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About Surf
Surf is a crypto research platform for institutions and developers that aggregates market data, on-chain analytics, prediction markets and news into one conversational interface rather than relying on general-purpose models. It addresses the fragmentation of crypto data, where inconsistent feeds across exchanges and oracles force researchers to stitch together dozens of APIs. Technically it orchestrates a dozen frontier models and exposes an on-chain SQL query layer across 40-plus chains, then delivers order-book depth and whale tracking across twelve data domains to agent environments like Claude Code through an MCP server and APIs, letting an AI agent complete tedious on-chain lookups with a single command.
Surf has no token and earns from $15 to $399 subscriptions and enterprise seats, so its moat is data plumbing and institutional delivery rather than the model itself. If rival agent frameworks reach the same data, its premium must be proven by renewal retention. In September 2026 Surf partnered with Bithumb to build an AI-native trading experience embedding a custom intelligence layer into the exchange front end.
Surf was founded in 2025 by Ryan Li, Shiyu and Zhimao Liu under Cybertino. It opened by invitation in July 2025 and to the public that September, folding market data, on-chain analytics, prediction markets and news into one conversational research surface rather than relying on general-purpose models.
On December 10, 2025 it raised $15 million led by Pantera Capital with Coinbase Ventures and DCG. By then it claimed 80,000 users, more than one million reports and millions in annual recurring revenue, with 80% of top exchanges and research firms using it.
Surf 2.0 and Surf Studio arrived on March 23, 2026, letting users turn a prompt into a deployed crypto dashboard or web app. The Surf Agent Stack opened alongside it, exposing 60-plus endpoints, Skills and an MCP server to Claude Code and other agent environments.
The stack orchestrates more than ten models across 40-plus chains and over 1,000 data tables, and Surf claims a fourfold edge over general models on the CAIA benchmark. It reports more than 500,000 users, 700-plus organisations and 2.5 million reports.
Yet Surf has no token. Revenue rests on subscriptions from $15 to $399 and enterprise seats, and its moat is data plumbing and institutional delivery rather than the model. If agent frameworks can reach the same data, the premium must be proven by renewals.
Surf raised $15 million on December 10, 2025 in a round led by Pantera Capital with Coinbase Ventures and Digital Currency Group; the product launched invite-only in July and opened in September, reaching more than 300,000 users and over one million generated searches and reports, priced at $15 to $399 a month with a 2026 revenue target of $10 million. The team is under 30 people and about 80% of users do not work in crypto.
On June 8, 2026 surf-skills shipped, packaging market prices, onchain data, social sentiment and prediction-market data for Claude Code, Codex and MCP clients across more than 80 data endpoints and over 40 chains; v0.0.10 followed on July 27 and the repository has stayed on a weekly cadence. SurfLiquid, a non-custodial stablecoin yield agent, launched alongside. The company says it has no token and earns only from subscriptions, and claims in benchmarks run with Princeton that its crypto-specific model beats general models by roughly four times on crypto tasks.
Future strategy and roadmap: Surf is putting the $15 million behind Surf 2.0, shipped in March 2026: Studio lets analysts assemble apps without code, and SAS turns labelled data from more than 40 chains into endpoints agents can call directly, in effect placing research inside the default tool stack of frameworks such as Claude and Cursor. The moat is not the model but the labelling and the habit of being called — Nansen moved into the same layer in January 2026 with natural-language order placement, Messari repriced institutional data per request, and Dune added natural-language to SQL, all three with deeper cash flow. Subscription revenue near $2 million annualised against a $10 million year-end target is what decides whether the enterprise premium holds.
Ryan Li, Co-founder and CEO, holds a B.S. in EE and CS from UC Berkeley, was formerly CTO of BitTorrent and a startup partner of Wei since their CyberConnect days, and founded Surf in 2025 as CEO.
Wilson Wei, Co-founder, formerly co-founder and CEO of CyberConnect with years of AI and crypto entrepreneurship, co-founded Surf in 2025 leading strategy and business development.
Shiyu Zhang, Co-founder, with an AI and crypto research background, co-founded Surf in 2025 leading R&D and model engineering, driving conversational research tooling and model iteration.
Zhimao Liu, Co-founder, with an AI and data-engineering background, co-founded Surf in 2025 leading data and infrastructure supporting multi-model orchestration and onchain intelligence.
All four founders come from the CyberConnect system; the company is built around researchers and engineers, with research and commercial lines reporting separately.
Surf recently saw two team departures.
Roy Shen, Growth & GTM, left in April 2026 after joining in July 2025.
Diego Alvarez, Head of Marketing, departed in May 2026 after joining in March 2025.