By Fern Gouveia

I am thrilled to share with you the launch of Compa Capital, a $20 million venture fund dedicated to the founders and builders empowering us to own a piece of the internet.

For decades we’ve accepted that tech businesses make money off our personal data and are the ultimate beneficiaries for letting us use their products. But we are entering a new phase. A phase where the next generation of internet companies reward us for the time, money and effort we spend on the products we love.

It's becoming easier to unite and incentivize others to tackle issues we care about. And as these new companies are built in the open we have the option to start our own from scratch, or change and improve what others have created.

This is speeding up innovation like we've never seen before.

While we've come a long way, there is much work to be done to make this new technology more welcoming, inclusive and easier to use. The trade off is that by removing the middleman we are responsible for safeguarding our online assets and data.

We are gaining momentum and the inflection point is near. Compa was created to support the individuals helping us get there.

My story

I’d like to think that I discovered Bitcoin in 2013 thanks to karma. A good friend was the host of the weekly Silicon Valley Bitcoin meetup and I'd often stay after work to help him set up chairs, welcome guests and offer pizza. It was there I eventually learned that Bitcoin was the best form of money ever created and after a few months it hit me that blockchains would change the world. At that moment I decided to dedicate my career to this space.

Shortly after I had the opportunity to join Wences Casares as one of Xapo’s early employees. Our goal was to unite security and convenience in a bitcoin wallet aimed at emerging markets. All of my passions were intertwined in this one company but I could not have prepared for what was to come.

My role at Xapo evolved but was always a mix of building products and managing partnerships. It was a wild ride, where I experienced more ups and downs than we often see with crypto prices.

After months of preparing the launch of the world’s first bitcoin debit card we discovered the day before shipping that we couldn’t service customers in our largest market. We explored unique ways to get users by partnering with gaming studios that introduced millions of people to crypto games, only to be blocked by the app stores. I helped educate regulators and insurance executives on how we built a cold storage that looked like it came out of a Mission Impossible movie. I took inspiration from dating apps to build a p2p exchange that helped Venezuelans escape the implosion of their currency. I sponsored eSports tournaments, launched Minecraft servers that exchanged gems for BTC, fought off bitcoin MLMs in more than 20 countries and even hired the agency that designed the Apple Store to launch a hybrid coffee shop bank branch in downtown Palo Alto.

There was never a day that went by where I wasn’t pushed to solve challenges on the spot. After 6 years at Xapo I felt confident it was my time to launch a company in the credit card space. It was an amazing experience where I learned the emotional rollercoaster of being an entrepreneur. We built an amazing team, secured banking and debt partners and pitched to over 150 investors. I also learned a valuable lesson of remaining objective and knowing when to cut your losses. As we failed to get traction, the crypto itch kept coming back. I'd read about DeFi summer, Play-to-Earn and DAOs and saw that entrepreneurs were now empowered with smart contracts, the missing key to the crypto products I had built in the past. While helping friends launch their web3 projects I noticed that many of the lessons I had learned still applied. Perhaps my experiences could help others succeed and avoid the mistakes I had made.

Compa was born.

Compa Capital

While growing up my family would relocate to a new country every few years. This led to lots of goodbyes, new languages and tough adjustments.

It was thanks to the internet that I was able to settle into my new home. No matter how far I was, my friends were only a few clicks away. We referred to each other as compas, a word commonly used in latin countries to call your buddies and best friends. It was thanks to them that I had the confidence to explore and seek new connections.

With the rise of web3 our relationship with the internet and everything we've grown familiar with is changing. Our online personas are being relocated to a place with new rules and we are starting from scratch.

But during this transition we are accompanied by old and new compas from around the world who are willing to go out of their comfort zones and learn alongside us. The name Compa serves as a reminder that together we will adjust and prosper.

There are 4 themes I'm exploring:

Token-based companies - Companies can now be owned by its users and customers through tokens and NFTs. This redefines what it means to start, manage and scale a business. The fund will focus on projects planning to use these new business models to recruit new teammates and incentivize the use of their products.

Pipes and tunnels - While cultivating communities is a pillar of web3, we are still in the process of building the core infrastructure that will empower founders to create experiences currently impossible in Web2. I'll focus on tools that extract value and insights from Ethereum’s protocol and enhance the possibilities of what can be done with various types of roll-ups on Layer 2s.

Rest of the world - While web3 is global we are yet to see products and services that empower individuals in emerging markets with new ways to work, play and earn a living through activities they enjoy. The fund will actively search for founding teams with diverse backgrounds and those building products that will help onboard billions of people in international markets to web3.

Fluid structure - Web3 is disrupting venture capital by giving us new ways to find and fund projects. Thanks to my investors, Compa operates as a hybrid venture and hedge fund with a flexible mandate that allows it to adapt and explore what it means to grow a venture firm in a web3 world.

If you’re building in Web3, let’s chat! You can find me at fern@compa.xyz or @fern_gouveia on Twitter.