Raphael - Rezo Shmertz
CEO, Managing Partner
Specializes on token economies, blockchain implementations, and network effects. Got involved in bitcoin in 2016, and after becoming fascinated by bitcoin and learning more on blockchain, started dedicating his full time to the industry. Raphael is a strong believer in new economic transformation and is heavily involved in the crypto community. Worked in Corporate Finance at Legacy Square Capital, CFO in Russia-China Trading and Logistics Group. Studied Electronic engineering at Technion Institute of Israel and Economics at Open University of Israel.
Eugen Sandmann
Managing Partner, Head of Trading
Partner of Terreus Capital AG, MD International Economics from Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany. More than 20 years professional experience in international portfolio management, worked for renowned financial institutions in Switzerland and Germany: UBS Geneva, Bank Merck Finck & Privatbankiers Dusseldorf. Broad experience in development and management of automated trading systems and strategies
Alexander Buchman
Managing Partner, Business Development and Integration, IR
Entrepreneur and angel investor in multiple ventures, startups, IT & IOT projects. Since early internet years founded Destiny Sphere GmbH - an online gaming development company, including games for social platforms. Business transformed later on in to larger company Avrora Interactive which in addition to development is also publishing many different kinds of games, such as 9 dragons, My City, Genetics, Office wars, Nitro Club, and others. Alexander was also CEO of companies such as Mobix Chip LLC, Smart Metering Systems LLC, from microchips industry, and development of automated commercial registries. He also has vast experience in media and movie production, founded musical label Real Hot Records and movie production studio Avrora Media GmbH. Cannes Film Festival Award and German State Film Prize winner. Graduate of Berlin University.
David Finkelstein
Quantitative Portfolio Manager
Partner at Terreus Capital AG, An expert in portfolio management and capital markets with 17+ years of experience, has been running a range of quantitative strategies from global tactical asset allocation and equity long-short to super fast HFT and cutting-edge AI-based strategies. Co-founded four companies in IT and FinTech. Master degree in Applied Math, Stockholm School of Economics EMBA, Certificate in Quantitative Finance
Lau Geckler
Managing Partner, Corporate Affairs, Legal and Compliance
Legal educational background, professional board member in companies like Yota, Geometry Global (WPP), Mercedes-Benz Fashion week, Ethereum Competence Center and several startups. Lau has over 13 years of experience in the IT and consumer electronics sector (Microsoft, Hewlett- Packard and Yota) in senior marketing, sales and legal roles across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In addition, Lau has been working with consumer marketing and retail consultancy for 9 years in global leadership roles and conducted acquisitions of more than 25 agencies. He is the co-founder of Nexus International (consultancy) and Impact People (GDPR consultancy and education)
Sharif Sakr
Managing Partner, Strategy and Communications
Sharif is a product strategy and marketing specialist with a background in news and technology journalism for the BBC, Forbes and Engadget. In addition to his work at BlockRock Capital, Sharif has senior roles at Nexus International consultancy and GameBench Ltd., and also regularly coaches MBA students at Oxford University.
Shawn Lomtadze
COO, Managing Partner
Vast experience in business development and marketing processes, startup specialist, experience in Mergers & Acquisitions
Worked with the following companies: KAO Corporation — business development; GIVER Group — business development; ORLANDO Management — acquisitions; Society General’s Bank Republic — acquisitions; worked with the majority of European and the Middle East funds and Family Offices. MD in Finance State University of Russia
Ivan Petuhovschii
Partner, Strategy and Business Development
Founder of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange and trading platform in eastern Europe – EXMO with over $1B monthly turnover and over 1,6 million users with offices located in London, Barcelona, Moscow and Kiev. Ivan is involved in crypto space since as early as 2012. Within the framework of EXMO Finance Ivan has vast expertise in development of different fintech, IT and Big Data solutions. He is consulting many companies regarding integration of latest technological solutions as well as general business development in financial sector.
Prior to EXMO, Ivan was analyst on financial markets, was involved in evaluation, M&R, strategic and business panning of fintech companies. Graduated Omsk State University.
Igor Doganov
Analyst
Crypto market analyst and investor from 2016. Started career as consultant in the investment company FINAM and became head of regional training center. Then, 7 years of experience as a certified appraiser including management positions in corporate mortgage risks divisions of Nomos and Otkritie banks. Entered the professional blockchain industry in 2017 and joined one of the first tokenized funds The Token Fund as a Portfolio manager. Igor also has experience as a project manager and Scrum master for product software development teams of Tokenbox and AMMA projects. Graduated Bryansk State Technical University and Moscow "Synergy" University.
Vladislav Zhukov
Associate
Vladislav is a Moscow State University Business School graduate and finance specialist with three years in crypto and blockchain projects, contributing mainly in the areas of product management and internet marketing, plus four years in banking, investment and IT startups.
Trent McConaghy
Advisor
Started career by doing AI research for national defense in the 1990s. Then, in his first startup (ADA - Analog Design Automation), explored the relation between human creativity and AI-based machine creativity. Trent extended that work during his PhD in EE (KU Leuven, Belgium) from 2004-2008, and found a way to reconcile machine creativity with existing engineering knowledge. In his second startup (Solido), leveraged AI to help drive Moore's Law, which was under threat due to high manufacturing variations. Now, Solido software is used for most modern chip designs. He started hacking on blockchains in 2013, which led to founding (and current focus) on Ocean Protocol – a public utility network to safely & securely share AI data while preserving privacy, with applications to data marketplaces and digital sovereignty.
Mike Raitsyn
Advisor
Entrepreneur and software developer with over 13 years of experience. Founder of leading internet marketing services in Eastern Europe with a total turnover of over $100 million. Seven years of professional investment experience. As a business angel and Mirafox Venture Fund Managing Partner, Mike invested in 20 IT startups. Over seven years experience as a qualified investor working with structured investment products. Over five years in trading stock and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) at NYSE, NASDAQ, and European stock exchanges. Author of professional software for traders and investors, an expert in social trading. Founder of Snowfox Technologies, Kwork, Mirafox and more.
Dmitry Khovratovich
Advisor
PhD, a security researcher at Evernym, Inc., and designer of: PoW behind Zcash and other cryptocurrencies (Equihash); world standard of password hashing (Argon2); privacy-preserving KYC solutions on smart contracts; a tool for deanonymization of Bitcoin transactions; computational improvements to zkSNARKs and more. Dmitry is an award winner of: LuxBlockHackathon 2017; Password Hashing Competition (2014-2015); Best Paper Award Asiacrypt 2010; Best PhD Thesis (2012); Best Scientific Publication in Luxembourg (2011). Has an extensive experience in securing, auditing and designing smart contracts, multisig wallets, airdrop platforms and more. Security advisor and smart contract consultant for over 50 projects
