Ricardo J. Méndez
Protocol Strategy, Ecosystem & Investments | ATProto | Web3
Founder at Numergent
I build investment theses and frameworks for emerging protocol ecosystems — particularly where the technical design determines who survives and who doesn't. Most of my current focus is on the ATmosphere, the ecosystem forming around ATProto and Bluesky.
I've been developing a taxonomy of application types and an investment razor for evaluating what's worth building natively versus what's just porting existing models onto a new substrate. On the crypto/DeFi side, I advise early-stage teams and funds through Numergent with a bias toward protocol security, stability, and honest assessment of enterprise integration potential — including when that potential doesn't exist.
Technical background in functional programming and distributed systems. I don't separate the engineering read from the investment read.
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Track Record
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Career16
Strategy and due diligence on web3 investments.
Managing Numergent’s investments and strategies. Advising web3-focused teams and funds. - Successfully built and managed globally-distributed remote teams for stakeholders at Fortune 100 companies, often focused on Fintech projects with strong data translucency and regulatory compliance requirements. - Consulted on and served in the role of interim CTO for a global startup environment, running globally-distributed matrix teams to deliver technically sophisticated solutions for multi-million dollar, ambitious projects with shifting constraints and multiple stakeholders. - Grown and managed teams from early stage startup to 100+ contributors.
(Acquired) Advised Bindle, which grew to become the largest self-sovereign identity network in the USA. Provided expert guidance on architecture for decentralized self-sovereign identity platform, enabling users to share credentials without revealing any personal information.
- Successfully re-organized the Growth team to better match Marinade’s needs, resulting in an improved data-driven approach for the organization's internal projects. - Developed and implemented a data-driven growth strategy to scale Marinade’s infrastructure-focused developments.
- Designed and managed the governance process for Marinade, Solana’s leading liquid staking protocol. - Launched a grant program to ensure Marinade benefits from community innovation, to bolster community engagement and overall growth.
Interim CSO for Equilibrium, a decentralization-focused venture studio.
- Led technical due diligence for Web3 startups, evaluating tokenomics, smart contract risks, and decentralized governance models to shape NEXT’s $150M investment fund. - Co-architected Samsung NEXT’s Web3 thesis. - Developed the Digital Identity operating plan, focusing on self-sovereign identity (SSI), decentralized infrastructure, and privacy-preserving tech. - Launched Stack Zero Grant, funding research and open source teams in the areas of ZK-proofs, local-first software, peer-to-peer protocols, and identity, helping entrench Samsung as a partner in the ecosystem. - Established NEXT as a Web3 thought leader through Stack Zero Sessions (hosting 100+ founders and investors in an invite-only forum) and keynote speeches at EthCC, DappConn, and other innovation forums.
(Acquired) Stewarded the tech team through a company acquisition, helping the acquiring company hire a permanent replacement from within the team, and mentored him through the transition.
Focused on the the banking and financial industry.
Publications11
Techsylvania
EthCC 2019
European Film Market, Estonia
SAP Inside Track, Berlin
Dappcon Berlin
Monkigras
Webit Europe 2017