Outlier Ventures names Stephan Apel CEO as Jamie Burke becomes Chairman
Quick Take
- Outlier Ventures has appointed founding partner Stephan Apel as its new CEO.
- He succeeds Jamie Burke, who will become Chairman after nearly a decade in the role.
Crypto venture capital firm Outlier Ventures has appointed founding partner Stephan Apel as its new CEO, succeeding Jamie Burke, who will become Chairman after nearly a decade in the role.
The previous Merrill Lynch investment banker was one of the original backers and board members at Outlier Ventures, becoming its Managing Partner in 2016. Apel has been working with Burke and Outlier's executive team through a transition period, according to a statement.
"Stephan was a founding partner at Outlier Ventures, helping us scale the organization and navigate two bear markets, as well as providing invaluable strategic knowledge and expertise to help achieve our incredible growth," Burke said. "Together with Chief Technology Officer, Aron van Ammers, we took the portfolio to 257 startups."
As Managing Partner, Apel laid the groundwork for strategic initiatives, including Outlier Ventures' token launch platform, Ascent. He also spearheaded the token launches for numerous portfolio projects and expanded Outlier's backer list from early web3 adopters to include family offices, corporations and a sovereign wealth fund.
Outlier Ventures' transitioning roles
As Jamie Burke transitions to the role of Chairman, he will continue to work on growing Outlier's portfolio of founders, as well as play an increasingly active role at an industry level, the statement noted.
"I am truly honored to build on the last decade of successful leadership of its founder Jamie and have the opportunity to now lead Outlier Ventures as its CEO as we enter a transformational new era for the company," Apel said. "We are in a unique position to bring together partners and web3 ecosystems, supporting founders across their entire business cycle from the early stages through to token launch and beyond."
Outlier Ventures said it has helped raise over $350 million in seed funding across its various accelerator programs with a portfolio of web3 companies, including Boson Protocol, Brave, Fetch.ai, Futureverse, Ocean Protocol and Secret Network.
In June, Burke told The Block web3 may help AI scale beyond what it is today.
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