Kunal Thakur

Kunal Thakur is a Hong Kong–based investor and operator whose career spans crypto, startups, and venture capital. He first became known as the Co-Founder and CEO of DataChain Capital, a Los Angeles–based digital-asset hedge fund he launched in 2017 with co-founder Roshaan Khan. DataChain positioned itself as an emerging-technology fund bringing institutional-style portfolio management to digital assets, with holdings that included Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash, and EOS. The fund has since ceased operations (listed as closed), and Thakur describes himself today as an "ex-crypto fund founder" and former crypto M&A advisor.

After his crypto-fund chapter, Thakur moved into operating roles in the startup world, joining Southeast Asian fintech Spenmo as Employee #1 and a member of its founding team. Spenmo built a spend-management and bill-payments platform for businesses, and Thakur's early-employee experience there informs his "operator-led" approach to backing founders.

Today Thakur is a Managing Partner at Stella Capital, an operator-led venture fund that spun out of an Asian- and U.S.-based family office with roots in commodities brokering, commercial real estate, equities, and distressed-asset investing. The firm invests under a "patient capital" philosophy and the tagline "Built by Operators, for Founders." Alongside his fund work, Thakur is an active angel investor and a tech podcast host.

• "Investing in the infrastructure of everyday life" — Stella Capital backs companies embedded in how people *live, eat, move, earn, and transact*, framing them as the "hidden infrastructure of everyday life."
• Stage: Seed to Series A, plus personal angel checks at the earliest stages (the seed round is his stated angel focus).
• Check size: roughly $100K–$5M through the fund.
• Operator-led conviction: the firm positions itself as "Built by Operators, for Founders," reflecting Thakur's own path as a founding-team member and fund founder — he backs founders whose businesses he can help build, not just finance.
• Patient capital: the firm emphasizes "building resilient businesses" over quick flips, with stated values of "Peaceful. Useful. Prosperous. Happy."
• Sectors: consumer/DTC, food & beverage, fintech, e-commerce, future of work, creator economy, deeptech, and crypto/Web3 — reflecting both Stella's consumer-infrastructure lens and Thakur's crypto background.