Lasse Clausen

Lasse Clausen is a founding partner at 1kx, a blockchain-focused investment firm. His earlier career included founding and operating technology companies in Berlin, as well as roles in digital ventures and online businesses. ^[2]

Education

Clausen graduated from the European Business School in Madrid with a degree in International Business Management and Finance in 2005. ^[3]

Career

Clausen began his career as Director of e-Ventures at Deutsches Anwalts Zentrum GmbH from January to December 2009, where he worked on digital venture activities. He then served as Chief Operating Officer at Tomfy International Ltd. from January 2010 to October 2011, working on an online marketplace for government-licensed raffle lotteries. From October 2011 to May 2015, Clausen was Founder and CEO of FOUNDD, a Berlin-based application focused on helping users discover movies with friends. He subsequently founded and served as CEO of Daily Ride from December 2015 to June 2017, a Berlin-based carpooling service for commuters. Since May 2017, Clausen has been a Founding Partner at 1kx, where he has focused on investment in blockchain and crypto projects. His role at 1kx followed his earlier entrepreneurial experience and marked his transition toward full-time investment activity in the blockchain sector. ^{[3] [5]}

Interviews

Misunderstanding Crypto

In January 2026, Clausen appeared in an interview with Max Lopatnikov of Synopsis to discuss his path from technology entrepreneurship in Berlin into cryptocurrency investing and his early exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Clausen described 1kx’s investment approach as focused on fundamental technology and longer-term time horizons, highlighting onchain revenue and transaction fees as indicators of real usage and product-market fit rather than speculative activity. He argued that improvements in blockchain scalability and declining transaction costs since 2021 had expanded the range of viable applications, particularly tokenization infrastructure, wallets, and consumer applications. Clausen also discussed the growing importance of understanding onchain economic activity when evaluating crypto projects and projected continued growth in onchain fees, while emphasizing long-term, countercyclical investment strategies and disciplined evaluation of fundamentals. ^[4]

Crypto Startups

In an interview at Korea Blockchain Week in September 2023, Clausen discussed how investors could evaluate crypto projects by looking beyond market sentiment and technological hype toward practical utility, network effects, and infrastructure development. He argued that successful projects should address genuine problems, while strong founders tend to demonstrate sustained commitment to building their products and networks. Clausen highlighted the importance of establishing widely adopted technical standards and discussed developments such as zero-knowledge rollups, including zkSync, as potential mechanisms for scaling Ethereum, alongside account abstraction as a way to simplify user onboarding and asset management. He also emphasized open-source infrastructure as a means of enabling independent verification and reducing reliance on brands or centralized authorities. Despite the broader market downturn, Clausen pointed to improvements in blockchain infrastructure since 2021 and argued that negative media coverage and weak prices had obscured technological progress. He identified claims involving unlimited scalability, zero costs, guaranteed returns, and excessive hype as warning signs when assessing crypto projects. ^[1]