Superstate co-founder Reid Cuming launched Ground on June 24, a startup selling fintechs, neobanks, and asset managers a single API to embed onchain yield products in their existing apps. Clients need not hold private keys, run nodes, or build cross-chain routing.
Tokenized money-market funds established institutional demand for onchain yield. Reaching retail and SME users requires embedding that yield at the app layer rather than asking them to interact with DeFi directly. Ground routes client capital into lending protocols, structured products, and liquid staking tokens, currently Aave, Morpho, Maple, and Kamino across Ethereum, Solana, and major Layer 2 networks. Clients select strategies by risk and liquidity preference; Ground handles execution and charges usage-based platform fees. It is not a protocol, a wallet, or a custody solution.
Ground raised $3.6 million in a pre-seed round co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and ParaFi Capital, with Nascent, Robot Ventures, Chapter One, and Consonant Ventures also participating. "This is not at all easy to do today," said Parth Chopra of Bain Capital Crypto.
Cuming previously co-founded Superstate, one of the first tokenized money-market funds to gain institutional adoption, and served as vice president and general manager of Compound Treasury. He remains a board member and senior adviser at Superstate. Co-founder and CTO Sam Yoon previously led technical work at Braid and HiFi.
Ground is live. The company has three full-time employees and plans to add two to four more.
