# NEAR Protocol

> NEAR Protocol is a VC fund in San Francisco backing Blockchain and Retail. See 3 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 3
- Last investment: Apr 2023
- Lead investor: 67%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/near-protocol/
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/nearprotocol
- Website: https://near.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NearProtocol/

NEAR Protocol is a scalable blockchain designed to provide the performance and user experience necessary to bridge the gap to mainstream adoption of decentralized applications. Unlike other next generation blockchains, this network has been built from the ground up to be the easiest in the world for both developers and their end users while stillproviding the scalability necessary to serve those users.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for NEAR Protocol. Shizune tracks 10 team members at NEAR Protocol. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/near-0565?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Blockchain | 2 | 67% |
| Retail | 1 | 33% |
| Big Data | 1 | 33% |
| Analytics | 1 | 33% |
| Communities | 1 | 33% |

11 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Grant | 1 | 33% |
| Pre-Seed | 1 | 33% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 1 | 33% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 2 | 67% |
| Singapore | 1 | 33% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Illia Polosukhin | Co-founder | 27 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/illia-polosukhin |
| Lauren Pfeifer | Business Operations Manager | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/lauren-pfeifer |
| Alexander Skidanov | Co-Founder | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alexander-skidanov |
| Alexandra Breines | Marketing | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alexandra-breines |
| Gustav Friis | Business Operations | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gustav-friis |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cosmose | Cosmose AI empowers oCommerce by synergizing Offline and Online for Omnichannel. Our technology influences how more than 1 billion consumers shop by understanding their offline behavior, then delivers predictive analytics for businesses to optimize their marketing strategies and boost revenue. Connected to the world’s largest consumer markets withhigh regard for privacy, shoppers and businesses alike create their own unique shopping experiences with Cosmose. Omnipresent with connections to 500K+ locations and 1B+ smartphones, Cosmose is the leader in location intelligence for its positioning accuracy (to the nearest 1.6m) and seamlessness (no hardware needed). |  | Venture - Series Unknown | Apr 24, 2023 |  |
| Mint Gate | MintGate is a blockchain company that helps NFT creators create tokens or keys specific to their community for their users. |  | Pre-Seed | Jan 13, 2022 |  |
| darshana.ai | Darshana aids in the verification of talent's work experience and skills. Our protocol is blockchain multi-chain and follow sovereign identity and verifiable credentials standards, specifically for work. Darshana integrates companies to verify and query verifications from talent, and provides talent with sovereign credentials. We onboardpeople via our work/talent marketplace and our diversity focused community. | $38K | Grant | Sep 01, 2021 |  |

3 of 3 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [NEAR](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/near-f896) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [CMT Digital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cmt-digital-ventures-llc) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [ConsenSys Mesh](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/consensys-mesh) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Cypher Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cypher-capital-e62f) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Dapper Labs](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dapper-labs) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [IOSG Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/iosg-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Scottish Enterprise](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/scottish-enterprise) — VC Fund
- [Foundation for Innovation and Technology (FIT)](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/foundation-pour-l-innovation-technologique) — VC Fund
- [Business Finland](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tekes) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does NEAR Protocol invest in?

NEAR Protocol invests primarily in Blockchain, Retail and Big Data startups, most often at Grant and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 3 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact NEAR Protocol?

Public channels for NEAR Protocol include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### Who are the partners at NEAR Protocol?

The team at NEAR Protocol includes Illia Polosukhin (Co-founder), Lauren Pfeifer (Business Operations Manager) and Alexander Skidanov (Co-Founder), among 10 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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