Around The Coin

Patrick Kann is the CEO and co-founder of Papaya, a mobile application that uses computer vision technology to pay any bill in a matter of seconds. Prior to Papaya, Patrick worked at the New Ventures Group at idealab. He previously worked at World Bank, was a Private Equity Executive at Macquarie Group, and held the position of Director of Corporate Development at eSolar. Patrick is originally from Brazil where he received his Bachelor’s of Science in Industrial Engineering. He then moved to the United States where he received his MBA at Stanford University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karn is responsible for operations, business development, and investor relations at Cover. Before entrepreneurship, Karn was a management consultant, and he went on to complete his Masters at MIT where he attended as a Fulbright Scholar. His first company, Stylekick, was acquir-hired by Shopify in 2015.The first company Karn co-founded was a mobile e-commerce marketplace called Stylekick, which was acqui-hired by Shopify in 2015. Before entrepreneurship, Karn was a management consultant with the financial services advisory practice, Oliver Wyman.With more than 7 years of experience building intuitive mobile products, Karn is now applying his expertise towards making insurance accessible and affordable for underserved customers. Cover has approximately 130 employees across offices in San Francisco, Toronto and Los Angeles.Cover currently sells its own auto insurance products in Texas, where it functions as an MGA, while the original brokerage business continues to thrive by serving customers across the U.S. and comparing over 30 carriers to find customers the best coverage for them.Karn holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen’s University where he graduated with Distinction, along with a Master of Finance from MIT where he attended as a Fulbright Scholar. He is also a Y Combinator Fellow and YC Alumnus.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jorge leads the areas of product strategy, design, engineering, and research at Hello Iconic. He has 20+ years of experience launching successful global products with companies like Disney, ABC, AMC, The Walking Dead, Syfy, FX, Suma Wealth, Cyvatar and The Coca-Cola Company. Jorge has also helped early-stage and venture-backed startups with their development needs.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Entrepreneur Phil Blows is behind the decentralised finance and crypto platform AQRU, which went from early stage investors to being sold to institutional investors within 10 months. Philip Blows is on a mission to normalise earning interest on crypto. Where many investors let their investments sit in their account in the hope that the value of the currency will increase, AQRU enables simple access to interest yields available in DeFi, all in one transparent, insured and regulated platform. AQRU has been launched with some regulatory exclusions.Phil wants to not only help people get crypto savvy, but has long been passionate about improving the world's financial health, and is the author of the book The Money Triangle, helping people achieve financial freedom. He has spent the last 15 years building and scaling Fintechs, initially working as a trader and investment manager, and went on to lead teams tasked with scaling retail platforms to mass market adoption in both the B2B and B2C space. Phil graduated from the University of Leeds and went on to gain an MBA from the University of Geneva. He holds several internationally recognised financial certifications and qualifications, including an Investment Management Certificate from the CFA Institute and has been certified a Blockchain Expert by the Blockchain Council.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federico Baradello is Founder and CEO of Finalis, a venture-backed NY- and San Francisco-based company building the world’s largest private securities brokerage platform. Federico has an extensive background in M&A. As an attorney at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Federico managed M&A deals for blue-chip private equity firms and strategics from term sheet negotiations and auction bids to closings. Previously, as an associate at a London-based private equity firm, Federico supported cross-border deals in Europe and Australia.Federico is an L.P. of Alaya Capital Partners, among the most prominent early-stage venture funds in South America. He is also a Professor of Law & Business at Hult International Business School, where he teaches courses on U.S. corporate law, regulations, and disruptive technology trends. Federico holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.P.P. from Harvard University, and an A.B. from Princeton University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Corey Ashton Walters is the Founder & CEO of Here, a revolutionary online marketplace that enables anyone anywhere to invest in vacation rentals online and earn passive income—without ever lifting a finger. Prior to founding Here, Corey, a seasoned entrepreneur, brand builder, and college dropout, has founded multiple successful companies over the last 15 years. Most recently, Corey co-founded Homeworthy, a venture-backed first-of-its-kind fully remote cloud real estate brokerage that served homeowners located in over 900 cities across the Pacific Northwest.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nic is the Co-founder and Vice Chairman at Blockchain.com where he is responsible for ensuring we continue to bring new adopters into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. In 2015, Nic was named the European Digital Leader of the year. Nic is the Founding Commissioner of the Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development and Co-Authored The Future is Decentralised. Nic is trilingual, and has a deep passion for positive digital disruption. He’s also the Co-Founder and Chairman of SkysTheLimit.org, the leading non-profit digital business accelerator. Prior to Blockchain.com, Nic was a founding Partner at PipelineDeals.com where he focused on product development and management.Nic is a proven leader, investor, public speaker, and brand ambassador. He’s deeply focused on designing performant cultures that persevere in adverse markets.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend, speaks with Gregory A. Beard who is the CEO and Co-Chairman of Stronghold Digital Mining. During his career, Mr. Beard sourced and managed some of the most profitable deals in the energy private equity sector. He was previously the Global Head of Natural Resources and Senior Advisor at Apollo Global Management from 2010 to 2020, overseeing Apollo’s investment activities in the energy, metals and mining and agriculture sectors.Prior to his time at Apollo, Mr. Beard was a senior Managing Director at Riverstone Holdings, an energy, power and infrastructure-focused private equity firm. He began his career as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he played an active role in energy-sector principal investment activities. The funds where Mr. Beard held these senior leadership positions have invested billions of dollars in natural resources related investments.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Rahul who is the CEO of Irreverent Labs, a venture-backed gaming studio with a mission to build insanely fun, highly intelligent, hundred year entertainment experiences on blockchain. Irreverent Lab’s first release, MechaFightClub is described as a hilarious fighting game in which advanced, artificially-intelligent non-player characters battle, breed and live on the blockchain as NFTs.Prior to founding Irreverent Labs, Sood was the co-founder and former CEO of Unikrn, which developed itself as the leader in esports and video game wagering from 2014 until it was acquired by Entain PLC in 2021.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with the Co-CEO Stephan D. Meyer who is one of the leading Swiss tokenization experts and the CTO Daniel Killenberger who studied Computer Science with a focus on AI, specifically Classical Planning Algorithms.Co-CEO Stephan D. MeyerHe wrote the first Swiss PhD dissertation on tokenization (received the famous Issekutz price)He is leading the blockchain law education program at University of Lucerne, and teaches at ZHAW & HWZHe is attorney and counsel with MME’s crypto teamHe is active in international bodies and associations like UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies and thinkBLOCKtankHe is Co-Founder of FQX, a SIX-financed, fast growing Swiss DLT startupBesides tokenization, his main field, he is working together with some of the leading DeFi companies on bringing legal governance layers into DAOs.CTO Daniel KillenbergerHe worked in Startups during ICO times to build the backend service for the ICO pageWorked at Swiss contractor to deliver prototype for the SBB and deliver features for the banking module productHe started coding at the age of 12, and got into crypto as a revolutionary idea back in 2012He joined FQX back in 2019, and is now the CTOLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices