Richard Meissner is a Co-founder of Safe, a comprehensive smart contract platform for securing digital assets on Ethereum. ^[1][2]

Education

Meissner attended the Hasso-Plattner-Institut, earning a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree in IT Systems Engineering in 2011. He then pursued a Master's degree at the same institute, graduating in 2015. ^[1]

Career

Richard Meissner started out as a junior software engineer at mobile.international GmbH. In 2015, he joined Dubsmash as the Android Lead until September 2017. ^[1]

Safe

Prior to becoming a co-founder of Safe, Meissner served as the technical team lead for Gnosis Safe (Safe, before rebranding) until July 2022. ^[1]

In May 2022, Meissner was appointed co-founder of Safe alongside Lukas Schor. 2 months later, the company raised $100 million led by 1kx. The round was also joined by Tiger Global, A&T Capital, Blockchain Capital, Digital Currency Group, Greenfield One, Rockaway Blockchain Fund, ParaFi, Lightspeed, Polymorphic Capital, Superscrypt, and 50 other strategic partners and industry experts. The funding was raised for the Safe Ecosystem Foundation, a non-profit organization protecting strategic assets and contributing to the further development of Safe. ^[3]

Future of Safe

In an April 2024 blog, the Safe team highlighted their mission to make every web3 user account a smart account. Smart accounts leverage smart contracts for authentication, allowing for flexibility and programmability. Safe aims to take leadership in driving this movement forward and collaborate with varied communities to drive the mission of "Ownership for all, to realize the full potential of web3". ^[5]

The company aims to enhance security and user experience while fostering ecosystem growth through funding, gas sponsorship, and education. Safe plans to support interoperability across multiple Layer-2 solutions and create a modular marketplace for smart accounts. Initiatives like Safe{Pass} are designed to incentivize user activity and further integrate smart accounts into everyday use. ^[5]