Startup profile · funding coverage
Earn.com
Paid email and micropayments platform (formerly 21.co).
Stage
acquired
Status
acquired
Coverage
full
Why Earn.com is interesting
Earn pivoted from bitcoin mining hardware to paid inbox; a16z's Balaji Srinivasan became Coinbase CTO when Coinbase acquired Earn for $100M+ in 2018.
Key facts
- Acquired by Coinbase (Apr 2018): >$100M cash, stock, and crypto; Balaji Srinivasan became CTO (TechCrunch)
- Prior rounds: a16z, Khosla Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures (~$120M+ raised)
- Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/coinbase-buys-earn-com-and-makes-ceo-balaji-srinivasan-its-first-cto/
Investors in our directory
Funds linked from Earn.com's profile — open a fund page for stage focus and related deal articles.
Industries
Crypto & Web3 Fintech
Industry hub pages are rolling out from our fund-derived baseline taxonomy.
Related funding articles
Venture Capital Tracker pieces that cover Earn.com's financing or category context.
FAQs about Earn.com
Funding context and why this company shows up in venture coverage.
Earn.com let users charge senders to read email — combining cryptocurrency micropayments with a paid-inbox model. It began as 21.co, a bitcoin hardware startup.
Andreessen Horowitz (/fund/andreessen-horowitz) and Khosla Ventures (/fund/khosla-ventures) backed Earn.com across rounds totaling roughly $120M.
Coinbase acquired Earn.com in April 2018 for over $100M in cash, stock, and crypto. CEO Balaji Srinivasan joined Coinbase as its first CTO.
Earn tested whether crypto could monetize attention at the inbox layer — a precursor to creator monetization and on-chain payments experiments.
Yes. Coinbase acquired Earn.com in April 2018.
Last updated: 2026-07-24