Nader Al-Naji

Founder at DESO

Nader Al-Naji is the Founder and CEO of BASIS. He has raised over $M from top investors such as Bain Capital Ventures, Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, Stan Druckenmiller, Kevin Warsh, Foundation, and Wing. He has built a team of people with backgrounds from Goldman Sachs, Google, Bridgewater, Bain Capital, McKinsey, Harvard Law, D. E. Shaw, Tower Research, Hudson River Trading, and top-tier universities. He has led the development of a fully-functional system built on the Ethereum blockchain, which has been validated via two separate third-party audits. Nader has also developed relationships with journalists and acted as a spokesperson for the company, appearing on Fortune, CNBC, BusinessInsider, WSJ, FT, Bloomberg, Forbes, TechCrunch, and many others. He has spoken at conferences, including a talk at the IMF. He has worked with multiple law firms including Sullivan and Cromwell, Wilmerhale, WSGR, MWE, Paul Hastings, and Sidley to push regulatory compliance initiatives and design the system to fit within existing regulatory frameworks. After a deep analysis of the regulatory landscape, taking into consideration a tightening of securities regulation in particular, they decided to shut down and return capital to investors. A full story is available on basis.io. Nader coordinated an acquihire of the company, setting up a competitive process to give all of their staff a soft landing.