“NFTs are a good example of a new function of money. It is an emerging format for exchanging value between people who prioritize uniqueness and knowledge, rather than a mass of conditional goods. This means that everything related to NFTs will gain widespread acceptance, but with new models, making it very interesting to invest in. However, inflation is simultaneously eating away at all traditional pension savings. It is accelerating at such a pace that even the American pension service has officially announced that by the year 2030, it is likely that all savings will be lost because the government machine is unable to earn as much as needed to cover inflation at the current level. This leads to a change in the younger generation’s understanding of what pension savings are. They realize that investing in stocks, which scared our parents, is now becoming the only tool that can fight inflation. They begin to store money in stock indices instead of regular bank accounts, as bank deposits have already lost their value. Young people keep their money in a brokerage account where they invest in indices and stocks.
This leads to a large number of new services specifically related to brokerage services for the younger generation, such as Robinhood, Public.com, and other similar services, becoming the fastest growing services on the planet. If you look at them from the perspective of traditional financial institutions, they look very strange. Their economic models look strange, and indicators like those of traditional brokerage services are not the same. But investors understand that these guys are revolutionizing the industry. And what they build in 20 years will be used by every teenager. In 20 years, it will not only be the people who exist now, but 2-3 billion more people who are entering the new economy from developing countries. And together this creates a boiling pot of opportunities in terms of financial services that build this economy. From NFTs to brokerage accounts, and everything in between that is needed for the younger generation. We have defined this configuration of the future, analyzing from the perspective of financial services: which directions must inevitably appear in the economy for this future to happen. Then we found all the leaders in these segments, talked to everyone and invested in those who, as we believe, are more likely to move in this direction. Thus, we have been making these investments for several years, and they are showing very good results. For example, we invested in SpaceX with the same philosophy long before they became mainstream. Now all our investors want to invest in SpaceX. The same story was with Kraken, the crypto exchange, which, according to a completely predictable scenario with a clear motivation, grew, but nevertheless the market, looking at their historical indicators, undervalued the company significantly. We increased our investments by 5 times in a year. Thus, we already have more than a billion dollars under management and about 1,500 investors who participate in syndicates with us. We set a target in which we want to invest, create a syndicate for it, like a Belovezhskaya Pushcha company, an investor enters it, and we get the opportunity to compete with leading venture capital funds in Silicon Valley with just one check. Through this, we gain access to interesting deals. You can watch the full video below on the San Francisco Innovation Hub’s YouTube channel. In this episode, I spoke with Pavel Cherkashin, a venture investor and managing partner at Mindrock Capital, about the global strategy of venture investors, current and future trends in the technology market, and where it is currently safest for Russian-speaking entrepreneurs to invest their money in these challenging times.
