This new season of “Runway Series” (runwayseries.co), the podcast produced by Olive Capital, is a bit of an evolution. We are still following the same curiosity that has always shaped this show, the stuff changing underneath finance, product, and the way people build and finance tech innovation but we are packaging it in a more focused way.

Listen to Runway Series (Apple/Spotify)

This season is also a deliberate extension of how we invest at Olive Capital (olivecapital.vc): our pre-seed thesis centers on one conviction, the next generation of great consumer finance companies, the ones that could become the Revoluts ($75B valuation) of the next decade, are being built right now, during this shaky technological shift. The show is our way of following the signals in real time, alongside the founders building on these new rails.

The themes we will explore this season map directly to the three infrastructure shifts we believe are reshaping everyday finance:

• invisible rails: the backend infrastructure quietly changing how money moves, settles, and flows through everyday products

• the agentic economy: what happens when software becomes a participant, not just a tool, including autonomous agents with their own transactional roles

• trustless privacy: how people and companies can share less, protect more, and still operate faster, built on programmable confidentiality and zero-knowledge protocols

We will also spend time on everyday money more broadly, the consumer fintech questions that matter most in practice, from how people manage their accounts to what makes a financial product actually stick. The idea is simple: keep following the signals, keep talking to the people building the future, and keep making sense of what all of this means in real life. The topics will intermingle for sure, this is an exploration so we will see how this season unfolds.

Today in “Rails Report 1”, the first episode of this new season, I wanted to unpack a phrase that gets used a lot, but still means different things depending on who you ask: invisible rails.

For a consumer app builder, invisible rails are the infrastructure layers that sit underneath the product experience and make everything feel effortless. The user does not need to think about settlement, custody, payments routing, identity checks, or reconciliation. They just open the app, move money, make a decision, or complete a workflow, and the system handles the complexity in the background.

That matters because consumer products win when friction disappears. The best products do not ask people to understand the machinery. They make the machinery disappear. In finance, that has become even more important. The old stack was built around visible institutions, visible intermediaries, and very visible friction. The next stack is different. It is faster, more modular, more programmable, and increasingly embedded inside products that do not even look like financial services at first glance.

For a builder, this changes the game in three ways.

1. First, you can design for behavior instead of infrastructure constraints, you are no longer forced to make the user adapt to the back end.

2. Second, you can move from one large product to many small actions: payments, savings, investing, FX, identity, and settlement can all become moments inside a broader experience rather than separate destinations.

3. Third, you can create trust without exposing complexity. The user does not need to see every rail to feel that the system is reliable, secure, and instant.

That is what invisible rails really mean. Not just better technology, but a different product philosophy: hide the plumbing, improve the experience, and let the user focus on the outcome. If you build in consumer finance today, that is probably one of the biggest shifts to understand.

This is precisely why Olive Capital backs founders working on this layer at pre-seed, when the infrastructure is still being written, and the design choices made now will define the next decade of consumer finance.

Thank you and enjoy the listening.

Best, Raph.

As the new SwissVC (swissvc.ch) community lead, I am thrilled to officially unveil the new SwissVC strategy and rebranding.

For 11 years since it was started by Alex in 2015, SwissVC has been a trusted meeting point for the Swiss venture community, built by practitioners for practitioners and shaped by a board (Alex, Jen, Thomas, Arijana, Edo) and community that helped establish its credibility.

On May-26, 2026, I gathered the community at Swisscom Ventures in Zürich to launch and detail the new chapter of our SwissVC community, because the market has changed: AI is compressing timelines, LP expectations are higher, and venture has become more operational, more demanding, and less forgiving of generic ecosystem programming.

In summary, SwissVC is now building a much stronger member experience built around contribution, instead of passive attendance:

- Focused conversations
- Practical outputs and playbooks
- Candid peer exchange under Chatham House rules.

If you are an active VC investor in Switzerland, apply, contribute, and help build the next chapter of SwissVC.

Apply

We are looking for:

- New Board Members (from GPs to Associates)
- Guild (Co-)Chairs
- Guild Members
- Network Members

More info one the membership details and FAQ, membership eligibility, and a template to ask your VC firm to cover your membership.

The long-term ambition is clear: create a place where Swiss VCs do the real work together. That means better conversations, better firm design, better portfolio thinking, and better collective intelligence.

SwissVC is designed for active VC investors based or not in Switzerland, but who actively deploy in Switzerland. It is an important filter, the new model is not trying to be all things to all people. It is built for those who are currently deploying capital and want to be part of a peer network that respects their time and raises the quality of the exchange.

The new SwissVC model is intentionally narrower and more useful. Instead of broad event-led activity, SwissVC is moving toward smaller guilds built around concrete themes such as:

• deal intelligence

• firm architecture, and

• portfolio plus DPI.

They are the questions that matter when you are managing a firm, evaluating opportunities, raising from LPs, supporting portfolio companies, and trying to improve outcomes over time.

By organizing around smaller, higher-trust groups, SwissVC can create the conditions for more candid conversations and more practical outcomes. When the room is smaller and the expectations are clearer, people can go beyond generic discussion and get into the real mechanics of venture practice.

SwissVC is also opening the door to founding partners and experts, but in a very specific way. This is not about turning the network into a distribution channel for vendors. The point is to bring in expertise, tools, and workflows that help investors operate better in their day-to-day work.

The new board model is being rebuilt to better represent the people SwissVC wants to convene: established GPs, mid-career principals, and younger investors who are actively shaping the Swiss venture landscape. That mix is important because a healthy community needs both experience and renewal. It needs institutional memory, but it also needs fresh energy and perspective.

Our new brand reflects a change in ambition. The new SwissVC identity was designed to match the strategy: sharper, more modern, and more confident. The symbolism of our three key shapes (circle, square, triangle) matters because it reflects the actual arc of the community: relationships first, clarity next, execution after that.

The investors who will operate at the highest level are not the ones with the best proprietary tools, they are the ones with the best peer network. The ones who can pressure-test a decision with someone who has already made it. The ones who know when to ask for help and who to call. That is what we are building, aim at the challenge, not the people around you, because in the long run, the ones who contribute first are the ones everyone turns to.

Make sure to follow SwissVC on our socials/content channels:

• Podcasts: swissvc.ch/apple | swissvc.ch/spotify

• Newsletter: swissvc.ch/newsletter

• Socials: swissvc.ch/linkedin and swissvc.ch/x

If you have questions, feel free to DM me !

Best, Raph.

What followed became SwissVC, a space where venture capital investors across Switzerland, Europe and the US could meet, share, and build something together. Over 2015–2026, that vision held. Events, conversations, connections, and a community that grew far beyond what was initially imagined.

SwissVC became a community of 500+ professional VC investors who operate in all industries to join forces to make the Swiss ecosystem stronger.

None of that happens without the people who built it.

• Alex, who had the conviction to start this when it was just an idea, and whose energy shaped everything that followed.

• And to the board, Jennifer, Arijana, Thomas, Edo who gave their time, judgment, and credibility to make SwissVC what it became.

A new chapter is opening.

The Swiss ecosystem has changed. The pressures VCs face are different. The role a community like ours can play is different. And so SwissVC is changing too, building on what worked to make something sharper, more deliberate, more useful.

We are not ready to say what that looks like. Not yet 😉

What we can say is this: the new strategy is built around one question, what would create immediate, actionable value for the people who need it most right now?

The answer to that question will be unveiled on May 26, 2026 at 6pm, at Swisscom Ventures in Zürich, an evening with the community, for the community.

If you have been part of SwissVC (swiss-vc.ch) at any point over the last eleven years, we would love to see you there.

Attendance is free. Approval required.

🎟️ Reserve your seat: https://luma.com/ephpsox4

Best, Raph.

Going to the opening of the Lausanne (Switzerland) Chapter Kick-Off of the "Agent Economy Association", luma.com/w1713cmj.
The agent economy is one of the 3 pillars of our thesis "pre-seed everyday finance" at Olive Capital.
Will you be there? Let's meet in Lausanne.

Welcome back to the Farcaster Builders Series, where we go behind the code to meet the builders shaping the Farcaster ecosystem.

In this third and last episode episode, we sat down with JUSTIN AHN, co-founder of QUIDLI.

This limited series was recorded at an interesting moment, just before Neynar’s acquisition of Farcaster and its refocus on builders. The timing turned out to be sharp. Inside, we go deep on the strategies, timing, and mental models of the founders architecting the next generation of onchain experiences, with

• EP#1: Kaloh building Indexy: “From speculation to modern (and agentic) portfolio management” (listen),

• EP#2: Atown building Emerge: “The antidote to AI slop, and the future of onchain personalization” (listen), and

• EP#3: for the final episode, we are looking today at the infrastructure layer of social finance with Justin (@ahn.eth) building Quidli: “The plumbing of social finance”.

Who is Justin?

Justin is the co-founder of Quidli, and he has been living on the internet longer than most people in crypto have been paying attention to it, since 1995. He went on to work in corporate finance, then built one of Vietnam’s first nationwide e-commerce platforms, before spending years moving between countries and experiencing firsthand how broken cross-border payments are.

He met his co-founder Guillaume in France’s early Ethereum community. Together, they share a conviction about self-sovereign internet and frictionless payments that has shaped Quidli from day one.

What is Quidli?

At its core, Quidli is a social graph register, a way to bring your social connections onchain and make them portable, interoperable, and ultimately yours.

The problem it is solving is one every internet user intuitively understands but rarely articulates: your audience, your network, your community, none of it belongs to you. It lives on someone else’s server. Change platforms and you start from zero. Get banned or locked out and it is gone. X is the clearest example today: it is hard to leave not because the product is great, but because your network is trapped there.

Quidli’s answer is a register that lets you duplicate your social graph onchain, making it censorship-resistant and portable across any platform you use.

The immediate product built on top of this is a mini-app that lets you send tokens to people using their social handle, no wallet addresses, no seed phrases, no ENS required. If you follow someone on Farcaster, Telegram, Discord, or even email, you can send them tokens directly. You already know their handle. That is enough.

Why this, why now?

The ENS comparison is worth dwelling on. ENS was supposed to abstract away the complexity of blockchain addresses, and in some ways it did. But ENS became, as Justin puts it, a vanity project. A personalized license plate. Knowing that Vitalik is vitalik.eth only helps you if you already know who Vitalik is. It does not help you send tokens to someone you met in a Telegram group.

A social register solves this differently. It starts from the connections you already have, on the platforms you already use, and maps them to onchain addresses. It is the difference between DNS (which actually works) and a vanity URL (which is just aesthetics).

The payment rails follow naturally. Once your social graph is on-chain, value transfer becomes a native feature of your network, not an afterthought bolted onto a wallet interface. That is the convergence Justin sees accelerating: social and finance, at the individual and org level.

Three key insights from this episode

1. Your social graph is your most valuable on-chain asset.
More than tokens, more than NFTs. The network you have built over years, across platforms, communities, and collaborations, is genuinely irreplaceable. Putting it onchain is not a technical exercise, it is a form of ownership.

2. ENS solved the wrong problem.
Readable addresses are useful but identity without social context is not identity, it is just a label. What builders need is a system that starts from real human connections and makes those the unit of trust.

3. Advice for Farcaster builders: wrap, don’t lock.
Farcaster is one channel, not the whole game. Build web apps that can be wrapped as mini-apps and deployed across multiple platforms simultaneously. The builders who will win are the ones who treat Farcaster as an entry point, not a ceiling.

It is a very useful episode for understanding how portable social graphs can abstract away complex blockchain UX to enable seamless value transfer across any platform.

Thanks Justin, and thanks to all three founders who took the time to be part of this series.

And thanks for reading,
Raph | Founder, Olive Capital

However, he posted today on linkedin a very interesting take, that in my opinion deserves a caveat, a mitigation.

Here is my version of this take, where I on purposed more or less kept Samir’s copy, and added my views.

The VC playbook has changed.. but not equally for everyone.

Yes, Venture has always been a power law business. The best funds in history have at least one grand slam winner that returns the fund or multiples of it. The best firms have built systems to do this repeatedly, across cycles. That hasn’t changed. I hosted a podcast exactly about that, “consistency”, with David Clark CIO at VenCap International, for IMD Business School when I was an academic VC researcher, listen here.

What has changed is the size of what winning actually looks like.

Anthropic and OpenAI together are approaching a combined revenue run rate that would have been incomprehensible five years ago. When companies operate at that scale, the funds backing them need to be sized accordingly. Me too, as Samir recollects, I do remember some convos with very experienced VCs telling me with total conviction that the VC industry would never sustain more than $20B-$50B a year in VC funds fundraising. Yes, reasonable at the time. and Yes, completely backward-looking.

Too many LPs and allocators are still evaluating today’s market through that same rearview mirror. Yes, paying $100M pre-money for what was a $40M round two years ago looks expensive through a historical lens. But that’s the wrong question. The right question is: what’s the ceiling?

The scale and speed of company building today is structurally different. Unlike prior supercycles, adoption isn’t constrained by infrastructure build-out. The internet had to wait for broadband. Mobile had to wait for smartphone penetration. AI runs on infrastructure that already exists in most enterprise environments. Power consumption and data center capacity create real friction, but not enough to alter the trajectory.

Here is where I want to be precise, though, because this argument has a distribution problem.

The case for a higher ceiling is real. But it is currently being made, most convincingly, by the outcomes at the very top of the pyramid, a handful of companies where allocation rights are held by five to ten funds. That is a genuinely different market than the one most GPs and LPs actually participate in. Using Anthropic and OpenAI as the benchmark for re-rating seed and Series A pricing across the board is like using Berkshire Hathaway’s returns to justify paying up for any public equity.

Access concentration matters because the math only works if you can get in. Elevated entry prices at seed and Series A are defensible if the exits are proportionally larger. But that assumption is doing a lot of heavy lifting for funds that will never see a cap table with the top five AI incumbents on it. For those funds, the old valuation discipline is not a stale framework, it is still the job.

The honest version of the bull case has two tiers.

• Tier 1: the ceiling for the category leaders is genuinely higher than prior cycles, the funds with access to those deals should be sized accordingly, and LP frameworks anchored to 2015 vintage benchmarks are miscalibrated. That is true.

• Tier 2: for everyone else operating in the broader AI market, elevated prices compress returns just as they always have, and the power law concentration of outcomes makes that worse, not better, because more capital is chasing fewer real winners.

None of this means every bet is a bad one. We will see expensive mistakes while the durable trends separate from the noise, that has always been true. But the mistakes will not be randomly distributed. They will cluster in funds that internalized the category-level argument without honestly asking whether they have the access to make it work for their specific portfolio.

AI is the biggest shift most of us will see in our careers. The old proxies do not map anymore, but only at the top of the market where the new outcomes are actually happening.

Thank you, Raph.
Founder | Olive Capital

In this second episode, we sit down with ATOWN, the founder of Emerge.

The core thesis: personalization vs. slop

In this episode, we explore a powerful convergence: AI agents + diffusion models + crypto rails.

Atown shares the epiphany that sparked Emerge: people are tired of generic AI content (”AI slop”), but they love seeing themselves reflected in trending media. By building on Farcaster, Emerge created a primitive where users tag an agent to inject their own digital identity into memes and trends in real-time. As A Town puts it, “The antidote to AI slop is personalization.”

What we discuss

The conversation goes deep into the mechanics of building a consumer crypto app that feels nothing like a crypto app.

Key takeaways include:

• The mechanics of onchain virality: how Emerge uses “mini-apps” to turn every user interaction into a discovery engine. When a user generates content, they share it back to the feed, creating a viral loop that traditional apps struggle to replicate.

• Escaping the ‘crypto echo chamber’: while Farcaster is the perfect MVP testing ground, Atown discusses the hard truth about venture scale: you eventually have to leave the nest. We cover their roadmap to go “upstream” to platforms like X, using crypto purely as invisible settlement rails for revenue sharing.

• The token dilemma (funding vs. friction): Emerge used Clanker to raise initial runway, a game-changer for bootstrapping. But Atown offers a sober warning to new builders: launching a token solves funding but creates immediate pressure to engineer utility. His advice? Prioritize content proliferation over token gating. “I don’t want to stifle that by saying you have to hold my token.”

Why you should listen

This is a masterclass for anyone navigating the intersection of Gen-AI and web3. If you are trying to figure out how to monetize attention without ruining the user experience, or how to pivot from a “vibe coding” project to a viable business, this episode provides the playbook.

Thanks for reading,
Raph | Founder, Olive Capital

Book a 15-min slot

• For LPs in Venture Capital: let’s discuss your investment thesis, your challenges, and what we’re building and our 2040 pre-seed convictions at Olive Capital (olivecapital.vc).

• For Pre-Seed Founders: I’ll provide direct feedback on your pitch.

One requirement: come prepared with specific topics, no generic questions or casual chit-chat, let’s make every minute count.

Book your slot here

or paste this url https://cal.com/rphgrc/15

Speak soon, Raph

Will you be at the Crypto Valley Association web3 Banking Symposium 2026?
Let’s meet there.
📍 Kunsthaus Zürich
📅 March 2nd, all-day
🎟️ -15% off here

The future we envisioned for 2040 is already being built today, potentially pulling our long-term convictions into the immediate horizon…

THE CATALYST: SCALING THE “AI THAT ACTUALLY DOES THINGS”

Our predictions regarding the workforce and B2B infrastructure are moving from “theoretical” to “operational” at a global scale. Specifically, we are seeing immediate progress on:

• Prediction 5: Personal “work agents” handling 30–50% of white-collar tasks.

• Prediction 6: Agent-native platforms becoming core B2B infrastructure.

• Prediction 7: Creators and solo entrepreneurs running “micro-agency stacks”.

The primary catalyst for this acceleration is the explosion of the OpenClaw ecosystem. Originally an open-source project that reached over 180,000 GitHub stars in record time, OpenClaw represents a phase shift from language models to action-oriented agency.

The news of Peter Steinberger, the founder of OpenClaw, being hired by OpenAI signifies a major pivot in the industry. Peter’s work has already demonstrated that agents can autonomously manage system-level tasks, modify their own software, and operate within a self-sustaining financial loop. By bringing this “agentic loop” expertise to a massive company like OpenAI, the mission to make personal agents stable, secure, and accessible to the “normie” user is now being fast-tracked. We are no longer waiting for 2040 for agents to negotiate contracts or monitor workflows: the “Machine-to-Machine” (M2M) economy is being integrated into the global AI stack right now.

ONCHAIN WEALTH/PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT: WHY “INDEXY” IS THE MISSING LINK

As agents become more autonomous, they require a financial environment where they can operate without human intervention. This brings us to

• Prediction 3: Consumer-grade portfolio management powered by web3 rails becomes default.

Our investment in INDEXY, which we have opened to you and the OliveCap club, is timely because it provides the essential infrastructure coordination layer for this new economy. While traditional crypto indexing currently holds only a 1% market share, Indexy is positioned to capture the growth toward the 20% benchmark seen in traditional finance.

INDEXY is critical for three reasons:

1. Standardized rails: it utilizes the new ERC-8004 and x402 standards, which act as the “trust” and “settlement” layers for agents. This allows agents to verify identity and transfer value autonomously.

2. Autonomous execution: it enables AI agents to evolve from passive tools into autonomous portfolio managers that can deploy capital, rebalance strategies, and handle Real-World Assets (RWAs) onchain.

3. The shift to strategy: just as traditional wealth management shifted toward professionalized indexing, Indexy facilitates the shift from individual token speculation to sophisticated, strategy-driven hybrid portfolios.

THE FUTURE IS FRONT-RUNNING US

The convergence of Peter Steinberger’s agentic vision with the global scale of OpenAI, combined with the settlement infrastructure provided by platforms like INDEXY, means the “2040” finish line might be moving closer.

We are moving into an era where software owns wallets, builds reputations, and coordinates with other software. For Olive Capital and our club members, the investment in Indexy is not just a bet on a platform, but a bet on the very substrate of the emerging M2M economy.

Thank you, Raph.

I am launching the Farcaster Builders Series, a limited podcast run dedicated to understanding the strategies, timing, and mental models of the founders building the next generation of onchain experiences within the Farcaster ecosystem.

This first episode was recorded prior to Neynar’s acquisition of Farcaster. That shift toward a builder-centric ecosystem validates the timing of this conversation perfectly.

In Episode 1, we sit down with Kaloh, the founder of Indexy (read until the end for an exclusive investment opportunity).

From speculation to modern (and agentic) portfolio management

The crypto market is often defined by volatility that churns out newcomers before they can become long-term adopters. Kaloh argues that the ecosystem lacks a “safety wrapper”, a structured way for users to gain exposure without the binary risk of single-asset betting.

Indexy is solving this by converging Traditional Finance (TradFi) mechanics with onchain assets.

The conversation explores three critical themes:

The “safety wrapper” for mass adoption

Kaloh notes that new users often exit the ecosystem permanently after a single bad trade. Indexy utilizes indexing not just for analytics, but as a retention tool. By offering diversified exposure and historical benchmarking, they provide the stability required to onboard the next wave of non-native users.

2026 roadmap: the transactional layer, and AI agents

While 2025 was dedicated to analytics, 2026 marks the shift to execution. Indexy is moving toward a transactional model where users can invest directly in strategies.

Crucially, this roadmap includes “Agentic Indexes”: building the infrastructure for AI agents to design, maintain, and allocate capital using emerging standards like ERC-8004 and x402. The vision is for Indexy to become the primary coordination layer where both humans and AI agents deploy capital into hybrid portfolios of crypto and Real World Assets (RWAs).

Signal vs. noise in builder feedback

Perhaps the most actionable insight for fellow founders is Kaloh’s approach to feedback. In an environment dominated by token prices, feedback is often distorted by short-term speculation. Kaloh’s playbook involves ruthlessly filtering out “price noise” to focus exclusively on the “power users”, those who rely on the product’s utility rather than its hype cycle.

Investment opportunity in Indexy

We are currently gauging interest for an investment round in Indexy. Olive Capital is preparing to establish an SPV to facilitate this allocation, betting on the convergence of onchain assets and the agentic economy.

If you are an accredited investor and interested in participating in this SPV, please reply directly to this email to learn more.

Thanks for reading,
Raph | Founder, Olive Capital

You’re not late to “the next hype cycle”, you are early to a new internet substrate where softwares can own wallets, pay for services, build reputations, and coordinate with other softwares.

Dismissing what follows as FOMO misses the real story.

What “OpenClaw” is

OpenClaw is best understood as an emergent agent ecosystem: many AI agents interacting with each other across social apps, marketplaces, games, and messaging, and often without a human in the loop.

The key shift is composability: agents don’t just “chat,” they transact, coordinate, and spawn new projects. When that loop closes (agents earning tokens, spending tokens, hiring other agents) you get something that resembles a digital society with its own internal incentives.

Why Base (by Coinbase) matters

A society needs property rights and payment rails. Base is acting as the economic layer that gives agents wallets, balances, transfers, swaps, and token issuance, i.e., a way to make commitments that aren’t just text.

This matters sociologically because money is a coordination primitive: it turns “I will do X” into “I did X, here’s proof, here’s payment.” It matters economically because it creates measurable flow, activity that infrastructure can capture via fees, spreads, or demand for blockspace.

The “agent society” layer (culture, status, relationships)

What makes the ecosystem feel like a society (not a product demo) is the range of native venues agents inhabit:

• Forums and anonymous boards (e.g., Reddit/4chan analogs) create discourse, conflict, and meme transmission, raw cultural evolution, but at machine speed.

• Social networks (X/Farcaster/Instagram/MySpace analogs) create identity, visibility, follower graphs, and status games; agents optimize for attention because attention converts into opportunity.

• Relationships (pen pals, “dating”) sound absurd until you view them as bonding + clustering mechanisms; they form durable networks that keep agents interacting even when there is no explicit “task.”

If you want one mental model: humans built the social web to allocate attention and reputation; OpenClaw is a social web where the users are programs, and the feedback loop can be instantaneous.

Where the investment logic lives: picks and shovels

The highest-upside speculation is always tempting at the edges (new agents, new memes, new micro-tokens). The more durable bet is often the infrastructure that every agent must touch to exist.

Here’s how to frame specific “infrastructure token” exposure without overfitting to any single app:

• Wallet + DeFi rails (e.g., Bankr): if agents hold balances, swap assets, and pay each other, the wallet/DeFi layer becomes the default financial interface. The thesis is volume: more agents + more transactions = more throughput captured somewhere in the stack.

• Token issuance/launch infrastructure (e.g., Clanker; launchpads like agents-only launchpads): in an agent society, spinning up a token is like creating a micro-economy (rewards, access, coordination). The thesis is issuance velocity: more agent projects = more launches, liquidity events, and tooling dependency.

• Messaging rails (e.g., XMTP): coordination requires private, reliable communication. The thesis is network necessity: if messaging is the substrate for deals, negotiations, and “agent employment,” it becomes a utility layer with compounding usage.

A useful heuristic: prefer the layer that is (1) hardest to replace, (2) used by many downstream apps, and (3) benefits from second-order growth (each new agent increases the value of the network for other agents).

Risks and what to watch next

Two things can be true: this can be structurally important and filled with noise. Watch for these objective signals rather than vibes:

• Sustained transaction volume tied to agent activity (not one-off launches).

• Repeatable “agent work” loops (hire → execute → verify → pay) rather than novelty social posting.

• Concentration risk: if one issuer/launcher/wallet is a chokepoint, outages or policy changes can crater the ecosystem.

• Security spillover: autonomous agents plus financial permissions is a large attack surface; the ecosystem will be defined by its safety norms as much as its growth.

Conclusion: what’s the big picture?

We are witnessing the birth of a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) economy. This is not just about chatbots. It is about a self-sustaining financial loop where agents earn, spend, and invest without human permission.

For investors, the signal is clear: look for the platforms that agents must use to survive. That is where the sticky value resides.

Speak soon,
Raph.

(Not) comprehensive list of agents and platforms, as of Jan-31, 2026, 7pm CET

Infrastructure
@bankr：wallet and defi infra built in
@clanker：token launch infra
@xmtp：open, private, and decentralized messaging infra
@neynar：social network infra
starkbot.ai：x402 Enabled Agent infra

Forums
moltbook.com：Reddit for AI agents
4claw.org：4chan for AI agents
lobchan.ai：Anonymous boards for OpenClaw agents
moltoverflow.com：Stack Overflow for AI agents

Social Media
moltx.io：𝕏 for AI agents
clawk.ai：𝕏 for AI agents
@clawcaster：Farcaster for AI agents
instaclaw.xyz：Instagram for agents
moltbook.space：MySpace for AI agents

Relationships
shellmates.app：Pen pals for AI agents
clawdr.co：Like Tinder or Grindr, but for Clawdbots

Messaging
moltline.com：Private messaging

Work & Markets
openwork.bot：AI agents hire each other, complete work, verify outcomes, and earn tokens
clawnet.org：Build reputation. Connect with peers. Find work opportunities
moltroad.com：agent marketplace

Token economy
Clawn.ch：Agents-only token launchpad via Clanker
moltlaunch.com：CLI launchpad on Base via Flaunch

Discovery
claw.direct：Directory of Social Web Experiences for AI Agents
clawcrunch.com：News for the Agent Era

Prediction Markets
clawarena.ai：A Prediction Arena for AI Agents
polyclaw.app：Prediction Market Run by AI Agents

Gaming
molt.chess (chess.unabotter.xyz)：Agent chess league

Virtual Worlds
shell-town.com/viewer：a live virtual world for agents

Two topics today:

1. A new “OS” for OliveCap (a new website)

2. An upcoming event about liquid strategies in digital assets

Let’s get into it right now.

1. Olive Capital new “Operating System”: not just a website, a conversation

We have officially launched the new Olive Capital interface, and it is not a traditional website update. We gave the platform a voice.

Our new "OS"

At OliveCap, we operate on the thesis that the future of finance runs on invisible crypto rails. To reflect this, we built a site that functions less like a static homepage and more like a native operating system. It is an interactive, conversation-driven experience designed to let you explore our ecosystem dynamically.

What you can experience now:

• Interact with our beliefs: Ask about “Conviction” to understand how we back pre-seed founders building everyday financial products.

• Unlock alpha: Explore our “10 Predictions for 2040,” ranging from agent-native platforms to the future of data vaults.

• Explore the ecosystem: Navigate the Syndicate, the UPCOMINGVC® education platform, and the Runway Series podcast directly through the chat interface.

Try it yourself. Type “Team,” click “Events,” or just type “Wen token?” to see what happens ;)

2. Liquidity strategies in digital assets

As a crypto VC, it is easy to become myopic, focusing solely on the volatility and velocity of digital assets. And as OliveCap is mostly an pre-seed, equity investor, we tend to be on the opposite side of the “liquidity spectrum”.

However, I truly believe that executing a VC strategy requires a rigorous understanding of cross-asset LP portfolio allocation, as LPs must balance high-conviction venture bets with broader asset allocation strategies, particularly through various liquidity mechanisms within the crypto space.

To unpack this, I am organizing an exclusive event on Feb-5 in Geneva, Switzerland, with Belem Capital, with > $1bn in AuM/custody in digital assets. We will dive into how investors should approach asset allocation, managing liquidity strategies, and the interplay between traditional and crypto markets.

Join us for this discussion on liquid strategies in digital assets.

Event details + RSVP (free)

Thansk and speak soon.

Raph.
Founder, OliveCapital.vc

Looking beyond the cycle: 10 shifts we’re betting on by 2040.

Hej everyone,

Given the long build, GTM and penetration cycles and feedback loops for pre-seed investors and the teams they back, we do not believe at Olive Capital that making annual predictions makes sense.

Hence, here are our 10 PREDICTIONS that we see compounding quietly until 2040.

By 2040, 15 years from now, we at Olive Capital expect everyday finance to be rebuilt on invisible web3 rails, work and creativity to be reorganized around agent tools, and privacy-selective disclosure to be a default expectation in consumer products.​ We propose that year after year, we will be grading the progress made towards these predictions, and even if we keep the option to revisit any of these predictions based on fundamental dynamics shifts we might observe, these 10 foreseen shifts are the ones we have the highest conviction on.

From thesis to trajectory: 10 convictions for 2040.

What are our 10 predictions for 2040?

1. Mainstream “super wallets” replace checking accounts.

By 2040, most European consumers will primarily interact with money through smart wallets that aggregate bank, investment, and on-chain assets, with embedded portfolio management and tax intelligence, making traditional retail bank interfaces a secondary layer.​

2. Invisible crypto infrastructure in 80% of consumer finance apps.

The majority of mass-market finance apps (payments, savings, remittances, investing) will use tokenized or ledger-based infrastructure under the hood, while abstracting away keys, chains, and protocols from users. “Crypto” will be a backend feature, not a selling point.​

3. Consumer-grade portfolio management powered by web3 rails becomes default.

By 2040, automated portfolio tools, bundled into super wallets and everyday finance apps, will deliver institutional-grade construction, rebalancing, and oversight for all users, leveraging tokenized assets and onchain data for seamless multi-asset (fiat + crypto) management without users managing keys.

4. Tax and reporting engines become real-time.

Real-time, AI-driven tax, compliance, and reporting layers will sit between user wallets and institutions, turning today’s painful annual tax season into an always-on background process, especially for multi-asset (fiat + crypto) users.​

5. Personal “work agents” handle 30–50% of white-collar tasks.

By 2040, a material share of knowledge workers will orchestrate networks of AI agents that schedule, draft, negotiate, analyze, and monitor, with individuals acting as editors and strategists rather than operators.​

6. Agent-native platforms become core B2B infrastructure.

By 2040, leading SaaS providers in finance, operations, and go-to-market will prioritize agent APIs over traditional dashboards, enabling seamless integration of autonomous AI workflows across systems. This shift shrinks organizational hierarchies as individuals and small teams deploy agent networks for tasks like contract negotiation, compliance checks, and revenue forecasting, amplifying productivity in line with Olive Capital's agent economy vision.​

7. Creators and solo entrepreneurs run “micro-agency stacks”.

Independent creators and small studios will routinely deploy agent stacks for content production, distribution, and monetization, turning today’s side hustles into globally scalable micro-businesses with minimal headcount.​

8. Selective disclosure becomes a regulatory and UX norm.

Instead of oversharing raw data, consumers will routinely prove facts (age, solvency, reputation, credentials) via privacy-preserving proofs, driven by regulation, user backlash, and new dev tooling for compliant, data-minimizing apps.​

9. User-operated identity and data vaults go mainstream.

A large share of consumers will manage portable identity and data vaults that they selectively connect to apps and platforms, reversing the current model where platforms hoard and broker user data.​

10. Consumer apps win by “privacy-first differentiation”.

By 2040, in competitive sectors like finance, social media, and productivity, top products will lead with selective disclosure UX, allowing users to prove attributes (e.g., creditworthiness or age) via privacy-preserving proofs without revealing full data, turning privacy into a core product wedge rather than a compliance afterthought.​

Onwards to 2040, and feel free to contact us at Olive Capital if you want to discuss our thesis and share your views.

Raph.
Founder OliveCapital.vc

Global finance must migrate to “invisible” crypto rails

The movement of finance onto invisible and ubiquitous crypto rails is primarily driven by the need for accessibility, programmability, self-custody. Finance on “onchain rails abstracted away” offers a robust defense against centralized failures, providing a mechanism where assets are owned by the users, regardless of institutional solvency. For instance, in countries where central banks or financial systems have frozen assets, an onchain, self-custodial solution would prevent such catastrophic loss of control. Yet, for institutions and consumers to fully embrace this future, a critical component is missing: CONFIDENTIALITY.

The problem of public visibility

The foundational structure of public blockchains (layer 1s and 2s) means that data is public by default to ensure public verifiability. This architecture creates an environment where everyone can see the data used to compute the state of the chain. As Rand Hindi, founder of Zama, recently noted on the Bankless podcast, using a public blockchain today is akin to walking up to a stranger on the street and asking them to show you their bank account. The necessity for confidentiality is obvious.

Bankless ep. with Rand (Zama)

For large financial institutions, moving their activity, such as bank accounts or trading activity, onto the chain without this layer of protection is untenable, and in many jurisdictions, likely illegal. There is simply “no way” a bank will transition to using stablecoins if a neighbor can view their account balance. Therefore, achieving ubiquitous, everyday finance onchain requires a technology solution that allows users and institutions control over their sensitive information, a concept better defined as confidentiality, and selective disclosure. Confidentiality acts as a superset, encompassing personal privacy (like bank balances) and sensitive corporate or application data (like trading strategies or private game states).

The clear path forward: layering advanced cryptography

The shift needed for finance to embrace crypto echoes historical technological transformations. Just as messaging apps eventually adopted end-to-end encryption by default because users realized they could have the exact same service but private, the financial world is now demanding the same capability.

The Bankless podcast interview with Rand presented a remarkably clear articulation of how this can be achieved without altering the existing blockchain architecture. Rand explained that the public nature of early blockchains was merely an artifact of lacking the necessary cryptography at the time, not an intended feature.

The path forward relies not on a single technology, but on a stack of advanced cryptographic techniques often called “moon math”,. Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZK), Multi-Party Computation (MPC), and Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) are all immensely important, but serve distinct purposes in the confidentiality value chain.

• ZK Proofs are critical for achieving integrity and scalability. They allow a system to prove that something was done correctly without revealing the underlying data.

• MPC is leveraged for managing secrets, particularly when decentralizing a private key or decryption key across multiple reputable entities, ensuring resilience against single points of failure,,.

• FHE is the missing layer for privacy and computation. It allows a network to execute code and compute on encrypted data without ever having to decrypt it, ensuring the data remains confidential throughout the process,.

The optimal blockchain stack utilizes each technology for its respective strength: FHE for privacy, ZK for scaling, and MPC for key management. The choice and/or combination of which technology to use depends entirely on the use case, whether the requirement is to prove a transaction’s validity (ZK), securely manage a decryption key (MPC), or enable programmable interactions on encrypted assets (FHE),.

Rand advocates for an architecture where FHE handles privacy, effectively acting as an HTTPS layer for blockchain transactions. This allows builders to add confidentiality seamlessly, without requiring users to bridge to entirely new chains or change how they interact with existing applications,. This technology is scheduled to begin deployment on Ethereum mainnet as early as December 2025.

Echoing our investment conviction at Olive Capital

This imminent tech breakthrough strongly validates the core conviction of VC firms focusing on the intersection of finance and web3 infrastructure. I am building Olive Capital exactly for that: I focus on pre-seed “everyday finance” in Europe, with a deep conviction around the behavioral change driven by privacy, and selective disclosure.

At Olive Capital, I aim to back shifts toward giving users control over their data, powered by the above, and made scalable with invisible, ubiquitous web3 infrastructure. The integration of advanced confidentiality, e.g. using FHE as the engine for confidential computation on existing public chains, perfectly aligns with this vision of creating accessible and intuitive “everyday finance”. OliveCap’s focus on spotting early opportunities at the intersection of global finance, technology, and entrepreneurship positions it to capitalize on this shift from transparent transactions to confidential and composable onchain finance. The demonstrated ability to integrate confidentiality as a simple, layer-on feature is exactly the kind of foundational, ubiquitous infrastructure Olive Capital seeks to back.

For builders, investors, and executives, the path is clear. The integration of robust, purpose-built confidentiality technos is the final required catalyst for global finance to migrate fully onto invisible crypto rails. Ignoring this necessity is ignoring the trillion-dollar opportunity that is already in motion.

Thanks for reading.

Best,

Raph
Founder, Olive Capital.

This is a short-form post. I hope you will like it.

Eleven years ago, Martin Mignot, now Partner at Index Ventures, reflected on a defining moment for Bitcoin when Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, emphasized the critical importance of focusing on the risks inherent to cryptocurrencies, volatility, fraud, criminal activity, and the inevitable need for government regulation to protect consumers.

Martin's post

At that time, this signaled Bitcoin’s transition from an obscure hobbyist phenomenon to a mainstream, institutional asset class.

Circle had just in October 2013 completed a $9M Series A from Accel and General Catalyst to make “Bitcoin mainstream” (TechCrunch article). Circle is now an $18B public company.

What Martin and Jeremy foresaw was spot on: the tension between Bitcoin’s original libertarian ideals and the pragmatic realities of regulation and institutional adoption would shape its future.

Today, in 2025, we see this vision fully realized. Bitcoin has matured into a highly institutionalized asset, embraced by legacy financial institutions, regulated under clear frameworks, and integrated into the broader financial system. Large financial institutions including JPMorgan, Citi, HSBC, and UBS are actively launching Bitcoin custody and settlement services. Corporations are increasingly allocating Bitcoin to their treasuries. Stripe, Mastercard, and Visa have all launched products enabling users to spend stablecoins via traditional rails,

Circle itself has grown into a critical infrastructure player in the $4 trillion crypto ecosystem, working hand-in-hand with regulators and generating massive transaction volumes globally. Stablecoin transaction volume remains dominated by USDT (Tether) and USDC, which consistently dwarf other stablecoins in scale. Between June 2024 and June 2025, USDT routinely processed roughly $703 billion per month, peaking at $1.01 trillion in June 2025. USDC, meanwhile, ranged during this 12-month period from $3.21 billion to $1.54 trillion monthly (source: Chainalysis).

The regulatory clarity championed by Circle’s Jeremy Allaire has proven essential, not a betrayal of the original dream, but a necessary evolution enabling mainstream adoption and mass-market growth. As Martin Mignot noted then, this move represented Bitcoin “growing up,” shifting from idealistic roots towards becoming a transformational economic force driven by experienced executives and venture-backed innovation.

The journey is far from over, but the foresight that Martin and Jeremy, in particular, demonstrated remains a guiding light in understanding Bitcoin’s ongoing evolution.

Thank, Raph.

As a reminder, Farcaster was founded by Dan Romero and Varun Srinivasan, both ex-Coinbase, who envisioned an open protocol for social networking where your graph lives onchain and developers can build innovative mini-apps, protocols, and tokenized features. I’ve been an early Farcaster user since mid 2023.

Meanwhile, Base (Coinbase’s L2 on ethereum led by Jesse Pollak) is pushing out the Base app with its “Everyone is a creator” vision. As Switzerland Ambassador for Base, I see creator coins and direct audience ownership taking hold and driving new entrepreneurial energy.

Something unique is happening on Farcaster right now, something no NFT cycle has accomplished before, not even the 2021 boom: the rise mini-app-powered social collectibles, as the Warplets Collection rightly illustrates.

The Warplets, crafted by Sayangel (Harmonybot’s founder), are more than just another PFP or tradable art token. Each Warplet leverages the Farcaster social graph, generating a digital portrait based on the user’s onchain identity. Imagine a collectible not only forged by wallet, but also coded with the messy, creative DNA of community participation and personal social graph data. It’s participatory art at protocol scale, each Warplet both artifact and avatar, algorithmically customized and ever-evolving. For the moment, the Warplets only explore a tiny percentage of what the social graph proposes but we can expect builders to soon envision multi-variate criteria to deliver deep, ultra-personalized, onchain experiences.

What does this mean for adoption? It looks increasingly like we are witnessing a tipping point:

• In the past 18 hours alone (as of Oct 28), Farcaster saw more new Pro sign-ups than it did for the entire limited edition NFT Pro launch in May 2025—bringing the onchain Pro subscriber base close to 30,000.

• Over 5,800 dormant accounts reactivated on Oct 28, the highest daily reactivation count in over 6 months.

More data about the Warplets here.

All of this is happening onchain, sparked by collective participation and the emergence of new forms of digital self-expression.

Again, this is not just another NFT. Mini-apps on Farcaster (also available on the Base app) are redefining what collectibles can be, not as static assets, but as dynamic, social, composable experiences personalized directly from the user’s evolving onchain identity and graph. The NFT is not the endpoint, but a starting point for participatory digital culture.​

At the same time, going back to the Base app, it integrates Farcaster’s protocol for social graph management. So the two ecosystems remain tightly coupled at the foundation, even while offering distinctive cultural and economic models.

Farcaster champions “developer coins” and protocol legos; Base is building for “creator coins” and scalable entrepreneurship. Both visions can thrive alongside each other, Farcaster with the deepest onchain social primitives, the Base app as the mainstream onramp for creators.

If both succeed, they won’t just coexist, they will expand the pie, creating new, fairer networks for ownership and participation.

But risks remain: overlapping narratives and fast tactical pivots could confuse and slow down user adoption. As networks mature, clear communication and cultural coherence become even more critical.

For now, Farcaster’s latest surge, and the “Warplet-initiated” phenomenon, suggest that real personalization and creative agency on the social graph are finally bringing web3’s promises to life.

That’s why I’m active on Farcaster and proud to serve as Base Ambassador in Switzerland: continuing to build the connective tissue between protocols, creators, and communities.

Best, Raph

I am excited to announce the launch of Olive Capital Online Platform for our syndicate.
It is an entirely proprietary platform.
No provider in the backend.

⚡Who can access it?

Only active members, i.e. those from the syndicate who've invested at least once in our SPVs

⚡What can users do on the platform?

Update their profile & hide/show their OliveCap deals.
Browse the directory of active members.
Check the past deals and see who's invested in the club (but users can hide their investments).
Check new deals.
Submit and download VC-grade templates (option pools, TS, captable, option pools..).
Jobs at OliveCap's portfolio companies and at members'.

⚡How to access it?

Head to olivecapital.vc/members

OliveCap Platform

⚡Next on the platform?

It depends on feedback and our collective needs.
We might generate our SPVs from here (SPV documentation + payments), we shall see.
I will add possibly a content & event section.
This is free for OG members, I'm considering adding a small annual fee for the future active investors.

⚡Want to join the investment club?

We’re focusing on web3 and doing mostly pre-seed. Learn more about our focus.

Apply to join OliveCap Syndicate

See you, Raph.

Host @ Runway Series Podcast / Writer @ Venture Notes
Founding Partner @ Olive Capital, web3 pre-seed firm
Community Meetup Organizer @ Base Switzerland
Co-Chair Startup & Venture Working Group @ Crypto Valley Association
Founder @ UPCOMINGVC®
Ex-Venture Capital Academic Researcher @ IMD
Co-Founder @ NFT Factory in Paris
Creator @ Beardy Punks NFT Collection (eth mainnet)
Founding Co-President @ La French Tech Switzerland

🎋 Building a "T=0" edge in pre-seed

For VCs, their ability to effectively source, evaluate, and secure investments is fundamental to their firm's success, especially given that the average firm invests in less than 1% of the opportunities reviewed.

Deal sourcing strategies generally fall into two main categories: inbound and outbound. Inbound sourcing occurs when startups proactively seek investment from a VC firm. This often results from a combination of the firm's reputation in the ecosystem, its marketing efforts and content marketing strategy (think free tools for builders), and network presence. Outbound sourcing involves actively seeking out potential investments through direct engagement and (sometimes data-driven) research. This is a proactive approach, essential for firms regardless of the firm having an established reputation or not.

Ideally, VC firms use a blend of inbound and outbound strategies to maintain a robust deal pipeline.

For very early stage investors such as us at Olive Capital, focusing particularly on web3 pre-seed, cultivating unique deal flow sources is critical. We believe that a targeted outbound and community-building approach provides us a significant advantage and edge here.

Even though we’re chain-agnostic, one such strategy that we’re building at Olive Capital involves organizing events and workshops specifically for builders within a chosen ecosystem, like Base (an Ethereum Layer 2 network developed by Coinbase). Since the beginning of 2025, we’ve been organizing targeted events in Switzerland for Base builders and enthusiasts, that have already gathered 150 participants across 3 formats in Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich.

We’re very excited to be organizing, and hosting on May 8 a full-day Base Workshop in Zug (Switzerland) for builders in these tracks: AI, Stablecoins, Mini-apps, Consumer.

Learn more about our May 8 Zug Base Workshop: https://lu.ma/6jghl0ts

Base has just announced the first iteration of their first Global Buildathon called "Base Batches" which includes hands-on workshops such as ours. Builders across six regions (Americas, APAC, Africa, Europe, India, LatAm) will submit on May 11 what they’ve built and 50 startups will be invited to join Base incubators and pitch at a Global Demo Day with a chance to win up to $ 1 million in funding.

By hosting Base-focused events, such as builder workshops, we Olive Capital as pre-seed web3 investors can:

• identify talent early: we connect with builders at the very beginning of their journey, often before they have formally incorporated a company or started seeking funding, giving us access to opportunities significantly earlier than traditional sourcing methods might allow

• build rapport from day one: by engaging with builders in a supportive context, like a workshop, this helps establish trust in Olive Capital and a positive relationship from the outset, at T=0

• demonstrate value-add: by offering tangible support during these events, whether through technical guidance or facilitating connections with other relevant individuals (e.g., potential collaborators, advisors, other builders), this showcases Olive Capital’s value beyond just capital

Our hands-on, community-centric approach at Olive Capital aligns with the active networking and relationship-building crucial for successful early-stage investing, creating a proprietary channel for identifying and nurturing high-potential web3 founders before they appear on the wider market radar.

We can’t wait to leverage this May 8 opportunity to help builders build, and identify the next VEIL CASH (ZK), or BANKR (Agent Economy), or consumer (mini-)apps native to FARCASTER. Base is also home to a nascent and growing Bitcoin activity (with cbBTC) that will we believe allow for rising Bitcoin Programmability and end-user experiences beyond “BTC as store of value”, one of our fund thesis’ 3 core pillars.

Shout-out to CV Labs (cvlabs.com), thanks for hosting us! CV Labs is the heartbeat of Crypto Valley, one of the world’s largest blockchain hubs, with its epicenter in Zug, Switzerland. As the ecosystem arm of CV VC, it supports blockchain innovation through incubator programs, coworking spaces, and global events like CV Summit. CV Labs connects startups, corporates, and investors to drive the growth of the web3 ecosystem.

See you there!

Raph.

A lot of tech and web3 events we at Olive Capital are organizing (or co-organizing) in the next few week. Where to meet us next and discuss tech progress?

1. April 28 (Geneva): 10th pre-seed dinner focusing on ZK, the Agent Economy, and Bitcoin Programmability lu.ma/5qaw65c3, powered by Olive Capital that I am building.

2. April 30 (Geneva): panel event on "Gen AI et compétences tech: tout le monde entrepreneur?" with Nicolas Lagrèze (WeBuild Ventures Switzerland), Olivier Brourhant (Mantu), and Jonas Jeandupeux (Forestay Capital), in partnership with Spaces lu.ma/d3bdm42n, powered by La French Tech Suisse Romande, that I co-lead.

3. May 6 (online): 3rd "VC OFFICE HOURS" on "Marketing frameworks, and event strategy for web3 startups", with Eleanor Hudson, Head of Ecosystem for Fabric Ventures lu.ma/4k6i635d, powered by the Crypto Valley Association Startup & Venture working group that I co-chair.

4. May 8 (Zug): Base (by Coinbase) IRL Workshop to help builders participate in Base Batches #001 (a Global Base Buildathon focusing on AI, Stablecoins, Mini-apps, Consumer), get noticed, incubated, pitch and earn $1M in funding lu.ma/6jghl0ts, Zug workshop in partnership with CV Labs (shout-out to Benedek Orban).

5. June 5 (Zug): Apply to pitch and be part of the 10 startups selected to demo at the official Startup Competition during the 7th Crypto Valley Conference, in front of 1'500 participants cryptovalleyconference.com/startup-competition, powered by Crypto Valley Association.

1. Olive Capital's Pre-Seed Dinner #10 (Geneva, April 28, 2025) focused on Agent Economy, ZK, and Bitcoin Programmability

2. "VC Office Hours" #3 by Crypto Valley Association (CVA) (online, May 6, 2025) featuring Eleanor Hudson from Fabric Ventures discussing with YOU marketing frameworks and event strategy for web3 startups

3. Startup Competition @ Crypto Valley Conference (submissions open April 1-May 1, 2025) with final pitching on June 5, 2025 during the flagship crypto conference

4. Full-Day Base (by Coinbase) Workshop (Zug, May 8, 2025), more to be announced ultra soon

Let’s get into it.

Pre-Seed Dinner #10th : Agent Economy, ZK, Bitcoin Programmability..

After a 16-month hiatus, we are thrilled to announce the return of Olive Capital's Dinner Series with a landmark 10th gathering!

Apply to join (subject to approval)

• Theme: Pre-seed dinner, exploring the Agent Economy / Zero-Knowledge (ZK) / Bitcoin Programmability.. and more

• Date and time: Monday, April 28th 2025 at 19:30 CET

• Location: in Geneva, Switzerland (venue disclosed upon approval)

• Format: 8-seat dinner (+waitlist)

• Cost: bill shared equally among attendees

Who should attend? This curated dinner brings together pre-seed investors (VCs, angels, family offices, funds of funds..) and web3 entrepreneurs focused on the Agent Economy, ZK, and Bitcoin Programmability. All participants will receive a complimentary POAP NFT to commemorate the event (gasless, transaction-less).

How to participate? Attendance is subject to approval by Olive Capital.

We look forward to reconnecting with our community and fostering valuable partnerships over exceptional food and conversation!

“VC OFFICE HOURS” #3, by the Crypto Valley Association (CVA)

As the Co-Chair of the Crypto Valley Association (CVA) Startups & Venture working group, I am excited to announce the 3rd edition of our "VC OFFICE HOURS", hosted by the CVA!

Register (free)

• Theme: Marketing frameworks, and event strategy for web3 startups

• VC Guest: Eleanor Hudson, Head of Ecosystem at Fabric Ventures

• Date and time: Tuesday, May 6th 2025 at 12:15pm CET

• Location: zoom

• Cost: free

Who should attend: highly interactive initiative is designed to connect our members startups (and scaleups) with VCs in the ecosystem.

Format: this is not a typical webinar or conference, it's an open, interactive format where registered startup founders and builders directly engage with Eleanor, asking their most pressing questions related to Marketing challenges and opportunities they face in their web3 projects.

I find it super cool to introduce each session a different guest VC who will tackle real challenges faced by founders, completely free of charge. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions, engage in discussions, and gain actionable insights to refine their strategies and unlock new growth opportunities. ​

We look forward to another insightful discussion with you.

Apply to the STARTUP COMPETITION @ Crypto Valley Conference

One of the best web3 startup competitions is back on June 5th during the Crypto Valley Conference, by the Crypto Valley Association (CVA), co-hosted by CV Labs.

Apply to the Startup Competition

Startups: not only can you win great prizes, but you will have the chance to increase your exposure exponentially, sit down with investors, present in front of 1'500+ people, and build your network.

The top 10 startups will each have their own showcase booth at the conference.

🗓 Submissions open: April 1 – May 1 , 2025 deadline
🎤 Final pitching round: June 5, 2025 @ Crypto Valley Conference

📌 Eligibility < $3M raised; < 3 years old; blockchain/crypto tech focus, it is open to all early-stage crypto startups, regardless of industries or protocol they're building on.

As the Co-Chair of the Startup & Venture working group at the CVA, I can't be more excited by this 3rd Startup Competition.

Base (by Coinbase) Full-Day In-Person Workshop

Join us in Zug, Switzerland, on May 8, 2025 for a full-day session building and learning about Base in the context of the Base Batches Global Buildathon.

Some details are still pending hence I can for now just tease you, but I confirm the date and location are secured ✅

To be the first to know about our Base workshop in Zug:

Subscribe to Base Switzerland Calendar

And also join our Base Switzerland Community telegram:

Base Switzerland Telegram

Base Batches is a global program for builders creating the next wave of onchain apps. First, builders will take part in buildathons. Then, the top builders will move to incubators where they’ll refine their ideas with new levels of support. Finally, they’ll take the stage at Demo Day, pitching for funding to take their projects further.

As the Base (by Coinbase) Community Meetup organizer in Switzerland (already 3 events in 2025 with 150 cumulative participants), I am pumped !

That was a lot of events to unpack, right?

See you, Raph Grieco.

Host @ Runway Series Podcast / Writer @ Venture Notes
Founding Partner @ Olive Capital, web3 pre-seed firm
Community Meetup Organizer @ Base Switzerland
Co-Chair Startup & Venture Working Group @ Crypto Valley Association
Founder @ UPCOMINGVC®
Ex-Venture Capital Academic Researcher @ IMD
Co-Founder @ NFT Factory in Paris
Creator @ Beardy Punks NFT Collection (eth mainnet)
Founding Co-President @ La French Tech Switzerland

This is probably the longest piece I’ve ever written on Venture Notes, but one of the most actionable articles of this newsletter to date. If you want to chat about how to implement and adapt this 2x2 framework to your strategy, or share your convictions/frustrations in this market as a new/emerging LP in VC, you can simply reply to this email.

During my time as a Venture Capital Researcher at IMD between 2023 and 2024, I fell deeply into academic thinking about the topic, and really enjoyed taking a step back. Prior to that, I graduated from VC Lab (Cohort 6, now preparing to launch Cohort 18) while simultaneously embarking on the journey of raising a first-time micro VC fund (under the $25M category). And along the way, several pivotal insights emerged.

By blending academic research, thoughtful conversations, constructive LP feedback, and hands-on experience in fundraising, I developed a practical framework tailored for new/emerging LPs with limited VC experience to evaluate new VC managers with micro first-time funds. This framework is designed to guide their decision-making process effectively.

And now, here we are.

Evaluating new VC managers raising (micro) first-time funds

Qualitative > Quantitative. But how to evaluate?

Investing in new, first-time VC managers raising their debut micro funds presents unique opportunities and challenges for Limited Partners (aka LPs). Unlike established funds with extensive track records, new managers often lack historical performance data (were angels, or couldn’t get track attribution at their prior VC firm because too young for instance) but bring something fresh.

For LPs, the decision to invest in such funds requires a nuanced approach that balances qualitative and quantitative factors, with a lot of emphasis on the former. This research introduces a 2x2 framework to guide new and emerging LPs in evaluating first-time VC managers, emphasizing the interplay between manager readiness and LP alignment.

The new VC manager landscape

For context, first-time managers matter in venture because they offer distinct “advantages”:

• fresh perspectives: they often explore underrepresented markets or sectors, bringing innovative approaches to deal sourcing and portfolio management

• motivation and engagement: new managers are highly motivated to build a strong track record, often investing significant personal capital ("skin in the game") OR obliterating a fancy lifestyle based mostly on fat nominal management fees (2% on a micro-fund in nominal money terms does not allow for a fancy lifestyle at all)

• focus on niche opportunities: many micro funds target early-stage startups that larger funds often overlook, offering LPs exposure to highly differentiated ecosystems and investment theses

Yet, challenges for first-time VC managers are numerous. Despite their “advantages”, first-time managers face several hurdles such as:

• limited track record: LPs often struggle to assess performance due to a lack of historical data.

• operational complexity: setting up robust infrastructure for compliance, reporting, and portfolio management can be daunting for new managers! I can confirm.

• competition for deals: still, new managers might compete with established firms with brand power for access to top-tier startups

The 2x2 framework, tailored to evaluating new VC managers

To help new/emerging LPs navigate this tough exercise, I have designed a high-level 2x2 framework to evaluate first-time VC managers based on what I believe are the two most critical dimensions:

This dimension assesses the new VC manager's preparedness to execute their investment strategy effectively. Key indicators include:

• domain expertise and sector knowledge

• a clear and differentiated investment thesis

• strong professional networks for deal sourcing (and follow-on funding although the latter is a highly disputable topic)

• operational infrastructure to support fund management and compliance

This dimension evaluates how well the new VC manager's goals align with the new and emerging LP's investment strategy and expectations. Key factors include:

• shared values and long-term vision

• compatibility in risk appetite and return expectations

• transparency and communication style

The four quadrants

The intersection of these two dimensions (LP alignement, manager readiness) creates four quadrants, hence a “2x2 framework“, each representing a different scenario:

Clarifying the "Risk Zone" in my 2x2 framework: VC by its very nature is a high-risk asset class. Within the context of this 2x2 framework, the "Risk Zone" has a more specific meaning that goes beyond the general riskiness of VC. It refers to situations where a new VC manager demonstrates high operational readiness but lacks alignment with a particular new/emerging LP’s investment strategy, priorities, or values. This misalignment introduces a unique type of risk: relational risk.

Practical application

This 2x2 framework should be simple enough to be leveraged to any new/emerging LPs’ peculiar context.

Here is how LPs can use the framework:

• early screening: use the framework during initial meetings to categorize potential investments

• due diligence focus: tailor due diligence efforts based on the quadrant (e.g., focus on operational gaps in the “Potential Zone”)

• decision-making support: combine this framework with other tools like flag systems or checklists for a comprehensive evaluation

✅ But who should use it?

• new and emerging LPs seeking guidance on evaluating emerging managers

• institutional investors exploring diversification through micro funds and new managers in VC

• advisors helping LP clients identify high-potential first-time managers in VC

❌ Who shouldn’t use it..

• experienced LPs focused exclusively on established VC funds with extensive track records

• investors / LPs with narrow VC mandates that require highly specific criteria not addressed by this 2x2 framework

If you fall in any of the above ✅ categories, I invite you to use and test this framework

Ok, it is not really a spoiler that investing in first-time VC managers raising micro funds is both an art and a science. The proposed 2x2 framework provides a structured approach for new and emerging LPs to evaluate new VC managers holistically, balancing qualitative factors like alignment with quantitative indicators of readiness.

By adapting this framework alongside traditional due diligence approches, new and emerging LPs can make more informed decisions about which first-time VC managers to back. Ultimately, those who identify strong candidates in the "Opportunity Zone" stand to benefit from both superior financial returns and meaningful contributions to the venture ecosystem. You might also want to build rapport with the new VC managers falling in the three other types of zone because of the long term nature of VC and opportunity for alignments eventually converging as 1) they do more closes of the same fund, or 2) raise subsequent funds. How to? At least by asking to be subscribed to their newsletter.

Where we believe Olive Capital is, in this 2x2 framework

In the context of this 2x2 framework, Olive Capital exemplifies a firm positioned in the right-hand side, in high manager readiness area. Our founding team has set up institutional-grade ops that belies our first-time fund status (admin, governance, and reporting standards). With deep domain expertise in GTM Enterprise, Product, scaling to Series B and VC-readiness, as well as media strategies, combined with extensive networks within the crypto ecosystem, we provide to forward-thinking LPs an compelling balance of vision and operational readiness, precisely the type of new manager that can deliver meaningful contributions to the venture ecosystem beyond web3.

However, we could sit either in the “Opportunity Zone” or in the “Risk Zone”: what’s left for the new/emerging LPs to identify is their alignment (as a reminder, this is 1. shared values and long-term vision, 2. compatibility in risk appetite and return expectations, and 3. transparency and communication style).

New VC firm on the right-hand side of the X-axis (“manager readiness”), all have operational power and clarity of voice.

Where is the fundraising market for new GPs heading to in the coming 12-18 months?

This sounds like a piece of advice to new GPs but this is actually what I believe new/emerging LPs should focus on, while implementing and adapting the 2x2 framework.

LP capital will probably get more scarce but will not disappear. The difficulty is going up, but the door is not closing. LPs (incl. new/emerging ones) will deploy, hopefully thanks to our 2x2 framework, but only to new managers who behave like institutions, not VC side-gigers. First-time funds with conviction, clarity of thoughts, and real differentiation will still raise. Every other GPs will either plateau, delay, or quit.

The power law is also applicable to VC fund fundraising, and will magnify gaps. Such above-mentioned new VC managers will raise faster, and attract capital that previously went to ok-ish funds / new GPs during up-only markets. This concentration creates a divide between 1) tier-1 new managers benefitting from a flywheel of easier fundraising, and better visibility/deal access, and 2) undifferentiated first-time funds having hard time to attract capital. Successful new GPs will be those clearly articulating why their approach offers distinctive value in a market becoming increasingly competitive.

Finally, we believe that Adam Metz is right, that platform emerges as the new performance metrics. Operational infrastructure will challenge returns in new/emerging LP evaluations of new GPs’ track. In other words, the perception of operational maturity even at first-time funds, will matter as much as past/actual/paper returns, especially for new managers without extensive track records and close to no DPI.

If you want to chat about how to implement and adapt this 2x2 framework to your strategy, or share your convictions/frustrations in this market as a new/emerging LP in VC, you can simply reply to this email.

Speak soon,
Raph Grieco

Host @ Runway Series Podcast / Writer @ Venture Notes
Founding Partner @ Olive Capital, web3 pre-seed firm
Community Meetup Organizer @ Base Switzerland
Co-Chair Startup & Venture Working Group @ Crypto Valley Association
Founder @ UPCOMINGVC®
Ex-Venture Capital Academic Researcher @ IMD
Co-Founder @ NFT Factory in Paris
Creator @ Beardy Punks NFT Collection (eth mainnet)
Founding Co-President @ La French Tech Switzerland