Solana blockchain-based enterprise wallet management firm Cashmere has closed a seed funding round of $3 million, bringing the company’s valuation to $30 million.
Crypto venture-capital firms Coinbase Ventures, FBG Capital, and startup incubator YCombinator were among the investors in the funding round.
Cashmere stated that it aims to help companies store their crypto assets securely, even keeping them safe even when hot wallets such as Phantom or Slope get attacked.
Cashmere enables firms to jointly manage their company wallets via a multi-signature signing scheme, which requires several wallets to approve a transaction before the funds can finally be transferred out of Cashmere.
According to the company, the multi-signature signing scheme provides a safer self-custody option that removes a single point of failure.
The project’s most recent fundraising comes in light of the concern surrounding Solana’s security breach. Last week, over 8,000 Solana wallets were hacked, resulting in a fund loss of over $5 million.
Shashank Khanna, the co-founder of Cashmere, stated that the company is established to offer institutional-grade security for Solana users without using physical, external hard drives. That being said, it may be unsuitable for businesses or institutional environments that are usually managed by a team, even if it is safer than internet-based storage.
Wonder Ventures and Notation Capital led a pre-seed funding round that raised Cashmere $650,000 in November 2021 — with the participation of firms including Volt Capital, Project Serum, Global Founders Capital, CreditEase, and Soma Capital.
According to an interview with another Cashmere co-founder, Charlotte McGinn, the company plans to hire more engineers and launch institution-related premium products with the fund later this year.
McGinn and the company saw a hugely unmet need for security solutions for non-technical users, as the crypto space has gained more mainstream adoption by highly technical people.
