By Darren Parkin
Many entrepreneurial students start their first company while in college, but few start a company that will go on to be the largest political fundraising platform in the US.
By the time Tom Serres came to sell his company, Rally, in 2014 it was powering 70,000 political operations across the US from aspiring senators to dog catcher campaigns. At its heart was a mechanism to raise funds efficiently over the internet and by 2014 it accounted for 50% of all political donations collected online.
Serres was studying business not technology, but he could see online payments were not readily available and those offerings that did exist were costly and difficult to implement. Within the political sector where activity was cyclical and payments were only really needed every election, he decided to solve the pain point. In this happenstance he was informed by a female friend’s experience in running for public office.
“I could see the challenges facing her and by the fact that in the US some 95% of political campaigns are won by those with the most money. I wanted to level the playing field.”
He raised money through VCs initially but needed more and fast. So, he decided to eat his own dog food and engaged in a two week flurry of only online fund raising activities that raised $8million helped by Naval from AngelList.
“I think I was doing crypto before I was doing crypto.”
The experience of running his own company and raising money saw a natural segue into opening an advisory firm, Animal Ventures in 2016 working with Fortune 100 companies. And in 2019 he opened Serres Warburg Investments, a private equity entity, which was to invest in all things Web 3.
“I was ten years in Rally but the last three showed me how to scale and fast. Learning from my own company means I can really identify with other founders – I’ve got the tee-shirt.”
The extreme work challenges also impacted on his family life and he knew regardless he wanted a better life work balance in his next company – an empathy he carries over to his founders.
Back in 2013, he started mixing with crypto OGs such as the cryptographer Nick Zabo, Dominic Williams founder of Dfinity, Fabian Vogelsteller the inventor of the ICO, and Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood and Jetta Steiner.
“I thought these people are smart, much smart than me, and I thought I should really hang out with them.”
He began reading all around the subject and had his aha moment when he realised Web 3 was what the internet was meant to be. Initially his consulting firm AV worked with big blue chip Web 2 companies and he advised them on crypto.
“None of them actually made the jump or at least not obviously but I just knew I needed to concentrate on Web 3.”
Part of this passion also enabled him to return to his alma mater, the University of Texas, where he is an adjunct professor of Web 3.
Web 3 is much more than databases
“Current blockchain teaching tends to emphasise Bitcoin and Blockchain as a database, but there is a much bigger picture. Forget the money – although it is going to worth quintillions in the future – but this is ridiculously exciting technology for autonomous software applications with unbounded potential. I just wanted to be part of that frankly.”
If AV mimics animals in its ethos and flexibility, then Warburg Serres Investments is AV on steroids. Serres is moving fast and already has 60 founders and their projects on board. His aim is to have 100 by the end of the year.
“We are early seed investors and currently we are targeting layer one projects, middleware and then dapps like gaming or metaverses.”
Serres believes in the concept of the internet computer or indeed world computer. In fact, he reckons that in time the blockchain world will end up with just one blockchain.
“Technology tends to gravitate to the most efficient solution with no or low transaction costs or no latency.”
Turning those views into sound investment choices means Serres is very sure of the types of companies he wants to meet.
“I have a fundamental belief that as early-stage investors we like to be in when there is no product, just founders with big ideas. I did it myself with Rally so I know what I am looking for in my founders. My key question is do they smell like a product guy?
“And the next question is do I think they can pull it off? At Warburg Serres we’re looking at 100x exits on every single investment and we are getting there.”
Serres met with Alexander Mitrovitch, CEO and co-founder of Unique Networks at NFT NYC. Serres had been told about the company and met Mitrovitch for a coffee at the conference.
“Alex is definitely a product guy. He is a futurist. He has a unique perspective on the world. He understands at a fundamental level the technology which allows him to envision stuff the rest of the world probably can’t, until they are using the tech. But he’s the man that would have built it five years before that point when the world can jump in.
“And he’s super funny.”
And so he invested.
Serres as a futurist
Serres reckons Web 3 is going to take place over the next 15 years. He bases this on the internet taking some 25 years to get to where we are now.
“From TCP/IP in the late 1990s to 2020 took 25 years. If you believe in the various technological laws, then the next development should take half that time. But the future is quantum.
“Quantum is the idea that a one and a zero can exist simultaneously. In effect, you could have nondeterministic computers which would experience multiple states at the same time. Right now, the internet is a linear experience, but what if we could click a mouse so that the computer could jump between states. It’s not here yet, but it’s coming down the tracks fast.”
Serres is loving the ride right now. It is tough he admits for him to the achieve the work life balance that he wants because of the flow of projects into his company. He is essentially the point man for all the founders which he loves but it is time consuming. And for each project, once he weighs up the founder, the idea and the can they get it done, it’s down to luck. And for luck, read preparation meeting opportunity.
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