Souq

Mission & Key Concepts

We are building a new capital market that is crypto native and accessible by any retail investor, globally.

Our mission:

• build a new capital market that unlocks the economic power of the long-tail of retail investors, regardless of social class, investment size, or technical proficiency.

Our first product is an Exchange Traded Vaults, think ETFs 2.0. Vaults are a one-click easy button to express a token thesis, diversify exposure, hedge volatility, receive stake yield, all while maintaining liquidity. Investment strategies run on-chain and dynamically re-weight every 3-6 months.

Our first strategies provide indexed exposure to L2s while maintaining liquidity on Eth, eliminating bridging and swapping complexity. Vaults manage issuing shares, swapping into token positions, staking, and running options strategies for price drop protection. Vault shares are issued as NFTs, so users can customize time locks to maximize yield. Shares are made liquid through our NFT AMM, providing the flexibility to exit locked positions at any time.

While we are starting with native crypto assets, this same technology will be used as we bring on tokenized bonds in 2H2024.

What we are building

Problem

• Single dApp token staking exposes users to significant downside risk
• Maximizing staking reward rates requires long-term lockup periods
• Lockups and time vesting rewards limit position exit opportunities
• Positions with accrued value are illiquid and not composable across DeFi
• As a network scales, effective monetary governance is hard to coordinate

Solution

Souq is pioneering the first cross dApp liquid staking through the creation of a new financial vehicle we have termed Liquid Staking Vaults (LSVs). This new synthetic stakes across an index of token economies according to a fixed and transparent on-chain investment strategy. Market participants can maximize time-locks and reward rates while maintaining the flexibility to exit positions through a dedicated AMM pool.

History & Achievements

Founded: 2020

HQ: New York, USA

Funding:

• the company has raised a total of $3.3M in funding (2022)
• Imvestors: Kickstart, Blocko, Elliptic Ventures, Miko Matsumura, Elliptic Ventures, Moon Equity Holdings, BBQ Capital, etc.

Core Team

• JonPaul Vega, Co-Founder & CEO
• Ken Berkowitz, Co-Founder & Head of Product
• Jared Flatow, Advisor, VP of Engineering at Compound
• Naveed Ihsanullah, Advisor, VP of Engineering at Algorand
• Miko Matsamura, Advisor, General Partner at gCC