1. What is your company in 2–5 words? 1. What is your company in 2–5 words? File storage for crypto. 2. Why is now the time for your company to exist? 2. Why is now the time for your company to exist? As decentralized apps and tokens proliferate, there's a growing need for verifiable, private, and scalable file storage that connects off-chain content to onchain assets. The rise of use cases like NFTs, memecoins, decentralized AI, and DePIN has made it critical to ensure that the files linked to tokens are authentic, secure, and easily accessible. Without reliable infrastructure like Pinata, decentralized applications risk broken links, unverifiable data, and vulnerability to fraud or manipulation. 3. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? 3. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? We care a lot. Crypto can be very unforgiving, but our team treats each other and our customers with an incredible amount of kindness and respect. We are the ones to solve this problem because there are few in the industry that understand the technical and business value of file storage in crypto. There are always trends to chase and crypto prices to discuss, but our focus and discipline on solving a real fundamental problem are unparalleled. 4. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? 4. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? I grew up in racing. My dad was a dirt track announcer. I worked in motorsports before starting Pinata. The science, technology, and business of motorsports have always fascinated me. While owning a race team is a goal, I’d also like to create a non-profit for kids to run go-kart teams. As part of it, you would have to learn the science of racing. Physics of tire wear, how aerodynamics works, the geometry of suspension setups, etc. You’d have to learn how to manage data as it streams off the kart. And, you’d have to learn how to run it as a business. Go out and get sponsorship, balance a budget, market yourself, etc. Ultimately, I view racing as an incredible tool to teach kids hard sciences and the fundamentals of business while having an incredible competitive spirit. and 5. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your metrics? 5. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your metrics? At the moment, we measure success by the number of developers and enterprises actively building with Pinata, the volume and speed of file uploads and retrievals through our infrastructure, and the performance improvements we deliver to our customers. We’ve grown to support over 600,000 developers and are trusted by high-traffic platforms like OpenSea, Pump.fun, and DraftKings. Key metrics include gateway performance (e.g., 99.2% faster metadata changes for OpenSea), customer retention, and the growth of usage across emerging verticals like decentralized AI, DePIN, and NFTs. 6. In a few sentences, what do you offer to whom? 6. In a few sentences, what do you offer to whom? Pinata offers fast, secure, and easy-to-use file storage for developers and enterprises building in Web3. We help users store and retrieve content through IPFS while ensuring verifiability, privacy, and reliability. Our platform supports a wide range of use cases, including NFTs, decentralized AI, memecoins, and data availability, making it simple to manage files in a crypto-native way. 7. What’s most exciting about your traction to date? 7. What’s most exciting about your traction to date? What’s most exciting about our traction to date is seeing leading platforms like OpenSea and Pump.fun achieve tangible, transformative results with Pinata. By switching to our infrastructure, OpenSea improved metadata reliability and speed by 99.2%, accelerated development cycles by 65%, and eliminated downtime during major drops. This kind of impact highlights the growing demand for scalable, verifiable, and high-performance file storage and positions Pinata as the trusted infrastructure partner for the next generation of Web3 builders. 8. Where do you think your growth will be next year? 8. Where do you think your growth will be next year? Next year, we anticipate robust growth across emerging Web3 verticals, including decentralized AI, DePIN, and memecoins, all of which require fast, verifiable, and secure file storage. As more developers build token-first and wallet-native experiences, we anticipate increased adoption of our APIs and infrastructure, especially among enterprise teams and high-traffic applications launching on new L2s and appchains. 9. What’s your biggest threat? 9. What’s your biggest threat? Our biggest threat is the perception that crypto-native file storage is too complex or slow for mainstream use. If developers choose traditional solutions because of concerns around usability or performance, it could slow the adoption of verifiable, trust-minimized applications. That’s why Pinata focuses relentlessly on delivering fast, simple, and reliable file storage designed specifically for Web3. Pinata can support high-traffic, mainstream applications without compromise.

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Questions for Every Startup Founder: Pinata Co-Founder & CEO on File Storage for Crypto

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