Galaxy, Lightspeed Lead $15M Raise for Turnkey, Crypto Wallet Startup From Former Coinbase Employees

Two ex-employees from Coinbase, who played key roles in creating the American cryptocurrency exchange’s custodial service, started Turnkey. Their mission is to assist app developers in creating seamless blockchain wallets for their users.

On Taylor’s announcement Tuesday, Sequoia, Coinbase Ventures, Alchemy, Figment Capital, and Mirana Ventures joined the investment round. This round concluded in October of the previous year and came after a $7.5 million seed funding in 2022.

At its core, Turnkey is a safe, adaptable, and expandable foundation for wallet development, according to CEO Bryce Ferguson in an interview. It serves as a fundamental set of tools for developers, enabling them to create any wallet or handle crypto transactions.

Ferguson explained that he and his partner were driven by their discovery at Coinbase that most crypto custodians viewed cryptocurrencies as passive investments, which meant keeping them untouched. Their goal with Turnkey was to provide custodians with the necessary tools to give users greater control over how they use their assets, making crypto more dynamic and interactive.

In August, we made our Turnkey product collection available to the general public. According to Ferguson, “Our services cater to various needs: individuals looking to carry out transactions and sign contracts, as well as businesses.”

Alchemy, a division of Consensys and a well-known blockchain development platform for leading crypto projects, relies on Turnkey to provide its “wallet-on-demand” service. Turnkey functions as an unseen signer for transactions in this setup.

Other clients include businesses like Mural, which Ferguson referred to as a “payments solution that simplifies invoicing and global transactions for enterprises.” Additionally, Turnkey caters to financial institutions, with “their trading terminals integrating our wallets as an embedded feature.”

At an individual level, people use us not only for standard transactions but also for signing various types, according to Ferguson.

Ferguson explained, “Instead of using an existing wallet infrastructure like MetaMask, we created our own from scratch. Our wallet system enables you to generate unique cryptographic keys, which are essential for securing your digital assets. Additionally, we provide various tools to manage and access these keys.”