Stillmark

Stillmark

Stillmark was founded by Alyse Killeen, an early Bitcoin investor whose thesis predates the broader crypto venture boom. The firm emerged to back startups building exclusively on Bitcoin or its adjacent payment and security layers, rejecting the multi-chain plays that define most crypto-native funds. Killeen's background combines venture investing with direct operating and policy advisory roles in the Bitcoin ecosystem. The strategy is narrow and conviction-weighted. Stillmark targets seed-stage equity in companies whose products deepen Bitcoin's utility — spanning payments infrastructure, Lightning Network tooling, decentralized identity, and hardware security. It avoids tokens, DeFi protocols built on other chains, and purely speculative plays. The firm leads or co-leads rounds, taking board seats to shape go-to-market and protocol-integration decisions. Confirmed portfolio companies include Satoshi Energy and Unchained Capital. The firm runs a lean structure from Los Angeles with a tightly curated portfolio. Partner Vikash Singh joined Killeen to reinforce technical evaluation and portfolio support. Stillmark has not publicly disclosed fund sizes, total capital deployed, or limited partner composition. The firm does not operate philanthropic or adjacent vehicles explicitly, focusing its mandate entirely on direct, for-profit Bitcoin company building. Stillmark's structural distinction is its atomic thesis: it is venture capital for companies that treat Bitcoin not as an asset to hold but as a network to build on. In an industry where most funds brand themselves broadly as crypto or web3, Stillmark uses ideological and technical purity as a sourcing and conviction filter — a posture that makes it an anachronism even among digital-asset managers.