Introducing Yelay’s New Leadership Team
As you might have noticed, we’ve gotten a little refresh, and part of that refresh is a brand-new leadership team.
To help you get better acquainted, we’d like to introduce you to Yelay lead contributor, Yaroslav Writtle.
Blockchain Veteran Since 2017
Yaro has worked in the blockchain space since 2017, leading venture capital deployment and advising projects on business design, token economics, and go-to-market strategies. Previously, he spent seven years working in the City of London across People Advisory and M&A functions with large clients such as Wells Fargo, Deloitte, and Macquarie before becoming the Head of Innovation for a 100-person Executive Search business.
From Ethereum Enthusiast to Faculty Group
After getting in on Ethereum (ETH) in 2017, Yaro participated in many an ICO, eventually carving out a niche in supporting projects with token design and value accrual mechanisms. His enthusiasm for crypto eventually led him to join Faculty Group.
“Faculty Group was started in 2018 as a boutique investment and market-making business,” Yaro said. “Since, we have grown to nearly 100 people spread across five different businesses across four different continents, providing a suite of investment, venture building, and advisory capabilities to early-stage Web3 projects.”
Enter Yelay
Faculty Lab is the venture-studio arm of the business, working with Web2 companies looking to enter Web3. Faculty Lab incubated several projects, including Holoride (spin out of Audi), Allianceblock, and Kasu.
“We also build our own initiatives from the ground up — one of them being Spool (now Yelay), which came out of Faculty Lab in 2020,” Yaro said.
From Operations to Leadership
Having initially led several Incubations across the Labs business — and later moving into the Investment side — Yaro eventually became Faculty Group’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) and now splits time between Faculty Fund and Yelay.
“You cannot be a credible investor without having operated a business and having learned from your mistakes in the process,” Yaro said.
It’s why Yaro believes Yelay as a product — having been battle-tested successfully for three years — is now ready to be fully actualised and ascend on its new trajectory to success.
Yaro and Mike at the Helm of Yelay
And when it comes to leading that new trajectory, he’s extremely confident in his role piloting the Yelay ship alongside lead contributor Michal “Mike” Uhliarik.
“The key thing is, Mike and I have very complementary skill sets,” Yaro said. “Mike is the technologist — he’s got a strong pedigree from building trading systems in TradeFi before joining Web3, building our market maker, and being responsible for a host of technical deployments with Labs. My expertise is in product and commercial, ensuring we’re laying the foundations to building a healthy ecosystem.”
It’s a one-two punch Yaro feels confident will help guide Yelay toward a bright future.
A Product Four Years in the Making
“What we have with Yelay is a product that’s been in the making for four years,” Yaro said. “There are no shortcuts here. We’ve spent a lot of money building this product, which has already been built. We’ve got a fantastic team to help execute the vision we have in place, some exciting partnerships coming up, and a healthy treasury as well. Unlike the problem a lot of other crypto projects have — shiny packaging, zero substance, a promise for tomorrow — we have it all today and continue to evolve the product in line with market demands.”
Yelay: Battle-Tested and Ready for the Future
This V1 of the Yelay operation has been running for over two years, and the V2 has been running for over a year, showcasing how the product has been battle-tested, has substance, and has staying power.
“We’ve been around the block, we’ve seen everything, and we’ve stayed and survived while many others have fallen by the wayside,” Yaro said. “I’m excited about taking the foundations in the underlying infrastructure we have developed and continuously evolving that into composable ‘yield blocks’ that builders can utilise to abstract away the complexity of DeFi from the end user.”
