Discover how to hire a COO in 8 steps to drive your business forward. Learn key hiring strategies and red flags to avoid to ensure a perfect fit.
Leidina Dervishi
Zero-to-one Operations Leader
I'm an operator, builder, and former venture investor. Some of my proudest achievements are: orchestrating the successful exit of Fluidity within 3 years of its launch, managing the fundraising and close of the third venture vehicle at CoinFund for $84M, and being elevated to an investment role during my time at CoinFund to obtain an average investment performance of 400%. I love working alongside founders on all things operations, finance, and strategy and am excited to roll my sleeves up. With me on your team, your operations will be a smoothly running machine and you'll be able to focus on the stuff that matters :)
Work
ConsenSys Acquires Fluidity for an Undisclosed Sum | Finance Magnates
https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/consensys-acquires-fluidity-for-an-undisclosed-sum/For my first deal transaction, I led the acquisition of Fluidity by ConsenSys in May of 2020, after working on the product for two years. As the M&A lead, I managed the financial, legal, and technical due diligence during the buying process.
Fluidity was a technology partner for the tokenization of real world assets. Fluidity's first product was AirSwap, a decentralized token trading network built on the Ethereum blockchain that now powers ConsenSys CodeFi. Fluidity was featured in a Harvard Business School case study written in December 2018.
NBA Top Shot creator Dapper Labs raises another $250 million | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/nba-top-shot-creator-dapper-labs-raises-another-250-million/I worked closely with leadership at Dapper Labs to strategize on positioning, fundraising, and closing of their $250M round, which was successfully closed in 2021 and valued the company at $7.6 billion.
Dapper Labs is best known for being the creator of NBA Topshot. Its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, GV and Version One Ventures.
Experience
CoinFund
Venture Investor
Mar 2021 - Feb 2023
Investment firm with ~$1B AUM investing in seed, venture, and liquid opportunities within the blockchain sector
- Sourced 40+ startups and diligenced 300+ companies, leading to 4 seed investments with an average performance of 400%
- Dapper Labs: Advised on the rollout of NFL All Day, an interactive collectibles product that generated $130M in volume, becoming their top app in 2022. Offered strategic advice during two RIFs, supporting leadership through the highs and lows of the cycle
- Wincast: Acted as interim COO during pre-seed, overseeing the budgeting of raise proceeds and collaborating with product team to project launch revenue. Supported successful raise of seed in under a year
- Specialized in investing with a “human touch”, performed comps analysis, market sizing, revenue projections, and investment memos for web3 companies in the consumer FinTech, middleware, security, and gaming verticals
CoinFund
Finance & Operations Associate
Sep 2020 - Mar 2021
Investment firm with ~$1B AUM investing in seed, venture, and liquid opportunities within the blockchain sector
- Built the FinOps team from a seat of one to five, hiring and training the CFO and other core members of the finance and investor relations teams during my transition to the investment team
- Finance: Revamped portfolio reconciliation process across three vehicles, automated end-to-end trade settlement process and attribution analysis, eliminating months-long delays in distribution of monthly investor statements
- Investor relations: Coordinated fundraising and successful close of third venture vehicle for $84M, implemented the firm's first CRM platform to build an investor database, prepared investor reports, managed investor inquiries on fund performance and stru
Fluidity
Product & Finance Associate
May 2018 - Sep 2020
Fintech company focused on peer-to-peer web3 trading, parent company of AirSwap; acquired by ConsenSys in 2020
- Brought in as an early, all-utility hire to work across product and finance teams and became CEO’s right hand
- Orchestrated a successful exit with the CEO within 3 years of company launch
- Managed accounting frameworks for US and Hong Kong-based corporations, managed month-end closings and quarterly investor distributions
- Restructured month-end closing processes and account reconciliations, increasing close speed 15x VBA automation; restructured forecasting models to align come within 5% of actuals each month
Related Blog Posts
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Fractional Focus: Product & Tech Ops with Crystal Bray Dive into the intricate world of Product & Technology Operations with the seasoned expert, Crystal Bray. Learn how to implement operational best practices at scale from her tactical experience at Uber.
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