Speakers
COO Uniswap Labs
Founder Paloma
Co-Founder & General Partner Hustle Fund
Director of Protocol Strategy Figment
Managing Partner TRGC
Co-founder Blockchain Capital
Investor Big Brain Holdings
Partner ZMT Capital
Partner 1kx
Investor Struck Crypto
Co-founder NibiruChain
Investor OP Crypto
Founder CosmWasm
Developer Advocate Vyper & Curve
Principal Coinbase Ventures
Director Wintermute Ventures
Founder Dogechain
Managing Partner Fundamental Labs
Partner Maven 11
Investor General Catalyst
Investor Maven 11
Partner 6th Man Ventures
Investor Collab+Currency
Co-founder and Managing Partner gumi Crypto Capital
Principal FirstMark Capital
Partner Lemniscap
Managing Partner Symbolic Capital
General Partner Castle Island Ventures
Investor Hypersphere Ventures
Investor Felix Capital
Chief Investment Officer RockawayX
Founder Blackpine
Co-founder Cross Chain Coalition
Co-founder Cross Chain Coalition
Investor Play Ventures
Investor Play Ventures
Founder & GP Delta Blockchain Fund
General Partner Foresight Ventures
Investor Hashed
Partner Foundation Capital
Founder AlphaGrowth
Head of New Investments Blockchange Ventures
Founder & CEO Mentaport
Co-founder Verbwire Inc
Founder Holder
CEO Knabu
Founder BlockDog
Chief Technology Officer Candy Shop
Co-founder Omni X
CEO Patache Digital
Founder SmartPiggies
Co-founder Wallchain
CEO Coinfront
Mary-Catherine (MC) Lader is the Chief Operating Officer of Uniswap Labs, a developer of foundational web3-based products and applications. In this role, she oversees the company’s growth efforts, strategic initiatives, and operations. Previously, she held various leadership roles at BlackRock, including as the Global Head of the firm’s digital sustainability business, Chief Operating Officer of the firm’s digital wealth business, and leader of the firm’s strategic fintech investments and blockchain activities. MC began her career as an investor in Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group. She received her J.D. and M.B.A. degrees at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, respectively, and her B.A. at Brown University.
Mary-Catherine's Sessions
Cross Chain Half-Time Show with special guest MC Lader
We chat with Mary Catherine Lader of Uniswap about the future of DeFi
Taariq Lewis
Founder, PalomaTaariq Lewis is the CEO and founder of VolumeFi, a cross chain product lab that is debuting their cross chain messaging layer, Paloma (palomachain.com). He also was the co-founder of Sommelier Protocol with Zaki Manian and Jack Zampolin and lead product management and product marketing for Sommelier delivered over $10MM in Sommelier liquidity and launched Sommelier Uniswap v3 Cellars in 2022. He is a serial entrprenuer who has also founded several successful fintech and blockchain products – Promise, Aquila, SericaPay. Taariq also helped bring Bitcoin and blockchain engineering to a global audience with numerous education events. Taariq is a leader in the Bitcoin engineering community as the founder of SF Bitcoin Devs and SF Cryptocurrency Devs, a network of blockchain software engineers and developers.
Taariq's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Web3 Infrastructure
This section will highlight many builders who are focusing on web3 infrastructure. Some of the newcomers include a company focusing on secure transaction settlement, a CRM and marketing automation platform for web3 businesses, a cross chain messaging protocol, omnichain NFT API Infrastructure, and payments infrastructure serving as the rails of the next internet. As one of the most popular categories for builders on this demo day, join us as we dive into the future of web3 infrastructure.
Cross Chain Half-Time Show with special guest MC Lader
We chat with Mary Catherine Lader of Uniswap about the future of DeFi
Elizabeth Yin is a founder and general partner of Hustle Fund, a pre-seed venture capital fund that invests in hilariously early software startups across the U.S., Canada and Southeast Asia.
Clayton Menzel
Director of Protocol Strategy, FigmentClayton is the the Director of Protocol Strategy at Figment, one of the world’s largest blockchain infrastructure and services providers . He is also a Partner at Figment Capital, Figment’s fund arm investing in early-stage blockchain infrastructure projects. Previously, Clayton was Community Lead at Yen.io, CariClub and Fiverr.
Etiënne Vantkruys
Managing Partner, TRGCEtienne is Managing Partner at TRGC, a venture fund focused on digital assets., where he leads the fund’s strategy and facilitates partnerships. Etiënne began his financial career in 2004, investing in equities, specialising in Biotech. His introduction to blockchain was through his investment in Bitcoin in 2012 and Ethereum in 2014. Since 2016, Etiënne has been an active angel investor and advisor to innovative teams. Etiënne holds a BA in Educational Sciences and MSc in Educational Sciences from Utrecht University.
W Bradford Stephens
Co-founder, Blockchain CapitalBrad Stephens is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Blockchain Capital, the first firm to raise a venture fund through an ICO. Prior to Blockchain Capital, Brad was Managing Partner of Stephens Investment Management which he co-founded in 2002. Prior to co-founding SIM, Brad worked as the senior analyst at Fidelity Ventures, the venture capital arm of Fidelity Investments. He also founded Fidelity’s Biometric Consortium, a cutting-edge collaboration of all Fidelity’s business units designed to explore, pilot and implement biometric security systems within Fidelity and eventually its consumer clients. Brad also worked as a research analyst in CSFB’s Technology Group, specializing in Internet Security and Internet infrastructure software. While at CSFB, Brad helped raise over $1.3 billion for companies under coverage.
Dwayne
Investor, Big Brain HoldingsDwayne is an investor at Big Brain Holdings, a crypto exclusive fund investing in pre-seed, seed and early stage projects.
Ohad Bachner
Partner, ZMT CapitalOhad Bachner is a young and ambitious entrepreneur who began investing during his last year of service in the Israeli Defense Forces where he was an Intelligence soldier. He previously worked for the largest crypto website in Israel, managing the crowdfunding section of the business and therefore has strong connections in both the Israeli and European markets. His investment ideology is centered around looking at the future of the crypto market and investing in projects that will help to achieve the next phase of crypto.
Dmitriy Berenzon
Partner, 1kxDmitriy Berenzon is a research partner at 1k(x), where he focuses on crypto research, due diligence & investments. In addition to research, he spends a significant part of his week working with portfolio projects on fundraising, business development and their token model design. He was previously a Research Partner at Bollinger Investment Group, where he led crypto research & investments, and worked with CoinFund, a crypto-focused investment firm. Prior to this, Dmitriy was an Assistant Vice President with Deutsche Bank Labs, where he engaged with startups, investors, and academia to discover, evaluate, and adopt innovative technologies into the Bank.
Lang Cui
Investor, Struck CryptoLang is a Senior Associate & Venture Investor at Struck Crypto. He partners with outlier founders in Web3 to accelerate product market fit and systematically scale early stage companies.He has significant experience investing in the blockchain and digital assets industry, dating back to early 2015. He has been an early investor in multiple blockchain innovators including the Matic Network (Polygon), Axie Infinity, Aave, Uniswap, Polkadot, Solana and Flow ecosystems, among others. Lang brings his extensive experience in global banking, payments and financial technologies through his time as a management consultant and experience with a top tier global bank. These experiences solidified his thesis in the merits of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and various areas of blockchain innovation including NFTs, Play to Earn gaming, the Metaverse and Web 3.0.
Unique Divine
Co-founder, NibiruChainUnique is co-founder and Lead Software Engineer at Nibiru Chain, a layer 1 blockchain built on Cosmos. Prior to Nibiru, he was part of the Sommelier Protocol team. There he was able to leverage his Golang, Cosmos SDK, Python, Solidity, TypeScript, Google Cloud Platform skills. Before that he was a data scientist at IBM. Unique studied in Columbia University and has a Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics.
Calvin Du
Investor, OP CryptoCalvin is a Head of Platforma and Investor at OP Crypto. He leads post-investment portfolio support initiatives and activities across all regions. Formerly, he was summer associate at McKinsey & Company, Digital Accelerator at PwC and Analytics Consultant at Wells Fargo.
Ethan Frey
Founder, CosmWasmEthan was introduced to the post-bitcoin blockchain world in 2014 through ethereum and monax (formerly known as eris). He worked as a software engineer at Tendermint, developing web technologies into a blockchain application. He was involved with Koina AG, IOV, and was lead developer at Regen Network. With these many years of experience in building websites and APIs, Ethan founded CosmWasm, a smart contracting platform built for the Comos ecosystem.
Gerrit Hall
Developer Advocate, Vyper & CurveGerrit is a Developer Advocate for Vyper & Curve. He is also the CEO and co-founder of RezScore, a free web app that helps job seekers write the best resume possible. Gerrit shares his passion for computer science among his students as he teaches Financial Technology in the University of Washington.
Jonathan King
Principal, Coinbase VenturesJonathan is a Principal at Coinbase Ventures responsible for investing in early-stage crypto and Web3 startups building the open financial system. He’s core investment focus is on companies building new Web3 developer platforms and tools.
Jonas Kristensen
Director, Wintermute VenturesJonas is a VC and M&A director at Wintermute Ventures & M&A . Previously Vice President and investing at Permira.
Andrew Lee
Founder, DogechainAndrew is the founder of Dogechain, a newly-launched blockchain platform that lets users bridge over Dogecoin (DOGE) and use it for DeFi, NFTs, and more.
Henry Love
Managing Partner, Fundamental LabsHenry Love is a Managing Partner and the Head of US operation for Fundamental Labs. Prior to joining, Henry co-founded a crypto corporate venture studio, YGC, and its spin out company Executive Council Network (ECN). He joined the crypto industry by stepping in as the Chief Investment Officer at a crypto-focused family office who pioneered the industry after leaving Facebook as a top performer.
Darius Rugys
Partner, Maven 11Darius has a venture capital background and has been one of the most active investors in the blockchain space over recent years. Darius joined Maven 11 as Managing Partner in 2020 to further strengthen the team for the second fund. He adds significant knowledge, investment experience, and network to Maven 11.
Nick van Eck
Investor, General CatalystNick is a Partner at General Catalyst, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage companies. Formerly, he was an analyst at JMI Equity and Investment Associate at Cambridge Associates. Nick holds a degree in History and Economics at the University of Virginia and is a member of the Young Advocates Circle, a special fundraising group of professionals in their 20s and 30s devoted to supporting the Boys’ Club of New York.
Mathijs van Esch
Investor, Maven 11Mathijs started researching blockchain in 2016 when he wrote his thesis about the enterprise usage of blockchains. He joined Maven 11 in 2017 as a research analyst and has fundamentally analyzed over 200 investment opportunities. Mathijs holds 2 MSc degrees in Accountany (with honours) and Tax Economics.
Carl Vogel
Partner, 6th Man VenturesCarl is Partner & Head of Research at 6th Man Ventures. Investing in early stage Web3 founders. Formerly, he was a Senior Product Manager at Paxos and Product Manager at Google.
Amanda Young
Investor, Collab+CurrencyAmanda is an Investor at Collab+Cuurency, Previously at Dapper Labs and Bridgewater. She is an alumna of The Wharton School – Master of Business Administration and Awarded the Larkin & Dawn Fellowship for exceptional professional, academic, and personal achievement
Rui Zhang
Co-founder and Managing Partner, gumi Crypto CapitalRui co-founded gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC) at the beginning of 2018. Through gCC, he invested in the early rounds of companies and protocols including OpenSea, Qredo, YGG, 1Inch, Agoric, Celsius, etc. Recently he launched $110million gCC Fund II, continuously investing in the early stage blockchain and crypto sector. Before gCC, Rui led the global investment of gumi Group, investing in gaming, social media, VR&AR markets, with successful investments including inXile (acquired by Microsoft), Beat Games (via VR Fund, acquired by Facebook), Theta Network, etc. Rui also had his successful entrepreneurship experience before getting into VC industry. After about 7 years banking and consulting firm experience in his early career, he co- founded Zenith Group Holdings, which successfully exited via acquisition.
Lisa Xu
Principal, FirstMark CapitalLisa is a Principal at FirstMark Capital, an early stage venture capital firm based in NYC with $3B+ under management. Lisa joined FirstMark’s investment team in 2018 and focuses on consumer crypto and Web3 investments. She works closely with and supports several of FirstMark’s portfolio companies as a Board Observer. Prior to joining FirstMark, Lisa was a Product Manager at NYC-based venture-backed startups Handy (acquired by ANGI Homeservices) and Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON). Previously, Lisa was a Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, where she performed due diligence for private equity firms and advised Fortune 500 companies on corporate strategy. Lisa graduated summa cum laude from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Finance and Management.
Shaishav Todi
Partner, LemniscapPassionate investor in early stage blockchain startups. Have an avid interest in emerging social formations around new economic models. Partner @ Lemniscap.
Kenzi Wang
Managing Partner, Symbolic CapitalKenzi Wang is the Managing Partner of Symbolic Capital, a thesis driven early stage VC fund he founded with Sandeep Nailwal, co founder of Polygon . He previously served as Vice President and General Manager at Huobi Global.
Ria Bhutoria
General Partner, Castle Island VenturesMrinalini “Ria” Bhutoria has an extensive background in digital finance. Before her current role as a general partner at Castle Island Venutres, she served as the director of research at Fidelity Digital Assets. She also was a senior analyst at Circle Research, a spin-off of digital payments giant Circle. Prior to that, Bhutoria worked as an equity research analyst at Credit Suisse. Her work has given her prominent status in the Bitcoin industry when Fidelity was one of the first asset managers to embrace Bitcoin openly.
Namik Muduroglu
Investor, Hypersphere VenturesNamik is an investor at Hypersphere Ventures, an early-stage venture fund leveraging on-chain treasuries, decentralized organizations, and governance to increase the utility of the blockchain networks in which they invest.
Joseph Pizzolato
Investor, Felix CapitalJoseph is an Investor at Felix Capital with 10+ years of experience across Europe, the US and APAC. He focuses on Web3 and Fintech, having invested in companies such as Ledger, Wise, Sorare, Lightspark, Juni, and Forter amongst others. He started his career as a Structural Engineer in Australia, is a passionate Juventus supporter, and writes a web3 newsletter the Red Pill.
Dusan Kovacic
Chief Investment Officer, RockawayXDusan Kovacic is Chief Investment Officer at RockawayX, and is responsible for all fund investments, in addition to overseeing user-oriented product and platform development. Prior to this, Dusan built a GPU-based mining farm for Monero — a private, decentralized cryptocurrency. He has deep domain expertise in information security, having previously held positions as an IT security engineer and project manager for DHL. Dusan holds a Master’s degree in Web and Software Engineering from the Czech Technical University in Prague.
Larry Zhu
Founder, BlackpineLawrence Chu is the Chairman of BlackPine Group; BlackPine is a private investment company focused on transformative industries that advance humanity. BlackPine’s portfolio includes blockchain, alternative protein, eSports and new economy sectors such as carbon neutrality, quantum computing and space exploration. For more information visit bppe.com. With over 15 years of international investment experience, Lawrence, through his company, has provided capital and advice to companies such as VSFG, Kenetic, Lu.com, C2FO, WH Group, and Oriente. He began his career at UBS Warburg in the technology and M&A investment banking groups in London and Hong Kong. After which, he took on the role of strategy executive in the Chairman’s office of EMI Music before moving back to Hong Kong as a portfolio manager at UBS O’Connor.
Alex Martin
Co-founder, Cross Chain CoalitionAlexander graduated with degrees in Mathematics & Engineering from SMU. After university, he worked as a strategy consultant for clients such as Kraken & the NFL. Soon after, he co-founded the Cross Chain Coalition to help educate infrastructure developers.
Alex's Sessions
Welcome – Intro to Cross Chain Coalition & the Demo Day
Closing Remarks
Drake Dukes
Co-founder, Cross Chain CoalitionDrake Dukes is the co-founder and main contributor at the Cross Chain Coalition, a media company that focuses on scaling cross chain infrastructure through events & education. He also founded Gravity, a software company that helps with venture funds and blockchain ecosystems identify promising early-stage projects and founders. Before his entrepreneurial career, Drake spent half a decade as a senior consultant at Deloitte working with clients such as FedEx, Hewlett Packard, and many other fortune 500 companies.
Drake's Sessions
Welcome – Intro to Cross Chain Coalition & the Demo Day
Closing Remarks
Vincent
Investor, Play VenturesVincent has been passionate about cryptocurrencies investments since 2017. Based in Singapore, Vincent handles investment assessment, due diligence and portfolio support. His previous experience includes working as a tech lead at a start up & senior developer at Tz Apac.
Playtern
Investor, Play VenturesPrior to joining the Play Future Fund Team, Playtern was an anonymous account larping their way in the Twitterverse. Now, Playtern is the resident research intern in charge of taking down notes and writing deep dive articles on Gaming, NFTs and the wider Metaverse.
Kavita Gupta is the founder and General Partner of Delta Blockchain Fund. Kavita kicked off her career at the IFC trading floor where she built new products with the Liquid Asset Management team. She was a core member of the team that issued the first social impact bonds and the first green bonds. Kavita has experience with emerging market funds, investing across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. She started her company WeMynd and then joined Eric Schmidt’s family office where she invested in various impact-driven technologies. She started Consensys Ventures as a General Partner (2017-2019), where she was an early investor into the Ethereum ecosystem and invested in various successful companies at the very early stage including some first checks, like BlockFi, Sorare, Starkware, Quantstamp, Bank Juno, PDAX, Coinhouse, and Unlock Protocol. Over the last six years she has invested in over 60 deals (Fund and personal) building long lasting personal relationships with some of the top founding team members of the blockchain space along the way. She is a visiting scholar at Stanford University where she co-lectured Blockchain 101, and is on the advisory board at the Center of Capital Markets and Competitiveness at the US Chamber of Commerce. She also sits on the board of International Emmys, Distributed Trust Initiative at Stanford University and advises the UNICEF GIGA project. Kavita is passionate about working with great founders and being a trusted partner throughout their journey. Kavita Gupta is the founder and General Partner of Delta Blockchain Fund. Kavita kicked off her career at the IFC trading floor where she built new products with the Liquid Asset Management team. She was a core member of the team that issued the first social impact bonds and the first green bonds. Kavita has experience with emerging market funds, investing across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. She started her company WeMynd and then joined Eric Schmidt’s family office where she invested in various impact-driven technologies. She started Consensys Ventures as a General Partner (2017-2019), where she was an early investor into the Ethereum ecosystem and invested in various successful companies at the very early stage including some first checks, like BlockFi, Sorare, Starkware, Quantstamp, Bank Juno, PDAX, Coinhouse, and Unlock Protocol. Over the last six years she has invested in over 60 deals (Fund and personal) building long lasting personal relationships with some of the top founding team members of the blockchain space along the way. She is a visiting scholar at Stanford University where she co-lectured Blockchain 101, and is on the advisory board at the Center of Capital Markets and Competitiveness at the US Chamber of Commerce. She also sits on the board of International Emmys, Distributed Trust Initiative at Stanford University and advises the UNICEF GIGA project. Kavita is passionate about working with great founders and being a trusted partner throughout their journey.
Tony Cheng
General Partner, Foresight VenturesTony Cheng, General Partner at Foresight Ventures, covers Web3 investments for the firm. Tony is convinced blockchain will create a paradigm shift for innovation. Formerly an investor at Sequoia Capital China and 3G Capital, Tony is also well-versed in assessing traditional business models such as fintech, SaaS, and consumer internet. Tony has also worked as a consultant at Oliver Wyman after earning his Master’s degree from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
Jun Park
Investor, HashedBSc in The Wharton School, UPenn Banking & VC in Citi and Hanwha respectively Investor (gaming lead) at HASHED Forbes 30 Under 30
Rodolfo Gonzalez
Partner, Foundation CapitalRodolfo geeks out on movies, philosophy, history, travel and coffee. He is an avid traveler, and has lived in Mexico City, North Carolina, Orlando, Melbourne (Australia), Boston, Nairobi, and Bangkok. He is now based in San Francisco, where he is on a quest to find the best espresso in the city.
Bryan Colligan
Founder, AlphaGrowthBryan Colligan is the founder of AlphaGrowth, a Grants and Funding platform on a mission to help the next top 1000 crypto projects. Upon the introduction of DeFi in 2020 Bryan left FT Partners investment bank to pursue his passion in helping build the Future of Decentralized Finance. Previously Bryan helped run grants, events and marketing for projects like Near, Aurora, Kava & Sommelier. Bryan now work with 6 different Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains to help match the right builders to the right chain.
Bryan's Sessions
Welcome – Intro to Cross Chain Coalition & the Demo Day
Meet the Startups: The Future of Web3 Gaming
Two female founders with deep backgrounds in data science, data engineering and ML debut a platform to create context-aware smart contracts in few lines of code. This allows developers and creators to easily set up rules and triggers for dynamic NFTs connected to locations, time events, and more. Their core use case is for gaming so let’s introduce the company that is making waves as the next Web3 gaming company to watch.
Meet the Startups: Web3 Infrastructure
This section will highlight many builders who are focusing on web3 infrastructure. Some of the newcomers include a company focusing on secure transaction settlement, a CRM and marketing automation platform for web3 businesses, a cross chain messaging protocol, omnichain NFT API Infrastructure, and payments infrastructure serving as the rails of the next internet. As one of the most popular categories for builders on this demo day, join us as we dive into the future of web3 infrastructure.
Meet the Startups: Why We Are Still Early With NFTs
Some say NFTs are the avenue to onboard the next billion people into web3. These companies are focusing on just that. During this session, you will see a new NFT marketplace with a twist, as well as, a company solving the problem of fragmentation of NFT communities and liquidity across multiple blockchains. Let’s see how these NFT companies plan to bring new users into web3.
Meet the Startups: Defi is Not Dead
During our last session you’ll see algorithmic trading strategies that rival most large hedge funds, a tool to help traders protect themselves against unnecessary losses, a new spin on lending, and a Web3 anti-bot solution. While capital is limited, join us to see who’s been heads down building during the bear market.
Matt Immerso
Head of New Investments, Blockchange VenturesMatt is the Head of New Investments at Blockchange Ventures. Blockchange’s goal is to invest in the biggest potential outcomes on the Blockchain, anywhere from pre-seed to Series A. In addition to investing, Matt spends time working with portfolio companies across functional areas such as go-to-market, tokenomic design, and strategy. Prior to Blockchange, Matt was at McKinsey in the Private Equity practice and at Insight Partners where he focused on diligence, post-investment support, and crypto.
Cynthia Alexander
Founder & CEO, MentaportCynthia Alexander, the Co-Founder & CEO of Mentaport. With expertise in Web3, FinTech, and Computational Biology, she brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. She was the founding lead data scientist at PayJoy, a FinTech company focusing on extending credit in emerging markets. There, she was instrumental in scaling analytics, AI, and ML initiatives from a few thousand to over a million registered users. Before that, Cynthia was classically trained as a computational biologist at prestigious institutions, including the University of Cambridge and Max Plank. Together with her co-founder, she is building the future of NFTs.
Cynthia's Sessions
Meet the Startups: The Future of Web3 Gaming
Two female founders with deep backgrounds in data science, data engineering and ML debut a platform to create context-aware smart contracts in few lines of code. This allows developers and creators to easily set up rules and triggers for dynamic NFTs connected to locations, time events, and more. Their core use case is for gaming so let’s introduce the company that is making waves as the next Web3 gaming company to watch.
Bankole Omodunbi
Co-founder, Verbwire IncTrack record of over 16 years of innovation and leadership at Wall Street Banks, focused on the intersection of Quantitative Trading Strategies, Technology, and Automated Risk Trading of cross-asset products. Ex Managing Director at Credit Suisse Investment Bank – Global Head of Principal Trading Products, in the Equities Division Led teams globally – London, New York, Singapore, India Hands-on programmer for over 24 years, across multiple frameworks and platforms BSc (Summa Cum Laude) Computer Science, UNC Charlotte, MSc Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, MBA Analytical Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Music enthusiast. Multi-instrumentalist
Bankole's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Web3 Infrastructure
This section will highlight many builders who are focusing on web3 infrastructure. Some of the newcomers include a company focusing on secure transaction settlement, a CRM and marketing automation platform for web3 businesses, a cross chain messaging protocol, omnichain NFT API Infrastructure, and payments infrastructure serving as the rails of the next internet. As one of the most popular categories for builders on this demo day, join us as we dive into the future of web3 infrastructure.
Drew Beechler is the director of marketing at High Alpha, a venture studio that creates and funds B2B SaaS companies.
Drew's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Web3 Infrastructure
This section will highlight many builders who are focusing on web3 infrastructure. Some of the newcomers include a company focusing on secure transaction settlement, a CRM and marketing automation platform for web3 businesses, a cross chain messaging protocol, omnichain NFT API Infrastructure, and payments infrastructure serving as the rails of the next internet. As one of the most popular categories for builders on this demo day, join us as we dive into the future of web3 infrastructure.
Gabrielle Patrick
CEO, KnabuGabrielle is a US/UK lawyer with over 22 years experience in law, regulations, banking and fintech. She leads Knabu, a UK fintech specialising in transaction security, clearing and settlement, in process to be a UK bank.
Gabrielle's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Web3 Infrastructure
This section will highlight many builders who are focusing on web3 infrastructure. Some of the newcomers include a company focusing on secure transaction settlement, a CRM and marketing automation platform for web3 businesses, a cross chain messaging protocol, omnichain NFT API Infrastructure, and payments infrastructure serving as the rails of the next internet. As one of the most popular categories for builders on this demo day, join us as we dive into the future of web3 infrastructure.
Jatin Mehta
Founder, BlockDogAs a researcher at Czech Technical University, Prague, Jatin wrote image processing algorithms for the automated detection of bone-tissue ruptures in ultrasound images. His works on machine learning models for super-resolution images got published at an IEEE conference for neural networks. As a senior R&D engineer in Hewlett Packard Enterprise, his works on testing at scale were presented at the OpenStack Summit’16 in Austin. He built deep neural networks for the detection of breast cancer in mammograms at DeepRadiology. Later, he moved to silicon valley to work for SAP on their database engine – SAP Hana. He joined Salesforce – San Francisco, where he designed and developed software for scaling the Salesforce application. He’s come a long way from being a shitcoiner in 2017 to a builder in web3 and is currently building the trust infrastructure for web3 lending with his decade-long, equally nerdy friends. Jatin is an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) graduate in Electronics & Communication Engineering & got his master’s in Computer Networking at the University of California, Irvine.
Jatin's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Defi is Not Dead
During our last session you’ll see algorithmic trading strategies that rival most large hedge funds, a tool to help traders protect themselves against unnecessary losses, a new spin on lending, and a Web3 anti-bot solution. While capital is limited, join us to see who’s been heads down building during the bear market.
Ru Chiang
Chief Technology Officer, Candy ShopRu Chiang is the CTO of Candy Shop. He is a passionate product builder with Computer Science background. He started his career straight into the Crypto industry, and has been building solutions for multiple fields, including crypto exchanges, custodians and web3 native applications. He led the custody product development at Hex Trust, a licensed Hong Kong digital asset custodian, and has helped built the exchange / internal custody product at Crypto.com. He was also a participant of the Hong Kong Science and Technology park incubation program where he built a community goods sharing platform to reduce food waste. Prior to starting Candy Shop, he led a team building NFT fractionalization product which was awarded the 1st place of the Serum and Wormhole hackathon.
Ru's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Why We Are Still Early With NFTs
Some say NFTs are the avenue to onboard the next billion people into web3. These companies are focusing on just that. During this session, you will see a new NFT marketplace with a twist, as well as, a company solving the problem of fragmentation of NFT communities and liquidity across multiple blockchains. Let’s see how these NFT companies plan to bring new users into web3.
Daniel Koshman
Co-founder, Omni XDaniel Koshman is the Founder and CEO of Omni X. Prior to working on the NFT platform, he studied Finance and Interactive Media at NYU, built immersive Shopify experiences and won Chainlink 2021 Spring Hackathon with Xfolio, a mobile crypto wallet that natively supported trading of synthetic derivatives on-chain. Daniel’s web3 journey has started prior to DeFi Summer of 2020, and the first batch of projects that he built were stemming directly out of the demand that early on-chain explorers had for decentralized portfolio management and liquidity tracker tools. Interoperability and seamless UX have always been at the heart of any of Daniel’s ventures, and ever since getting access to LayerZero Lab’s Closed Beta over a year ago, he and the rest of Omni X’s team have been hard at work shaping the omnichain future of digital collectibles. In the free time, Daniel enjoys fitness, everything bagels and touching grass.
Daniel's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Why We Are Still Early With NFTs
Some say NFTs are the avenue to onboard the next billion people into web3. These companies are focusing on just that. During this session, you will see a new NFT marketplace with a twist, as well as, a company solving the problem of fragmentation of NFT communities and liquidity across multiple blockchains. Let’s see how these NFT companies plan to bring new users into web3.
Erik Mayo
CEO, Patache DigitalErik Mayo – Mr. Mayo is the CEO of Patache Digital. He is an active investor and advisor to early-stage companies in the US and Latin America in fintech and digital asset strategies. While working on one consulting assignment with Sommelier he proposed the strategy that became the initial SOMM/Seven Seas AAVE Cellar (https://app.sommelier.finance/strategies/AAVE/manage). He has two decades of experience in direct and fund special situations, systematic trading and credit investing including financing of renewables through ABS and off-taker agreements as a Partner at Terra Incognita Capital and Fintan Partners. During his time at Fintan & Terra Incognita he developed deep portfolio management expertise in the emerging markets, structured credit, special situations investments and risk management. Before founding Fintan Partners, Erik worked as an Investment Associate of Absolute Return at Stanford Management Company. Prior to joining Stanford, Erik worked as an analyst with Lazard Asset Management and at Bankers Trust in risk management and trading systems. Erik earned a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Erik's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Defi is Not Dead
During our last session you’ll see algorithmic trading strategies that rival most large hedge funds, a tool to help traders protect themselves against unnecessary losses, a new spin on lending, and a Web3 anti-bot solution. While capital is limited, join us to see who’s been heads down building during the bear market.
Michael Arief
Founder, SmartPiggiesMichael Arief is one of the founders of SmartPiggies.com. He has a background in Computational Physics and has a Masters in Quantitative Finance. He has over 15 years of experience in Finance, Risk Management, and Systems Design.. At Barclays, Michael was responsible for the architecting and maintenance of the firm-wide market risk limits system as well as day-to-day production of risk metrics, capital controls, and regulatory reporting.
Michael's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Defi is Not Dead
During our last session you’ll see algorithmic trading strategies that rival most large hedge funds, a tool to help traders protect themselves against unnecessary losses, a new spin on lending, and a Web3 anti-bot solution. While capital is limited, join us to see who’s been heads down building during the bear market.
Yurii Kyparus
Co-founder, WallchainYurii Kyparus bio: Co-Founder of Wallchain – #1 cashback & protections solution on BNB & Polygon. Venture Team Orange DAO. Background: Y Combinator Alum, Google, Meta, 10 yoe in algorithmic programming.
Yurii's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Defi is Not Dead
During our last session you’ll see algorithmic trading strategies that rival most large hedge funds, a tool to help traders protect themselves against unnecessary losses, a new spin on lending, and a Web3 anti-bot solution. While capital is limited, join us to see who’s been heads down building during the bear market.
Ash Shoukr
CEO, CoinfrontAsh Shoukr is the CEO and co-founder of Coinfront Labs. He was born and raised in the Bay Area. His journey in tech began in 2015 when he and his brother, Ahmed, attempted to write their first smart contract. He continued learning to program on his own, eventually studied math and computer science at Fordham University, and worked at several startups in data science and fintech. In mid-2021, Ash and Ahmed started working on an ML model to create the world’s first true-to-size virtual try-on software using computer vision before pivoting the company and beginning Coinfront in 2022.
Ash's Sessions
Meet the Startups: Web3 Infrastructure
This section will highlight many builders who are focusing on web3 infrastructure. Some of the newcomers include a company focusing on secure transaction settlement, a CRM and marketing automation platform for web3 businesses, a cross chain messaging protocol, omnichain NFT API Infrastructure, and payments infrastructure serving as the rails of the next internet. As one of the most popular categories for builders on this demo day, join us as we dive into the future of web3 infrastructure.
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Put your company front and center for 10,000+ tech leaders and VCs at Disrupt 2025. Only a few exhibit tables left. Claim yours today to capture hot leads, spark real connections, and boost your brand at the heart of San Francisco’s tech scene, October 27–29.
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THIS WEEK ONLY: Founder & Investor Bundle Deals
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Get Hot Leads, Real Connections, Maximum Visibility at Disrupt
Put your company front and center for 10,000+ tech leaders and VCs at Disrupt 2025. Only a few exhibit tables left. Claim yours today to capture hot leads, spark real connections, and boost your brand at the heart of San Francisco’s tech scene, October 27–29.
Book before your competitor does!
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