Axel C. Mitbauer

Freedom is our mission. We believe that the single most impactful way we can make this world better is by increasing people’s freedom. Ethereum is the most decentralized blockchain, capable of bringing sovereignty to billions of people. We are building zkSync, an L2 protocol, to scale Ethereum. We are always hiring best-in-class talent around the world: https://jobs.eu.lever.co/matterlabs

NEAR is a high performative L1 blockchain that is simple, scalable, and secure, and it is the blockchain for AI.

Freedom is our mission. We believe that the single most impactful way we can make this world better is by increasing people’s freedom. Ethereum is the most decentralized blockchain, capable of bringing sovereignty to billions of people. We are building zkSync, an L2 protocol, to scale Ethereum. We are always hiring best-in-class talent around the world: https://jobs.eu.lever.co/matterlabs

New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. Founded in 1977, NEA has more than $28 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2025 and invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firms long track record of investing includes 284 portfolio company IPOs and more than 500 mergers and acquisitions. For more information, please visit www.nea.com.

Balderton is a multistage venture firm with 25 years of experience supporting Europe’s best founders from Seed to IPO. We have both early and growth funds and invest across the technology sector.

Project A is a leading European early-stage investor with €1.2b AUM, championing ambitious tech founders from idea to scale. We provide pre-seed and seed capital to firms shaping Europes future across key themes including Fintech, European Resilience, Global Supply Chains, and the Future of Autonomous Work. Our portfolio features category leaders such as Trade Republic, Sennder, Zepz, and Quantum Systems. In addition, our founder-led Studio actively partners with ventures like 11x, ARX Robotics, and Enapi to shape and validate bold ideas from day zero.