By: Tom D’Agustino
The story of the young tech entrepreneur has become iconic in recent years. However, many young people still find that age can be a significant barrier when entering industries such as venture capitalism, which is often dominated by older, more experienced professionals.
Mads Pedersen, a 23-year-old partner at Figment Capital (a $60 million fund), is challenging this notion. He believes that his age and digital background actually give him an edge in connecting with tech startups, of which the average founder is just 34 years old.
Learn more about Pedersen’s journey, his achievements, and how his youth is both a challenge and an advantage in venture capitalism — especially within the Web3 and cryptocurrency space.
Pedersen’s Digital Upbringing
Like most people in his generation, Pedersen was immersed in technology from a young age, and it inspired him to take action. After persuading his father to invest in exciting and rapidly growing companies like Apple, Amazon, and Netflix, their remarkable success captivated him. “I believe those early investments (along with my obsession with the digital world) set the stage for my venture capital journey in cryptocurrency,” Pedersen says.
After learning about cryptocurrencies and the ambitious aims of digital sovereignty, Pedersen realized that technology was moving in a powerful and inspiring direction, promising to make the internet a more transparent and secure place. And even at that young age, he knew he wanted to be part of it.
But this growing passion wasn’t just another digital enthusiast dipping his toes in the tech industry. It was also born out of his social and political context.
“I spent 7 years of my childhood in Malaysia under Najib Razak’s tenure, an incredibly corrupt and now-imprisoned Prime Minister,” he says, “which instilled in me a distrust of opaque, powerful institutions.”
This was intensified by his family’s significant financial losses during the 2008 financial crisis. “I wasn’t just questioning the current digital technology landscape,” Pedersen remarks. “I was diving into our entire financial system and the safety of banks as middlemen in every transaction. Most importantly, I wondered why we couldn’t have custody of our own assets.”
Pedersen’s digital skills and socioeconomic perspective positioned him to make a meaningful impact in a world increasingly dominated by these “opaque” institutions. In his view, cryptocurrency and Web3 are the vehicles to bring transparency, empowerment, and innovation to the forefront of the financial system.
From Digital Enthusiast to Young Venture Capitalist
When Pedersen entered college, his work formally began. His college mentor, an early Bitcoin miner, encouraged him to dive deeper into this emerging space, leading him to run books for an Ethereum mine. In a nutshell, Pedersen’s role was diversifying the mine’s assets for better returns.
It was around this time that Pedersen made his first angel investment in a project that allowed fractional investments in fine art, which sparked a passion for working with early-stage entrepreneurs.
He soon landed a position at Inception Capital, a crypto venture, where he deployed 15% of their $80 million fund into promising crypto projects. He’s now set to join Figment Capital, a Web3 infrastructure investment fund, as a 23-year-old partner.
Leveraging Youth in Crypto Investing
Even though Pedersen’s digital upbringing primed him for a career as a young and successful crypto venture capitalist, his age isn’t always treated as an asset. While he’s found that he can work seamlessly with younger founders and be a much more tech-fluent partner who knows their goals, he often sees more resistance when working with tenured business owners who may have a hard time overcoming their traditions and preconceived notions.
But Pedersen finds that this hurdle is often overcome thanks to the unique perspective he can provide to older founders who may be less familiar with the latest trends in crypto, social media, emerging industries, and marketing strategies for a younger, crypto-savvy audience. “Furthermore, as a digital native,” he says, “I have a keen understanding of which applications have the potential to take off. I know how the target market thinks, especially since a large portion of crypto users are young adults.”
Digital Sovereignty Through Web3 Venture Capitalism
Above all else, Pedersen has made it his mission to contribute to a more transparent digital ecosystem. “It’s about digital transparency and financial autonomy versus digital and financial dictatorship,” he says.
This distinction is key to understanding Pedersen’s mission. He supports and invests in innovators who are developing technologies within the Web3 ecosystem (the next iteration of the internet, focusing on decentralizing data and control and putting power back in the hands of users) — from foundational infrastructure to cutting-edge consumer applications.
By championing these founders, he aims to “drive forward a new era of decentralized technology that empowers individuals and societies and reshapes industries on a global scale.”
At Figment Capital, for example, Pedersen will be investing in projects that focus on decentralization, supporting the self-custody of assets. This includes work in proof-of-stake models, where the power to validate transactions is spread across many individual computers instead of being concentrated in a few big mining pools. In proof-of-stake, validators are chosen based on the number of tokens they own and are willing to “stake” as collateral, as opposed to banks that independently control financial transactions.
“Our current financial system is very threatened by what crypto enables: self-custody of your own assets safely and without relying on banks. In the future,” Pedersen muses, “I don’t think we’ll need banks at all.”
By investing in blockchain projects that promote decentralization and self-custody, Pedersen is helping to create a more transparent and fair digital world. His work attempts to return power and control to individuals, reshaping the digital landscape for the better.
Elevating Young Voices in Venture Capital
As Mads Pedersen can attest, being young in industries such as venture capitalism comes with its own set of challenges, but also unique advantages. And despite his initial hurdles, his fresh perspective and digital know-how have made a real difference. He’s just one example of how young, tech-savvy individuals can lead the way, connecting generations and pushing for a more open and decentralized digital future.
To learn more about Mads Pedersen’s work, follow him on LinkedIn. For more insights into how Web3 investment can shape the digital future, visit Figment Capital.