Escape Velocity (EV3) Research
Investment Thesis
Escape Velocity (EV3) is a thesis-driven, crypto-native venture firm that backs founders building decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) and crypto-enabled businesses in real-world industries. Co-founders Mahesh Ramakrishnan and Salvador Gala describe their approach as underwriting people, not products: they invest before revenue, users, or even a finished product exists, betting on founders whose dreams re-shape how money, data, identity, energy, and intelligence get tokenized. EV3 organizes its portfolio around four public investment theses: Attention Basins (creator and consumer attention markets), Liquidity Basins (onchain credit, asset management, privacy, payments), Machine Maps (stationary and mobile physical-world mapping networks), and Physical Infrastructure (bandwidth, compute, and energy DePIN). The firm publishes long-form research (quarterly investor letters, thesis PDFs, and even Harvard Business School case studies co-authored by Ramakrishnan on Helium, NEAR, Hyperliquid, and World) to make the case for why decentralized incentive design outcompetes centralized alternatives in capital-intensive physical networks.
Stage Focus
EV3 is a preseed- and seed-focused firm. The firm's own site states it invests "at the earliest stages," and third-party trackers (OpenVC, IncubatorList) confirm a preseed/seed focus with EV3 as a frequent lead investor.
Check Size
EV3's homepage states a check size range of $500K-$5M. Aggregators such as OpenVC and IncubatorList cite a slightly narrower $500K-$3M range for typical checks, consistent with a firm that leads or co-leads most of its rounds and reserves capital for follow-ons.
Lead Tendency
EV3 leads or co-leads the majority of its deals. Its own portfolio page marks roughly a third of listed companies with an asterisk denoting rounds EV3 led or co-led, and third-party profiles describe the firm as one that "primarily leads" its investments.
Recent Activity
EV3 closed an oversubscribed $61.74M Fund II in December 2025 (announced publicly in a January 2026 Fortune exclusive), roughly tripling the size of its 2022 debut $20M Fund I. Fund II's backers include Ribbit Capital, Marc Andreessen, Multicoin Capital, Framework Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Meru Capital, Thrive Capital, and fund-of-funds Cendana (the single largest check, at $15M), Crosslayer, and Reference. The firm continues to actively deploy capital into DePIN and crypto-infrastructure founders; Pitchbook records a July 2026 investment in onchain-credit startup Denaro as EV3's most recent tracked deal.
Portfolio Highlights
EV3's public portfolio spans roughly three dozen companies across its four theses, including onchain credit and asset-management plays (Denaro, EarniFi, Qiro, Axal, Inversion, Pathfinder), privacy and payments (LOCAL/Palette Labs, Opacity, Unlink, MintCash), physical-world mapping networks (Skymapper, 375ai, Natix, Raad, Auki, MeshMap, OVR), and physical infrastructure across bandwidth, compute, and energy (Aro, DAWN, WiFi Map, XNET, Codigo, FortyTwo, Prodia, Drill, Daylight, Glow). Earlier deals outside the current portfolio grid include short-term rental protocol Dtravel, which raised from EV3 and Modular Capital in December 2024.
Team
- Mahesh Ramakrishnan, Co-founder & Managing Partner - Started his career at Goldman Sachs (investment banking) and Apollo Global Management (private equity) before becoming a venture capitalist. HBS and Harvard College graduate; co-authored multiple HBS case studies on blockchain networks (Helium, NEAR, Hyperliquid, World).
- Salvador Gala, Co-founder & Managing Partner - Previously a fintech investor at Ribbit Capital and a fintech investment banker at Goldman Sachs, where he and Ramakrishnan met as interns. Studied applied mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh; named to Forbes 30 Under 30 for Finance in 2026.
- Brandon Leppke, COO & General Counsel - Previously at Hogan Lovells and Cole-Frieman & Mallon; University of Virginia School of Law and Creighton University graduate.
- Additional team includes a chief of staff (Steen) and an operations lead (Zoltan).
Decision Process
EV3 is run as a partnership between its two co-founders, Ramakrishnan and Gala, supported by a small operating team (COO/GC, chief of staff, operations). This is consistent with a firm of its size (roughly 20 employees per Tracxn) rather than a solo-GP or formal investment-committee structure.
Founder Preferences
EV3 explicitly underwrites people before product: the firm looks for founders with "generational drive and ambition" willing to build in an out-of-favor, high-conviction category (DePIN/crypto infrastructure) through market cycles. Ramakrishnan has been publicly described as "the DePIN cheerleader" for his willingness to back the space through both bull and bear crypto sentiment.
Geographic Focus
EV3 is headquartered in New York City. Its portfolio is global in practice, reflecting the inherently distributed nature of physical infrastructure networks, though the firm itself does not publish an explicit geographic mandate.