Stablecoins And The Agent Economy Will Rewire How Money Moves | Dušan Stojanović - E707
episode
BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand & Malaysia Startups, Founders & Venture Capital VC (English)
37 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 19 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What will make money a commodity in the next ten years?
In ten years, money will definitely be a complete commodity. And what is gonna be a true differentiator is what that VC can bring to the table out of the money. Free exits in ten days, all in payments in 2013, thewarded Angel of the Year in Europe. If you ask me, would I do that again? Never. It took a strike on my health in basically trying to accomplish that over ambitious vision. When all this starts to grow, stablecoin payments and the agentic AI economy will be huge.
Welcome to Brave. Learn from Southeast Asia's best tech leaders. Build the future, learn from our past, and stay human in between. No BS on success. I'm Jeremy Al, Venture Capitalist, Sierra Founder, Harvard MBA, Science Fiction Nerd, and Dad of Two Daughters. Every week, we debate startup news, interview change makers, answer listener questions, and share personal insights. Join our movement of over 40,000 members and get transcripts, resources, and community at www.bravesdea.com. Come on. Stay well and stay brave. Hey Dushan. So excited to have you on the show. Thanks, Jeremy. Yeah.
How did Dušan build one of Europe’s first internet banks and become Angel of the Year?
It's been fantastic meeting you at Super Returning Asia and then really talking a little bit about some of the exciting developments you have. There's so much to cover, but you have some exciting news to share. So we're definitely gonna go into that. Dushan, could you please introduce yourself?
So I was like many other who are investors today, originally an entrepreneur, an operator. I did three companies before I started to really invest. And the last one I did was very successful. And it was one of the first internet banks in the world. I guess it's more called neo banks nowadays. And it was way back during the dot-com area. We kicked it off end of the 90s, beginning of 2000 in France, where my wife is from. I'm originally Swedish, living in Singapore for 12 years. And we started that and basically just before really Wi-Fi came. And when Wi-Fi came, that really changed everything for our internet bank. And the reason why I'm talking about it's all about infrastructure. We talk about AI infrastructure today.
In those days, we talked about broadband. Without broadband, we wouldn't have been able to scale up the internet bank as we did really before. Before that, we were more like a telephone bank. We would have a modem and people would dial in and the user experience was horrible, like tack, tack, tack, tack.
Why does Dušan say great VCs add value beyond just capital?
We can't help you on the internet, we can help you on the phone. Really, really bad user experience. But when the infrastructure is there, which really came like 2002-3 in terms of Wi-Fi and broadband, then we managed to scale. And about 350,000 customers, 12 million euros of profit, the bank's name was and still is. Mona Bank with a queue, and it is the leading still today in France. We sold it in 2005 to a traditional bank, credit me to LCIC. And I was about 36 and was thinking, like, what do I do next? I had some money, enough money to invest, but not enough money not to do anything in the rest, just sit on the beach. And what I did was that I looked at what worked the best at the internet bank, which was payments.
And then I basically decided only to invest in payments. So I did a lot of outreach in Sweden and in France. And that actually worked out really well. And I was very lucky to have free exits in 10 days, all in payments in 2013, and was awarded Angel of the Year in Europe. And in connection with that, I actually also moved to Singapore and was thinking about what do I do, really want to do next? Like the company's pace. Son dibs, 4G Secure proverb that I did as an angel investor, nobody would know in Asia, nor in the US. So I was sitting on this train, which was called La Train de Grande Test, because between Paris and where my internet bank was, which is 350 kilometers north of Paris, I had a lot of time to reflect because I was taking that speed train every day there and back to my bank.
And I was thinking this train, Trend the grand vitesse, TGV, I want to support companies that are fast. But I then I was planning with TGV, TGV, true global ventures.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What will make money a commodity in the next ten years?
0:00–1:19
2
How did Dušan build one of Europe’s first internet banks and become Angel of the Year?
1:19–2:31
3
Why does Dušan say great VCs add value beyond just capital?
2:31–4:12
4
How can an investor rescue a struggling startup with no team?
4:12–6:01
5
What’s the significance of Anchorpoint’s Hong Kong stable‑coin licence?
6:01–8:35
6
Why are payments the first real use‑case for the agentic AI economy?
8:35–11:32
7
Will AI agents eventually transact more value than humans?
11:32–15:50
8
How must venture capital evolve when money becomes a commodity?
15:50–37:43
Speakers
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