What does someone in a platform role at a venture fund do? Platform covers post-investment support for portfolio companies. My job is to be a resource for founders to aid in their success. This can entail assisting startups with business development, talent recruitment, community and content management, fundraising, product feedback and more. This Forbes article breaks down the position well, it is a relatively new but growing role at funds.  

Why FPV? Jalak Jobanputra started her web3 fund in 2014 as one of the few VCs investing in blockchain technology, let alone as one of the even fewer women running their own fund. She was already discussing the promises of Bitcoin in 2014 and believed in the globalization of venture and technology ahead of the trend. FPV’s mission is to invest in founders who believe that decentralization ensuing from the combination of people and machines, and peer-to-peer connectivity, will lead to an enhanced experience for all of humanity. That is a mission I can get behind. Leading up to my new role, Jalak and I had very transparent discussions on where Jalak sees the future of FPV headed and we aligned on the goals and values of the fund. As all of us have seen time after time, technology can have a huge impact on the social fabric of the world and can be used for harm as well, therefore it is important for investors to be thoughtful about what their capital is backing. Jalak has been a mindful investor by giving opportunities to underrepresented founders globally for 24 years, FPV was one of the first funds to have a global thesis at the seed stage (very different in a 2014, pre-COVID world). The fund demonstrated this by being seed investors in Bitpesa (now Aza) a female-founded Kenyan based digital currency payments platform, and in Blockchain.com, a UK based digital assets exchange which was founded in 2011 and covers one third of all bitcoin transactions in addition to 48 other startups across South America, Europe, Africa and the United States. In order to advocate for a decentralized technology you need to believe that talent is also truly distributed and back that belief with funding.

I am also excited to weave my cybersecurity background into the role, which was personally very important to me, since security is not an afterthought (as we’ve seen in web2) but a pillar of blockchain technology. I am joining during FPV’s growth and managing an active portfolio of over 50 companies that are leaders in the space and look forward to building out the platform and working with FPV’s portfolio to maximize the value of the communities they and FPV have built. 

Why Miami? Jalak spent 17 years in NYC building the tech ecosystem via the public and private sector which includes working for the New York Investment Fund where she formed one of NYC’s first seed funds and helped establish the Fintech Innovation Lab in 2010. She is now bringing that same passion to Miami. In fact, I first learned about her relocating to Miami in February 2021 after watching her Cafecito Talk with Mayor Suarez where she spoke about plans to grow her fund in Miami and her belief in the talent of people and power globally- not just in the United States. After watching Jalak’s interview I reached out to her on Twitter asking her for a coffee chat, particularly because I didn’t know any other South Asian women in entrepreneurship in Miami at the time. She responded that same day and we had a great lunch bonding over crypto, ballet, and our Indian heritage, and have remained friends since. This is just one example of the collaborative environment the Miami Tech community and Mayor’s office have created and we are going to continue to pay it forward to a city that has done so much for its tech community. 

If you are a startup in the web3 space and are looking to connect with the fund and learn more about our thesis contact me at supreet@fpv.vc