Cymbal has raised $19.3M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Cymbal's investors include Act One Ventures, Addition, Anthemis Group, Betaworks Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, BoxGroup, Browder Capital, Buckley Ventures, CapitalX, Coelius Capital, Composite Ventures, Crosscut Ventures.
Cymbal was a blockchain analytics startup founded in 2022 that built a "human-readable" blockchain explorer, using AI to provide real-time, jargon-free insights into wallet transactions, NFT activities, Ethereum events, and market trends across networks like Ethereum, Solana, and Base[1][2]. It served individuals and entities navigating digital assets, solving the problem of complex on-chain data by making billions of events (holdings, transactions, social accounts) understandable for non-experts, with strong early growth via $33.5M in funding from investors like First Round Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and GV[1]. However, by mid-2025, Yahoo acquired Cymbal's team—led by CEO Eric Feng—to form a new AI research group focused on intuitive AI products, stripping down Cymbal's site and pivoting its blockchain-AI tech toward broader applications like market analysis in Yahoo Finance[2].
A separate company named Cymbal operates as a live event marketing platform for venues and promoters, offering tools like branded emails, texts, automations, fan analytics, and TCPA-compliant campaigns to boost ticket sales and audience growth[3].
The blockchain Cymbal was co-founded in 2022 by serial entrepreneurs Eric Feng (CEO), James Jerlecki, and Nick Chang, drawing from expertise at Meta, Microsoft, Hulu, and Flipboard to blend blockchain data cataloging with AI summarization[1][2]. The idea emerged to democratize on-chain data, starting with processing over 100 million Ethereum data points and expanding to Solana, achieving pivotal traction through an $18.5M funding round in July 2023 backed by top VCs[1]. This humanized web3 for mainstream users until the 2025 Yahoo acquisition integrated the team into AI innovation[2].
The event marketing Cymbal lacks detailed public backstory in available data but positions itself as a user-friendly platform trusted by venues, emphasizing quick setup and automation[3].
The blockchain Cymbal rode the convergence of AI and web3 trends, timing perfectly with Ethereum's data explosion and Solana's rise, making crypto accessible amid mainstream adoption pushes post-2022 bear market[1][2]. Market forces like regulatory clarity and AI hype favored its model, influencing the ecosystem by educating users and attracting VC interest in interpretable blockchain tools—pivotal until Yahoo's acquisition repurposed it for AI-driven finance and emerging tech[2]. This shift underscores consolidation in frontier tech, where specialized startups fuel big tech's AI ambitions.
The event marketing Cymbal taps live events' post-pandemic rebound, countering digital fatigue with targeted, compliant outreach amid rising venue competition[3].
Post-acquisition, Eric Feng's Yahoo AI group could evolve Cymbal's blockchain-AI into tools for crypto market insights (e.g., Yahoo Finance), shaping real-time financial analysis as AI-blockchain integration accelerates[2]. Trends like multimodal AI and decentralized data will amplify this, potentially expanding influence in consumer tech. The event Cymbal, meanwhile, stands to grow with live entertainment's boom, refining automations for hybrid events[3]. Both highlight tech's pivot from niche to embedded intelligence, echoing Cymbal's original mission to make complex worlds understandable.
Cymbal has raised $19.3M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $19.0M Seed in January 2023.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1, 2023 | $19.0M Seed | Act One Ventures, Addition, Anthemis Group, Betaworks Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, BoxGroup, Browder Capital, Buckley Ventures, CapitalX, Coelius Capital, Composite Ventures, Crosscut Ventures, Kevin Ding, Drive Capital, Founders Fund, General Atlantic, Highbury Group, Kleiner Perkins, Lytical Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Scott Sandell, Pareto Holdings, Revolution Growth, SCOR Ventures, SignalFire, Springdale Ventures, The Hit Forge, Clark Landry, Daren Cotter, Jiake Liu, Lev Ekster, Neil Hunt, Sahil Lavingia, Scott Belsky, Tom Steyer | |
| May 1, 2015 | $250K Seed | ACME Capital, Craft Ventures, Forerunner Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Propeller VC, Quiet Capital, Rainfall Ventures, Seven Seven Six, Sierra Ventures, Sound Ventures, The Community Fund, Vayner RSE, Vinyl Capital, Y Combinator, Baron Davis, David Cancel, Dharmesh Shah, Matt Mickiewicz, Oliver Jung, Ravi Grover, Shervin Pishevar |
