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Hi there and welcome to Funded, where we spotlight the early-stage bets on the future of tech. Today, we look...
Deployment of capital may be down this year but VCs have shifted gear, bringing extra focus to founders and their ability to adapt.
Brazil's fintech Nomad took $61 million in a Series-B funding round to expand its portfolio. Tiger Global Management led the investment.
In this conversation, we talk with Kevin Owocki, who serves as the CEO & Chief Roboticist at Gitcoin, about the evolution of the programmable blockchain space, how open software gets made, where value comes from and all sorts of other really cool futuristic things.
Additionally, we explore the nuances of being an early developer in shifting markets, idea mazes, the founding of and philosophy behind Gitcoin, the deep work being done towards the Open Internet, the building of community-driven grant mechanisms, early work on quadratic-funding, and the idea behind memes powering DeFi.
Two things are on my mind: (1) the acquisition of United Capital by Goldman Sachs, and (2) Mike Cagney's Figure securing a $1 billion funding line from Jefferies and WSFS for blockchain-tracked home equity loans. Both are outcomes of complex, interesting, somewhat unexpected processes -- and both are examples of demand-driven market expansion. Let me highlight that again. Both of these are consumer-centric developments, and not product-driven developments, which goes to the core of the problem in the financial services industry.