Kinjal Shah
Kinjal is a partner at Blockchain Capital.
What is your background?
I’m an investor on the Blockchain Capital team. Prior to joining Blockchain Capital, I was a Senior Consulting Analyst at Fidelity Investments in Boston. I spend a lot of time working with DAOs -- co-founding Komorebi Collective and actively contributing to DAOs like EcoDao.
How did you become interested in web3?
I started going down the rabbithole back in 2017 when I first got introduced to bitcoin and I haven’t looked back since.
How did you get started?
I got started through my work at Fidelity where I was tasked with surveying the broader blockchain landscape. I spent six months learning about bitcoin and the fundamentals, before expanding into the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond. Some great resources include newsletters like Bankless, The DeFiant, Forefront, and reading original sources like project whitepapers.
What is your role and what do you do?
I’m a partner at Blockchain Capital where I invest in founders building the future of crypto / web3 and support our portfolio founders. I’m actively spending my time on building community and contributing to DAOs across the ecosystem.
What inspired you to launch Komorebi Collective?
Female founders only receive 2% of venture capital dollars. Blockchain / crypto is already a male-dominated field and I wanted to spend more time talking to female founders and funding them. Although this is something I work on in my main role, I thought there was an opportunity to create a more dedicated vehicle. She256, Women in Blockchain and I all came together to put together this DAO structure around building more community for female and non-binary founders.
Any tips for aspiring web3 founders?
Web3 can move really fast and be noisy - I’d encourage all founders to build products with intentionality. By this, I mean conducting user research, iterating quickly on product functionality and solving key problems. It’s important to not link too tightly to existing tech solutions but build with a view on the whitespace opportunity in front of you.
