# NEAR

> NEAR is a VC fund in San Francisco backing Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. See 22 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 22
- Last investment: Apr 2025
- Lead investor: 23%
- Last fund: Feb 2025
- 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 is a VC fund in San Francisco focused on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. NEAR is decentralized storage and compute platform that is secure enough to manage high-value assets like money or identity. NEAR is a scalable smart contract platform that supports decentralized applications of almost any kind. Leverage an ecosystem of components backed by cutting edge technology.NEAR was founded in 2017 and is headquartered inCalifornia.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for NEAR. Shizune tracks 18 team members at NEAR. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/near-f896?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $800k–$9.5M |
| Pre-Seed | $192k–$5M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Blockchain | 10 | 45% |
| Cryptocurrency | 8 | 36% |
| Web3 | 5 | 23% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 5 | 23% |
| FinTech | 4 | 18% |

38 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pre-Seed | 7 | 32% |
| Seed | 6 | 27% |
| Grant | 4 | 18% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 3 | 14% |
| Angel | 1 | 5% |

6 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 12 | 55% |
| Singapore | 2 | 9% |
| Canada | 1 | 5% |
| Estonia | 1 | 5% |
| Germany | 1 | 5% |

7 countries tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Illia Polosukhin | Co-founder | 27 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/illia-polosukhin |
| Yulian Lavysh | Business Development Officer | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/yulian-lavysh |
| Alexander Skidanov | Co-Founder | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alexander-skidanov |
| Artur Prokopenko | UI/UX Designer | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/artur-prokopenko |
| Caesar Chad | Investor Relations Manager | 8 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/caesar-chad |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ORO AI | ORO facilitates the transformation of data into advanced forms of intelligence, representing the next generation of analytical capabilities. | $6M | Seed | Apr 16, 2025 |  |
| Templar Protocol | Templar Protocol is a startup that focuses on creating a lending platform for cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and other digital assets. | $4M | Pre-Seed | Mar 13, 2025 |  |
| Nevermined | Nevermined is an enterprise-grade decentralized data sharing platform assisting consumers to publish, discover, buy, sell and access data. | $4M | Seed | Jan 09, 2025 |  |
| GAIB | GAIB is the economic foundation for the future of artificial intelligence and computers. GAIB is a crypto-AI platform under development that tokenize GPUs, making AI computing—the processing power required to train and run AI models—more accessible. | $5M | Pre-Seed | Nov 03, 2024 |  |
| OpenGradient | OpenGradient is a pioneering platform that enables secure execution of open-source models, employs agentic reasoning, and facilitates application deployment without permission. | $8.5M | Seed | Oct 09, 2024 |  |
| OpenGradient | OpenGradient is a leading decentralized AI platform for open-source model hosting, secure inference, agentic reasoning, and application deployment. By developing tooling and a feature-rich platform that makes developing AI workflows both secure and seamless, OpenGradient empowers developers with the ability to build in its ecosystem of intelligentand optimized AI-empowered applications. With native model hosting, permissionless composability, and secure inference execution, OpenGradient also aims to accelerate open-source AI by democratizing model ownership, improving verifiability guarantees, and promoting censorship-resistant model access.Our heterogeneous AI compute architecture (HACA) and our proprietary library NeuroML scale secure AI workflows with features like inference, agentic reasoning, statistical analysis, and more. OpenGradient also accelerates open-source innovation with a web portal and SDK for Web2 developers to leverage our AI stack without navigating blockchain complexities, while enjoying the security and composability benefits of decentralized infrastructure. | $9.5M | Seed | Oct 09, 2024 |  |
| idOS | The idOS is an open-source, decentralized identity system empowering users with data security, self-sovereignty, and control in web3 applications. | $4.5M | Seed | Jul 09, 2024 |  |
| Questflow | Questflow Labs seeking to give customers with an all-in-one solution for user intent perception and distribution, AI agentic workflow automation, and human-AI cooperation. Questflow Labs is pioneering a novel approach to decentralized AI agentic workflow. | $1.5M | Angel | Jul 08, 2024 |  |
| KINO | KINO is a web3 film finance company that democratizes film and protects artists' rights. | $4.4M | Pre-Seed | Oct 10, 2023 |  |
| MAP Protocol | MAP Protocol is a layer-2 Bitcoin protocol designed for peer-to-peer cross-chain interoperability. MAP Protocol offers a peer-to-peer, omnichain infrastructure for interoperability among blockchain-based assets, storage, and computing, enabling users and developers to use and build cross-chain solutions without trusted third-party entities. |  | Grant | Jul 17, 2023 |  |

10 of 22 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [a16z crypto](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/a16z-crypto) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Black Dragon Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/black-dragon-capital) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Coinbase Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/coinbase-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [NEAR Protocol](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/near-0565) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Dapper Labs](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dapper-labs) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Delphi Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/delphi-ventures-3169) — VC Fund, 2 deals together

## Similar investors

### Similar industry
- [Coinbase Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/coinbase-ventures) — VC Fund
- [Polychain](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/polychain-capital) — VC Fund
- [Digital Currency Group](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/digital-currency-group) — VC Fund

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund
- [Everywhere Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/everywhere-ventures) — VC Fund

### Similar country
- [Portugal Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/portugal-ventures) — VC Fund
- [Caixa Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/caixa-capital-2) — VC Fund
- [Armilar Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/espirito-santo-ventures) — VC Fund

## Featured in investor lists
- [Cryptocurrency VC Funds in Estonia](https://shizune.co/investors/cryptocurrency-vc-funds-estonia)
- [Payments Investors in Estonia](https://shizune.co/investors/payments-investors-estonia)
- [Blockchain VC Funds in Estonia](https://shizune.co/investors/blockchain-vc-funds-estonia)
- [Web3 VC Funds in Estonia](https://shizune.co/investors/web3-vc-funds-estonia)
- [Cryptocurrency VC Funds in Canada](https://shizune.co/investors/cryptocurrency-vc-funds-canada)
- [Web3 Investors in Portugal](https://shizune.co/investors/web3-investors-portugal)

## FAQ

### What does NEAR invest in?

NEAR invests primarily in Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Web3 startups, most often at Pre-Seed and Seed stage. Most of the 22 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is NEAR's check size?

NEAR typically joins rounds of $800k–$9.5M at Seed and $192k–$5M at Pre-Seed. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds NEAR participates in.

### How do I contact NEAR?

Public channels for NEAR 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?

The team at NEAR includes Illia Polosukhin (Co-founder), Yulian Lavysh (Business Development Officer) and Alexander Skidanov (Co-Founder), among 18 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.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co