andy tang

Partner @drapervc @draperdragon Deal @oklo @colossal @polymarket @iceye @otter_ai @ledger @venusaerospace @cardano @scoutai_ @xanaduai @rigetti @radiantnuclear

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

A 24-year-old Polish tennis player arrived in Paris last week ranked 114th in the world, with no sponsors, no guaranteed income, and no certainty she could even pay for her hotel room.

She had to win three qualifying matches just to enter the French Open main draw. Prize money is only paid at the end of the tournament, so a Polish sports drink brand quietly stepped in and covered her hotel bill.

Her name is Maja Chwalinska. And today, she plays in the French Open final.

Before this tournament, she had won exactly one Grand Slam main draw match in her entire career. She had battled depression so severe that in 2021 she couldn't get out of bed. She underwent knee surgery in 2022. She spent years grinding through small tournaments across Europe just to stay afloat.

Then she arrived in Paris, won three qualifiers, and kept winning. Zheng Qinwen. Elise Mertens. Maria Sakkari. Diana Shnaider. Nine straight matches. One set dropped.

She is now the first qualifier in French Open history to reach the final. The last time a qualifier reached a Grand Slam final, it was Emma Raducanu at the 2021 US Open. Raducanu won.

By simply making the final, Chwalinska has earned more prize money than her entire career combined. The runner-up cheque alone is $1.6 million. If she wins today, she takes home $3.25 million.
One week ago she couldn't pay for her hotel room.

[Proof of Talk @proofoftalk]

Investors have always said the 3Ps are patience, persistence, and positivity.

@Andytang, Partner at @DraperVC added a fourth on the Main Stage at the Louvre.

Thank you, Andy. We couldn't be more delighted.

[Doug Bernauer @DougBernauer]

Atomic heat extractor ready for rock! *Just add uranium*

[andy tang @Andytang]

@proofoftalk wrapped yesterday. What an event. Great to share the stage with @KeliCallaghan (@Arrington_Cap), @deseventral (@nazarevc), and @realjameswo (@DFG__Official) on what still gets funded in web3 in 2026.
Topline: equity and tokens are blurring. What matters most is value alignment between founders, shareholders, and customers.

Infra vs apps: crypto still has a long way to go. Apps are hard to use, infra still gets hacked. But you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. The blockchain upgrade of Wall Street is a foregone conclusion. I just hope regulation catches up with innovation soon, so adoption can speed up.

For founders: keep building through the downturn. Stay valuation flexible and founder aligned, unlock the value when the bull market comes back. My three Ps: patience, persistence, positivity.

Where I'm spending time: stablecoin-enabled apps, tokenization of financial assets, payment and authentication for agentic commerce, and gov tech (Prospera is one example).

And the Proof of Pitch winners are in. Congrats to @ReplyCorp and Parthenon. A pleasure to announce alongside @mfelicepace (@SpectrumNodes) and Viktor Yeliz (@Cointelegraph).

Big thanks again to @DelRayMan and Zohair Dehnadi for an exceptional few days. :)

[Proof of Talk @proofoftalk]

2 startup teams changed their year on the Main Stage at the Louvre.

The Proof of Pitch Winners 2026:

General Track:

→ @ReplyCorp, represented by Jordan Feinstein.

Canton Track:

→ Parthenon, represented by Lindsey Girkin.

The introductions that take 12 months to set up everywhere else just happened in one afternoon.

Powered by @SpectrumNodes.

Announced by Andy Tang @Andytang ( @DraperVC), Matthew Felice Pace @mfelicepace ( @SpectrumNodes), and Viktor Y. ( @CointelegraphAc).

Congratulations to every winner.

[andy tang @Andytang]

@StaniKulechov @aave v4 bringing #defi to Wall Street and Main Streer including bitcoin:native at @proofoftalk

[andy tang @Andytang]

@sjdedic @proofoftalk Pleasure was all mine! Let’s do it again soon, like this afternoon 🤣

[andy tang @Andytang]

Day one of @proofoftalk in the books, and what a venue: Paris and the Louvre. Gorgeous setup, great lineups from this team.

Got to share the three areas VCs are watching: stablecoin rails as an IT upgrade for tradfi, tokenization coming for nearly every asset class, and crypto payments enabling agentic commerce. All spaces to watch.

[andy tang @Andytang]

Winners announced later today, so stay tuned.
Big thanks to @DelRayMan for the invite, and congrats on pulling off something this good. Day two has kicked off... more to come. :)

[andy tang @Andytang]

Spent the afternoon judging the Proof of Pitch General Track, a genuine pleasure with this group: @HadickM (@dragonfly_xyz), @diogomonica (@HaunVentures / @Anchorage), @AliceL991 (@ForesightVen), @Joe_Bruzzesi (@RaptorDigitalHQ), @sjdedic (@MoonrockCapital), @mfelicepace (@SpectrumNodes), and Viktor Yeliz (@Cointelegraph).

[andy tang @Andytang]

The bigger story isn't the pancreatic number, big as it is, but the target. RAS drives 90%+ of these tumors and shows up across a long list of cancers: lung, colorectal, and others. Older RAS drugs hit one specific version of the broken protein. This one is "multi-selective," so it works across variants, and even in tumors without the mutation at all.

I'm not an oncologist, and one phase 3 trial isn't an FDA approval. But if RAS is finally becoming druggable the way this suggests, the read-through runs well beyond the pancreas. We've said the cure for cancer will come in our lifetimes. Weeks like this make that feel less like a hope and more like a timeline 🙂

More from @andrewgregory @guardian: https://t.co/qkJJ2XNJwq

[andy tang @Andytang]

Pancreatic cancer has long been one of the hardest cancers to treat, and RAS one of the hardest targets to drug. So a result that moves both at once made me read it twice.

The RASolute 302 data out of @ASCO this weekend: a new drug, daraxonrasib, roughly doubled overall survival vs chemo in previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer (13.2 months vs 6.6), with fewer serious side effects. For context, 5-year survival here has sat around 3%.

https://t.co/sCKKFLl7Rf

[AstroFund 🚀 @AstroFundInc]

@draper_u @DraperVC @ISS_CASIS @CIRI 🚀

[andy tang @Andytang]

In other words: We have a K-shape pattern in consumer sentiment, with the divergence between those who own stocks and those who don’t. And for those who do own stocks, there's an interesting contrast - while their jobs may be threatened by AI, they're still buying AI stocks for their retirement planning. So many knowledge workers are actually hedged. Great piece over the weekend in @WSJ

https://t.co/qC0C8bZElY

[andy tang @Andytang]

How @SpaceX gets to a $2T valuation (per @business @lorengrush @BTLipschultz @sana_pashankar)? Because it’s actually 4 businesses in one: Launch, Starlink, xAI, and its newest business line: orbital data centers. Together, you're looking at the early shape of an orbital economy: launch, compute, and return. Worth watching how it builds out.

& bullish on this space overall. Earth's grid is tapped out, but space solar is 8-10x more continuous solar (no night, no clouds) with natural cooling. We’re proud to back the other teams building this orbital economy future, like @CowboySpaceCorp (@BaijuBhatt) - rockets purpose-built for space data centers. And 🛰️ @outpostspace, which are building precision Earth Return for orbital payloads.

https://t.co/e6lZIuJfQR

[andy tang @Andytang]

You heard it here first - St. Pete is a dark horse. It has all the interesting ingredients - talent, policy, climate, capital. Team Ark is putting them all together.

It was refreshing to meet all the startup and founders.
Thank you for your hospitality, @LisaMarieDodd and the team!

@DraperVC @DraperDragon

[andy tang @Andytang]

Spent the week at @spARKbyARK by @ARKInvest's Big Ideas Summit in St. Pete. Founders, investors, policy makers across AI, space, agtech, bio, transportation. Vibe was optimistic and collaborative, an actual "abundance mindset" in the room.

[andy tang @Andytang]

Shared portfolio cos: @Tesla, @SpaceX, @RobinhoodApp, @Coinbase, @oklo, @RadiantNuclear. All still founder-run, including ARK and Draper. For the founders, by the founders.