Valinor Bags $25M to Drag Private Credit Onchain, Spreadsheets Be Damned

Two ex-Blackstone veterans, Connor Dougherty and Lily Yarborough, just closed a $25 million seed round to drag private credit kicking and screaming into the blockchain era—because apparently Excel formulas weren't giving them enough sleepless nights. Castle Island Ventures spearheaded the raise, with Susquehanna's crypto arm, Maven11, and the TeraWulf founders also throwing their hats in the ring. The company, in a rare display of humility, declined to share its valuation.

Dougherty and Yarborough are building Valinor, essentially a toll booth between TradFi and the chain, ready to collect fees as capital migrates south. These two started their careers crunching numbers at banks before level-ing up to Blackstone's private credit division—because apparently vanilla banking wasn't exciting enough. They're convinced private credit is the next big thing to go onchain, and honestly, they might be right. The inefficiencies in private lending are so egregious that even Wall Street types are starting to squint at blockchain solutions.

Valinor initially dipped its toes by lending to crypto-native companies, but quickly realized the real treasure was automating the entire lending machine itself. Goodbye, spreadsheets held together by hope and manual oversight—hello, smart contracts that handle approvals, payments, and compliance without needing a coffee IV drip. Dougherty made it clear Valinor wants to escape the crypto-collateralized sandbox and dive into "real economy credit"—i.e., actually useful loans that don't require you to already be rich in tokens. The company has already pushed out loans to a few chosen ones and plans to scale