Why True Global Ventures secure the CMS Licence in Singapore & the future of AI & Crypto with Beatrice Lion

"We took a longer time, there was a bit of roundabout, but the fact that we actually made like two or three times on whatever investment amount we did in the beginning - that for me was a very pivotal moment. Just because we didn't give up. The line between success and failure is so thin. So the impact of being a VC space is that you really can influence the technology founders that you back." - Beatrice Lion

Fresh out of the studio, Beatrice Lion, the chief executive officer and global partner from True Global Ventures, shares the remarkable story of how she became one of the youngest fund managers and the backstory to secure Singapore's Capital Markets Service license from MAS equivalent to Sequoia & Andreessen Horowitz's RIA licence in the US. Beatrice begins with her unconventional career journey from university straight into venture capital in 2017 and details TGV's investment thesis of backing only tested serial entrepreneurs across AI and blockchain applications. Beatrice offers her perspectives on the convergence of AI and crypto, the evolution of stablecoins as crypto's killer app, corporate treasury strategies such as Michael Saylor's Strategy with Bitcoin and Ethereum Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs), and why TGV maintains their performance-focused philosophy of keeping fund sizes at $100-200 million rather than chasing larger management fees. Last but not least, Beatrice shares what great would look like for TGV in the future.

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Beatrice Lyon
[01:00] Introduction: Beatrice Lyon, CEO of True Global Ventures
[04:27] Supporting portfolio companies through business development
[05:03] Successful turnaround story and investment recovery
[08:30] How she take the CEO role as operational glue among partners
[11:25] MAS approval process for Capital Markets Licence (CMS)
[13:00] TGV fund structure: four, five, six overview
[14:55] Investment thesis: AI and blockchain applications globally
[16:01] Focus on serial entrepreneurs, not first-timers
[17:39] CMS license removes 20% constraint limitations
[20:54] The rationale behind applying for broad licenses
[26:57] Secondary market opportunities and liquidation preferences
[30:18] Blockchain landscape evolving toward financial applications
[34:49] Private stock tokenization and where it is heading
[38:27] Stablecoin as killer app for crypto
[39:09] AI agents settling payments with stablecoins
[42:25] Different regulatory approaches across jurisdictions
[43:36] Corporate crypto treasury strategies beyond Bitcoin, Ethereum DATs and Solana
[48:35] 80-20 rule for portfolio company treasuries
[50:37] Four-year crypto cycles may be extending
[54:31] What does great look like for TGV
[59:09] Closing

Profile: Beatrice Lion, Chief Executive Officer and General Partner, True Global Ventures: https://www.tgv4plus.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beatricelion/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The the fact that we actually recovered, we actually made like
two or three times on, you know,whatever investment amount we
did in the beginning. That for me was a very pivotal
moment that I saw that, you know, just because we didn't
give up the line between successand failure so thin.
So the impact of you know being a VC space is that you really
can influence like the technology founders that you
back. Welcome to Analyse Asia, the

(00:24):
premium podcast dedicated to dissecting the powers of
business, technology, and media in Asia.
I'm Bernard Leong, and we're diving into how True Global
Ventures have just taken the major regulatory leap with
getting their capital markets Service license from the
Monetary Authority of Singapore.With me today is Beatrice Lyon,
Chief Executive Officer of True Global Ventures, to explore what

(00:45):
this means for the future of investing, whether it's
tokenized access, whether it's AI, blockchain and stable coins
in crypto treasuries, and also continuation funds.
But first of all, Beatrice, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Bernard, and I'm gladto be here today and thank you
for having me on the show. Yes, you're probably one of the
youngest Chief Executive Officerto run a fund.

(01:06):
So I want to first start off is how do you begin your career
journey and what led you to the world of venture capital?
Thanks for asking that. So I actually started in 2017.
I met this initiator of To Go Ventures, Dushan Strojanovic,
and you know, I really believe in his vision.
And I thought that the venture capital industry in Singapore
was just about to start to get developing and, you know,

(01:28):
getting hot and most of my peersout of school.
So I, I started this really out of school.
Most of my peers out of school can imagine, I did like a
finance and economics degree. So they all went to banking,
consulting and the VC space was just kind of growing.
And I thought like, I want to bein the frontier of technology.
I want to be the one that bringsa new tech to be an early
adopter as opposed to be like a mass adopter or like I want to

(01:51):
bring that to my friends. And I want to be the one that's
saying that, you know, I backed this amazing company and new
technology. So I'm a little bit of like a
techno foul, if you call it likeI really like exploring new
technology. So that's why I jumped into the
VC warp. And so this moment actually with
the license is a bit of a full circle moment for me because
when we started, we started trueglobal Ventures with really more

(02:14):
investment vehicles that were investing into companies that
were basically in AI and blockchain.
So the thesis has always been the same.
However, what changed was that we decided at some point in 2018
that Dushan came up and say, whydon't we start building it with
LP's, so pure financial investors.
So then I was like, OK, you know, this sounds like an

(02:35):
amazing journey and you know, it's the first time that I got
an opportunity like that. So I was like, you know, forget
about all the opportunities, thebanks and concerning companies,
I can't let this ship sail. So that's what I did and, and
end of 2018 we got the venture capital fund manager license.
So it's definitely a much lighter license, but it was
suited and fitted for our size at that point in time because we

(02:58):
were doing like a first time fund, first time kind of
external money fund. And so this point with the
capital market service license, it's a full circle for me
because I was the one who was driving the entire process,
getting the venture capital fundmanager license in the 1st place
end of 2018. And what we have right now is
pretty exciting, I would say. We're gonna get there as well.

(03:18):
So yes, I'm quite curious, right, that how do you
eventually become the Chief Executive officer?
I, I guess this is a pretty big initiative.
I think later when we talk aboutthe capital markets license, I
think that you people will understand the magnitude of what
does it mean. But maybe for you what from
starting from school, going straight into venture capital,

(03:40):
because usually most venture capitalists in our Asia region
tend to be either they are formal investment bankers or
business operators. My wife and I had a philosophy.
We told our kids none of you aregoing to be VCs unless you have
work before and we will never support any fun.
But that's our own preference. I think everybody's courage

(04:00):
journey is different. So how's your courage journey
like? Yeah.
So when I started, I started with supporting a lot of our
portfolio companies. So it's more like business
development. Obviously, I didn't, you know
jump into the deep end of the pool.
We started with focusing on adding value to our portfolio
companies. I really like doing that because
it's not just working with one portfolio.
You know, you have different technologies, different
contacts, it always get excitingbecause there isn't really a

(04:22):
work scope. Everything was like a different
experience. It was very trying.
You know, it was like, I always like my job in my head to, you
know, being like a fire, fire, fireman.
Basically you're extinguishing fires all the time, you know,
supporting our portfolio companies and you know, trying
to help them with some of your problems, helping them with
strategic thinking. So that's how I started as a

(04:43):
business development for a portfolio and managing that and
helping them to grow. And I was lucky enough to have,
you know, the opportunity to do be involved in some of the
turnarounds. And quite honestly, that was a
very exciting time for us as well because a lot of VCs are
proud of their, you know, unicorns or whatever that word
really means right now. But they're very proud of like

(05:03):
their successes. Of course, we are very proud of
our successes as well. But I think we're equally or as
proud as our kind of turnaroundswhere we managed to derive
something from the value of the company they've invested into,
even when other VCs would have given up and say, you know, this
is a write off. And one of the ones that I was
very involved in is actually this.

(05:26):
I would say it's like a platformfor developers to solve bugs.
Anyone can put like a bounty or to solve a bug on this
development platform. And we actually sold it twice
before we exited it. So the first part was like when
we saw they were basically management decided that, you
know, this is not growing like super steep, this is growing
like super slow and we want to leave.

(05:48):
So imagine a company without management, any other VC would
have been like, OK, this is a write off because the team that
I back is not even there anymore.
But obviously the Silicon Valleyfounders, they were comparing
with their peers and they're like, you know, all my peers
companies are going like that. This is so steady.
Maybe it was too early at that point in time.
So it was not exciting for them.And what happened was that we
actually sold it to another company that was in the gig

(06:09):
economy as well. They were seeing this
opportunity and they were sayingthat, hey, you know why?
I can actually just envelope that in, in expanding the
development space. So they did that and we did sell
it, but we stayed on the cap table.
And you know, some people might say, like, why are you staying
on the cap table? Because we found the buyer.
So we have to show the conviction that we still believe
in this. And quite honestly, it's an
amazing idea because even without management, the company

(06:31):
could sustain because if there'sa bug on the platform, they just
put it up on itself and then thepayment, the payout goes.
It's really the kind of true form of where decentralized
decentralization really started because you could have no
management, but the company's still running.
And, and if I saw what two years, same story repeated, you
know, the, the acquirers didn't take care much of the company.

(06:51):
They just focus on their main business and they kind of moved
on. And so they said like, can you
help me get rid of this asset again?
So you know, Deja Vu, but we repeated those story.
This was roughly in February 2020.
I remember we were in Paris, we were kind of sharing a lot of
our portfolio companies. We do a lot of these events as
well. And 1:00 during the dinner,
Dujon actually mentioned, you know, we have one of these

(07:11):
portfolio company, they have an exciting client IBM who really
buys it. So actually they have one of the
strongest clients which is IBM. Is anybody interested?
And you know, then that's where we actually found the second
buyer and it's a euro next listed company.
And that was when we actually got our exit because then we got
public shares as a swap on that.And obviously we got a lock up
when we did the deal, the company was valued at about 30

(07:34):
cents, 30 euro cents. And then when we exited because
of the lock up in the period, wedid everything between 2:50 and
3:00. So that's, you know, pretty
good. Multiple sure, we took a longer
time, you know, there was a bit of roundabout, but the fact that
we actually recovered, we actually made like two or three
times on, you know, whatever investment amount we did in the
beginning. That for me was a very pivotal

(07:55):
moment that I saw that, you know, just because we didn't
give up the line between successand failure so thin.
So the impact of, you know, being a VC space is that you
really can influence like the technology founders that you
back. Yeah, yeah.
But then, but then you still don't tell me like most VC
firms, right? They only have partners and
usually they run more like I think like a law firm or

(08:15):
consulting firm. And very rarely maybe I will
think of Anderson Horowitz, but it's quite unofficial.
They say that they have ACEO. So I think I guess what, what,
what, what is the a plan in a way that you need to have a
formalized role of a chief executive officer now for TGV.
Yeah, so I got to be carried away with, you know why, Yeah.
No, it's exciting talking about the the kind of firefighting

(08:36):
journeys, right? Everybody likes a turn around
story. So I was like a turn around
story. Exactly.
A successful one as well. And you know, basically the role
as CEO, it's not that I make allthe investment committee
decision. No, I still have like an
investment committee for each fund.
We have different investment committee set up.
So I'm just one of them. But the good part of that, the
wrong story is that I got some carry from that.

(08:58):
That was how I invested into my own fund as well.
So I wanted to put a very significant portion of my wealth
into my funds because I wanted to be seen as a partner, not
just an employee. So that's how we started.
So I have a seat at the investment committee table for
our regulated funds for 5:00 and6:00.
And basically with that, the CEOrole is really being the glue

(09:18):
amongst our partners. So operationally we need to make
sure that, you know, we are fulfilling the governance, the
compliance part of it. We can't run and function
smoothly. It's not just disparate partners
doing their own jobs, etcetera. You know which which is like for
example a law firm partnership or a consulting partnership that
we talked about, you know, it's a series of partners working
together. And I always see myself as being

(09:39):
the glue in that a little bit more the kind of operational
excellence and the relationship part of that.
And sure, it was very intimidating for me to step up
in this role because basically Iwas very empowered with our
initiative to fund Deshawn who said that you, you know, the
partners well, you can be the glue and you have operational
Excellency, which is more an execution piece.

(10:02):
So you know, why don't we just put you up at that point in
time, I was very intimidated. I was 28 when I was, so it was
about just two years ago around there that I really became CEO
because, you know, that was something that was a big
responsibility. I'm very glad my partners
trusted me. They didn't diminish whatever I
said just because I was younger or I was female or anything.

(10:23):
None of them did that. So we're very flat organization.
So I got the opportunity to do that because my partners also
respected what I said as an equal.
So I think that was very important for me.
I don't really see myself day-to-day as a CEO as much as,
you know, operationalizing and making sure, you know, our
partners are in the loop of being basically one platform,
one fund, one investment team asopposed to, you know, just

(10:46):
running your own shop and running their own investments
only. So I would say that's how my
role kind of pivoted and it was useful for me because I was kind
of already being the glue amongst the partners when I was
helping with the portfolio investments.
I was helping partners across, you know, different partners
across their different investments.
So that was kind of how I landedon this CEO journey.
Yeah. I think it's interesting in that

(11:08):
sense that something like maybe getting the capital markets
services licenses was also part of the kind of initiative where
you need a central coordinator among different partners like
yourself to drive it on it. But before we get to the main
subject of the day, I just want to ask one thing.
If you were to reflecting on your journey, what are the most
pivotal lessons that you can share with my audience?

(11:30):
I think it's just that, OK, to be honest with you, I was very
intimidated if, you know, MES would even accept me as ACEO
because, you know, as a regulator, fund manager, every
position in executive officer would have to be approved by
MES. And I think one of the kind of
important moments that kind of encourage me a lot is that sure,

(11:50):
MES asked questions about like whether I had enough experience
to be ACEO, How many people I'veread before, you know, it was
very, very detailed question. It was like a whole list of 16
questions and the fact that theygave me a chance, they didn't
reject the application immediately made me feel like
there was that opportunity. And they didn't diminish, you
know, just because of my age, just because of like experience.

(12:13):
Obviously if I was an ex investment banker, you know,
been in industry for 20 years, so much more easier for them to
approve. But the fact that they saw that
diversity being important for a company, and that's kind of the
thesis of us because we always believe in diversity.
We have people in different generational, like in the 50
plus, the 40 plus and then myself.
And, you know, we have that kindof handover of different

(12:34):
generations as well. So I think that was kind of very
important for me to recognize that like that was an
opportunity and I should keep striving for it.
So when I saw that, I was like, OK, you know what, let's let's
really go for this. Yeah.
They didn't reject us outright. They didn't kind of like, you
know, kind of wave us off in application.
I think to be fair, right, MAS or Singapore regulators tend to
be quite enlightened when it comes to matter of this.

(12:55):
So I'm going to get to the main subject of the day.
I think to start, I mean, even though your colleague Kelly has
been previously on the show, canyou give me a comprehensive
overview of true global venturesand also maybe reiterate their
investment thesis in the global markets?
Sure. So we have now active funds.
We have fund 4-5 and six. And like I said, the

(13:15):
nomenclature of 4-5 and six is because we used to have
investment vehicles before, but they were not regulated.
So we actually had to you changeyour name and you know they're
not innovation from this capitalseparate from our portfolio.
So we have 4564 it's an early stage fund, it's $113,000,000
fund we have we are in the vintage of 2021.
So but we already started warehousing the deals in 2019.

(13:35):
It was a first time fund. So it took a while to raise
that. But we are already now ended
investment period October last year.
So we are basically focused on harvesting in that fund now and
then we have our on the back of the early success because we had
fantastic returns that puts us in the top three percentile of
VCs in that vintage in terms of DPI distribution versus paid in

(13:56):
and TVPI total value versus paidin.
We actually on the back of that raise our Fund 5 which is a
growth stage fund, so an opportunity fund and the goal of
that was to invest into full on opportunities from the base fund
which is our Fund 4 or new opportunities in the later
stage. So how we define that is Series
B, but really 10 million of annual recurring revenue and
above or five million with 50 to100% year on your growth

(14:20):
traction. So that was $166 million fund.
We are still in a deployment phase.
So we still have a year for deployment.
We are roughly about 50 million in reserves for follow on deals
in some of the deals that we have done as well.
And then we just did also initial closing of Fund 6.
So Fund 6 is set up to be the next early stage fund as a
successor from Fund 4, because you know, now we have completed

(14:42):
the investment period for Fund 4.
So Fund 6 would be basically early stage targeted 100
million. You would notice that the size
that we focus a lot around is, you know, hundred 200 million
because we think that we can deliver performance there.
We're not here to optimize our management fees.
So we don't see that even if it's out the fund, we need to
raise a much larger fund. We're here to optimize some
performance because we do investa lot of our own money as well

(15:06):
in it. This is our investment thesis.
So we invest across artificial intelligence applications and
blockchain applications in our fund four.
It was mostly on the blockchain side.
I would say in terms of portfolio companies that landed
up and Infant 5 was more in AI, Infant 6, their focus will be a
lot in AI as well. But we have also been
cultivating the expertise aroundthe intersection of AI and
blockchain. So that's the exciting part

(15:27):
about what we are seeing as a differentiator given that we
have been investing into two technologies.
Geographically, we invest globally.
So we're not investing, you knowin what do we call like a church
view or you know, regionally. We do focus on North America,
Europe and Asia specifically in eight cities, so Bay Area, New
York in the US, London Stock comparison, Europe, Dubai, the
Middle East and Singapore and Hong Kong and Asia.

(15:48):
So these are where we have deeper networks.
So we feel that we have a proprietary deal flow here as
well as you know where some of our LP's are coming from.
But the focus there is that we are able to identify how, you
know, some of these companies can also work well in other,
other jurisdiction. And that's where we see also as
a differentiator from a global investment thesis point of view.

(16:08):
So I remember that Kelly once mentioned that you also also
fund only several entrepreneurs,meaning that the entrepreneurs
that you fund is not cannot be afirst time entrepreneur.
They probably this is their second or third gate.
Does that part of this is still stay there?
Yes, it still stays there. So we do like to prefer to fund
test entrepreneurs. I think we have made like 1
exception, something like that. But we have always stuck to that

(16:30):
thesis because if they have solda company before, they don't
make the same mistakes. So capital efficiency is
increased generally. And at the same time you don't
have a situation of like first time founders mistakes for
example, living like debt equitybecause you try to split out the
shares to equally amongst many Co founders.
You also learn to bootstrap yourcompany better.
So like how do you turn around? Like, you know, maybe you need

(16:52):
to make harsh cost cut, you know, the stay lean and you
know, cut a lot of excess when you're running out of cash, for
example. So there are some of this that
we have identified that, you know, first time founders
technically, you know, take moretime to adapt to which tested
entrepreneurs. Even if they're selling a
company that is not in the same industry or in the same space,
they have done that before because they've sold a company

(17:13):
before. And they also start to have an
embryo of, you know, being able to pitch, not knowing how to get
investors, maybe not the same Rolodex that we have, but you
know, they start to start building their own.
So I think that's a little how we see as a differentiator.
We have made like an exception, but it's quite rare.
I think because first time entrepreneurs always look for
product market fit. I think second time
entrepreneurs when even for myself now we are thinking of it

(17:34):
is mainly distribution. The product market fit is not so
that important until you figure out exactly what the customer
wants. Yeah, but I want to talk about
the big milestone. I think we have already earlier
in the conversation talk about the CMS license from MAS
Singapore. Maybe tell me, what does the
license enable you to do now that wasn't possible with the

(17:54):
venture Capital FM framework that is done by MAS itself?
Yeah. So the VCFM framework had this
constraint which is very limiting.
It was 20% maximum of the fund that we have can be invested
into secondaries or companies that are older than 10 years.
So because of that and you know,at an early stage, maybe when
you're investing early stage, it's not such big a constraint,

(18:15):
but it actually is still becausewhen we look at companies that
you know, especially during macro cycles and some companies
they don't raise when you know, obviously the macro is down.
They don't want to get a down round for example, or they have
very rich treasury and they don't need to raise the full on
round. So we are typically investors
that full on in our investments.So we're not the one that, you
know, spray and pray, which is adifferent strategy, but we

(18:37):
always have a good reserve for follow on.
So we invest in companies two times up to even five times, you
know, even sometimes across different funds.
So that is something that was a very stifling area where there
was a lot of pressure. Like what happens if we come to
a later part of investment period and we were coming to the
end investment period, but the company investment do still
hasn't raised around. So typically what we'll do is

(18:59):
that we'll expand our exposure to getting more secondary so
that when they raised around after the investment period of
our fund that we can still, you know, retain A sizable
percentage taking a company. So that was one piece.
And then when we come to our fund 5, when we were investing
companies that have 10 million AR or 5 million and above, these
companies took time to find the product market fit.

(19:20):
And basically with artificial intelligence, a lot of people
are very apprehensive to actually use it until the, you
know, phenomena of open AI and check GPT.
And so because they had to do a lot of pivots, these companies
were older. So incorporation wise, you know,
it could be more than 10 years, but the business really started
picking up maybe in the last 2-3years, which is, you know, a
very exciting growth story for us still because they took time

(19:41):
and you know, whatever before that was maybe a write off.
Or maybe one of the other kind of companies we are thinking
about is companies that stay private super long like Stripe.
Yes, that's also part of the calculus.
That could also be exactly and and opportunistically that might
be something interesting for us as well.
So because of that constraint ofjust only 20 percent, which, you
know, maybe that ruling, if I were to be a bit more

(20:01):
aggressive, can be a little bit obsolete in the scenario we're
dealing with today, Then, you know, that was something that
pushed us to say that let's go for a bigger license.
So the LMC license by measure company license under the.
Capital market service license is actually quite broad, so
allows you to do many different asset class.
But the real trigger was becauseof this 8020% rule.

(20:23):
That's why we ventured into applying for that.
Interesting. And I think a lot of people
don't realize how difficult is to get ACMS license in
Singapore. I think usually these are
something that is owned by maybeprivate banks, maybe some very
established investment banks maybe why is this regulatory
upgrade significant? I think for two things, right,
you talk about the the ownershippiece where you need to go above

(20:45):
the 20%. How about say your LP's, your
portfolio companies and maybe even think about true globals
positioning, ventures positioning say in Singapore and
globally? Yes, definitely that gives us a
huge boost. So you're right, it's very rare
for AVC to actually apply for such a big license because of
the regulatory burden and cost that comes with it.
So mostly it's a private equity or hedge fund that would apply

(21:07):
for that for different asset class.
But increasingly we've seen for example, in recent, you know,
General Catalyst, most recently Lightspeed Korea has it as well.
They have applied for the USRIA registered investment advisors,
which allows them to also expandtheir scope beyond venture
investing. That's right.
So we're not the first globally.So you're saying that getting
the CMS license is quite similarto taking say the USRIA license

(21:31):
that's actually held I think by Sacoa and Anderson hallways and
I think they are calculus slightly different.
They want a Evergreen fund situation.
So you are you all thinking in that same frame?
For us, there are 4 main areas that we're looking at that we
actually want to expand into. So a very immediate 1 is a
combination of secondaries and continuation points.

(21:51):
So as we come later and later, there are opportunities that
we've already identified. This is a winner.
They're going to get to IPO, butafter the follow on round of
fund 5, you know, we don't really have a fund that could
actually do that and it will be too late.
Back to the 10 year rule in the VCFM license.
So immediately now that's where we actually see that.
That's one of the first thesis that we can already play into

(22:12):
coming in where we can invest into companies at a later stage
where we come in in primaries but also take up the secondaries
because we've invested in a company before.
So we do know the cap table. We do know the opportunity to
help clean up the cap table and quite honestly the entrepreneurs
appreciate that as well because when they're mature, they do
want to get rid of or kind of clean up the capital from Angel
investors who back them in the earliest round for example.

(22:33):
So that's one of the first key thesis that we can see
immediately implementable. In fact, we are actually doing
quite a lot of secondary transactions right now from our
existing portfolio companies to acquire larger percentage taken
to them. And then the second piece that
we see is, you know, let's talk about the elephant in Roman
crypto funds. Given that we invest in AI and
blockchain, a lot of times we don't put before we got this

(22:55):
license, we don't put any cash into crypto.
So a lot of times people ask like, are you leaving money on
the table because you can't invest in tokens, you only
invest in the equity. That's right.
And now that is lifted, we can invest in tokens should we want
to. I don't think, you know, today
we're going to say that we're going to buy up like whatever
amount of like tokens in the industry.
No, we're still going to look atthe true and equity point of
view. But then and we have the option
always to buy if our company blockchain companies issue

(23:17):
tokens, we raise the option to buy, we can have the option to
hold, We cannot choose when to sell previously any time to
contain our balance sheet, we will kind of liquidate them just
to be safe. So I think there's to over say
it's the immediate impact for us, especially the second one on
fund 6 given that we still do investing in blockchain.
And then further on the line, how we see it is that we
definitely want to go into also final funds, but it will be the

(23:39):
medium to long term. And we do see that, you know,
with it's kind of placing, it's almost like an enjoy investor
placing a bet into multiple startups.
It's a thesis that we were looking at that as a final fund
manager you are placing bets onto emerging fund managers and
taking a bet on each of them andhelping them to seek through the
same struggles that we did when we were going for the first

(24:00):
time. Maybe also to help you to see
the earlier stages, right, because now you are focusing on
the AB even upstream of the rounds, which I think even I
think specifically Asia is missing the AB rounds now.
But maybe for established markets in the US, we are
talking about growth investing. Yeah.
So I would say we still look at late C rounds, but we don't do
anything pre revenue. So you know a lot of this you

(24:22):
feel good coming also from the front of funds.
You know should we set it up that the deal flow comes in from
there. We typically invest when
companies have 1,000,000 AR in the early stage as well or
coming to that. And the reason why is because
along the way we found out that our greatest strength is that we
can help to replicate or kind ofif you have a client profile,
you have a product market fit, we can replicate it with our
network. But before that, say, you know,

(24:44):
if it's a company targeting financial institutions, banks
and insurance companies, and if we make, you know, 70
introductions to you and then next month you decide to change
your model, then it kind of goesto waste.
But if you already identified that this is a pin point you're
solving, then you know, it really helps that we can give
you the value at with the kind of network that we have.
So that's why we kind of came inand said that, you know,

(25:05):
previously where we did investment vehicles, we did even
preset companies like pre revenue companies, but now we do
it post revenue companies. So that was a little bit of a
change thesis. But to your point, yes, fund of
funds could be something that gets us deal flow.
And then last but not least, we are also looking a lot at the
opportunity for crossover funds and that is also a medium to
long term thesis for us because as you come later stage, you

(25:26):
want to support a company that kind of gets into the IPO part.
And typically, you know, sometimes after the lock up
period, the price of the shares might dip and people might be
not as understanding of a company.
For example, we have listed companies on New York Stock
Exchange before Forge Global, which was listed in March 2022.
They were trading since then. And we know that the business is

(25:47):
a cyclical business. So when the IPO markets are
open, they have a lot of trades.So they're basically a
secondaries trading market platform, very transparent for
people who want to buy and sell trade secondaries.
And because it's such a cyclicalbusiness, when the IPO market
was closed, it was very depressed.
It was basically valued at like cash position.
And so when we saw this opportunity, we would be, you

(26:10):
know, personally there's a possibility we could even buy it
because we're not conflicting with any of our investment
thesis. But moreover, thinking about
that, we could actually invest into that as a fund and share
the commercial economics with our well peace as well because
we saw that opportunity knowing the business so well that maybe
the plain public equity investoranalysts did not have that

(26:30):
background of this company. If you just look pure numbers
today, they were just here not maybe it's not that interesting
to look at, for example. So I think that's kind of how we
look at it. So immediate term continuation
funds, secondaries and crypto funds.
And then in the medium to long term, we're looking at basically
opportunity for final funds and also in public equity or
crossover shares. I want to talk about secondaries

(26:52):
because I think the vintage in 2021 and 2022 are overblown.
So now there's a lot of down rounds or maybe reaching rounds
going across. I, I know of a couple of
secondaries who are actually advised to come to talk to the
LP's in this region. How do you plan to approach
secondaries in your portfolio inthis situation now?
And why is it that it's going tobe a game changer?

(27:14):
Because maybe this is the best time to buy distressed assets
and go up, but maybe that's. Yes, the secondary opportunity
is something to navigate as wellbecause in the stack of a
private company typically you have liquidation preference.
So sometimes the waterfall is such that if the company raises
or lists at the next round beinglower than last price round, the

(27:36):
preference shareholders actuallyget the bulk of it.
So you have to be very careful what kind of class of shares
you're actually buying. So that waterfall is important
for us. So if the company with a lot of
conviction that, you know, the valuation is fairly priced, next
round is going to be up round, you know, pre IPO is going to be
up round, then that's definitelyan opportunity that you know, we
see that, OK, if we get like a lower class share, then maybe

(27:56):
it's still we still get a good preference and it's actually
discounted in that same way as well.
So the lower the preference, youhave a bigger discount on that
because obviously, you know, it depends on the next size of the
round. So you have to be very careful
there. And you know, people jumping
into secondaries without understanding that, then it gets
a bit dangerous because it's notone single class of shares like
the public equities. So that's one thing to note

(28:18):
about to understand the liquidation preference.
And then the other piece is thatyou know everyone when they say
it's a secondary, they smell like a discount and they want to
jump into it. But we've seen a lot in the
recent years as well that you know, companies when they go
public, they don't actually go even hit the last valuation
route. So that's something that we are
also conscious about. We don't want to pay too much
for secondaries, but it does lower dollar average cost.

(28:41):
So when we look at secondaries, we wouldn't look at it
independently as a pure secondaries fund.
We still look at it in the termsof like what would be
opportunity for existing a portfolio right now that we're
looking at. And so we know the dollar
average cost of what we entered in before and then how that
might bring that down. Also for us from a governance
point of view, the thing about secondary investors or pure

(29:01):
secondary funds, they don't haveaccess to the same kind of
information that we have becausewe entered in the primary round.
We are very active investors. So we always take a board seat.
We always make sure that we are involved in the corporate
governance and that's the insight that actually the
secondary fund fund investors are very excited about because
they don't get that kind of sites from the company.
The founders not going to tell them that.

(29:22):
The founders are not even incentivized to help them to
carry out the secondaries because they don't get any fund
injection unless they have, you know, very painful shareholders
that they want to help get out. So the information asymmetry
just because we already have such a stronghold in the primary
position we already bought of sitting on the board gives us
that added advantage that we canalso see, you know, where the

(29:42):
company's position is strategically how they're
thinking. So existing investors being part
of the secondary process, usually it's easier to close a
secondary round based on that. And more interestingly, we are
actually looking at you right now that the CEO of the company
is taking himself 20 million of secondaries.
And that, for example, is a verystrong vote of confidence

(30:04):
because if the CEO himself sees the opportunity to buy out early
investors because he wants to get a larger stake in the game,
that's a green flag for us. So I'm going to switch guess now
because I think you are very familiar with the blockchain
investment trends and it will bereally amiss of me and I think
Kelly was also stressed out on me.
Please talk to Beatrice about blockchain investment trends are

(30:24):
specifically on the tokenized s s, stablecoins and crypto
treasuries. I think TGV for sure has been
talk about the convergence of blockchain and AII.
Think from your vantage point now.
How is the blockchain landscape evolving today?
Yes, I think it's evolving a lotmore to kind of looking at the
financial part of it, especiallythe intersection between tread

(30:45):
FI going to web three finance. We look a lot at like stable
coins, tokenization of asset classes and I don't think any of
this was new. It was been there.
It's been there for a long. Time 2017 people talk about it
already. Exactly.
And then it was a lot of like the CBDC central bank digital
currency issued more in a controlled way with the

(31:06):
governance of the central banks as opposed to kind of private
player. And I think China is going to
has announced that they're goingto start doing it soon, right?
Yes, I think it was 10 days ago Roy just said that, you know,
China wanted to do Aun based stable coin.
And that's actually interesting because if you look at it today,
a lot of the flows are coming inUSD dominated stable coins.
That's where there's a lot of flows.

(31:26):
That's where people are excited to buy into that.
But at some point, every single country is going to be like,
hang on, then my currency is notbeing used in a global scale.
And for China, it's very interesting as well because with
the yuan, they actually get to have their currency kind of
making its presence and use outside of China as well.
And that's also an opportunity for them.
But then they use, based on whatI was reading in the same

(31:49):
Reuters press release was that Ithink the only, currently only
limit within China and Hong Kong, there is no offshore
distribution of the stable coins, right?
So it is still pretty hard to access as compared to say of
Tedder. I think of it as a European
money market fund or I think of Circle as AUS Treasury backed

(32:10):
stable coin. Yeah.
So here's a thought, like it's very difficult to control
capital, do capital controls. And that's why, you know, China
never really went into cryptocurrency.
So Hong Kong was always a test bid for them.
And they kind of said, you know,you can do whatever you want
Hong Kong. And then, you know, we learn a
little bit from there and then we kind of tweak to it.
So I think that might be the angle of a play as well.
And we have one of our for real companies, Animoca Brands who

(32:33):
announced a joint venture with Standard Chartered, British
based bank and you know, very reputable in South, I would say
Asia and Hong Kong specifically.And they're doing a joint
venture also with Hong Kong Telecom coming in.
So Standard Chartered owns a majority of that for custody,
but Animal owns a very sizeable proportion of that because they
have a network with HKMA and they're launching a Hong Kong

(32:53):
dollar backed stable coin through the Hong Kong's a new
stable coin legislation that came out of 1st of August.
They were already involved with the sandbox before, but now
they're doing the entire application the same as all the
other applications about like 40that were rumored to apply.
And H KMA is kind of keeping it small.
They want to have a closed group.
They want to have single digit approved only.

(33:13):
But that is actually an opportunity because if you have
a Hong Kong dollar back stable coin, it's easier to get that
swapped into a unit, for example.
So here's my thought that it could be that Hong Kong dollar
flows actually help with the swap into the UN part.
And that's the kind of gateway into the kind of UN back stable
coin. But again, I don't know what.
But most of contrasting is quitesimilar to straights X in

(33:35):
Singapore doing the stable coin but as a private sector, whereas
Singapore has decided not to do their own stable coin from from
the from a government point of view.
So do you foresee that this is going to become more and more
common? Well, I think there are two.
There's going to be two schools.There's going to be the US, you
know, who basically, and like Singapore, for example,
basically feels that, you know, we should not do our own stable

(33:56):
coin. In fact, US passed the
legislation to say that they would not do their own, you
know, CBDC. And then you have the different
school where it's the kind of European Union portion that
actually says that. You know, I will look at it more
from a central bank digital currency point of view because
you want to keep it under the EUcentral bank.
So I think there will always be existing 2 schools of thoughts

(34:18):
so far. Of course, as usual, if it's
coming from the private players,it is faster, It is going to
kind of move quicker as opposed to maybe something that is, you
know, started with from the government point of view.
So I think that's kind of where we differentiate that that would
always be these two schools. We don't know what will suffice,
but I would say definitely the Private 1 is going to grow much
faster. It's going to develop much

(34:38):
faster. So if I were to think about
broadening the conversation, think about now tokenization
moving into say real estate, which is the Holy Grail.
We talk about collectibles or NFTS and then we think about now
tokenized stocks, right? Which of the asset classes that
you think would be very right for tokenization today then?

(34:58):
For me, I'm buying more on the kind of private stock
tokenization. The reason why is because it is
actually a process improvement as opposed to having to create a
whole new demand and supply matching for it.
Real estate has been there for along time.
You know, I think we've seen like hotels who started Saint
Regis who tried to actually tokenize the real estate, but
it's always been a problem with the demand and supply matching.

(35:19):
Also the regulations around it has not been built in a way that
you could have multiple stakeholders within one, a
property unit for a lot of casesand large jurisdiction as well.
And then you take care about foreign investors etcetera.
But a private market stock has been a little bit different
where it's been already circulating that you know
there's a secondary platform like that.
We actually have a portfolio company forged.

(35:40):
There's very poised to do it andI can say it now because they
already publicly talked about itin their Q2 earnings call.
Here's a very interesting hack. Right?
So suppose if I'm private investor and then I decided to
create my own SPV, I went up to buy up say a lot of NVIDIA stock
and then I tokenize it and then I put it to the market and then
they run it, run a device situation on top of it.

(36:03):
Well, then you make the company who's actually like, say a
NVIDIA will be very worried because there's this secondary
stock that's running around as atokenized stock that's being
trade that will increase the volatility of stock.
I think some this is what the American banks are now trying to
argue. The Stock Exchange are arguing
and say, hey, you know what? You know this is good.
This is a hack, right? Yeah, you're a public.

(36:24):
Company, technically, yeah, Technically you become a
private. Yeah, there's no difference in
becoming a public company, do you?
OK, maybe the question is in thetokenized house, where will be
the boundaries being drawn? Maybe that's the correct
question. Yeah, but you, you see some
pushback from that as well. So recently opening AI and
Entropic actually publicly talked about clamping down on
such SPVS because people are making fees on it they have to
control. And you know, they can't even

(36:45):
report the UV OS, they can't even report where which
jurisdiction they're from. Effectively a shadow start
liquidity running around and we don't know how to control.
Exactly. So I feel that a lot of
formalization of this and institution investors who come
in will come from regulated entities, players who push
themselves to be regulated to gointo that.

(37:05):
And that's back to my point on the forged piece.
Why they're poised to do that isbecause they work a lot of the
issuers, so the companies themselves.
So if you look them in, then it's fine because you know how
to play out the right of first refusal, you know how to go
according to their shareholders agreement and that's their bread
and butter. That's what they've been doing.
The only difference tokenizationis access.
So you basically can do it in 24/7 access settlements if you
can do that. And then you also get access to

(37:27):
a different group of investors. But they also in the
tokenization part, they can alsoissue the smart contracts of the
whatever the listing rules and whatever within, right.
So that also can be, that also can be a kind of restriction to
how the stock is being that's deployed on the D5 situation.
I do agree and I think that the smart contracts just have to be

(37:47):
audited. So as long as there's a
regulation oversight or compliance in some way, like
don't do something stupid that you know, you know already that
it should be something that is regulated.
Of course, a lot of people takesthe risk.
So actually, I don't know if youknow, but like we actually
started investing into Forge when it was before that, it was
this Shares Post and fortune #1 #2 merging together and Shares
Post started investing in 2011. And they had a fine from the SEC

(38:11):
in the beginning because they just don't know how to regulate
it. And that's the same thing.
There's going to be a lot of newinstrument and a lot of new
platform that sure, you get a fine for it, but you learn that,
you know, OK, this, the regulators are also learning
along the way, like how you're going to regulate this process.
But that's part of the pains of,you know, having new technology,
new financial instruments, new platforms to actually being
regulated. And today it's alternate trading

(38:32):
system. So I'm quite curious right now
that stable coins is really, I think this is the killer app for
crypto. I always feel that it is a
killer app, but for some reason people don't want to talk about
it. So it it plays the foundation
role in crypto D5, how would youaccess say the evolving stable
coin landscape? I think there is a convergence
come going on right now. There is Robin Hood just

(38:52):
launched I think with Arbitrum and then you have Coinbase.
Do you see that convergence between say Fintech and crypto
coming into one now? Absolutely.
One of the things that I really like a little bit of excitement
that I have into it is to look at the intersection where AI
blockchain meets. So where that is coming from and

(39:13):
hear me out, is that we look a lot at like AI agents replacing
a lot of menial task for us to do.
And this AI agents would basically be able to operate
maybe certain things. And then you come to a point
where they're stuck because theyhave to do deal with payments or
settlements. And you cannot imagine an AI
agent setting up a bank account with like OCPC or DBS, for

(39:34):
example. Nobody is going to accept that.
But what you can do is that stablecoin can come in as a use
case to settle payments between agents, for example, and pay for
that. And before that, if you're going
to do like Bitcoin, there's a lot of volatility there with
stablecoin is pegged to a currency.
So that is also the opportunity.But you can do trade finance as
well, right? You could think of like ERP
system owning a what I call a penny stablecoin so that I can

(40:00):
do things like very small perishable payments using stable
coins where it is not a credit card payment but it's just a
stable point 0.02%. I mean as a crypto investor you
know wiring 30K with stable coins is a totally different
experience compared to remittingsomething to a bank into another
country when you want to invest in a company.

(40:21):
Yes. So I do see that there's a large
overlap between servicing such rails and where stablecoin can
fit in where the kind of web tworails couldn't actually fit in.
So I do agree with that. Yeah.
But I think that the question then is how the resistance is
going to be, because there is still Visa, there's still
MasterCard. They will have their own.
So we are actually very involvedwith Visa crypto and they have

(40:44):
been very active in there. And then obviously you have the
Coinbase who are crypto native and they have their base
ecosystem. They're looking a lot at that as
well. And and do you see now Coinbase
is becoming more like a infrastructure company rather
than Robin Hood, where it's morelike a support app for
everybody? Apologies.
Yes. We do see that as well.

(41:04):
And Coinbase is interesting because they have the resources
to do that and Robin Hood has been coming into it.
But they're coming from different angles because
Coinbase is starting from the native, crypto native
environment where they have a lot of this community
circulating around their ecosystem with base and they
have the resources to go and look into that.
Robin Hood has the resources, but the community is a little
bit different. They might not be the kind of

(41:24):
crypto native crypto savvy piece.
Having healthy competition is always good.
I don't think it's always something that it's a single
market player and then we have issues with antitrust for
example, etc. So I do like that healthy
competition. My bet is that probably I would
be more towards the current coinbase coming from the crypto
native. Just because they already have
the existing community, they cangrow faster.

(41:44):
I think base app is pretty good as an application.
I think now wiring Bitcoin has become so easy as before. 100% I
can totally see that you know, Ijust have to use stable coins to
pay in the future. I don't even have to on ramp or
off ramp it because I just keep it in the stable coins.
Yeah, that's right. So I think now as more
jurisdictions now develop regulations for stable coins,

(42:05):
how do you foresee the impact specifically say in Asia or even
globally? I would say like it's definitely
on different paces. A lot of people look at the US
as like the Big Brother. So when they have set out their
regulations, you know, we've seen the Genius Act with the
stable coined and they have alsoset like regulation that they
will not issue their own. That is going to be something

(42:26):
that actually a lot of the rest of the world look too.
And Korea is doing something they want to look at the stable
coin portion as well. We have Japan as well on the
Asia side. So definitely picking that up.
Who's to tell what Singapore would do?
Obviously, you know, the key part of this is that to my point
earlier that every country wouldwant to have their own currency
being used. Like why would I want to have

(42:47):
U.S. dollars being used in Singapore?
Like I want Singapore dollars tobe used in Singapore.
So there is a play that you knowto remain competitive, you
should look at like your own country's currency and how that
whether is it you choose the private route or you choose the
public route to do it with the central bank, how are you going
to kind of compete and play intothat?
I think that's important for country leaders to think about.
I think that that that conversation we can continue at

(43:09):
some point again, given I think we're still right at the
beginning stage. I want to talk about we're
seeing on what they called on chain treasuries modelled after
Michael Saylor, what Michael Saylor did with strategy or
formally micro strategy with Bitcoin holding large positions
of Bitcoin as a corporate reserve.
I think now we recently started seeing firms like exploring

(43:29):
Ethereum. Now they call it Ethereum debts,
digital asset treasuries, OK, and even now so is going to be
Solana to me, those are the three blue chip Bitcoin, sorry,
the blue chip crypto assets, right, yes.
How are you seeing this trend evolve and how do you view it as
a viable playbook for say web tree native and traditional
companies? I think Ethereum seems to be Tom

(43:52):
Lee is now leading with the Ethereum debts.
So where? Where do you think this is
going? I think we are kind of past that
age where, you know, you do a Bitcoin strategy and you think
that you can stand out because you're no longer a first mover.
You know, it's done it in many jurisdiction.
If you think you can capitalize on FX, it's also been done.
You have, you know, meta planetsin Japan and then in Europe you

(44:12):
have so many players. One of them actually we
coincidentally backed because they actually develop their
first blockchain euro strategy. So sorry, I would just say
stable coin, Treasury linked to Europe.
No, not stable coin. Sorry, I'm messing that up.
It's the Bitcoin strategy linkedto the euro.
So if you were to do like Microcellus strategy, for

(44:33):
example, and it's listed on the US exchange, you would have that
FX risk if you're a European investor that I would get in
U.S. dollars, but I'm in Europe.So they actually did that in the
jurisdiction. So there was a play there at
some point that, you know, different countries can do that
in their local currency where they build treasury and they're
listed on the exchange and then the local population in the
jurisdiction don't have to incurthat effects risk as well.

(44:54):
So that was that play as well. And then we look at going from
Bitcoin to Ethereum to Solana and all of that.
I think at some point, you know,if you were to pursue a treasury
strategy like that, you should definitely look at how that
impacts your existing business. It can't just be, you know,
purely like speculative and relying on that for investors to
pour money in. It has to link back to, you

(45:14):
know, your main business area, an angle there.
Maybe you're holding a basket ofgoods or basket of currencies
that actually support your portfolio within that within
your company. So that could be an interesting
play, but that always has to be an innovative angle if you want
to get money and investors in and not just be the next like
Bitcoin strategy strategy company.
So I mean, that's our position in terms of like when we're

(45:35):
looking at companies and companies asking us should they
pursue that, I think they shouldlook into it.
They should develop new strategies.
But it's not just as simple as like I'm going to raise debt to
actually buy. The winner take all market,
right? Because if you look at say the
the stock value versus the assetvalue currently, I think micro
strategy or strategy is now I think 1.6 against the better of

(45:56):
the value. I don't know where the Ethereum
1 is going to be, but at some point some of the about 5-6
Ethereum that's I think probablythe top 1-2 will survive.
The other three to six can go sideways either way as well.
Yeah, because at some point people feel that's more safer to
go with someone who is a market leader already, can raise a lot

(46:18):
of cash and continue to keep that treasury going as opposed
to a new player or a new engine coming in, unless you're like 21
where you came in with a lot of firepower with SoftBank, for
example. Yeah.
So you can still have the 1st 2:00 but you can't have probably
345 and 60 all be. Exactly.
So the in between probably leavecrumbs below.
So I think that's kind of where you need to really make sure
that if you're going to pursue such a strategy, there is a

(46:40):
strategic interest for your portfolio and then you're
differentiating yourself becausethen you're actually benefiting
your portfolio as well. So so there's this famous happy
people say, right? Michael Saylor could easily, you
know, kill off of Ethereum treasury with just using it and
buy and then suddenly dump everything to the market to tank
the Ethereum thing. OK, I don't I don't see that
happening because it's a Bitcoinmaxi and I think everything else

(47:00):
is not it's not gonna do that. But you you look at say, between
events. So what stops, let's say a very,
very big Ethereum will for doingexactly the same thing to Solana
just to tank their token? Price and I think I don't know
the exact answer, but I think that's what the foundations are
actually very worried about because they're very worried
about you know people being obsessed with manipulating that

(47:21):
and then the all the the work they've put into building the
application, building the layersof the infrastructure.
You know it comes to a point where the entire system can just
collapse because it's a systemicrisk problem as well right I
mean the same with our currency.It's always a systemic risk.
And the problem here is that there's no real regulator across
different jurisdiction to regulate that.
And it lies on the foundation, the responsibility like how am I

(47:43):
making sure that all the holdersof Ethereum, it's not going to
be just, you know, pouring moneyinto a, a Solana swap or
something like that and then tryto tank it.
It's very difficult to coordinate in the 1st place, but
big owners or big holders of this can accumulate enough that
they can tank it. So I think they need to set in
place some certain form of governance to prevent that
systemic risk. And that's on the owners of the

(48:06):
foundation, because no one else I see can regulate that from the
web tool. I think now from your viewpoint,
what are the nuances say using Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana as
Treasure 3 assets? I think the there's volatility,
there's custody and even you opportunities for Solana and
Ethereum because of staking. How should founders think about

(48:27):
the allocation mix within this tree?
I call blue chip coins if. Yeah.
So I wouldn't, I wouldn't leave that to us to kind of advise the
founders. But what we do actually impose
amongst our portfolio companies,what we do advise is that we
have always that 8020 rule. And that is something that we've
learned in 20/15/2016 when you have the whole ICO boom and

(48:47):
crash and maximum 20% of the company treasury can be held in
crypto and they have to balance it every time the prices goes up
and down. And we think that that's best
practice because after all, it'sa stable way to ensure that the
company treasury still goes on. And this are not, I'm not
talking about treasury strategy being your main business, you
have an operational business, you have people, you have
employees to pay out and they ideally want it in cash or, you

(49:10):
know, something that is stable, that's not going to go all the
way down. So that's kind of what we have
imposed onto our portfolio companies.
There was a lot of resistance because at some point, you know,
some of our portfolio companies will be very bullish on, you
know, Bitcoin steady rising, like why must we sell it down to
keep the 2080% rule? But it's all about discipline
because you know, if it goes up,sure, you know, you're sure to
be happy. But what happens if it goes down

(49:31):
and as sitting on the governanceof the board director on this,
that's what we are here to do. So there's a lot of conflict
with our founders because sometimes they get too greedy,
they get too nearsighted and they forget that, you know, it
could also go down very quickly being going through that once if
we had a lesson learned that waspretty harsh.
We will never allow it again. So that actually is one point
that, you know, I would say we sometimes conflict with founders

(49:52):
just to maintain that it's a discipline that we do impose.
Yeah. And also the market cycle
changes quite a lot, Yes. So question for you.
I think crypto goes through every four year cycle and I
always on the high and then everything suddenly tanks and
then I go back in into the earliest part of the market.
I remember this round, I bought Solana at 9:00.
So now I'm waiting. I'm reaching the probably next

(50:13):
year is probably the fourth yearof that cycle.
But there seems to be a consensus now that this is going
to move all the way to 2020, five, 2026.
So this would be the first time the four year cycle is broken.
Where are you? Where are you with the cycle?
I'm definitely optimistic that, you know, because of the
regulatory progression that has happened that, you know, maybe
the four year site is going to be extended now.
But even in traditional market, we are also very apparent that

(50:35):
there's always these cycles of, you know, boom and crash, boom
and crash. So it's not kind of being so
obsessed with the cycle, but basically preparing for the long
run like your companies must survive through the crash as
well. When it happens, you know, it
doesn't really matter. It's just that you always have
to be prepared for it. And I would say the good thing
about the crypto space is that the entrepreneurs that you're
back, if you're back for a while, maybe since 2021 or you

(50:57):
know well I say pre 2021, they have been through that better.
Tested. Exactly.
And if they still survive today,they have been through the down
parts as well. And that's important as well
because you don't know when it'sgoing to happen.
And it's difficult to run a company like that.
Yes, it's true because you're more tested than the rest.
But people who have gone throughthat, they're more resilient and
they have a very good rapport with the community.

(51:18):
They have a community that supports them during the
downtime as well. And that's the kind of
differentiating point. So it's not so much important
for us to speculate, you know, whether it's going to be 4-5,
six years this time or is it going to be less than, you know,
four years, the next round againand repeat again.
It's more that our companies areprepared to manage that when it
happens. Yeah, actually find that crypto
is always the best when it's a down period, I find that people

(51:38):
are more encouraging, be nice, nice to each other.
And then essentially that's the time when I have the most
trades. Now it's like in a boom cycle,
I'm just sitting down there and watching everything go up and
I'm like, what am I going to do?I have to wait again.
So maybe just one question is how do you does TG we also think
about treasury allocation within, I'm sure you hold a lot

(51:59):
of crypto. How do you think about your
balance between say a Fiat currency, a stable coin or even
high conviction assets like the the three blue chip coins that I
talk about? How do you all how are your
yourself thinking about it? Not necessarily telling me the
mix, but just like mental model.Yeah, Yeah.
So from our position right now today, we have everything in

(52:19):
cash. I just want to make sure that,
you know, I mentioned that because we're not that frontier
to think that, oh, we're going to manage our own investment
monies with us in that kind of split.
And that's prior to also us having the license.
Now we have more room to think about that as well.
But I want to bring up 1 interesting point, which is that
when we did our last event, we actually had Team Draper talking

(52:41):
on our event. And he was saying that the
interesting part is that how long does it take for entire
Bitcoin economy? Like for someone to raise a
Bitcoin fund, distribute in Bitcoin and the money coming in
obviously in Bitcoin and distribute in Bitcoin and in the
investors pay tax in Bitcoin, anentirely Bitcoin ecosystem.
And another point that was brought up that was interesting
when he brought the discussion is that people still see that as

(53:02):
a longer term to come. But what is going to accelerate
that process is when people realize that actually the US
dollar is depreciating against the Bitcoin if you look at it
from the perspective. So it's better to technically
hold your treasury in Bitcoin, even though it's not as stable
as more volatile than the US dollar.
So arguably a lot of people looked into that, especially
when the US dollar kind of was abit unstable or destabilized.

(53:24):
And you know, we even thought like, oh, should we hold some
Swiss francs, for example, in terms of the currency mix?
So I think that's a top process that we've been going into as
well. I mean.
Traditionally Bitcoin is correlated.
We say like the S&P 500, it behaves like a tech stock.
I don't know whether after the terrorists now Bitcoin has
started to decouple a bit and you're starting to see that it
seems to be coming like a hedge towards inflation.

(53:46):
If you start seeing inflation goup, what would be the
interesting number is to see what the where does the big
going price go, right? Yeah, I do agree with that
inflationary pressures, but I think you know as A and again,
this is not advice or. Anything but this is not
financial advice and I have advice to everybody.
Sorry. Even the DYOR if.
You systematically put money in a Bitcoin with the SP500.

(54:09):
That for me is a good positioning then to, you know,
come in big at certain point in time and try to, you know, out
beat the market. Of course, at some point, you
know, algorithmic trader is going to be able to manage that.
But as like the the normal investor who you're not, you
know, basically very focused on like the very micro movements.
If you just steadily put it in, yeah, it could be SP500 for you.
No, I think it's it's still the SNP 500, except I'm just

(54:33):
thinking of Bitcoin as a goal, as part of the portfolio.
If you think of in terms of the permanent portfolio strategy,
Bitcoin just part of gold. I mean, that's a very fair
comparison and a parallel to make.
Yeah. So I have three more questions.
We get to the closing, but the first one is what's the one
thing you know about TGV and venture capital that very few
people do? I would say like for for TGV

(54:56):
ourselves, like in the VC space,one thing that we know is that
we would put a lot of skin in the game, a lot of cash in the,
in the funds that we manage and that maybe a lot of VC's don't
do. So the average in the US, for
example, in VC is like 1% of thefund is actually coming from
DGPS who are managing the fund. And to certain extent, some of

(55:17):
them even just offsets it from the management fee.
So they're not actually putting cash injection into it.
And why I say that that's a advantage for TGV is that
because we are completely aligned with our piece, of
course, our piece like that, butat the same time we make money
when they do. So in terms of alignment there
we put in, you know, all our money and all our time to grow
this investment. Why are you not placing a bet on
where you're putting in most of your time?

(55:39):
So I think that makes a difference in performance.
So it's not really a secret sauce, but it's something that
we really buy into. A lot of people talk about that,
but we really buy into it and wereally execute on that.
So that's kind of where I think it differentiates us.
Nasinte lips skin in the game, right?
What's the one question that youwish more people would ask you
about TGV or blockchain or AI, but they don't?

(56:01):
I would say like the intersection between blockchain
and AII think a lot of people, they are so focused on either
the financial part of the blockchain space or they focus
on the AI application side. But actually I think the
intersection is quite interesting.
We actually started looking at the intersection in 2018, but
there was like literally crap projects didn't work out.
We. Didn't see virtuals.
Not quite exactly. We missed, we missed that for

(56:24):
sure. And and we do think that there's
all a play going on that could be an opportunity there.
So I think, you know, people should look at more of that
space. We I talked about the stable
coin payment for AI agents, but there are also open source
developers being paid and you know, at the end of the day, you
know, cryptocurrency is a very useful place for micro payments.
So you know, open source developers being paid with micro
payments based on how much open source code is being used, for

(56:46):
example, could be another space.So I mean, there's a lot of that
intersection that I think more and more people can look into
and I wish more people would go into that as.
Well, yeah, I would. I would probably say that it's
very, very hard to tell sometimes.
Everything is hindsight is indeed indeed my traditional
closing question. What does great like for true
Global Ventures in the next chapter now that you're
operating with a CMS license? Well, I would say in the short

(57:08):
term, we are still going to focus a lot on our existing
portfolio. So for us, you know, if we
deliver good, continue to deliver good returns for Fund 4,
that's going to be, you know, good for our investors.
They're going to continue the journey with follow us along as
well. And then we find 5, the
secondary opportunities coming with lower dollar average cost
that's important for us to execute on.
So you know, accomplishing that from a investment period point

(57:29):
of view, setting up the portfolio such that it's ready
to be primed for harvesting, that would be good for us.
So definitely focusing on our course, we're not going to
deviate away from venture investing.
That's still our kind of bread and butter.
And then in the medium to long term, what is great is that if
we can explore the opportunitiesof the strategies that talk
about like pure crypto fund and not just in the venture
investing and investing in the crypto of the companies.

(57:50):
You know, we look at that potentially as something that we
can go into. And then also in the medium to
long term, like I mentioned, if we go into public equity stock
or fund of funds, that would be something that if we can
materialize and raise funds on that, that would be a success
for me because that's what we got the CMS license to do as
well is that we could actually explore all these new areas that
we previously couldn't. We were just taking a portion of

(58:11):
that CMS. So that's the.
Beatrice, Many thanks for comingon the show and really
appreciate this. I probably can.
If my kids ever decided that they want to start very, very
early to be in venture capital, I will tell them that you are
the only counter example. They probably should talk to you
first before they even think about trying because their
parents are not going to supportit.
So in closing, any recommendations that inspired

(58:34):
you recently? I wouldn't say that it was
really a recommendation, but it's a conversation that I had
with another venture capital fund manager and I it really
kind of put things into perspective like why we should
stick to our thesis of hundred 200 million because he he was
basically talk of managing a fund that has gone from, you
know, hundred 200 million funds to 500 million funds to like a

(58:56):
billion dollar funds. And for, for his perspective is
that he's working more as like ageneral partner deploying on his
capital. But deep down he realizes that
if such a large fund, it's very difficult to deploy to get the
same returns as a hundred $200 million fund, for example.
So there is a lot of pressure and, and from a management point

(59:17):
of view, of course, it brings well, because the management
company earns a lot of cash on that.
But that really got me thinking that, yes, we should stick to
our roots. We should keep with this hundred
200 million fund. It's not about playing the
management fee game, it's about playing the performance game.
We want to make sure our fund has performance.
And that really validated the pieces for me.
So I would say that's something that recently was a thoughtful

(59:37):
process, yeah. How can my audience find you and
learn more about True Global Ventures now?
So definitely we're on our website your true global
adventures. You can definitely once you
Google that you see a lot of news.
We also run a lot of events. Our events also explore our kind
of network and their friends as well online.
And then we also have lunches and dinners that we hope.
So you can definitely hear more about portfolio companies during

(59:59):
events, thought leadership within the content that we've
put together in the panelists online as well.
So if you want to reach out to us on the website or my.
LinkedIn as well. Happy to drop the ad also in the
handle and yeah, and get to knowa little bit better.
We could do something together as well.
OK, And at some point we can we can talk.
I will talk to you again. Maybe we can go a little bit
deeper into AI the next time around.

(01:00:20):
So you can definitely find us inany channel from YouTube to
Spotify and of course now on LinkedIn newsletter and on main
site. So Betrays Many thanks for
coming on the show. I look forward to speak to you
again. Thank you.
Thanks, Bernard.