Hoolie Tejwani, head of Coinbase Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2026 Powerlist.

Hoolie Tejwani is the head of Coinbase Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency platform and S&P 500 company.

Under Tejwani’s leadership, the unit has evolved from an experimental volunteer-led effort into one of the most active early-stage investors in the blockchain and Web3 sectors, with more than 600 investments across nearly 50 countries since 2018, especially focusing on former Coinbase colleagues starting their own companies.

Coinbase Ventures primarily targets pre-seed to series A rounds, often acting as the first institutional investor.

As of 2026, the unit’s key focus areas include:

  • Stablecoin infrastructure: Tejwani has described stablecoins as having “100x penetration potential,” predicting they will soon be deeply woven into daily commerce and global money movement.
  • Crypto x AI: The firm is increasingly backing projects at the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence, specifically focusing on AI agents that can transact using crypto rails and those aligned with Coinbase’s x402 protocol.
  • Tokenisation of real-world assets (RWAs): Markets are expanding beyond crypto into real-world assets – stocks, commodities, macro exposure – that are all moving on-chain.
  • Specialised exchanges and trading infrastructure. There’s been a shift toward more purpose-built, pro-grade market structures (prop AMMs, verticalised trading apps, prediction markets).
  • Next-gen DeFi (more composable, more capital efficient, more secure): The next wave is improved decentralised finance protocols built to integrate and scale. Tejwani notes institutional and scaled fintech integration of DeFi protocols as a significant growth driver here.

This has helped turn Coinbase from a “crypto exchange plus venture arm” toward a full-stack on-chain financial infrastructure platform. Tejwani has publicly framed Coinbase Ventures’ role as backing founders “rewiring” finance onto open blockchain networks.

Some of their more recent public deals include Sapiom, a $15.75m seed round for machine-native financial infrastructure for AI agents; Venice AI, an AI platform offering access to private and uncensored generative AI models and content; and Project Eleven, a $20m series A for post-quantum digital asset security.

Speaking at the GCVI Summit in March, Tejwani said crypto and decentralised finance would become even more mainstream. “Our belief is that we are part of rewiring the entire financial system onto open, permissionless blockchain networks. And we are here to invest in the founders making that happen.”

The GCV Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.

These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.

See the full 2026 Powerlist here.

Here’s a snapshot of their recent deals: