Valinor raises $25M to build blockchain-based credit platform. 31 March 2026 Key Takeaways * Valinor raised $25 million in seed funding, led by Castle Island Ventures. * The company is building a blockchain-powered credit platform to modernize lending markets. * The startup aims to capitalize on the growing tokenization of real-world assets and on-chain finance. Valinor, a fintech startup building credit markets for the new world on the blockchain, raised a $25M seed round to accelerate the release of its on-chain credit platform. The round was led by Castle Island Ventures and attended to by many investors in the fintech, crypto and credit space, amongst others. Founded in 2025, Valinor was created by two seasoned finance professionals, Connor Dougherty and Lily Yarborough. The duo shared a love for credit investing at Blackstone before founding Valinor and applying their expertise to blockchain. The leadership team includes experts in cybersecurity, regulation, and financial investigations, ensuring a robust and compliant financial infrastructure. The new capital will help Valinor grow operations, expand its team, and build scalable lending solutions for digital finance businesses. A new approach to credit markets. Traditional credit markets have largely been locked into manual processes, disjointed systems, and mismatched infrastructure. Credit decisioning and allocation of capital are often conducted through the use of spreadsheets, email, and traditional bank-to-bank transfer, which affects the efficiency of the process. Valinor endeavours to solve these inefficiencies by creating what it terms "Open Credit", a blockchain-enabled architecture for origination to improve transparency, remove frictions and provide access to global capital to borrowers around the world. Valinor plans to merge traditional credit underwriting into a blockchain-based system in order to develop the entire financial ecology where both lender and borrower will enjoy powerful flexibility. How Valinor works. At the core of Valinor's platform is a system that uses smart contracts and stablecoins to automate many aspects of the lending process. Smart contracts inscribe the conditions of a loan, the methods of payment, and the rules of drawdowns directly onto the blockchain. This automation reduces the need for manual oversight and allows credit transactions to occur faster and with fewer intermediaries. The platform can automate functions such as: * Loan disbursement * Payment scheduling * Monitoring repayment structures * Enforcing loan agreements According to the company, these features help ensure transparency and efficiency while lowering operational costs. Timing the real-world asset boom. Valinor is launching during a period where the tokenization of real-world assets is becoming a mainstream theme in the finance industry worldwide. It appears that areas such as treasury funds, credit businesses and real estate are starting to see on-chain issuance. Research indicates that the market for tokenized real-world assets has seen a significant pace of growth in recent years and that it has the potential to grow at a remarkable rate over the next ten years. Private credit is one of the largest industries in the world, handling trillions of dollars globally. Valinor aims to onboard this market onchain, unlocking the potential for new liquidity and faster flows of capital between lenders and borrowers. If successful, then the company aims to serve more borrowers from a diverse range of assets and geographies as it develops. Provided it can succeed, the company might have a part to play in transforming the traditional credit markets in a digital-first world of decentralized finance. I'm a crypto writer with 4+ years of experience passionate about turning big, technical ideas into content anyone can understand. From blockchain to stablecoins to everything in between, I enjoy helping readers stay informed in a space that never stops moving. Disclaimer VentureBurn is a media platform covering the latest in cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, venture capital, and the startup ecosystem. Opinions expressed on VentureBurn are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice. Before making any high-risk investments in digital assets or emerging technologies, readers should conduct their own due diligence. All transactions and financial decisions are made at your own risk, and any losses incurred are solely your responsibility. VentureBurn does not endorse or recommend the buying or selling of any digital assets and is not a licensed investment advisor. Please note that VentureBurn may participate in affiliate marketing programs.

Valinor raises $25 million to reshape credit for the Digital era. Mar 30, 2026, 14:59 ET NEW YORK, March 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - Valinor Digital ("Valinor"), a modern credit institution, today announced it has closed a $25 million seed round led by Castle Island Ventures with investor participation across credit, fintech, and crypto and continued support from its initial backers, Paul Prager and Nazar Khan of TeraWulf. Valinor is purpose-built to power a new era for credit markets, which it terms Open Credit: a blockchain-enabled infrastructure upgrade that expands the capital markets and improves outcomes for borrowers and lenders. Reduced friction and cost enable Valinor to offer financing solutions across a wider range of asset classes, borrowers, and geographies. "Valinor is uniquely positioned to drive this structural market evolution, combining rigorous credit underwriting discipline with digitally-native operations to originate and invest in institutional credit onchain," said Connor Dougherty, Chief Executive Officer of Valinor. "We're grateful for the support of our capital partners as we work to deliver a better credit product to both borrowers and investors." This seed capital will enable Valinor to scale through operational development, strategic hires, and capital deployment across a growing pipeline of deal opportunities. As the business scales, Valinor will continue to invest alongside its institutional partners, building borrower and lender trust through execution rather than theory. "For years, there's been a lack of viable credit options for stablecoin-based businesses," said Sean Judge, General Partner at Castle Island Ventures. "Valinor's credit investing expertise and deep understanding of blockchain-based assets position them to catalyze fintech growth globally and open access for new lending partners." About Valinor Digital Valinor Digital ("Valinor") provides institutional capital solutions at the intersection of credit and blockchain, encompassing principal investing, capital markets, and advisory. Valinor is headquartered in New York and was founded in 2025 by Connor Dougherty and Lily Yarborough, who have worked together throughout their credit investing careers, starting at Blackstone. SOURCE Valinor