Octav raises $2.65m to label defi transactions

Montreal, Canada, Sep. 12, 2023, Chainwire

Octav, a labeling and tax reconciliation platform, has raised $2.65 million in seed funding to label decentralized finance (defi) transactions and be the “Quickbooks of crypto”.

“There hasn’t been a systematic way where the defi community can decipher all their transactions from block explorers and get their data in one convenient dashboard,” said Mathieu Baril, co-founder and CEO of Octav. “So it became clear to us that data labeling is missing in defi”.

Octav is led by Mathieu Baril and Luc Blackburn, who previously worked at companies like Zapper, Accedian Network, and Otodata before founding Octav.

Investor who participated in the seed round include Nascent, Polymorphic Capital, Parallel Studio, Spaceship DAO, Investmeows, Possible Ventures, Speedinvest, ACET capital, Paul Desmarais, CEO of Sagard holdings, and Mark Zeller from Aave.

“We are building the platform that deciphers all defi transactions,” Mathieu added. “Today, there’s a lot of companies building defi dashboards but I don’t think anyone is going deep to provide the end user with all the data in an easy way to understand and we think the right company will need to have a complete defined database of all transactions, not just a piece of it. A lot of defi native tools like Etherscan and Dune Analytics give a lot of raw data which is great if you have the technical knowledge but not great for most defi enthusiasts.”

“Etherscan does not give you the ability to understand exactly what transaction you did and with what protocol you interacted with because it only provides the contract address and the transaction function directly from the smart contract code,” Mathieu explained. “So the entire ecosystem of tools is broken, and DeFi enthusiasts are struggling with a lack of understanding and playbook. That’s really where the current state is, and we’re trying to build something to solve this over time.”

Octav offers a range of features, including a database for categorizing defi transactions, a dashboard to keep track of your investments, and tools for analyzing things like how much you’ve spent, earned, and paid in fees.

Moreover, it lets anyone using the platform help improve its “The Brain” machine learning algorithm by labeling transactions that aren’t in the database yet. After being verified by the algorithm, they get shared with all Octav users who have dealt with the same smart contract. This way, the platform becomes smarter and more useful for everyone.

“Octav is currently in beta with thousands of users, seven integrated chains, and over 100 million transactions indexed to date,” Mathieu said. “While the first customers are defi power users, Octav’s client base is ‘anyone who has ever interacted with a defi protocol,'” Mathieu added.

“The capital will be used to integrate more chains to capture the entire defi ecosystem. New chains are launched throughout the year and new protocols launch weekly so we always have to be ahead to capture the latest protocols the community is interacting with.” Luc said. “We both worked at startups before and understand the importance of delivering ambitious goals with a lean team.”

In the long term, the co-founders plan to focus on integrating with current crypto tax platforms where Octav’s database would help as a pre-tax facilitator, reconciling all of a user’s transactions before being ready for tax software.

“For us, it’s really twofold. We want to go from a small, tight-knit community of defi power users and grow that business,” Mathieu said. “In parallel, we have an entire stream of accountants waiting to pay to use our platform to reconcile transactions for tax preparation for their clients, we believe that is where our breakthrough will happen.”

About Octav

Octav is a free platform for analyzing defi investments. It’s user-friendly and allows traders, tax professionals, and asset management firms to easily understand and keep track of defi activities, including cost-basis, profit, loss, and more.

For more information, visit:

Website | Medium | X | Discord | Official Docs

Contact

Marketing manager
Stephen Edvi
Octav
[email protected]