Firm Identify: Teya
founder: Sriram Bhargav Karnati, Smit Bhatt and Vikas Chowdhury
Date of firm: December 2022
headquarter tackle: San Francisco, California
Variety of Bitcoins held by the Treasury: “That is essential.”
Variety of energetic workers: 7
web site: https://www.theya.us/
Public or non-public? non-public
Sriram Bhargav Karnati believes that best-in-class safety and usefulness will not be mutually unique in the case of managing Bitcoin.
So he and Theya’s co-founders constructed a multi-signature Bitcoin vault—a mechanism that requires a number of contributors to signal Bitcoin transactions—that customers can conveniently handle from their cell gadgets.
“Our mission is to make self-custody straightforward for everybody,” Canati mentioned.
“If you happen to take a look at all of the $1 trillion corporations — all the massive tech corporations: Apple, Google, Fb — all of them have nice merchandise that atypical folks can use. However should you take a look at Bitcoin, none of them have This product makes it tremendous straightforward for everybody to make use of with out having to be a safety engineer or have technical experience,” he added.
“[We] The hope is to actually make onboarding tremendous straightforward for folks and make long-term storage tremendous handy.
Mixed with Carnati’s background constructing shopper merchandise for big corporations like Google and Robinhood, and his deep understanding of Bitcoin, there appeared to be nobody higher suited to convey multi-signature Bitcoin vaults to the plenty.
Silicon Valley All-Stars Swap to Bitcoin
Karnathy grew up in Mumbai and dreamed of working in Silicon Valley.
In 2014, he acquired the chance and started working at Google, the place he contributed to a number of of the corporate’s merchandise.
“At Google, I didn’t simply work on a group,” Canati remembers.
“I contact nearly each product you employ: Google Search, Google Buying, Google Adverts — every little thing,” he added.
“The largest classes I discovered from this had been ‘How do you construct a system from scratch and scale it to billions of customers?’ and ‘How do folks consider using the product?
By 2021, Karnati joined Robinhood, one other outstanding Bay Space-based tech firm.
At Robinhood, Canati discovered in regards to the intersection of cash, finance, and expertise and paid shut consideration to what the corporate was doing proper when it comes to consumer expertise.
“One of many largest classes I discovered after I was working at Robinhood was ‘How do you make a posh monetary instrument tremendous easy?’” Canati defined. “[We were] Principally giving everybody an opportunity to hitch the world of finance.
Canati has taken these classes he discovered in Silicon Valley and is now making use of them to Bitcoin’s self-custody.
He knew that if Bitcoin was to scale the best way it was imagined to — with customers conserving their very own Bitcoins — then utilizing a non-custodial Bitcoin pockets or vault must grow to be simpler.
Enter Theya — a dynamic and safe resolution for Bitcoin self-custody.
How theya work
Theya’s vault makes use of a 2-of-3 multi-signature setup, which signifies that two of the three non-public key holders should signal to ship Bitcoin from the vault to ensure that a transaction to proceed. They maintain one of many keys, whereas the consumer holds the opposite two.
Theya is exclusive in that its first multi-signature resolution doesn’t require the usage of a {hardware} pockets – one thing Karnati believes is intimidating for brand spanking new Bitcoin customers.
“Cellular Multisig is for individuals who don’t have a {hardware} pockets however nonetheless wish to self-custody with a number of single signatures [device],” Canati defined.
“You can create a household pockets along with your partner. Any such product did not exist earlier than Theya,” he added.
“[They can] Begin utilizing multisig, and as they accumulate increasingly more Bitcoins, they’ll slowly improve to a {hardware} pockets and create chilly storage [setup]”.
Theya cost an annual charge of $199 for this service.
That mentioned, Karnati and the Theya group notice that not everybody will instantly select a multi-signature setup, particularly one which comes with a price ticket.
Given their mission to allow as many individuals as potential to self-custody, Karnati defined that Theya additionally affords a free non-custodial pockets choice.
“Single signature cell wallets are free,” he mentioned, “and you’ll create as many wallets as you need.”
Canati added that the free single-signature product can be suitable with {hardware} wallets. For instance, you need to use the Theya app as an interface for any {hardware} pockets it helps, together with Ledger, Trezor, ColdCard, and Basis gadgets.
However who would put money into an organization that offers away a part of its product at no cost to meet its mission?
Y Combinator is without doubt one of the most outstanding enterprise capital (VC) companies within the broader cryptocurrency and expertise area.
Why Select Y Combinator?
To get Theya off the bottom, Karnati and his co-founders accepted funding from Y Combinator, which is thought for serving to speed up the monetary improvement of latest startups within the broader crypto area, which regularly subject their very own crypto tokens. , fairly than a startup that solely points Bitcoin.
So what piqued Y Combinator’s curiosity in Theya?
“Y Combinator didn’t actually make investments based mostly on the thought,” Canati mentioned. “They make investments based mostly on the founder’s background.”
Provided that Theya’s different two founders – Smeet Bhatt and Vikas Choudary – even have spectacular resumes and intensive expertise working in expertise, logistics and finance, it isn’t exhausting to think about why Y Combinator is .
Nonetheless, Y Combinator appreciates extra than simply the background of Theya’s founders.
“In addition they love our mission,” Canati mentioned.
“We now have a transparent constructing area. Everyone desires to make fast cash. Everyone desires to create a token and stuff like that, they usually assume ‘These guys are doing one thing totally different and filling a distinct segment the place you don’t actually have an enormous product. Clean,'” he added.
Kanati Beliefs in Bitcoin
Contemplating that Canati has the event capabilities to work for any tech firm, one has to ask: why give attention to Bitcoin?
“I learn Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper in 2014 and I type of understood it,” Canati recalled. “Then I learn Andreas’ Grasp Bitcoin Higher perceive the way it works.
However Carnati’s theoretical grasp of Bitcoin isn’t what makes him a Bitcoin believer.
“Then I purchased just a little little bit of Bitcoin and traded it on the chain,” he mentioned.
“I assumed, ‘Wow, this appears actual.'” I might transfer my cash with out permission. It’s clear that this should be the way forward for cash.
When Kanati in contrast his expertise with Bitcoin transactions along with his expertise of sending worldwide cash to India from South Korea, the place he lived whereas working at Samsung, he skilled considered one of Bitcoin’s most important worth propositions – low-cost and quick cash transfers.
“It requires a whole lot of KYC, a whole lot of verification, and it’s very gradual,” Canati mentioned of the method of sending cash via conventional monetary rails. “Generally there are failures, and the prices are very excessive – there’s a 1.5% charge on prime of the international change charges.”
After this expertise, Canati additionally discovered about and tried different blockchains, and it wasn’t till he extra absolutely realized considered one of Bitcoin’s different main attributes—a retailer of worth—that he returned to Bitcoin.
“I spotted that an important factor is a retailer of worth,” Canati mentioned of the variations between Bitcoin and different digital belongings.
That is a part of what led him to create a product that might make it simpler and safer to retailer non-public keys right into a retailer of worth.
What’s subsequent for Theya?
Along with offering customers with a first-class multi-signature vault expertise, Karnati and the Theya group had additional aspirations for his or her software.
“Funds are positively an space we wish to develop in,” Canati mentioned. “We wish to make it simpler for retailers to simply accept funds and simpler for folks to supply subscriptions.”
Nonetheless, he added that integrating Lightning Community is just not their subsequent step.
Canati and his group at the moment are extra focused on introducing exchanges into the app in order that customers should buy Bitcoin throughout the app and ship it on to chilly storage. A part of his motivation for including the characteristic got here from noticing the shortcomings of different Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges within the area, together with Robinhood, the place he as soon as labored.
“A few of our customers have Coinbase or Robinhood accounts,” Canati defined.
“[These platforms] There are limits on withdrawals, which may be troublesome for withdrawals [users]. “With the product we’re making, you should purchase immediately right into a self-custody vault,” he added, proving that comfort and best-in-class safety can coexist in a single app.
