Kushal is the Chief Financial Officer at Aspada Investment Advisors. Kushal is passionate about working with organizations in their formative phase and is closely involved with portfolio companies in their strategic and financial planning, process implementation, performance management and risk management. He currently serves on the Boards of Schedulers Logistics and Allfresh Supply Management. On this episode you'll learn: From a venture capital perspective what kind of disparity is there in investment opportunity between rural india and middle and upper class regions of country? How realistic is it for companies building solutions for the rural parts of India to raise Venture Capital as opposed to more so capital impact investor and economic development grants? How has VC dogma from the US and China affected the innovation ecosystem in India? What are the sexy verticals in India right now that all the VC’s are talking about?

The Global Startup Movement

India's Early Stage Startup and VC Landscape with Aspada's CFO, Kushal Agrawal

Anne Driscoll is a seasoned Silicon Valley executive and a leading figure in the startup ecosystem space. She is currently the founder of The Ecosystem Summit, an annual gathering of startup ecosystem leaders from all over the world, as well as the COO for Launchpad, a network of co-working and incubator spaces across the US. On this episode you'll learn: What does Anne see as the biggest challenge startup ecosystems around the world face. What comprise a nascent startup scene vs. a more mature one? Who should take the leadership role in an ecosystem? What's the story and motivation behind the ecosystem summit's founding?

Fireside chat with the Founder of the Startup Ecosystem Summit, Anne Driscoll

Jeremy is responsible for the packing, presentation, and strategy of LBRY, as well as some design aspects. He is a longtime supporter of decentralized technology and freedom of information. Jeremy founded TopScore, a startup that processes millions of dollars monthly in event and activity registrations. On this episode you'll learn: Has a specific niche taken on the role of early adopter for the content platform? What's the difference between the LBRY protocol and application layer? What does Jeremy's 2018 roadmap look like?

Crypto - LBRY CEO, Founder Jeremy Kauffman

Oscar Chang is the co-founder and CEO of Alchema, a smart home connected fermenter to empower anyone to turn fruits into his or her favorite alcoholic beverage with ease. Oscar and his company have been featured in Forbes, Techcrunch, ELLE, Engadget, The Spoon, Mashable, and medias outside of the U.S. including UK, France, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, etc. This past year he was selected by Forbes on 30 under 30 Asia lists for his work in the smart home fermentation space. On this episode you'll learn: What is the investor sentiment towards hardware startups in Taiwan? What's the typical international strategy for Taiwanese entrepreneurs? Is Oscar more excited about in store sales or the e-commerce opportunity? Should hardware startups elect to use Kickstarter to raise funds instead of venture capital?

Taiwan's leading hardware startup, Alchema

Jez San is the CEO and Cofounder of Funfair, a developer of smart contract based real money games & the platform to run them.

Funfair has developed technology to enable new classes of realtime games on top of the Ethereum network utilising smart contracts, state channels and advanced RNG's.

The games that funfair are producing are some of the first that are fully realtime and are competitive with existing online games, yet are provably fair and lower cost to operate.

Crypto - CEO of London-based Funfair, Jez San

Simon Galpin has over 25 years experience of economic development and a track record of delivering thousands of foreign direct investment projects. From Scotland to Hong Kong and now in Bahrain. Simon is hoping to replicate the energy and success of the StartmeupHK campaign in Bahrain in order to attract more angel investors, founders and entrepreneurs to the Middle East.

On this episode you'll learn:
How Bahrain has become a significant fintech player in the MENA region
-In Simon's experience in economic development across the world, has he found proximity to encourage collaboration or competition between countries?
-How should a city’s economic development organization think about crafting policies for the global expat community?
-Is their a single policy change or an initiative Simon has been a part of that he can point to and say this was the single best catalyst in attracting foreign investment capital?

Bahrain's Startup Ecosystem, with Econ Development Managing Director, Simon Galpin

Joe Urgo is a cofounder of district0x, where he is helping to decentralize the world's marketplaces. He previously founded Sourcerers in 2016 with the goal of supporting the top minds and teams building Ethereum-based projects.

He was an early employee at Coinbase, serving as a Support Operations Manager.

District0x Founder, Joe Urgo on building a network of decentralized markets and communities

Chika Umeadi is a partner at Tiphub, an impact driven investment manager built upon a community of entrepreneurs in Africa and the African Diaspora. Tiphub's mission is to support the launch of the next generation of African and African Diaspora ventures.

On this episode you'll learn:
Outside of access to capital, what are the common challenges for Nigerian entrepreneurs Chika works with?
How has deal flow coming out of Nigeria evolved since Chika started Tiphub?
Has Chika seen an uptick in startup activity outside of Lagos?
Whats the balance of Venture vs. Angel capital in Nigeria?

Strengths and Weaknesses of Nigeria's Tech Ecosystem with Chika Umeadi from Tiphub

Uncovering stories of Entrepreneurs and VC's worldwide