The Serial Founder Who Went From Email Security to NFT Curation - and Built Africa's Coding Academy Along the Way
Yossi Hasson runs Metaversal, a Web3 merchant bank that's acquired 2,000 NFTs across 250 projects since 2021. He's also a Venture Partner at 2048 Ventures, where his sweet spot is $1.3M checks into early-stage founders building in crypto, blockchain, and frontier tech. Between New York and Miami, he hosts two podcasts about digital ownership and occasionally lectures on entrepreneurship at business schools. This isn't career pivoting. This is pattern recognition at scale.
The numbers tell one story: $50M Series A at a $155.71M valuation, 60+ portfolio companies, exits to Dimension Data. But the texture is what matters. At 17, while classmates studied for finals, Yossi built Matric2000.co.za, a social network for South African high schoolers. At 21, he co-founded SYNAQ, an open-source email security company that became the largest email provider in Sub-Saharan Africa, serving over a million users. Forbes named it a Top 20 African Tech Startup before the 2011 acquisition.
Most entrepreneurs would coast after an exit. Yossi co-founded WeThinkCode_ in 2015, a non-profit coding academy modeled after France's École 42. Free tuition. Zero prerequisites. Just find the kids who can code and teach them. The mission: train 100,000 African programmers. The idea sounds utopian until you remember he'd already built a company that served a million users across a continent where infrastructure is a daily negotiation.
NFT curators are the new fund managers
Between 2017 and 2020, Yossi ran Techstars Africa and Techstars Blockchain. Managing Director. The role meant filtering thousands of applications, mentoring founders, and making fast calls on which teams had the founder-market fit to survive. "The problem we think we are going to solve is not necessarily the problem that other people have," he's said. Translation: your thesis is wrong more often than it's right, so watch what users do, not what they say.
When Yossi joined 2048 Ventures in 2020, the mandate was clear: increase crypto and blockchain investments while staying true to the fund's thesis - API-first infrastructure, bio/genomics, digital health, frontier tech, AI/ML, fintech, VR/AR. Investment range: $500K to $2M. His portfolio now includes over 60 startups and crypto protocols. The pattern holds: find the infrastructure layer before everyone else calls it obvious.
Metaversal launched in 2021 as something new: a merchant bank for the digital culture economy. Not just another NFT fund - a systematic approach to curating digital IP at scale. Since then, the team has acquired over 2,000 NFTs across 250+ projects, including blue-chip collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club. In December 2021, Metaversal closed a $50M Series A co-led by CoinFund and Foxhaven Asset Management. The pitch wasn't "NFTs are the future." It was "we're building financial products for digital assets the same way merchant banks built products for physical assets."
Then there's Omega Runner, a Web3 story universe co-created with the producer behind The Hunger Games, I Tonya, and Kate. The project bridges Hollywood IP production and blockchain-native distribution. Most people would call this a pivot. For Yossi, it's the same bet: digital ownership is infrastructure, and infrastructure compounds.
Here's the move that doesn't fit the VC playbook: walking away from a successful tech career to co-found a non-profit coding school. WeThinkCode_ doesn't charge tuition. It doesn't require a university degree. It's modeled after École 42, the French institution that proved you don't need traditional credentials to train world-class programmers.
Yossi co-founded it with Arlene Mulder, Camille Agon, and Justinus Adriaanse in 2015, setting up a facility in Braamfontein to teach kids from all backgrounds how to code - at no cost. The goal wasn't modest: 100,000 trained programmers. The logic was simple: Africa has talent, but access is gatekept by cost and credentials. Remove both gates.
He still sits on the board. Still lectures at Gordon Institute of Business Science. The through-line isn't altruism - it's infrastructure. If you believe code is the new literacy, then training programmers at scale is nation-building. And nation-building creates the conditions for the next SYNAQ, the next Metaversal.
While his classmates were studying for matric exams, Yossi was running Matric2000.co.za, proving that entrepreneurship doesn't wait for permission or diplomas.
An avid gamer who brings gaming sensibilities to Web3 and the metaverse. The aesthetics of virtual worlds aren't theoretical - they're native.
Splits time between New York and Miami Beach, operating at the intersection of traditional finance and crypto-native culture.
Hosts "Goats and the Metaverse" and "Reimagine Ownership" - exploring blockchain, digital assets, and the future of ownership structures.
Co-founded Omega Runner with the producer of The Hunger Games, I Tonya, and Kate - bridging traditional IP production and blockchain distribution.
Through 2048 Ventures, Yossi writes checks between $500K and $2M, with a sweet spot around $1.3M. The focus: API-first infrastructure, bio/genomics, digital health, frontier tech, AI/ML applications, fintech, VR/AR, and crypto/blockchain. The connective tissue is infrastructure that compounds - the boring pipes that power the interesting applications.
"Technology and entrepreneurship have been part of my life for more than 20 years," he's said. That's not nostalgia. It's pattern recognition. When you've been building since 17, you know what early-stage infrastructure looks like before it's obvious. You've seen the movie before - you just need to spot the right cast.
At Metaversal, the thesis is more specific: curate the best digital IP and build financial products around it. Not speculation - curation. The difference matters. Metaversal doesn't flip JPEGs. It builds portfolios of digital culture the way museums curate physical art, then creates infrastructure for others to do the same.
The problem we think we are going to solve is not necessarily the problem that other people have
In 2024 and beyond, Yossi has been public about how Metaversal uses AI to accelerate building. Not AI as hype - AI as tooling. The same way SYNAQ used open-source infrastructure to scale email security, Metaversal is using AI to scale creation, collaboration, and portfolio management.
"It's hard to convince yourself that you're going to do something just for 5 minutes," he's observed. The quote is about focus, about the friction between intention and execution. AI removes some of that friction. It's infrastructure for decision-making.
His current mandate: continue building Metaversal as a merchant bank for the digital culture economy. Keep investing through 2048 Ventures in the infrastructure that will compound over decades. Stay on the board at WeThinkCode_, ensuring the next generation of African programmers has access. Host podcasts. Lecture. Build.
The through-line from age 17 to now isn't pivot or reinvention. It's compounding. Build infrastructure. Exit or scale. Reinvest in the next layer. Repeat. Twenty years of iterations on the same bet: digital infrastructure is the leverage point for everything else.
Yossi Hasson doesn't predict the future. He curates it, one company, one investment, one NFT at a time.