Dr. Benjamin Lozano CoFounder/CEO True North Business Exchange, a blockchain-based public platform for buying and selling US small business financial securities. Benjamin has been Professor in Finance and Political Economy at SF State University, was former CPO at RHS, and financial engineer at RHC hedge fund. As Curriculum Coordinator for the Bruce Initiative on Rethinking Capitalism, Benjamin built an interdisciplinary finance program at UC Santa Cruz. He’s authored a manual on the ontology of structured finance, titled Of Synthetic Finance (Routledge, Frontiers of Political Economy, 2014).
Interviews
Shahin Farshchi, Partner Lux Capital #blockchaininvestment
Shahin Farshchi, Partner Lux Capital grew up in the San Francisco Bay with a passion for computers, cars, and space. His first computer was a PC XT clone, first car was a 1976 Alfa Spider, and chose to pursue engineering after observing his father design rockets. He majored in electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley, during which he worked as a software developer in several startups. In 2001, he moved to Detroit to design hybrid electric vehicles, and later returned to California to complete a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering with a focus on wireless and MEMS technology. In 2004, he founded Vista, which made wireless vital sign monitors for hospitals. Shahin joined Lux in 2006, with a focus on technology including advanced transport, space, robotics, communications, and computation. He led Lux’s investments in Silicon Clocks (NASDAQ:SLAB), SiBeam (NASDAQ:SIMG), Planet Labs, Plethora, Flex Logix, Nervana, and Scaled Inference.
Paul Veradittakit, Partner Pantera Capital #blockchaininvestment
Paul Veradittakit Partner Pantera Capital and focuses on the firm’s venture investments. Since joining in 2014, Paul has helped to launch the firm’s second venture fund and has executed 15 investments. Paul is also a Board Observer at ChangeTip, a mentor at Boost VC, an accelerator in Silicon Valley started by Adam Draper and focused on seed stage Bitcoin companies, and a mentor at Golden Gate Ventures, an accelerator in Singapore. Prior to joining Pantera, Paul worked at Strive Capital as an Associate focusing on investments in the mobile space, including an early stage investment in App Annie. Previously, Paul was at Hatch Consulting and LECG and performed partnerships and growth for Urban Spoils, an early stage startup in the daily deal space.
Scott Robinson, Founder/VP Plug and Play FinTech #blockchaininvestment
Scott Robinson Founder/VP Plug and Play FinTech, the financial technology focused startup innovation platform in partnership with BNP Paribas, Santander, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, TD Bank, Sberbank, USAA, Mitsubishi, Capital One, Sumitomo, Intuit and many more global financial institutions. Since the launch of the program in February 2015, Scott and his team have accelerated over 90 FinTech startups and has led numerous investments into the domain. Scott has worked with Plug and Play, a global startup accelerator headquartered in Silicon Valley, for the past three years managing a number of FinTech, Blockchain, and Bitcoin-related initiatives. Additionally, Scott is the founder of Plug and Play Bitcoin, the co-organizer of the world’s oldest Bitcoin Meetup and founder of the first nationally syndicated Bitcoin Job Fair. Prior to joining Plug and Play, Scott worked in various roles with a number of early stage startups where he led fundraising, product development and marketing activities. Scott graduated from UCLA in 2008, where he received his B.A. in History.