At DePIN Day Singapore, Fluence co-founder Tom Trowbridge hosted a panel with three leading venture investors shaping the decentralized infrastructure landscape: Christopher Heymann (1kx), Mike Zajko (Lattice), and Claude Donzé (Greenfield).
The discussion unpacked how DePIN investing has evolved from early experimental bets to a disciplined category bridging crypto and real-world infrastructure — where market validation, domain expertise, and sustainable demand matter more than short-term token hype.
The early bets and today’s market reality
All three funds were early to the DePIN movement — often before it even had a name.
Heymann’s 1kx was among the first investors in Fluence and Arweave, while Greenfield and Lattice have since backed projects in energy, connectivity, and storage. Despite different backgrounds, the investors shared one common view: the best time to build is when the market is skeptical.
“The space has grown enormously,” said Zajko. “But it’s also one of the hardest areas of crypto because it overlaps the real world — wireless, energy, compute. You need teams that understand both.”
What investors look for in DePIN founders
While traditional crypto startups can scale on community and liquidity, DePIN requires tangible traction. The panelists agreed that founder-to-market fit is critical: teams must combine industry expertise with Web3 literacy.
Heymann emphasized domain knowledge and real demand:
“We’ve seen many great technical projects fail because their markets were too small. Venture returns require scalable, sustainable demand — not just a few friendly pilots.”
Zajko added that founders should understand their industries deeply before tokenization: “When the sector got hot, everyone wanted to be a DePIN founder — but you can’t fake experience in energy or telecom.”
For Donzé, the strongest founders bridge both worlds: “Crypto teams that learned from earlier cycles are now applying that experience to real-world problems. That’s where the next generation of winners will come from.”
The supply-and-demand dilemma
A recurring challenge discussed on stage was the imbalance between supply and demand across DePIN networks. Projects can easily incentivize supply — whether it’s storage, bandwidth, or sensors — but often struggle to sell that capacity to real customers.
“Crypto can bootstrap supply overnight,” said Heymann. “The hard part is always the buyer side. You need true industry demand before you turn the token faucet on.”
Trowbridge noted that this is what makes DePIN so different from other Web3 verticals: its growth isn’t tied to crypto prices. “Even if Bitcoin drops 50%, DePIN revenues should rise — because they’re tied to real-world services.”
Token models: experimentation and caution
When asked about token economics, the panel agreed there’s no one-size-fits-all model — but plenty of lessons learned.
Donzé pointed to Glow’s approach in renewable energy: using token incentives to bootstrap early contributors, then shifting toward a more market-driven system. Heymann warned against overspending on supply-side rewards, referencing Filecoin’s early years: “At one point, a billion dollars a month in emissions — that’s not sustainable.”
Zajko added that the next wave of DePIN protocols will treat tokens as one tool among many: “You’ll see more hybrid models — stablecoin payments, programmatic debt, even off-chain contracts. The token won’t carry the full financial stack.”
The conversation also touched on liquid vs. private investing. While all three firms maintain liquid strategies, they agreed that mixed cap tables often create tension between token and equity investors.
“In bear markets, teams with separate equity and token holders face conflicting incentives,” said Heymann. “It’s healthiest when everyone shares the same structure — and the same upside.”
Zajko added that liquidity brings opportunity but also risk: “You can get every call right on fundamentals and still lose because of sell pressure from early holders. Knowing the tokenholder base matters as much as knowing the founders.”
Where investors see opportunity next
When asked about the next big frontiers, the panel’s answers ranged from energy and wireless infrastructure to emerging intersections like defense and robotics.
Greenfield’s Donzé highlighted decentralized drone defense as an area with strong incentives and high reliability demands.
Zajko pointed to embodied AI and autonomous systems as “the next compute frontier,” while Heymann called the energy vertical “one of the most exciting spaces yet to scale.”
Advice to founders and investors
For founders:
“Know your customers,” said Heymann. “Half your time should be spent talking to them. Build real distribution, not just hype.”
For investors:
Zajko urged a mix of fundamentals and narrative awareness: “Tokens don’t always move with traction. Sometimes, timing the narrative — like the AI-compute cycle — is the edge.”
Donzé concluded with a reminder: “In DePIN, getting the basics right — storytelling,
DePIN Day Singapore once again proved that the line between venture and infrastructure is blurring fast. As Trowbridge summarized in closing:
“Decentralized infrastructure is no longer a theory — it’s an asset class. And the builders who stay focused on real customers, real demand, and long-term execution will define it.”
