Draper‑backed privacy market
Startup scouts highlighted AlpendMarket — a privacy‑focused money market running on the Canton Network and backed by Draper VC — as a notable early trade‑finance/DeFi experiment this week, alongside other trading and AI agent projects (x.com). The same roundup named DeeptuneAI and other niche plays that are drawing seed‑to‑growth capital, signalling VCs still hunting frontier blockchain use cases (x.com).
Alpend’s live site and web app advertise a “Mainnet v0.1” money‑market that promises confidential positions and MEV‑free execution on the Canton Network. (app.alpend.com) The Alpend web app footer explicitly lists Draper Associates and Boost VC alongside the Canton Foundation as named partners/supporters, and the project’s GitHub organization uses the handle @AlpendMarket. (app.alpend.com)(github.com/AlpendProtocol) Canton Network describes itself as a privacy‑enabled, interoperable layer‑1 built for institutional assets, positioning Alpend to run with configurable privacy and policy‑aware controls for regulated participants. (docs.digitalasset.com)(canton.network) Digital Asset, the developer tied to Canton, raised a $135 million strategic round led by DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets to accelerate Canton adoption—an institutional stake that underpins experiments like Alpend. (theblock.co) Alpend’s public copy calls out “deterministic on‑chain execution,” “policy‑aware access,” and “non‑custodial credit,” language aimed squarely at trade‑finance rails rather than retail‑style DeFi primitives. (alpend.com) The same scout roundup that flagged Alpend also named Deeptune; Deeptune announced a $43 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) on March 19, 2026, highlighting VCs deploying growth capital into AI‑agent training and niche infra. (finsmes.com)(techmeme.com) Alpend’s interface still sits behind an “Early Access” flow with a Loop login prompt, indicating the market is in a limited rollout/testing phase rather than a broadly open mainnet release. (app.alpend.com)
