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When I was raising investment
for my startup,

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a venture capitalist said to me,

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"Ashwini, I think you're going to raise
a few million dollars.

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And your company --
it's going to sell for 50 to 70 million.

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You're going to be really excited.

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Your early investors
are going to be really excited.

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And I'm going to be really upset.

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So I'm not going to invest in this deal."

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I remember just being dumbstruck.

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Who would be unhappy

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with putting four or five
million dollars into a company

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and having it sell for 50 to 70 million?

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I was a first-time founder.

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I didn't have a wealthy network
of individuals to turn to for investment,

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so I went to venture capitalists

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the most common form of investor
in a technology company.

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But I'd never taken the time to understand

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what was motivating that VC to invest.

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I believe we're living
in a golden era of entrepreneurship.

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There is more opportunity
to build companies than ever before.

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But the financial systems
designed to fund that innovation,

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venture capital,

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they haven't evolved
in the past 20 to 30 years.

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Venture capital was designed
to pour large sums of money

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into a small number of companies
that can sell for over a billion dollars.

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It was not designed to sprinkle capital
across many companies

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that have the potential to succeed
but for less, like my own.

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That limits the number
of ideas that get funded,

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the number of companies that are created

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and who can actually receive
that funding to grow.

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And I think it inspires a tough question:

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What's our goal with entrepreneurship?

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If our goal is to create a tiny number
of billion-dollar companies,

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let's stick with venture
capital, it's working.

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But if our goal is to inspire innovation

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and empower more people
to build companies of all sizes,

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we need a new way to fund those ideas.

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We need a more flexible system

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that doesn't squeeze
entrepreneurs and investors

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into one rigid financial outcome.

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We need to democratize access to capital.

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In the summer of 2017,
I went out to San Francisco,

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to join a tech accelerator
with 30 other companies.

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The accelerator was supposed to teach us
how to raise venture capital.

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But when I got out there,

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the startup community was buzzing
about ICOs, or Initial Coin Offerings.

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For the first time, ICOs had raised
more money for young startups

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than venture capital had.

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It was the first week of the program.

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Tequila Friday.

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And the founders couldn't stop talking.

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"I'm going to raise an ICO."

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"I'm going to raise an ICO."

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Until one guy goes,

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"How cool if we did this all together?

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We should do an ICO that combines
the value of all of our companies

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and raise money as a group."

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At that point, I had to ask
the obvious question,

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"Guys, what's an ICO?"

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ICOs were a way for young
companies to raise money

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by issuing a digital currency

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tied to the value and services
that the company provides.

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The currency acts similar
to shares in a company,

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like on the public stock market,

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increasing in value as it's traded online.

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Most important,
ICOs expanded the investor pool,

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from a few hundred venture capital firms

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to millions of everyday people,
excited to invest.

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This market represented more money.

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It represented more investors.

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Which meant a greater
likelihood to get funded.

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I was sold.

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The idea, though, of doing it together
still seemed a little crazy.

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Startups compete
with each other for investment,

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it takes hundreds of meetings
to get a check.

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That I would spend my precious 15 minutes
in front of an investor

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talking not just about my own company,
but all the companies in the batch,

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was unprecedented.

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But the idea caught on.

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And we decided to cooperate,
rather than compete.

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Every company put 10 percent
of their equity into a communal pool

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that we then split
into tradable cryptocurrency

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that investors could buy and sell.

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Six months and four law firms later --

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(Laughter)

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in January 2018,
we launched the very first ICO

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that represented the value
of nearly 30 companies

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and an entirely new way to raise capital.

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We got a lot of press.

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My favorite headline about us read,

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"VCs, read this and weep."

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(Laughter)

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Our fund was naturally more diverse.

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Twenty percent of the founders were women.

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Fifty percent were international.

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The investors were more excited, too.

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They had a chance to get better returns,

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because we took out
the middleman fees of venture capital.

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And they could take their money
and reinvest it,

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potentially funding more new ideas faster.

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I believe this creates
a virtuous cycle of capital

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that allows many more
entrepreneurs to succeed.

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Because access to capital
is access to opportunity.

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And we have only just begun to imagine

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what democratizing
access to capital will do.

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I would have never thought
that my own search for funding

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would lead me to this stage,

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having helped nearly
30 companies get investment.

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Imagine if other entrepreneurs tried
to invent new ways to access capital

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rather than following
the traditional route.

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It would change
what gets built, who builds it

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and the long-term impact on the economy.

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And I believe that's way more exciting

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than just trying to invest
in the next billion-dollar startup.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)