The Inquisitive VC

In Episode 2 of The Debrief, Nawaz and Vignesh unpack some of the most fascinating developments in venture capital, private markets, and tech investing. The conversation begins with the surprising transformation of Allbirds from a direct-to-consumer footwear brand into an AI infrastructure company before diving deep into Anthropic’s crackdown on unauthorised secondary share sales. The pair explore...

Introduction In this first episode of  The Debrief , Nawaz and Vignesh launch a new podcast focused on venture, technology, and startup conversations that are more relevant to the New Zealand ecosystem. They unpack the collapse of Allbirds from a heavily hyped public company to a distressed acquisition, debate whether direct-to-consumer brands really fit venture economics, and explore why companie...

In this episode of  Inquisitive VC , host  Nawaz Ahmed  speaks with Bhavik Vashi serves as Managing Director for APAC at Carta, the platform powering over 9,000 fund managers worldwide. We talk about Bhavik's unique perspective on the venture ecosystem, overseeing Carta's expansion across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa regions, which represent some of the most dynamic and ra...

In this episode of Inquisitive VC , host Nawaz Ahmed speaks with Hootie Rashidifard , Founder and General Partner of Hash3 , a $30M crypto venture fund built on a mission to bring self-sovereignty to all end users . Hootie shares how his Iranian upbringing—watching his father’s bank accounts frozen after the 1979 revolution—instilled a deep mistrust of centralized systems and shaped his belief in...

In this episode of Inquisitive VC , host Nawaz Ahmed sits down with Andy Kangpan , Founder and General Partner of Metalayer Ventures , a $25M crypto venture fund focused on blockchain adoption in financial services. Andy shares his journey from investing at Two Sigma during the 2017 ICO boom to founding Metalayer after the FTX collapse—driven by the belief that crypto’s next chapter lies in real-w...

In this episode of Inquisitive VC , host Nawaz Ahmed sits down with Alex Lin , Founder and General Partner of Reforge , a crypto venture fund investing in coordination infrastructure across capital markets, AI, and compute systems. Alex shares his journey from running a gaming bot farm that led him to Bitcoin, to becoming a venture capitalist with a mission to rebuild trust in failing institutions...

In this episode of Inquisitive VC , host Nawaz Ahmed interviews Travis Scher, co-founder of North Island Ventures, to explore crypto investing and venture capital . Travis shares his journey from a disgruntled lawyer discovering Bitcoin in 2014 to becoming a seasoned crypto VC at Digital Currency Group and launching his own fund. He discusses North Island’s thesis on crypto as an enabling technolo...

In this episode of Inquisitive VC , host Nawaz Ahmed interviews Lucas He, founder of Tomorrow Ventures, to dive into crypto investing and venture capital . Lucas shares his journey from buying Bitcoin in 2013 to building a crypto fund focused on real-world adoption. With experience at State Street and OP Crypto, he discusses bridging crypto to industries like healthcare and AI, navigating fundrais...

In the premiere episode of Inquisitive VC , host Nawaz Ahmed interviews Sal Gala, co-founder of EV3, to explore venture capital and crypto investing . Sal shares his journey from discovering Bitcoin during Venezuela’s hyperinflation to launching a venture fund focused on DePin (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) and real-world crypto use cases like zkTLS. He offers insights on overcom...

Welcome to The Inquisitive VC. Today I am speaking to Boris Revsin, the Managing Director of Tribe Capital. We speak about his journey to crypto, how Tribe invests, crypto cycles and narratives, airdrops and more! I hope you enjoy this episode. The podcast is also available on your favourite podcast sources like Spotify, Apple and Youtube! Check out the  Substack  for show notes and transcript! In...

Welcome to the Inquisitive VC, today I am speaking to Richard Chen a General Partner at 1confirmation, a seed-focused crypto venture fund. We talk about Richards's prediction of underrated product trends for 2024, the function of airdrop and points, difficult questions asked by LPs and much more. I hope you enjoy the episode! The podcast is also available on your favourite podcast sources like...

Joey Krug is a Partner at Founders Fund (FF) and leads their crypto investments. Joey is also a co-founder of Augur, one of the first projects on Ethereum, and of Eco. Prior to FF, Joey was the Co-CIO of Pantera Capital. We speak about practical use cases of crypto, challenges crypto founders face, building crypto native vs building general products, Joey’s anti-portfolio and much more. The podcas...

Sachi Kamiya does Investments at Polygon, one of the leading scaling solutions for Ethereum. Prior to Polygon, Sachi worked in the traditional finance world. We talk about her journey to crypto, Polygon zkEVM, the Polygon Ecosystem Fund, learning early-stage investing and a lot more! The podcast is also available on your favourite podcast sources like Spotify, Apple and Youtube! Check out the  Sub...

Baek Kim is a General Partner at Hashed, a crypto-native VC focused on bridging the ecosystem in US and Asia. Prior to this Baek was a software engineer at AWS working on IoT and Robotics. He was also the founder of a last-mile logistics startup. We talk about his entry into crypto VC, Hasheds’ thesis, crypto gaming, the Asian market and more! Check out the Substack for a full transcript of the ep...

Jeff Weinstein is a Partner at FJ Labs , a global marketplace investor also investing in crypto and Web3. Jeff was previously a Senior Associate at Lux Capital. We talk about his entry into VC, the FJ Labs thesis, why they are investing in crypto, problems marketplaces face and more! Check out the  Substack  for a full transcript of the episode, with links and images! Intro & Outro soundtrack...

Regan Bozman is a General Partner at Lattice Capital , an early-stage crypto fund that helps founders build defensible moats. He previously led growth initiatives at a number of crypto projects including C.R.E.A.M., Index Coop, and Maple. Prior to that, he was the first employee at CoinList and managed $100M+ of token launches. We talk about his journey from angel investing to a fund, state of the...

Imran Khan is a Core Contributor and Pilot of AllianceDAO , previously known as DeFi Alliance, the leading accelerator program for crypto and web3 projects. Imran is also a Venture Partner at Volt Capital and was previously at Microsoft. We talk about his journey to crypto, how DeFi Alliance formed, Alliance DAO, what he is excited about in crypto, incentives for teams and more. Check out the  Sub...

Dylan Olivia Hunzeker is the Head of Ventures at Advanced Blockchain AG , a publicly listed investor and incubator. Prior to this, she was an Investor at Struck Capital Crypto, also having worked at Iconic Holding and Eigen Capital. We talk about her journey in crypto, her time in China, investing in crypto and more! Check out the  Substack  for a full transcript of the episode, with links and ima...

Nick Grossman is a Partner at Union Square Ventures , a leading venture firm that has invested in companies like Twitter, Stripe, Coinbase and many more. Previously, he led an incubator for startups at the intersection of cities and data at OpenPlans. We talk about his journey to VC and crypto, investing in collector DAOs, the future of VC, the USV anti-portfolio and more. Check out the  Substack...

Noah Gaynor is the Co-Founder of Parcel. Parcel is the “Zillow for the metaverse”, a metaverse-native platform building key infrastructure for the needs of virtual real estate users, builders, property managers, investors, developers, and service providers. We talk about his journey from tradfi to crypto, Parcel, fundraising, the future of virtual real estate, Meta and more!  Check out the  Substa...

John Henderson is a Partner at AirTree Ventures , an Australia and NZ focused venture firm. Prior to AirTree, John was the Founding Principal of White Star Capital. We talk about his journey to VC, investment biases, Olympus Finance, NFTs and more! Check out the  Substack  for a full transcript of the episode, with links and images! Intro & Outro soundtrack from -  https://www.purple-planet.co...

Julia Lipton is the founder and GP of Awesome People Ventures , an early-stage fund focused on world positive investments. Prior to investing Julia led product and growth teams in Silicon Valley startups. We talk about her journey to investing, investing in Web 3.0, investment DAOs, raising a fund and more! Check out the Substack for a full transcript of the episode, with links! Intro & Outro...

Brandon Kumar is a co-founder of Layer3 , a platform that enables anyone to contribute to decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs). Prior to this Brandon was a Vice President at Accolade Partners a fund of funds, where he focused on investments in crypto funds. We talk about Brandon’s journey from investing to founding a company, DAOs, Layer3, raising money and more! Check out the Substack fo...

Chris McCann is a General Partner at Race Capital , an early-stage venture capital fund that leads investments in pre-seed and seed-stage technology startups. Prior to Race, Chris was the Community Lead at Greylock Partners and co-founder of Startup Digest, which was acquired by Techstars. We talk about his journey to investing, Solana, his anti-portfolio, art and more! Check out the  Substack  fo...

Hayden Hughes is the co-founder and CEO of Alpha Impact, a crypto copy-trading platform. Previous to this he worked at Crypto.com and Techemy and is an experienced founder. We talk about how he got into crypto, starting Alpha Impact, how to balance token and equity investors, DeFi and more! Check out the Substack for a full transcript of the episode, with links! Intro & Outro soundtrack from -...