Meet Tweed, a startup coming out of stealth today that has been working on a white-label cryptocurrency wallet and payment solution. With Tweed, companies can generate wallets for their users so they can buy, hold, send and spend crytpo assets without any technical knowledge.
The startup raised a $4 million seed round last summer with Accel leading the round. Communitas Capital Partners, Zero Knowledge Venture and angel investors, such as Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia, Mike Vaughan, Ameet Patel and Cristóbal Conde are also participating.
Tweed targets Web 2.0 companies that want to add a web3 component to their service. For instance, if you run a marketplace, you could use crypto wallets so that users can send and receive tokens. Or if you are a gaming studio, you may want to turn in-game items into NFTs.
Tweed is an application programming interface that can be integrated into your existing product. Users can create a wallet without having to switch to another product or without a browser extension.
“That goes back to the main problem in the space right now. The user experience remains the top problem in any company, brand, platform tapping into the web3 space. You can’t expect people to have a wallet or to go and download one and come back to the platform,” co-founder and CEO Michelle Latzer told me.
Behind the scenes, Tweed wallets are self-custodial wallets. Users who rely on Google’s social login feature don’t have to remember their private key as it is tied to their Google account. Users can also choose a password to unlock the so-called “recovery kit.”
After that, Tweed’s wallets are compatible with the Ethereum, Polygon and Tezos blockchains. Users can store both NFTs and tokens in those wallets.
In addition to this wallet infrastructure, Tweed also offers payment integrations. This way, users can top up their wallets or buy NFTs with a payment card. Tweed is also working on offramps to receive fiat to a bank account.
Using an embedded web3 infrastructure product like Tweed means that you don’t have to take care of KYC or other regulatory concerns. Users are in charge of their crypto assets, and Tweed handles the fiat-to-crypto infrastructure.
Interestingly, Coinbase also unveiled its wallet API this week. There are many similarities between the two products, so it will come down to execution. But it also means that Tweed is definitely onto something interesting.
