An evolution: BlueYard’s v2 thesis, a new website & gm New York

There is a case to be made that we are in the midst of the most important century ever for humanity. Web3 may usher in a new Scenius, programmable biology tooling and platforms have the potential to significantly prolong human healthspan and change the fabric of many industries, breakthrough engineering and computation can become our most important allies to combat climate breakdown — while new SaaS and software platforms will continue to liberate data and knowledge. Yet we are also seeing an intensifying struggle between open / liberal societies and totalitarian governance systems, a further divergence in wealth / income equality, the risk of an overlap in the venn diagram of people that are able to and those that want to end the world — with a baseline backdrop of supercharged misinformation networks. Tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

Taking a view on the world and the forces shaping markets and societies is what gets us out of bed in the morning. We derive meaning from working at the intersection of these tension points and playing a small role in helping founders build the best possible outcome for societies and markets.This is also why we enroll all of our founders as Long Now members, host the BlueYard conversation series and do quarterly book drops on topics relevant to the evolution of humanity, societies and markets as important elements of our founder-centric platform support services.

It is in this context that we are evolving and — mostly — expanding our investment thesis. We are reflecting the fact that our original thesis from 2016 (“decentralization and empowerment”) touched on a broader range of technologies than we could have imagined (from crypto to programmable stem cells and fusion energy) — and the convergence of exponential technologies that will increasingly transform all of our lives and the fabric of our markets and societies. So here’s our expanded thesis 2.0:

BlueYard backs founders building the interconnected elements that can become the fabric of our future. A future where markets are open and decentralized, where we have solved our largest planetary challenges, where knowledge and data is liberated and where humanity can live long and prosper. In short, we are investing in founders creating the fabric of our future.

As a generalist firm, BlueYard views the companies, networks and protocols that we invest in as key parts of a broader fabric of systems for a more decentralized, sustainable and empowered future. We are now also articulating a few focus areas — i.e. the elements of the fabric of our future — that have naturally crystallized as we invested along our original thesis:

• The Web3 Scenius — What if we could reinvent the internet for permissionless innovation and enable the separation of state, money and institutions?
• Programmable Biology — What if we could live long and prosper with nature as our most powerful technology?
• Breakthrough Engineering and Computation — What if we could solve our largest planetary challenges?
• Data & Knowledge Liberators — What if we could untangle software monopolies and liberate knowledge and data?

With an updated thesis comes a new website, focused on navigating the interconnected fabric of BlueYard’s expanded thesis. Also, today we are announcing that we have opened an office in New York (we are hiring for Crypto Associate and Research positions!) — as a second spiritual home to Berlin.