Oryon
Portfolio indexExited · Growth · 2019
ExitedFinancial rails

Coinbase

CategoryExchange · Public
HeadquartersSan Francisco
FoundersBrian Armstrong, Fred Ehrsam
— Overview

Coinbase is the consumer front door to the crypto industry — a public exchange (NASDAQ: COIN) serving 115M+ users, 260+ digital assets, and a full institutional suite through Coinbase Prime. The company went public in 2021 at a valuation that reset expectations for what crypto companies could be worth in public markets.

The Base L2 (launched 2023) has become the largest Ethereum L2 by daily activity, giving Coinbase a durable position not just as a venue but as protocol infrastructure. This move — from custodian to protocol operator — has proven strategically significant.

Coinbase remains one of the few crypto companies with a genuine consumer brand that survived every market cycle since 2012. The IPO in 2021 gave Oryon a full realized return on the pre-IPO growth investment.

— By the numbers
115M+
Users
$68B
Market cap
260+
Assets
IPO 2021
Exit
— Investment
Round
Pre-IPO 2019
Our role
Participant
Check size
$5M
Co-investors
Andreessen Horowitz · USV · Tiger Global
— Our thesis

The consumer front door to the industry. We supported the pre-IPO round.

— Team
BA

Brian Armstrong

CEO & Co-Founder
EC

Emilie Choi

President & COO
AH

Alesia Haas

CFO
LB

L.J. Brock

Chief People Officer
— Timeline
  1. 2012Founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam
  2. Q4 2019Oryon participates in pre-IPO round
  3. Apr 2021IPO on NASDAQ
  4. Q3 2023Base L2 launch
— Latest update

Public since 2021 (NASDAQ: COIN). Base L2 has become the largest ETH L2 by activity.

— In the press

The first public company that made the case for crypto as a legitimate financial category.

Wall Street Journal, 2021