We engage in long-term partnerships with world-class teams that are uniquely suited to transform big challenges into bigger opportunities.
Fintech innovation of the last decade was characterized by startups that made existing financial products digital-first. Now, many of those companies threaten legacy financial institutions and, as a result, financial products and services are being fundamentally reimagined. A new era of application layer financial product innovation is now possible, opening the gates to embed financial services inside software. Decentralized finance accelerates these possibilities even further, using code to replace gatekeepers. In many regions around the globe, underserved individuals and organizations are leapfrogging traditional financial services and gaining access to the financial sector for the first time via fintech. In our view, every sector in the world of financial services will be rebuilt from the ground up and we are still in the early innings of this transformation.
A hyper connected world is driving the need for new ecosystems for security, management, and integration. Software architectures are more complex than ever, and our environments straddle the physical and digital worlds. Securing important systems, fundamentally building in privacy, and respecting data sovereignty are not just a market and consumer expectation but part of an expanding regulatory mandate. The application of technologies like machine learning are enabling new ways of digesting and acting on latent information to better secure systems, and cryptographic advances enable new ways of thinking about the nature of identity.
Byzantine software environments and the distributed nature of work combine with avalanches of new data creation to create siloes and fragmentation. With so much sensitive (yet critically useful) data out there, the role of data arbiters that enable understanding and defragmentation without compromising the underlying data is critical. The thoughtful use of technologies like machine learning and deeper integrations enable new business workflows, and swathes of previously offline workflows are coming online. Decentralization of platforms emphasizes the importance of networks & protocols.
Community drives human belonging. Online consumer networks and marketplaces are improving human connection and enabling a sense of community among their users. These networks require tailor-made features and thrive on authenticity. New technologies are driving richer interaction that was previously not possible. AR & VR experiences bolstered by new devices and faster connectivity are increasingly accessible. Machine learning is enabling improved personalization and targeting. And blockchain and crypto economics are fostering new types of incentive structures for creators, community leaders, and loyal fandoms. The desire to push the limits of new platforms and technologies is driving a new cycle of consumer innovation and the future of human experience and connection.
Advances in technology underpin much of our thesis work. A continued evolution from highly local to “everywhere” compute has led to the emergence of Web 3.0. Decentralized computing systems and platforms that enable programmatic platform rules and digital-native ecosystems provide opportunities for authentic participation, incentive alignment, and true bottoms-up scale. This new computing and community paradigm intersects each of our core thesis areas and opens up a new world of opportunities.