EV3 (Escape Velocity)

Escape Velocity (EV3) is a thesis-driven venture firm focused on pre-seed and seed investments in crypto-enabled and AI-native infrastructure across wireless, compute, energy, healthcare, logistics, advertising, and related categories. The firm reports leading early rounds with checks in the ~$500k–$3M range and partnering closely with a limited number of companies.

The organization combines investing with ecosystem efforts (research, analytics, events, media) and highlights a compact team, in-house legal/operations, and a set of named backers from both traditional and crypto-native venture networks

EV3 Products (by Function):

• Research: A living library of institutional studies (HBS, Fidelity/Franklin Templeton), core theses (DeWi/DePIN, Advertising, Value-Added Bandwidth), annual sector reports (State of DePIN 2022–2024; State of zkTLS 2024), investor letters, and public memos;
• Analytics: DePIN Pulse – an open dashboard covering project overviews, analytics, fundraising, listings, pre-TGE, mining, yields, events, and chain views; data attribution spans EV3 and third-party providers (CoinGecko, DeFiLlama, The Graph, etc.); 
• Events: DePIN Summit – annual gatherings (SF 2023, NYC 2024, Africa 2025) with talk archives and a stated mission to grow the DePIN ecosystem; organized and presented by EV3;
• Media: “Proof of Coverage” social/podcast presence highlighted in the Summit site; primary social channel on X at @Proof_Coverage.

Salvador Gala, EV3 co-founder, is a credited co-author of Messari’s 104-page report State of DePIN 2024. His contribution focuses on sector analysis and market structure, and his author credit is listed on Messari.

Notable Pre-Seed investment include:

• Daylight’s $9M round led by a16z Crypto and Framework, 
• Andrena/DAWN’s $18M led by Dragonfly, 
• Opacity Network’s $12M seed co-led by Archetype and Breyer with participation from EV3, 
• Glow’s $30M led by Framework and USV. 

The EV3 team is highly selective and only invests in a few new companies per year, which allows them to have the time to be super involved. They help founders raise more capital, hire the right talent, and make the right strategic decisions.