Meet the CoinFund team

Jake Brukhman is CEO and Founder at CoinFund, among the world’s first cryptonative investment firms. Born to two computer scientists, Jake learned how to code at the age of fourteen and achieved degrees in mathematics and computer science. Jake has expressed his passion for cutting edge, frontier technologies by being an early visionary advocate for decentralization and blockchain. At CoinFund, he’s made exciting investments in blockchain scalability and interoperability, DeFi, NFT infrastructure, zero knowledge proofs, and the intersection of web3 x AI.

Jake spent the prior 10 years of his career in pure and financial technology, serving as Partner & CTO at Triton Research, a technical product manager and engineer at Amazon.com, and financial technologist at Highbridge Capital Management. He studied mathematics and computer science at the Rutgers College Honors Program, the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and University College London.

Alex Felix is CIO and Co-Founder at CoinFund, leading investments in companies and protocols from pre-seed to Series A. As a former world-class ski racer, Alex has since focused his ambitions on becoming a leading web3 investor driven by a passion for fintech and crypto. Discerning and prescient, he has personally and professionally invested early in over 100 blockchain-focused companies since 2013, spanning many widely recognized names including seed rounds of Ethereum and Blockdaemon.

Prior to CoinFund, Alex spent 10 years across research, investing and structuring. Most recently, he arranged buyouts for American Capital, a private equity firm based in New York. Alex also held roles at BofA Merrill Lynch, RBS and Guggenheim Partners. He is an active technology angel investor and has built ecommerce algorithms. Alex has a degree in Economics and Earth Sciences from Dartmouth College.

David Pakman is a Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investments at CoinFund, focused on leading the firm’s venture investing activities. David developed an early interest in mining Bitcoin before he began building Ethereum mining rigs in 2017.

David is widely recognized for his track record and thought leadership in crypto, consumer, and enterprise technology investing. During his 13 years at Venrock he led the Series A round and sits on the board of Dapper Labs, led the Series A and B rounds of Dollar Shave Club (sold to Unilever for $1B), and led early-stage investments in robotics, AI, consumer and carbon removal tech companies. He personally invested in Coinbase prior to their IPO and was named the 55th top venture capitalist in the world by CB Insights.

Prior to CoinFund, David was a partner at venture capital firm Venrock, co-founder of Myplay, CEO of eMusic and the co-founder of Apple’s Music Group. David is a graduate and a former member of the Board of Overseers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science with a degree in Computer Science Engineering.

Seth Ginns is a Managing Partner and Head of Liquid Investments at CoinFund, and a key member of the Venture Investment Committee. He has 20 years of Wall Street experience and has been deeply involved in the crypto community since his angel investment in Coinbase in 2012. He is also an angel in Starkware, Chainalysis, participated in the Ethereum ICO in 2014, and loves traveling globally to developer events as a way to keep a finger on the pulse of the market. His angel portfolio also includes Instacart, BillionToOne and DoorDash, and many earlier stage, high growth startups.

Prior to CoinFund, Seth invested in public growth equities over 18 years at Jennison Associates. He holds a BA in Mathematics and South Asia Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves on the International Advisory Board of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the School of Arts and Sciences and served as an Overseer at the School of Nursing and Co-Chair of the Innovation Committee.

Chris Perkins serves as Managing Partner and President of CoinFund, driving day-to-day excellence and enterprise scale by bridging the gap between cryptocurrency native investing and traditional finance. He also advocates for the interests of the crypto ecosystem through his appointment to the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee and its Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee. He has also testified before Congress on crypto market structure design.

Chris is the co-inventor of the Composite Ether Staking Rate (CESR), which is the first interest rate benchmark of its kind in the crypto industry.

Prior to joining CoinFund, Chris served as Global Co-Head of Futures, Clearing and Foreign Exchange Prime Brokerage (FXPB) businesses at Citi. In this capacity, he was responsible for delivering leading listed derivative electronic and voice execution, comprehensive central clearing and #1 ranked OTC Clearing and FXPB services to top institutional clients.

Prior to joining Citi in 2008, Chris served as the U.S. Head of Derivatives Intermediation at Lehman Brothers. An Iraq war veteran, Chris served in the U.S. Marine Corps for nine years achieving the rank of Captain. Chris is the co-founder of Veterans in Digital Assets (VIDA) and Veterans on Wall Street (VOWS) (www.veteransonwallstreet.com), two international initiatives focused on veterans’ employment and empowerment. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, with distinction, and a Master of Arts degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Economic Club of New York.

Lisa Benedetto is an Executive Assistant at CoinFund. She primarily assists both the CEO and President of CoinFund, but also works across all company departments to support strategic projects and ad-hoc tasks. Prior to joining CoinFund, she worked as an Executive Assistant for companies such as Houlihan Lokey and Madison Realty Capital. Lisa has more than 15 years of EA experience and loves being able to play an integral role in the success of the team. She is a graduate of Brooklyn College with a Bachelors in Finance.

Zach works as a Trading Manager at CoinFund, supporting traders and leading initiatives to scale the operations of the firm to match our rate of growth. He works closely with counterparties and fund administrators to ensure accurate settlement, trade booking and transaction management. Zach started his career in traditional finance working at JP Morgan and Cantor Fitzgerald before moving to crypto hedge fund Altonomy in 2020 and ultimately joining the CoinFund team in 2022. He holds a finance degree from the University of Delaware.

John DiBattista is an Investor Services Associate at CoinFund. He provides the team with fund and investor metrics and maintains the investor portal. In addition to this, he serves as a liaison between the Investor Relations and Financial Ops teams. Prior to joining CoinFund, John worked a PE fund accountant at SSNC. He holds both an Accounting degree and an Organizational Communication degree from Kent State University.

Stewart Eichner is General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at CoinFund and a leader on our Executive Team. Stewart is responsible for overseeing the firm’s legal, regulatory and compliance affairs. Prior to joining CoinFund, he served as the General Counsel and Chief Compliance officer of an early-stage venture capital firm as well as a structured credit hedge fund manager.

Previously, Stewart was a Managing Director and Senior Counsel at BlackRock, Inc., as well as an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. Stewart was issued a U.S. patent for managing liquidity for hybrid hedge funds.

Devin Errico is a Finance and Trading Operations Manager at CoinFund, developing institutional-level back and middle office operations, providing data-driven metrics for cross functional use, and supporting general internal fund accounting. Prior to CoinFund, Devin worked as an analyst for Deloitte, a multinational professional services network, where he provided technology advisory services to Fortune 500 companies. Devin has been involved with crypto as early as 2016, where he started as an avid Ethereum miner.

Margaret Gabriel is Chief People Officer at CoinFund and a leader on our Executive Team: a proven human resources leader who is passionate about leadership development and fostering high performing teams. She joins CoinFund from cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, where she most recently held the position of Head of Learning & Development. Prior to that, she was part of the recruiting team at Google based out of their New York City offices.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master’s in Mental Health Counseling.

Hina Gupta is an Operations Manager at CoinFund. Hina brings her years of managerial experience and passion for assisting with business operations to keep CoinFund running seamlessly for our external partners and internal team. Prior to joining CoinFund, she served as a Human Resource Manager for a non-profit and then continued her journey as part of the corporate service team at PJT Partners. When she is not working, she loves to hike and plans to trek the Inca trails to the mystical Machu Picchu in the coming year.

Abbey Hamstra is Head of Business Development and Investor Relations at CoinFund. She works with prospective and current investors to help them navigate the CoinFund platform and gain a deeper understanding of both the firm’s investment offerings and the broader crypto investing landscape. Prior to CoinFund, Abbey worked as a portfolio analyst at Man FRM, the hedge fund allocation investment engine of Man Group, where she partnered with institutional clients to build out their hedge fund portfolios. Abbey holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

Lanie is Director of Finance at CoinFund, helping to build a best-in-class finance team and financial oversight processes. He also leads CoinFund’s Valuation Committee. Originally from South Africa, Lanie started his career with KPMG in Johannesburg, serving clients in Southern and East Africa.

Prior to CoinFund, he was a Director in PwC’s asset management practice in New York. Lanie holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from Stellenbosch University and Postgraduate Diplomas in Management and Accounting from the University of Cape Town. He is a Chartered Accountant (South Africa) and CPA (New York).

Matt Manley is a Finance Operations Associate at CoinFund. Prior to CoinFund, Matt was a Senior Accountant in Withum’s Emerging Technology group serving on the Digital Assets and Blockchain team, and brings more than seven years of combined audit and digital asset experience to the role from best in class providers like Copper.co and KPMG. Matt is a graduate of Fairfield University and holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Bachelor of Arts, emphasis German Language and Literature.

Julie Mossler is Head of Marketing & Communications at CoinFund and a leader on our Executive Team. In her role she amplifies the vision and thought leadership of the CoinFund team while also leading Go to Market advisory for our portfolio companies. Julie enjoys redefining the art and science of marketing for web3 organizations, first as interim CMO at Paxos and then CMO for Metaplex, the Solana NFT protocol. She brings more than 18 years of experience driving international growth, marketing and brand for web2 icons like Waze and Groupon; she has also been named to the Top 50 Rising Tech People by Business Insider and Innovation 50 by PRWeek.

Jenna Pilgrim is Head of Platform at CoinFund, igniting relationships and building tools and resources to ensure portfolio companies can leverage the firm’s vast network, tenure and reputation. Over her nearly 9 year tenure in the cryptocurrency industry, she has built startups, directed trading funds, advised family offices and governments, and channeled deal-flow as an avid community builder. A serial entrepreneur, innovator and former vc-backed founder herself, Jenna has a unique perspective on what it takes to build scalable organizations. Formerly Jenna has been in executive roles at Mayflower Strategic, Streambed Inc, Rite Labs, Bloq Inc, The Blockchain Research Institute and the Tapscott Group.

Asher Qureshi is Chief Financial Officer of CoinFund and a leader on our Executive Team. He works closely with our fund administrator, auditor, tax accountants and other service providers to drastically improve efficiency and create an institutional level, robust and effective back office.

Asher brings more than 20 years of experience in the investment management industry, most recently as the CFO at Tenzing Global, a long short equity hedge fund for eight years. As CFO, he led all non-investment related activities, including accounting, fund administration, operations and compliance. Prior to that, he was the CFO at Evnine & Associates, a global, multi-strategy quantitative hedge fund.

Matt Russ, CFA is Director of Business Development & Strategy at CoinFund. His focus is to expand and strengthen the firm’s institutional investor relationships globally by leveraging his extensive experience in business development and capital raising, gained primarily at Shenkman Capital and Marathon Asset Management. Russ previously served as Head of Institutional Solutions at Menai Asset Management, an emerging blockchain investment firm. Additionally, Matt has worked for Aon (formerly EnnisKnupp) as a Senior Investment Consultant, advising allocators on portfolio management, liability hedging, and opportunistic investing during the GFC. He started his career in proprietary trading at the CBOE and CME in Chicago. Matt holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Northwestern University and an MBA and Masters of Science in Finance from the University of Colorado. He is a CFA charterholder and member of the CFA Institute.

Cam Thompson is Content Manager at CoinFund, driving editorial direction and crypto storytelling by overseeing social and multimedia output of the firm.

Cam began her career as the lead Web3 Reporter at CoinDesk, where she wrote articles about NFTs, gaming, DAOs and the metaverse. She also co-hosted Carpe Consensus, a weekly crypto news podcast, and helped bring CoinDesk on TikTok. She was most recently Celo Foundation’s Creator Liaison, helping deploy Celo’s native NFT marketplace, and Community Manager & Editor at Tonic, a digital art gallery, where she lead content and event production.

Cam holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Science, Technology and Society (STS) from Tufts University, and is currently based in New York City.

Dilveer Vahali is Head of Venture Legal at CoinFund, responsible for legal deal strategy and execution, and serving as a resource to our portfolio companies. Dilveer brings a decade of experience advising on M&A, venture capital investments and other transactional law matters. Most recently, Dilveer was the General Manager and Lead Counsel at TCG Crypto where he acted as the general counsel and COO of the fund, leading deal execution, strategy and operations.

Prior to his work with The Chernin Group, where he also served as Deputy General Counsel for the funds at large, Dilveer was a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where he focused his practice on private equity and mergers & acquisitions. Dilveer has also served as a financial analyst in Citigroup’s Corporate Mergers & Acquisitions group and is currently a Lecturer in Law at the University of Southern California, Gould School of Law. He has been recognized by Super Lawyers as a ‘Rising Star’ each year from 2018-2021.