MoneyNeverSleeps

After intersecting stories of meeting Vitalik Buterin and Bono, Pete Townsend and guest co-host Laura Walsh take a look at the recent SEC ruling in favor of Grayscale that many expect will open up the floodgates for the trillions of institutional capital currently on the sidelines of crypto. We also look at the positioning of NFTs or ‘dynamic digital assets’ as the core technology to drive more ex...

Joining Pete this week are Liang Wu and Dan Herrera from Eleven26 Capital, an early-stage VC firm investing in diverse founders on the evolving Internet across web2 and web3. In this episode, we get into how Liang and Dan originally got together and stayed close through the years, their Evolving Internet thesis across web2 and web3, building a platform for investing through content creation and co...

We’ve been on a bit of a hiatus this summer, as we took a break to recharge after a few mad months, as sometimes, you need to go away for a while and dream it all up again.  In this episode we recorded on the Fourth of July, we pull the curtain off our upcoming plans, with a big announcement from longtime co-host Eoin Fitzgerald that brings him and Pete Townsend to a fork in the road with MoneyNev...

Neal Peters is co-founder and CEO of JR Studio , a frictionless web3 gaming platform that gives game creators the superpowers to build, host, launch, manage, and grow their games and communities. JR Studio is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023 . After launching his first business as a 14-year-old gamer building websites, Neal spent 18 years as an...

Federico Panisi is a co-founder and CEO of Loki.code , enabling simplified and intuitive co-creation of smart contracts with a collaborative web app for smart contract designers and developers. Loki.code is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the https://www.techstars.com/newsroom/announcing-the-techstars-web3-class-of-2023. Before founding Loki.code in July 2022 with Pedro Wilson, Fabio Man...

Tatiana Botskina is the founder and CEO of Mintycode , a decentralized IP marketplace for software creators, bringing together software creators, software buyers, and software contributors. By building communities around software creators’ source code and enabling shared ownership, Mintycode helps software creators monetize their work and incentivize and reward contributors. Mintycode is also one...

Terence Reilly is the co-founder and CEO of OLTA , one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023 . OLTA is a protocol for creators and studios to create dynamic media, pushing the boundaries from generative art into interactive art and story. OLTA brings this all to life through dynamic NFTs which enable collectors to determine the outcome of the artwork over ti...

Javier Tamashiro is the co-founder and CEO of Ospree , a comprehensive anti-money laundering compliance solution for Virtual Asset Service Providers that seamlessly integrates customer onboarding, blockchain monitoring, and the Travel Rule. Javier and his Ospree co-founders Anne Winston and Jukka Pellinen are one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023.  By co...

Greg Hannam is the co-founder and CEO of Peerkat a data analytics tool for marketers to help them understand their users, increase engagement and drive growth in their web3 strategies. In this episode, Greg chats with Pete Townsend about how his life experience drove him to the Peerkat vision, driving value for brands moving from web2 to web3, the evolution of non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) beyond...

Howie Young is the founder and CEO of Protico , a universal chatting interface that enables web3 chat on apps in seconds for enterprises that want to migrate business and engage customers at the web3 level.  Protico is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023. With over eight years of experience in the chat and messaging industry, Howie Young is a high...

Deb Pratiher is the co-founder and CEO of Quest Labs , building infrastructure enabling organizations to leverage data in a privacy-preserving manner to unlock powerful user experiences. Quest Labs is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023. Deb Pratiher is a product leader and engineer with experience building and scaling data infrastructure and syst...

Igor Khmel is the co-founder and CEO of SaveChain , the borderless banking app. SaveChain features a self-custody 'stablecoin-only' wallet with a banking interface for the global underbanked, with the option to open an FDIC-insured bank account for non-US residents. In short, SaveChain is Metamask meets Revolut. SaveChain is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 acce...

Lee Gray is the co-founder and CEO of SonX , a community platform that allows superfans to subscribe to their favorite musicians via a monthly membership fee unlocking fan-only ticketing, exclusive audio content, and digital and physical collectibles. SonX is also one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2023. In this episode, Lee and Pete Townsend dig into why...

Katerina Bohle Carbonell is the co-lead of TogetherCrew , one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator . Some web3 communities fall apart under pressure, others come together stronger. TogetherCrew exists to help build and grow communities by ensuring members and stakeholders create together.   Katerina’s life’s work goes broad and deep on how members of teams and communitie...

Jesse Phillips is the co-founder and CEO of TrustWare , one of the 12 founding teams forming the Techstars Web3 accelerator .  Jesse and Pete Townsend dig into how Jesse got into crypto, the TrustWare vision he formed with co-founder Jonathan Frazier, adjusting to some of the crypto curveballs the world is throwing at TrustWare, and how life experiences are informing the building and scaling of Tr...

This episode features a rundown of the 12 web3 founding teams that form the Techstars Web3 class of 2023 , along with an intro to each of their CEOs.  Builders gotta build, and build better. That was the Techstars Web3 rallying cry when Pete Townsend and Hugh McGirr opened up applications for the Techstars Web3 2023 cohort in November 2022, as finding those building for the long-term - rather than...

Patrick Pinschmidt is a General Partner and Co-Founder at MiddleGame Ventures , a financial technology venture capital fund focused on early-stage investments in Europe. In this episode, Patrick riffs with Pete Townsend on the life experiences that delivered him to venture capital and what Patrick looks for in fintech founders in the context of MiddleGame Ventures’ Irish seed fund. Patrick and Pet...

Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend take a look at the aftermath of the American Bankpocalypse with contrasting views on bitcoin as a safe haven, and how a potential outcome of Grayscale’s lawsuit of the SEC may be opening the floodgates of crypto into institutional finance.  Eoin and Pete also dig into the $600mn raise by open-banking-meets-AI startup Abound, and how a new EU regulatory framework a...

Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend take a quick look at the triumvirate of bank failures in the US with Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank before Eoin asks Pete about his lessons learned from seeing over 1,000 deals in the last 18 months, so they riff on easy-to-remember mental models, investing in lines not dots, building relationships with founders, how those relationships evolve...

Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend look at the outsized gender gap in web3, then riff on the realities of venture capital ‘dry powder’ and crypto VCs, before stepping through what’s wrong with Revolut’s neo-profitability, an unfortunate slip switch for railsr and WhatsApp B2B payments in Brazil as a WeChat-like foundation. STORIES COVERED: The Web3 gender gap, by the numbers (Sifted, 6-Mar-23) Cryp...

Liang Wu is the Co-founding Managing Partner at Eleven26 Capital, an early-stage VC fund investing in diverse founders on the evolving Internet across Web2 and Web3. Liang is also a Web3 Research Fellow at Harvard Business School where he helps shape the Web3 curriculum by writing case studies on leading Web3 companies, as well as supporting community building and business development for Harvard’...

This week, Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend riff on the latest US regulatory crackdown in crypto markets, how NBA Top Shot on the Apple app store is a leading indicator of our wider society’s digital asset adoption whether we realize it or not, trouble in Banking-as-a-Service land with Solaris, Nova Credit’s entry to the UK market, and Revolut’s Irish Trojan Horse. STORIES COVERED: Crypto markets...

In this special segment, we’re featuring web3 investors, founders and mentors such as Joey Krug from Pantera Capital, Matthew Graham from Sino Global Capital, Teana Baker-Taylor from Circle, Sam Williams from Arweave, John Wu from Ava Labs, Clarisse Hagege from Dfns, Sean Lee from Odsy, Tim Bos from ShareRing and Michelle Tsing from GRI. Included in this episode are some of the most helpful insigh...

Dee Coakley is the co-founder and CEO of Boundless , the operating system for your international team, which she co-founded with Emily Castles in Ireland in 2019. Boundless is ‘global employment made simple, with benefits, share options and payroll in one neat platform’. In this episode, Dee riffs with Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend on the snowball effect of the diverse international experience...

Sam Williams is co-founder and CEO of Arweave , a blockchain protocol allowing us to remember and preserve valuable information, apps, and history indefinitely. Pete Townsend interviewed Sam last month on the Techstars GiveFirst podcast , so thanks to David Cohen and Techstars for letting us share the interview for this episode of MoneyNeverSleeps . In this episode, Sam shares the inspirational st...