jimmypureblood

🧵 THE NETWORK BEHIND THE NEXT FINANCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE From Rockefeller, Rothschild and Soros to PayPal, Ripple, Stellar and Southeast Asia. Different generations of capital. Different technology ecosystems. But follow the investments, people and relationships, and some fascinating connections emerge. Let’s connect the dots. 👇 Start with three established investment networks. ROTHSCHILD RIT Capital Partners, originally founded as the Rothschild Investment Trust, invested in digital asset companies including Kraken, Animoca Brands, Paxos and Aspen Digital. SOROS Soros Fund Management participated in Animoca Brands’ $358.9M funding round in 2022 and invested in PolySign. ROCKEFELLER Venrock, established by the Rockefeller family, led Dapper Labs’ $15M financing in 2018. Animoca Brands participated in that same round. Three different investment networks. Already deeply involved in the technology sector. Now look at the connections between them. RIT Capital Partners invested in Animoca Brands in 2021. Soros Fund Management participated in Animoca’s $358.9M funding round in 2022. Venrock led Dapper Labs’ $15M financing in 2018, with Animoca among the participants. This creates an interesting bridge: Rockefeller → Venrock → Dapper Labs ← Animoca Brands ← Soros Fund Management. Meanwhile, Liberty City Ventures appears in both the Animoca and Aspen Digital investment stories. And Liberty City co-led Aspen Digital’s $8.8M funding round with RIT Capital Partners. The connections are becoming more interesting. Now enter the @PayPal network. @peterthiel @reidhoffman @rabois @elonmusk Their paths extended far beyond PayPal. Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund participated in OpenCoin’s 2013 funding round. OpenCoin would later become Ripple Labs, and eventually @Ripple Keith Rabois was part of Stellar’s original foundation board. Reid Hoffman appeared in the July 2014 email discussion about Jed McCaleb’s newly launched @StellarOrg And in 2018, Hoffman and @JedMcCaleb both appeared in OpenAI’s funding announcement. Payments, crypto and artificial intelligence were already intersecting. Now look at @PolySignInc Founded in 2018 by Arthur Britto and David Schwartz, two of Ripple’s co-founders. Its investors include: Soros Fund Management. GSR. Brevan Howard. Blockchain.com Ventures. Cowen Digital. Soros Fund Management appears in investor records for multiple PolySign funding rounds, including Series C in 2022. And Ripple later acquired Standard Custody & Trust Company, a company connected to the PolySign corporate structure. Another important intersection between institutional capital and Ripple’s founding network. Now follow the Stellar infrastructure into Southeast Asia. Chatchaval Jiaravanon. A member of the family behind Thailand’s @CPGroup_Live. He co-founded @veloprotocol and became Chairman of @lightnetgroup. Lightnet raised $31.2M in 2020. Its investors included: UOB Venture Management. HashKey Capital. Signum Capital. Seven Bank. Hanwha. Lightnet was built around Stellar technology. Jed McCaleb was an advisor John Ng Pangilinan of Signum Capital was also connected to the project. Meanwhile, RIT Capital Partners and Liberty City Ventures co-led Aspen Digital’s $8.8M seed funding round. Chatchaval Jiaravanon was among the other investors. The institutional capital connections and Asian payment infrastructure are now meeting. Finally, look at the bigger picture ROTHSCHILD / RIT SOROS FUND MANAGEMENT ROCKEFELLER / VENROCK ↓ PAYPAL NETWORK Thiel · Hoffman · Rabois · Musk ↓ DIGITAL FINANCE OpenCoin / Ripple · Stellar · Stripe · PolySign · Interstellar ↓ SOUTHEAST ASIA CP Group · Chatchaval · Velo · Lightnet · Aspen Digital Different investors. Different founders. Different companies. No proof of coordination. Just overlapping investments, relationships and infrastructure How are these networks shaping financial infrastructure? Southeast Asia deserves a closer look