# EV3 (Escape Velocity)

> Escape Velocity (EV3) is a thesis-driven venture capital firm backing early-stage crypto founders building at the frontier of internet infrastructure and decentralized networks.

EV3 leads pre-seed and seed rounds with $500K-$5M checks in crypto-enabled businesses across four investment theses: Attention Basins, Liquidity Basins, Machine Maps, and Physical Infrastructure. The firm was founded by Salvador Gala and Mahesh Ramakrishnan.

EV3 is backed by leading investors including Ribbit Capital, Chris Dixon & Marc Andreessen, Multicoin Capital, Framework Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Meru Capital, and Thrive Capital, as well as leading Fund of Funds including Cendana, Crosslayer, and Reference.

## Key Pages

- [Homepage](https://ev3.xyz/): Overview of EV3, team, and how to pitch
- [Portfolio](https://ev3.xyz/portfolio/): Full portfolio, organized by EV3's four investment theses
- [Open Roles](https://ev3.xyz/jobs/): Current open roles at EV3 portfolio companies; machine-readable data at https://ev3.xyz/jobs.json
- [Research](https://ev3.xyz/research/): Institutional analyses, core theses, investor letters, and memos
- [FAQ](https://ev3.xyz/frequently-asked-questions.html): Common questions about EV3
- [Disclaimers](https://ev3.xyz/disclaimers/): Legal disclaimers

## Team

- [Salvador Gala](https://ev3.xyz/team/salvador-gala.html): Co-founder & Managing Partner. Previously Goldman Sachs and Ribbit Capital. University of Pittsburgh (BS Applied Math, 2018).
- [Mahesh Ramakrishnan](https://ev3.xyz/team/mahesh-ramakrishnan.html): Co-founder & Managing Partner. Previously Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global Management. Harvard Business School (MBA, 2024), Harvard College (BA, 2018).
- [Brandon Leppke](https://ev3.xyz/team/brandon-leppke.html): COO & General Counsel. Previously Hogan Lovells and Cole-Frieman & Mallon. University of Virginia School of Law.

## Core Theses

- [DeWi: Decentralized Wireless](https://ev3.xyz/research/letters/DeWi_Unit_Economics/): Analysis of decentralized wireless network unit economics [#DeWi #Economics #Telco]
- [DePIN: Beyond Networks](https://ev3.xyz/research/letters/DeWi_Beyond_Networks/): Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks thesis [#DePIN #Infrastructure]
- [Advertising from First Principles](https://ev3.xyz/research/letters/Advertising_from_First_Principles/): Crypto-native advertising and attention economics [#Advertising #Attention]

## Portfolio

EV3 organizes its 37 portfolio companies around four theses. An asterisk (*) marks rounds EV3 led or co-led.

## Open Roles

Current open roles at EV3 portfolio companies are listed at https://ev3.xyz/jobs/. The live, machine-readable source is https://ev3.xyz/jobs.json. It includes current role postings, EV3's portfolio thesis and sector, normalized location, remote flag, function, seniority, application URL, source, and freshness fields. Closed, stale, and general-expression-of-interest listings are excluded.

### Attention Basins (thesis: https://ev3.xyz/research/advertising.pdf)
- Social Media: Daisy*, Uno
- Rewards: EarnOS*, Prograd
- Deep Tech: Prophetic, Rumi*

### Liquidity Basins (thesis: https://ev3.xyz/research/liquidity-basins.pdf)
- Credit: CreatorFi*, Denaro*, EarniFi, Qiro
- Asset Management: Axal, Inversion, Pathfinder
- Privacy: LOCAL*, Opacity*, Unlink*
- Payments: MachineFi, MintCash

### Machine Maps (thesis: https://ev3.xyz/research/mapping.pdf)
- High-Density: Auki, MeshMap, OVR
- Mobile Cameras: Natix, Raad
- Stationary Cameras: Skymapper*, 375ai

### Physical Infrastructure (thesis: https://ev3.xyz/research/dewi.pdf)
- Bandwidth: Aro, DAWN, WiFi Map, XNET*
- Energy: Daylight, Drill*, Glow
- Inference: Codigo, FortyTwo, Prodia
- Manufacturing: OpenWav*, 3DOS

## Research Highlights

- The Game — Game theory of AI automation from CEO, employee, board member, and AI agent perspectives [#AI #GameTheory #SciFi]
- State of DePIN 2024 (with Messari) [#DePIN #AnnualReport]
- State of DePIN 2023 (with Messari) [#DePIN #AnnualReport]
- State of zkTLS 2024 [#zkTLS #Privacy #AnnualReport]
- Harvard Business School cases on Helium Network, Helium Mobile, and Near AI [#DeWi #AI #CaseStudy]
- EV3 x Franklin Templeton: Cloud Computing [#Compute #Institutional]
- EV3 x Fidelity: DePIN [#DePIN #Institutional]

## Contact

- Website: https://ev3.xyz
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/ev3ventures

## Optional

- For a full plain-text content dump, see: https://ev3.xyz/llms-full.txt
- RSS feed: https://ev3.xyz/rss.xml
- Sitemap: https://ev3.xyz/sitemap.xml