the Sky (formerly MakerDAO) ecosystem. The platform automatically deploys capital into tokenized RWA assets, Aave lending, Morpho vaults, and Curve LP positions. This infrastructure operates across Ethereum, Base, Avalanche, and Plume. Let us review the actual metrics: • Grove Savings TVL has reached $5.7 billion. • Core protocol TVL stands at $2.67 billion. • Annualized fees exceed $72.6 million. • The $SKY Savings Rate offers a 3.65% APY. This rate competes tightly with $AAVE at 3.89% and $MORPHO Prime at 3.75%. The fundamental value of Grove lies in algorithmic capital routing. The protocol bridges fragmented liquidity across multiple networks and forms a unified yield curve for stablecoins. Dynamic balancing between tokenized RWAs and lending pools establishes the baseline risk free rate for the sector. The project operates as a comprehensive treasury primitive. It automates corporate asset management and drastically cuts portfolio rebalancing costs.

CB Insights data for the first quarter of 2026 reveals a structural redistribution of capital within fintech. The global deal count dropped to a multiyear low of 762 transactions, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of decline. At the same time, the total funding volume held steady at $12.1 billion, confirming the simple truth that liquidity is not leaving the industry but merely shifting its focus across stages and sectors. The primary influx of capital was directed toward late rounds, whose share reached 35 percent and effectively doubled the average metrics of the previous two years. Against this backdrop, the crypto sector demonstrated the maximum level of institutional conviction. The average valuation per employee in crypto startups reached $6.4 million compared to the $3.5 million fintech average, and seven out of the ten top teams from the past quarter operate specifically in the Web3 segment. The market is ready to pay a premium for a strong crypto narrative at the Series B and Series C stages. Current market selectivity concentrates capital exclusively in companies with a high probability of an exit. This configuration creates a highly pragmatic investment environment for seed funds, as overall price pressure and valuation overheating have noticeably decreased while fierce competition for fundamental technological projects remains intact.

The @FundersVC team will be attending the Doers Summit Limassol in Cyprus. The event is shaping up to have a strong agenda, and we plan to be highly active, particularly within the Web2 and fintech segments. Our focus and team on the ground: • Marfa Shishkina, Founder / GP - Will be attending the closed GP/LP event. Core focus: global strategy and capital allocation. • Alexander Alemaskin, Partner / CFO / Late-Stage Lead - Will serve as a judge at the demo day and actively evaluate deals at the scaling stage. • @al_nechaev, Partner (DA & DeFi) - Open to strategic discussions regarding Web3 infrastructure and liquidity deals. • Pavel Miasnikov and Feliks Omarov - Working directly within the ecosystem: scouting emerging fintech trends and meeting with strong founders. We are always on the lookout for category-defining projects and infrastructure solutions. If you are building a solid product or see clear synergies for partnership, send us a DM or drop a comment below. See you at DOERS 👋

Full list of Solana projects that generated >$1M in revenue in the last 30 days ↓ @Pumpfun @AxiomExchange @phantom @JupiterExchange @OREsupply @fomo @solana @MeteoraAG @helium @TrojanOnSolana @gmgnai @Raydium Currently just 12 names in the entire ecosystem. But given the pace at which projects are being built on Solana right now, expect this list to multiply very soon.