Chinmay

Co-Founder & CTO @PillarHQ | Prev @Coinbase @Amazon @VanderbiltU

[harsharamesh @harshavramesh]

Container rates jumped another $1,000 a box last month.

Three things stacking under freight rn:
- Port congestion hit a four-year high in late June. Weather, tariff-deadline frontloading, and vessel bunching have carriers blanking sailings, pulling capacity right as demand spiked. Worst possible timing.
- Carriers have another $2,000 a box slated for mid-July on the transpacific. Some forwarders think the frontloading rush is peaking, but the quotes are out regardless.
- Washington's deadline to fully wind down the blockade is Sunday — and Treasury just yanked the Iranian export license. That call, not the congestion, decides whether the war premium runs it back.

The operator's problem is that the freight rate you quoted into a June landed price is not the rate your box ships at in July.

[harsharamesh @harshavramesh]

Monday morning truths.

[Meltem Demirors @Melt_Dem]

pillar is a category defining company

many companies and novel financial instruments waiting to be built at the intersection of the industrial value chains and capital markets 🫡

[harsharamesh @harshavramesh]

Pillar's official copper price forecast for next week:

Up, unless the dollar moves.
Down, if the Fed says a word.
Sideways, if Hormuz does something.
Possibly all three by Thursday.

This is why you hedge the position, not the prediction.

[._. @ashank]

Excited to share that i've joined @etched to work on data centers, manufacturing, and building the company to support gigawatt scale.

I'm a technology optimist & I love computing. The terminal state of software is ASI and we're bringing forward timelines.

[Meltem Demirors @Melt_Dem]

this is traumatizing for crypto people and that makes it incredibly funny

[Brett Harrison @BrettHarrison]

We’re excited to announce Architect’s partnership with @PillarHQ. We’re bringing together Pillar’s automated hedging solutions for commercial consumers of commodities and Architect’s US and international exchange-listed derivatives on AI-industry supply chain inputs.↓

[Dogan Ural @doganuraldesign]

Hey Siri, set a timer for 10 minutes

[harsharamesh @harshavramesh]

Still can’t speak French, but we’re out here in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, for all your hedging needs! Find the Pillar team at booth #37, CARI Annual Convention [8 -10 June].

[harsharamesh @harshavramesh]

We will be joining the gold bugs and Gollum in Orlando for the IPMI Precious Metals conference.

We hedge gold, silver, platinum, palladium and the one ring to rule them all. Come say hi at our booth of book in a meeting with the email below.

[Chinmay @cdeshpande17]

I know firsthand how high the talent bar is at @coinbase. If you were affected by the layoffs today, we’d love to have you at Pillar. We’re hiring across Eng, Growth, and Customer Success + Experience. Feel free to apply at https://t.co/e0LTdWEd86 + or DM me directly.

[Crucible Capital @CrucibleCap]

https://t.co/8S7rlUmAqf

[David Haber @dhaber]

Really excited to back @PillarHQ. Most commodities businesses should be hedged, but their risk management is still a largely manual, fragmented process.

Pillar is changing that by building an AI copilot for hedging. This is an invaluable (and previously inaccessible) service for traders, producers, and manufacturers that deliver the physical goods society depends on. Congrats Harsha and Chinmay!

[Suzanne Xie @suzannexie]

Congrats to Harsha, Chinmay, and the Pillar team! Automated risk management and commodities hedging for global businesses.

Proud to be a first believer, can’t think of a better team to tackle this problem.

[TechCrunch @TechCrunch]

Financial risk management platform Pillar raises $20M seed in round led by a16z https://t.co/weBsKTlpRi

[Meltem Demirors @Melt_Dem]

random fact - Crucible has backed 3 co-founding teams that bonded over trading in college
- @kaledora + @contrarianmarco, Harvard -> @ostium
- @bavaria_kush + @wayne_nelmz, MIT -> @OrnnExchange
- @harshavramesh + @cdeshpande17, Vanderbilt -> @PillarHQ

LOVE OF THE GAME

[Mayank @_mayankkishore]

Global trade is ~20x larger than software.

Yet most businesses still manage commodity + FX risk with spreadsheets, phone calls, and fragmented data.

This is exactly why @harshavramesh and @cdeshpande17 started Pillar.

Congrats on the launch @PillarHQ 🚀

[Meltem Demirors @Melt_Dem]

ANOTHER ONE

proud to back @PillarHQ as they embed hedging into orgs of all size

@harshavramesh @cdeshpande17 are the third team of founders who bonded trading together that we've backed from our Fund I (which is also how @kellyjgreer and i met)

financial engineering ftw 🫡

[Shreshth Rajan @shreshthrajan]

acting may be a new to them, but trading is not. pillar is a special place.

[Chinmay @cdeshpande17]

Over the last decade, the electronification of commodity and FX markets has massively expanded what's possible - faster execution, more instruments, more data and more liquidity.

But that opportunity has been difficult to access for the businesses that need it most. They don’t have the resources or access to keep up.

That's the problem we're solving at Pillar. Not just better tools - but actual access to modern risk management for the physical business that are the backbone of society.

Proud to be building this alongside @harshavramesh

[harsharamesh @harshavramesh]

The world is fragmenting.

Supply chains are shifting.

Volatility is no longer cyclical - it’s structural.

Yet most businesses still manage risk on spreadsheets and phone calls. In a world of tariffs, wars, and supply shocks - that doesn't hold up. Markets move too fast.

Today we’re publicly launching Pillar, and announcing an additional $20m in investment, led by @a16z.

Pillar is an AI copilot for commodity and currency hedging - built for real world operators like you.

We monitor your physical exposures and manage risk in real time - protecting your margins at all times.

If you operate a physical business, let’s talk!