Shows
Geeks Of The Valley#105 Saurabh JainSaurabh Jain is a seasoned leader in technology and healthcare, currently serving as the Executive Chairman of Opyl (ASX: OPL), a company pioneering AI-driven solutions for clinical trials. Appointed to this role on April 30, 2024, Saurabh spearheads Opyl's
mission to transform clinical trials through advanced AI technologies. His leadership has been instrumental in the development and launch of Opyl's flagship product, TrialKey.
Throughout his extensive 25-year career, Saurabh has held various senior executive positions, including CEO and Executive Director roles. His experience includes founding Netpro Express, an internet service provider later acquired by Telstra, and serving on
multiple ASX boards and pri...
2024-11-3039 min
Geeks Of The Valley#93: Unveiling India's Macro Trends & Providing Valuable Insights for Foreign Investors with 2am VC's Brendan RogersBrendan Rogers is the Co-Founder of 2am [VC], an early-stage India Fund. Previously, he co-founded Wag! (NASDAQ) PET, the largest pet platform in the US. Brendan is a respected advisor and mentor to numerous companies, accelerators, and universities globally. He is a sought-after speaker at major startup conferences worldwide and has appeared on top podcasts in the industry, gaining millions of views. Prior to Wag!, Brendan co-founded a social discovery service with 50 million users across 10 countries, which was acquired by IAC in 2014. His entrepreneurial journey reflects his dedication, innovation, and influence in the startup ecosystem.
...
2024-02-1827 min
Geeks Of The Valley#92: Revolutionizing Silicon Valley’s Future through Fresh Leadership & Bold Action with Joby BernsteinJoby Bernstein and is running for Congress (CA-16) because it’s time for fresh leadership in Silicon Valley. He is deeply committed to addressing the pressing issues his district faces, from climate change to education and immigration.
Palo Alto is his home. Joby is an avid nature seeker, and spends his free time biking on Skyline and trail running in Wunderlich Park. But you don’t have to look far beyond his doorstep today to realize that our planet is in trouble. To effectively turn the tides on climate change, we’ll need to invest in protecting the en...
2024-01-2437 min
Geeks Of The Valley#91: The Future of Biotech & Investing in Cutting-Edge Technologies with Valhalla Ventures' Matthew KingMatthew King is an Entrepreneurial Investor passionate about venture investing & building, deeptech, sustainability, mental health, wellness, automotive, luxury goods, and hospitality.Currently Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Valhalla Ventures, a venture capital firm backing visionary founders at the forefront of social and technological breakthroughs.Inveterate connector of extraordinary human beings who frequently colors outside the lines and thrives on helping founders accomplish legendary outcomes while helping investors produce stellar returns & impact.Valhalla Ventures backs visionaries building enduring moats.Today, the most enduring moats exist in physical technology (think industrials, space, chips, biology, defense, energy, etc) and...
2024-01-0749 min
Geeks Of The Valley#90: Navigating the Gaming Revolution with Konvoy Ventures' Josh ChapmanJosh Chapman is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Konvoy, a venture capital firm that invests in early stage companies in the video gaming industry. Their firm focuses on companies building technology, infrastructure, and platforms in the gaming industry. Prior to founding Konvoy, Josh worked at Blackrock and Morgan Stanley in New York City.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshchapmanb/
2023-12-1822 min
Geeks Of The Valley#89: Unraveling the Japanese Venture Capital Market with Global Brain Corporation's Ken KajiiKen joined GB in 2021. As General Partner, he oversees the entire fund activities including strategy development, investment in Japanese and overseas startups, post-investment support, support for collaboration with corporations, fundraising, and forming/operating CVC funds. He is an expert in growth strategy and digital transformation based on his 17-year experience of strategic consulting. He also focuses on overseas fund deployment and investment.
Ken joined GB after working at NTT Group and McKinsey & Company. Ken was engaged in more than 270 projects with 1,500 consultants across 10 regions worldwide at McKinsey & Company. From 2011, Ken was the leader of technology, media & telecommunications...
2023-11-2030 min
Geeks Of The Valley#88: Bain & Company's Acquisition of Rainmaking APAC with COO Virginie HelloVirginie Hello is an accomplished professional currently serving as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Rainmaking APAC, a globally recognized venture builder established in Denmark over 15 years ago. Rainmaking APAC has achieved remarkable success, boasting a diverse portfolio of more than 55 ventures, investments in nearly 1,000 startups, and strategic partnerships with over 100 leading corporations worldwide.
While the task of building corporate ventures may appear daunting, Rainmaking APAC has thrived due to two key differentiators that set it apart from others in the industry. Firstly, their unique risk-sharing model enables them to invest capital alongside corporate...
2023-10-2226 min
Geeks Of The Valley#87: Web3 Payments for the Next Billion Users Across Asia with TransFi's Raj KamalRaj comes with a deep background across payments, tech and Web3 in a multitude of roles - operator, investor and consultant.
Raj's Past Experience:
Ex CEO, OYO Vacation Homes, a top 3 specialist vacation rental business (fully owned sub of OYO).
Ex Global Head of Investments and M&A for PayU, a Prosus Company (Prosus is a leading listed global technology investment company). Made investments globally across fintech companies including in Payments, Credit, Remittances and Crypto / Blockchain.
Ex McKinsey Partner serving banks, insurance companies, payments players and asset managers across the Asia Pacific. Leader of McKinsey’s Payments...
2023-09-1029 min
Geeks Of The Valley#86: Unveiling Compelling Investments in Emerging Markets with Etohum's Burak BüyükdemirBurak Büyükdemir is a well-known investor, startup ecosystem builder, author, and founder. He is the founder of Etohum, a leading accelerator and seed investor organization in Turkey, as well as the founder of Startup Istanbul and Startup Turkey. Through these programs, he has supported and invested in over 100 startups, providing training, mentorship, and seed investment to help them grow and develop. He is known for his work supporting the global startup ecosystem and has a strong global network of contacts in the startup world. In addition to his work with startups, Burak has also written a book ab...
2023-08-2124 min
Geeks Of The Valley#85: Building the Future of Japan's Startup Ecosystem with Antler's Ryo UmezawaRyo Umezawa is a Partner leading Antler’s expansion into Japan. Prior to Antler, Ryo was a Principal at East Ventures, Japan, an early stage venture capital firm. As a serial entrepreneur, Ryo founded two companies, including AllCoupon Japan (acquired), and was Japan’s country manager for companies such as Tinder, Homeaway (Expedia Group) and Hailo. Ryo spent 10 years in the Philippines prior to studying International Business and Economics at Sophia University in Tokyo. Ryo has been selected as a Leader of Tomorrow at the 40th + 44th St. Gallen Symposium, as well as one of the first members of Worl...
2023-07-3125 min
Geeks Of The Valley#84: Geopolitics and Pakistan's Economy - What Investors Should Consider with Zayn Venture Capital's Faisal AftabFaisal is a Pakistani-American entrepreneur and investor. He is the Founder & General Partner of Zayn Venture Capital (Formally Zayn Capital), a leading US & Cayman domiciled venture capital fund, investing in early-stage tech ventures in Pakistan. He is considered to be one of the most prolific investors with the most number of notable investment calls in Pakistan. His track record includes: Haball, NayaPay, PostEX, Bookme.pk, Abhi Finance, AdalFi, Bazaar-tech, KTrade, SnappRetail, Laam.pk,Krave Mart, GrocerApp, Truck It In, Savyour, Roomy.pk, Bagallery, Trellis Housing Finance, Tazah, Zaraye and Colabs.Faisal was also a founding partner of Lakson Venture C...
2023-07-1727 min
Geeks Of The Valley#83: The Materials Revolution, Corporate Venturing, and the Double Bottom Line with Zeon Ventures' Dennis ClarkDennis currently serves as Investment Director at Zeon Ventures, a newly-formed, early stage venture capital firm investing across materials, sustainability, climate and health. Zeon Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Zeon Corporation, a global leader in elastomers, polymers, and specialty chemicals.
Prior to joining Zeon, Dennis was at Honda for close to a decade spearheading the company's corporate venturing and open innovation activities. While at Honda, Dennis co-founded Honda Xcelerator, one of the first mobility-focused corporate accelerator programs and led these activities on a global scale. Under his direction, Honda's open innovation and venturing activities...
2023-06-2021 min
Geeks Of The Valley#82: Venturing into China - Insights from a Global Investor on Investment Strategies, Geopolitical Landscape, and Cross-Cultural Challenges with MSA Capital's Ben HarburgBen Harburg is a Managing Partner at MSA Capital, a global investment firm with over $2 billion in assets under management. Mr Harburg also leads MSA Novo, the emerging markets focused franchise of MSA. Ben has significant investment and operations experience in the Greater China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. He sits on Boards of Directors of various private and public companies, as well as those of foundations such as the National Committee on US China Relations, the Asian Cultural Council, and the Carnegie Endowment’s China Center. He was a Neubauer Scholar at Tu...
2023-05-2259 min
Geeks Of The Valley#81: Overvalued Web 3.0 Startup Multiples & VC Micro-Betting with Lightning Ventures' Mike JarmuzMike Jarmuz… or Muzz… is a General Partner at Lightning⚡️Ventures and is focused on investing in Bitcoin companies. His goal is to evangelize and demystify early-stage investing to plebs and whales alike. He is super passionate about educating founders and operators on strategies to fund their projects and believes everyone should invest in technology companies (not just the suits) and that investing in Bitcoin companies is possibly the best thing someone can do to complement their HODL position.
Mike is a lifelong entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in a broad range of industries. Lover of all small...
2023-03-1330 min
Geeks Of The Valley#80: Shifting from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 & Venture Building with Spartan Labs' Shaun HengFormer investment banker (@ SCB) turned CorpDev (@ RedMart - acq) turned founder & CEO (@ Eatsy) and VP, Growth & Ops (@ CoinMarketCap - acq). Shaun most recently led Spartan Labs, a $100M Web3 venture-building studio. He is excited about solving growth and strategy challenges while building high-performing teams. He has operated through almost every stage: from founding, seed, series A all the way through acquisition - from idea to tens of millions in revenue. Furthermore, Shaun is an angel investor and advisor, focused on Web3, NFT, blockchain gaming, crypto, defi, marketplaces, fintech and B2B SaaS.
Follow him for more regular...
2023-02-2027 min
Geeks Of The Valley#79: Web 3.0, AI, & Deep Science Investing with Vibe Capital's Tim Ryan and Dave GoldblattDave joined Facebook in 2007, and worked on Product and Operations at Facebook until 2017. While there, he learned from world class builders, thinkers, and operators how to scale technologies and businesses to billions of users.More recently, he was the CEO of Wavechat, a social audio company. After Wavechat, he was a fellow in the On Deck Angel Investing and On Deck Investing fellowships, where he refined his skills in the public and private markets.
Website: https://davegoldblatt.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-goldblatt-40138129/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/davegoldblatt
Timothy Ryan is an experienced entrepreneur and...
2023-01-1543 min
Geeks Of The Valley#78: 6x Startup Founder (Binance Acquisiton, YC W17 Soomgo) & Building a Team from 0-1 with Antler Korea's Jiho KangJiho built his career working with South Korean tech giant SK Planet and ecommerce unicorn Coupang as lead product manager. Jiho is also well connected to Silicon Valley becoming the first Korean to be accepted into the 500 Startups accelerator program in 2010 and went on to co-found Soomgo, a Y-Combinator portfolio company(#153 of top YC portfolio companies) recently valued at over $500m. Jiho’s most recent venture was blockchain startup BxB which was acquired by the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange; Binance in 2020.
Website: http://jiho.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ibreakshit/
2022-12-1855 min
Geeks Of The Valley#77: DAO's, Token Valuations, & Crypto Ponzy Schemes with Newman Capital's Adrian LaiAdrian Lai is the founder of Newman Capital, a principal investment firm focused on private equity and venture capital investment with significant presence in Web3. Newman is an investor in influential companies such as Reddit, Epic Games, SpaceX, Dapper Labs & Kraken. It has also invested in Web3 funds such as Bitkraft, Shima Capital, Republic and Metaweb. Newman is also actively investing in early-stage Web3 startups with 20+ portfolios. Adrian previously served as the co-founder of Liquefy, an institutional blockchain solution with presence in Hong Kong & The Middle East. Adrian began his career at BlackRock with experience in Sales & Marketing, Fintech...
2022-11-2829 min
Geeks Of The Valley#76: Developer Productivity & Technical Challenges in Machine Learning with Bain Capital Ventures' Rak GargRak is a Principal at Bain Capital Ventures, which manages over $6b and was an early investor in companies like LinkedIn, Docusign, Docker, and Redis Labs. Rak leads early-stage investments in cybersecurity and developer infrastructure companies. Before investing, he was a product manager at Atlassian, where he led the identity management tool Atlassian Access.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rakgarg/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rak_garg
2022-11-0731 min
Geeks Of The Valley#75: Overvalued Crypto Startup Multiples & Web 3.0 Developer Talent with EVG's Allen NgVenture veteran turned crypto enthusiast, Allen has participated in the making of over a dozen renowned TMT unicorns, start-ups and blockchain projects across the globe since 2012 and is an investor in 50+ startups globally, including a dozen unicorns till date. As a VC, he has invested $100m across frontier technologies, ranging from autonomous driving, health-tech, fin-tech to blockchain. As an operator, he has co-founded, scaled, spun-off, merged, sold multiple award-winning companies. As an advisor, he has helped multiple start-ups to secure investment, M&A and partnership. Allen holds a B.B.A in CUHK.
Now the Co-founder & CEO...
2022-10-0937 min
Geeks Of The Valley#74: Engineering Radical Transparency & Decision-making Best Practices with Meetup's David SiegelDavid Siegel is the CEO of Meetup, the largest platform for finding and building local communities. He has 25 years of experience as a technology and digital media executive leading organizations through innovative product development, rapid revenue growth, and digital traffic acceleration. Prior to joining Meetup, David was CEO of Investopedia and, before that, President of Seeking Alpha. David holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics & Economics and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an adjunct professor at Columbia University, where he teaches strategic planning and entrepreneurship. He hosts the podcast Keep Connected, which is dedicated to the p...
2022-09-1938 min
Geeks Of The Valley#73: Second Home Co-Ownership with Pacaso's Austin AllisonAustin is CEO of Pacaso and co-founded the company to make the dream of second home ownership a reality for more people after experiencing the profound effect it had on his own life. Pacaso is Austin’s second startup. In 2009, he founded dotloop in his hometown of Cincinnati, a company that created software to seamlessly manage real estate transactions. Zillow acquired dotloop in 2015, and Austin continued to run dotloop as a Zillow executive until 2018. Austin started selling real estate at the age of 18 and worked in residential and commercial real estate for a decade. Austin enjoys running, mountain biking an...
2022-08-2829 min
Geeks Of The Valley#72: Trusted, Verified, & Connected Documents on the Blockchain with Dedoco's Daphne NgDaphne is the Co-Founder and CEO of Dedoco– a Digital Document Management-as-a-Service that focuses on protecting data privacy and document security for companies, leveraging on blockchain technology.
Set up in 2020, Dedocois now transacting thousands of documents every month across Government, Banks, FIs, Professional Services, Real Estate, Tech platforms. The company is also ISO-certified and IMDA-accredited for Singapore government procurement. Globally, they have offices and teams in US, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
On the thought leadership front, Daphne is a regular speaker and advisor on the applications of blockchain for enterprise cloud and solutioning. In...
2022-08-0726 min
Geeks Of The Valley#71: The Crypto-Asset Broker of the Future with Nomura's Olivier DangOlivier Dang is the Global Chief Operating Officer for the Wholesale Digital Office of Nomura. He supports the development and implementation of the digital strategy of Nomura’s Wholesale business. Olivier has been at Nomura since 2010 and held various roles in Corporate Strategy and Business Management.
Prior to this, he was a Management Consultant at McKinsey in London and he started his career as an entrepreneur building a mobile internet company in France. He holds a MSc in Telecommunications from Chalmers University of Technology, an engineering degree from the Institut Superieur d’Electronique de Paris and a M.B.A...
2022-07-2416 min
Geeks Of The Valley#70: The Future of the Crypto Economy in Southeast Asia with Coinbase's Hassan AhmedHassan Ahmed is an experienced operator and investor in web3 and fintech. He is currently the Regional Director of Southeast Asia at Coinbase, the largest crypto platform in theworld. Prior to this, Hassan served a dual role at GoTo Group as Chief Executive Officer of Coins.ph, the leading crypto brokerage in the Philippines, and Head of Strategy for Gopay in Indonesia.
Prior to moving to Singapore, Hassan was based in New York as Director of Finance & Operations at eToro USA, where he was responsible for the launch of their regulated virtual currency social trading platform in the US. He a...
2022-07-0346 min
Geeks Of The Valley#69: SoftBank Group Operator School with Laura Gaviria Halaby, Operating Lead SoftBank Latin America FundsLaura Gaviria Halaby is a scale-up and business development expert with entrepreneurial background and ample experience in leadership roles in venture capital and tech.
Her current role as Operating Lead for the US$8 billion SoftBank Latin America Funds focuses on delivering operation support to the portfolio companies to accelerate their growth.
She also leads scalable knowledge programs for SoftBank such as the SoftBank Group Operator School (SBOS), which has upskilled over 8000 professionals in over 50 countries around the world. Internally SBOS for Founders and Leaders bring industry experts to share best practices on how to solve...
2022-06-1335 min
Geeks Of The Valley#68: Winning Customers' Hearts through Big Data Realization with Google's Chief Measurement Strategist Neil HoyneNeil has served as an analyst, researcher, inventor, lecturer and, in his words, the father of many forgettable slides of glossy funnels and Venn diagrams. A witness to and participant in billion-dollar successes, and instructive failures, all in the pursuit of building indestructible customer relationships through digital media. A key player in the executive rallying cry to be more “data driven.”
As Google’s Chief Measurement Strategist, Neil has had the privilege to lead more than 2,500 engagements with the world’s biggest advertisers. His efforts have helped these companies acquire millions of customers, improve conversion rates by more tha...
2022-05-0135 min
Geeks Of The Valley#67: The New Era of the Creator Economy with Bemyfriends' Steve SeoOver the last few years, bemyfriends co-CEO Steve Seo has established himself as one of the leading authorities in the global fandom business.
A serial entrepreneur, Seo joined bemyfriends in January of 2022 after serving as the CEO of beNX (now known as Weverse Company) and as a technical advisor for HYBE Corporation. It was in those roles that Seo oversaw the launches of Weverse, the official fan community of K-pop supergroup BTS, and its e-commerce platform, Weverse Shop. The platform that Seo developed led to cross-border e-commerce in 220 countries.
After contributing greatly to the globalization...
2022-04-1114 min
Geeks Of The Valley#66: Vietnam's Future of Home Ownership & iBuyers with Homebase's Phillip AnPhillip An is the Co-founder and COO of Homebase, one of Southeast Asia’s leading Proptech companies. Homebase (www.homebase.com.vn) provides revolutionary products made accessible that empower homeowners to buy, sell, and own homes in ways that work best for themselves. Homebase is backed by leading investors and partners around the world (YC, Goodwater Capital, Partech Ventures, etc), with the most recent $30M round of equity and debt funding announced in 2021.
Prior to starting Homebase, Phillip has w had experiences across Investment banking at Goldman Sachs, Management Consulting at McKinsey and in Venture Capital. He ho...
2022-03-2024 min
Geeks Of The Valley#65: High-Impact Entrepreneurship through Underserved Markets with Endeavor's Adrian Garcia-AranyosAdrian Garcia-Aranyos is the President of Endeavor, a global community of high-impact entrepreneurs present in ~40 markets with a rules-based venture arm, Endeavor Catalyst, which is a leading VC investor in most emerging markets. he joined Endeavor in 2014 as Founding Managing Director of Endeavor Spain. Prior to that he held several executive roles at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co; The Economist Newspaper Group; and CM Capital Markets in Madrid.
Since 2004, Mr. Garcia-Aranyos serves as board member at Thune Eureka, an industrial engineering firm specializing in capital goods and focused on deep-sea energy components, paper industry parts and defense...
2022-02-2820 min
Geeks Of The Valley#64: AI Enabled Technologies & Economic Equity with Fika Ventures' Eva HoEva is a General Partner at Fika Ventures, an early stage fund investing in companies that leverage the power of data as a core component of their business model. Prior to Fika, Eva was a founding GP at Susa Ventures. She is a serial entrepreneur and founder, with a company experience portfolio including Applied Semantics (AdSense), Factual, Google, Youtube and Navigating Cancer. She is active in the non-profit sector, serving on the boards of California Community Foundation and UCLA Technology Development Group. She was recently the EIR for the city of LA working with Mayor Eric Garcetti. Eva holds an MBA fr...
2022-02-0636 min
Geeks Of The Valley#63: How to Start a Fund with Investment Fund Secrets' Bridger PenningtonBridger Pennington is the founder of 2 investment funds that have done over 217 deals in the last 4 years.
He has started helping others launch their own funds through Investment Fund Secrets, an online program with over 4,000 students designed to help them start investment funds without working on Wall Street or having an Ivy League degree.
Bridger has spoken on stage to thousands of people across the United States and is determined to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses through launching their own funds.
Free course on funds: https://www.investmentfundsecrets.com/freegift
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin...
2022-01-0945 min
Geeks Of The Valley#62: The Future of Blockchain Convergence with Kenetic Capital's Jehan ChuJehan Chu is co-Founder and Managing Partner at Kenetic, a blockchain Venture Capital and cryptocurrency trading firm based in Hong Kong. A former front-end developer, he started investing in cryptocurrency in 2013 and has invested and supported over 100 projects. Jehan founded the Ethereum HK community (2014), co-Founded the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong (2014) and founded the Hyperledger HK community (2016).
Jehan serves as co-Chairman of the Hong Kong Fintech Association Blockchain Committee, is enrolled in the Kauffman Fellows Program, is a Fellow of the Singapore University of Social Science and member of the Global Patrons Board of San Francisco Museum...
2021-12-1933 min
Geeks Of The Valley#61: Game Studio Venture Investing with Execution Labs' Jason Della RoccaJason Della Rocca is a game industry entrepreneur, funding advisor, and cluster expert. He specializes in business/partnership development, pitching/funding, and ecosystem/cluster development. As the co-founder of Executions Labs, he was a hands-on early stage investor to over 20 independent game studios from North America and Europe. Between 2000-09 he served as the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), and was honored for his industry building efforts with the inaugural Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Conference. In 2009, Jason was named to Game Developer Magazine’s “Power50,” a list which profiles 50 of the most important contri...
2021-11-2832 min
Geeks Of The Valley#60: Negotiating an Acquisition Deal & Acqui-hiring with Lyft Media's Kenan Saleh & Faizan BhattyIn this episode of Geeks of the Valley, we chat with Kenan Saleh and Faizan Bhatty, the dynamic co-founders of Halo Cars, a startup that reimagined outdoor advertising by integrating data and digital technology into rideshare vehicles. Their fresh take on out-of-home ads caught the attention of Lyft, leading to an acquisition and the birth of Lyft Media.The conversation kicks off with a relaxed post-COVID life update from New York, then dives into how the duo identified a gap between online and offline advertising—and built a company to bridge it. Kenan and Faizan share what it...
2021-11-1023 min
Geeks Of The Valley#59: Corporate Venturing & Open Innovation with Honda Innovations' Dennis ClarkAs the Managing Director of Strategic Venture Partnerships at Honda Innovations, Dennis leads Honda’s global open innovation initiatives and strategic partnerships with startups. Before joining Honda, he worked in early-stage venture capital building bridges between technology upstarts in Silicon Valley and multinational corporations. Early in his career, he spent eight years in Japan working in a variety of sectors including banking and international civil service.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisclarkjr/
Auto News: https://www.autonews.com/commentary/next-step-mobility-startups
2021-10-0928 min
Geeks Of The Valley#58: The Anti-Pitch Playbook & Successful Post-Investment Traits with 1517's Danielle StrachmanDanielle is a cofounder and general partner of 1517. She has worked with young entrepreneurs for about a decade. In 2010, during the founding of the Thiel Fellowship, Danielle joined to lead the design and operations. She's worked with some of the most prestigious founders like Vitalik Buterin and Ritesh Agarwal. Previous to her work with Peter Thiel, Danielle founded and directed Innovations Academy in San Diego, a K-8 charter school serving 400 students, with a focus on student-led project based learning and other alternative programs.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellestrachman/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DStrachman
2021-09-1950 min
Geeks Of The Valley#57: Institutional Bitcoin Investing, SPAC's, & Life Advice with SkyBridge Capital's Anthony ScaramucciAnthony Scaramucci is the Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital. He is the author of four books: The Little Book of Hedge Funds, Goodbye Gordon Gekko, Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole (a 2016 Wall Street Journal best seller), and Trump: The Blue-Collar President.
Prior to founding SkyBridge in 2005, Scaramucci co-founded investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold to Neuberger Berman, LLC in 2001. Earlier, he was a vice president in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs & Co.
In 2016, Scaramucci was ranked #85 in Worth Magazine’s Power 100: The 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. In 2011, he re...
2021-08-2928 min
Geeks Of The Valley#05: The MikoBits Show: Synthetix DeFi Derivatives with Kain WarwickMiko is a General Partner with Gumi Ventures, a US $30M investment fund focused early stage blockchain startups and a cofounder of crypto exchange Evercoin.
Miko ignited his passion for open source software 25 years ago as chief Evangelist for the Java Language and Platform at Sun Microsystems. Since then he has been building open source software startups in Silicon Valley including raising over $50 million in venture capital for developer platform companies such as Gradle and financial infrastructure companies like Hazelcast and has participated in multiple exits including INFRAVIO, webMethods, and Db4O. He is an advisor in s...
2021-08-2449 min
Geeks Of The Valley#56: Raising a Venture Capital Fund with Tenacity Venture Capital's Ben NarasinBen Narasin is the Founder and General Partner of Tenacity Venture Capital, a pre-Series A venture fund. Immediately previously, Narasin wes a full time investor and Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the worlds largest and oldest traditional venture firms. A prolific entrepreneur and highly regarded early-stage investor with three decades of company-building expertise, Narasin has focused on emerging technologies and new markets throughout his investment career. With a portfolio comprising key early successes in some of today’s fastest growing sectors, such as fintech, digital marketplaces, mobile and connected devices. His overarching focus in seeking ne...
2021-08-1532 min
Geeks Of The Valley#55: The Digital Operating System for Southeast Asian MSME's with Zaapi's Wilfried BuironA Tsinghua University Schwarzman Scholar and Masa Son fellow, Wilfried Buiron is the Founder & CEO of Singapore-based, Zaapi an ecommerce enablement startup backed by Flash Ventures aiming to democratize access to ecommerce for Southeast Asian MSMEs. Prior to founding Zaapi, Wilfried spent time at McKinsey & Company and multiple Chinese startups and founded a successful D2C watch brand, Atelier Wen between Beijing and Hong Kong.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wilfried-buiron/
Website: https://www.zaapi.com/
2021-07-3134 min
Geeks Of The Valley#54: The Payment Giant of Southeast Asia & Organizational Design with Xendit's Moses LoMoses Lo is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Xendit, a financial technology company that he alongside others started in 2015. Moses' leadership has led Xendit to prestigious awards such as the CNBC Upstart 100 and The Best Payments Initiative by The Asian Banker in 2018. With Asia's Forbes 30 under 30 in his pocket, it is without a doubt that we will be seeing Xendit slowly transform the payments industry under his leadership.
Moses earned his bachelor’s degree from University of New South Wales, Sydney majoring in finance & information systems management. Then, he kick started his career as a co...
2021-07-1938 min
Geeks Of The Valley#53: The Mythical Man-Month Theory & Ephemeral Environments with Layer CI's Colin ChartierColin is Co-founder and CEO at LayerCI, a company which helps software developers efficiently review changes to websites. He graduated with a triple major (math, stats, computer science) from the University of Toronto and has worked as a tech executive for five years.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinchartier/
Website: https://layerci.com/
2021-07-0523 min
Geeks Of The Valley#52: The Fund that is Investing in the Plaid, Stripe and Klarna of Southeast Asia with 1982's Herston Elton PowersHerston is a Managing Partner of 1982 Ventures – the leading seed fund focused on fintech in Southeast Asia. He is responsible for setting the strategy and direction of 1982 Ventures. He is active in investments, portfolio management and investor relations. He has sourced and led investments into Brick, Fundiin, Homebase, Go Zayaan and Wagely.
Prior to founding 1982 Ventures, he was a Principal at tryb Group in Singapore and created and executed their early stage investment strategy. He led investments into Alami, a leading Indonesian Islamic Finance Platform, Gradana, a pioneer in Proptech in Indonesia and managed the investment into Ma...
2021-06-2123 min
Geeks Of The Valley#51: Venture Building in Latin America with Polymath Ventures' Wenyi CaiGraduated Cum Laude from Harvard College, Wenyi Cai is the Founder & CEO of Polymath Ventures, a company builder that serves the underserved middle-class of Latin America. Prior to founding Polymath she helped build a quantitative trading hedge fund, was a published researcher in applied physics, worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company, and was the COO of Milo.com in Silicon Valley, a consumer internet startup that sold to eBay in 2010. Since 2012 Wenyi has been focused on building the Polymath platform and co-founding 10 ventures that have raised over 40M USD.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wenyi-cai-5a99876/
Twitte...
2021-06-0749 min
Geeks Of The Valley#04: The MikoBits Show: Simply Earn Interest on Crypto with Celsius's Alex MashinskyMiko is a General Partner with Gumi Ventures, a US $30M investment fund focused early stage blockchain startups and a cofounder of crypto exchange Evercoin.
Miko ignited his passion for open source software 25 years ago as chief Evangelist for the Java Language and Platform at Sun Microsystems. Since then he has been building open source software startups in Silicon Valley including raising over $50 million in venture capital for developer platform companies such as Gradle and financial infrastructure companies like Hazelcast and has participated in multiple exits including INFRAVIO, webMethods, and Db4O. He is an advisor in s...
2021-06-0231 min
Geeks Of The Valley#50: Starting a VC Fund, a Contrarian View, & Immigrant Founders with Leonis Capital's Jay ZhaoJay is a managing partner at Leonis Capital, an early stage venture capital fund that invests in AI-first companies and the automation economy. Previously, Jay is a Partner at T Fund (fka TCL Ventures), a global CVC arm by TCL Corp, one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world. Jay is also responsible for helping define TCL’s strategic roadmap as well as corporate's M&A and partnerships. Prior to that, Jay was a Senior Director / Partner at Walden Venture Capital, one of the pioneer venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, with a global presence in Asia and...
2021-05-1744 min
Geeks Of The Valley#03: The MikoBits Show: The Graph Protocol Decentralized Blockchain Data Query with Tegan KlineMiko is a General Partner with Gumi Ventures, a US $30M investment fund focused early stage blockchain startups and a cofounder of crypto exchange Evercoin.
Miko ignited his passion for open source software 25 years ago as chief Evangelist for the Java Language and Platform at Sun Microsystems. Since then he has been building open source software startups in Silicon Valley including raising over $50 million in venture capital for developer platform companies such as Gradle and financial infrastructure companies like Hazelcast and has participated in multiple exits including INFRAVIO, webMethods, and Db4O. He is an advisor in s...
2021-05-0534 min
Geeks Of The Valley#49: Diving into Wall Street & 95+ Hour Work Weeks with WSO's Patrick CurtisPatrick Curtis is the Chief Monkey and Founder of Wall Street Oasis, the largest community focused on careers in finance with courses ranging from financial modeling to private equity interviews. He grew up near Boston and went to Williams College before working in investment banking for two years at Rothschild in New York and Private Equity at Tailwind Capital for four years. After getting his MBA from Wharton in 2010, Patrick has worked full time for over a decade on Wall Street Oasis.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmanningcurtis/
Website: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/
2021-05-0332 min
Geeks Of The Valley#48: The Wapistani Effect & Domiciled Funds with Sarmayacar's Rabeel WarraichRabeel is the Founder and CEO of Sarmayacar, the leading VC firm in Pakistan, and a Kauffman Fellow. He currently serves on the boards of Bykea, Dawaai, ProCheck and Patari. Prior to his return to Pakistan in 2018, Rabeel spent a decade in London, working as Vice President of private equity at GIC (Singapore's sovereign wealth fund), after starting his career as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. Rabeel graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was also the President of the International Students Association for two years.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabeel-warraich-572a5714
Twitter: h...
2021-04-1936 min
Geeks Of The Valley#47: Cap Table Health with Golden Gate Ventures' Michael LintsMichael Lints has over 20 years of experience helping innovative businesses obtain the resources, insights, and expertise they need in order to be successful. Michael has been a startup operator, investor, and mentor, and is currently a Partner at the Singapore-based venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures. He joined the firm in 2013 and is currently leading growth venture efforts, which include LP fundraising and portfolio management for Golden Gate Venture's investments at Series B and beyond.
Michael’s entrepreneurial journey began in 2000 when he co-founded an IT managed services startup in Europe that was acquired by a large da...
2021-04-1010 min
Geeks Of The Valley#46: Investing in Asia-Pacific with Golden Gate Ventures' Michael LintsMichael Lints has over 20 years of experience helping innovative businesses obtain the resources, insights, and expertise they need in order to be successful. Michael has been a startup operator, investor, and mentor, and is currently a Partner at the Singapore-based venture capital firm Golden Gate Ventures. He joined the firm in 2013 and is currently leading growth venture efforts, which include LP fundraising and portfolio management for Golden Gate Venture's investments at Series B and beyond.
Michael’s entrepreneurial journey began in 2000 when he co-founded an IT managed services startup in Europe that was acquired by a large da...
2021-04-0530 min
Geeks Of The Valley#45: The Methodologies to be Successful in Work and in Life with IOL's Eric SimWith over 2 million followers on Linkedin, Eric Sim, CFA, is one the most followed thought leaders on career and life skills. Eric is the founder of Institute of Life (www.iol.life) whose mission is to train young professionals to be successful at work and in life. Previously when he was based in Hong Kong, Eric served as a managing director at UBS Investment Bank and as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Finance at Hong Kong University of Science of Technology. Today, he teaches at Queen’s University (Canada) and Renmin University in Beijing. A sought-after keynote speaker, Eric ha...
2021-03-2123 min
Geeks Of The Valley#44: The Billion Dollar Fund for Women with Beyond The Billion's Sarah ChenSarah Chen’s career spans across venture capital (VC) and innovation, in Asia and the US. She is Co-Founder of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women and Beyond The Billion. Previously, she pioneered a corporate venture capital unit within $13Bn publicly traded Asian conglomerate, Sime Darby, investing in later-stage biotechnology companies. Since then, she has been at the forefront of multiple-million cross border investments, structuring and executing commercialization plans for her portfolio companies. Named Forbes 30 Under 30, she is a recognized speaker and adviser on VC/innovation and women in leadership, having been featured among others on Der Spiegel, the Wa...
2021-03-0837 min
Geeks Of The Valley#02: The MikoBits Show: DeFi on Tezos with Arthur & Kathleen BreitmanMiko is a General Partner with Gumi Ventures, a US $30M investment fund focused early stage blockchain startups and a cofounder of crypto exchange Evercoin.
Miko ignited his passion for open source software 25 years ago as chief Evangelist for the Java Language and Platform at Sun Microsystems. Since then he has been building open source software startups in Silicon Valley including raising over $50 million in venture capital for developer platform companies such as Gradle and financial infrastructure companies like Hazelcast and has participated in multiple exits including INFRAVIO, webMethods, and Db4O. He is an advisor in s...
2021-03-0142 min
Geeks Of The Valley#43: Venture Investing Wisdom with NEA's Ben NarasinBen Narasin is a Venture Partner at NEA. A prolific entrepreneur and highly regarded early-stage investor with three decades of company-building expertise, Narasin has focused on emerging technologies and new markets throughout his investment career. With a portfolio comprising key early successes in some of today’s fastest growing sectors, such as fintech, digital marketplaces, mobile and connected devices. His overarching focus in seeking new investments is, in his words, “to find founders who make me say wow.”
Narasin is a 25-year entrepreneur and 10-year early-stage investor. His knack for spotting emerging trends led him to make seed i...
2021-02-2236 min
Geeks Of The Valley#42: Investing Along the Z-Axis with Airbus Ventures' Lewis PinaultDr. Lewis Pinault is an Airbus Ventures Partner based in Tokyo, managing Airbus Ventures’ activities in the Asia Pacific region. Advising and supporting Airbus innovation projects for over a decade, Lewis also designed and led incubator and innovation centers for the UK Government’s Digital Catapult, EDS, Shell, and others, building from his own mid-career experiences as a NASA researcher trying to link startups to large corporates. Previously, Lewis was a Financial Institutions Partner at Coopers & Lybrand in Singapore and Hong Kong, beginning his early consulting career at The Boston Consulting Group in Tokyo. His lifelong passions for exploring the...
2021-02-0742 min
Geeks Of The Valley#41: Special Situation Funds & Venture Investing with Vulpes Investment Management's Field PickeringField has spent over a decade in Singapore investing across South East Asia. Field is the Head of Venture and Impact Investing at Vulpes Investment Management. In April 2020, in the heart of the ‘first wave’ of COVID-19, Field quickly raised a Special Opportunities Fund to invest in venture backed companies as valuations came off and venture investing slowed, while other venture investors contemplated how COVID-19 would affect their ability to invest and their current portfolio companies’ performances.
He joined Vulpes in 2015 and in addition to his investing responsibilities, he has served as the Chief Operating Officer and Genera...
2021-01-2425 min
Geeks Of The Valley#40: VC Investing in Blockchain, Crypto, & CBDC's with Electric Capital's Avichal GargAvichal is a successful serial entrepreneur with executive experience at Google and Facebook, which acquired his previous company. At Facebook he was Director of Product Management for the Local product group. Avichal is an investor in companies such as Airtable, Boom Supersonic, Color Genomics, Cruise, Figma, Newfront Insurance, Notion, Nova Credit, Threads, and others.
Electric Capital is a venture firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, blockchain based businesses, fintech companies, and marketplaces. Electric Capital and its founders have invested in crypto companies such as Anchorage, Bitwise, Celo, Coda, Coinbase, Derivadex, Mobilecoin, Oasis, and NEAR.
LinkedIn: https://www.lin...
2021-01-1144 min
Geeks Of The Valley#01: The MikoBits Show: DeFi Lending with AAVE's Stani KulechovMiko is a General Partner with Gumi Ventures, a US $30M investment fund focused early stage blockchain startups and a cofounder of crypto exchange Evercoin.
Miko ignited his passion for open source software 25 years ago as chief Evangelist for the Java Language and Platform at Sun Microsystems. Since then he has been building open source software startups in Silicon Valley including raising over $50 million in venture capital for developer platform companies such as Gradle and financial infrastructure companies like Hazelcast and has participated in multiple exits including INFRAVIO, webMethods, and Db4O. He is an advisor in s...
2021-01-0955 min
Geeks Of The Valley#39: 10 Life Principles with PWC Crypto's Henri ArslanianHenri Arslanian is the PwC Global Crypto Leader, the former Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hong Kong where he teaches the first FinTech university course in Asia. Henri advises many of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, investors, financial institutions and tech firms on their FinTech and crypto initiatives as well numerous governments, regulators and central banks on Fintech and crypto regulatory and policy matters.
Before joining PwC, Henri was with a FinTech start-up and previously spent many years with UBS Investment Bank in Hong Kong. He...
2021-01-0409 min
Geeks Of The Valley#38: 2021 Crypto Predictions with PWC Crypto's Henri ArslanianHenri Arslanian is the PwC Global Crypto Leader, the former Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hong Kong where he teaches the first FinTech university course in Asia. Henri advises many of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, investors, financial institutions and tech firms on their FinTech and crypto initiatives as well numerous governments, regulators and central banks on Fintech and crypto regulatory and policy matters.
Before joining PwC, Henri was with a FinTech start-up and previously spent many years with UBS Investment Bank in Hong Kong. He...
2020-12-2807 min
Geeks Of The Valley#37: Institutionalization of Cryptoassets & CBDC's with PWC Crypto's Henri ArslanianHenri Arslanian is the PwC Global Crypto Leader, the former Chairman of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hong Kong where he teaches the first FinTech university course in Asia. Henri advises many of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, investors, financial institutions and tech firms on their FinTech and crypto initiatives as well numerous governments, regulators and central banks on Fintech and crypto regulatory and policy matters.
Before joining PwC, Henri was with a FinTech start-up and previously spent many years with UBS Investment Bank in Hong Kong. He...
2020-12-2145 min
Geeks Of The Valley#36: Growth Equity Prospecting & CVC Investing with HSBC Ventures' Ore AdeyemiOre Adeyemi is the Managing Director and Head of Strategic Innovation Investments at HSBC.
Ore is based in Silicon Valley, leading investment efforts for HSBC’s Corporate Venture Capital arm, Strategic Innovation Investments (SII). The SII team invests in companies globally that are strategically aligned with HSBC in order to drive innovation and adoption of technologies across business lines. Some sample SII investments include Crowdstrike (IPO), Kyriba (acquired), Openfin, Menlo Security, Quantexa etc.
Prior to SII, Ore was an Investment Director within HSBC Principal Investments (PI) focussing on private equity investments, and managing HSBC’s glob...
2020-12-0629 min
Geeks Of The Valley#35: A COVID-19 Warning from WallStreet's Einstein, Peter TuchmanPeter Tuchman is a born and bred New Yorker fueled by espresso and an insatiable curiosity. He attributes his keen sense of fashion to his mother who stressed the importance of good ties. To this day, Hermes is the only brand of tie Peter wears in her loving memory.
Tuchman’s first endeavor after college was a jazz record store and African art gallery on Carmine Street in New York City. Two years later he sold the record store and took a job working in Africa for a Norwegian oil company. On returning to New York, Peter go...
2020-11-2202 min
Geeks Of The Valley#34: A Day in the Life of a NYSE Floor Trader with WallStreet's Einstein, Peter TuchmanPeter Tuchman is a born and bred New Yorker fueled by espresso and an insatiable curiosity. He attributes his keen sense of fashion to his mother who stressed the importance of good ties. To this day, Hermes is the only brand of tie Peter wears in her loving memory.
Tuchman’s first endeavor after college was a jazz record store and African art gallery on Carmine Street in New York City. Two years later he sold the record store and took a job working in Africa for a Norwegian oil company. On returning to New York, Peter got...
2020-11-2254 min
Geeks Of The Valley#33: アジア圏におけるベンチャー投資について（ベンチャーキャピタリスト彦坂雄一郎）彦坂雄一郎 経歴
ゴールドマンサックス証券にてキャリアをスタートさせ、約９年間の在籍中にはクレジット商品の証券化、様々なアセットクラス（債券、デリバティブ、株式、金利）のトレーディングに従事。大学時代に航空宇宙やテクノロジーを学び、興奮を覚えた事をきっかけに、ディープテックのスタートアップの世界に飛び込み、VR・AI・ロボティクスのスタートアップ企業においてCOOを勤める。2019年にエアバスベンチャーズにストラテジックアドバイザーとして参画。主にアジア圏における投資に従事。
慶應義塾大学理工学部卒業、東京大学大学院経済学研究科において金融工学を専攻及び修了。
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuichiro-hikosaka-063994117/
Forbes: https://forbesjapan.com/articles/detail/33105
BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54232563
Website: https://airbusventures.vc/
2020-11-1527 min
Geeks Of The Valley#32: Asia Pacific Investments with Venture Capitalist Hikosaka YuichiroYuichiro started his career at Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, where he spent 9 years covering credit derivative securitization, and trading multi-asset classes including corporate bonds, derivatives, equity and interest rate products. Building on his early education and excitement for aerospace and related technologies, he then moved to the deep tech venture world, becoming Chief Operating Officer of deep-tech startups in virtual reality, AI and Robotics. In 2019, Yuichiro joined Airbus Ventures as a Strategic Advisor in 2019, principally supporting Airbus Ventures’ activities in the Asia Pacific region.
Yuichiro earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Keio University and his Masters de...
2020-11-0922 min
Geeks Of The Valley#31: Removing Bias by a Poker Investing Strategy with Loyal VC's Kamal HassanKamal Hassan is a Managing Partner of the Loyal VC, founded in 2018. The Loyal Startup Index Fund has invested in 125+ companies, in 30+ countries while delivering top quartile financial returns, thanks to its network of 300+ expert advisors. Loyal is the fund Kamal wished he had available during his 20 year career as an entrepreneurial CEO, and 15 year career as an angel investor. It draws on Kamal's experience and network built in 7 years as a Global Director with the Founder Institute accelerator, and an alumni association president with INSEAD, where he earned his MBA, after an undergrad degree in engineering physics.
...
2020-10-2536 min
Geeks Of The Valley#30: A Global VC’s Framework on Tech Investments & Why AI Automation Matters Now with T Fund's Jay ZhaoAs an entrepreneur-turned-VC, Jay is a Partner at T Fund (fka TCL Ventures), a global CVC arm by TCL Corp, one of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world. Jay is also responsible for helping define TCL’s strategic roadmap as well as corporate's M&A and partnerships. Previously, Jay was a Senior Director / Partner at Walden Venture Capital, one of the pioneer venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, with a global presence in Asia and Israel. Prior to Walden, Jay was a Principal at Granite Ventures (ex- H&Q venture group), a premier San Francisco based VC fi...
2020-10-1149 min
Geeks Of The Valley#29: The "Impossible Foods of Seafood" with Kuleana's Jacek PrusGrowing up an enthusiastic meat eater in Texas, Jacek watched Earthlings during his philosophy bachelors which sent him down a path of animal activism. After a few years of militantly promoting veganism, he pivoted to help animals through a market-oriented approach. This led him to attain an MBA in entrepreneurship and build the ProVeg Incubator, an accelerator exclusively for plant-based and cultured food startups.
He is now the founder of Kuleana, the Impossible Foods of seafood. Their first product is plant-based raw tuna. Kuleana recently graduated from Y-Combinator and just closed their seed round. They are currently hiring...
2020-09-2735 min
Geeks Of The Valley#28: New Business Models & Investment Opportunities in Asia Pacific with Click Venture's Carman ChanAs one of the top 5 Women to watch in Asia Tech (Nikkei Asian Review), Carman Chan is a veteran in the technology industry with decades of experience as an entrepreneur with multiple exits, a tech columnist and a globally recognized venture capitalist.
Carman began her entrepreneurship journey when she was in university. In order to pursue her passion for the newly emerging Internet, she passed up a fully sponsored PhD from Imperial College to become a serial internet entrepreneur. Carman’s first company, English Street was acquired by HKET(0423.HK), a Hong Kong listed newspaper group. Her se...
2020-09-2338 min
Geeks Of The Valley#27: Democratization, Digitization, and Public Policy in Asia Pacific with Ryan TerribiliniRyan Terribilini comes from technology and public policy roles at Google and Ripple to study Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. We discuss some of the emerging issues related to internet privacy and surveillance in a world in which we increasingly interact online and in which global finance operates using new technologies. Ryan also explains android ecosystems, bitcoin and distributed ledger technology. Ryan is a member of Pembroke College, Oxford.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanterribilini/
2020-09-0727 min
Geeks Of The Valley#26: Entrepreneurship through Acquisition with Thomas Street Partner's Sam KriegSam is former hedge fund analyst turned nonprofit operator who is from Milwaukee, WI. After graduating from Williams College, Sam worked as investment banker for JP Morgan and as an analyst with Balyasny Asset Management where he focused on midstream oil and gas services. For the last four years, he has managed a nonprofit based in Amman, Jordan that empowers refugee women and girls through sport while he also completed his law and business degree at Stanford University. Sam loves all forms of cheese, downhill skiing, and The Office.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-krieg-26a48b55
...
2020-08-3134 min
Geeks Of The Valley#25: Venture Capital Investing in Silicon Valley, today and tomorrow with AiSprouts's Suman TalukdarSuman Talukdar is a venture-backed operator turned investor at AiSprouts.vc, where he is working with entrepreneurs on the next big ideas. With a track record of $7B in exits, with companies including Cloudflare and Anaplan, Suman invests in companies with the traits he's seen make others highly successful. As an investor, his portfolio includes Ripple, Palantir, and Sharetribe -- recent exits include 6d.ai and Apprente. He started his professional career building agent-based enterprise "AI" software. A published author on innovation, Suman has an MBA from Harvard and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Computer Engineering from Rice Un...
2020-08-2437 min
Geeks Of The Valley#24: Mandarin Fluency & Business in Asia with Rufe Consulting’s Jamie RufeJamie Rufe is a Taipei-based professional and entrepreneur, who is currently getting his Masters in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language at National Taiwan Normal University. He's been living in the Chinese-speaking for 10 years (2.5 in China, 7+ in Taiwan), and has 8 years experience working in local Chinese and Taiwanese companies, including 2 years serving as Executive Assistant to Foxconn's Chairman & CEO, Terry Gou. Jamie has been learning Chinese for 15 years and is currently the founder of Rufe Consulting, a Chinese language coaching agency that helps Western professionals learn how to confidently speak basic Chinese in a few months.
LinkedIn: https...
2020-08-1742 min
Geeks Of The Valley#23: Entrepreneurship & Comedy with Corporate Bro's Ross PomerantzRoss Pomerantz AKA Corporate Bro, is a graduate of Stanford Business School and a professional comedian and content creator. He parodies life as a Silicon Valley salesman with weekly sketch comedy that can be found on Youtube or Instagram @Corporate.bro.
Website: https://corporatebro.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corporatebro/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealCorpBro
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/corporate.bro/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIOK2ypWf84RF1lFiOd9_eg
2020-08-1032 min
Geeks Of The Valley#22: Remote VC Investing & Startup Funding with Newchip's Keagan WernickeKeagan Wernicke is the Chief Operating Officer at Newchip. Newchip is the #1 remote accelerator with a special focus on helping founders raise money. A founder, marketer, and serial entrepreneur, Keagan also currently owns a boutique marketing agency, Moonshot Marketers, that helps founders run paid SEM & social ads, and craft marketing strategies. He started his entrepreneurial career right out of college and sold his first company, GroupThreads, an e-commerce platform, in 2017.
Website: https://launch.newchip.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keaganwernicke/
2020-08-0323 min
Geeks Of The Valley#21: Global Family Office Investing with Giampaolo Parigi, Chairman SFOGiampaolo Parigi is a London-based venture capitalist, merchant banker, serial entrepreneur, and chairman of a single family office with 30 years of international track record on the primary and secondary markets. As a deal-maker, he ha invested and advised on transactions in five continents and over seventy-five countries across many different industry sectors and served on the board of directors of financial institutions both in Europe and the USA where he was nearly ten years in Silicon Valley as a VC. He regularly advises institutionals including sovereign wealth funds and banks and raises capital for privately-held and public companies all...
2020-07-2048 min
Geeks Of The Valley#20: Funding Female-Led Startups in APAC with Her Capital's Tanya RolfeTanya founded the Ladies Investment Club in Singapore in 2017. Eager to enter the world of venture, she established a team of 40 female investors providing hard to access funding to female founders. Tanya has a track of building investor teams to provide the right combination of skills required to support founders. Tanya has invested in 6 startups during the 2.5 years she managed the Ladies Investment Club and sits on multiple advisory boards. She has experience of working within portfolio companies and pivoting businesses.
Prior to founding the Ladies Investment Club, Tanya had a 15-year legal career at some of th...
2020-07-1322 min
Geeks Of The Valley#19: Investing in Malaysia & APAC with Ficus Venture Capital's Rina NeohRina is a serial entrepreneur and Asian thought leader in the fields of startup incubation and acceleration, angel investments, venture capital funding, entrepreneurship education, startup ecosystem development, social enterprises, micro-entrepreneurship, and technology-enabled businesses. She is a hands-on entrepreneur with a proven track record in setting up and accelerating startup enterprises with technology or social focus.
As a Co-Founder and Board Director of FICUS Venture Fund, Rina was instrumental in launching the first Shariah-compliant investment company in Malaysia that upholds highest standards of ethical practice. Rina is also a Board Member of the Malaysian Trade (MATRADE) Commission, where sh...
2020-07-0639 min
Geeks Of The Valley#18: The Digital Asset Regulatory Space and Neobanks with Gravitas International's Malcolm TanMalcom is the Chairman and General Counsel of Gravitas International, Founder and CEO of Gravitas.Financial (Challenger Bank), and Managing Director of his own firm Malcolm Tan Chambers LLC, amongst other companies, Malcolm Tan is an established Singaporean lawyer-entrepreneur with extensive experience in the construction, telecommunications, engineering, retail, IT and financial industries. Trained and still practising as a lawyer, Malcolm is also skilled in litigation, corporate law, and mergers and acquisitions. He previously held legal counsel positions in both global and regional capacities across the Asia-Pacific region, MENA, and North America.
He published a book last year...
2020-06-2934 min
Geeks Of The Valley#17: From Academia to Edtech: A Hong Konger's Journey with Polygence's Jin Yun ChowJin is an entrepreneur and scholar currently based in Stanford, California. Along with her co-founder Janos Perczel, she started Polygence, an Ed-Tech company that offers project-based research mentorship to students around the world. Jin graduated from Princeton University as the Valedictorian of the class of 2017, and she went on to Stanford to pursue a PhD in Comparative Literature. She is currently taking a break from her studies to work full-time on Polygence.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jin-yun-chow-stanford/
Email: jin@polygence.org
Featured Articles:
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/04/28/jin-yun-chow-named-valedictorian-grant-storey-selected-salutatorian
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/05/26...
2020-06-2225 min
Geeks Of The Valley#16: The Intersection of Blockchain & Empowering Builders Worldwide with MANTRA’s John Patrick MullinJohn Patrick Mullin is a Hong Kong-based entrepreneur and builder, specializing in DeFi, blockchain technology, digital assets, and Web3. He is the CEO and co-founder of MANTRA and SOMA.finance, with over 10 years of experience in crypto and digital asset investment. John's journey began with Bitcoin in 2013 while studying International Business at SLU-Madrid. He later earned dual Master's Degrees in Management and Economics, working as a senior research analyst at a prominent Chinese State-Owned bank. Inspired by his passion for FinTech, John left his banking job to co-found a crypto exchange project in Hong Kong. Although it was ahead...
2020-06-1531 min
Geeks Of The Valley#15: Quantitative VC Investing and a Path to Personal & Professional Growth with Nuno Goncalves PedroNuno Goncalves Pedro is the founder and managing partner of Strive Capital, the first ever quant early-stage VC firm in the Bay area, focused on consumer and enterprise software, with investments in App Annie, Gusto, Rubrik, Enish (IPO), Virta Health, DraftKings, among others. He is also the venture partner at Grishin Robotics, a Sand Hill Road venture capital firm focused on smart hardware and consumer investments, with investments in companies such as Ring (Sold Amazon), Spin (Sold Ford), Zipline, among others. He is the co-founder and co-host of decipheredshow.com and the creator of the “Rejection & Adversity as a pa...
2020-06-0846 min
Geeks Of The Valley#14: Social Impact Initiatives and Global Startup Ecosystems with Byeonghun KimByeonghun Kim (BK) is a Social Entrepreneur, Engineer, Founder of EcoMake, and Founder of Elwasta. Developer of startup ecosystems, he has traveled to various entrepreneurial communities around the globe to pursue his vision of decentralizing startup resources and venture opportunities to underdeveloped areas of the world. As a 22-year-old entrepreneur, he shares his insights on starting businesses in the US and developing startup communities in Greater Europe and South Korea.
Contact: bhun.kim98@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/byeonghun/
2020-06-0128 min
Geeks Of The Valley#13: The Future of Silicon Valley and the Internet of Value with Gumi Cryptos Capital's Miko MatsumuraMiko Matsumura is a General Partner with Gumi Cryptos, a US $30M venture capital fund focused early stage blockchain startups and a Venture Partner with BitBull Capital, a cryptocurrency fund-of-funds. He is also an advisor to Arrington XRP Capital. He has been a keynote speaker at dozens of blockchain conferences around the world. He is also cofounder of crypto exchange Evercoin,
Miko participated in the first wave of the Internet as chief Evangelist for the Java Language and Platform at Sun Microsystems and is now fully engaged in Internet of value. With 25 years of enterprise software marketing...
2020-05-251h 07
Geeks Of The Valley#12: One Hundred Days of Solitude with Jonathan LopezJonathan was born and raised in Medellin, Colombia, where he developed a strong entrepreneurial spirit that has led him to seek opportunities around the world. At age 18, he moved to Montreal, Canada, traveling out of his hometown for the first time ever. In Canada, he embraced an identity of a global citizen, learning several languages and traveling to 60+ countries. During his Bachelor’s at McGill University, he was also able to intern at the United Nations in Ecuador and study abroad in the Netherlands and Australia. Subsequently, he was chosen as a Schwarzman Scholar to complete a Master’s degr...
2020-05-1830 min
Geeks Of The Valley#11: Investment Opportunities in Energy & Other Beaten Down Sectors: Tradable Patterns with Darren ChuDarren Chu, CFA, is the Founder of Tradable Patterns. As seen on Bloomberg, Refinitiv, Factset, Interactive Brokers and Inside Futures, and downloaded daily by the world's largest asset manager and 4 of the 10 largest hedge funds by AUM, Tradable Patterns publishes 3 newsletters. Today’s Top 3 Trades offers technical analysis on 3 CME/ICE commodity/index futures or spot FX markets (with coverage for 2 markets from a designated asset class(es) for each weekday as seen in the Watchlist), plus the top trade idea for the day from any asset class. All 3 markets covered are selected based on their likelihood to exhibit tren...
2020-05-1133 min
Geeks Of The Valley#10: Africa's Man of Steel with Samir JezziniSamir Jezzini is a Business Consultant, Private Wealth Manager, founder of Higbos Holdings, and founder of Estate Token Trust. Coming from a wealth and investment management background and looking through the eyes of the successful, he offers an intricate insight on the best business strategies and most lucrative investments in Africa and the region. With almost a decade of experience within the large continent, he has executed on marketing and business development strategies successfully. Scrupulously studying and evaluating the economic fundamentals of the markets has allowed him to make informed and rewarding decisions in short and long-term investments.
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2020-05-0429 min
Geeks Of The Valley#09: Doing Deals Responsibly in A Crisis with 1982's Scott Krivokopich1982 Ventures is a Singapore based VC firm focused on investing in early stage fintech start-ups in Southeast Asia. We have experience leading and executing fintech deals in the region. Our focus makes us the first port of call for fintech founders and first money in. Our local networks provide us exclusive deal flow, on-the-ground insights and access to decision makers. 1982 Ventures is investing in and supporting the best founders to positively impact the future of financial services in Southeast Asia. For more information visit: https://1982.vc/.
Scott is the Managing Partner of 1982 Ventures. He is responsible for set...
2020-04-2743 min
Geeks Of The Valley#08: A "Glimpse" into the Future with Akash RajuAkash Raju is the Co-Founder and CEO of Glimpse, a startup enabling product placements in the real world. He is a Purdue graduate where he led many startup initatives and has past experience at companies like Microsoft and Tesla.
Contact: akash@tryglimpse.com
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/akash-raju
Twitter: http://twitter.com/akashraju4
2020-04-2029 min
Geeks Of The Valley#07: COVID-19 & The Future Economy: Tradable Patterns with Darren ChuDarren Chu, CFA, is the Founder of Tradable Patterns. As seen on Bloomberg, Refinitiv, Factset, Interactive Brokers and Inside Futures, and downloaded daily by the world's largest asset manager and 4 of the 10 largest hedge funds by AUM, Tradable Patterns publishes 3 newsletters. Today’s Top 3 Trades offers technical analysis on 3 CME/ICE commodity/index futures or spot FX markets (with coverage for 2 markets from a designated asset class(es) for each weekday as seen in the Watchlist), plus the top trade idea for the day from any asset class. All 3 markets covered are selected based on their likelihood to exhibit tren...
2020-04-1229 min
Geeks Of The Valley#06: Behind The Blockchain: Michael Catt's Journey into maturing the crypto industryWe sat down with Michael Catt, founder of the University of Kansas Blockchain Institute. He currently is a business development associate at Nebula Ventures, a fin-tech and property tech accelerator fund based in New York City. He shares his story of how he first discovered cryptocurrency on Coinbase to eventually helping to secure a $2 Million Dollar research grant from Ripple's $50 Million Dollar Grant Program to expand blockchain research efforts and bridge the knowledge gap between university students and the curriculum. Learn more about Nebula Ventures https://nebulaventures.com/ & KU Blockchain Insitute https://kublockchain.com/.
Contact: mcatt@nebulaventures.io
Li...
2020-02-1025 min
Geeks Of The Valley#05: Women in Entrepreneurship in Asia Pacific with Icey JiangIcey Jiang was a TEDx speaker, a venture capitalist, a former engineering student from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. As a strategic thinker, she is a curious and creative individual with a passion for emerging technology. With an entrepreneurial spirit, an agile and forward-thinking by nature, and an appreciation for digital tools that resolve every day problems, she uses her spare time taking on a proactive role in community services and contributing to the technology startup ecosystem in Hong Kong. Last year, Icey was selected by Google as a Women Techmakers Scholar representing Hong Kong within Asia Pacific. S...
2020-01-2024 min
Geeks Of The Valley#04: PropTech with Bluenest's Jeff LimJeff is the Co-founder and CEO of Bluenest Pte Ltd. Jeff brings significant venture building experience from his early days contribution in Lazada and Zilingo . He worked on commercial strategy, new market expansion and growth in both ecommerce B2C and B2B space. Prior to his stint in internet ventures, Jeff was working with ERA Realty as a Marketing Director.
Contact: jeff@bluenest.sg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-lim/
2020-01-0626 min
Geeks Of The Valley#03: Introduction: Tradable Patterns with Darren ChuDarren Chu, CFA, is the Founder of Tradable Patterns. As seen on Bloomberg, Refinitiv, Factset, Interactive Brokers and Inside Futures, and downloaded daily by the world's largest asset manager and 4 of the 10 largest hedge funds by AUM, Tradable Patterns publishes 3 newsletters. Today’s Top 3 Trades offers technical analysis on 3 CME/ICE commodity/index futures or spot FX markets (with coverage for 2 markets from a designated asset class(es) for each weekday as seen in the Watchlist), plus the top trade idea for the day from any asset class. All 3 markets covered are selected based on their likelihood to exhibit tren...
2019-12-2430 min
Geeks Of The Valley#02: Coinstreet Partners with Samson LeeWe sat down with Samson Lee, the CEO of Coinstreet Partners,a Digital Asset & Wealth Management Asset Tokenization Exchange Platform. The firm enables the next generation of decentralized full-integrated investment banks. He shares his story and impact of the STO industry on Blockchain and regulations surrounding it today.
Email - sl@coinstreet.partners
Website - www.coinstreet.partners
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/samsonlee/
2019-11-1127 min
Geeks Of The Valley#01: How to break into Venture Capital? Latest Startup Trends & Entrepreneurship Advice with Contrary's Keegan McNamaraWe sat down with Keegan McNamara, who is a Student Venture Partner at Contrary Capital. He shares his story and impact of how he broke into the Venture Capital world. We also discuss the types of innovative projects and trends he’s seen and advice on how to support your ideas. You can reach Keegan at keegan@contrarycap.com and learn more about his project at https://aloud.fyi. Follow him at keeganm.org and @keegan_mcnamara on Twitter!
2019-09-2324 min
Geeks Of The Valley#00: Welcome to the Geeks of the Valley PodcastWelcome to “Geeks of the Valley” Podcast, which connects with some of the brightest minds globally, who are leading their respective industries today, to discuss the hottest upcoming industry trends and how their work is affecting the global economy.
As a podcast we focus across four unique industry sectors from Venture Capital & Private Equity, to Innovative Minds, Entrepreneurship, and Generation Z’s.
If you have your own suggestions of people you would like to hear from, feel free to reach-out to us at geeks@geeksofthevalley.com.
Website: https://geeksofthevalley.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/co...
2019-09-0103 min