Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬

Helping early-stage startups connect w/- investors & unstoppable outcomes. Founder X VC Summit: AI Capital Edition - 6/9th Oct 2026 | Singapore 🇸🇬

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

BackersStage Startup Program is live

We screen early-stage Web3 and AI projects and connect the best ones directly with investors.

if you're raising Pre-Seed, Seed, or Series A - this is for you.

Apply: https://t.co/RcJqTeV0HT

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

Founders massively underestimate how much fundraising is actually a distribution problem

Every warm introduction is a transfer of reputation from one party to another. That's why experienced operators treat introductions with extreme precision.

Most founders approach intros transactionally:
- "Can you introduce me to X?"

The better approach is to make the introduction package immediately forwardable

SEND:
• who you are (concise summary)
• what you've built (strongest proof points)
• traction in one line
• why you're specifically relevant to that investor
• the ask (usually a short call)

The objective is simple: reduce the cognitive load on the connector to near zero

Another overlooked principle: introductions are earned twice
- once when someone agrees to make the introduction
- and again after the meeting

The founders who consistently gain access to top-tier investors always close the loop. They send context back to the connector, share outcomes, and demonstrate that the social capital invested in them was well spent.

Fundraising is often framed as a capital allocation exercise.

In practice, it's a reputation allocation exercise.

The founders who understand the difference compound access far faster than those who don't

A simple message saying "we spoke, it was helpful, thanks for the intro" is often the reason you get the second introduction

Fundraising is borrowed trust

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

Hiring SOON

Keep your 90-sec intro ready

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

Where AI x Crypto capital is actually going in 2026

Pulled from the last six months of public rounds and a lot of private conversations with active funds

Infrastructure is taking about seventy percent of all deployed capital
- Decentralized compute and GPU marketplaces solving the supply crunch
- Data layers around provenance and labeling. Verification primitives for proof of inference and model auditing
- And agent infrastructure, meaning the wallets, identity, and payment rails that machines need to actually transact with each other.

The other thirty percent is applications
- DeFAI strategies, autonomous on-chain agents, AI driven security and audit, creator tools with IP and royalty rails baked in

If your pitch does not fit one of those buckets, you are either too early, in the wrong sector, or telling the wrong story

Most of the time it is the story

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

The room is the product - Read that twice

- forty percent founders actively building and raising in AI x Crypto.
- thirty percent VCs deploying capital this quarter, not the ones writing think pieces about the space.
- twenty percent ecosystem operators and L1 foundations and the allocators who decide which funds get to keep playing.
- ten percent operators and media who shape the next round.

every single person was chosen, that is not a marketing line.

- That is the actual admission policy and the reason last three events ran a sixty eight percent rejection rate.

FYI: You do not pay to attend a room like this

You apply to it

Apply now: Founder x VC Summit 🇸🇬

Demo Day: https://t.co/GzsI6yiedT
Happy Hour: https://t.co/XHiv1xLZ6J

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

Your Singapore playbook for @token2049 week. Memorize before you fly

Stay near Marina Bay or Chinatown. Walk to most events. Book by July or prices triple in September, cause of F1, this is not me being dramatic, compare previous rates yourself

Use the MRT. Grab for everything else, not Uber, Uber is locked out of the market here. Atlas Bar at Parkview Square is where VCs end up after dinner, reserve in advance during conference week or you are not getting in. Lau Pa Sat for casual founder meetings. Hotel lobbies for fifteen minute calls between bigger ones

Land two days early. Acclimatize. Singapore heat at 30°C and humidity at 90 will wreck you on Day 1 if you flew in jetlagged the night before. Save your most important meetings for Day 2 and Day 3 of the trip when you are sharp.

Treat the week like a military operation, not a vacation with extra meetings

- That is the only thing separating the founders who close rounds from the ones who post selfies.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

How a five minute meeting at a conference becomes a term sheet six weeks later

Do not start by over-pitching. You need one clean opener: What you do, who it is for, the sharpest number you have, what you are raising

If they show interest, continue.
If they don’t, move on quickly. Conferences are high-volume environments and attention is limited.
so, shift the conversation toward them.

Ask what they are looking for right now. Let them describe the thesis, Map your startup to their words while they are saying them. The best fundraising conversation in history is the one where the VC ends up convincing themselves you fit

Do not drag the interaction too long
Leave while the energy is still high

Before ending, lock in a proper follow-up call with a specific day or time window

Leave before they want you to. End it high. Propose a real call this week, with a specific day. Then follow up inside ninety minutes with the deck, one reference to something they said, and a time slot. The founder who follows up first wins the slot. Conference week is a race, not a marathon.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

The gap between a funded round and a rejection email is almost never the product. It is the framing

The rejected version sounds like this. "We are building the future of decentralized AI. Our TAM is five hundred billion, We have no real competitors" Every partner has heard this exact sentence six times this week and they have started skipping decks that lead with it.

The funded version sounds like this. "We solve this [XXXX] specific problem for this [YYYY] specific customer. Here is the proof we already have. Our wedge is this two hundred million dollar niche we can own in eighteen months. Here is who else is playing in the space and here is why we beat them on this one axis.\"

Same [company, metrics, founders].
Different [Language, Outcome]

VCs are not pattern matching to your product. They are pattern matching to founders who can articulate why they win. The articulation is the deliverable.

Apply now: Founder x VC Summit 🇸🇬

Demo Day: https://t.co/GzsI6yhGol
Happy Hour: https://t.co/XHiv1xLrhb

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

Announcing YC Crypto deals

We're now providing crypto deals to support fintech builders funded by YC: support on tools like wallets, onramps, audits, blockchains, onchain data.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

Raising money can be 10x harder if you ignore timing

We’ve seen good startups struggle for months because they started raising during dead periods, while average startups closed rounds fast just because funds were actively deploying

Jan-Mar is usually strong because new budgets open.
Sep-Oct moves fast because funds don’t want to sit inactive before year-end

Meanwhile Jul-Aug and Dec are where most conversations quietly die

Most founders underestimate how much the VC calendar affects momentum

ALSO: If you truly believe in what you’re building and the product has real potential, you can raise anytime, even when investors say they have no Money.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

There are over a thousand side events at Token2049 this year. You will physically make it to five.
Choose them like your raise depends on it, because it usually does.

Anything described as "open to everyone" or "networking mixer" is a soft no
Same for events with fifty sponsors stamped on the landing page and no published agenda. If anyone with a wallet can walk in, the signal is gone before you arrive.

The events worth your time are the ones that ask you to apply
The ones with a published attendee profile so you actually know who shows up. The ones with structured introductions instead of "mingle freely."

The best events do not try to convince you to come
They make you feel like you have to earn the seat. That is the asymmetry you are looking for.

Apply now: Founder x VC Summit 🇸🇬

Demo Day: https://t.co/GzsI6yhGol
Happy Hour: https://t.co/XHiv1xLrhb

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

@token2049 Apply now: Founder x VC Summit 🇸🇬

Demo Day: https://t.co/12R01z0ipe
Happy Hour: https://t.co/v3uqLlw6AU

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

If you are going to @Token2049 Singapore, read this before you book a single flight.

Eight meetings a day is the ceiling. Push past it and every conversation gets rushed, every name blurs, and by Friday you cannot remember which guy ran the L2 and which one ran the AI agent thing. Leave gaps. The best conversations of the week are always the ones nobody put on the calendar.

Rank side events by who is in the room, not whose logo is on the flyer
A two hundred person curated dinner with the partners actually deploying in your sector beats a five thousand person open bar every single time.

Pre-schedule your top five VCs three weeks out
Tell them you will be on the ground October 5 through 10 and ask for fifteen minutes. The hard deadline of a trip is the easiest meeting request to say yes to in the world.

And follow up the same week. Not after the conference. Most founders never follow up. Being part of the ten percent is the cheapest competitive advantage in fundraising.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

Apply now: Founder x VC Summit 🇸🇬

Demo Day: https://t.co/12R01z0QeM
Happy Hour: https://t.co/v3uqLlwEqs

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

150 days out from Founder x VC Summit Singapore 🇸🇬

Two days. October 6 and 9

The only summit at Token2049 built exclusively for founders raising and VCs deploying in AI x Crypto

If you're going to Singapore in October, this is the room.

Apply NOW:

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

BREAKING: This Handshake means a lot 🇺🇸🇨🇳

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

@yzilabs @Stanford @RuizheJia @EASYResidency This Stanford prof just laid it out perfectly.
Stablecoins stepping in as the payment layer in fragmented markets is exactly how you build the next super apps.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

@animocabrands Everything in the agentic economy is moving so fast right now and having a dedicated day with real builders from Kite AI, SuperiorTrade and Minds sharing how it actually works feels super timely.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

@ysiu @NUVAFinance @sjaitly @mcagney Morgan Creek leading the Nuva round plus that strong board addition feels like the exact institutional push RWAs have needed. Moving from narrative to real
on-chain yield and proper structure is huge.

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

@animocabrands @AnimocaMinds Autonomous intelligence with real ownership and decentralization?
This is the moment it stops being hype and starts being infrastructure. Excited to see
!

[Backers Stage Capital | Token2049 🇸🇬 @BackersStage]

@animocabrands @viewfromhk Paris Blockchain Week really showed the shift institutions are showing up for real liquidity bridges, not just talk.
The agentic economy feels like it’s actually happening now with sovereign AI agents and decentralized property rights getting built.