Every new technology platform has been built around a specific new capability. The Internet connected…
Crypto / Blockchain, Entrepreneurship
Six months ago, Boris wrote an important post about why the blockchain is disruptive to VC. As a quick summary, here’s why: It requires a new investment thesis: where is value accrued in a decentralized platform? It requires a new way of investing: tokenization by nature makes projects more liquid It might inspire a new […]
Every new technology platform has been built around a specific new capability. The Internet connected…
We recently organized another crypto dinner in Toronto, bringing together the local community and a…
Six months ago, Boris wrote an important post about why the blockchain is disruptive to VC. As a quick summary, here’s why:
Six months is a long time in crypto. We’ve spoken to many more founders since backing Citizen Hex, Blockstack, Coinbase, Metastable, and Polychain. We have welcomed CryptoKitties to our portfolio as well as two more startups that have yet to be announced.
Through these experiences, we’ve come to learn something very important about investing in crypto. While the three reasons above remain valid, we’ve realized that the way we evaluate blockchain opportunities is no different than how we have evaluate any other investment opportunity. The basic questions of investing still apply**:
In particular, the last question deserves emphasis: given that most protocols are pre-launch, the core differentiation is in people. Crypto requires more complementary teams than ever before: from managing large communities to understanding how to build large distributed systems.
While we discovered that our pre-investment analysis isn’t much different between crypto and other start-ups, what happens after investing? Boris’ points on how blockchain is disrupting VC become very relevant for managing a crypto investment. Years from now, after our position vests, how do we proactively manage a portfolio of tokens? When is a good time to exit our position?
As we think about augmenting our team with a new member some time this year (stay tuned for more news on this), we wonder what complementary skillset s/he might bring both technically (i.e. if we decide for self-custody of our crypto assets) and financially (i.e. when to buy, sell, trade tokens)?
It’s fun to think about how we will evolve as a fund, and we would love to brainstorm with other investors on how they are thinking about building their partnership for crypto as it matures.
** Special credit/thanks to my good friend, Maryanna Saenko, who inspired this list during her presentation at the CryptoChicks Hackathon and Conference in Toronto.
Version One
It’s been about a little over a month since I joined Version One and returned to early-stage venture after spending the past five years as a founder in the addiction treatment space. While a month is a short amount of time, it’s been fascinating to see how certain things have changed during my time away. […]
The first week of September is my VC anniversary. This milestone is always a great…
VC funds go through challenging times world-wide but the situation in Canada is probably worse…