In this episode of Inside the Hutt, Brooke Pollack interviews Jim Parillo, Managing Partner of Figment Capital. Jim shares his unconventional journey from CPA and tax advisor at KPMG to leading an early-stage crypto venture fund. They explore the evolution of Figment Capital from its infrastructure-focused roots to its current emphasis on application-layer investments. The discussion covers Jim's investment philosophy, thoughts on emerging infrastructure trends, navigating ecosystem bets, and his views on overrated and underappreciated areas in crypto today. Jim also highlights portfolio companies he's excited about and reflects on lessons learned building the firm.
Key Points From This Episode:
Jim Parillo’s background, starting in tax at KPMG before transitioning to Figment Capital.
The origins and evolution of Figment Capital from a validator-aligned fund to an independent early-stage VC.
Strategic shift from infrastructure to earlier-stage application-layer investments in fund two.
The team’s approach to investing primarily at the pre-seed and seed stages.
Insights into portfolio construction and avoiding mandate creep by focusing on private, early-stage deals.
How Figment Capital assesses ecosystem risk when backing applications on emerging L1s and L2s.
Discussion on valuation dynamics and deal flow advantages in emerging blockchain ecosystems.
Reframing what "infrastructure" means today, with focus on middleware and liquidity-enabling tools.
Examples of innovative infrastructure bets like Predicate and liquidity tools for prediction markets.
Views on overhyped trends (e.g. hyper-gambling) vs. underappreciated ones (e.g. long-term wealth creation).
Reflections on the effects of degeneracy culture and short-termism in crypto investing.
Key lessons for emerging managers: team importance, process discipline, and avoiding idea-over-team bias.
Portfolio highlights including Monad, MegaETH, Fact Machine, Euphoria, Legend Trade, Fastlane, Pair Protocol, and Asula.
Links
Jim Parillo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesparillo/
Figment Capital: https://www.figmentcapital.io/
Figment Capital on X: https://x.com/FigmentCapital
Brooke Pollack on X: https://x.com/bhpollack
Brooke Pollack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookepollack/
Hutt Capital: https://www.huttcapital.com/