Announcing the Genesis Investment in Abacus
On behalf of Genesis, I’m thrilled to announce our investment in Abacus. Abacus is powering the future of finance through a permissionless identity and compliance protocol that enables the issuance, administration, and settlement of tokenized financial instruments on the blockchain.
The Problem
Current financial systems are built around layers of intermediation between various institutions like banks, agencies, and exchanges. The complex interaction between these institutions creates inefficiencies that result in higher fees and slow processes for the end user. Blockchain technology has the potential to simplify and secure the management of financial information by automating interactions between various parties without counterparty risk or reliance on centralized institutions.
Abacus will capitalize on emerging demand for financial instruments on the blockchain through its protocol. With Abacus, large financial institutions can be broken down into smaller, more modular services where anyone can provide services and earn fees. The unique design of the Abacus protocol will enable it to tackle three key areas: the decentralization of financial services, the automation of financial instruments, and securitization with tokenization. For those interested in an in-depth exploration of Abacus and these topics, a detailed white paper is available on their website.
The Founders
Abacus was founded by Ian Macalinao (CTO) and Pradyuman Vig (CEO). They met five years ago at the Texas Academy of Math and Science during a two year residential early entrance college program. The two met after Ian got curious about the source of noise and heat in Pradyuman’s room (it was an ASIC Bitcoin miner). Ian was mining Scrypt at the time, so the two naturally bonded over cryptocurrencies.
Pradyuman Vig (Computer Engineering ’18) — Pradyuman serves as the CEO of Abacus. He majored in Computer Engineering at Purdue University and worked at companies like Microsoft, HP, and Amazon on projects focused on back-end and network development. He has been passionate about the evolving cryptocurrency world for some time and brings this passion to Abacus as it navigates this emerging landscape.
Ian Macalinao (Mathematics ’18) — Ian serves as the CTO of Abacus. Ian majored in mathematics at UT and worked at companies like IFTTT, Uber, and Facebook prior to co-founding Abacus. He has experience as a full-stack engineer and is critical to the development of the protocol. Like Pradyuman, Ian has been passionate about cryptocurrencies for some time and is excited to be leading the charge to construct the cryptoinfrastructure of the future.
How’re They Doing?
The team has developed a strong advisory board (including names such as David Johnston, the Austin-based CEO of industry-recognized Factom). They have secured hundreds of thousands in funding, have built strong strategic partnerships, have secured their first clients, and were among the privileged few invited to join Y Combinator as part of the Summer ’18 class.
During their time at Y Combinator, they developed Abacus Equities, their first full service product built on the Abacus Platform. Abacus Equities enables simple tokenization of company equity through the S-Token protocol.
Why I Lead this Deal - by Aanandh Chandrasekar
There are few companies that have the ability to dramatically improve upon the status quo at precisely the right time. Abacus is one of those few.
Though the team has thus far released only their first product, the immense potential of the idea can be seen from that product alone. Abacus Equities dramatically lowers prospective entrepreneurs’ barriers to entry. It offloads the time-consuming, relatively formulaic labor inherent in cap table management to algorithms. And, more than anything else, the Abacus team has made all of this simple.
The team is stellar, and they work harder than any founding team I know. The combination of their work ethic and vision is a winning combination if I’ve ever seen one, and as the company grows, I have nothing but the highest hopes for their future.
