Dan Elitzer is co-founder at Nascent. Previously, Dan co-founded IDEO CoLab Ventures, a crypto-focused venture firm associated with the renowned design agency, IDEO. During that time, he also helped launch YAM Finance. Dan began his career in social enterprise and microfinance, working with both domestic social impact organizations and international development agencies. Dan earned an MBA from MIT Sloan, where he co-founded the MIT Bitcoin Club and MIT FinTech Club, and a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Pomona College.

Theresa Regenstreif leads Finance, Legal, and Operations at Nascent. Previously, Theresa was Head of Finance at an early stage Fintech company that was acquired, with a VC who built and invested in early stage consumer-facing FinTech companies, and worked with an impact investor seeding early stage agribusinesses in sub-Saharan Africa.

Rebecca leads Performance and Culture at Nascent. She has previously held key leadership positions at The Rockefeller Foundation, Rippleworks, and Living Goods. She is interested/obsessed with human motivation and performance and has shared her work at The White House, MIT, Harvard Business School and Oxford University. Rebecca has served as startup advisor at The Unreasonable Institute, The Cordes Fellowship and The GLG Social Impact Fellowship.

Peter is a Venture Analyst at Nascent, sourcing deals, new investments and supporting our 100+ portfolio companies. He previously worked with the venture team at Polychain Capital and prior to that was at Victory Capital. Peter oversees sourcing, diligence, and closing and has a passion for building strong connections across the crypto ecosystem. Outside of work, he’s an avid surfer, Straus Chocolate Milk enthusiast, and enjoys all kinds of games from backgammon to pickleball.

Brock is Chief Architect at Nascent, designing technology and advising portfolio companies. Previously, Brock helped launch YAM Finance, consulted on smart contract engineering, and built Ethereum-focused trading and liquidation systems. Brock has a background in machine learning, smart contract engineering, and finance. Brock attended UPenn’s Wharton Undergrad before dropping out to start a small crypto-focused fund.

Plotchy is a Security Researcher at Nascent, involved in creating and improving open-source security tooling, participating in code-review contests, and identifying and reporting bugs. As an active participant in the security community, he has committed time to upskilling the wider industry through writing articles, giving talks, and providing practical examples. Plotchy takes part in various public bug bounties, audit contests, and competitive Capture The Flag (CTF) events, continuously honing his skills and contributing to the overall security landscape of the blockchain ecosystem.

Igor is a Security Researcher at Nascent, dedicated to enhancing web3 security and contributing to open-source security tools, frameworks, and practices⁠. Igor's journey in web3 began in 2017 when he built a DAO prototype and has since claimed victory in multiple hackathons, exploring a wide range of ideas from DeFi strategies to DAO concepts and NFT innovations⁠.

Siir leads front-end development at Nascent. Previously, Siir led the post-trade engineering team at GSR and supported UI efforts in the Portfolio Management team of Private Wealth Management division at Goldman Sachs. At Nascent, Siir is the Front-End Lead on one of our strategies, focusing on the UI/UX of our proprietary market platform where she is dedicated to building robust, feature-rich, and user-friendly UI/UX solutions. She’s passionate about supporting women-led businesses in the tech industry.

Matt Klein is a Strategy Lead at Nascent, leading the team while also contributing to optimizing the liquid portfolio and supporting early-stage venture. Previously, Matt was a trader at Citi on the FX Options and Equity Derivatives desk, providing liquidity to institutional customers in the full spectrum of vanilla and exotic products. His interest in crypto began as a DeFI user who was mesmerized by the possibilities for a programmable and open-source financial system. Matt graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.

Chris Novick is the Principal Engineer at Nascent working to design and implement our technology. Chris's professional background spans a wide range of experience from working to help solve long-term spaceflight challenges at NASA Glenn Research Center, to helping Disney create a new generation of media software running on millions of embedded devices around the world. Chris's journey in crypto started in the early days of Bitcoin as a hobby interest, then more seriously with smart contracts after recognizing the magnitude of the disruption on the financial industry and others. Since then, Chris has spent untold hours reading, building, and investing in all things DeFi. Chris graduated from the University of Toledo with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering.

As Machine Learning Strategy Lead, he runs an NLP-based strategy at Nascent. Previously, Hedeer was as a risk manager and quantitative developer with large alternative asset managers. Hedeer co-founded Lore Ai, an NLP startup serving enterprise scale asset managers and other institutional clients. Most recently, as a director of AI engineering, he led a team at IQVIA building a platform for large-scale healthcare data analytics. Hedeer has an MSc in Mathematics in Finance from NYU and a BSc in Computer Science from George Mason University.

Saleema leads Talent at Nascent, with a focus on recruitment. Her background includes growing and scaling global organizations spanning FinTech, gaming, and biotech industries. Saleema is passionate about connecting people to their purpose. She plays a crucial role in shaping Nascent's talent strategy, ensuring the company attracts competitive and curious individuals who align with its vision and culture.

Shubhi is the Principal Product Manager at Nascent, where she plays a crucial role in fostering collaboration between our interdiscplinary teams. Prior to joining Nascent, Shubhi gained extensive engineering experience at Tower Research Capital and a venture capital team at Jump Crypto. Leveraging a background in software development and her innate understanding of business, Shubhi earned an MBA from the Wharton school.

Thomas leads platform engineering at Nascent, where he applies his background in buy- and sell-side TradFi to help Nascent and our ecosystem win. His background in financial services and technical leadership supports Nascent's mission to explore, invest in, and build foundational technologies that will advance the crypto ecosystem. Thomas brings a strategic approach to engineering and data management, bridging traditional finance with emerging blockchain innovations.

Vitor leads Data Acquisition at Nascent, focused on optimizing data acquisition and creating high-performing and reliable solutions. He brings deep expertise in data acquisition and extensive knowledge in software development and system engineering from previous work at Amazon and DRW. Outside of work, Vitor is passionate about outdoor activities like biking, running, hiking, and snowboarding and spends much of his time keeping up with his energetic 5 years old son.

Nico is a strategy lead at Nascent. Prior to joining Nascent he held trading and portfolio management roles with several hedge funds with both pure discretionary and market neutral mandates. As a Miami University student he co-founded Block Key Capital, a thesis driven crypto investment fund and was a plankholder of Miami's Blockchain club founded in 2016.

Thor is a Liquid Discretionary Strategist focused on systematic strategies and yield opportunities. Previously, he contributed to venture and liquid crypto investments at Heartcore Capital, a European fund, and has been deeply engaged in the crypto space since 2020. While studying computer science and economics, Thor worked as a crypto researcher and founded On Chain Times, a crypto blog with over 12,000 readers.