Mona Tiesler: A venture capitalist on Web3 prospects

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How do venture capitalists make investment choices? There are many answers to this all-important question for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital for their start-ups.

Tokentus, a German publicly listed VC company is an early-stage investor that focuses on the blockchain market. Its Investment Manager, Mona Tiesler, says one of the top criteria they look at in a start-up is its founder’s strengths—including his or her background, mindset, commitment, knowledge of the technology—as well as the business use case and the product market fit. Another important aspect is the team behind the founder and whether they are complimentary to his or her skill set.

As Mona tells Charles Miller on this episode of CoinGeek Conversations, Tokentus is focused on finding start-ups in the Web3 space. While the term Web3 varies in definition, for Mona it can be explained as a decentralized web with Web3 companies being those that utilize blockchain technology to create efficiencies.

Tokentus, however, is not aiming to add all types of blockchain-based companies to their portfolio. They focus on financial services in Web3 related businesses, as well as some consumer facing businesses such as those in retail payments. According to Mona, Tokentus favours infrastructure and applications that will essentially power the future internet.

Mona points out that Tokentus is blockchain agnostic. She believes that every blockchain is different and that each serves a unique purpose. In her opinion, BTC is the safest when it comes to store of value while ETC offers the biggest community with more potential in adoption opportunities. Mona believes that blockchain will continue to evolve:

“I don’t think necessarily the landscape we see now is going to be the landscape we see in the future, but I do believe that there will be a myriad of different blockchains existing in the future, utilized for different use cases.”

For some, the emergence of blockchain technology is likened to the onset of the consumer internet. Many companies formed during the internet’s early days failed to see it through, in effect, missing the opportunity to benefit from the technology’s success. But with blockchain technology now in the palm of our hands, the opportunity presents itself once again. And so, the question is: which blockchains will survive the test of time and which won’t?

Mona predicts “there will be some sort of consolidation process. I wouldn’t say every blockchain I haven’t heard of is going to be weeded out. I don’t have a crystal ball. But there’s incredible building going on, so maybe a big winner could be one we haven’t even heard of yet.”

Hear the whole of Mona Tiesler’s interview in this week’s CoinGeek Conversations podcast or catch up with other recent episodes:

You can also watch the podcast video on YouTube.

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