Founder Episodes

May 30, 2025

295: VC For the Rest of Us | Shuttle | Scott Ashmore and Rob Halligan

This week, I’m joined by Scott Ashmore and Rob Halligan, co-founders of Shuttle - a platform giving individuals access to venture capital deals that have traditionally been reserved for the ultra-wealthy.

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May 2, 2025

292: Done Deal: Ollie Walsh on Pipit’s 12-Year Journey to Qenta

This week, I’m welcoming back Ollie Walsh, formerly the co-founder and CEO of Pipit Global, and now, the President of Qenta, following Qenta’s recent acquisition of Pipit.  This is Ollie’s fourth appearance on MoneyNeverSleeps, making him the all-time guest record holder on the show.

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April 18, 2025

291: Scaling Without VC: The Long Game with Fergal McGovern from Visi…

This week, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Fergal McGovern , founder and CEO of VisibleThread , for one of the most enlightening founder chats I’ve had in a while. Fergal’s been building for decades—starting ...

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April 11, 2025

290: The Ethical Hacker Mindset with Yev Broshevan from Hacken

This week, I sat down with ethical hacker Yev Broshevan, co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer at Hacken, a leading blockchain security firm focused on making Web3 a safer, more trustworthy place for everyone. Even better? Yev’s birthday is the same day this episode drops - happy birthd…

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March 28, 2025

288: Anthony Rose, SeedLegals | 99 Problems (But My Legals Ain’t One)

Anthony Rose is the co-founder and CEO of SeedLegals, the #1 platform for startup funding and legals in the UK. But long before he was helping tens of thousands of founders raise capital and avoid legal potholes, Anthony was in the digital trenches – first turning the music industry on its head wit…

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March 18, 2025

286: Introducing the Techstars Web3 Accelerator Class of 2025

In this episode, we’re announcing the Techstars Web3 Accelerator Class of 2025 featuring founders from the six web3 startups that Techstars are investing in and accelerating in 2025 and beyond. Get ready for insights from: S...

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Jan. 17, 2025

281: The Art of Startup Exits | Brian McDonald from Bay Advisory

Brian McDonald is a partner at Bay Advisory, a corporate finance firm helping founders navigate funding, scaling, and exiting their businesses. Brian first joined the show in 2021, and now, four years later, he returns to share updated insights on startup exits, valuations, and the evolving market …

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Dec. 13, 2024

279: Mastering the Startup Game | Nigel Eccles | Insights from a Seri…

This week, I interviewed serial entrepreneur Nigel Eccles. Known for his role as co-founder and former CEO of FanDuel , Nigel shares his incredible journey of launching and scaling multiple ventures, including his latest proj...

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Nov. 22, 2024

276: Sponstar and the Rise of Fractional Sponsorship with Manu | Excl…

This week, we’ve got an exclusive interview with Manu, the founder and CEO of Sponstar, the fractional sponsorship marketplace that’s leveling the playing field for small and mid-sized brands to access high-profile sponsorship opportunities.

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Nov. 8, 2024

275: Web3 Fundraising Playbook | Pete Townsend | Raising Your 1st Rou…

We're diving deep into the fundamentals of fundraising for Web3 startups and early-stage ventures navigating their first capital raise. Fundraising is always challenging, but in web3, it’s a whole new frontier with unique hurdles. This session, originally presented at a Techstars Web3 Accelerator e…

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Oct. 31, 2024

274: Filmmaker to Founder | René Pinnell and Artizen | Funding Human …

René Pinnell is the founder of Artizen, a match-funding platform for human creativity, helping creators match fund new projects at the frontier of art, science, technology and culture. With over two decades of experience, René has helped creators raise more than $50 million for groundbreaking proje…

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Oct. 18, 2024

272: Scaling Environmental Impact: Luca Franchi’s Journey with Ambien…

Luca Franchi is the CEO and a co-founder of Ambient, a decentralized network of air quality sensors.  Luca brings to Ambient over two decades of leading growth at several startups and large corporations in the US and Europe (O2 UK, Telefónica, Sky) across enterprise and consumer verticals.

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Sept. 13, 2024

268: Garvan Callan | Be the Change You Seek | Founder of OneZero1

Garvan Callan is the founder of OneZero1, a company that’s redefining how startups and enterprises alike can navigate the complex world of digital strategy and transformation.

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May 24, 2024

261: Building the Aleph Zero Ecosystem with Antoni Zolciak and Piotr …

This week, we dive into Aleph Zero, a privacy-enhancing layer one blockchain renowned for prioritizing scalability, security and speed, with co-founder Antoni Zolciak and Head of Investments Piotr Saczuk.

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May 10, 2024

259: Blockchain Going Mainstream | Andrea Miele - The Colony | Fabien…

I’m joined by three of the founders from the Techstars Web3 class of 2024 to help me identify the mainstream adoption path for blockchain technology, including Andrea Miele, Co-Founder and CEO of The Colony, Fabien Arneodo, Co-Founder and CEO of SportSyncTech, and Nick Mason, Co-Founder and CEO of …

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May 3, 2024

258: Money Talks with Gray Webb | Bitcoin as a Long-Term Holding | St…

Gray Webb is co-founder and CTO at Liquibit Capital, and we kick things off with a look at what’s happened with BTC since the latest bitcoin halving.  Gray and I then riff on the evolution of bitcoin into a long-term holding with huge opportunities for financial innovation.  We also look at the mai…

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April 18, 2024

257: How I Got To Techstars on a Flywheel | Hesus Inoma Interviews Pe…

This week, I’m sharing an episode of the ‘Venture with Hesus’ podcast that I recorded in late 2023 with the unstoppable Hesus Inoma, as he interviews me on lessons learned from being part of the startup ecosystem the last 8 years.

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April 5, 2024

255: SBF Gets 25 Years | BlackRock’s Tokenized Fund | Copper’s Sushi …

Paul Smyth and I look at Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence before jumping to the brighter side of things with BlackRock’s new tokenized money market fund.  We then time travel back to 2017 with Copper’s sushi party (or so we thought), and close things out by questioning the correlation between f…

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March 15, 2024

252: Meet the Techstars Web3 Class of 2024

This episode features an introduction to the 12 founding teams that form the Techstars Web3 accelerator class of 2024, with each of their founder/CEOs giving you a quick look inside what they're building.

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Feb. 23, 2024

249: Bridging the Gap | Connor Murphy | One Problem, Two Ventures and…

This week’s guest is Connor Murphy, the CEO of Bridge. I met Connor at a Techstars event in Dublin in 2019 as he was just getting his latest venture off the ground in Bridge, and I started using the Bridge app within seconds of meeting him to help me bridge my network.

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Feb. 16, 2024

248: Venture Investing and Connecting the Dots

We've remastered and packaged up two of our most popular episodes from 2023 that were originally going to be one episode looking at the venture capital mantra of ‘investing in lines and not dots’ with VC investing insights from Patrick Pinschmidt from Middlegame Ventures and my lessons learned from…

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Feb. 1, 2024

246: Evan Miyazono | Atlas Computing | Overcoming AI Risks

Evan Miyazono is founder and CEO of Atlas Computing, a non-profit formed late last year to help scale human control over risky AI capabilities.

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Dec. 8, 2023

242: Money Talks with Paul Smyth | State of European Tech & VCs | Sta…

Paul Smyth joins me as guest co-host this week, and he is a specialist executive recruiter and executive coach within the fintech industry.  As a founder of two startups, Paul has a unique view on the startup ecosystem.

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Nov. 17, 2023

239: Web3 Wishlist | What Would You Like Web3 Founders to Solve?

Pete Townsend introduces an insightful line-up of entrepreneurs and investors who share their thoughts on web3. Opinions are gathered around what aspects they hope to see web3 founders solve - their web3 wishlist - focusing on topics such as user experience, digital identity, decentralized finance…

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