Start 7-day trial
All articles

Mechanism Capital portfolio: 54 companies, 62 rounds, $568M

By NAUT Research · · 11 min read

54 Mechanism Capital portfolio companies tracked on NAUT, September 2020 to September 2025. Logos: NEAR Protocol, Burnt Xion, Allora Network, Mara, Puffer Finance, Morpho, Nansen, Shiba Inu, XY Finance, Holograph, BOB, Angelic.

NAUT tracks 54 crypto companies in the Mechanism Capital portfolio, across 62 funding rounds announced between September 2020 and September 2025. The 60 rounds that disclose a size add up to $567.95M, the median one is $6.0M, and DeFi is the largest sector group with 12 companies ahead of gaming with 11.

Data note. Counted on 2 November 2026 from NAUT's own database: the company rows tied to the investment rows where NAUT records Mechanism Capital as a backer. NAUT holds the fund under 1 row, mechanism-capital, so no union across fund rows was needed here. Mechanism Capital publishes no portfolio count of its own, so read this as NAUT's coverage of the fund rather than the fund's full history.

The stored figures on the fund row count 68 investment rows, $646.25M and a $9.79M average round. This page counts 62 rounds and $567.95M, because 6 of those stored rows do not stand as rounds of their own. 5 record the same fundraise twice: Burnt Xion's $25.0M Series A, $8.0M seed and $3.0M pre-seed each carry a second undated row from the aggregator coinlaunch.space at the same amount, BOB's $10.0M seed carries an identical coinlaunch row, and Allora Network's $22.0M Series A extension carries a coinlaunch row at $23.3M. The 6th belongs to a duplicate company row: NAUT holds Mira under both mira and mira-network with the same $9.0M seed, the same chains and the same backers, so it is counted once here under Mira, the row with the fuller profile. Those 2 rows stay separate in the database; this page only declines to count them twice.

2 of the 62 rounds disclose no amount, ArcadiaFi's seed and Humanity's private round, and 8 carry no announcement date, so the 54 dated rounds are the ones that set the window above and a date is shown only where NAUT holds one. Each company sits in exactly 1 sector group, the first sector tag NAUT holds for it, so the groups add up to 54 and a company tagged with several sectors appears once. 7 companies carry no tag at all and get their own group. Written by NAUT Research.

What is in the Mechanism Capital portfolio on NAUT?

Sector group Companies Rounds Median Total
DeFi 12 13 $3.8M $51.95M
Gaming 11 11 $7.0M $74.7M
Infrastructure 7 10 $7.5M $79.5M
AI 5 5 $4.0M $167.3M
Layer 1 to 3 5 8 $5.0M $67.8M
Other sectors 7 8 $8.1M $58.9M
No sector tag 7 7 $9.0M $67.8M

DeFi and gaming hold 23 of the 54 companies between them, and both groups sit on small cheques: the median round in DeFi is $3.8M and in gaming $7.0M. The AI group is 5 companies and carries $167.3M, because 1 round inside it, NEAR Protocol's $150.0M, is larger than any sector group except that one. These Mechanism Capital investments run across 5 years, so read the mix as one crypto VC portfolio as NAUT has verified it to date rather than as the fund's position today.

Mechanism Capital portfolio companies by sector

Every company below links to its NAUT page, which lists its team, its rounds and the other funds on its cap table. The disclosed column adds every round in this set, so a company backed more than once shows the sum of all of them with the round count beside it. The latest round column is the latest round NAUT holds a date for, and the token column is NAUT's own live-token flag on the company row.

DeFi (12 companies)

The largest group, and the sector the fund's own NAUT description names first.

Company Disclosed Latest round Token
$10.0M Seed, Mar 2024 Yes
$9.5M Investment round, Feb 2022 Yes
$6.0M Funding round, Dec 2024 Yes
$6.0M Private round, Apr 2021 Yes
$5.2M, 2 rounds Funding round, Mar 2021 Yes
$4.3M Seed, Mar 2024 Yes
$3.6M Seed, Dec 2021 Yes
$2.1M No date stored No
$2.0M Seed, Jan 2024 Yes
$1.8M Seed, Nov 2020 No
$1.45M Seed and private rounds, Sep 2020 Yes
- No date stored No

Gaming (11 companies)

The most even group in the set: every company here was backed once, and all 11 rounds land between $4.0M and $10.0M.

Company Disclosed Latest round Token
$10.0M Funding round, Mar 2022 No
$8.6M Seed, Oct 2021 No
$8.5M Pre-Series A, Oct 2021 No
$8.3M Seed, Oct 2021 Yes
$7.0M Strategic round, May 2024 Yes
$7.0M Funding round, Apr 2022 Yes
$6.0M Seed, Mar 2022 No
$5.5M Seed, Jan 2022 Yes
$5.0M Funding round, Aug 2021 Yes
$4.8M Strategic round, Feb 2024 Yes
$4.0M Series A, Jun 2021 Yes

Infrastructure (7 companies)

Account layers, data networks and lending plumbing, plus the 2 companies the fund went back into most often.

Company Disclosed Latest round Token
$29.5M, 2 rounds Series A extension, Mar 2022 Yes
$18.0M Seed extension, Jul 2022 Yes
$11.0M, 3 rounds Strategic round, Apr 2024 Yes
$9.0M Funding round, Jul 2021 Yes
$7.5M No date stored No
$4.5M Seed, Oct 2021 Yes
- No date stored Yes

AI (5 companies)

The smallest group by count and the largest by money, on the strength of 1 round.

Company Disclosed Latest round Token
$150.0M Funding round, Jan 2022 Yes
$9.0M Seed, Jul 2024 Yes
$4.0M Private round, Mar 2022 Yes
$2.3M No date stored No
$2.0M Seed, Sep 2023 Yes

Layer 1, 2 and 3 (5 companies)

5 companies across 8 rounds, the densest repeat rate of any group here.

Company Disclosed Latest round Token
$36.0M, 3 rounds Series A, Apr 2024 Yes
$18.0M Series A, Apr 2024 Yes
$6.0M Strategic round, Mar 2021 Yes
$4.0M Seed, Jan 2022 Yes
$3.8M, 2 rounds Seed, Oct 2021 Yes

Other sectors (7 companies)

Each of these carries a tag no other company in the set leads with, so they are grouped together with the tag shown.

Company Tag Disclosed Latest
Tools $13.2M, 2 rounds No date stored
Meme $12.0M Funding round, Apr 2024
Onchain exchange $12.0M Funding round, Dec 2021
Tools $9.3M Strategic round, Apr 2021
RWA $6.9M Seed, Sep 2025
SocialFi $3.75M Seed, Nov 2021
SocialFi $1.75M Seed, Feb 2022

No sector tag (7 companies)

NAUT holds no sector tag on these rows, so read each company's own page for what it builds. 5 of the 7 were funded in 2022.

Company Disclosed Latest round Token
$23.0M Funding round, May 2022 No
$10.0M Series A, Jan 2022 No
$10.0M Strategic round, Oct 2021 No
$9.0M Seed, Apr 2022 No
$7.5M Seed, Jun 2022 No
$5.0M Private round, Apr 2022 No
$3.3M Funding round, Dec 2021 No

How big is a round in the Mechanism Capital portfolio?

Across the 60 rounds in NAUT's set that disclose a size, the median is $6.0M and the mean $9.5M, running from $1.0M to $150.0M. Those are the sizes of the whole round, not the fund's own cheque, which is rarely disclosed.

Disclosed total per company, the 10 largest in NAUT's set
  1. NEAR Protocol$150M
  2. Burnt Xion$36M
  3. Allora Network$29.5M
  4. Mara$23M
  5. Puffer Finance$18M
  6. Morpho$18M
  7. Nansen$13.2M
  8. Shiba Inu$12M
  9. XY Finance$12M
  10. Holograph$11M

The chart adds every round NAUT holds for each company, so the 3 Burnt Xion rounds and the 3 Holograph rounds show as 1 bar each. These 10 companies carry $322.7M of the $567.95M total, and the remaining 44 companies split $245.25M.

Year Rounds Total Largest round
2020 3 $4.45M , $1.8M
2021 20 $114.35M , $12.0M
2022 18 $306.75M , $150.0M
2023 1 $2.0M , $2.0M
2024 11 $100.9M , $25.0M
2025 1 $6.9M , $6.9M

41 of the 54 dated rounds were announced in 2020, 2021 or 2022, and the 8 undated rounds add $32.6M on top of the $535.35M in the table. The most recent dated round in NAUT's set is Bio Protocol's $6.9M seed of 17 September 2025.

What the source check found

5 rounds in this set were checked against named outside coverage for this page, and all 5 hold up on the amount and the date. 1 of them disagrees with NAUT on the round type: NAUT stores Burnt Xion's $8.0M round of 17 January 2022 as a seed round, while finsmes reported on that date that "Burnt Finance, a NYC-based fully-decentralized NFT auction protocol built on Solana, raised an $8M Series A round", which is also how its own cited source headlines it.

The other 4 checks: NEAR Protocol's $150.0M round was announced on 13 January 2022 with Mechanism Capital among the participants and 3AC leading, per CoinDesk; Burnt Xion's $25.0M Series A was announced on 1 April 2024 under the Xion name, per Yahoo Finance and The Block; Holograph's $6.5M seed was announced on 26 April 2022 under the CXIP Labs name, per CoinDesk; and Mira's $9.0M seed was announced on 16 July 2024 to build a decentralized AI infrastructure platform, per SiliconANGLE and The Block. The other 57 rounds were not checked one by one for this page, so read this as the contradictions found in the rows that were.

Which companies did Mechanism Capital back more than once?

6 of the 54 companies carry more than 1 round in NAUT's set, and they account for 14 of the 62 rounds. These are the warmest introductions in the portfolio for anyone trying to reach the fund, because the relationship survived a second cheque.

Company Rounds Disclosed The rounds
3 $36.0M Pre-seed $3.0M May 2021, seed $8.0M Jan 2022, Series A $25.0M Apr 2024
3 $11.0M Pre-seed $1.7M Jul 2021, seed $6.5M Apr 2022, strategic $2.8M Apr 2024
2 $29.5M Series A extension $22.0M Mar 2022, Series A $7.5M, no date stored
2 $13.2M Seed $1.2M and Series A $12.0M, no dates stored
2 $5.2M Funding round $1.2M Dec 2020, funding round $4.0M Mar 2021
2 $3.8M Pre-seed $1.0M Jun 2021, seed $2.8M Oct 2021

Burnt Xion and Holograph are the 2 companies the fund went back into twice, across 3 rounds each spread over 3 years.

Who invests alongside Mechanism Capital?

NAUT records 237 other firms across these 62 rounds, 527 backer rows in all, an average of 8.5 co-investors a round. The table below is ranked by the number of the 62 rounds each firm shares with Mechanism Capital.

Co-investor Shared rounds Share
12 19%
11 18%
11 18%
10 16%
10 16%
10 16%
9 15%
8 13%
8 13%
8 13%

YieldGuild sits in the table twice over: it is a co-investor on 9 of these rounds and a portfolio company in the gaming group above, which is how a guild that raises and deploys shows up in NAUT's data.

What the Mechanism Capital portfolio tells a BD team

  • The portfolio is small cheques at volume. 47 of the 60 rounds that disclose a size are below $10.0M, so these are teams of a size where a founder still answers their own messages.
  • Gaming and DeFi are the 2 groups to work first: 23 companies, and every gaming company is a single-round relationship, so none of them has an entrenched incumbent relationship with this fund to displace.
  • 12 of the 54 companies have their most recent dated round in 2024 or 2025, so most of this list raised 3 or more years ago and has either shipped or gone quiet. Check the token flag and the company page before you build a sequence.
  • 10 firms share 8 or more of the 62 rounds, so a warm path through one of them reaches a large part of the same table.
How a BD team can work this portfolio
  1. Start with the repeats6 companies carry 2 or more rounds, from Burnt Xion at 3 to KYVE Network at 2.
  2. Pick the live sectorDeFi has 12 companies and gaming 11, the 2 largest groups in the set.
  3. Go through a co-investorThe Spartan Group shares 12 of the 62 rounds, Morningstar Ventures and CMS Holdings 11 each.
  4. Find the person on the NAUT pageEvery company above links to its page, which lists its team and the channels NAUT has verified.

What this portfolio tells a founder raising

  • The fund's cheques cluster in seed. 25 of the 62 rounds are typed as a seed round and 4 more as pre-seed, against 7 typed Series A or a Series A variant.
  • The median round it joins is $6.0M. If you are raising a $30M Series B, nothing in NAUT's record of this fund matches your round.
  • It goes back in. 6 of 54 companies took a second cheque, so a first round from this fund is worth optimising for even at a small size.
  • Bring the co-investors with you. The 10 firms above each sat in 8 or more of the same 62 rounds, so the syndicate is more predictable than the lead.
How a founder raising can use this list
  1. Match your stage25 of the 62 rounds are seed and 4 pre-seed, with a $6.0M median.
  2. Find a portfolio founder54 companies link to their NAUT pages, each with the team NAUT holds.
  3. Ask through a repeatBurnt Xion, Holograph, Allora Network, Nansen, Siren and KYVE Network each raised from the fund more than once.
  4. Reach the partnerNAUT holds 5 people at the fund, including both co-founders.

Who runs Mechanism Capital?

NAUT holds 5 people against Mechanism Capital: Andrew Kang and Marc Weinstein, both stored as Co-Founder and Partner, Steve Cho as General Partner, Roland Roventa as Investment Principal and Shayaan Nackvi as COO. Those are the titles NAUT stores, so treat each as a starting point and read the person's page for the channels NAUT has verified. Anyone listed can ask NAUT to remove their page at https://naut.so/legal/data-deletion.

Related reading on NAUT: Spartan Group portfolio: 99 companies, $17.9M average round and Crypto co-investors: 3 steps, 168 on 66 rounds for 1 fund.

Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?

Yes. 1 call returns the same rows as the tables above: GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/mechanism-capital with an Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY header returns the fund with its team and its portfolio, each row carrying the company, roundType, amountUsd, announceDate and isLead, at 5 credits a call. Swap in GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/burnt-xion for a single portfolio company and its team, and see the API docs and pricing for keys and credits. The verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn of the people at this fund and its 54 companies unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial if you need the channel and not only the name.

Mechanism Capital portfolio FAQ

How many companies are in the Mechanism Capital portfolio?

NAUT tracks 54 companies backed by Mechanism Capital as of 2 November 2026, across 62 funding rounds announced between September 2020 and September 2025. The fund publishes no count of its own, and NAUT's stored fund-row figures count 68 investment rows because 6 of them record a fundraise already counted, so read 54 as the part of the portfolio NAUT has verified.

Which crypto companies has Mechanism Capital invested in?

The largest disclosed totals in NAUT's set belong to NEAR Protocol at $150.0M, Burnt Xion at $36.0M across 3 rounds, Allora Network at $29.5M, Mara at $23.0M and Puffer Finance and Morpho at $18.0M each. By count the portfolio leans on DeFi (12 companies), gaming (11), infrastructure (7), AI (5) and base layers (5), with 7 companies carrying no sector tag.

How much does Mechanism Capital invest in a round?

Across the 60 rounds in NAUT's set that disclose a size, the median round was $6.0M and the mean $9.5M, measured between September 2020 and September 2025. 25 of the 62 rounds are typed as a seed round, which is the single most common type in the set, and the largest round is $150.0M while the smallest is $1.0M.

Which funds invest alongside Mechanism Capital?

NAUT records 237 other firms across these 62 rounds. The most frequent is The Spartan Group at 12 shared rounds, then Morningstar Ventures and CMS Holdings at 11 each, and Alameda Research, Animoca Brands and Coinbase Ventures at 10.

Where can I find the Mechanism Capital team and their portfolio founders?

On NAUT: the fund's own page lists the 5 people NAUT holds at Mechanism Capital, each of the 54 portfolio companies has a page with its rounds and its team, and GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/mechanism-capital returns the same data in 1 call at 5 credits. The verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn of those people unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to reach them.

Does Mechanism Capital lead rounds?

NAUT's record does not mark Mechanism Capital as the lead on any of these 62 rounds. That proves nothing on its own, because the lead flag is set on very few backer rows across the whole database, so its absence is a gap in NAUT's data rather than a fact about the fund. Outside coverage does name leads on rounds in this set: CoinDesk reported 3AC leading NEAR Protocol's $150.0M round of 13 January 2022, with this fund among the participants.

Sources

Browse all articles