Top Decile Podcast

The VC Fund That Sees Opportunity in Red Tape | Walid Aradi & Wes Schwalje, Red Tape Ventures

Walid Aradi and Wes Schwalje spent over 15 years at Tahseen Consulting advising heads of state, ministries, and 11 unicorns on navigating the regulatory and political realities of the MENA region, including structuring two of the region's biggest exits, Uber's acquisition of Careem and the Dubizzle-EMPG merger. Together they launched Red Tape Ventures, a Dubai-based seed fund backing marketplace and enablement technology startups across 22 countries where regulation isn't the risk — it's the unfair advantage. We get into why founders who align with government national visions end up co-creating regulation rather than fighting it, and how Red Tape made its first close during an active war (and why that's less surprising than it sounds).

Backing the Founders that Ate Glass | Nathan Maton, Basal Capital

Nathan Maton built his career at the intersection of design, technology, and human behavior, with stints at Google, Khan Academy, and Omada. He became an angel investor and ran The Clearing, a workshop for founders navigating life after a significant exit. That work crystallized his debut pre-seed and seed fund thesis: repeat founders in FinTech and AI are systematically underserved at the earliest stage. We get into why Nathan looks for founders who have "eaten the glass and signed up to do it again," how he got into a YC deal that was way oversubscribed by building five-year conviction on a founder before the round even existed, and why he believes stablecoin infrastructure is only in the third inning of a transition bigger than the internet.

Finite to Infinite: Why Energy Innovation Needs Operators, Not Observers | Vineet Shah, 8 Clockwise

Vineet Shah spent 18 years inside the energy industry. From a 4.6 gigawatt power plant through CurtissWright and Caltrol to co-founding Honeywell's lithium-ion battery business, where he created the industry's first-ever performance guarantee product. He launched 8 Clockwise as both a venture studio and seed fund backing founders in energy access, decarbonization, and advanced materials, guided by a single organizing principle: finite to infinite. We get into why most climate tech and industrial startups fail, how a venture studio model lets 8Clockwise roll up its sleeves on high-conviction portfolio companies rather than spray and pray across 20 bets, and why senior energy executives are the ideal LP for a fund that requires patience, domain fluency, and a belief that the next wave of industrial innovation belongs in venture capital.

The Fund That Bets on AI Built In, Not Bolted On | Anca Burke & Andrey Mikhalchuk, ARTA VC

Anca Burke and Andrey Mikhalchuk co-founded ARTA VC around a shared frustration: 70% of enterprise AI integrations fail because companies try to attach AI to systems that were never designed for it. Their fund backs early-stage founders in the DMV who have already done the opposite. We get into how AI-powered autofocus eyeglasses gave a retired military pilot better vision than he'd ever had, why the DMV's second-largest tech talent pool in the country is still chronically underfunded, and what two decades of combined operating experience teaches you about which AI bets are actually worth making.

The VC Window Into Quantum Is Finally Open | Mike Keymer, AlphaKet Capital

Mike Keymer is an MIT-trained engineer who spent two decades commercializing deep science for U.S. defense agencies, biotech analytics, and quantum computing platforms. He launched AlphaKet Capital to back seed-stage companies building the infrastructure layer that quantum needs to scale: the quantum equivalent of modems, repeaters, and memory. We get into why a massive capital influx in late 2024 fundamentally changed quantum's investment landscape, what it means to bet on sensors that can navigate without GPS by mapping the Earth's magnetic field, and why the four-to-seven-year horizon to utility-scale quantum puts us squarely inside the venture window right now.