Ridian
The crypto sector has met its share of walls, from scams to influencer frauds and recent events like the FTX collapse.
However, with over 35 million users in Latin America, which represents 9.3% of the overall market, the impact of crypto in the region is hard to ignore.
Let's dive in.
Imagine this
Wanting to diversify your investments, you start looking at different types of assets.
You're curious about cryptocurrencies but don't know how or where to start.
Your friends recommend Bitso and other popular exchanges in the region.
After setting up your account, you're ready for some skin in the game.
Feeling confused by all the new terms, coins, and buying/selling processes, you take a step back.
While reading articles to understand some coins, you discover Ridian, a platform that simplifies and automates your crypto investments.
Explain it like I'm five
Ridian makes crypto investing simple by automatically using algorithms to trade on top of established crypto exchanges.
Their platform enables users to choose from strategic portfolios based on risk tolerance and automatically trade using quantitative tools.
They are building a decentralized platform where users can invest across the crypto market via strategic portfolios.
It is important to note that as of today, Ridian acts as a facilitator, connecting their services with established exchanges rather than being the custodian of the assets.
Ridian wants to become the single point of contact for crypto investing in emerging markets, starting with Latin America.
The ABCs
Industries: Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Decentralized Finance, Fintech
Headquarters: Mexico City, Mexico
Year Operations Started: 2021
Team Size: 15
Raised: $6.2M Seed round (Currently raising)
Investors/Angels: Coinbase, Bitso, Abstract Ventures, LVMH Family Office, Nazca, and Canary. (Gokul Rajaram, Coinbase), (Felipe Vallejo, Bitso), (Jose Molina, GBM), (Gerry Giacomán, Clara).
Business Model: Sell-side fee split with exchanges and subscription-based plans.
Other players:
Background check
What we like:
Partnerships: Ridian has partnered with established exchanges such as Bitso, Binance, and Crypto.com. They’re also partnering with Mexican financial institutions to fund Ridian accounts via SPEI.
Traction: Ridian has grown from 250 to 10,061 users in the last five months. Established exchanges will start to offer Ridian’s automated trading product as a service to their users.
Activity: Most users on crypto exchanges are inactive (over 90% on Coinbase). Ridian helps exchanges activate dormant accounts through automated investment solutions.
Product offering: According to the founder, Ridian is building its custodial wallet, offering its users a robust solution, DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and CeFi (Centralized Finance) investment solutions.
Road Blocks:
Regulation: Government rules and regulations about crypto are unclear and keep changing. In the last few days, the SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) has targeted two of the largest crypto exchanges, causing the market to dive.
Market: It’s not 2021 anymore, where everyone was obsessed with crypto. As the market dropped, crypto took a huge hit and slowed user adoption. Its adoption can be primarily affected by market sentiment & trends.
Adoption: Despite the growing interest in cryptocurrencies, achieving adoption is still a significant challenge. Limited use cases, lack of infrastructure, and low awareness among the public.
Trust: Scams, frauds, and instability in the market have created distrust among potential users and investors, making it harder for crypto startups to gain traction and attract capital.
The Architects
Rogelio Sada, Co-Founder & CEO. Previously Lambda Capital.
Eduardo Garza, Co-Founder & CTO. Previously Google.
Request intro with founders by sending an email to gabriel@readrunway.com
Headlines Corner
Bossanova set an impressive milestone, achieving its 100th successful exit; they claim to be Latin America’s most active investor.
NocNoc, an Uruguayan startup facilitating brands and retailers to sell their products in Latin America, raised $14M in a Series A round led by PayPal Ventures.
Approximately 4.5% of the startups that have gone through Y Combinator since 2010 have achieved unicorn status.
NuBank laid off 29% of their workforce due to restructuring of their operations unit.
Founders Bookmarks
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Check out Rows, and they just launched their AI assistant, which summarizes and analyzes any dataset in plain language.
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We found this playbook that walks you through launching a product on Product Hunt.