Cashmere Raises $3M at $30M Valuation to Build Solana Enterprise Wallet

CoinDesk· SHAUN HAGEN
In this article:

Cashmere, a company that offers enterprise wallet management for users of the Solana blockchain, closed a $3 million seed funding round Monday that valued the firm at $30 million.

Investors in the round included crypto venture-capital firms Coinbase Ventures and FBG Capital, as well as startup incubator YCombinator.

Cashmere is intended to help companies store their crypto assets securely, protecting the assets even if “hot” wallets like the Solana-based Phantom or Slope get compromised, according to a statement.

Cashmere allows firms to use 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. That removes a single point of failure, resulting in a safer self-custody option, according to the company.

The project’s latest fundraising comes as wallet security on Solana has become a major concern. Last week a hacker accessed more than 8,000 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 means using an external drive. Although that can be safer than internet-based hot storage, it may be impractical for businesses or institutional treasuries that are typically managed by a team.

“Soon after our launch six months ago, we saw big name startups like [non-fungible token] marketplace OpenSea organically sign up for our product," Khanna said. He said Cashmere’s clients also include crypto hedge funds, NFT projects and gaming companies.

In November 2021, Cashmere raised a $650,000 pre-seed funding round that was led by Wonder Ventures and Notation Capital.

Other participants in the new funding 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 more 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,” McGinn. “However, as it’s gained more mainstream adoption, we’re seeing a hugely unmet need for secure solutions for less technical people.”