Ground raises $3.6M pre-seed from Bain Crypto, ParaFi via SAFE with token warrants

Ground, a new startup founded by Superstate co-founder Reid Cuming, has raised $3.6 million in a pre-seed round to power API-based access to onchain yield products for fintechs and asset managers. Bain Capital Crypto and ParaFi co-led the deal, with participation from Nascent, Robot Ventures, Chapter One, and Consonant Ventures. The round, which kicked off in September 2025 and closed the following month, was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants, and Ground did not disclose its valuation. No investors received board or observer seats, or advisory roles as part of the financing.

Ground has also come out of stealth alongside the funding and launched its platform, which lets financial platforms embed onchain yield products without building their own blockchain integrations. The company is targeting fintechs, neobanks, wealth managers, exchanges, and asset managers that want to build yield, savings, or investment products. “Ground is building the platform that makes onchain finance accessible and embeddable,” said Reid Cuming, co-founder of Ground. He added that as stablecoin and tokenization adoption grows both outside and within the U.S., users will need to “do more than hold or spend but to earn, to grow, and invest.”

The API routes client capital into onchain yield strategies based on specified risk and liquidity parameters. Today, Ground supports crypto-native yield sources, including lending protocols and structured products, and plans to add liquid staking tokens. Cuming cited Aave, Morpho, Maple, and Kamino across Ethereum, Solana, and various L2s as current underlying protocols, noting that Ground regularly adds new protocols and chains based on customer demand. The startup plans to monetize via usage-based platform fees.

Cuming framed the addressable market as large pools of idle capital in traditional and crypto rails. “The global asset management industry oversees more than $147 trillion, and there are trillions of dollars idling in pre-funded accounts, neobanks, and blockchain wallets. That is a massive untapped opportunity,” he said. Parth Chopra, partner at Bain Capital Crypto, said fintechs and institutions are moving beyond stablecoins and tokenization into onchain credit, which can offer higher yields and lower borrowing costs, but remains difficult to access. “This is not at all easy to do today,” Chopra said, adding that Bain invested because Ground is building infrastructure for secure and compliant access to a range of onchain credit products.

Ground is based in San Francisco and currently has three full-time employees, including the founders, plus one contractor, with plans to hire two to four more across engineering, go-to-market, and potentially legal and operations. Cuming previously co-founded tokenization startup Superstate and served as vice president and general manager of Compound Treasury, while co-founder and CTO Sam Yoon was technical CEO of Braid and led product and engineering at HiFi. Cuming remains a board member and senior advisor at Superstate but is no longer involved in its day-to-day operations. The raise reinforces ongoing interest from large crypto funds in infrastructure that connects traditional fintech distribution to onchain credit and yield, competing with crypto-native aggregators while aiming to meet transparency and configurability requirements of regulated financial platforms.