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Matthew Le Merle is Managing Partner and CEO of Blockchain Coinvestors.Launched in 2014, Blockchain Coinvestors' vision is that digital monies, commodities and assets are inevitable and all of the world's financial infrastructure must be upgraded. Our mission is to provide broad coverage of the emerging unicorns and fastest growth blockchain companies and crypto projects. Our investment strategy is now in its 9th year and has to date invested in more than 40 pure play blockchain venture funds in the Americas, Asia and Europe; and in a combined portfolio of 750+ blockchain companies and projects including 75+ blockchain unicorns. Our funds rank in the top decile amongst all funds in their respective categories on both Pitchbook and Preqin. Headquartered in San Francisco with a presence in Grand Cayman, London, New York, Zug and Zurich, the alternative investment management firm was co-founded by Alison Davis and Matthew Le Merle.Matthew is also Managing Partner of Keiretsu - the most active early-stage venture investors backing over 300 companies a year.Matthew's career has spanned being a global strategy advisor, professional services firm leader, corporate operating executive, private equity and venture capital investor, and board director. His board work has included Chairman or Non-Executive Director roles in 15 public and private companies and active Advisory Board roles in fast growth companies. Matthew's board experience includes a broad range of industries including Digital Content/videogames, eCommerce, Fintech/Blockchain, Business Services, Consumer and Retail.Earlier in his career, Matthew spent 21 years as a strategy, operations and corporate finance advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs, boards and executive teams with McKinsey & Company, and as a practice leader with A.T. Kearney and Monitor Group where he led both firms' West Coast practices and at Booz & Company. He was also a corporate executive at Gap Inc. where he was SVP strategy and corporate development and SVP global marketing.Matthew is bestselling author (The Intelligent Investor – Silicon Valley, Blockchain Competitive Advantage, Corporate Innovation in the Fifth Era, Build your Fortune in the Fifth Era, The Ministry of Bitcoin and Second Chance) and keynote speaker. He received a B.A. (Double First) and Master's from Christ Church, Oxford, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was born in London, UK, and is now a dual US/UK citizen and lives in San Francisco and London with his wife, Alison Davis. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crypto-hipster-podcast/support
0:00 -- Intro.2:08 -- Start of interview.2:45 -- Alison's "origin story". 5:07 -- Her experience in management consulting with McKinsey & Co and Kearney.5:49 -- Her experience as CFO at Barclays Global Investors (now BlackRock) and with private equity as the managing director of Belvedere Capital, focused on investing in US banks and financial services firms. The challenges of banking post-financial crisis and Dodd-Frank (2010).9:26 -- Her pivot to fintech and blockchain investing. Since 2014 she's been investing in crypto. She co-founded Blockchain Coinvestors with her husband Mathew Le Merle.11:57 -- Her take on the future of blockchain "I think that it's completely inevitable that fully digital assets and fully digital payments are coming, it's just a matter of time [but timing is everything if you're an investor]." "There is no doubt in my mind that blockchain technology is a massively important component of the next generation of our global digital economy." "We will have fully digitally enabled payment and assets as part of our next generation web [some referred it as Web 3.0]."13:38 -- On her experience with public company board service. Her first board was in 1998 with Dispatch Management Services Company [Founded in 1994 by Linda Jenkinson and Greg Kidd. DMSC was a publicly traded company that handled point-to-point delivery services]. At the time she was CFO at BGI. Since then, she has served on 22 corporate boards, over half of them public companies, the others in private companies. "It's been fascinating and I really enjoy [this work] enormously."16:51 -- In 2011 she was invited to join the board of the Royal Bank of Scotland. That was her introduction to U.K. corporate governance. She was on the board for 9 years, because there are term limits in the U.K. [after 9 years, a director is no longer considered 'independent'].20:25 -- On dual-class share structures adopted in the UK (against the long standing "one share, one vote" principle).21:24-- On the role of the board in strategy and innovation. "When public companies lose a lot value, 80% of the time it's because of strategy missteps."25:51 -- How should boards deal with crisis management. "From the crisis that I've experienced as a director, ~40% of them have been due to exogenous factors, and ~60% have been due to self-inflicted wounds (such as bad culture, personality clashes, single person failure, etc)." In the latter case, a lot of them could have been spotted earlier by a really engaged board that was connected enough to the company to understand that these things were arising."28:21 -- On whether having more inside (executive) directors on boards impacts at all the governance of the company.29:54 -- On the idea of having employee representatives on corporate boards of directors. "We explored this seriously at RBS, but we decided instead that a sub-committee of the board spend time on 'employee listening sessions' and we created a workers' council to connect on these matters." "I think that U.S. boards could really benefit from more listening sessions with key stakeholders."32:47 -- On the evolution of sustainability and ESG. Her experience with Barclays Global Investors, and the vision of then CEO Patty Dunn, who questioned the idea of companies having great short term value but leaving a wake of damage that later society and/or tax payers had to pay. She posited having a more active role as stewards of long term capital for a more sustainable future. The case of RBS, going from darlings of Wall Street to almost the world's biggest bank failure. "That was a wake up call." "I am a big fan of ESG broadly defined." "I am really excited that [big institutional investors] have leaned in and are tipping this discussion."38:58 -- On the growing influence of large institutional investors in corporate governance: "The [beneficiaries of large index funds] do not want short-term high profit at long-term costs to the economy and people's lives." "I'm very supportive of large institutional investors focusing on broader societal issues and the health of capitalism." "Can capitalism retain the trust of the people that live in a capitalist system?" "I mean, you could democratize the whole thing and say everyone has a vote but your average person is not investing the time to get really educated on these issues."41:35 -- On the books that she's co-authored with her husband Matthew Le Merle: Build your Fortune in the Fifth Era,Corporate Innovation in the Fifth Era,Blockchain Competitive Advantage, andThe Intelligent Investor – Silicon Valley.44:55 -- No specific books "that have changed her life", but she's a big reader of The Economist.45:42 -- Who were your mentors, and what did you learn from them? Patty Dunn, ex CEO of BGI. "She touched my heart, as well my [mind]. She was a great leader and was very inspirational."Ross McEwan, ex CEO of RBS47:26 -- Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by? From Desiderata (1927): "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy." 48:32 -- An unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love: "Making jam with my husband, we make a killer Lemoncello and apricot jam"!49:14 -- The person(s) she most admires: entrepreneurs from the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center (she's a board member of this organization).Alison Davis the Co-Founder and Chair of Blockchain Coinvestors & Fifth Era, a leading VC firm investing in blockchain and Web 3. She currently serves as an independent director at Silicon Valley Bank, Fiserv, Janus Henderson Investors, Collibra and Pacaso. She also serves as the Chair of the Advisory Board for Blockchain Capital LLC, advisor to Bitwise Asset Management and board member of the NACD Northern California Chapter.__ You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
This episode has been published and can be heard everywhere your podcast is available. Jamil tackles Matthew Le Merle, who is co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era which manages Blockchain Coinvestors - the world's leading blockchain venture fund of funds. Matthew is also Managing Partner of Keiretsu - the most active early stage venture investors backing almost 200 companies a year. He is Chairman of CAH, Securitize (Europe), Universal Protocol Alliance and Vice Chairman of SFOX. Matthew grew up in England before living most of his life in Silicon Valley where he raised his five children with his wife Alison Davis. Today he splits his time between the US and UK. By day he is an investor in technology companies and a bestselling author and speaker on innovation, investing and the future having worked at McKinsey, A.T. Kearney, Monitor, Booz and Gap. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, writing and photography. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and Stanford and is an adjunct professor at Singularity U. To learn more go to www.fifthera.com Here are some of the things they discussed 1. What is your own background? It is a logical background to what you do now? 2.Give us with a brief overview of Blockchain Coinvestors and Fifth Era along with an overview of your investment mandate principles. 3. You are a best selling author and researcher. You recently conducted an in-depth focus study of 10,000 institutional investors and high net worth individuals about some common myths and fears concerning Bitcoin. Could you please provide us a snapshot of some of your key findings? What were they? 4. The #1 fear was Bitcoin isn't safe to own. How do you feel about that result and what measures do you feel would support your investors in changing their minds? 5. Of the remaining concerns, what one most surprised you and why? 6. What result did you most expect to see but maybe expected a larger percentage of concern? Why? 7. Bitcoin has only been adopted by a small number of Fortune 1000 companies publicly, including Microstrategy and Tesla. The actual number is in contrast to your focus group findings about Wall Street greed, though both your HNW audience and my blue collar friends feel the same way. How do you see, in actuality, Bitcoin and Wall Street playing out in the short, medium and long term? 8. What do you think it will take to really achieve mass adoption? 9. In addition to Bitcoin, I noticed your firm recently took on coin investments in both Aave and Uniswap, which are open sourced decentralized protocols on the Ethereum network. As an Aave investor, that captivated my interest. I would expect a Silicon Valley VC to be more interested in a VC backed crypto such as Maker or Compound. What prompted your interest in Aave and Uniswap? Host Jamil Hasan is the Crypto Hipster. Jamil hosts this global crypto and blockchain audio podcast series where he interviews founders and co-founders, entrepreneurs and artists, executives and stay-at-home Hipsters in crypto and blockchain from all around the world. Jamil is a five-time author and best known for being the pre-eminent author in the field of Blockchain Ethics. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/crypto-hipster-podcast/support
Maren is joined on the podcast by Matthew Le Merle of Blockchain Coinvestors. Matthew is passionate about what he calls the Fifth Era, a future digital world. He and Maren discuss his vision of how digitalization and decentralization can and will impact the world of capital formation, marketing, and the future of work. You can find more information about Matthew, his books, and his speaking engagements at www.matthewlemerle.com and you can learn more about his fund of funds, Blockchain Coinvestors, at www.blockchaincoinvestors.com See more: https://blog.avratalent.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The 56th episode of The European VC is out and we're talking to Matthew Le Merle, co-founder & managing partner of Blockchain co-investors, a blockchain FoF investing in the leading pure-play blockchain VCs and managing partner of Keiretsu - one of the biggest and most active angel networks in the world. What you'll learn in this episode:- Learnings on community building from building Keiretsu up to have global coverage and be one of the premier global angel clubs.- How Keiretsu collaborates with VCs and how Matthew has taken that to the next level with his blockchain co-investors' fund.- What led Matthew to founding Blockchain co-investors, what they're looking for in VCs and how they pick them.- Why Matthew believes specialization is coming for the blockchain investment landscape and how he pursues this thesis- Exactly what are the key learnings from Matthew's book “The Fifth Era” and what it means to VCs
We unstack:►Death of the corporate industrial era company model►Generation “Connect” and investing in the Fifth Era►Thoughts on Charlie Munger's Bitcoin comments ►Escaping from embedded mental models►The “optimum” investment portfolio and why it's outdated►Why traditional financial institutions are not equipped to understand cryptoLINKSWhat Concerns Investors About Bitcoin?FOLLOW OUR GUESTMatthew Le Merle (Twitter | Website)FOLLOW AMBER GROUPTwitter | Email | WebsiteDISCLOSUREThe Crypto Unstacked Podcast is meant for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Nothing expressed in this podcast should be construed as a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement or offer by Amber Group to buy or sell any financial products. Information expressed by the host or guest in this podcast does not necessarily reflect the views of Amber Group.#AmberGroup #FifthEra #CryptoUnstacked
Matthew Le Merle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era and Blockchain Coinvestors joins the show. In this episode we discuss: Matthew’s views on The Rise of Generation C and some of the trends he foresaw ten years ago Views on the GameStop / WSB saga and what this portends for the financial markets in the years to come The state of the cryptoasset market and the infrastructure that is being deployed in 2021 How he thinks about approaching this industry as a leading fund of funds Learn more about Blockchain Coinvestors at their website and follow Matthew on Twitter @mlemerle
Jamil tackles Matthew Le Merle, who is co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era which manages Blockchain Coinvestors - the world's leading blockchain venture fund of funds. Matthew is also Managing Partner of Keiretsu - the most active early stage venture investors backing almost 200 companies a year. He is Chairman of CAH, Securitize (Europe), Universal Protocol Alliance and Vice Chairman of SFOX. Matthew grew up in England before living most of his life in Silicon Valley where he raised his five children with his wife Alison Davis. Today he splits his time between the US and UK. By day he is an investor in technology companies and a bestselling author and speaker on innovation, investing and the future having worked at McKinsey, A.T. Kearney, Monitor, Booz and Gap. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, writing and photography. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and Stanford and is an adjunct professor at Singularity U. To learn more go to www.fifthera.com Here are some of the things they discussed 1. What is your own background? It is a logical background to what you do now? 2.Give us with a brief overview of Blockchain Coinvestors and Fifth Era along with an overview of your investment mandate principles. 3. You are a best selling author and researcher. You recently conducted an in-depth focus study of 10,000 institutional investors and high net worth individuals about some common myths and fears concerning Bitcoin. Could you please provide us a snapshot of some of your key findings? What were they? 4. The #1 fear was Bitcoin isn't safe to own. How do you feel about that result and what measures do you feel would support your investors in changing their minds? 5. Of the remaining concerns, what one most surprised you and why? 6. What result did you most expect to see but maybe expected a larger percentage of concern? Why? 7. Bitcoin has only been adopted by a small number of Fortune 1000 companies publicly, including Microstrategy and Tesla. The actual number is in contrast to your focus group findings about Wall Street greed, though both your HNW audience and my blue collar friends feel the same way. How do you see, in actuality, Bitcoin and Wall Street playing out in the short, medium and long term? 8. What do you think it will take to really achieve mass adoption? 9. In addition to Bitcoin, I noticed your firm recently took on coin investments in both Aave and Uniswap, which are open sourced decentralized protocols on the Ethereum network. As an Aave investor, that captivated my interest. I would expect a Silicon Valley VC to be more interested in a VC backed crypto such as Maker or Compound. What prompted your interest in Aave and Uniswap? About Jamil Hasan Jamil Hasan is a Generation X Author and experienced data intelligence technology builder with two decades of experience leading data-based teams at Fortune 100 companies, including AIG, Prudential Financial, and Ingersoll Rand. Jamil believes that skill and experience, not just age, is the most important factor required to build and lead corporate organizations. His unique story, as someone on the ground floor of the 2008 financial crisis and his role to help repay the $180 billion AIG bailout, enabled him to come face-to-face with many of the societal ills facing Generation X today and their causes. As the result of his experience, Jamil has developed a path forward for his fellow Gen Xers to restore his generation's financial standing in society today and to rebuild the American Dream for Generation X. For Questions: Email Jamil at jamil@jamilhasan.com or info@jamilhasan.net See more on his website here.
Completing our journey to a digital future - why digital monies, assets, and blockchain are likely to change everything for our businesses. Matthew Le Merle is co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era which manages Blockchain Co-investors - the world's leading blockchain venture fund of funds. Matthew takes a potentially complicated subject matter, our digital future, and lays out some straightforward expectations that we should have about what to expect and how it will impact our businesses. In this podcast, Matthew addresses some frequently asked questions about the emergence of digital monies and digital assets, their use of blockchain technology, and how this can help address the challenges of the existing Internet that we all rely upon Security, identity, and trust.
Matthew Le Merle is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital, one of the most active early-stage venture investors backing almost 200 companies a year. They've backed over 20 unicorns, including Airbnb, Spotify, Coinbase, and many more. Matthew has advised leading companies, including Amazon, Cisco, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, on growth and innovation. He's an economic value creation expert that has helped drive annual savings of over $2 billion at a leading retailer and $1 billion at a leading bank. He has written several books with the latest one being The Intelligent Investor - Silicon Valley: Practical Wisdom for Investors and Entrepreneurs from 50 Leading Silicon Valley Angels and Venture Capitalists which he co-wrote with Alison Davis. In this episode… Early-stage investing is difficult and often very risky–many people have invested their money in the wrong start-ups and ended up losing money. But what if there was a way to avoid and minimize losses in early-stage investing? And more importantly, what if there was a way to connect the dots to spot potential unicorns before most people do? On this episode of Inspired Insider, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Matthew Le Merle, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital, about investing in early-stage companies and how rewarding it can be. Matthew shares how investors determine the value of an early-stage startup, where the next opportunities could be today, the importance of fishing for the right investment opportunities in the right places, and how Fifth Era views the changes in society today. Stay tuned.
In this episode, Hall welcomes back Matthew Le Merle, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital to discuss early-stage investing and “The Intelligent Investor: Silicon Valley”, a book Matthew and his wife Alison Davis have just authored. Matthew is a manager of Blockchain Coinvestors, the world’s leading blockchain venture fund of funds and Chairman of CAH and Securitize (Europe) and Vice Chairman of SFOX. Blockchain Coinvestors has a strategy of being an investor in the leading Blockchain venture firms including 1Confirmation, 1kx, Blockchain.com Ventures, Blockchain Capital, Castle Island, DGH, Digital Currency Group, Fabric, FuturePerfect, Hashkey, IDEO and Pantera among others. He is a bestselling author and keynote speaker and received a B.A. (Double First) and Master’s from Christ Church, Oxford, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He lives in San Francisco and London, UK with his wife, Alison Davis. They have five adult children. You can purchase Matthew’s book on , , or , as well as other online book companies. Matthew can be contacted at and .
Completing our journey to a digital future - why digital monies, assets, and blockchain are likely to change everything for our businesses. Matthew Le Merle is co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era which manages Blockchain Co-investors - the world's leading blockchain venture fund of funds. Matthew takes a potentially complicated subject matter, our digital future, and lays out some straightforward expectations that we should have about what to expect and how it will impact our businesses. In this podcast, Matthew addresses some frequently asked questions about the emergence of digital monies and digital assets, their use of blockchain technology, and how this can help address the challenges of the existing Internet that we all rely upon Security, identity, and trust.
Matthew Le Merle, the co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era, Keiretsu Capital and Blockchain Coinvestors joins the podcast. In this episode we discuss: - Matthew's career arc and how he came to understand the potential impact of blockchain technology - Building Blockchain Coinvestors, and the investment strategy of investing in blockchain venture capital funds - Predictions and analysis on institutional custody, stablecoins, Bitcoin adoption in emerging markets and more Learn more about Matthew and Blockchain Coinvestors at: https://www.blockchaincoinvestors.com/
Matthew Le Merle is co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era which manages Blockchain Co-investors - the world's leading Blockchain venture fund of funds. Hear the simple actions you can take to be ahead of the game in the digital economy of the future… it’s all about mindset!Matthew takes a potentially complicated subject matter, Blockchain technology, and simplifies the concept and future applications. This technology will change our lives significantly. In this podcast Matthew addresses some frequently asked questions about this technology: What would a digital economy look like? How could it change my business/investments/life & How does this technology address the current challenges of the existing internet: Security, identity and trust.
Welcome to Building the Blockchain Internet Talk Podcast show. Brought to you by Acquchat.com. I’m David your host along with my Co-Host Will Walker from Crowdcreate.us. Our Season 2 Episodes we interview investors, founders, leaders of startup Incubators, Accelerators and companies that are disrupting our daily lives. We recorded this podcast interview with our special guest Matthew LeMerle from Fifth Era and Keiretsu Capital Blockchain Funds. Available at Amazon.com today! Blockchain Competitive Advantage by Alison Davis and Matthew C. Le Merle. Whether you are an entrepreneur, investor, or established company, learn how to win the battle for blockchain competitive advantage. Blockchain Competitive Advantage available now on Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1950248046/. Disclaimer: We do not recommend investing in any specific or particular ICO’s/STO’s, Funds or any Cryptocurrencies without first getting financial advice from a professional that you know and trust. Building the Blockchain podcast is here to help you better understand and be aware of the latest developments, trends in Blockchain. Listen to us interview investors, founders, leaders of startup Incubators, Accelerators and companies that are disrupting our daily lives. Listen to all our podcasts at Anchor.fm: https://anchor.fm/building-the-blockchain --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/building-the-blockchain/support
by London based artist and Resident DJ at Fnoob Techno Radio @soylentblack "This mix is full of some of my key classics, which I'm guessing I'll never get sick of playing, such as; Skinny Puppy, Dive, PAL, pailhead. Some hardcore techno; FIFTH ERA, TERRORFAKT, and DJ Amok. Major favourite producers from the last decade like; Tomohiko Sagae, Ancient Methods." Link to full interview here https://www.facebook.com/virtualundergroundtechno/posts/774218016264949
Matthew Le Merle is co-founder and Managing Partner of Fifth Era and of Keiretsu Capital – the most active early stage venture investors backing more than 175 companies a year. Matthew is an expert on corporate growth, innovation and business transformations having advised leading companies including Amazon, Cisco, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, PayPal and many... The post Building the Most Active Angel Network Worldwide and Dominating as a Husband and Wife Investor Duo with Matthew Le Merle of Keiretsu Capital appeared first on The Syndicate.
Matthew Le Merle is co-founder of Fifth Era and managing partner of Keiretsu Capital, which is the world’s largest angel network and most active US venture investor. Most recently, Le Merle is the author of a new book titled Build Your Fortune in the Fifth Era: How to Prosper in an Age of Unprecedented Innovation. During […]
On this episode of the Innovation Agenda, we get into the second part of our interview with Matthew LeMerle. We talk through privacy, millennials, and emerging markets, all related to the survey his firm, Fifth Era, conducted among investors worldwide regarding their attitudes toward Internet regulation.
In this episode of the Innovation Agenda, we hear part one of our conversation with Matthew LeMerle. Matthew dives deep into the results of his firm's annual survey of investor attitudes toward internet regulation.