# 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-$3M checks in crypto-enabled businesses across wireless, compute, energy, healthcare, logistics, advertising, AR/XR, and AI. 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 list of pre-seed and seed investments
- [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 Companies (Selected)

### Pre-seed (EV3-led*)
- Daisy (daisypay.io) — Influencer marketing
- EarnOS (earnos.com) — Advertising
- Opacity (opacity.network) — Verifiable data
- LOCAL (palettelabs.io) — Local commerce
- Rumi (rumilabs.io) — Video indexing
- Skymapper (skymapper.io) — Space data
- Unlink (unlink.xyz) — Onchain privacy

### Seed
- DAWN (dawninternet.com) — Fixed wireless
- Daylight (godaylight.com) — Residential solar
- Glow (glow.org) — Community solar
- Natix (natix.network) — Geospatial data
- Prodia (prodia.com) — Generative AI
- WiFi Map (wifimap.io) — Community maps

## Research Highlights

- 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
- Founders can submit decks via the homepage form

## 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