Magna, a New York-based token management platform, has raised $15.2 million in seed funding. The round was led by Tiger Global and Tusk Venture Partners with participation from Circle Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Asymmetric, Alchemy Ventures, Solana Ventures, Ava Labs, Polygon, Protocol Labs, Y Combinator Continuity, Blockchain Founders Fund, AV Blockchain Fund, Olive Tree Capital, ProtoFund, Plug and Play Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Ryan Selkis, and angels including senior executives from Anchorage, Fireblocks, TRM, Chainalysis, TokenSoft, Phantom, QuantStamp, and QuickNode, among other investors.
In the last few years, there has been a growing trend for companies and projects to offer tokens to employees, community members, investors, and other stakeholders. The current process for managing hundreds to thousands of token grants is time-consuming and manual for companies. Magna, founded by CEO Bruno Faviero and CTO Arun Kirubarajan, was started in early 2022 to remove this friction of managing token grants and distributing tokens: customers input their distribution schedules and recipient information, and the platform automates the rest. The platform currently supports distributions on blockchains including Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, and others, and is now managing over $30M of distributions for select customers, having distributed to thousands of recipients since going live in July.
“Crypto founders want their stakeholders to get their tokens on-time, correctly, and in a compliant way,” said Bruno Faviero, CEO of Magna. “DIY tools for critical workflows like this often lead to extensive engineering efforts, unaudited code, unusable UIs, and a lack of support for proper tax reporting and compliance elements. These things have to work out of the box if we want to make it easier to start, scale, and participate in the next 100,000 crypto companies.”
“At Shima, we have hundreds of portfolio companies and several have tried to build token distribution mechanisms in-house to no avail,” said Yida Gao, General Partner at Shima Capital. “These tools should exist as a primitive and require battle-tested smart contract code, extensive security audits, and a usable interface to get right.”
For companies that haven’t yet launched their token, Magna helps them plan out their token allocations well in advance with tools including token offer letters and legal agreement management. For companies that already have a live token, Magna’s platform helps beyond distributions with on-chain insights (holdership breakdown, token transfers, live price, and more.), as well as compliance support for tax withholding, calculating tax liability, IRS filings, and more.
“Magna is solving a pain point that many founders and organizations face today when managing tokens for employees and various stakeholders,” said Jordan Nof, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Tusk Venture Partners. “Token issuances can create a powerful incentive for stakeholders, but managing the process is still highly manual. Bruno and the team at Magna are creating a platform that will change the future of how companies plan, manage and execute token distributions.”
Magna will put this new round of funding towards improving the overall experience of the platform, building new product offerings, launching support for new blockchains and protocols, and continuing to frequently audit its smart contracts. Magna’s on-chain programs have been audited multiple times by industry-leading firms including OtterSec and CertiK to date. Magna is also in the process of integrating with leading institutional custody providers and market makers to bring best-in-class custody options and liquidity options to its customers.
With a presence in New York, Miami, and Toronto, Magna is actively hiring across several roles.
