San Francisco-based startup Evercoin has secured $1 million in pre-seed financing, the company announced on August 5, 2019. The round was led by gumi Cryptos Capital and included an impressive roster of investors: Roger Ver, founder and executive chairman of Bitcoin.com; Ross Mason, founder of MuleSoft (acquired by Salesforce); Marc Fleury, founder and CEO of JBoss (acquired by Red Hat); John Pigott, founder and CEO of ABE Exchange; and Eman Pulis, founder and CEO of the Malta Blockchain Summit.
Strategic Investors with Deep Roots in Open Source and Crypto
This funding round brings together pioneers from open source software and the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Roger Ver, often called "Bitcoin Jesus," is a long-time advocate for Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Ross Mason and Marc Fleury both built companies that defined the open-source commercialization model—MuleSoft in integration and JBoss in application servers. Their experience in scaling open-source projects will be invaluable to Evercoin, which is itself built on open-source principles. Ray Zhang, managing director at gumi Cryptos Capital, stated: "Evercoin is a beautifully designed consumer user experience that provides all the benefits of popular services like Coinbase. What gets us excited is that it's the strongest product in the market for delivering those features without compromising on user custody, the most important issue for cryptographic assets."
Non-Custodial Wallet and Exchange: Key Features
Evercoin is a mobile-first, non-custodial wallet and exchange service for both fiat and crypto assets. The company emphasizes self-custody: users control their private keys, and Evercoin never sees or stores them. It also provides secure key recovery. Supported coins include Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA), Tron (TRX), Dash (DASH), Zcash (ZEC), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Qtum (QTUM), Decred (DCR), and Dogecoin (DOGE). Users can also buy crypto with U.S. dollars by linking their bank accounts—a feature live in 10 U.S. states, with plans for expansion.
The platform offers instant exchange (except for limit orders) and non-custodial limit orders, allowing users to set their own price while funds remain in their wallet until the order is filled. This combines the convenience of a centralized exchange with the security of self-custody.
CEO Talip Ozturk’s Vision
Talip Ozturk, founder and CEO of Evercoin, previously created Hazelcast, a popular open-source in-memory distributed database used by major financial institutions worldwide. He said, "We are proud to welcome a set of extremely strategic investors into our seed round. These investors represent a tremendous range and depth of experience and deep networks in open source software, Bitcoin and regulatory issues for the cryptographic asset class." Ozturk sees cryptocurrency as the convergence of his passion for open systems and distributed governance with his background in high-performance financial infrastructure.
Market Positioning and Outlook
At a time when the crypto industry is maturing and users increasingly demand both usability and security, Evercoin positions itself as a solution that doesn't force a trade-off. The $1 million pre-seed will fund continued development, particularly expanding fiat on-ramps and refining the exchange experience. With a team led by a seasoned open-source veteran and backed by influential investors, Evercoin aims to become the go-to non-custodial wallet and exchange for mainstream cryptocurrency users.