Ground has raised $3.6 million in a pre-seed round co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and ParaFi as the San Francisco-based startup emerges from stealth with API infrastructure designed to let fintechs access onchain yield without building blockchain systems in-house. The round, which also included Nascent, Robot Ventures, Chapter One and Consonant Ventures, was completed under a SAFE structure with token warrants after beginning in September 2025 and closing the following month. Founded by Superstate co-founder Reid Cuming and CTO Sam Yoon, Ground is targeting neobanks, wealth managers, exchanges and asset managers that want to offer yield products while outsourcing smart-contract integrations, liquidity routing and parts of DeFi risk management. The platform currently routes capital through Aave, Morpho, Maple and Kamino across Ethereum, Solana and several Layer 2 networks, with liquid staking tokens planned next. Ground is pitching compliance tooling, reporting, liquidity management and configurable risk controls as key differentiators in a market where institutional adoption of DeFi yield has been slowed by counterparty, smart-contract and regulatory risks. Bain Capital Crypto and ParaFi's backing adds to investor interest in infrastructure aimed at connecting traditional financial platforms with onchain credit and yield markets.