Former a16z execs launch Bastion

Two former Andreessen Horowitz crypto division executives, Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy, launched web3 startup Bastion this week with $25 million in seed funding.

Eddequiouaq was chief security officer, while Faizullabhoy was chief technology officer.

Along with the funding, Bastion launched a suite of products so companies can integrate web3 infrastructure into their existing enterprise technologies.

These include ownership and monetization of digital goods, smart transaction routing and customer analytics, according to the company. Bastion said it “eliminates the need to individually source solutions such as custody, wallet management and user onboarding.”

“We founded Bastion to enable businesses to onboard their products and end-users into a web3 environment without the complicated, overwhelming experience we know today,” Eddequiouaq said in a written statement.

Meanwhile, the funding round was led by their former employer, a16z crypto, who was joined by Autograph, Laser Digital Ventures, Not Boring Capital, Robot Ventures, Alchemy Ventures and Aptos Ventures.

The company said it intends to deploy the capital into scaling Bastion’s operations, engineering recruitment and securing additional licensing to further diversify its product offerings.

The funding comes amid a challenging crypto environment, both funding-wise and activity. My colleague Jacquelyn Melinek reported in July that crypto funding was down for a fifth straight quarter to $2.34 billion globally. She reports various reasons for this, including a push for more stringent regulations.

However, all is not bad. Earlier this week, Blockchain Capital closed on two funds, totaling $580 million, to invest in decentralized and centralized finance, decentralized and centralized infrastructure, gaming and consumer/social.

And Arianna Simpson, a16z’s general partner, told Melinek during a TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 panel this week that the crypto section will be fine, saying, “What we’ve seen is that the pace of technology development and innovation is not correlated with the amount of capital that’s flowing in at a given moment.”