39 min
Approaches & Activity in Crypto Company Investing [The Exchange #004] The Exchange
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- Investing
Ash Egan is a Principal at Accomplice focusing on early-stage blockchain and crypto investments. Previously, he was a founding Principal on the venture team at ConsenSys, the largest blockchain company in the world, where he led investments in BlockFi, Vault, RocketPool, and Quantstamp. Ash began his career in venture at Converge VC, where he focused primarily on blockchain/crypto and machine learning applications, and led the firm's investment in Chainalysis' seed round. Show notes & links below; subscribe for future episodes!
You can also watch this discussion on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVeoGp1D76A
This episode hosted by: Manasi Vora
Manasi is a Boston finance professional and blockchain enthusiast. A former portfolio manager for Dalal Capital Advisors, she's more recently worked in research with the MIT Digital Currency Initiative. She served as Director of this year's MIT Bitcoin Expo, and is the founder of Boston's Women in Blockchain group.
00:27 - Ash's painful story about a USB stick full of crypto
02:40 - Why Ash decided to focus on blockchain as a VC
04:00 - How investing at Accomplice differs from other blockchain & crypto investors
05:42 - Comparing ConsenSys ventures' focus on the ethereum ecosystem to being a protocol-agnostic investors
07:35 - Areas of interest at Accomplice
11:30 - Investing in companies for equity vs investing in digital assets
13:20 - Valuation models for crypto networks
17:43 - Managing governance rights / responsibilities as a token-holding investors
20:00 - Where there's the most startup activity in the space
23:11 - Alternative approaches to fundraising in the crypto space
24:42 - M&A activity approaching, and issues tokens raise
27:30 - Open finance / decentralized finance, and how it will impact the traditional finance industry
30:26 - Exit paths for crypto companies
32:31 - What Ash knows about crypto now that he wishes he knew 3 years ago
36:10 - Upcoming developments Ash is excited for
Thanks for listening! Subscribe for future episodes.
Ash Egan is a Principal at Accomplice focusing on early-stage blockchain and crypto investments. Previously, he was a founding Principal on the venture team at ConsenSys, the largest blockchain company in the world, where he led investments in BlockFi, Vault, RocketPool, and Quantstamp. Ash began his career in venture at Converge VC, where he focused primarily on blockchain/crypto and machine learning applications, and led the firm's investment in Chainalysis' seed round. Show notes & links below; subscribe for future episodes!
You can also watch this discussion on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVeoGp1D76A
This episode hosted by: Manasi Vora
Manasi is a Boston finance professional and blockchain enthusiast. A former portfolio manager for Dalal Capital Advisors, she's more recently worked in research with the MIT Digital Currency Initiative. She served as Director of this year's MIT Bitcoin Expo, and is the founder of Boston's Women in Blockchain group.
00:27 - Ash's painful story about a USB stick full of crypto
02:40 - Why Ash decided to focus on blockchain as a VC
04:00 - How investing at Accomplice differs from other blockchain & crypto investors
05:42 - Comparing ConsenSys ventures' focus on the ethereum ecosystem to being a protocol-agnostic investors
07:35 - Areas of interest at Accomplice
11:30 - Investing in companies for equity vs investing in digital assets
13:20 - Valuation models for crypto networks
17:43 - Managing governance rights / responsibilities as a token-holding investors
20:00 - Where there's the most startup activity in the space
23:11 - Alternative approaches to fundraising in the crypto space
24:42 - M&A activity approaching, and issues tokens raise
27:30 - Open finance / decentralized finance, and how it will impact the traditional finance industry
30:26 - Exit paths for crypto companies
32:31 - What Ash knows about crypto now that he wishes he knew 3 years ago
36:10 - Upcoming developments Ash is excited for
Thanks for listening! Subscribe for future episodes.
39 min