MoneyNeverSleeps

Sheila Lynch has been in the room for three of the biggest financial shocks of the last five years — COVID at CQS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine at BlackRock with live Eastern European assets in the funds, and the SVB collapse. When systems go under stress, what's actually there gets revealed. Culture, training, processes — either they hold or they don't.
This episode is about what founders consistently get wrong before those moments arrive. Treasury after a raise, legal as a checkbox, wind-down plans that sit on a shelf and are never tested, equity structures that aren't optimised until it's too late. Sheila shares the story of a GC who called a law firm partner the day after closing a $50 million round to ask where to put the money. The room went silent. It's that kind of episode.
Sheila Lynch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheila-lynch-27264726/
Partners for Growth: https://www.pfgrowth.com/
Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd
Chapters
00:00 Cold open
00:21 Intro
01:02 Three systemic shocks, one pattern
04:13 The $50 million question
07:26 Legal as a checkbox, and what it actually costs
09:45 Building the right governance from day one
12:51 What every founder should know before signing a term sheet
13:37 Where to find Sheila
MoneyNeverSleeps. Sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend.
moneyneversleeps.ie
Pete on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
Pete on X: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV
Pete on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/
Email: info@norioventures.com

How can you use the world's most powerful AI models without ever exposing your sensitive data?
Rami Akeela has spent twenty years building privacy and cryptographic infrastructure that most people didn't know they needed yet, and now, as founder of Nera Systems, he's solving the conundrum that's about to define enterprise AI — the more valuable your data, the less you can use it. We dig into what zero-knowledge proofs taught him about the wall enterprise AI is hitting today, the use cases hiding in plain sight across banking, healthcare, accounting and private equity, and what's kept him building through the grind underneath it all.
Rami Akeela: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramiakeela/
Nera Systems: https://nera.systems/

Chapters
00:00 Cold open
00:42 What zero-knowledge proofs taught Rami about AI
02:05 Why it doesn't have to be a paradox

02:50 The biggest use cases: banking, healthcare, accounting, PE

06:40 Training for this problem his whole career

07:53 What's kept him building through the grind

10:13 Where to find Rami and Nera Systems
MoneyNeverSleeps. Sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people.
moneyneversleeps.ie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/

X/Twitter: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/

Email: info@norioventures.com

Citi Institute's "Tokenization 2030: Wall Street OnChain" puts a number on it: $5.5 trillion in tokenized assets by 2030. Alejandro Gutierrez, who leads Solana Superteam Ireland and returns for another appearance on the show, joins me to stress-test that forecast — what Citi gets right with DTCC, NYSE and Nasdaq embedding tokenization into core infrastructure, and what we think it misses, including the stablecoin-treasury flywheel, the pressure native issuers like Ondo and Superstate are putting on incumbents, Ireland and Luxembourg's combined funds industry as an underrated jurisdictional play, and why 24/7 markets are really built for AI agents, not retail traders.
Read the full report, "Tokenization 2030: Wall Street Onchain," Citi Institute, June 2026: https://www.citigroup.com/global/insights/tokenization-2030
Castle DAO, the Solana builder residency at Slane Castle: https://tally.so/r/ODJv1k
Follow Alejandro on X and LinkedIn: https://x.com/A_gutierrohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-gutierrez-98979b43/Follow Superteam Ireland on X: https://x.com/SuperteamIEhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/superteam-ireland/

CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold open — for the agents
00:37 Introduction
01:18 Citi's stated case: three drivers behind $5.5 trillion
02:19 Is public equities at $3.6 trillion an aggressive number?
03:25 Public permissionless vs. private permissioned chains
04:30 The flywheel Citi missed: stablecoins, treasuries and collateral
06:28 24/7 isn't for retail — it's for the agents
08:50 Ondo, Superstate and the pressure on incumbents
10:53 Ireland, Luxembourg and the €12.5 trillion opportunity
12:02 The wrapper problem: tokenized funds without tokenized holdings
12:41 Castle DAO at Slane Castle
MoneyNeverSleeps — sharp riffs, big ideas, and real insights from smart people, in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend, GP at Norio Ventures, sitting at the intersection of crypto, fintech, AI and onchain finance.
Website: moneyneversleeps.ie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/
Email: info@norioventures.com

Martin Watkins is CEO of Montis Group, which is building a blockchain-native central securities depository — the settlement and issuance layer that makes tokenized assets work as real financial products.
With 30 years inside Euroclear, AtosEuronext and EY, Martin chose to build the infrastructure the market was missing rather than keep advising on the existing system. We get into what a digital CSD unlocks for collateral mobility, why the ECB's DLT eligibility confirmation matters, and what Luxembourg's Blockchain Law IV could mean for Ireland's €5 trillion funds industry.
Find Martin at info@montis.digital or visit montis.digital
Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4F8uOLxiscYVWVGEfNxTnd

CHAPTERS
00:00 The doom loop that tokenization solves
00:27 Introduction
01:13 Martin Watkins welcome
01:18 30 years inside the plumbing of capital markets
03:50 What a blockchain-native CSD does differently
05:48 The Friday afternoon collateral problem
06:22 The 24/7 problem in tokenized funds
07:46 The Irish question: settlement finality and €5 trillion in fund assets
09:27 Legal certainty, portfolio managers and the velocity of capital
10:39 Why the market infrastructure isn't there yet — but nearly is
11:20 How to reach Martin and Montis

MoneyNeverSleeps: Sharp riffs, big ideas and real insights from smart people — all in under 15 minutes. Hosted by early-stage investor Pete Townsend with the people rebuilding money, markets, and the internet from the ground up.
moneyneversleeps.ie
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/PeteTownsendNV
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petetownsend353/
Email: info@norioventures.com

Pete Townsend is joined by Eric Ries, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, for a conversation about the invisible structural forces that corrupt even the most mission-driven companies, and what founders can do about it before it's too late.
Eric's new book, Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, is out now. Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Incorruptible-Good-Companies-Great-Stay/dp/B0FWZZBPZB
Eric spent 15 years teaching a generation how to build fast and learn faster. Incorruptible asks the harder question: how do you protect what you built from the forces that will eventually try to take it from you?
In this special double-length episode, he walks through the concept of financial gravity, the structural tools that the world's most durable companies have used for over a century, and why good intentions are never enough.
Topics covered:– Why corporate corruption is a structural failure, not an ethical one
– What financial gravity is and why it's invisible until it's too late
– The Anthropic Long-Term Benefit Trust and what it was designed to protect against
– How Novo Nordisk built a structure 100 years ago that protected $500 billion in shareholder value
– Why Silicon Valley Bank's mission statement was worthless
– The one two-page filing most founders never make
CHAPTERS
00:00 The More Golden the Goose
00:23 Welcome Eric Ries
01:06 The Founder's Wake
05:08 What Did The Lean Startup Miss?
08:09 What is Financial Gravity?
12:50 The Right Architecture
13:11 Anthropic and the Long-Term Benefit Trust
14:59 The Novo Nordisk Story
18:18 Are You Smarter Than a Nobel Laureate?
19:28 The Vatican Panel
20:46 The Public Benefit Corporation
22:41 Is LTSE Incorruptible?
23:39 The Guardian of the Company's Soul
Connect with Eric:X: https://x.com/ericries
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/
Incorruptible (book): https://incorruptible.co
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericriesactual/
Newsletter: https://news.theleanstartup.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theericriesshow
Podcast: https://www.ericriesshow.co
Buy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Incorruptible-Good-Companies-Great-Stay/dp/B0FWZZBPZB
Connect with Pete:X: @PeteTownsendNV
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petetownsendnv/
Norio Ventures: https://norioventures.com
MoneyNeverSleeps: https://moneyneversleeps.ie#incorruptible #leanstartup #founders #startups