Watch the full panel discussion on Gamma Prime’s YouTube channel
Panel discussion with Evan Szu (Co-founder & CEO, Gamma Prime), Ray Wong (Founding Partner, Asymmetry Capital), Robert Sarrow (Partner, Volt Capital), Tobias (Co-founder and GP, TBV), Heslin Kim (Partner, Republic)
At the Gamma Prime conference, four seasoned venture capitalists – Ray Wong (Asymmetry Capital), Robert Sarrow (Volt Capital), Tobias Bauer (TBV), and Heslin Kim (Republic) – joined a candid panel moderated by Gamma Prime’s Evan Szu. Together, they pulled back the curtain on how VCs evaluate projects in the fast-changing world of Web3, contrasting today’s climate with the early “Wild West” days of ICOs.
What emerged was a frank discussion about what really matters: resilient teams, conviction-driven founders, sustainable business models, and a clear path to revenue and investor exits. The panelists pushed back against overhyped metrics like KOL lists and follower counts, pointing instead to fundamentals like execution, charisma, launch strategy, and the ability to last through cycles.
For founders seeking capital, the message was sharp: fundraising isn’t just about securing checks—it’s about building trust, proving sustainability, and convincing investors you can deliver long-term returns.
Evan Szu (Co-founder & CEO, Gamma Prime)
Welcome to the VC panel. We have up on stage four highly esteemed VCs. These are the guys that fuel the projects that bring the next generation of tech. Maybe to start, we could just do a brief introduction. We could start with yourself. Just tell me about your company and a little bit about yourself.
Ray Wong (Founding Partner, Asymmetry Capital)
Hi, I’m Ray from Asymmetry Capital. We are an Asia-based investment company and incubation company. We are very excited to be here. Just landed last night and very happy to be sharing on the panel. We’ve been around in the space for eight years. Started from mining and staking, and then moved into investing in hybrid and secondary markets.
Robert Sarrow (Partner, Volt Capital)
Hey, everyone. My name is Rob. I’m a partner over at Volt Capital. Our tagline is very simple. We look to reimagine and work with those who are reimagining the systems we interact with every day. I consider myself a self-described arms dealer looking for different rebels to join us in force.
Tobias Bauer (Co-founder and GP, TBV)
Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me, first of all, to the Gamma Prime team. We run a TBV, which is a venture fund. We invest between 500k to 2 million USD. Also, proud investors into Gamma Prime since recent. Excited to be here and to talk about the trends around venture capital. Appreciate all of you for listening in.
Heslin Kim (Partner, Republic)
Hey, everybody. I’m Heslin Kim. I’m actually a venture partner over at Republic. I was previously head of growth and ecosystem. Republic is an institution with multiple divisions. We’ve got Republic Retail, which raised over $5.5 billion for 4,000 Web2 companies through cedars.com and republic.com. We also have Republic Capital, multiple funds under this division, Republic Advisory Services, and Republic Treasury Management. Many different divisions across the entire company as a whole.
I’m also currently supporting a portfolio company, ZK Cloud, as CBO. So thank you.
Evan
Thank you, guys. I think we’d like to start, since this is a mixed audience, we have a lot of folks here that are traditional finance. Maybe you could start by giving some contrast between Web3 investments versus perhaps traditional tech ventures. Any thoughts on those lines? Tobi, maybe we’d start with you and then go this way.
Tobi
Very good question. I think I’ve invested almost 200 companies now in this industry since 2017. And there’s obviously a big sort of change over the last seven years in this industry. I think now it slowly gets away from a Wild West situation, even though there’s a little bit tendency of that.
At the very beginning, we had this big run of token, ICOs, right? There was a huge liquidity spam and a lot of people made a lot of money. And then in the last two, three years, it was very narrative driven, across gaming, Bitcoin, DePIN, all these different things. And now it’s a very interesting, special point in the market. A lot of companies are launching, having a TGE, and it’s very difficult to differentiate. And a lot of TGEs are not doing so well. And it’s surprising because Bitcoin is as high as ever. You guys are all here, a lot of conferences, there’s a lot of media about the space, probably a lot more than there has been five years ago. But it’s a very different landscape as it is today.
I think right now it comes down to a lot less about being that hype company, doing all of that. I think it comes back to more investing in the business and the people behind it. Because it’s so hard to differentiate by just saying, “Hey, I’m on this exchange, I have these KOLs,” and I’m still not going to be probably the best performing companies. Some of the businesses that launched and did well, we probably all know their names. They have been everywhere, they spent millions of dollars in marketing.
So I think as an investor, especially if you’re a bit more early stage, we have to all take a step back and say, hey, let’s look at how businesses are typically evaluated. That brings me to that question. In Web2, if you’re launching a company – and I had a Web2 investment background in private equity and VC – no one cares how many KOLs you have on board, right? That’s just not a conversation you’re having. That’s not a point, that’s not a sticking point. I also never had a conversation of how many Twitter followers a project has. But that’s another key pillar that current success of projects is measured on.
That’s also the exchanges. They’re asking how many followers you have, what’s your KOL list, what’s all these different things. So everybody’s driving projects into this, in my opinion, very unsustainable part of launching a company, which completely leads away from the fundamentals, like go-to-market strategy, founding team, towards revenue generation at some point. That is something we need to talk about, because businesses tend to be sustainable when they have revenue over time.
So at least for us, and for me personally, it’s always been a very important idea of just understanding, how is this thing going to make money? It’s great that you have a great exchange on board, it’s great that you are since seven years in Bitcoin, and all these different things that I typically hear in pitches. But so many things are so floppy: “Yeah, we’re building a community, we’re going to go on this launchpad, go on this exchange.” But it completely leads away from the fact of why is this business going to be better than anyone else? How is this business going to make money? And how is that business also returning money back to the investors over a more sustainable time?
We are all sitting here on 12, 18 months lockups. It’s great if your TGE is 4x, 10x, but that needs to be the same thing in 18 months from now to be sustainable. And I think that’s a big question, that we need to slowly reevaluate how companies are being launched in this industry, to not being just eaten up, cannibalized by industry-specific key points that are not necessarily matter in my opinion.
Evan
Rob, thoughts?
Rob
To kind of echo what you were saying – not taking away from any protocol developers at this point, and what’s been built over the past 10 plus years – but there’s tons of good protocols, very few people who can build businesses, and then of that crowd who can build businesses, very few who are gonna build venture backed businesses and return capital to investors and really be on the frontier side and the edge of things.
So that’s one thing I’d really try to hit on. I don’t think we need to focus on scaling anything further. It’s like, how can you build something on chain, bring cash flows back? Is it new? Is it creative? And it’s really taking a look at the founder and the founding team, and making sure these are the people that we’re gonna be in like a marriage with for the 10 plus years.
Ray
For us, I think we have observed that the industry has been pretty much more focused on the token as a product itself, or the valuation of the token, what kind of value should you raise at and how much capital you have raised on that. But as a result, their performance on the exchanges might not perform as well. In the end, the retail might not buy into the narratives even.
But I still believe that token is a very powerful tool for early adoption and also mass adoption. I agree with Rob. We look at the team very much, also the execution history, and also potential viral biology that we talk about. So whether it’s going viral, potentially, yeah.
Evan
Heslin, how about you?
Heslin
I think it’s interesting to see what kind of crossroads we’re at right now. The juxtaposition of tokens in the current sense of market landscape, or where retail stands from a buying power perspective. What are they interested in? Does that equate to what venture has even been backing over the last couple of years? And then how does that manifest into ROI from an investment perspective?
It’s been interesting to see how some of these launch strategies maybe haven’t been focused on the token as much. Like airdrop campaigns, for instance, where you’re getting something at a zero cost basis. If you don’t have revenue to buy back the token, it’s just kind of like an end in the foreseeable future. I don’t think anything has really held up in that kind of downward selling pressure.
Finding anything with cash flows is quite difficult across the Web3 landscape in general. We see things like potential DEXs, L1s potentially, L2s on the sequencer fee side. But all in all, I think revenue is something that is an abstract concept, especially in today’s climate, when things are launching at multi-hundred million dollar valuations that are just inherently memes or JPEGs, or just something that has no inherent value other than a collectible or some kind of digital commodity.
So what I’d like to see is legitimate Web2 businesses using tokenization as a means for liquidity, moving towards different models that we haven’t seen before. It’s just the current landscape is really a copy and paste model, following what’s worked before and then massively inflating valuations based on trigger words – higher TPS, lower finality, and these kinds of things.
I think, like Rob mentioned, focusing on the tech too much can also be a detriment in the long term if you’re not focused on the actual business model. Hopefully we see some new things coming out of the bear market. Typically, that’s when we’ll find builders who are innovating, pushing the boundaries, and trying some new things.
Bull market, though, is typically the time frame when everyone’s doing their cash grabs and valuations are inflated. So for me, thesis-wise, I’ll probably start doing primary market investments 2026 to 2029.
Evan
All of you guys have been mentioning this sense of a turning point. Pumping out more meme coins and just getting a large following is not sufficient. I lived through the 2000s and the original tech bust, and it was a little bit similar. In the beginning, it was everything web. If you web it, then it was workable. But then there was a differentiation that finally happened about what unique scaling opportunities does web create? Those are the businesses that survived to the next cycle.
Let’s keep going along this vein, because I think it’s a really interesting one. It’s a forward-looking question about where do you guys see things going? So we’ve talked about what you guys look for a little bit. Perhaps we can start with you. And just give me your sense, Rob, about what else do you see on the horizon? What else are you looking at?
Rob
Yeah, so kind of just to go back to what I was saying before, there is an abundance of capital still in the space, and it’s never been easier to raise money. But that doesn’t mean you should go raise money. The barrier to build a business on top of these open-source protocols has been quite difficult. And it’s really finding the right team to kind of go through.
Certain areas that Volt has been taking an interest in is a lot in the data space. So I call this fringed untapped data, or FUD, and looking for these different, whether it be devices or pockets of real-world interactions that you can capture and build around.
So a couple of examples would be, there’s a protocol, or a company called Puffball, which handles data to earn, which I think is quite interesting because one in four Gen Z, they vape to begin with. So you already have a market you can sell into, and you can capture these different smoking behaviors. This is like the first time this has ever happened. And there is at least protocol for a traditional business doing this in the past.
A couple other areas, I feel like I’ve been saying this for a couple of months now, is everyone in crypto has become a robotics investor in the past, probably like half a year. This is a space that we’ve been focusing on for two plus years now.
Thinking about where are the actual intersections between humanoid tech and crypto. Because again, it shouldn’t just be an individual who wants to build a… Sees crypto as a way to build a business. It should be someone who realizes crypto is the only way to build this business.
Tobi:
I think what I want to touch on quickly before going into the trends piece, because it is a VC panel, is also a lot of companies have fundraising. And what I want to try to get across here is that fundraising is something that obviously never really stops. A lot of people and projects are able to raise very, very quickly. A lot of people don’t fully understand that this is work that has been already put in the ground for many, many years before.
No one just goes out of nowhere, day one, and says, I’m raising 3 million and raises it in like three months and it’s oversubscribed. That’s typically not happening unless you have an incredible, stellar, new, out-of-the-box, fully incredible product. And that’s not always the case. Because you don’t need to be the new, one of the first, the best, the most incredible thing ever to raise and build a good company. Google wasn’t the first search engine, like the same as all these other platforms weren’t the first, but they still became the biggest.
I think it’s an expectation management also in this market of founders coming to venture capital funds and it’s like, oh, I’m raising 3 million and my round is closing in three months, but I don’t have anyone committed yet. It’s the same thing when you go into a restaurant. You go into a restaurant and there’s no one in the restaurant. What are you going to do? You’re going to pass by the restaurant and go to the next one that is more full.
The same thing is here, like from an investment perspective. Not saying that’s exactly what we do, but overall, when you observe the market, everybody needs to find this one fund that gives you that trust. It’s that one fund that is not, oh, come back to me when you have a lead. How many times have founders heard that before? Whether you’re raising, come back to me when you have half of your round committed, and then I’ll put a check in as well. So you need to find that one fund that has conviction in you before anyone else does.
From a fund perspective, it’s a tough sell. Because if I put in half a million dollars in that company and you don’t raise from anyone else, your 500K will only last so long. And if you don’t manage to really, really impress everyone, then you probably are not going to raise more money and you will die and the 500K was lost. But if I already have five other funds committed and you still don’t make it, I can say I was wrong with five other people. I wasn’t the only person wrong.
It’s also interesting in terms of structuring because a lot of companies that are very early are trying to raise at a high valuation and a big amount. I think it’s better to structure it small first and oversubscribe it, and take that momentum, and then increase the round naturally. Instead of saying, I’m raising three million, you’re raising a million, oversubscribe that round and say, hey, I can go up to two million if the interest is so big. So you create that little piece of formal, that little piece of scarcity in your round, rather than just saying, hey, I want to be big. Sounds good.
If you go to these conferences, if you meet investors, it’s more about building their relationship. Heslin here, build a relationship with him over the next one to three years, and effectively, keep updated on what they’re doing and see this as building a personal relationship and not just like, hey, I have 30 seconds where I need to convince someone to invest in my project. I don’t think this is the right approach to fundraising.
A lot of companies are doing it really well. They have nailed that down, they’ve been in this industry for a little bit of time, and they have nurtured these relationships to then pull the trigger when it’s right. And that’s how they get a lot of people on board. That’s just a couple of quick things about fundraising from my perspective.
Heslin
I’ve done over 160 angel investments in the last six years or so. And the projects that were the most successful were things that I would have never guessed were the winners. Like Virtual Protocol, for instance. I was a seed investor there. It was originally a Gamefo guilding platform. It was not an AI agentic dashboard.
Same with Movement Lab. Rushi was a 19-year-old doing an Avalanche subnet. I never expected him to pivot so many times and find product-market fit. I think if you’re investing based off trend or narrative, because like Tobi mentioned, we’ve got 12 to 18 month lockups. You’re not going to hit the trend anyways within whatever the next cycle is going to be when you have unlocks.
From a conviction basis, I’ve pivoted from being an angel. It is typically how I deploy. I’m a venture partner at 3Pore Funds. I used to base my investments off DD and trend and narrative of what was going on in the current climate. I would look at lead funds, I would do follow-ons from that angle. What I learned is that, when it boils down to cash flow, to revenue, to finding legitimate projects, you need to find founders who have a conviction thesis in what they’re building.
No matter what the trend is now, they’re going to be building that regardless of whatever the trend is. They have a directional approach to trying to get something done over the next couple of years. Whatever they’re doing is not going to get phased out if it’s not on trend, if it’s not on narrative.
If you find these kinds of founders who are so dead set and focused, they’ll be poor and eat ramen cup noodles for the next couple of years, but they’re going to do everything they can to get this product out. I want to back those kinds of founders. It’s few and far between that you’ll find those who are not just trying to piggyback narratives and branding and whatever the key terminology and jargon is. I usually try to skip any kind of investment within that framework.
I like when the actual projects are trying to teach me something new, like it’s something that they’ve innovated on. They’re out at conferences trying to convince people this is the next big thing. I remember when I was at NearCon in Lisbon and Rushi was speaking to an entirely empty room on a panel. It was wild. A year later, he’s at every big conference, and Movement is one of the top trending projects of the current climate.
You look at something like any other Eigenlayer investors as well. You look at something that held top focus of the entire industry and put it on the pedestal of what we were all hoping was going to be a next big trend and shift the tides for everyone with some new narrative of ABSs. When you look at how these things have played out, again, there’s a dichotomy between actual product cash flow revenue and then also managing the token well, which is a stark divide to bring those two things together.
Along with having a legitimate founder who’s not going to budge on their foundational belief, they also understand that the token game is a play. It’s not an equity business. The valuation, the potential exit for investors, potential exit for them as a team is based on understanding token dynamics, what comes along with that, market maker deals, custodial situations, the kind of relationships you need with exchanges. What’s your sell pressure? Where is it coming from? How are you defending that liquid fund strategies? There’s a huge amount of things that first-time founders have not come in touch with, and they typically don’t get guidance from because that’s not something people usually talk about openly. It’s behind the curtains.
You tie all these things together, and you can find a very good investment thesis that’s going to be long term. I look towards 2029, 2030 for investments now. I don’t think about whatever’s happening in 2025, 2026, or if this is going to be the end of the bull. These things are transitional. Very temporary. Play for the long haul, look at it like a five- to ten-year horizon, and make conviction bets on founders.
Rey
I think I agree with him that the team is very important, whether the founder is able to last through cycles, either they pivot or not, but they have to last enough to be lucky to ride the next bull market, potentially.
Certain narratives we are very passionate about: one of them is RWA. Because I came from a banking background and traditional finance, I think it’s truly bridging the two worlds. We start from putting the traditional financial assets on-chain in terms of operational excellence for settlements, and also the access for the industry to feed the yield on-chain. That’s very interesting.
We are also incubating a project that bridges the traditional equities market, like a micro-strategy for RWA. We are very passionate about that. Previously, we invested in Mantra five years ago. In the RWA space, we are also advising on two projects: one is Zoth. They are also an RWA platform and also some derivatives on RWA. We believe in scaling the RWA and derivatives financialization.
Second, we talk a lot about the means and stuff. It’s based on influence and attention economy, the ability to raise enough money, and then potentially pivot to something or extend to something that is very interesting in the future. This goes along with what Tobi said: you have to build the track record or build the reputation so that people have trust in you. So it is trust-based fundraising and building along the road.
The third vertical is more on the consumer side, like the pet vertical. How to reach loyalty, on-chain points, and stuff like that. We want things that can reach the general public and gain cash flows around it.
Evan
Thank you, guys. I want to ask a somewhat different question. This is something that founders always wonder, which is in your head, what are you looking for with projects? But I want to go beyond the usual stuff, right? So there’s the usual big four, which is the team and traction and, you know, is there a good business plan. There’s a typical suite, right?
I want to open it kind of wide where you can just say anything. For example, I’ve had somebody be like, I don’t like projects where the guy doesn’t turn the camera on, because I’m just like, well, I don’t know who it is at the other end. So it can be anything as small as that, or it could be something much more profound, like “is product founder fit more important than product market fit,” for instance.
Heslin, let’s start with you and go this way. This is just an open-ended question. What are some of the things that you look for?
Heslin
I like to ask who, first of all. Who’s your client? And if they don’t have a strong enough definitive answer of who their demographic is, it’s already a pass. They need to know who they’re going to be selling to. They need to know how to scale. They need to fully define if they already have an existing customer base.
There’s a lot of great ideas out there, but an idea is just an idea. Until you actually get it sold and have clients, ideally in a revenue-based model, it’s just an idea. You can build the best tech in the world. “If you build it, they will come” does not hold true in the startup world.
The thing that I look out for, even more so, especially if I’m grilling a team that’s already raised and has momentum, is: what is your launch strategy? Do you understand what kind of sell pressures you’re going to have in the open market?
If they can fully define a post-listing strategy to me – pre-listing and post-listing – in an adequate manner where they fully understand all the players involved and the steps they’re going to need to take, that’s what I care about as an investor. Because I want a potential exit for myself, and I also want to see the company do well.
If they’re like, “We’re going to do this massive airdrop campaign. We’ve got 800,000 people signed up,” that all sounds great – you’ve got a massive community. But what’s going to happen when you unlock on day one? What’s the best thing on that side?
I think there are a lot of teams just copying and pasting old models. It’s really boring to see things come out with the same structure, especially with a lot of the larger L1s and L2s. They’ve all just copy-pasted, and you’re seeing how that plays out in the open market.
What I like about memes is that it’s brought back this fundraising mechanism – open communal fundraising. It’s kind of like ICO 2.0. Most of the memes are just bundle snipes, so it’s like fake launchers anyway. But there are some out there that have legitimately launched and used it as a fundraising mechanism.
The problem is that they don’t have supply control. If you don’t have enough tokens on your side, there’s no way to sustain yourself as a legitimate business – hire people, have a treasury for legal counsel. Things like that are going to be coming out of your own pocket unless you sell tokens into the open market to fund that, which is already a net negative cycle.
The good thing that has come out of memes is novel, innovative ways to launch projects without necessarily needing any of us to pre-seed or fund these things. I think someone will innovate on a unique model – how to tie in an actual business with token supply control, KPIs, vestings, etc., into a model where you can do a fair launch.
I’m really interested in these kinds of early-stage projects. They’ll typically do an angel round or something like this. But I look for innovative launch strategies, innovative listing strategies, and people who can define that to me or tell me something I’ve not heard before. So if anyone has any, please come speak to me after – I’m interested to always bounce ideas off people.
Tobi
All very good points, my friend. But a couple of things just from my side, in addition to what Heston already said.
I want to talk about the team, but not really the team – not like what you’ve done and all these other cool things, but the conviction the team has into the project. And there are two angles to this.
Number one: some people have a great idea on paper, a pitch deck, everything prepared, but nothing is built. The idea is “let me raise money and start building it.” That’s typically one approach. I’m uncomfortable with that sometimes, because I need the team to have some skin in the game.
I don’t expect the team to put in a million dollars and go broke after. But it’s about pouring in either hours of your time, or a little bit of money, or just doing all that stuff before you go and ask for money. That opens investors’ eyes and shows your commitment, rather than just saying, “Here’s an incredible idea, I need your money to execute.”
Sometimes it’s interesting to see teams that already have a product but are waiting to collect money to launch. I get it – everybody wants a stellar, amazing, big launch. But sometimes, from an investor perspective, it’s good to see that you’re already testing it. Maybe say, “I’m having a closed beta with 30 to 50 people. I’m trying it out with the coffee shop next door.”
I don’t think you need to wait until you have Fortune 500 companies on board and a $3 million launch. As long as investors see some product-market fit – even if small – that’s enough to show proof. Then it’s up to you to convince them the market is big enough.
When we launched TBV, we didn’t have any funding. We had a fund before, and then we started a new one from scratch. We had the license in place, the structure, and then eventually went out to raise. It was horrible and grinding, but it gave LPs conviction because we had already proven we could do it.
So conviction separates founders, even if they don’t have a stellar CV.
Rob
It also comes down to two more things:
- When pitching, ask “Who makes the decisions?” If co-founders hesitate or look at each other unsure, it shows they haven’t figured that out. You need one decision-maker.
- I love when teams can teach me something that isn’t on the slides. This is your 30–60 minutes to get me excited about something I haven’t thought of before.
Ray
I think execution ability and also resilience is very important. Especially the ability to last through cycles, even if the narrative isn’t on your side. Talk to more VCs for guidance, but unless they’re writing you a check, take it with a grain of salt.
On technical capability: I like to go to hackathons, universities, professors, etc., to source projects. Having a personal track record or credentials is very important on the technical side.
On the other side: a lot of successful token projects require personal charisma. Founders need to engage communities, do AMAs, tour the world, and build early momentum. For more consumer-side or Web2-interfacing projects, charisma is very important.
For more B2B or dev-focused Web3 projects, it’s different – you need to be early, not just exit liquidity.
Ray
Moderator: Thank you, guys. Appreciate the frank, open chat. These are questions I’ve had myself, like “What are you really thinking?” You don’t always get those responses, so thank you for opening up.
Up next we’ve got generating alpha on-chain. The capability of generating returns – that’s the other half of the conference. Stick around, we’ve got amazing people here. Hedge funds start out small, nobody knows them, then if they have a real product, suddenly they go vertical. The people in the next session are in that early stage of generating alpha but not bloated yet. Stick around.
Heslin
Can I just add one last point? This is really important for any project. The goal of a VC and me as an angel investor is to invest and get a return. A lot of founders don’t understand what they’re asking for in return for the capital.
You need to prove to the VC or angel how they’re going to exit. I’ll do my best to help you get to a strong exit, but the overall playbook is ROI for LPs. That means you need to be clear on where the exit will happen, whether it impacts price, whether you can sustain it, whether you’re over-capitalizing. Treasury management, buybacks—all of that matters. Investment means someone will be selling eventually.
Tobi
To add to that very quickly: depending on what fund is investing, return expectations differ. If it’s a billion-dollar fund, your 3x or 5x is irrelevant. They don’t care unless it’s a billion-dollar business. A smaller fund, however, might be happy with a 3–5x.
That’s why it’s important to align cap table investors with your vision. Not every founder wants to build the next Binance. Some want smaller, but still meaningful, outcomes. That’s fine – just choose aligned partners.
Rob
It’s like a marriage. You’re building a long-term partnership.
Ray
Treat the VC as partners, grow along with them, and they will stick with you long-term – bringing you clients and more funding.
Evan
Thank you, guys.
