Introducing transparent
We began with a scribble on Paul Allen’s whiteboard.
Paul Allen, an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist, had a vision to create better money: He found it confounding that he, with his billions, would pay less to transfer money than the poorest amongst us. So, Jeff Kramer, Paul Allen’s technical advisor at the time, got to work with his colleagues at Vulcan and leading experts in banking, payments, and distributed systems and Transparent was born.
Making money more equitable by making it more efficient and independent of any one financial institution. This is the driving force behind everything we do. We believe that by bringing more competition to a market dominated with just a few big players and by making the financial system more efficient, we can dramatically unlock possibilities for both businesses and the people they serve.
Our Team
Your tech, finance, and regulatory partners.
Join usBased in Seattle, we’ve brought together top cryptographers and financial-system specialists with world-class software and hardware engineers to partner with banks and businesses to create innovative settlement solutions.
Chief Executive Officer
Alex Fowler
An open-source leader and technologist at heart, Alex brings over two decades of experience leading companies and delivering business value in applications of cryptography, privacy, security, and blockchain technology. He co-founded Blockstream, and before that held senior positions with Mozilla, PwC, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Zero Knowledge Systems, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
President & Chief Legal Officer
Patrick Murck
Patrick is a recognized thought leader on fintech and payments. Before joining Transparent, Patrick was Special Counsel at Cooley where he helped develop the firm’s blockchain and Fintech practice. He was a co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation where he served as General Counsel and Executive Director, and he sits on fintech advisory groups for the NY Fed, MA SEC, and the IMF.
VP, Engineering
Brad Gibson
Delivered major products from inception to market for Microsoft, Microsoft Research, Western Digital, LSI Logic, and Xero. Experienced systems developer, entrepreneur, builder of high-performance teams.
Deputy General Counsel
Katie Gray
Katie is a seasoned regulatory and compliance attorney with experience at JPMorgan Chase handling investigations and enforcement matters involving various federal and state financial regulatory agencies and advising on compliance policy initiatives. She was previously at PwC and the Fed.
Head of Partnerships
Erin Kelly
Erin is an experienced growth strategist with partnership experience in payments, venture and SaaS. Partnerships at Crunchbase, Affirm and consulting at Kearney.
Principal Software Engineer
Seth Paulson
Lead architect, driving our work on cryptography. Brings over a decade of engineering experience from Vulcan, Changepoint, and Parametric among other companies.
Director of Product
Joe Wasson
Joe is a technical leader with a background in cryptocurrency and sustainable, large-scale engineering. He has nearly two decades of e-commerce and fintech experience with Microsoft, Google, and Stripe, and others.
Our Advisors
Advisor
Jeff Kramer
Transparent’s former CTO and Paul Allen’s technical advisor with expertise in distributed systems, blockchain, AI, machine learning, and neural networks. Engineering at Vulcan and Microsoft Research.
Advisor
Lana Swartz
As a critical expert in the emergence of the fintech sector, Lana researches money from the perspective of communication technology. She’s the recent author of New Money: How Payment Became Social Media (2020), based on years of research, interviewing people about money in everyday life, and surfacing the largely forgotten history of payment technologies and industries.
Advisor
Shawn Johnson
Accomplished global asset management executive, Shawn previously served as Senior Managing Director and Chairman of the Investment Committee for State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), and prior to that as its Director of Global Fundamental Research. Shawn was tapped by Paul Allen to advise on the initial designs for Xand.
Advisor
Ian Lee
As head of IDEO CoLab Ventures, Ian invests in blockchain, crypto, and Bitcoin startups. Prior to IDEO, he was a Director at Citi Ventures, Citigroup’s venture capital and venturing arm, where he led Citi’s network of R&D Labs, an early-stage R&D fund, and blockchain across the enterprise from 2014-2017. Ian is an Adjunct Faculty Member in cryptocurrency courses at UC Berkeley.
Advisor
Chris Brummer
Professor Brummer’s current research focuses on applications of financial technology across derivatives and securities infrastructures and their implications for fintech regulatory policy.
Our Investors
“Blockchain technology is rooted in decades of advances in distributed systems and cryptography, and it’s at the center of banking and financial innovation today. Based on Transparent’s strategic partnerships and solution, we believe this investment represents an exciting opportunity and will provide tremendous value to the future of on-demand settlements.”— Joey Krug, Co-Chief Investment Officer, Pantera Capital
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