Discussing the Changes in the Cryptocurrency Market (CNBC, January 2019)
Cryptocurrency Bear Market Taking a Toll on VC Valuations (Fortune, February 2019)
WE IMAGINE…
a world where current constraints and borders disappear through technology enabled connectivity. Where all 7 billion people in the world have equal access to information and services, so that all human potential can be unleashed to create a better world.
WE BELIEVE…
that decentralization ensuing from the combination of people and machines, and peer-to-peer connectivity, will lead to an enhanced experience for all of humanity. The 21st century will see solutions to our greatest challenges, and life-enhancing innovations that we can’t even imagine today.
WE KNOW…
that the best innovations will come from the most diverse teams, and we are funding exceptional entrepreneurs with global ambitions that share our vision and values.
TRUE TO OUR NAME, FUTURE\PERFECT VENTURES IS INVESTING IN THE FUTURE, TODAY.
THEMES
We partner with entrepreneurs who share our core values and passion to create a better world. We invest early, working closely with founding teams and our network to help build the next generation of impactful technology companies. Here are the stories of some of our entrepreneurs.

BITPESA
Bitpesa is the first pan-African blockchain-powered payment network. After careers in finance, technology and development, the founding team saw opportunity in emerging blockchain infrastructure to reduce business-to-business and peer-to-peer payments from 12-20% to 3%, putting money back into the pockets of businesses and individuals who are now able to save and invest more back into the economy as a result. Founded in Nairobi in 2013, Bitpesa expanded operations to Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria in 2015, and has since opened three additional offices in Luxembourg, London and Dakar, Senegal. The increasing demand led BitPesa to partnerships in the DRC, Ghana, UAE, South Africa, and Mozambique.

ABRA
Bill Barhydt, Abra’s founder, is a veteran of the cross-border money remittance sector. He saw firsthand the inefficiencies created by multiple intermediaries including Western Union and banking institutions, which extract significant fees for small transactions. With emerging markets rapidly adopting smartphones, Bill saw opportunity in these markets with a blockchain powered app that would provide real-time currency exchange with no transaction fees. Abra, now one of the leading global currency wallets, has developed a first-of-its-kind smart contract investing platform that uses bitcoin technology to allow users to hold, sell, and exchange any of its 28 supported cryptocurrencies and 50 supported fiat currencies on the mobile-based application.

TOKEN
Melanie Shapiro founded Token after experiencing a security lapse with her online digital wallet. An experienced entrepreneur and specialist in consumer behavior with an exit under her belt, she gathered a team of cryptographers and security experts from Rochester Institute of Technology to build Token. Individuals and businesses lose billions of dollars of capital and productivity each year due to identity theft and fraud, a statistic Token wants to reduce. As more devices and people directly connect to each other in the future, technologies such as Token’s will be crucial to maintaining network trust.
We are investing in companies building technology that will be game-changing, ubiquitous and indispensable. Our team has a strong track record of identifying and building next generation companies globally. Below are themes that we are most interested in as we look at the next 10 years.
PORTFOLIO
PRIOR INVESTMENTS
PORTFOLIO COMPANIES IN THE NEWS
THE TEAM
JALAK JOBANPUTRA
Founding Partner
Jalak Jobanputra is Founding Partner of Future\Perfect Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund in NYC focused on next generation technology such as blockchain and machine learning. FPV’s portfolio includes Abra, Blockstream, Bitpesa, Fusemachines, Everledger and Blockchain. Jalak was awarded Institutional Investor’s Most Powerful Fintech Dealmakers from 2016-2018. In May 2018, Jobanputra was awarded Microsoft’s VC Trailblazer Award for “her early and bold” investments in the sector. She has been listed as a 100 Most Influential Fintech Leader of 2016 and 2017 based on her investment strategy at FPV. In 2017, she was cited as a “Top 5 Investor Powering the Blockchain Boom” and Crunchbase noted FPV as one of the top VC funds in blockchain “before it was cool.” Since founding the firm, she has spoken on blockchain technology, IoT, and artificial intelligence at many global conferences, including the Milken Global Institute, Dutch Development Bank/FMO Annual Meeting, and The Economist Buttonwood Gathering. She also founded Collective Future, an organization to foster diversity and inclusion in the nascent blockchain sector. FPV’s incubator FPV Labs was selected by the NYC Economic Development Corporation in January 2019 to operate the NYC Blockchain Center, a unique private-public partnership formed to serve as an access point to the growing blockchain ecosystem and collaborate with elected officials on policy initiatives.
Prior to FPV, Jobanputra was the Director of Emerging Market Mobile Investments at Omidyar Network, a philanthrocapitalist fund started by Pierre Omidyar, co-founder of eBay. Previously, she worked at Intel Capital investing in enterprise software in Silicon Valley from 1999-2003, as well as New Venture Partners and the NYC Investment Fund where she formed one of NYC’s first seed funds and helped establish the Fintech Innovation Lab in 2010. She started her career as a media/tech/telecom investment banker in NYC and London. Jobanputra is also active in supporting education reform and social entrepreneurship. She served as a Trustee of Achievement First Bushwick Charter Schools (Brooklyn). She is on the Board of Directors for the Center for an Urban Future, Advisory Board of L’Oreal’s Women in Digital Initiative, member of Mayor DeBlasio’s Broadband Taskforce, and former Access to Capital Committee member of the US Secretary of State Clinton Women’s Leadership Council. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.S. in Economics (concentration in Finance) from The Wharton School and a B.A. in Communications from the Annenberg School. She received her MBA from Kellogg in 1999. Her full bio can be found here, and she has been active on twitter since 2007 at @jalak.
DEAN PATRICK Venture Partner

Dean is the founder and managing partner of G2H2 Capital, a New York-based hedge fund primarily investing in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). Dean brings a deep-dive diligence approach to investing, leveraging his background in economics and computer science at Stanford. In addition to personally investing in dozens of ICOs since 2015, Dean is also an experienced solidity developer. Solidity is the programming language of Ethereum on which the vast majority of ICOs launch. Dean maintains a longstanding relationship with ConsenSys, currently the world’s largest blockchain company. He is currently engaged as a part-time contractor focusing on theoretical work around decentralized reputation and crypto-economic models for decentralized systems.
ADVISORS
Future\Perfect Ventures has gathered an Advisory Board of industry leaders and visionaries who share our vision for a more connected world. They provide guidance to our team and portfolio, and are an important part of the FPV family.

VICKI CHEUNG
Founding Member,
OpenAI

DEBORAH ESTRIN
Professor CompSci, Cornell Tech
Founder, Open mHealth

SUNIL HIRANI
Founder, Creditex,
Digital Asset Holdings

HILARY MASON
Founder, FastForward Labs
Data Scientist, Accel Partners

NAVEEN SELVADURAI
Partner, Expa
Co-Founder, Foursquare

RACHEL WEISS
Head of Digital Innovation,
L’Oreal
PRESS
JALAK JOBANPUTRA: INTERVIEWS & PROFILES
Excerpt from “Kingdom of New York Jalak Jobanputra: The Barefoot VC on Bitcoin, Mobile Technology and Silicon Alley”
Published in NY Observer, August 2014
“We have all this data being collected by our devices, and the next generation of interesting companies is going to figure out how to sift through it in a way that’s more seamless and beneficial to the user.
Even if there’s hype around something new, I look for a nugget that can grow into something interesting and sustainable. I remember sitting in a conference room at Lehman in ’95 for the Netscape IPO. There was a sense of, “That’s a different way of looking at the organization of information and providing access to information to people who haven’t had access before.” I see a lot that at the core of bitcoin. There will be hiccups along the way as this technology rolls out, but I always think of the pent-up demand in the world for self-empowerment. There are billions of people out there who haven’t had the ability to empower themselves. It’s not because they’re not capable, it’s because they haven’t had the opportunity.”
Written by: Isabella Hanson, Youth Writer at the National Youth Foundation
- PODCAST Why Future Perfect Ventures Did Not Invest in ICOs (Unchained, February 2019)
- PODCAST After the Blockchain Bubble (Wharton Business Radio, December 2018)
- PODCAST The Future of Investing (Future Bites, June 2018)
- PODCAST Jalak Jobanputra And What It’s Like To Be A Woman In Blockchain (Crypto Token Talk, March 2018)
- PODCAST The Gender Imbalance in Crypto: Jalak Jobanputra on Why It’s a Problem and Her Effort to Fix It (Unchained, March 2018)
- PODCAST Concordia Annual Summit Special – Part 1, Part 2: Do You Really Need a Blockchain for That? (CoinDesk, September 2018)
- PODCAST PBC2018 – Investment Models – Jeff Roberts, Michael Sonnenshein, Jalak Jobanputra, Matt Shapiro (Penn Blockchain, September 2018)
- PODCAST Jalak Jobanputra and What It’s Like to Be a Woman in Blockchain (CryptoTokenTalk, March 2018)
- PODCAST The Gender Imbalance in Crypto: Jalak Jobanputra on Why It’s a Problem and Her Effort to Fix It (Unconfirmed, March 2018)
- PODCAST Why Investor Jalak Jobanputra Is Betting Big on Crypto (Technotopia, February 2018)
- PODCAST Buying Oracle, FoodMaven Fights Food Waste (Bloomberg Coast to Coast, December 2017)
- PODCAST Basics of Blockchain (Bloomberg Markets, December 2017)
- PODCAST S2 Ep2: Jalak Jobanputra, Founder & Managing Partner of Future\Perfect Ventures (The Webby Awards, October 2017)
- PODCAST How Travel Companies Can Win the Hearts of Supertravelers (Skift, January 2017)
- PODCAST Unmasking the Myth of the Unicorn with Future\Perfect Partner Jalak Jobanputra (BroadMic, March 2016)
- PODCAST Interview with Women Investing in Women and Girls (VoiceAmerica, June 2015)
- PODCAST Interview with Jobanputra (This Week in Startups, April 2015)
- PODCAST We’re in a Valuation Bubble: It’s Cool! (Marketplace.org, February 2014)
- Bitcoin Fans Spy Opportunity in Facebook Libra Launch, WSJ, June 2019
- City’s Still Banking on Blockchain by Ensuring the Industry Is Open to All, Crain’s, May 2019
- Crain’s New York Business’ 2019 Notable Women in Tech, Crain’s, May 2019
- Why Your Next Term Sheet Could Come From New York City’s Government, Inc., February 2019
- Cryptocurrency Bear Market Taking a Toll on VC Valuations, Fortune, February 2019
- Can New York Lead in Cryptocurrency?, City & State NY, February 2019
- Crypto’s 2019 Goal: Technology People Can Use, WSJ, January 2019
2018 Platform Strategy Report, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, November 2018
- A Springboard to Success for Female Blockchain Founders, Forbes, October 2018
- These Startups Are Defying The Status Quo In Crypto And Building Diverse Teams, Forbes, July 9, 2018
- Moneyconf 2018: Crypto Wallet CEOs on Why Decentralization Matters, Yahoo Finance, June 13, 2018
- Disillusioned Token Investors Demand Real Talk About Risk, CoinDesk, May 2018
- US Regulators Need to Move Faster on Crypto, Consensus Panelists Say, CoinDesk, May 2018
- Bitcoin Review: Consensus Concludes, and BTC Value Hits One-month Low, New York Business Journal, May 2018
- Dear Students, Everything in Bitcoin’s Way Is Your $1 Billion Opportunity, CoinDesk, April 2018
- Beyond Bitcoin, Can Blockchain Technology Change the World, Austin-American Statesmen, March 2018
- Time to Acknowledge – and Encourage – Women in Blockchain, CoinDesk, March 2018
- Women in Cryptocurrencies Push Back Against ‘Blockchain Bros’, New York Times, February 25, 2018
- Blockchain Explainer: A Revolution Only in Its Infancy, Financial Times, February 2018
- For Women in Cryptocurrency, a New Effort to Grow Their Ranks, WIRED, February 20, 2018
- The 2017 Fintech Finance 40: Jalak Jobanputra, Institutional Investor, January 15, 2018
SEC Suspends Trading of Red-Hot Bitcoin Stock, CNN, December 19, 2017
- Ahead of the Buzzword Curve: Finding Investors in Front of Top Tech Trends, Crunchbase, November 28, 2017
- Will Blockchain Unchain The World?, Forbes, November 16, 2017
- Future\Perfect Lab Launches Blockchain, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and Security Convergence Project, Blockchain News, May 21, 2017
- As Cryptocurrencies Reach New Highs, The Ethereal Summit Paints a Rich Future, Forbes, May 20, 2017
- What Blockchain Is, and Why Some Experts Say It’s as Revolutionary as the Internet, WBUR.org, April 2017
- These are 2016’s Top 100 Influential Leaders in Fintech, City A.M., December 7, 2016
- The 2016 Fintech Finance 35: Jalak Jobanputra, Institutional Investor, November 14, 2016
- Jalak Jobanputra Talks Investing, FinTech And The Tech Bubble, Forbes, June 2, 2016
- The Blockchain: A Revolution You Need to Understand with Jalak Jobanputra, Milken Institute Global Conference 2016, May 3, 2016
- Fintech 2020: Keynote by Jalak Jobanputra, Finnovista, April 19, 2016
- Bitcoin and Blockchain Startups Not Immune from Selective Investors, CoinDesk, March 2016
- Citi, Micropayments and Social Good: Consensus 2015 Afternoon Sessions, CoinDesk, September 2015
- The Future of Money, Oreilly.com, October 29, 2015
- 14 Best VCs to Follow Online, Business Insider, August 12, 2015
- FuturePerfect VC: Emerging Markets are Bitcoin’s Best Bet, Coindesk, July 25, 2015
- NYC Mayor’s Office Pushes For Universal Broadband With Three New Initiatives, BuzzFeed News, April 2015
- DeBlasio Deputy Mayor Networks with Tech Insiders, Crain’s, April 2014
- The Next Billion: A Fireside Chat, Quartz/The Atlantic, November 6, 2013
- The Mobile Payments Opportunity, Seeking Alpha, June 14, 2012
- Silicon Boro, NY Post, September 25, 2011
WRITINGS
BITCOIN AT $10K – THE BEGINNING
The price of bitcoin reached $10K earlier today. Over the years I have seen a significant change in conversations around virtual currencies (“it’s for drug dealers!”; “there’s no underlying asset!”; “it’s a fraud!” to “how do I buy bitcoin”?;“can you help me look at this ICO?”) and we are no doubt at the cusp of more widespread acceptance of the concept. Read More
Published in recode, November 2017

TOKEN THOUGHTS ON THE BLOCKCHAIN BOOM
There is also a lot of buzz about ICO’s, or initial coin offerings, a new asset class of cryptocurrencies being issued in crowdsales to fund development of projects on top of Bitcoin or Ethereum (or in some cases, entirely new protocols)…. Read More
Published in The Barefoot VC, May 2017

ARE BANKS THE NEXT DINOSAURS?
Last week, I spoke at The Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering in NYC about how emerging markets (and Africa in particular) are leapfrogging innovation in the financial services sector. The most documented example of this is M-Pesa’s mobile money platform in Kenya, which I have written about a few times on my blog The Barefoot VC, including in my thesis piece When Third is First. Read More
Published in Medium, October 2015

RETHINKING IMPACT INVESTING
Impact investing, venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship are all areas in practice and theory that have been close to my heart for years. As regular readers of my blog know, I was born in Nairobi and grew up visiting the developing world in the 1980s, after my family moved to the United States. Read More
From The Barefoot VC, May 2015
WHEN THIRD IS FIRST
In 2011, I wrote about Jugaad, according to Wikipedia “a colloquial Hindi word that can mean an innovative fix or a simple work-around”. I noted in the blog post that Jugaad is “now an acceptable management technique…and also applies to any kind of creative and out of the box thinking… Read More
From The Barefoot VC, June 2015
SMART DATA, DIVERSITY AND OUR DECENTRALIZED FUTURE
As an avid traveler, observer of the world and a technophile, I’ve been struck by the parallels in the development of technology with the broader evolution of societal structures. These observations have led me to the investment thesis at the core of Future\Perfect Ventures. We’re investing in decentralization as a theme… Read More
From The Barefoot VC, January 2015
THE FPV BLOCKCHAIN WEEKLY ARCHIVE















































