Our Head of Investment and Cryptoeconomics discusses why he loves working with founders.
At Outlier, we help the best Web3 startups develop their products, tokens, and get ready for fundraising. One of our key focus areas for teams – and one in which our expertise is unparalleled – is Token Economics. Made up of renowned experts in engineering, finance, and market research, our Web3-native team covers DeFi, Token Engineering, NFTs and DAOs/governance.
With a background in aerospace engineering, Dimi Chatziagnostou joined Outlier in 2022 as the company scaled, helping it become the world’s largest Web3 accelerator. Dimi hired a team of 10 experts to build the largest Token Economics team in the world.
Dimi first became interested in Web3 during his PhD, during which part of his research was focused on new type of business models for the aviation industry and its capital intensive assets such as aero engines.. With the technological progress in aero engine operations and monitoring, , he started to think, how more accurate performance based leasing and accounting models could benefit the capital efficiency for those type of assets, tapping into the world of the machine economy.
Blockchain and cryptocurrencies offered a solution. After his PhD, he joined a project to turn industrial goods such as machinery or electric vehicles into tokenized assets which anyone can invest in and earn interest on; the project was a joint venture between Mercedes Benz, Bosch and the Stuttgart Stock Exchange. Along with two co-founders, Dimi went on to develop an infrastructure layer whereby financial players can tokenise real world assets; something which Outlier is leaning into with our upcoming Real World Assets Base Camp accelerator.
Having previously gone through Base Camp with Bloxmove as a Token Engineer, Dimi knew about Outlier’s strong Web3 support. That’s why he knew Outlier could offer his company the expertise to take his company to the next level. After going through the accelerator, Pragmafy went on to raise a successful Seed round, and gain a few commitments for a follow-up round. After launching a pilot product, the team saw transaction volumes in the seven figures.
“Ultimately, though, I wanted to focus on where I felt I was best, which is Token Economies.” Dimi’s passion for Cryptoeconomics is what led him to join the Outlier team and build out its offering in his area of expertise.
Given Dimi’s deep knowledge of the Web3 space, he has an unparalleled ability to stay at the forefront of innovative trends. “My role in the cryptoeconomics team allows me to stay at the edge. The cryptoeconomics team are the Web3 experts; the power users in the market, they’re in various communities testing new products every week. And this enables me to get their feedback in a faster way.”
As of this year, Dimi has also moved into an expanded role as Head of Investment, where he will be applying his experience as a founder to identify and support the most promising founders bringing Web3 into the mainstream. “When you speak to founders in an early stage, you need to look three to six months ahead. You need to think about what those teams will look like once they’ve gotten all the support here at Outlier.” Dimi’s role leading two of our key teams is helping Outlier stay at the edge.
“Having been a founder myself, there is a pattern of good founders. And in this new role, I’m able to identify incredible founders in the market, see innovative products that they’re building, and invest in those.”
I finally asked Dimi what piece of advice he would give founders: “As a founder, there was initially an idea that sparked your motivation to solve the problem. So you committed yourself to provide a product and a solution to this problem. If it was easy, everyone would do it. So my advice to founders is to be persistent, be consistent. There’s going to be ups and downs but you need to believe in this. And in the market, there are believers and supporters happy to be backing you and this is us as Outlier Ventures.”
We welcome all founders and Web3 experts to get in touch to learn how we can help. Whether you’re looking to build your token economy, get ready to fundraise, or turn your product into a mass-market solution, we’re here to support as you supercharge your startup.
