How I Invest with David Weisburd
E152: The Peter Thiel Mistake This Crypto VC Won't Make
04 Apr 2025
In this episode of How I Invest, Evan Fisher, Founder of Portal Ventures, shares his expertise in fundraising, venture capital, and deal flow. He discusses the key elements of successful fundraising, how to craft a compelling pitch, and what investors look for when evaluating opportunities. Evan’s insights provide valuable lessons for both founders seeking capital and investors looking for high-quality deals.
Full Episode
One of my favorite things about investing is it's really like psychological warfare in some ways. Truly, it's like everyone says, you know, you have to run into the building when it's on fire. And that's really easy to say. It's like whoever has the willpower and is measured enough to think through those times, that's the person that runs in and does it.
And so a result of this is we're always in the lookout for like, what are things that just don't really make sense from a crowd psychology perspective? You were a star associate at Insight, a $90 billion fund. You were crushing it when we first met. You decided to leave that and start Portal Ventures. Why did you decide to start Portal Ventures? I started Portal Ventures in early 2022.
It's something I'd been thinking about for a long time, though. I started getting into crypto during the DeFi boom. And as time went on, it dawned on me that this was not just a new, no, it wasn't just Bitcoin. It wasn't just a new product. It was an entirely new asset class. And as I saw that, I started pitching more crypto deals at Insight. I got my start at Insight.
After spending a couple of years at Goldman and I was helping invest across software, internet, FinTech, and I started pitching crypto deals. The crypto deals that most excited me though, were typically a early stage and B token deals. And the reason for that was I saw these protocol business models effectively. I started Portal because I saw the emergence of a new asset class.
It's a new asset class because it's a business that de-risks in different manners than software does. Leo construction is different. The way you think about sourcing is different. The return profile is different. The liquidity is different. The list goes on and on. If you look throughout history, new asset classes emerge, new asset managers emerge.
There's a reason Blackstone is not the world's best venture capital fund. And so I have limited reason to believe that the world's best venture funds will be the world's best crypto funds. So I left to start. I raised about 40 million for fund one in early 22. It supported the managing directors at Insight to run at the mission of being the preeminent first check in crypto investor in the market.
I saw a lot of managers in crypto grew over time. And that meant where they made the majority of their money, they were no longer playing. And that's ultimately where we wanted to play. You want to be the first check into a new crypto protocol. Tell me about the advantages and disadvantages of being the first check.
Yeah. You know, it's my favorite area to play. I'll start with that. It's my favorite because of some reasons it's related to, you get to see a business and a founder transition from really an idea to a skilled protocol that's making money and trading in the billions of dollars of valuations if you're lucky and successful. The biggest advantage is... It's the game selection that you're playing.
Investing in general is all about game selection. You have to choose the games that make sense. And when you're investing at the first stage with ownership that makes sense relative to fund size, what you have to do is you have to believe that you can pick something that's going to be in the right order of magnitude of outcomes.
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