‘A fundamental shift’: Consumer investor Mags Kala on the growing crypto space

The leap from Richard Branson to crypto isn’t that big, as it turns out. For venture capitalist Mags Kala, all it required was quitting her day job. Kala used to work at Bain Capital, helping out big brand names like Shea Moisture and Virgin Voyages. But one day she decided to leave it all behind and strike it out on her own. After about a year of going solo, she’s become especially keen on the Web3 space. On this week’s episode of the Modern Retail Podcast, Kala explained how and why she made the jump. For her, as a consumer investor, she wanted to be on the ground floor of the biggest changes in regards to how regular people spend their time and money. That’s what initially turned Kala on to the world for crypto. What was it that made it click? According to Kala, an expensive digital avatar of an ape. “Joining the Bored Ape NFT craze was very eye-opening for me,” Kala said. Here, she was describing the company Bored Ape Yacht Club, which auctions off pixelated pictures of apes using blockchain-based contracts and cryptocurrency. While it’s a phenomenon mostly for people online (with a lot of money to spare), Kala said the rise of these NFT artists made clear many other things as well. At its core, these types of new programs hit at a base-line question she’s always trying to answer as a consumer investor, Kala said: “What’s truly next for the consumer economy?”