Ground Launches API to Route Fintech Capital Into DeFi Yield

Published by James Harris on June 25, 2026June 25, 2026

Reid Cuming, who co-founded tokenization firm Superstate before it raised $82.5 million through its Series B, has now launched Ground with $3.6 million in pre-seed funding to solve a different version of the same problem: fintechs want onchain yield, but they will not build the blockchain infrastructure to get it themselves.

The pitch is straightforward. Neobanks, wealth managers, and exchanges sit on idle capital in pre-funded accounts and stablecoin balances, and most have no appetite to staff DeFi risk teams or manage smart-contract integrations directly. Ground’s API abstracts that away, currently routing capital through Aave, Morpho, Maple, and Kamino across Ethereum, Solana, and several Layer-2 networks. The round was co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and ParaFi, closed under a SAFE structure with token warrants, and notably gave no investors board seats or advisor roles. That structure matters: it keeps the cap table clean for a company whose value proposition depends on being a neutral infrastructure layer rather than a protocol with its own governance interests. CTO Sam Yoon brings relevant credentials, having previously built stablecoin cross-border infrastructure at HIFI that processed hundreds of millions of dollars across hundreds of applications.

The four protocols Ground integrates with represent tens of billions in onchain assets, which means the distribution question is more tractable than the liquidity question.

ParaFi’s timing is telling. The firm raised a $125 million venture fund in March 2026 specifically targeting stablecoins, tokenization, and institutional onchain finance, and its bet on Ground reflects a thesis that the next layer of institutional DeFi adoption is not about custody or tokenization but about credit infrastructure sitting underneath fintech products. Bain Capital Crypto’s Parth Chopra described the current state of onchain credit access for institutions as “not at all easy to do today,” which is less a market observation than an investment thesis. Q1 2026 saw crypto startups raise nearly $5 billion in venture funding, with payments and trading infrastructure accounting for $1.2 billion of that. DeFi credit infrastructure is where that capital appears to be moving next.

Ground enters a crowded field. Yield aggregators, tokenization platforms, and embedded finance firms are all chasing the same gap between traditional fintech and onchain yield, and the compliance-grade differentiation Cuming is pitching will be tested the moment a protocol integration goes wrong or a regulatory perimeter shifts. Usage-based platform fees are the revenue model, though Ground has not disclosed specific rates. Comparable infrastructure providers typically operate on basis-point fees or revenue-sharing tied to deposited assets, so the unit economics will depend heavily on how much capital Ground can route before its own infrastructure costs become meaningful.