Zabo, a Dallas-based data aggregator for cryptocurrency, today announced its acquisition by Coinbase, a crypto exchange platform. 

Zabo’s technology connects cryptocurrency accounts making it easy for users to unify their crypto holdings. The core tech is a good fit with Coinbase which has worked to bring cryptocurrency mainstream, particularly with its IPO in April 2021.

“Over the last three years, with the help of our amazing team, customers, investors, and partners, we succeeded in establishing the Zabo API as the world’s most powerful tool for connecting to any crypto exchange, wallet, protocol or account,” wrote Zabo co-founders Christopher Brown and Alex Treece in a blog post at the company website.

Founded in Dallas

Christopher Brown and Alex Treece founded Dallas-based Zabo in 2018. [DI file art]

Zabo, founded in 2018 by Brown and Treece, kicked off with $1M in a pre-seed round that year, per Crunchbase. Their mission? Building new tools to bring cryptocurrency into mainstream financial services.

Today, Zabo offers integrations with most top exchanges and wallets, the company says.

Bryan Chambers, VP of Ventures at Capital Factory and founding member of Venture Dallas, congratulated the Dallas startup on LinkedIn with, “I’m so incredibly proud and excited for Alex Treece and the team at Zabo. Thanks for letting Capital Factory and the UT Dallas Seed be a part of your incredible journey.”

API integrations

API integrates with thousands of exchanges, wallets, and cryptocurrencies, which Zabo says are required to power the next generation of financial products and services. [Illustration: Zabo]

Last March Zabo announced a $2.5 million funding round, led by Moonshots Capital, to expand its engineering team and increase its customer base. At the time it explained its technology as allowing any financial services company including banks, brokerages, and fintechs to connect to customers’ crypto wallets adding that Zabo’s API integrated with thousands of exchanges, wallets, and cryptocurrencies.

In February of this year, Dallas Innovates reported Zabo formed a partnership with Money Dashboard, a UK-based, free financial management application that allows people to view their crypto accounts alongside their bank accounts. With that move, Zabo added more than 600,000 new users. The partnership was another step toward normalizing the adoption of cryptocurrencies by putting crypto holdings and existing bank accounts in one app according to Zabo.

Crypto simulation

The startup released Papercrypto, a cryptocurrency simulation, in May 2019 with the idea to “demystify, derisk, and devour crypto confusion.” The free game offered a way for both new and existing crypto users to build a virtual portfolio of cryptocurrencies to better understand the financial product. The game was an early example of Zabo’s commitment to bringing crypto to the mainstream even its early days as a startup.

In March 2019 Brown and Treece presented at Venture Summit West 2019, hosted by Blockchain Exchange Guide in San Francisco. At the time the early-stage company was planning on launching a fully digital bank that would have provided users with access to traditional checking, savings, lending, and cryptocurrency in a single location.

Zabo ended up evolving to its current API cryptocurrency technology.

Quincy Preston contributed to this report.

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