Aaron Fu
@aaronqfu
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backing tech for a better 🌍 | investing early in fintech, AI and crypto @DCGco | talent community @Venture4Africa | ex $SCBFY
New York
Joined November 2008
2024 was a massive year! 31 new companies from across the world joined the @DCGco venture family! From Mexico 🇲🇽 to the US 🇺🇸 to Nigeria 🇳🇬 to the UK 🇬🇧 to Egypt 🇪🇬 to Singapore 🇸🇬 - was a wild privilege for me and the @DCGco venture team to have gotten to back some of the most ambitious, visionary founders in crypto 🔒, fintech 💰 and AI 🤖 and to get to back them early, and consistently as they grow. 2025 - we're coming for you! Onward.
1/ 2024 was a big year for DCG’s Venture team— we backed 31 new companies across 5 continents. We remained focused on investing early in the world's leading cryptocurrency and decentralized tech companies. Here's a look at what we accomplished: 🧵
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@Jasielinvests Fully endorse this hack as you bootstrap - and hey maybe even throw in unique branded merch for folks you meet to get people talking. 👑 (but when you do make it big - maybe consider supporting the ecosystem - send the ladder down - buy @AfricaTechSMT tickets for the next gen)
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@DCGco @hugfink @rise_pay @ezradar @withcaliza @ulonnaya If you're building in this space and wanna jam def reach out! Whether that's thinking through your Africa bank partnership strategy with @richard_aseme or your South-East Asia GTM approach with @_nabilasaad - let's build together ✌️
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Ready to build?
Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) is our 9-week accelerator. The program is designed for web3 startups, and will feature workshops from industry experts, founder talks from successful entrepreneurs, & access to the a16z network. See what CSX alumni, @0xSamHogan had to say about his experience from the program. Applications are open for CSX Spring 2025 in San Francisco, and will remain open until February 7. Apply here:
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It’s wild how much more financial infrastructure there’s left to build in emerging markets - while most global venture investors pulled back from EM - we doubled down. There’s an inflection point happening right now with the rapid democratization and accessibility of AI and blockchain tech unlocking super exciting applications - at @DCGco we see this firsthand with teams building AI-enabled credit at @AvivaFinanciera 🇲🇽 and blockchain-enabled payment switches at @zonenetworkhq 🇳🇬. As my man @Benji_Fernandes at @NALAmoney always says “Payments in Africa is only 1% built” - I believe AI and blockchain will be incredible accelerants and help us get to 10% at a pretty staggering pace.
2/ We focused on our growth in emerging markets, 50% of DCG’s 2024 venture investments were in emerging markets, spanning Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
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@OptimumHelp Sure! Can you help ensure that optimum doesn’t ever call me at 2 and 4am in Australia and sticks to async email communication for non-urgent questions? Thanks 🙏🏼
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lol love this - feels super efficient ⭐️
deepseek engineers are different 💀 to use deepseek's api, you “npm install openai” which is both genius and hilarious, saves so much work by mirroring their api and just swapping out the base url 😆 had to check out the docs to see this for myself, what a hack
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What an ace summary by @dlawee of Bittensor’s $TAO history and why it’s on track to be a thriving core enabler of distributed AI! (Love how we both got hooked on decentralized compute via @BerkeleySETI’s SETI@home project! 👾 🔭)
Our State of Bittensor 2024 report is live! Alongside the report, we're releasing a recording with the authors of the report, interviewed by our co-founder @dlawee and @brodydotai from Outpost. We discuss: > David's past experience as an executive at Google and as the founder of Alphabet's growth equity fund > The history of Bittensor and what makes it unique > Standout subnets > Dynamic TAO's implications > Our 2025 Thesis
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Fragmentation and fierce global + local competition for payments in Singapore 🇸🇬 on display: 1) Preferred partner bank gets spotlight 2) 3 x Chinese solutions bundled in a row (AliPay, WeChat pay, UnionPay) 3) NETS (local payment rails) gets 3 options (regular / card, QR, Tap)
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Been in Singapore 🇸🇬 for less than 24h and have already heard a table next to us excited about what @calanthiaaa is building at @getmasafi and how it’ll challenge big AI - love it. (This is a random dumpling 🥟 shop - not a crypto or AI conference)
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@theafrovc @OuiCapital @francescoswiss What a win and an awesome shining, inspiring outcome for the African ecosystem @theafrovc ⭐️ ⭐️
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Fintech M&A and IPO season is def ramping up! Feeling already like a pretty awesome pace to start the year!
all this fintech news happened *today* it's going to be a long newsletter this weekend
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Been super cool to collaborate with Argor Capital, @QEDInvestors, @SaisonCapital and @ACVentures_id on backing this team of veteran fintech founders and builders. #ItTakesAVillage
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We've also teamed up w MEDA + MasterCard Foundation to scale - but it takes a village and if this is a mission that resonates with you or someone you know - we'd love to chat about how you can play a part!
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