Future of Blockchain Enterprise Investing: Kate Mitselmakher, founder of Bloccelerate VC Fund.

Founder and CEO of Bloccelerate VC Kate Mitselmakher. She is one of the few women founding GPs in the world investing in Blockchain Enterprise. She grew up in a volatile economy that could wipe out fortunes from one day to the next. Her personal mission to find and cultivate the ideas and companies that will deliver trillions of dollars worth of business value. She aims to positively impact the lives of billions of people around the world.

Previously, she worked as Investment Director at Gartner and worked alongside some of the top investors in Silicon Valley, thereby creating a strong network of entrepreneurs, VCs, and technology buyers to keep forging new ground in this space.

A big thank you to Anand Radhakrishnan, COO of Investcorp for introducing her for this story.

Here are the topics/Questions we discussed:

Bitcoin started as an antidote to the top-heavy financial system and later as a movement to syndicate a distributed decentralized parallel currency into the fundamental model of the market. 2017 saw a huge rise and everybody was talking about Bitcoin and Blockchain technology, but after the market simmered, there are a handful of people left who are continuing their fight to bring movement into this technology. Today we are going to talk to a woman fund manager who along with a team of serial investors, entrepreneurs, and executives from Fortune 500 companies passionately supports entrepreneurs in the blockchain space.

1. US 2008 recession, the financial and social crisis in Zimbabwe, Venezuela have been a big nudge for people like Hal Finney, Satoshi to start this digital currency revolution to take refuge from real financial criminals who get unscathed from the laws. Blockchain technology existed long before Bitcoin, but because of Bitcoin's huge price surge we saw so much movement and discussion from every conference to White House press briefings. Now as the market simmered the conversation is happening more at enterprise levels than at consumer level. What is driving the value creation in the blockchain space today? How will value creation be different in the next 10 years compared to the last 10 years?

2. How can enterprise platforms and products can monetize this technology?

3. Do you think COVID19 has an impact on blockchain adoption? What have we seen in terms of trends, deal flow and valuations during COVID?

4. How have institutional LPs reacted to the exposure of this asset class specially after 2018? What strategies do you propose to them?

5. It is always difficult for an emerging fund manager to attract LPs. We have seen it is more difficult for women fund managers. What kind of impediments are you facing as a women fund manager raising a fund in not a rising asset class ?

6. Venture Capital is one asset class which is also cyclical. The boom-bust cycle, appetite for high risk but it also has a lock up period for Limited Partners for as long as 15-20 years unlike hedge funds where LPs can redeem their capital out of market panic. For many of us we look at investment as permanent capital that protects from erratic market behavior and good investments need long term commitment. Liquidity has been an issue for LPs for a long time, in a time like this, how do you approach Liquidity position to your incoming/current LPs when you are dealing with an asset class that is easily tradable ?

7. What is the diversity in your fund and in your startups CAP Table that you are investing?

8. Venture Capital is not a career but it is a lifestyle. How are you managing your work life balance with a new fund?

For details you can go to Bloccelerate VC fund - https://www.bloccelerate.vc/

This story was made before Bitcoin price shot to $19K in late Nov, 2020. After this story, she got her first woman LP in her fund.