Alt Goes Mainstream

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who has seen the alts and crypto worlds from multiple angles.

Don Stalter is a Partner at Global Founders Capital (GFC) where he focuses primarily on the US early stage venture market. He has a deep operating background as a founder and operator at some of tech’s leading marketplaces.

He co-founded CityDeal, which was acquired by Groupon. He then built Groupon’s international offices in Europe and Asia.

He subsequently led BD at Airbnb globally and launched multiple offices organically and through M&A.

At GFC, he’s been an early investor in fintech titans Brex, Checkr, Deel, Slope, and many more. He’s also invested in a number of crypto funds.

We had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of technology and venture capital. We also discuss how companies can think about integrating crypto – namely the likes of Airbnb and Brex – into their payments flow and how VC funds can approach investing into crypto funds and companies.

This was a fascinating conversation with a really thoughtful VC. Thanks Don for coming on the AGM podcast.

You can listen to this episode on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

Hi from Mexico City. Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast we travel to one of the most exciting regions in the startup world – Latin America, which has seen venture backed funding dollars of $14.8B flowing into the region in 2021 come in higher than the prior 6 years combined.

Brian Requarth comes onto the podcast to talk about building the company that he wish he had when he was an entrepreneur in Latin America.

He’s the co-founder of Latitud, the a16z and NFX backed infrastructure and accelerator for startups. With Latitud, he’s building the operating system for venture backed companies in the region.

We had a fascinating conversation about why founders and investors should be #LongLatAm. We discuss:

* Why LatAm is such an exciting region to invest into right now.

* How community is the new lean startup and the equivalent of Stanford of the internet.

* How the confluence of talent, capital, size of the market, and opportunity make LatAm a region of focus for VCs.

* Why Latitud will play a critical role in developing the startup ecosystem in LatAm.

When he sold Brazilian online RE marketplace Viva Real for $550M several years ago, he had to pay over $100M in capital gains taxes due to incorporation errors made early on. It was quite the expensive mistake and one that he hopes to help fix with Latitud for the next generation of founders.

Brian is a serial entrepreneur who also worked with ZAP Imoveis, which was owned by Grupo Globo, Latin America’s largest media company.

As an angel investor, Brian has invested in over 150 tech startups in Latin America, so he’s quite familiar with the inner workings of starting a company in the region.

Thanks Brian for coming on the show to talk about such an exciting region in the startup world.

You can listen to this episode of Alt Goes Mainstream on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who is making alts go mainstream by streamlining the process of investing into funds.

Carta and fund manager veteran Tim Flannery is the Co-Founder of Passthrough, a fund workflow automation tool that digitizes and automates the fund subscription process.

We had a fascinating discussion about how Passthrough is providing critical market infrastructure to the alts space and what the future of investing into funds looks like with Passthrough.

We discuss:

* Why there needs to be innovation around fund closings.

* How data matters in the fund closing process.

* How creating an investor passport can lead to efficiencies across the alts space.

* How Passthrough is the “narrow waist” of the alts space — building the connective tissue for funds and LPs to complete closings and then use that data in all sorts of places and sit on top of platforms like iCapital, CartaX, AngelList, Republic, and others. In a sense, Passthrough is a solution for the alts space in a similar manner to how WalletConnect is the connective tissue between wallets and DApps in the crypto ecosystem.

Fund closing is generally a painful process for everyone involved — LPs have to manually input data into subscription documents, which means they often miss questions or err in their answers. Much of this data is unstructured, hidden within PDFs, meaning that funds can’t use this when LPs re-up to following funds or to other funds. Fund managers have little visibility into the raise and timing for closings.

Tim is building a product with Passthrough that gives fund managers one of their most valuable assets — time — back and provides for a great user experience with fund closings. Passthrough automates the fund closing process by digitizing subscription agreements, turning them into a custom, TurboTax style workflow.

We were lucky enough to use Passthrough for our investment into Lowercarbon Capital and we never knew how easy a fund closing could be after using Passthrough. Passthrough’s fastest sub doc completion on record is said to be 6 minutes and mine wasn’t that far off.

The process is simple, automated, and efficient since Passthrough collects relevant data on LPs so that it's easier and quicker to subscribe for the next fund.

Tim has a great background to be building Passthrough. He was previously the Head of Go-To-Market for Investor Services at Carta and also worked on a number of large strategic accounts. He also spent time as a Partner at Pilot Mountain Ventures and started his career at JP Morgan in PE fund services, so he's seen the lifecycle of a fund investment from all angles.

He's a sharp, thoughtful, and focused founder who is building a product that many GPs and LPs already love.

This was a fascinating conversation about bringing technology to automate the alts space that I’m excited to see play out over the coming years in the space. Thanks Tim for coming on the AGM podcast.

You can listen to this podcast with Tim on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a special guest on an important topic that is core to why alts are going mainstream – community.

We have community builder extraordinaire Max Rothery, the VP Community at Finimize. Max is responsible for engaging and serving Finimize’s 1 million global audience. Finimize is building the world’s largest finance community of investors globally – and building community are they doing.

In 4 years, they reached over 1 million subscribers, 60 thousand per year attend member organized events, and Finimize was recently acquired by 197 year old Abrdn plc, formerly Standard Life Aberdeen, a FTSE 100 investment firm with over 464B GBP AUM that’s the UK’s largest active asset manager.

Max brings a wealth of experience in community building and digital transformation to the table as he builds community. He previously led innovation and digital transformation for Societe Generale’s private bank. He also brings a unique perspective from the creative industry to bear as a founder of an independent production, publishing, and recording company.

Max and I had an absolutely fascinating conversation on the underpinnings of community and how to build an engaged community in financial services businesses. His thoughtful views on how to build community serve as a playbook for how to successfully build a thriving and engaged community. We talk about everything from how community gives companies a way to scale trust and relationships to how to enable the community to self-regulate itself to taking me back to my days studying international relations as we discuss the parallels between nation-building and community building.

Thanks Max for such a rich conversation that we can all learn from on how to build community.

You can listen to this episode of Alt Goes Mainstream on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, or Transistor here.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a guest who helps us bridge the gap between the past, the present, and the future.

Ethan Kurzweil, a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who is leading BVP’s crypto efforts and the BessemerDAO, comes onto the show to help us make sense of the evolution from the Web2 to Web2.5 to Web3 world.

Ethan and I had a fascinating discussion. We talked about:

* The evolution of venture capital and private markets.

* Bessemer’s thesis on Web3.

* Why Bessemer decided to start a DAO and how they are innovating on portfolio services by building out a community.

* How Web3 gives people the primitives to fulfill on the premise of decentralization and ownership.

Bessemer is a storied venture fund that got its start back in 1975 after spinning out of Bessemer Trust. Fast forward to today, they are one of the best technology investors on the planet investing into industry defining companies like Shopify, Twilio, PagerDuty, DocuSign, LinkedIn, Twitch, Yelp, Wix, Sorare, and many more.

Ethan brings a fascinating perspective to the world of Web3 and consumerization of private markets investing given that he spent the early days of his career at early metaverse company Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, and working for Dow Jones, where he managed the turnaround of the international editions of the Wall Street Journal.

Ethan then went on to join Bessemer, where he’s a Partner investing into developer platforms, data infrastructure, digital consumer applications, and consumer facing crypto. He’s invested in the likes of PagerDuty, Intercom, Twitch, LaunchDarkly and crypto companies like Sorare, TRM Labs, and Fold.

Thanks Ethan for the fascinating conversation on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

You can listen to this episode with Ethan on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a fascinating conversation about how soccer is a compelling alternative investment.

We talk with Justin Papadakis, the COO & Chief Real Estate Officer of the United Soccer League. The USL is the largest and one of the fastest growing professional soccer organizations in the United States.

Justin and I had a fascinating conversation about how sports and investing are emerging in large part because of the collision of culture and finance.

We discussed:

* How soccer is such an underrated investment opportunity.

* How the USL has seen a rise in team valuations from the hundreds of thousands to some teams valued in the $60-70M range — with a big opportunity to increase revenues through various revenue streams that include media, player transfers, sports betting, stadium related revenue, real estate related revenue.

* How the intersection of sports and real estate factors into the investment thesis for sports teams.

* How the transition to OTT media can positively impact sports league and team revenue.

* How more more professional investors and funds are now becoming involved and investing into sports teams and what this means for the development of sports as an investable asset class.

* How women’s soccer is a sleeping giant and what the USL is doing to help make it an investable opportunity.

* How democratizing access to sports ownership through crowdfunding and DAOs — and the power of community — can play a role in the sports investment landscape in the future.

In his current role, Justin oversees numerous departments that are critical to the league’s success, including expansion, stadium development, digital media, emerging technology, finance, and human resources.

Justin combines a real estate background, having worked six years at a REIT, with his soccer playing and sports management experience as he navigates building a league that is expanding in leaps and bounds.

He holds a JD from Cleveland Marshall College of Law and earned a dual degree in public policy and economics from Duke University, where he also served as a goalkeeper on the Blue Devils soccer team.

Thanks Justin for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to talk about how the beautiful game is continuing to grow thanks to the world of investing.

You can listen to this episode on your favorite podcasting site (links below):

Listen on Spotify here.

Listen on Apple Podcasts here.

Listen on Transistor here.

Today, we have a guest on Alt Goes Mainstream who lives at the intersection of culture and finance as sports is increasingly becoming an investable asset class.

Angel City FC Co-Founder & President Julie Uhrman and I had a fascinating conversation about how sports and investing are merging together – and how that’s informed how she’s building Angel City FC.

Julie and team have been innovative in the way that they’ve engaged fans, players, and investors. We discuss:

* How ACFC has used entertainment to have an impact.

* How athletes are building their own platforms on and off the field - and what that means for player, fans, and teams.

* How new types of investors — both professional funds and celebrities — are leveraging their platforms for impact to help sports teams build a differentiated brand and business.

* How ACFC is taking lessons learned from innovations in technology, community-building, and Web3 to engage fans and create new revenues for sports clubs.

* How mission and capital can co-exist together as sports becomes a compelling alternative investment.

Julie is a serial entrepreneur and force of nature who is bringing her deep expertise in gaming, media, and entertainment to build our her most ambitious project yet — Angel City FC, the expansion professional women’s soccer team in her native Los Angeles.

And build is what she and the team have done.

In a mere two years, Julie and team have built one of the most recognizable and successful brands in women’s football — without yet having a team on the field.

They’ve done an incredible job of creating purpose driven content and engaging fans across various social media channels.

They’ve secured a top tier front of kit sponsor in DoorDash and have achieved record season ticket sales in the NWSL.

They’ve built a true fan community to the point where ACFC has passed the “tattoo test” — some fans have gotten inked!

And they’ve brought on a diverse, talented group of investors whose life and work aligns with Angel City’s mission as the club looks to make a positive impact in the community and on women’s soccer.

It’s no surprise that Julie has been able to build up ACFC in such a short time.

She was most recently the President of Media for PEI, where she oversaw the company’s media offerings across all verticals. Prior to PEI, she served as the EVP & GM of Over-The-Top Ventures for Lionsgate, building and managing the company’s multiple streaming franchises. She also founded and was CEO of OUYA, a pioneering Android-based game console for the living room which raised a record-breaking $8.6M in crowdfunded capital on Kickstarter and VC funding from Kleiner Perkins and Alibaba before selling to Razer in 2015.

She’s deservedly been given a number of awards for her work, including being named to the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company and one of the most Creative 50 by Ad Age.

Thanks Julie for coming on the AGM podcast to share the story of your pioneering work at Angel City FC. We look forward to watching ACFC continue to grow on and off the pitch.

You can listen to this episode on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

“Our aim is to create the biggest entertainment brand in the world, starting with sports … we are building a cult brand around NFT collectibles and we are bringing usage value for them in the fantasy game and the physical world.” - Nicolas Julia, Sorare.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a fascinating discussion about the intersection of culture and finance with Nicolas Julia, the Co-Founder & CEO of Sorare.

Nicolas founded Sorare to build the next entertainment giant. His NFT platform, Sorare, is enabling people to own their game and live at the intersection of work and play – they can play fantasy soccer and trade digital collectibles – and, at times, earn money while doing so.

We covered a number of topics, including:

* The merging of culture and finance.

* How Sorare is building a next generation entertainment brand across multiple sports and geographies.

* How NFTs are integral in on-ramping the next 100M-1B users to crypto.

* What it means for investors / users to own their in-game assets — and how it changes how they make decisions playing games and investing into NFTs.

* How Sorare is building the critical market infrastructure across the lifecycle of a trade for NFTs.

* How sports leagues view NFTs as a new revenue stream and fan engagement tool.

* The game within the game — how players are playing games within the game of football.

* How the beautiful game — soccer cards — and NFTs are a sleeping giant in the US.

* How women’s sports can benefit from the world of NFTs and how bringing on an Advisor like world-class tennis star Serena Williams can help achieve that.

Nicolas has built Sorare into an astronomical success in a short period of time. He grew a team smaller than a starting 11 on a football pitch to hundreds of millions in sales and a record-breaking $680M Series B led by SoftBank in September 2021 that followed a $50M Series A led by Benchmark in January 2021 as NFTs boomed last year.

Sorare was an integral part of the NFT market growth as they enabled people to play fantasy soccer and collect / trade NFTs of professional soccer players.

They are building a critical piece of market infrastructure for the NFT and sports world by leveraging crypto rails to enable an incredible consumer experience revolving around sports and collectibles.

Thanks Nicolas for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. It was a pleasure to have you help us understand the future of entertainment, NFTs, and sports and how everyone can own their game (and thanks Brian O’Hagan and Kiana Davari for some great questions to ask Nicolas on the podcast!).

You can listen to this episode on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

“What I’ve come to realize is that investing literally shapes the world that we have. It is effectively at the highest of levels, allocating resources, whether financial or human capital, to things and teams that build the future that we all live in. Investing builds the world.” - Ian Lee, Syndicate.

Today we discuss the topic of a revolutionary new construct – DAOs – and how it can change investing for the better.

Today’s guest is Ian Lee, the Co-Founder of Syndicate.

Ian combines a background in financial services with a prescient view on the future with what he's building at Syndicate.

We discuss:

* How Syndicate is doing to investing what YouTube did to film and media.

* How Web3 enables community ownership where Web2 didn’t and how investing will become more community driven.

* How DAOs are a social financial technology coordinating social and financial capital seamlessly and natively on the internet.

* How DAOs are unlocking participation from all sorts of communities who historically haven’t had access to investing.

* Why Crypto Covens is one of his favorite NFT projects because it’s changing the face of investing.

* And how we are in the middle of a multi generational shift of decentralizing and democratizing investing - and how Syndicate’s Web3 Investment Clubs enable that to happen.

Ian has been a serial founder, he's worked in the Office of the Global Chief Innovation Officer at Deloitte, he's run the Lab Network and Acceleration Fund at Citi Ventures and was Head of Bitcoin & Blockchain at Citi before co-founding IDEO's CoLab Venture fund, where he led their crypto efforts and made over 80 investments in the crypto space.

Most recently, he's founded a ground-breaking company, Syndicate, which is a decentralized investing protocol and social network that is creating the infrastructure for DAOs to run efficiently and effectively. Syndicate is creating the infrastructure and mechanisms for much more efficient, digitally native human coordination.

DAOs have similar properties as corporations, but they are significantly faster and cheaper to set up and run because code governs the decisions and actions taken.

It's hard to put into a short paragraph how profound the creation of Syndicate could be for the formation and governance of organizations and Ian's background lends itself incredibly well to both understanding how things worked in a Web2 (and financial services) world and how they can work better in a Web3 world.

Ian and I had a fascinating conversation about his desire to make investing more inclusive and impactful – and how DAO structures can enable that.

Thanks Ian for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. It was a pleasure to have you help us peer into the future of investing.

You can listen to this episode on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have Web3’s wizard with words. Jarrod Dicker, Partner at TCG, where he focuses on crypto investments that are enabling the consumerization of crypto.

Jarrod is an expert at the intersection of crypto / NFTs and the media world. He was both an entrepreneur and investor in the media world prior to joining TCG.

We had a fascinating discussion about the transition to the Web3 world. We covered:

* Whether or not everyone is now an investor and everything is now investable.

* How social credentialism and the idea of time as an investment is key to Web3.

* We ended the podcast with some of Jarrod’s famed Web2 // Web3 tweets because he truly is a wizard with words and is a translator for the world of Web3.

There are few people in the crypto space whose content I enjoy reading more than Jarrod's. His Tweets and writing (on Mirror.xyz, where he's an investor) are incredibly prescient and speaks to his knowledge of the crypto space.

He joined TCG, the famed consumer investor (Twitter, Barstool, Crunchyroll, Hodinkee, Headspace, Dapper Labs), to invest into companies and protocols that create the onramps for consumers to the cryptoeconomy.

They've invested in the likes of Zed Run and Dapper and Jarrod's thought leadership and experience in the media and content worlds should help them continue to access the best.

Prior to TCG Crypto, he was the CEO of Po.et, a decentralized media tech company, where he was a pioneer in bringing blockchain to the media and advertising space. He formerly led innovation at The Washington Post, where he was responsible for building out their research, experimentation, and development team and running all of their innovation / commercialization efforts as VP of Commercial.

He also held similar roles at RebelMouse, Time, and HuffPo. Jarrod is one of the most prescient thinkers on how Web3 will change content, content creation, and creators relationships with their community.

I’m excited to see how he builds out TCG and the types of investments they make into the infrastructure building out Web3 so that crypto truly goes mainstream.

Thanks Jarrod for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

You can listen here on Spotify, here on Apple Podcasts, and here on Transistor.