069: Technologic - Lambert Despaux and Schema Capital

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Lambert Despaux is a partner at Schema Capital, who are investing at the pre-seed and seed stage in entrepreneurs building in the distributed ledger technology ('DLT') space.  If you would like an intro to Lambert, please click here.

Schema Capital currently focus on finding early-stage projects active in digital securities infrastructure, blockchain interoperability, decentralized finance and cybersecurity applied to blockchain.

In this episode, we dig into Lambert's inspiration for moving into venture capital, the impact of being part of the startup ecosystem in Israel during his coming-of-age in VC, the societal impacts of a new backbone for the financial markets, and a left-field parallel between electronic music and DLT.  See below for a few soundbites from Lambert and a final one from Pete Townsend:  

• "It sounds a bit naive, but I discovered the possibilities of a smart contract, securitization and this beautiful piece of technology in an industry ripe for disruption in financial services."
• "I would say that the technology is even more in its infancy than I thought."
• "Efficiencies and cost reductions are one side of it, but DLT can also enable new revenues on segments where you’re either losing market share or not present at all."
• "I think it's very interesting to be able to combine into a portfolio some companies that are addressing cost cutting and efficiencies, which is more defensive, and companies that are fostering entrance to new markets and additional revenue. which is more aggressive, all using the same technology in DLT."
• "We've been in the battlefield, we've been in the trenches and we see from the inside that there is a lot of opportunity for change in the financial services industry. Someone that has never worked in a bank or insurance company, I don’t think they can really see what we see. What makes us a little bit more unique is that I now live in Israel so I have access to this thriving startup environment and it is really fascinating."
• "I came to Israel a bit by accident before I was even dedicating myself to venture capital, so I've been discovering venture capital at the same time as discovering Israel and it’s truly a wonderful place for this. There is just so much energy dedicated into building businesses and innovating, and it's really great to be here and to see that.  We have European DNA, at least half of our activities in Europe as well as capital, but being able to bridge Israel and Europe in the DLT space, I think that's an advantage for us for sure."
• "Now is a really great time to be around if you want to try to change how financial services operate, while at the same time knowing that we’ll end up impacting sectors beyond financial services as well."
• From Pete Townsend, "DLT is your new techno, Lambert! You're talking about the same thing - you said that with electronic music back in the 70's and 80's you needed all these wires and all these different platforms to pull it together. Now you can just do it so simply, and you can look at the financial markets that will unfold with DLT in the same way."
  
  

To listen to more from MoneyNeverSleeps, please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for our full catalog of episodes, or download on iTunes, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform.  Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow for updates and more information.