The Future of Fintech: Coinbase Acquires Fund I Portfolio Company Zabo
In the years since Bitcoin’s 2017 boom, the conversation around cryptocurrency has shifted from a question of whether it will survive to how the market will evolve to support its growth. Just this April, the value of the cryptocurrency market topped $2 trillion for the first time and Coinbase IPO’d — both signaling that a new era is upon us.
As the Zabo team wrote:
“Financial and computer science history have already been made. But the best is yet to come — the growth of crypto the next decade will dwarf its prior history.”
Even with this incredible growth, the crypto market was fragmented. Fintech and traditional financial institutions were spending massive engineering resources to build from the ground up and consumer exchange accounts, wallets and protocols were disconnected. That’s where Zabo came in.
In just three years, they successfully deployed the Zabo API, enabling fintechs and financial institutions to link to crypto exchanges and wallets. Think Plaid for the new financial landscape — connecting legacy players and incumbent technologies with consumers eager to buy.
Since leading Zabo’s $2.5 million seed round in March of 2020 (with participation from Blockchange Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Digital Currency Group and more), we’ve been passionate supporters of Zabo’s extraordinary leaders Christopher Brown and Alex Treece, plus their impressive team.
On Zabo’s board, I saw Christopher and Alex leverage their unique experiences — from the U.S. Air Force to private equity/crypto asset management, respectively — to build, deploy, and manage high ROI solutions for customers. They are a tier one leadership team, never straying from the mission. It shows in their deep understanding of the space, their speed to market, and this strategic acquisition.
I also enjoyed working alongside Ken Seiff and Rob Schmults of Blockchange Ventures on the board — they are first class VCs.
This week represents a positive outcome for so many: a life changing moment for the Zabo team, another successful exit for Moonshots Capital, and the acceleration of cryptocurrency innovation for financial institutions and consumers. Together, we’re confident that Zabo and Coinbase will unlock new avenues for growth and even faster institutional adoption of cryptocurrency.
Congratulations Christopher, Alex, and team Zabo on this huge milestone. We’re excited to see where you take things next!
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Moonshots Capital led Zabo’s Seed round in Fund I, investing alongside Blockchange Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, the Tezos Foundation, CoinShares, Digital Currency Group, and Capital Factory. We just closed our $36M Fund II and are actively investing in more extraordinary leaders.
Sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of our website (https://www.moonshotscapital.com/) to keep up with our progress and fill out our syndicate interest form here if you’d like to participate in our syndicate deals.
