Ex-Blackstone staffers raise $25 million for startup Valinor
Fortune • • business
Key Points:
- Valinor, founded by Connor Dougherty and Lily Yarborough, raised a seed round led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Susquehanna's crypto arm, Maven11, and TeraWulf founders, though the valuation was undisclosed.
- The company aims to bridge crypto and private credit sectors by leveraging blockchain technology to streamline and automate lending processes traditionally reliant on manual checks.
- Valinor uses smart contracts to replace human-driven verification in private credit, enabling more efficient management of revolving credit lines and loan disbursements.
- The startup has already deployed blockchain-based loans to fintech and crypto firms and plans to expand its lending portfolio and team with the new funding.
- Unlike lenders focusing on crypto-backed loans, Valinor targets "real economy credit," applying shared ledger technology to add value in traditional credit markets.
