Competition + curiosity

Josh Felker is co-founder at Nascent. Previously, Josh was founder of Montreal-based proprietary trading firm Vigilant Global, a leader in latency-sensitive and technology-driven trading which was acquired by DRW Trading in 2012. Josh served as a partner at DRW for 5 years where he helped to oversee a highly diversified global trading firm spanning liquidity provision operations, risking-taking/directional trading, venture investing, and cryptocurrency trading. Josh has a bachelor’s degree in genetics from Western University and is a father of four.

Dan Elitzer is co-founder at Nascent. Previously, Dan co-founded IDEO CoLab Ventures, a crypto-focused venture firm associated with the renowned design agency, IDEO. During that time, he also helped launch YAM Finance. Dan began his career in social enterprise and microfinance, working with both domestic social impact organizations and international development agencies. Dan earned an MBA from MIT Sloan, where he co-founded the MIT Bitcoin Club and MIT FinTech Club, and a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Pomona College.

Theresa Regenstreif leads Finance, Legal and Operations at Nascent. Previously, Theresa was Head of Finance at an early stage Fintech company that was acquired, with a VC who built and invested in early stage consumer facing Fintech companies, and worked with an impact investor seeding early stage agribusinesses in sub-Saharan Africa. Theresa holds a graduate degree in Accountancy from John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.

Rebecca leads Performance and Culture at Nascent. She has previously held key leadership positions at The Rockefeller Foundation, Rippleworks, and Living Goods. She is interested/obsessed with human motivation and performance and has shared her work at The White House, MIT, Harvard Business School and Oxford University. Rebecca has served as startup advisor at The Unreasonable Institute, The Cordes Fellowship and The GLG Social Impact Fellowship.

Arvind Ramanathan is a Senior Strategic Advisor at Nascent. Drawing on his decades of trading experience and wisdom, he provides guidance and mentorship to several teams at Nascent. Arvind co-founded Vigilant Global, a leading proprietary trading firm recognized for its innovation in low-latency, technology-driven markets. Vigilant grew into one of Canada’s top trading firms before its acquisition by DRW in 2012. At DRW, Arvind served as a Partner and led the growth of the Montreal office to more than 200 employees by 2021. He is also the co-founder of BoxOne Ventures and The Sun and Truth Foundation. Arvind holds degrees in Finance (Concordia University) and Financial Economics (Queen’s University).

Chris Novick is a Principal Engineer at Nascent, working to design and implement our technology. Chris's professional background spans a wide range of experience from working to help solve long-term spaceflight challenges at NASA Glenn Research Center, to helping Disney create a new generation of media software running on millions of embedded devices around the world. Chris's journey in crypto started in the early days of Bitcoin as a hobby interest, then more seriously with smart contracts after recognizing the magnitude of the disruption on the financial industry and others. Since then, Chris has spent untold hours reading, building, and investing in all things DeFi. Chris graduated from the University of Toledo with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering.

Thomas leads platform engineering at Nascent, where he applies his background in buy- and sell-side TradFi to help Nascent and our ecosystem win. His background in financial services and technical leadership supports Nascent's mission to explore, invest in, and build foundational technologies that will advance the crypto ecosystem. Thomas brings a strategic approach to engineering and data management, bridging traditional finance with emerging blockchain innovations.