Akshay Aggarwal

Akshay leads investments in South Asia for [Draper Dragon fund](https://draperdragon.com/), a marquee web3 and metaverse focussed fund. He has invested around $10 million in Indian startups over the last 10 months for the fund. Additionally, he contributes to catalysing innovation and crypto adoption through [Blockchained India](https://blockchainedindia.com/) and [Blocumen Studios](https://blocumen.com/). As an ecosystem enabler and thought leader, he has strived to set the direction for the industry by convening multiple conferences in the space and representing the industry on national and international forums.
He continues on his endeavour to create a bridge between innovators, academia, government institutions, venture funds and media. As a responsible and prominent industry stakeholder, he plays a pivotal role in fostering an innovation friendly environment by partaking in and often driving local, national and international collaborations. Under the guidance of advisors from IBM US, Ministry of electronics & IT(Govt. of India), World Bank, Eric Schmidt Foundation and ConsenSys, he produced impactful work in actionable policy recommendations to the Ministry of Finance. The same policy paper was formed after extensive pan-India industry consultations, roadshows and awareness campaigns. All of these together, played a pivotal role in the industry efforts that led to uplifting of the banking ban for those indulging with the cryptocurrency industry. Apart from this, Akshay played a key role in India market entry strategy for ConsenSys and contributed towards the same for Stellar and R3 Corda. He has advised 4 startups on their business strategies and led investment engagements for numerous more that translated to 9 equity free grants and 4 venture deals. Owing to his acumen and dexterity with community engagement and network relations, he and his team were offered to drive India side foundations of several top notch organisations namely [ConsenSys](https://consensys.net/), [Tezos](>https://tezos.com/) and [Cosmos](https://cosmos.network/).
Blockchain aside, he is a student of citizenship science, proponent of data sensitive governance and actively indulges in the startup community in India. Through all his efforts combined, he wants to enable transition to Society 3.0 and help society evolve to a smart and sustainable borderless network.