MoneyNeverSleeps

By Pete Townsend | GP at Norio VenturesTechnology

MoneyNeverSleeps episodes

March 13, 2020078: Money Talks #9: David Chreng | Blockchain & Sustainability
David Chreng from LeadBlock Partners joins the show to talk about how his time as an energy equity analyst influenced his view of the world, investing in blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for sustainability-themed ventures, the development of blockchain and DLT in general over the past 5 years....and using quantum mechanics to model DNA!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

This week we’re catching up with David Chreng, a partner with LeadBlock Partners, a London-based venture capital fund investing in early stage B2B blockchain startups. David and Pete Townsend connected at the Securities Token Realised Summit conference last month in London. After hearing about Connecting Food, David’s first investment with LeadBlock, Pete was interested in learning more, especially given that LeadBlock venture outside of financial services with their blockchain-themed investments. Given we've spent so much time talking about blockchain-inspired propositions in financial services on this podcast, we wanted to provide a fresh perspective. As Pete wrote last week in our first MoneyNeverSleeps blogpost on Medium, "We’ll know that blockchain has gone mainstream when we stop talking about blockchain". David and Pete touched on this point, as well as a number of others on this episode:
The origins of David's interest in blockchain/DLT stemming from an investment in a company making sensors for the food industry, and using DLT as a means to collect, secure and create value from that data.

Pairing DLT with other technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT to automate processes and create efficiencies as a response to pressure on corporate margins.

On there being no silver bullet - "DLT for the industries outside of financial services is only a piece of the equation for corporates trying to automate and optimize some of their processes - DLT by itself is just a sophisticated database."

On the differences between financial services and other industries - "DLT in financial services is about reshaping how the financial services industry is run. But when we're looking at enterprise DLT solutions across other industries, they're not going to reshape how the industry is run, they're about optimizing and improving processes to make them more efficient, allow them to reduce costs, bring more security, trust and audit-ability."

On B2B vs. B2C founders - "This is for me, a new class of entrepreneurs which are not coming out of school with a great idea, which is fine on the B2C side. But on the B2B side, it's always more powerful to have somebody that's lived through the experience of working in large corporates on the operational side, has experienced a lot of difficulties there and then comes up with a great idea".
To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
37 min
February 28, 2020077: I Might Need Security (v2) | Luke Sully and Custody Digital Group
Luke Sully, founder and CEO of Custody Digital Group joins the show to talk about his path into digital assets from an IT security background, building a business through aligning the interests of talented people, why he's basing his operations in Ireland.....and his love of the merengue!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Custody Digital Group (CDG) provide financial institutions with a single point of governance for securing and managing digital assets. Luke and Pete Townsend connected in early 2019, and they've stayed in touch since then with their mutual interests in all things digital assets and Luke's plans for setting up an Irish operation for CDG. Some of the highlights include:
Channeling Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz from a16z - if you try to solve a big problem in a really big market, then you have a great opportunity to build a really scalable business, and that's what we saw with CDG.

As a founder, you have a vision for how you think you can do things and how you think you can solve problems and help create a better way of doing things, or for serving a market that you can see that other people can't. It's just an itch you have to scratch.

Everyone has the capacity to start to build, but you never really know what the next week or month is going to look like, so you have to be able to accept a certain amount of chaos in your life and how you build a business isn't always as linear as you would like. So there's a huge amount of resilience that you have to draw on on a fairly regular basis.

Being a founder is about getting really good people around you, making sure they're all aligned as to why they're involved, and aligning what they want to do with the vision and the objective of the company. If you can align everyone's objectives and interests around that core theme, it will make your life easier.

What people don't realize is that really good startups get spun out of other startups. There are folks that will be working in high-growth technology companies that understand the playbook, have a finer sense of risk and take calculated risks, that then put teams together and go and build companies. That provides a really long tail that I think Ireland will start to enjoy.

With regulation, it's not only making sure you're compliant, but using it as a competitive advantage. If you can get it right and read the tea leaves properly, it allows you to work across jurisdictions that give you a broader palette and a broader client base.

How CDG's go-to-market strategy is aligned in terms of the different kinds of digital assets (cryptocurrencies vs. security tokens)

Being a founder is a constant surprise - each day is different and brings with it a set of challenges that you may not have expected before.

Build a startup is kind of like climbing a mountain, the moment you start looking down just to give yourself a pat on the back about how far you've come, it can look a bit scary, so it's best to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Absorbing pressure and becoming more resilient with each passing month.
To listen to more, to listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
39 min
February 21, 2020076: Replay | Money Made Me Do It | Elaine Deehan and Pocketwire
In a special replay of one of the best episodes of 2018, Pete Townsend talks to Elaine Deehan about her entry into fintech, her startup ambitions....and her love of the Spanish language!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

This week we're doing a special replay of Pete Townsend's chat with Elaine Deehan from Season 1 of MoneyNeverSleeps. When we recorded this in 2018, Elaine was in the midst of bringing her labour of love Pocketwire to market as a startup founder, CEO and Head of Product. For a number of reasons driven by the phenomenon of "when one door closes, another one opens" and that we'll explore in an upcoming episode, Elaine is now the Ireland Country Manager for Starling Bank, a challenger bank whose entry into the Irish market that we are certainly eagerly awaiting.
With some recent feedback from listeners and a tide of positive change we're feeling in Irish fintech since Brexit happened, we wanted to go back to our roots this week, and what better way to do that than by replaying the compelling story of Elaine Deehan. In this episode, Elaine talks through:
How working in a big innovation lab with people from a lot of backgrounds and disciplines opened her mind to the possibilities of the combination of technology and banking.

How working with fintech startups in Ireland whet her appetite for fintech and led her to working on a blockchain project in the FX space.

Why knowledge and experience of bringing offline processes online are universally applicable.

Working closely with founders and getting access and exposure to every aspect of the business when you're with a startup, compared to corporate silos.

How fintech propositions should be global, as we're living in a digital age and all of the problems we're attempting to solve are global problems.

Having grit, determination and fire in the belly, and how self-belief can get you through the tough days.
To listen to more, to listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
32 min
February 14, 2020 075: Spiritual | Erin Grover and Life in Crypto
Erin Grover joins Pete Townsend to talk about her journey into crypto and digital assets, opening up the niche space of crypto hedge funds to professional investors, being guided by her own human nature of wanting to help others...and the massive opportunity in replacing ballot boxes hauled by nomad-guided donkeys!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Erin Grover is the founder of Altai Digital Capital, which connects investors to hedge funds and traders specializing in cryptocurrency and digital assets. The company provides guidance, transparency and reassurance typically found in traditional investment firms, affording clients easy access to the investment potential of cryptocurrency.

She is a strong advocate for the potential of blockchain technology to bring efficiency and transparency to the delivery of funds for international aid. Prior to her work in blockchain, she worked for the United Nations, USAID and other international NGOs as a content producer and media strategist.

Her previous work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Mashable, The Times of India and many other international news sources. Her digital strategy has raised over $2 million in crowdfunding for various tech and business ventures, as well as millions in views for numerous online campaigns. All of Erin's social media links are accessible via her website:Â https://www.eringrover.com/.
On this episode, Pete and Erin talk through:
Her early career with the UN and spending time in the warzones of Afghanistan and in Cambodia.
Bringing her guerrilla-style 'Crypto 101' roadshow across the USA to educate people on trading cryptocurrency.
Inspiration from appreciative clients that don't have the resources to perform due diligence on crypto hedge funds.
Being guided by her own human nature of wanting to help others and living up to a higher purpose.
The opportunity for blockchain-based delivery of humanitarian aid.
The importance of the acceleration and support from the AKASHA Innovation Hub in Dublin, Ireland.
Working with Frank Gehry and Andy Shallal on an art installation paying homage to Iraqi war refugees.
To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
36 min
February 07, 2020 074: Crossover | Rudi Falat and Voice of Fintech
Rudi Falat from the Voice of Fintech podcast joins Pete Townsend to riff on crossing over from the corporate world into the startup ecosystem, learning by doing, startup and corporate collaboration....and flipping the table with the final question on every MoneyNeverSleeps episode!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

The Voice of Fintech is a podcast mapping out the Swiss and European fintech ecosystem, with the aim of inspiring entrepreneurs to launch their new ventures and connecting them with incubators, accelerators, investors and incumbents. Rudi runs the podcast from Zurich, Switzerland and has expanded beyond the spoken word with focused events connecting people across the fintech ecosystem in his neck of the woods.
On this episode, Rudi and Pete cover the below topics:
-Rudi's inspiration and his affinity for people who understand and believe in the imperative of growth, fueling innovation and relentless new product development.
-Teaching entrepreneurship versus learning by doing or from those who have done it before.
-Raising capital outside of your home market when you're from a small country but have global ambition.
-The rational or irrational approach of dealflow sourcing by VCs.
-Corporates engaging in "open innovation" and what startups should look out for to reduce "innovation theater" to a minimum.
To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
35 min
January 31, 2020 073: Positivity | Ivailo Jordanov and 7Percent Ventures
Ivailo Jordanov from 7Percent Ventures joins Pete Townsend to share his story of powering the search engine pioneers of the dotcom era, his incurable optimism, becoming an early-stage tech investor....and being yet another person on the show admitting to not being able to swim!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Ivailo Jordanov is a venture partner at 7Percent Ventures, a London-based VC investing in early stage tech companies that represent billion dollar opportunities. After an invitation from Graham Rodford from Archax who was on episode 37 of MoneyNeverSleeps, Pete Townsend met Ivailo at an investor dinner in London in October 2019 following CordaCon, the two-day conference put on by the enterprise DLT software firm R3. Through telling his story, Ivailo gets into the following themes:
How it's much harder to distribute a product than it is to build a product.
Asking questions like "are the [startup's] product people good at understanding marketing," and "are the marketing people good at understanding product?"
How all of the problems that startups need help with, someone else has had them before, and how a network of mentors and advisors can be incredibly helpful in solving these problems.
How he sees a lot of startups that have a great product, but no one is using it - it's not because the product isn't useful, it's because they're not putting it in front of the right people in the right way.
How you can get sucked into customer research and doing it forever, and how that'sâ€™s a sign of procrastination.
Finding the right balance between how long you want to talk to customers and when you start building.
To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
35 min
January 24, 2020 072: Money Talks #8: Blockchain Predictions 2020 - Part II
This is Part II of a two-part series featuring Matthew LeMerle from Blockchain Coinvestors and Pete Townsend talking through Matthew's predictions for how blockchain will impact the world in 2020, focusing on pro traders embracing sophisticated exchanges, momentum with enterprise blockchains and emerging blockchain unicorns.
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Matthew LeMerle is the Managing Partner of Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital, who combined are the most active early-stage venture investors backing almost 200 companies a year. Matthew is also the co-founder and managing partner of Blockchain Coinvestors, who are investing in the leading blockchain venture partnerships.

In December 2019, Matthew featured on a Blockchain Coinvestors webinar where he walked through his ten predictions on blockchain for 2020. The ongoing conflation of 'enterprise blockchain' and 'blockchain-inspired' developments for corporates and institutions, with the merits of the original bitcoin blockchain and the 'crypto-first' mentality, means that a lot of discussions on blockchain can get as excitable as a dog in a butcher shop. What we've found is that the substitution of the word "blockchain" with "blockchain-inspired" tends to unite competing views on the role of distributed ledger technologies in replacing the world's financial infrastructure. In this episode, we talk about both crypto-first topics as well as enterprise blockchain, as both are playing a role in the continued digitalization of financial markets and money.

Given the length of the discussion between Matthew and Pete, we split this feature into two parts, with Part I covering Matthew's first six predictions, along with Pete's reflections on each one. This episode covers Matthew's final four predictions, which are #7-10 in the list below.
We covered the first six predictions in Part I on episode 71 released on January 17, 2020, so check that out for the rest of the list.

1 - G7 / EU nations will announce digital monies
2 - Developing nations will embrace bitcoin
3 - Banks will offer crypto access and custody
4 - Hybrid wallets will become available everywhere
5 - Asset players first deploy blockchain in back offices
6 - No ETFs but indices and funds will gather assets fast
7 - Pro traders will embrace sophisticated exchanges
8 - Enterprises will utilize hybrid blockchains
9 - More than [another] 5 blockchain unicorns will emerge
10 - Highest returns will still come from early-stage (acknowledged by Matthew as more of a fact than a prediction!)
To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes.Â Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.

28 min
January 17, 2020 071: Money Talks #7: Blockchain Predictions 2020 - Part I
Matthew LeMerle from Blockchain Coinvestors joins Pete Townsend for a two-part series on his predictions for how blockchain will impact the world in 2020, with Part I focusing on central bank-issued digital currencies, embracing bitcoin in developing nations, and institutional adoption of digital assets.
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.Â If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Matthew LeMerle is the Managing Partner of Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital, who combined are the most active early-stage venture investors backing almost 200 companies a year. Matthew is also the co-founder and managing partner of Blockchain Coinvestors, who are investing in the leading blockchain venture partnerships.

In December 2019, Matthew featured on a Blockchain Coinvestors webinar where he walked through his ten predictions on blockchain for 2020. The ongoing conflation of 'enterprise blockchain' and 'blockchain-inspired' developments for corporates and institutions, with the merits of the original bitcoin blockchain and the 'crypto-first' mentality, means that a lot of discussions on blockchain can get as excitable as a dog in a butcher shop. On this episode, we talk about both crypto-first topics as well as enterprise blockchain, as both are playing a role in the continued digitalization of financial markets and money.

Given the length of the discussion between Matthew and Pete, we split this feature into two parts, with Part I covering Matthew's first six predictions, along with Pete's reflections on each one.
1 - G7 / EU nations will announce digital monies
2 - Developing nations will embrace bitcoin
3 - Banks will offer crypto access and custody
4 - Hybrid wallets will become available everywhere
5 - Asset players first deploy blockchain in back offices
6 - No ETFs but indices and funds will gather assets fast
We cover the last four predictions in Part II on episode 72 released on January 24, 2020, so check that out for the rest of the list.
To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
39 min
January 10, 2020070: Life Through My Eyes | Dermot Walsh
Dermot Walsh from Each & Other talks with Pete Townsend about delivering delightful user experiences, leading through people, putting yourself into the shoes of the customer...and his moonlighting gig as a community radio DJ!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland's fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Dermot Walsh is the CEO of Each & Other, a Dublin-based strategic design firm dedicated to helping organisations grow online revenue by designing and building compelling digital customer experiences. With a totally diverse client base, Each & Other specialize in delivering game-changing, high-value business outcomes in a digital world.
In this episode, Dermot and Pete talk about:
Dermot's career trajectory including his love of sales, embracing change and how an unexpected experience with painting furniture opened his eyes to the business world.Â Â

Dermot's inspiration for leading through change by channeling JFK: " Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

His experience with helping startups and seeing so many great ideas and feature-rich products, but whose designer forgot to ask the customer what they actually wanted.

Having a much greater understanding of the "cash is king" mentality to managing your business after launching his own business and then becoming CEO of Each & Other.

Becoming CEO of a business with an incredibly talented team, stellar clients and a great track record and figuring out a way to make a difference.

Dermot's moonlighting gig as a DJ on the Sunday Brunch slot on Radio Larne.
To listen to more, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.
43 min
December 20, 2019069: Technologic | Lambert Despaux and Schema Capital
Lambert Despaux talks to Pete Townsend about empowering entrepreneurs building in the distributed ledger technology space, the startup ecosystem in Israel, societal impacts of DLT....and his love of electronic music!
This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment. If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.
Lambert is the founding partner at Schema Capital, who are investing at the pre-seed and seed stage in entrepreneurs building in the distributed ledger technology ('DLT') space. If you would like an intro to Lambert, please click here.

Schema Capital focus on finding early-stage projects active in digital securities infrastructure, blockchain interoperability, decentralized finance and cybersecurity applied to blockchain.
In this episode, we dig into Lambert's inspiration for moving into venture capital, the impact of being part of the startup ecosystem in Israel during his coming-of-age in VC, the societal impacts of a new backbone for the financial markets, and a left-field parallel between electronic music and DLT. See below for a few soundbites from Lambert and a final one from Pete Townsend:
It sounds a bit naive, but I discovered the possibilities of a smart contract, securitization and this beautiful piece of technology in an industry ripe for disruption in financial services, but I would say that the technology is even more in its infancy than I thought."

"Efficiencies and cost reductions are one side of it, but DLT can also enable new revenues on segments where you’re either losing market share or not present at all."

"I think it's very interesting to be able to combine into a portfolio some companies that are addressing cost cutting and efficiencies, which is more defensive, and companies that are fostering entrance to new markets and additional revenue. which is more aggressive, all using the same technology in DLT."

"We've been in the battlefield, we've been in the trenches and we see from the inside that there is a lot of opportunity for change in the financial services industry. Someone that has never worked in a bank or insurance company, I don’t think they can really see what we see. What makes us a little bit more unique is that I now live in Israel so I have access to this thriving startup environment and it is really fascinating."

"Now is a really great time to be around if you want to try to change how financial services operate, while at the same time knowing that we’ll end up impacting sectors beyond financial services as well."

From Pete Townsend, "DLT is your new techno, Lambert! You're talking about the same thing - you said that with electronic music back in the 70's and 80's you needed all these wires and all these different platforms to pull it together. Now you can just do it so simply, and you can look at the financial markets that will unfold with DLT in the same way."
To listen to more from MoneyNeverSleeps, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for our full catalog of episodes.
34 min

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MoneyNeverSleeps is a weekly show where smart people bring one big idea, and Pete Townsend breaks it down in under 15 minutes. Featuring founders, operators, and investors shaping crypto, fintech, AI,…

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