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In this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts CJ Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by Alyse Killen, the founder and managing partner of Stillmark.
Wilson begins by asking, “Your experience as a venture capitalist with little or no focus on bitcoin is utterly fascinating to me. Where does it all begin?”
Killeen replied, “I started out in venture capital almost a decade ago and have always focused primarily on infrastructure technologies. As I was doing this, I discovered bitcoin and in particular a financial Recognized the opportunity of technology that served poor people and the world’s very large unbanked and underbanked population. For me, it was so compelling.”
Shifting the conversation toward Stillmark, Olszewicz says, “You’ve really focused, at least based on your portfolio listing, until recently, on Lightning. Was this decision evolving quickly, and Now beyond Lightning, what do you see in the future?”
In response, Killeen delved into the structure, “We’re investing in two buckets, and the first bucket is the financialization of bitcoin, assets… Bucket number two are the companies doing these “moonshot projects” built on Lightning. .. where the market has been, and thus where our focus has been on infrastructure-related companies, so sometimes it can feel a little less personal or a little less appealing or relatable. However, the pieces of infrastructure that really The ones that are going to affect the day-to-day experiences of people using Lightning are now being built.”
“Instead of being a bitcoin fund, we are really a generalist fund within the bitcoin space, so we are working from top to bottom – it is all happening in bitcoin right now,” she says.
Wilson asks, “How would you say that trust in founders shifts from traditional VC to bitcoin ventures?”
Killeen responded, “This was the opportunity for Stillmark. It was not to follow the old school VC mentality, but to apply the tools and framework of those traditional ventures to strengthen the founders and implement a new paradigm.” Really work incredibly well.
Continuing on the venture capitalist line, Killen explains, “We think of venture capital as having resources to help accelerate founders to where they’re going. So we generally support those people.” are going to get there anyway, and then hopefully with us, through capital and sometimes network introductions and backing from prior lessons learned from working with hundreds of companies, founders build faster Now, from a bitcoin perspective, there’s another nuance… if we do well, I hope it means that adoption has been catalyzed, and the utility offered in bitcoin. The set also expands. So my hope is that if we do well, the core value of bitcoin can go up.”
Hear the full episode for more!