Updated:
Delphi Digital
Delphi Digital, founded in 2018 by Tom Shaughnessy and co-founders, operates a research-to-capital flywheel spanning venture, liquid investments, and...
Delphi Digital
Delphi Digital was founded in 2018 by Tom Shaughnessy, José Maria Macedo, Yan Liberman, and Kevin Kelly. The firm nucleated around a subscription research service that rapidly became essential reading for institutional crypto participants, providing deep-dive reports on layer-1 protocols, decentralized finance primitives, and gaming ecosystems. Delphi operates across three integrated verticals: research, advisory, and investing. The investment arm, Delphi Ventures, concentrates on seed-stage and early-stage crypto-native equity rounds and liquid token positions. Confirmed portfolio positions include Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis and decentralized derivatives protocol Synthetix. The advisory business, Delphi Creative, structures token economics and go-to-market strategies for protocol teams. Geographic coverage spans North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, with particular depth in the Solana and Cosmos ecosystems. In January 2024, Delphi spun out its research division into a standalone entity co-led by founding analysts while the investing and advisory arms remained under Shaughnessy and Macedo (per the firm's official communications, January 2024). The firm maintains offices in New York and Sydney alongside satellite presence in Chicago, San Francisco, Seoul, and Stockholm. Team size is not publicly disclosed. What structurally differentiates Delphi from a conventional hedge fund or venture platform is the research-to-capital flywheel: the same analysts who author the subscription research also inform the venture and liquid investment mandates, compressing the feedback loop between market intelligence and capital deployment into a single organization with no external LP reporting drag — an artifact of its bootstrapped origins.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2018
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
New York
Corporate office
New York, NY, United States
Additional offices
Sydney, Australia · Summit, NJ · Morton Grove, IL · San Francisco, CA · Seoul, South Korea · Chicago, IL · Hong Kong Island · Stockholm, Sweden
Principals
Tom Shaughnessy
Co-Founder
José Maria Macedo
Co-Founder
Yan Liberman
Co-Founder
Kevin Kelly
Co-Founder, Director of Research
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Delphi Digital?
Investment decisions at Delphi Ventures are led by co-founders Tom Shaughnessy and José Maria Macedo, with research support from the firm's analytical team. The research division, spun out in early 2024, continues to inform but no longer directly controls investment allocations. Public record indicates a consensus-driven process among the founding partners for material portfolio decisions.
How does Delphi Digital source proprietary deal flow?
Deal flow is a function of Delphi's research brand: the subscription service attracts early-stage founders seeking protocol design and tokenomics advice, which feeds into the venture pipeline. Delphi Creative, the advisory arm, offers token-structuring services that position the firm as an early confidant to emerging teams. The firm also draws on a network of ecosystem relationships across Solana, Cosmos, and other layer-1 communities where its analysts are embedded.
Is Delphi Digital structured as a single family office or does it operate more like a venture firm?
Delphi Digital is structured as an independent, founder-owned firm — not a family office. It operates a hybrid model spanning subscription research, strategic advisory, and a venture and liquid investment arm. There is no single external LP base anchoring the firm; early capital is understood to be founder-provided and reinvested from operations.
Does Delphi Digital participate in fund commitments or only direct deals?
Delphi Ventures focuses primarily on direct equity and token investments in early-stage crypto protocols and companies rather than making fund-of-fund commitments. The firm occasionally takes liquid token positions through its treasury alongside the venture portfolio. No publicly confirmed record of third-party GP commitments exists.
What investment stages does Delphi Digital typically target?
Delphi Ventures targets seed and early-stage rounds, often acting as a first institutional check for protocols in the research team's coverage universe. Liquid token positions are also held, typically accumulated in secondary markets after protocol launches the firm advised or researched pre-launch.
Which sectors does Delphi Digital explicitly avoid?
The firm has not publicly itemized excluded sectors. Based on observable investment behavior, Delphi concentrates on layer-1 and layer-2 infrastructure, DeFi, and Web3 gaming. Legacy enterprise SaaS, traditional fintech, and hardware are effectively absent from the portfolio, though no formal exclusion policy has been published.
How is Delphi Digital related to the research spinout?
In January 2024, the research division incorporated as a standalone entity while the investing and advisory arms remained under co-founders Tom Shaughnessy and José Maria Macedo (per the firm's official communications, January 2024). The two units maintain a commercial and knowledge-sharing relationship; investment analysts are distinct from the research entity, but the research brand's output continues to influence Delphi Ventures' market views.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
Need institutional-grade insight on family offices?
Altss delivers:
Prefer a guided tour?
We’ll walk you through: