MoneyNeverSleeps Pete Townsend
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A weekly podcast that looks inside the minds of entrepreneurs and at the crossover of startups, enterprise, finance, technology and life as we know it, hosted by early-stage startup investor Pete Townsend.
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252: Meet the Techstars Web3 Class of 2024
This episode features an introduction to the 12 founding teams that form the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2024, with each of their founder/CEOs giving you a quick look inside what they're building.
Meet the companies!
Artizen - Match-funding platform for breakthroughs in human creativity.
Founder locations: USA / UK | Featured Founder/CEO: Rene Pinnell
The Colony - Shaping the future of collectibles through blockchain technology.
Founder locations: USA / Canada | Featured Founder/CEO: Andrea Miele
Ember AI - AI DeFi companion that understands what you want and helps you do it securely, without new apps or hardware.
Founder locations: USA / Colombia | Featured Founder/CEO: Tom Daniel
FairAI - Fueling democratized open-source AI through a decentralized marketplace with digital property rights.
Founder locations: Portugal / USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Tiago Ferreira
FileMarket - Multichain data tokenization protocol for storage and P2P digital goods trading.
Founder location: Hong Kong | Featured Founder/CEO: Ilya Orlov
GenoBank - Ensuring the privacy and data ownership of your genetic information.
Founder location: USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Daniel Uribe
Lantern Finance - Custodial staking and lending services for the everyday investor.
Founder location: USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Jung-Won Kim
Millicent - The open smart contract platform for compliant real-world DeFi.
Founder locations: UK / USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Kene Ezeji-Okoye
PawPass - Digital identification for animals.
Founder location: UK | Featured Founder/CEO: Julia Kemp
ProofSpace - No-code platform for reusable identity.
Founder location: UK | Featured Founder/CEO: Nick Mason
SportsyncTech - Empowering amateur sports organizations and athletes with innovative, data-driven solutions.
Founder locations: France / USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Fabien Arneodo
Savvy - Interest-free lending protocol with overcollateralized deposits and self repaying loans.
Founder location: USA | Featured Founder/CEO: Roman Giler
LINKS:
Learn more about the Techstars Web3 Class of 2024:
https://www.techstars.com/accelerators/web3
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251: Money Talks with Laura Walsh | Farcaster, Digital Identity and Decentralized Social Media
Laura Walsh joins the show again this week as guest co-host as we explore the potential link between digital identity and decentralized social media through the lens of the Forecaster protocol, its challenges, user growth, and the future potential of a decentralized online ecosystem.
Laura is the Chief Marketing Officer and part of the founding team of Kaskade Finance, and we worked together closely for the past two years on the Techstars Web3 accelerator. Laura is a Techstars All-Star Mentor, advisor, founder, web3 O.G., and friend.
LINKS:
Learn more about Kaskade Finance: https://www.kaskade.finance/
Connect with Laura Walsh on social media:
-Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralwalsh/
-Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheOGLauraWalsh
Leave a review and subscribe on
-Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1455819294
-Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd
MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack: https://moneyneversleeps.substack.com/
MoneyNeverSleeps website: https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/
Email us at info@norioventures.com
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250: The World is Yours | Brian Zwerner, W3 Studio & Beyond the Game Network | Investing in Diverse Founders, Sports and Web3
Brian Zwerner is the President and Founder of W3 Studio, and a VC and Founder of Beyond the Game Network. As the President and Founder of W3 Studio, a 501c3 non-profit venture studio, Brian and his team help diverse founders in Atlanta build startups in web3. W3 Studio partners with corporations and provides grants to startups to fund the launch of their first products.
With his role as a VC and Founder at Beyond The Game Network, Brian teams up with a venture group of athletes that invest in Seed to Series B consumer startups in sports, media, web3, and fitness.
Brian Zwerner was previously the founder of Sportal, a startup in the sports industry. He managed the growth of Aquina Health through a Series A capital raise. He has invested in or held senior roles with several companies and funds and previously spent 20 years in investment banking roles in the US and overseas.
In this episode, Brian and I riff on what led him to scratch his entrepreneurial itch in the first place, his experiences as a founder, and the symmetry of his leadership across Beyond the Game Network and W3 Studio. We also take a look at the market for sports-themed digital collectibles since the 2020-2021 bull run, how to build a more sustainable business at the intersection of sports and web3 by focusing on fandom rather than speculators, and how his advice to founders has evolved with the comings and goings of bulls and bears.
LINKS:
Episode title inspired by ‘The World is Yours’ by Nas
Learn more about W3 Studio: https://w3studio.us/
Learn more about Beyond the Game Network: https://thebtgnetwork.com/
Connect with Brian Zwerner on social media:
-Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/w3studioatl
-Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-zwerner/
-Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianZwerner
-Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bzwerner/
-TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brianzwerner
Leave a review and subscribe on
-Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1455819294
-Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd
MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack: https://moneyneversleeps.substack.com/
MoneyNeverSleeps website: https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/
Email us at info@norioventures.com
Follow on X(Twitter):
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Follow on LinkedIn:
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249: Bridging the Gap | Connor Murphy | One Problem, Two Ventures and Bridging Networks
This week’s guest is Connor Murphy, the CEO of Bridge. I met Connor at a Techstars event in Dublin in 2019 as he was just getting his latest venture off the ground in Bridge, and I started using the Bridge app within seconds of meeting him to help me bridge my network.
Connor Murphy is an all-around good guy, and in every conversation I have with with him, I end up connecting way more dots than I ever could have expected. Connor has a background in computer science, startups, venture capital, and management consulting. He was previously the Managing Director of the Techstars SAP.iO program in Berlin and he has invested in 30 pre-seed technology ventures that have an enterprise value greater than $1bn. The undercurrent for all of this was Connor’s founding of DataHug back in 2009, a collaborative forecasting and pipeline management solution that he sold to Callidus Cloud (now owned by SAP) back in 2013.
In this episode, Connor and I riff on his DataHug founder experience, investing through Techstars and beyond, his journey as CEO of Bridge, and how all of these experiences are linked by the common threads of building relationships, trust as a currency, and kicking your network into hyperdrive. We also talk through some of his time-tested lessons learned from his time as a startup founder and investor that guide his path and that of the founders he’s invested in as well.
BOOK REFERENCES:
‘The Four Steps to the Epiphany’ by Steve Blank
‘The Mom Test’ by Rob Fitzpatrick
LINKS:
Learn more about Bridge and see here for a quick insight on the power of Bridge
Follow Connor Murphy on LinkedIn, X/(Twitter) and check out his blog
Episode title inspired by ‘Bridging the Gap’ by Nas
Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack
Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at info@norioventures.com
Follow us on X(Twitter): Pete Townsend | MoneyNeverSleeps
Follow us on LinkedIn:: Pete Townsend | MoneyNeverSleeps
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248: Venture Investing and Connecting the Dots [Double Episode Replay]
We've remastered and packaged up two of our most popular episodes from 2023 that were originally going to be one episode looking at the venture capital mantra of ‘investing in lines and not dots’.
Both of these episodes were recorded in March 2023, after my team and I had just completed another 12 investments through Techstars, and I was itching to share some of the lessons learned.
Eoin Fitzgerald set the stage for me to do just that, and then we brought Patrick Pinschmidt from Middlegame Ventures onto the show two weeks later to dig deeper into this idea of investing in lines and not dots.
LINKS:
Learn more about MiddleGame Ventures on their website
Follow Patrick Pinschmidt on LinkedIn and Twitter
Leave a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on Substack
Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website and email us at info@norioventures.com
Follow us on X(Twitter): Pete Townsend | MoneyNeverSleeps
Follow us on LinkedIn: Pete Townsend | MoneyNeverSleeps
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247: Money Talks with Mai Santamaria | Digital Identity, Trust, Risk and Blockchain (or not)
Mai Santamaria joins me once again as guest co-host as we riff on the intersection of digital ID, digital wallets, blockchain, CBDCs, and how the political regime under which an individual lives influences your senses of trust and risk. We also blow to bits my expectation that the new EU digital identity wallet will have anything to do with blockchain, contrary to what we’re seeing with digital identity frameworks in Latin America.
Mai is one of the most helpful people I know and always has a uniquely incisive insight or two on what’s going on at the crossover of finance and emerging tech. Mai originally featured on episode 5 of MoneyNeverSleeps back in 2018, she made a cameo on our 200th episode last year, she’s a Techstars mentor, and she recently helped me make sense of the crossover of blockchain and AI in episode 241. Mai is the Head of the Financial Advisory Unit for the Department of Finance in Ireland.
In this episode, Mai and I riff on the topic of digital identity through the lens of the new European Digital Identity Wallet brought forth by the eIDAS2 legislation, and look at digital identity regimes in Latin America through the latest news on Nubank’s expansion. With the investments I’m making right now in early stage ventures in blockchain, topics like decentralization, over-centralization, and the elements of trust and risk when it comes to how individuals feel about who has access to their data are also a focal point of this chat.
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Customer Reviews
Great source of valuable information for founders!
Episode 68 gives a valuable insight into a VC’s mindset and expectations when it comes to investing in startups.