London and New York in the same month — market maker meetings in London and investor/partner reconnects at Digital Asset Summit in NYC. Conference-as-execution-engine is working.
Bolt in a critical phase — live on Sui, winning trade flow, now focused on locking in market maker partnerships and getting the unit economics right before scaling.
New BD pipeline active — several new mandates and inbound conversations across payments infrastructure, DeFi tooling, and B2B fintech.
Institutional DD lane is live — Mike and I are building out a dedicated diligence capability for funds. First real-world work is done. Now formalising the process, team, and commercial model.
Team expanding — bringing in a senior analyst and junior to support the DD workstream as mandates start to close.
The business is becoming more layered — BD engine, growth advisory, and institutional services are all running in parallel now. The challenge is making sure each lane gets enough attention.
Bolt — Positioning, Market Makers, and the Sui Opportunity
March was a big internal month for Bolt. The product is live on Sui and performing — winning a meaningful share of trade flow on major aggregators, which is real validation. The focus now is closing the unit economics gap and getting market maker partners integrated so the risk is distributed properly rather than sitting on the protocol.
We spent a lot of time this month on the market maker pipeline: calls with multiple prop trading and liquidity teams across London and remotely. Different firms, different readiness levels. Some needed a simpler integration story, some wanted to go deep technically. The consistent signal is that this is a product the right MM can actually work with — we just need to get the right 2–3 over the line first.
Positioning also got a sharper pass this month. The move from “zero slippage liquidity network” to zero slippage execution layer matters — it’s technically more accurate and lands better with the institutional audience we’re trying to reach. That framing work will carry forward into all BD collateral.
Solana launch is in the pipeline for the next phase. Solana’s volume dwarfs Sui, so if the unit economics are clean by then, that’s a step-change moment.
Polli — Solana Expansion and Strategic Partnerships
Polli had a solid month of parallel workstreams. The fundraise is moving, with a lead investor still being identified. The higher priority right now is closing the foundation-level partnerships that get the product rolled out at scale. TVL follows partnerships, not the other way around.
The platform is managing strong TVL today, with a clear path to multiples of that as Cosmos deals close and Solana partnerships come online. The Solana push is real: conversations underway with major LST providers, foundation pools, and vault infrastructure teams. The staking optimisation model that works on Cosmos translates well to Solana, and the foundation pool allocations alone represent a large opportunity.
Investor intros continued flowing through Riverstone’s network, and the pipeline into relevant VCs is being worked systematically in the background.
New Pipeline — Payments, DeFi Tooling, and Fintech
March brought in a good set of new conversations:
A crypto payments platform building P2P and merchant infrastructure — early stage but sharp product thesis, founder credibility still being built out.
A personal intelligence and e-commerce platform with token mechanics — 20k signups from minimal press, platform pre-launch; interesting but needs more revenue validation before we’d push hard.
A fund management infrastructure play for on-chain strategies — bootstrapped, closed alpha, targeting mid-2026 launch. Interesting infrastructure category.
A stablecoin payments business for mid-market corporates — regulated, volume projections credible, exploring a partnership structure rather than a pure advisory mandate.
None of these are closed yet. They’re in various stages of assessment. The filter we apply is the same as always: real traction, clear revenue model, and a founding team we’d actually want to be associated with.
Institutional DD — Building the New Lane
This deserves its own section because it represents a meaningful shift in what Riverstone is becoming.
Mike and I have been building out a dedicated investment due diligence service for funds that need institutional-grade analysis but don’t have the internal capacity to produce it at speed. The target is Web3 investment firms — particularly credit-focused and hybrid funds — that are starting to take capital from pensions, sovereign wealth, and family offices. Those LPs demand proper IC materials, financial models, and risk frameworks. Most Web3 teams can’t produce that in-house.
We completed our first real piece of work in March: a multi-page preliminary investment review for a private credit mandate — covering business model, credit characteristics, portfolio construction, collateral framework, key risks, and governance. The kind of document a proper fund would be proud to put in front of an IC.
The work validates the model. A formal mandate is the next step and we’re in commercial discussions. Once that lands, we’ll formalise the process: a three-tier DD workflow from initial screening through to full financial modelling and IC materials, with dedicated analyst resource and agreed turnaround times.
We’re hiring a senior analyst to lead the work, supported by a junior. If this clicks into place, we’ll have a properly staffed, scalable diligence capability sitting inside Riverstone by Q2.
Emma is running VC outreach and CRM — building a database of 400–500 investor contacts, filtering by mandate fit and check size, and running a consistent outbound cadence. This is starting to show up in the quality of conversations entering the top of the funnel.
Jorge is embedded in the deal coordination layer — revenue split tracking, group chat ops, CRM discipline. Keeping the team honest on pipeline hygiene.
Mike is formalising his role as Managing Partner and bringing the institutional finance credibility that opens doors the BD-native side of the business can’t.
Team syncs are running weekly — short, focused, no fluff. The main work is making sure each mandate has a clear next action and an owner.
Hiring is active — senior analyst and junior for the DD workstream. Goal is to have them in place before the first formal DD mandate kicks off.
Three-tier DD process being built from scratch: initial transaction screening and mandate fit, through to credit and risk analysis, through to full financial modelling, IC materials, and legal structure review. Each tier has a defined scope, timeline, and output.
Conference-as-system continues: pre-London prep, target list for MM conversations, post-event follow-up cadence. The process is more repeatable now than it was six months ago.
Airtable CRM maturity — the investor and partner database is being properly segmented by mandate type, check size, and engagement stage. Makes outreach faster and higher quality.
Content cadence was lighter this month given travel and the volume of active mandates. March was execution-heavy. Picks back up in April.
Digital Asset Summit NYC — The signal from the room: institutional allocators are still hungry for exposure, but they need the infrastructure around it to be cleaner. That’s exactly the DD lane we’re building into. Right place, right time.
Market maker landscape for DeFi protocols — What became clear across all the Bolt MM conversations: integration quality matters more than firm reputation. A well-resourced MM that doesn’t understand the protocol’s flow is worse than a leaner one that does. The vetting process we’ve built for Bolt is the right one.
Private credit in Web3 — There’s a growing cohort of funds trying to apply traditional credit frameworks to on-chain collateral and payment infrastructure businesses. Demand for institutional-grade diligence in this space is real, and supply is thin. That gap is where we’re pointing.
Stablecoin payments infrastructure — Multiple conversations this month touched on the same theme: stablecoin rails are genuinely competitive with traditional banking for cross-border flows. The business model risk has shifted from “will it work” to “who wins distribution.” That’s a meaningful change from 18 months ago.
London is underrated as a BD stop. Two days, right set of meetings, clean follow-up list. More efficient than a week at a sprawling conference. Will do this more regularly.
The DD work is a different muscle. It’s slower, more structured, and requires a different kind of rigour than BD. Getting into that mode is good for me — it makes the advisory work sharper because you’re stress-testing things you’d otherwise hand-wave.
Hiring for institutional work is harder than it looks. The right person needs to bridge traditional finance standards and Web3 context. That combination is rare and you have to be patient finding it.
Positioning matters more than I give it credit for. The Bolt positioning work this month was a reminder that the same product lands differently depending on how it’s framed. “Execution layer” vs “liquidity network” changes who takes the meeting and how long it lasts.
DAS NYC follow-through — Conference happened at the end of March; now it’s about converting those conversations into scoped next steps. The window closes fast after events, so follow-up is the priority.
Bolt market maker closings — Push the 2–3 most advanced MM conversations to signed agreements. This is the unlock for the next phase of Bolt’s growth.
Polli partnership closings — Fundraise is ongoing, but the higher priority right now is closing the foundation-level partnerships that get the product rolled out at scale. TVL follows partnerships, not the other way around.
DD mandate formalisation — Close the commercial structure with the fund we’ve been working with. This becomes the reference case for the lane.
Analyst hiring — Decisions on the senior and junior hires this month. Can’t scale the institutional workstream without the right team in place.
New pipeline assessment — Run the payments and fintech mandates through a proper fit filter. Close or pass — no sitting in limbo.
Solana Accelerate + Consensus (Miami, late April / early May) — Two back-to-back events, one city. Solana Accelerate for deep ecosystem BD and founder sourcing; Consensus for broader investor and cross-ecosystem conversations. This is the heaviest conference window of the spring and we’ll be going in with a proper target list.
Content restart — Pick up the video and short-form cadence. Miami will generate good material.
Chag Sameach 😎
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.