The founder dropped out of Harvard to study at a monastery, returned and founded Crossmint, raising $23.6 million. What makes Crossmint special?
Author: KarenZ, Foresight News
In the business world, the complexity of Blockchain technology, such as private key management, Gas fees, and development thresholds, has deterred many companies and developers. Against this backdrop, the Blockchain development platform Crossmint emerged. This company, founded in 2022, believes that future businesses and AI agents will be on-chain, and Crossmint will make building and using on-chain applications simpler and more efficient.
What is Crossmint?
As a Blockchain infrastructure platform, Crossmint helps enterprises and developers easily integrate into the Blockchain ecosystem by providing an all-in-one development tool, allowing them to integrate Blockchain functionalities into applications, AI agents, or businesses, thereby eliminating technical complexity and accelerating the adoption of Web3.
Specifically, Crossmint can provide customers with a complete Blockchain backend support, including wallets, tokenization, payments, and on-chain credentials, with just a few lines of code.
The founder stated in an interview with Fortune magazine that Crossmint's products are similar to Alchemy, but its target customers are more traditional tech companies, fintech companies, and banks.
Team and Investment Background
Crossmint was co-founded in 2022 by two Spanish engineers, Rodri Fernández Touza and Alfonso Gómez-Jordana Mañas. According to Fortune magazine, Rodri Fernández Touza's life trajectory is particularly unique. In 2019, he enrolled in the MBA program at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and later studied public management at Harvard Kennedy School, but eventually dropped out to spend 4 months in a monastery in upstate New York for a meditation retreat. In 2021, the rise of the NFT craze reignited Touza's technological passion, and he decided to return to the entrepreneurial stage, teaming up with Mañas to embark on the Crossmint journey.
Touza stated that he has been practicing Zen for nearly a decade, seeking to explore inner peace and meaning. He is also an extreme adventure enthusiast, with travel experiences including living in religious monasteries around the world, experiencing 36 days of homelessness on the streets of London, and hiking across half of the Korean Peninsula with no money. Distributed systems/cryptography, space exploration and development, decarbonization technologies, and cross-border payment infrastructure are all areas of deep technical interest to him.
Mañas was born in Madrid and has lived in Silicon Valley for many years. He previously served as a product manager at Google and was one of the earliest employees (the third product manager) at WhatsApp.
This week (March 2025), Crossmint announced the completion of a $23.6 million seed, Series A, and strategic round, led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Nyca, First Round, Lightspeed Faction, and HF0. According to Fortune magazine, this was a pure equity financing round.
Ribbit Capital, the lead investor, is known for its precise investment vision, with a Web3-related portfolio that includes Coinbase, Fireblocks, Aave, Morpho Labs, Arbitrum, Blockaid, Chainalysis, and Bridge, a stablecoin platform acquired by Stripe. As a global leader in asset management, Franklin Templeton's influence is undeniable.
Crossmint's Solutions and Operating Mechanism
Crossmint provides comprehensive API support for scenarios such as wallets, tokenization, and payments through REST APIs, web and mobile SDKs, and AI agent tools. Developers can try and develop applications for free in the test environment, but need to pay a fee when using them in the production environment.
Crossmint's core solutions include:
1. Wallets: Crossmint supports the creation of embedded wallets for users, enterprises, or AI agents, which can be integrated into websites, applications, games, or used for backend transaction signing. Its wallets feature a Gas-free experience, optional custodial/non-custodial/hybrid architecture, compatibility with various authentication solutions, and a unified dashboard for managing users, wallets, tokens, and on-chain analytics.
Crossmint has currently integrated around 30 Blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, BSC, Sui, Aptos, Story, Optimism, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Zora.
In early March 2025, Crossmint launched a Solana smart wallet, supporting delegated signers, flexible developer or user payment of transaction fees, and allowing payment in USDC or USDT.
2. Minting: Crossmint supports large-scale minting and distribution of tokens, providing a set of APIs for creating, updating, deleting, and managing tokens, allowing for quick minting of the first NFT and scaling it to millions of NFTs. Use cases include NFT minting and airdrops.
3. Subscriptions: Allows Web3 applications to implement subscription payment models, supporting end-to-end management through Crossmint APIs, including subscription setup, wallet binding, and payment flow. Subscriptions are presented in the form of NFTs and bound to user wallets, making them easier to integrate.
4. Verifiable Credentials: Through the Verifiable Credentials API, Crossmint provides solutions for issuing, managing, and verifying digital credentials, applicable to scenarios such as degree certificates and identity proofs.
5. NFT Payments: Crossmint's payment API allows users to purchase NFTs using credit cards or any cryptocurrency, creating a crypto wallet for the buyer during the NFT purchase process and allowing buyers to use any on-chain cryptocurrency to purchase NFTs on other chains. Crossmint is providing support for the launch versions and marketplaces of Manifold, Magic Eden, and Tensor.
6. Authentication: Crossmint Auth is a fully managed identity authentication service that supports both Web3 and traditional login methods, such as passwordless email one-time code login or login via Google, Apple, and other accounts.
In summary, Crossmint's solutions enable enterprises to easily create embedded wallets (optional custodial or non-custodial), issue and distribute NFTs, and manage on-chain credentials. For end-users, it provides a smooth experience similar to traditional internet, supporting FaceID, email login, and a Gas-free experience. Furthermore, Crossmint's services are highly modular and flexible, covering areas such as wallet creation, tokenization, and payment processing, supporting a variety of payment methods including credit cards, Apple Pay, and over 50 cryptocurrencies. For example, a retail brand can quickly launch an NFT series and seamlessly integrate it with its existing e-commerce system, making it suitable for the diverse needs of startups and financial institutions.
In addition, Crossmint has designed dedicated APIs for AI agents, allowing them to autonomously manage funds, execute transactions, and obtain digital credentials. Its open-source GOAT SDK supports wallet creation for agents, allowing them to exchange, transfer, manage DeFi positions, buy and sell NFTs, and purchase physical assets on any chain. For example, Crossmint recently launched a Slack agent that, with the support of Vercel, Solana, Circle, and the GOAT SDK, can use USDC to purchase office supplies on Amazon through the Crossmint Headless Checkout.
Summary
Crossmint is not only a technology-driven company, but also a bridge connecting traditional business and the future of Blockchain. Since its inception, Crossmint has experienced rapid growth, with a 1100% increase in subscription revenue over the past year, reflecting strong market demand for its solutions. Currently, Crossmint's client list includes global brands such as Adidas and Red Bull, serving over 40,000 enterprises and developers.
As stated in its vision, when all businesses and AI agents migrate to the chain, Crossmint may become a key driver of this transformative wave.
References:
https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/03/18/crossmint-24-million-ribbit-capital-franklin-templeton-developer-platform-fundraise/
https://www.jobleads.com/us/job/senior-sre--united-states--ef9879f62408c26c47f468454eada2e9e
https://docs.crossmint.com/introduction/about-crossmint
