Anthony Scaramucci's son leads ZK protocol Hinkal's funding round at $70 million valuation

Hinkal, a zero-knowledge (ZK) protocol enabling institutional investors to trade on-chain privately, has raised $1.4 million in a strategic funding round.

SALT Fund — an investment fund headed by Anthony Scaramucci's son AJ — led the funding round, Hinkal said Friday. Other investors included Draper Associates, SNZ Capital and Peer VC.

Nika Koreli, co-founder and CTO of Hinkal, told The Block that the firm raised the strategic round due to increasing investor interest. "We received interest in March, and the round closed within two weeks," Koreli said.

He added that the round was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) and token warrants and brought Hinkal's valuation to $70 million.

Tal Cohen, CEO of Kraken U.S., has also joined Hinkal's advisory board. 

What is Hinkal?

Hinkal facilitates confidential on-chain trading for institutional investors such as venture capital funds, liquid funds and family offices. This is enabled through its ZK protocol, which lets users engage in decentralized applications with self-custodial private wallet addresses.

"In traditional finance, you can send/sell/swap without people watching you — Hinkal is enabling this for crypto, bringing a new wave of typically institutional users who value this discretion on-chain," Koreli said.

Hinkal mandates know-your-business (KYB) verification for users to prevent illicit use of the protocol. Koreli explained that Hinkal has developed an attestation layer, giving users the choice of validation methods. Users can either verify ownership of a centralized exchange account (e.g., Coinbase or Binance) or use decentralized identity (DID) providers such as Authento, ZkMe and Galxe Passport, he said.

Koreli acknowledged that while Hinkal's KYB verification process resembles traditional finance, it differs in allowing users to activate reusable attestations. In contrast, traditional finance requires users to undergo KYB checks for each account opening, he said.

Koreli said that "top VCs," including some of Hinkal's investors, are currently using the protocol, though he declined to name them.

'Vested tokens' sales

Hinkal said it ensures that its users, including VCs, only liquidate vested tokens through the protocol. "Traditional vesting models typically restrict the transfer of unvested tokens so they can't be deposited to Hinkal," Koreli said, adding: "There are some exceptions with 'liquid vesting' that users can trade — we allow those to be deposited and liquidated."

AJ Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of SALT Fund, termed Hinkal as a "groundbreaking protocol" in a statement, saying that it addresses "critical pain points for institutional funds, founders and VCs by enabling private DeFi trading strategies and token liquidation without disrupting the broader market."

Hinkal is operational across seven blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Polygon and BNB Chain, and supports all major dapps, Koreli said.

Hinkal currently employs around ten people, and Koreli plans to maintain a lean team structure.