Masa Finance, a San Francisco, CA-based hybrid credit protocol that bridges off-chain data with on-chain data to create a Hybrid Credit Protocol & Decentralized Credit Bureau, closed a $3.5m Pre-Seed funding round.
Backers included Unshackled Ventures, executives from GoldenTree Asset Management (a $46bn credit-focused fund), Flori Ventures (Celo-focused fund), GSR, Decentranet, Intersect VC, Lateral Capital, Peer VC, Alves Ventures, and several angel investors in the fintech/blockchain space including Louis Beryl (founder of Earnest), Gustavo Menezes (24hr of Le Mans Driver for Peugeot Sport), and Jacob Riglin; a high-profile NFT artist who will be launching future NFT-collateralized loan products.
The company intends to use the funds to increase the engineering team’s size and launch the protocol’s production release, conduct a public token sale, scale users and node operators, and bring developers and lenders to the platform.
Led by Brendan Playford, Founder, Masa has developed critical infrastructure for Web3 that enables on-chain credit scoring for billions of people globally. By aggregating off-chain and on-chain data into a non-fungible credit report, Masa gives lenders and developers access to the tools needed to evaluate borrower risk and launch lending products for individuals and businesses globally. The company aggregates over 10,000 sources of off-chain data (bank, credit bureau, and alternative data) from 78 countries through integrations with credit bureaus, bank data aggregators, and alternative data through its partner Pngme. Additionally, Masa has global coverage for on-chain data through 26 integrations to exchanges and wallets — opening up a market of 4.95 billion people through its decentralized credit infrastructure.
Through Masa, individuals and businesses can link, manage, and track off-chain and on-chain data to leverage their complete financial profile as a hybrid credit score – enabling access to credit through fully on-chain services. Liquidity providers can fund lending pools in rated tranches, allowing them to gain returns that outperform traditional markets.
FinSMEs
04/05/2022