The high-tech and sustainable world of A100x

Two early-stage venture capitalists, Nisa Amoils and Aleksandr Bulkin, are demonstrating the range of investment possibilities opened up by blockchain technology, a range that goes far beyond the simple idea of speculating on the cryptocurrencies, trying to buy them in the valleys, sell them on the hills. Amoils and Bulkin are after something else. Their fund is A100x, and the founders describe it as “an impact-focused fund that specializes in guiding and investing in applications of modern technological innovation” including both blockchain and artificial intelligence. Bulkin spent 14 years as a technologist at Goldman Sachs. In 2016 he co-founded CoinFund, which was backed by, among others, David Pakman of Venrock. Amoils, a graduate of University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School worked for 10 years at a number of VC funds, beginning as a technology generalist, but developing over time a focus on blockchain, which she has come to see as transformative. Blockchains and Dapps A “blockchain” is a digital ledger where each newly added entry or “block” contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. It is resistant to modification, that is, to tampering. Blockchains were first developed in the context of digital alternative currencies, precisely because such a system can record transactions between parties inexpensively, verifiably and permanently. The A100x investment thesis describes this as the “redistribution of agency.” The range of applications to which the redistribution of agency can give rise is limited only by the amount of intelligence (human and artificial) brought to bear on the question. Blockchain has given rise to “smart contracts,” otherwise known as distributed applications or Dapps. These are contracts that are self-executing because the terms are coded in a way that reduces the need for intermediaries or the likelihood of interpretive disputes or enforcement difficulties. One of the best known of the portfolio companies of A100x has a name that incorporates the term. It is “Dapper Labs,” and as Amoils said in an interview, “recently hit the $2 billion valuation mark,” helped to that mark by “the digital collectibles platform NBA TopShot and the Flow blockchain enabling non-fungible token collectibles.” Dapper Labs is all about using blockchain for conducting what it calls the “serious business of fun.” A100x is not novel in looking for investment possibilities in blockchains. Amoils said: “There are a lot of hedge funds with a crypto trading strategy, but we are venture investors that target companies that are making innovative use of blockchain technologies in sustainable ways – environmental and social and to support diversity. No one else is doing that.” Other differentiating considerations A100x brings a global reach, with strong ties to markets in eastern Europe and Israel. Amoils’ legal background and Bulkin’s familiarity with technological risk management give it an edge in those areas, and the founders have what they call a “deep connectivity across the space.” Founders and investors want them in their rounds. Part of that connectivity arises from Amoils’ media savvy. She is a regular on CNBC, MSNBC, Cheddar, etc., and a contributor to both Forbes and Blockchain Magazine. She is also the author of a bestselling book, WTF is Happening, where the initials of course stand for “Women Tech Founders.” The many uses of blockchain also reach into the world of healthcare, where as Amoils said, the COVID pandemic has exposed a lot of problems, especially with supply chains, contract tracing, clinical trials, and vaccine rollout. The portfolio of A100x reflects this, as well. A crisis of trust and a trustless solution The ongoing pandemic has been described, after all, as a crisis of trust. People don’t trust the intermediary institutions: government regulators, large pharma corporations, the organized medical profession, the elite institutions of science and research. Not surprisingly, then, people think that being told to double mask is an imposition, and that being told not to go to a large family gathering on a major religious holiday is an atheistic plot. But the critical feature of blockchains, as noted above, is the redistribution of agency. If everybody is, so to speak, his own agent and principal, there is less room for distrust. There is no central institution in a blockchain whence one could plausibly withhold one’s trust. Consider the supply chains for ventilators or other critical medical equipment. As a recent scholarly paper in JMIR Medical Informatics put the point: Blockchain technology provides immutable and distributed ledgers with auditable records which are ideal for tracking each asset in a supply chain because every actor in the supply chain shares the same information. It is therefore easy to calculate the inventory and the exact stage where assets are in the chain, instant reconciliation can then be achieved without any additional audit or negotiation among the various suppliers and end users. A final example: one of the A100x portfolio companies is expected to create massive disruption in the title insurance business for automobiles. Now, insuring the title of a single car has historically involved a car owner, a car dealer, a lender, an insurance company, a manufacturer, a state DMV and a title issuing authority. Those are seven parties, raising questions of trust. Again, the key fact about blockchain is that it doesn’t require trust. What fascinates Amoils about this is that although blockchain isn’t being employed in the auto title issue directly to address the quite distinct issue of sustainable land-use, that will be a secondary effect of its adoption. “The job of confirming the chain of title for an automobile still uses the same methods it did in the 1970s using paper,” she said. “Using blockchain can reduce the time from 50 days to 1.” It keeps cars out of landfills and this is better land-use practice. So, sustainability proves perfectly consistent with the bottom line of investors: economic and social value coincide.

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The high-tech and sustainable world of A100x

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Christopher Faille

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