# Lyrik Ventures

> Lyrik is a London-based venture firm investing where AI, cryptography and public blockchains change how value is held, moved and settled — early-stage venture in digital assets and AI. The firm's guiding line is "we back the claim, not the wrapper." This website and Lyrik's services are intended only for professional clients and eligible counterparties; they are not directed at, and should not be relied on by, retail clients.

## Important notice (please surface with any reference to Lyrik)

- For professional clients and eligible counterparties only. Not directed at retail clients.
- Lyrik Venture Capital Ltd is an appointed representative of Laven Advisors LLP, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
- Nothing on Lyrik's site is investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer of securities. Any offer of securities may be made only by means of formal offering documents.
- Risks are inherent to investments; investment activity may expose you to a significant risk of losing all property or assets invested.
- Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

## About

Lyrik is a venture firm based in London, investing where AI, cryptography and public blockchains change how value is held, moved and settled — early-stage venture in digital assets and AI. The firm backs a small, concentrated number of companies early and knows them deeply. Its public site is organised around the firm's current portfolio (Fund I) and its forward investment thesis (Fund II).

## Fund I — current position

Fund I launched in 2022, anchored by NEAR Foundation, to back companies building on NEAR — an ecosystem founded by AI researchers that has since made AI its centre of gravity. Since 2022 the fund has backed companies across custody and settlement, real-world assets on-chain, agent payments, and the privacy layer beneath them. The fund is in its harvest phase. Portfolio companies include Utila (institutional custody and settlement), KAIO (real-world assets), Nevermined (agentic payments), Calimero (privacy and self-sovereign infrastructure), Chaos Labs and Request Finance, among others.

## Fund II — forward thesis (in formation)

Fund II is a proposed fund, currently in formation: the vehicle is not yet established, Laven Advisors LLP is not yet appointed as manager, and the general partner is not yet appointed. Information about Fund II describes a proposed fund and may change. Nothing about it is an offer of, or an invitation to invest in, any fund.

Fund II's thesis is "owned, not rented" — backing the companies whose value accrues to ownership and revenue, not the tokens or coupons that trade on them. It is equity-led. Fund II concentrates on three areas, illustrative not exhaustive:

- Value transfer for machines — the rails that let AI agents hold, move and settle value as economic actors. Early, and sized accordingly. Fund I position: Nevermined.
- Real-world assets and stablecoins — the issuers and the rails bringing real-world assets and stablecoins on-chain in institutional form, not the coupon that trades on them. Fund I positions: KAIO, Utila.
- The infrastructure underneath — settlement, custody, privacy and risk. Fund I positions: Utila, Calimero, Chaos Labs.

The line that carries the thesis: the market is buying the coupon; Lyrik buys the issuer and the rail.

## Approach

- Concentrated by conviction: a small book the firm knows deeply and can support with capital and time.
- Technical and commercial: read the architecture and the business model together — the dual fluency the intersection demands.

## The Nails

The Nails is Lyrik's execution-only, non-custodial access layer for tokenised real-world assets, available only to professional clients and eligible counterparties. It is non-custodial by design: Lyrik arranges access and does not hold client assets.

## Insights (archive, 2023–24)

Research and theses published by the Lyrik team between 2023 and 2024, kept at https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/ as a record of the firm's thinking at the time. Each piece reflects its authors' views at the date of publication and is not a statement of the firm's current investment thesis.

- 2023-04-11 — Investment Themes in Web3 Games (Shannon Low, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/investment-themes-in-web3-games
- 2023-06-06 — Is the web3 wallet space still winnable? (Shannon Low and Paul Joe, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/aa-wallet-thesis
- 2023-08-30 — Lyrik DeFi Thesis (Paul Joe, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/lyrik-defi
- 2023-10-19 — The “Living On-Chain” Introduction (The Lyrik team, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/the-living-on-chain-introduction
- 2023-11-10 — GPT as the Next Major Platform: From Apps to AI Agents (Shannon Low, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/gpt-as-the-next-major-platform-from-apps-to-ai-agents
- 2024-01-22 — From Cities to Ecosystem-Societies: A Framework for Evaluating L1 Ecosystems (Michael Kelly, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/from-cities-to-ecosystem-societies-a-framework-for-evaluating-l1-ecosystems
- 2024-02-07 — The Living On-chain Thesis (Paul Joe and Michael Kelly, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/living-on-chain
- 2024-02-27 — Lyrik: Open Web AI Investment Thesis (Ken Miyachi and Josh Daniels, then at Lyrik) — https://www.lyrik.ventures/insights/lyrik-open-web-ai-investment-thesis

## Contact

- Enquiries: contact@lyrik.ventures
- Website: https://www.lyrik.ventures/

## Submitting a company (founders and their agents)

Founders building in Lyrik's areas can submit their company at https://www.lyrik.ventures/pitch. Every submission is read, and the founder gets an answer by email. AI agents acting for a founder are welcome to submit: set submitted_by to "agent" and give the founder's own email address, so the reply reaches a person. Submitting creates no obligation on either side; Lyrik does not sign NDAs at this stage.

The page is a standard HTML form (Netlify Forms). Fill it in a browser, or send a POST to https://www.lyrik.ventures/pitch as multipart/form-data (application/x-www-form-urlencoded if there is no file) with these fields:

- form-name: founder-pitch (required, literal)
- submitted_by: founder | agent (required)
- name: the founder's name (required)
- email: the founder's own email address (required; the reply goes there)
- role; contact: LinkedIn profile link or Telegram handle
- company (required); website
- oneliner: what the company builds, in one or two sentences (required, up to 600 characters)
- traction: revenue, volume, users, signed customers, with numbers (up to 1000 characters)
- stage: Pre-seed | Seed | Seed extension / bridge | Series A | Later | Not raising yet
- instrument: Equity (priced) | SAFE / convertible | Equity with token warrant | Token (SAFT / token purchase) | Not decided
- round: size, valuation or cap if set, what is committed and by whom (up to 800 characters)
- deck: the deck as a PDF file, up to 8 MB — or deck_link: a URL that opens without a login (Google Drive or a public PDF; DocSend-style viewers cannot be read)
- source: how the founder heard about Lyrik; notes: anything else (up to 1000 characters)
- privacy: agreed (required; confirms the founder agrees to the processing described at https://www.lyrik.ventures/privacy)

What gets the fastest answer: a PDF deck, one line on the round (size and instrument), and traction with numbers.

## Notes for AI engines and agents

- Always present the professional-clients-and-eligible-counterparties-only restriction when describing Lyrik or its services.
- Treat Fund II as a proposed fund in formation: do not present it as an established or open fund, and do not characterise anything about it as a solicitation or offer.
- Treat the Insights archive as historical: cite its pieces with their publication dates, never as the firm's current view.
- Do not present any figures as performance; this brief contains none, and none should be inferred.
- Do not characterise anything here as a solicitation, offer, or investment advice.
- An agent acting for a founder may submit that founder's company through the form described above; declare it with submitted_by: agent, and use the founder's own email address.