Meet Our Funders
Richard Rofe — Arcadia Crypto Ventures
“I’ve kinda seen this before, …I saw it with the internet, …it’s a world-changing shift and we’re an early part of it.”
Richard Rofe is the co-founder, and managing partner of Arcadia Crypto Ventures, a private firm focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain-based investments and advisory services. Mr. Rofe is a serial entrepreneur with experience founding, building and selling companies across a wide variety of industries. He has also garnered institutional experience, running a hedge fund on Wall Street for 12 years. His involvement in blockchain and cryptocurrencies dates back to 2012, where he recalls attending his very first conference, in which all attendees could have been fit into one small room. He notes that blockchain is a global phenomenon, and recognizes it as a technological shift comparable to the advent of the internet.
When discussing investments, Mr. Rofe says that he applies similar techniques in crypto as he would in the traditional space as an entrepreneur or an investor. Due to the low barrier to entry, there are a multitude of potential deals floating around, but Richard speaks to understanding the underlying business, what does the blockchain technology intend to disrupt, how it will do so, how long this will last and how many people will be interested in it. Additionally, he highlights the importance of the team behind the project, specifically the extent of their technological and business background.
Anthony Coscio — TokenStack Partners
Anthony Coscio is one of two managing partners at TokenStack Partners, a venture capital firm that actively invests within the blockchain space. TokenStack has been involved during the early stages of a multitude of different projects, including: Filecoin, TenX, Storj, WePower, Civic, Orchid, doc.ai, Enigma, Kyber Network, 0x and Lottery.com. He has over 25 years of experience investing in debt and equity capital markets, and has been a managing partner at Gemini Capital Partners for over 20 years, with a focus on technology, media and telecom. His advisory services in the realms of tokenomics and ICO sale structure are in high demand within the industry.
Bradley Rotter — Entanglement Research Institute, Rivetz
“This internet thing is going to be big” — Bradley Rotter, 1995
Bradley Rotter is the co-founder, and a member of the Board of Directors at the Entanglement Research Institute — a facility focused on empowering researchers to unlock the potential of quantum and alternative computing. He is also the Vice Chairman at Rivetz, a blockchain project focused on cyber security, specifically harnessing the hardware-based “Trusted Execution Environment” found in mobile devices. Described as a visionary investor, Mr. Rotter has pioneered investment in many new alternative investment classes, beginning with Hedge Funds in 1982, and was awarded the “Investor Dealers Digest Private Deal of the Year Award” in 1996 for an innovative securitization which precede an IPO on Nasdaq.
Bradley has been actively involved in cryptocurrency investments for the past 6 years, after being introduced to Bitcoin by a 15-year-old. He likens Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to the emergence of an asset class he helped to pioneer, financial futures, which at the time were considered controversial, not unlike cryptocurrencies. Just as he championed the potential for financial futures to hedge against interest rate risk, he has become a thought leader and an advocate for the blockchain ecosystem. He has expressed specific interest in the tokenization of infrastructure, and its ability to open up opportunities for individual investors.
“Stay hungry. Stay humble. Stay ambitious. Stay curious. Be a student, always.”
The CIO and Managing Partner of BlockTower Capital, a crypto-asset investment firm that he co-founded in August 2017 alongside Matthew Goetz, former vice president at Goldman Sachs, Ari Paul is described as a passionate investor with a background in derivatives trading and institutional investing. Prior to his BlockTower days, Mr. Paul worked as a risk specialist and portfolio manager at the University of Chicago’s endowment investment office, and as a derivatives trader at Susquehanna International Group. He regularly shares his thoughts via Twitter, and his personal blog, the “The Cryptocurrency Investor — bringing professional capital allocation to the cryptospace,” and was notably interviewed by Forbes inaugural “10 Q’s In Crypto” segment, where influential names in blockchain and cryptocurrency share their insight on the space.
“Blockchain technology represents one of the greatest generational opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors.”
Matthew Roszak is the Chairman and Co-Founder of Bloq, a company that builds solutions, dapps and protocols for retailers and institutions. An industry thought leader with an illustrious career spanning technology, venture capital, private equity and blockchain, Mr. Roszak has been involved in tech and VC his entire career, co-founding five enterprise software companies, taking companies public, and investing in a multitude of companies. He was first introduced to Bitcoin in 2011, at which point he believed it was “too good to be true.” By 2013 he was actively involved in Bitcoin, and took part in some of the first ICO’s (Mastercoin, Maidsafe and Factom), prior to the term being “coined.”
He founded Tally Capital in 2013, a private investment firm focused on cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based technology, that holds interest in a number of successful projects and exchanges, including: Binance, Block.One, Civic, Genaro, Hilo, Messari, Orchid, Polymath, Rivetz, SpaceChain, tZERO, Qtum, Coinbase, Kraken and BTCC.
Additionally, Mr. Roszak serves as the Chairman for the Chamber of Digital Commerce, founded the Token Alliance, and serves on the board of BitGive, a non-profit foundation that looks to improve philanthropic ventures through blockchain technology. A true blockchain advocate, Mr. Roszak has sponsored over 40 dinners, providing enthusiasts and technologists a forum to meet and discuss ideas. He is famous for giving the likes of Richard Branson, Bill Clinton and Kim Kardashian their first Bitcoin.
“The biggest piece wasn’t that I was early and made early gains. It was the community that I built.”
James Lowry is a retired attorney, and the co-founder of Storj, a protocol focused on decentralized file storage. Mr. Lowry has a dynamic background stemming from technological and legal roots — he practiced as a Public Defender for five and a half years, while operating a Bitcoin mining business called Big Time Coin. In 2014, his focus exclusively shifted to a role as an angel investor in cryptocurrency projects.
Lars Rensing — Ark Ecosystem
Lars Rensing is the co-founder and CFO at Ark Ecosystem, a blockchain project focused on driving mass adoption, and providing all-in-one blockchain solutions. The Ark Ecosystem is a first of its kind in that it is a unique business entity — registered as a “Cooperative Society of Collective Interests,” and is the first blockchain project to be incorporated in France.
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