We are glad to welcome Vivian to Superangel team for the next 8 weeks. Vivian joined us through 101 Fellowship – a practical program designed for young people who are interested in venture capital. This is the second time Superangel participates in the initiative.
What Is Your Background?
I’m a Master of Finance candidate at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. My background is in finance and accounting. I previously worked in financial services assurance at EY, where I specialized in banking and capital markets, serving clients from banking, securities brokerage and asset management industries. I then made a transition after completing my CPA qualification program and joined Credit Suisse working in compliance and due diligence. Besides, I recently worked with an impact investment VC to identify market trends and investment opportunities in the APAC EdTech industry.
Why Venture Capital?
I was drawn towards the world of VC mainly because of the fun part – talking to the founders! I enjoy interacting with many highly motivated people and learning about different innovative ideas and disruptive startups that are trying to make real impact, which are truly inspiring. Nevertheless, having just a great idea is not enough. My finance and accounting background could bring added value by putting great ideas to work with effective business planning and help startups pave their paths to success.
Startup You’d Invest Your Tuition Fee In?
Uniswap. (Not only on the strength of its pink unicorn logo) Uniswap’s innovative crypto exchange protocol is stepping up the game by going full DeFi as a first mover. The application of blockchain in the fintech space has certainly proved a success, considering the emergence of crypto unicorns in recent years, such as Binance and Coinbase. A vast majority of these crypto platforms however operate as centralized exchanges. What’s revolutionary about Uniswap is a fully decentralized exchange built on Ethereum, which enables automated market making by allowing users to provide liquidity and make instant swaps at any time based on smart contracts.
The exponential growth of DeFi has propelled Uniswap into a sprawling trading platform, which has over $5 billion worth of liquidity committed in the exchange’s pools (peaked at around $8 billion in May 2021). Its own UNI governance token has also emerged quickly and can be found on all major exchanges, both centralized and decentralized. I believe the future of Uniswap is promising as it develops further and attracts even more liquidity by leveraging the DeFi boom.
What Book/Podcast Do You Most Frequently Recommend To Friends And Family And Why?
Podcasts I always recommend to my friends: Blockcrunch, How I Built This, Stuff You Should Know. Blockcrunch is not to be missed for anyone who would like to understand more about the crypto world. It highlights all updated information and hot topics in crypto and features knowledgeable guests from across the industry to give insights on all aspects of the crypto space. How I Built This with Guy Raz interviews founders of many successful businesses and shares inspiring stories about their entrepreneurial journeys. This is an insightful podcast for those excited about entrepreneurship or building ventures. Lastly, Stuff You Should Know is an interesting one to learn a bit about a wide variety of different stuff (go-to podcast to keep myself entertained at the gym).