Mean DAO of Miami raises $3.5M to help build the future of DeFi

A decentralized autonomous organization is on a mission to build the products and blockchain infrastructure needed to act as the financial equalizers for people and businesses worldwide. Mean DAO, based in Miami, is a product DAO, with nearly 17,000 “super engaged” members, that is building bridges between traditional banking and DeFi to onboard the next billion users into crypto, said CEO and co-founder Michel Triana.

Today, Mean DAO  is announcing a strategic capital raise of $3.5 million led by SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund, Three Arrows Capital and DeFiance Capital. Participants in the round include Skyvision Capital, Solar Eco Fund, Sesterce Capital, Gate.io, Big Brain Holdings, Gerstenbrot Capital, a41 Ventures, MEXC, PrimeBlock Ventures, LPI, Solanium Ventures, and individual investors.

“Global cryptocurrency users are growing exponentially, but there remains a lot to be demystified for the average consumer. Our investment in MeanFi is an investment in bridging this knowledge gap and empowering the average user to take advantage of decentralized finance,” said Shu Nyatta, Managing Partner of SB Opportunity Fund, in a statement. As part of its Miami Initiative this year, SoftBank has invested more than $250 million in startups based in or expanding to Miami.

The new capital will help Mean DAO, founded in May and launched in September, expand its Money Streaming operations and partnerships across Solana and into a multi-chain future, Triana said. 

Triana was a crypto early adopter. In 2011, the software engineer educated in Havana founded his first crypto startup that he exited in 2013, and then co-founded another one before launching Mean DAO in recent months. Mean DAO’s co-founders Triana, Eydel Rivero, Yansel Florian, Maylin Ramirez and Yamel Amador Fdez – each brings 10-plus years of experience building software in fintech and crypto.

The serial founder and his team have created tools to make assets more liquid, capital-efficient, and composable. Triana has been friends with Rivero, his CTO, since high school and four of the five on the founding team have  also worked together as part of the crypto-forward real estate tech company Realdax.

Mean DAO’s Mean Protocol is a set of rules and smart contracts to help application developers facilitate everyday banking workflows on their web3 apps. Mean’s Money Streaming and DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) programs power most of the value that moves through the Mean Protocol “with an unmatched level of DeFi automation,” Triana said in his announcement.

To understand Money Streaming, imagine receiving your salary in real time as you earn it, rather than two or more weeks later. At the same time, it  accumulates interest-yielding value on every passing second, and it’s now possible because of Mean Protocol, Triana explained. At the same time your salary is piping in, other pipes can be opened for outgoing funds and investing in real time. It’s very efficient to generate yield by moving assets, with full transparency, he said. “With Money Streams those values that get accrued get distributed in real time. You can make decisions quickly when you can see what your money is doing in real time.”

Mean DAO’s user-friendly MeanFi product is a self-custody, permissionless and trustless bank bringing crypto and DeFi to everyday banking workflows in Solana, Triana said. It’s powered by the Mean Protocol and it is a starting point for traditional retail banking users and investors venturing into DeFi, as well as a showcase for what can be built, Triana said.

Michel Triana and Eydel Rivero have been friends since high school.

“At DeFiance Capital, we invest in DeFi eating traditional finance. It was a no-brainer when we came across MeanFi and the brilliant team – Michel & Eydel – who had the exact vision of working on the problems we saw in TradFi,” said Arthur Cheong, Founding Partner at DeFiance Capital.

It’s only been a few months, but Mean DAO now serves more than 31,000 individual accounts with 1,800 daily active users globally running thousands of transactions daily, Triana said.

Triana believes it will be winner takes all.

 “The Money Stream that is able to attract the most adopters early on is going to win. We think that It is very unlikely we will have two or three or four standards for Money Streams, and rather that one of those standards is going to win,” Triana said.

“We think we have a good shot at winning and we’re going for it. “

Mean DAO is hiring. It’s looking primarily for rust developers and hopes to grow its team of seven to about a dozen over the next couple of months, Triana said. “This is only the beginning of our young project.”

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Nancy Dahlberg