291: Scaling Without VC: The Long Game with Fergal McGovern from VisibleThread

Alejandro Gutierrez of Superteam Ireland is back to take on Matt Walsh's challenge: are tokenized funds a new kind of asset, or the same fund on new rails? Off the back of BlackRock and Ondo putting model portfolios onchain, we get into the six ways people are tokenizing a share, whether a Terra moment or a regulator forces them to consolidate, and what happens to a fund's operating model when you redraw the org chart as AI agents and ask which processes become code and which stay human anchored. Plus why more than 60% of tokenized stock trading on Solana happens outside US market hours, and Alejandro's read from Solana Suits in London.Connect with Alejandro:https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-gutierrez-98979b43/https://x.com/A_gutierroFollow MoneyNeverSleeps on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTndChapters0:00 Cold open0:25 Intro1:03 Two parallel universes1:27 New asset or same fund on new rails?2:46 Making assets machine-readable3:26 BlackRock, Ondo and onchain model portfolios4:14 Tokenized equities' stablecoin moment5:06 Six ways to tokenize a share6:49 What becomes code, what stays human8:02 Collateral and the agentic fund9:43 Composability and distribution10:45 After hours belongs to agents12:05 Solana Suits: institutions are in13:40 Breakpoint 2026 in London14:24 Wrap upSharp riffs, big ideas and real insights from smart people, all in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend with the people rebuilding money, markets, and the internet from the ground up.moneyneversleeps.iehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/https://x.com/PeteTownsendNVhttps://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/[email protected]

Pete Townsend is joined by Eoghan Powell, who runs WorkIQ, a new innovation centre for founders and early-stage companies in Tallaght, on the edge of Dublin. This is Part 2 of a pair on the Irish startup scene, after Derek O'Doherty of West x West on the capital side. Where Derek covered how founders find the money, Eoghan goes underneath that, to where founders come from in the first place. They start with Ireland's reliance on a handful of multinationals for its tax base, and the thin middle in the economy between company formation and homegrown giants like Ryanair and Kerry Group.

Pete Townsend is joined by Derek O'Doherty, founder of West x West, the two-day tech, venture and culture festival in Castlebar, Mayo that brings Irish founders together with global investors. Derek spent thirty years in capital markets across London, Sydney and New York, and until last week a year inside Enterprise Ireland building international VC relationships for scaling companies. They get into why the Irish economy isn't big enough to carry a founder from pre-seed to Series B on home capital alone, the VC pecking order that sends founders abroad to raise, why Irish founders outside the US are second only to Israel in the share who raise capital, and why Derek left a state agency to build a festival that brings the funders to the founders instead. Plus the Nik Milanović super-connector path, why he's rooting it all in the West rather than Dublin, and what's on at WXW this October. Connect with Derek: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-o-doherty-91669530/ More on West x West: https://westxwest.ie/ https://www.instagram.com/westxwest.ie/ Listen and subscribe: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:11 Intro and welcome 0:47 Why Irish founders hit a wall on home capital 1:22 The VC pecking order 3:11 The pre-seed funding reality 5:06 Bringing the capital to the market 6:13 Why leave Enterprise Ireland now 7:57 Why a festival, not a fund 9:16 Community and the super connector 10:18 Event details and lineup 11:42 Close Sharp riffs, big ideas and real insights from smart people, all in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend with the people rebuilding money, markets, and the internet from the ground up. Web: https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/ X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/ Email: [email protected]

Steve Whyman spent 20 years trading fixed income at Bear Stearns, ABN AMRO, and BlackRock, then ran digital assets and tokenization inside Fidelity International, before leaving in 2025 to build onchain-native. In this episode he makes the case for tokenization from the one seat almost nobody tells it from: the trading desk.

Justin Swart, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, joins Pete Townsend to make the case that tokenization is doing to finance what the shipping container did to global trade (standardizing the box, not the cargo - h/t Aleks Larsen, Blockchain Capital), whether that's real containerization or just the same fragmentation problem moved onchain, how BITKRAFT's early bet on Roundhill's record-breaking Memory ETF fits a broader thesis on personalized finance, and why trading itself is becoming the new competitor to gaming for consumer attention.