Valentin Israel

Experience

1. Founder, President & CEO, CashXChainApr 2025 – now
   Rosenheim · Munich
   • Founded and built CashXChain, a payment platform that lets businesses send, receive and convert money worldwide within seconds; successfully went live on 1 October 2026 with business accounts and payments across the EEA, UK, US and Canada.
   • Raised a pre-seed round on YC post-money SAFEs; currently preparing the Seed round.
   • US expansion: entered the US market through CashXChain Inc. (Delaware, New York) with a commission-based sales and integration partner model.
   • Financial institution: registered CashXChain Inc. with FinCEN (U.S. Department of the Treasury) as a Money Services Business and money transmitter, making it a financial institution under the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (MSB Reg. No. 31000341178304).
   • Leads a team of 10+ people across engineering, finance, sales and operations.
   • Opened a physical office at Stellwerk18 in Rosenheim, a digital startup centre co-funded by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs.
   • Designed the API-first backend architecture (Rust, AWS), using stablecoins and smart contracts for cross-border payment flows.
   • Secured IP protection with 1 patent application, 5 registered utility models (DBGM) and an EU trade mark application.
   • Signed LOIs with a projected transaction volume of ca. USD 50M; partners include Sokin, Bridge (Stripe), Stripe, Coinbase, Interlace and Stablegate.
2. Assistant to the Management & Product Manager, thermal DRONES GmbHJun 2024 – Jul 2025
   Greifswald
   • Impact-driven tech startup focused on AI- and drone-based environmental innovation.
   • Supported management in international production and supplier coordination, saving the company over 15k €.
   • Gained hands-on exposure to the problems of cross-border payments, FX costs and settlement delays, which ultimately led me to found my own startup.

Projects

1. Theoretical Research: Information Paradox2024 – now

   Physics Plus Program. Self-directed study of information preservation in black holes via the holographic principle, at the interface of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

Awards

1. 1st place, AWS × Rebura “Build with Agents” Hackathon, Munich12 Jun 2026
2. Top 20 of 370+ teams, Münchener Businessplan Wettbewerb (BayStartUP)Mar 2026

Talks

1. The opening talk at the launch of the Young Founders Network chapter in Rosenheim: “Digital sovereignty through founding.”30 Jul 2026

Press

1. Asset Servicing Times, on why CashXChain chose Delaware7 Apr 2026
2. IT Boltwise22 Mar 2026
3. Rosenheim24, OVB and Merkur: “We compete with PayPal.”18 Mar 2026

Education

1. Y Combinator – Startup School (Online)Nov 2025 – now

   Participation in Y Combinator’s online Startup School curriculum. Educational program (non-batch, open admission), focused on company building and execution.

Skills and languages

Leadership & Entrepreneurship · Business Development · Resilience · Fundraising · Regulatory & Compliance · Systems Architecture · Theoretical Math & Physics · AI/ML · Blockchain · Full-Stack · Python · Rust · JavaScript/TypeScript

German · English · French (basic)