Louise Ivan Valencia Payawal Filipino entrepreneur Louise Ivan Valencia Payawal has raised $3.2 million in seed funding for his tech startup Ryder, drawing support from billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper, founder of Draper Associates and an early backer of Tesla, SpaceX, and Skype. The funding round also included investments from Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Asymmetric’s Joe McCann, and venture firms Borderless, Semantic, Smape, and VeryEarly. Ryder’s flagship product, Ryder One, is a crypto hardware wallet designed to make securing and using digital assets easier and safer. It features TapSafe, a tap-based recovery system that removes the need for traditional seed phrases — often seen as a single point of failure in crypto storage. “What the crypto industry needs more than anything right now is solutions that don’t require deep technical knowledge but still maintain strong security,” Draper said. “That’s what I saw in Ryder’s product.” Ryder plans to use the fresh capital to expand production, grow its engineering and marketing teams, and strengthen its global brand presence. Payawal, originally from Bulacan, started his entrepreneurial career as Startup Weekend Asean’s 2015 champion. He later earned a double master’s degree in Green IT from the University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit. Before founding Ryder, he worked with several international tech firms, including Stacks, a Bitcoin-based smart contract platform where he helped grow a 100,000-strong global community. At Ryder, Payawal aims to make cryptocurrency more approachable for ordinary users — including Filipinos who find the technology complex and intimidating. “Crypto should be for everyone, not just developers or early adopters,” he said. “With the right tools, it can be as simple as sending a text.” Payawal’s journey from small-town beginnings to Silicon Valley underscores a broader message: that Filipino innovation can compete globally. “We’re all big dreamers,” he said. “What sets Filipinos apart is resilience — the ability to keep moving forward even when the odds are stacked against us.” Tags