London is well-known for its lively tech startup scene, but it’s about to get more exciting with the arrival of a new BSV incubator called Satoshi Block Dojo.
The first cohort of startups will begin their programme in January 2022, with those first entrepreneurs making pitches to business angels and investment funds three months later, hoping to take their projects to the next level.
Founder Craig Massey says Block Dojo is planning to “nurture and support” 250 companies over the next five years and is raising £2 million to do so.
According to co-founder Richard Boase, there’s already “a lot of interest” from investors. Block Dojo’s “one and only” investment round for its U.K. business will close at the end of September, but until then, you’re invited to get in touch. A minimum investment of £10,000 is required.
At a launch event, Massey explained this is his eighth startup. Now he wants to apply some of what he’s learnt to helping other founders succeed—against the discouraging stats which show that nine out of 10 tech startups fail.
Dojo’s support will take away some of the stresses and distractions, to let founders concentrate on their most important role: “If you can actually let the founder focus on the delivery solution and organise their finance for them, then you stand a better chance of success,” Massey says.
He admits he’s a Bitcoin novice. Before coming up with the plan for Dojo, he’d spent time researching—and was amazed at what he found: “It’s unbelievable. There is a Bitcoin bloodbath. It is a civil war, literally with Bitcoin billionaires, behemoths, bludgeoning it out. And they’re all kind of chasing after the Holy Grail which is the original Bitcoin protocol. So it’s a bit like Game of Thrones. Only for nerds.”
Thanks to selling his previous startup to Zoopla, Massey could take his time. That allowed him to enjoy several months of relaxation in Antigua, some of which he spent on YouTube. His research led him to Dr. Craig Wright: “I looked at 150 hours of Craig Wright—either interviews of Craig Wright or on panel discussions or people talking about him. Let me tell you, when you’re overseas, you don’t need Netflix when you’ve got the Craig Wright channel, because it’s very entertaining, because on a panel discussion he literally beats up everybody else verbally because they challenge him and he’s the only guy who a ctually has the answers. Why? Because he invented it.”
Wright repaid the compliment by agreeing to speak at Block Dojo’s launch event. He told the audience about himself in characteristically blunt terms: “I’m not normal. I get on with a few people and I do what I need to do when I learn, and I train myself to integrate. And I don’t do it well. I still don’t understand my wife and I still don’t understand everyone else. I just invent things. But that’s what I do. So I want to be an entrepreneur, but I’m not. I’m an inventor.”
Wright hinted at a big idea he’s developing which he says will make use of some of his money (“probably 20 billion of it”). That will “go to the British government …to form something new.” As to exactly what it will be, the audience was left to speculate but Wright dropped a few clues: “one of the biggest inventions in human history, in my opinion, was the creation of the limited stock company. I think it can be improved. I think if we have companies that involve the government, not in the normal way that most people think—shareholders—but actually dividends, etc. Imagine if Google actually brought back all that money into America. And imagine if Britain had money brought back. Imagine if it wasn’t sitting overseas …So I’ve got an idea on that.”
Whether this counts as inventing, which Wright says he’s good at, or entrepreneurship, which he says he’s not, it’s too early to say. But if he inspired the first group of Block Dojo startup founders to think big, he will have made his contribution to their success.
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