Postmates Founder Bastian Lehmann’s New Crypto Startup tip top was lightly teased a few weeks ago, but now the stealth startup is sharing some information about the early funding, although there isn’t much information about what they actually do with that money.
Lehmann notes that the company has raised a $23 million Series A from a16z, with Marc Andreessen himself joining the startup’s board. Other backers in the round include Sam Altman, Naval Ravikant, Andy McLoughlin, Jeff Clavier and Dan Romero.
The startup keeps things as vague as possible on its website and job postings with redacted images that promise “consumer finance solutions for a changing web” and that they are “building protocols and infrastructure,” doing something “at the intersection of fiat and crypto.” It’s all publicly unclear, but investors seem eager to throw some cash behind Lehmann after Postmates left $2.65 billion in Uber in mid-2020.
The announcement of this round comes at a difficult time for the broader crypto markets after last week’s crash, which was brutal even by crypto standards.
That blow leaves many venture companies in a difficult position and likely to question their commitment to the industry. This lack of volume, especially from growth companies, could make scaling a crypto business more difficult in the coming years if the industry is indeed on the cusp of a “crypto winter”. For returning founders like Lehmann and ex-Meta executive David Marcus, who also dared to back his new crypto startup yesterday, these issues will be markedly less pronounced.
