Superstate Co-founder Raises $3.6M for Ground Onchain Yield

Reid Cuming, co-founder of tokenization startup Superstate, raised $3.6 million in a pre-seed round for Ground, a San Francisco-based startup that emerged from stealth and launched its API platform this week. The round was co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and ParaFi, with participation from Nascent, Robot Ventures, Chapter One and Consonant Ventures. Ground began fundraising in September 2025 and closed in October 2025. The financing was structured as a simple agreement for future equity with token warrants; no investors received board seats, observer seats or advisory roles, and the company declined to disclose valuation.

Ground provides an API that lets fintechs and asset managers embed onchain yield products without building their own blockchain integrations. The platform lets clients select yield strategies based on risk tolerance and liquidity needs.

The startup currently sources yield from crypto-native lending protocols and structured products and plans to add liquid staking tokens. Cuming highlighted integrations with Aave, Morpho, Maple and Kamino across Ethereum, Solana and Layer 2 networks, and said additional protocols and blockchains will be added in response to customer demand.

Target customers include fintechs, neobanks, wealth managers, exchanges and asset managers building yield, savings or investment products. Ground plans to generate revenue through usage-based platform fees for API access.

Ground is led by Cuming as chief executive and Sam Yoon as chief technology officer. The company has three full-time employees, including the founders, and one contractor. Cuming expects to hire two to four more people across engineering, go-to-market and potentially legal and operations roles.

Cuming previously co-founded Superstate and served as vice president and general manager of Compound Treasury. Yoon served as technical CEO of Braid and led product and engineering at HiFi. Cuming remains a board member and senior advisor at Superstate but is no longer involved in day-to-day operations.

Cuming said, “Ground is building the platform that makes onchain finance accessible and embeddable.” He also noted that the global asset management industry oversees more than $147 trillion and that “trillions of dollars sit idle in pre-funded accounts, neobanks and blockchain wallets.” Parth Chopra, a partner at Bain Capital Crypto, described the technical and compliance challenges institutions face when accessing onchain credit markets: “This is not at all easy to do today.” Chopra added that Bain invested because Ground aims to provide secure and compliant access for developers to a range of onchain credit products.

Ground's roadmap focuses on expanding protocol coverage, adding liquid staking tokens and adding configuration and reporting features intended to meet institutional requirements.