Joe Zhou  is the founder of Manadia, a Web3 infrastructure protocol designed to coordinate data verification, AI agent execution, and privacy-preserving settlement across on-chain and off-chain systems. He has also been active as a founder and operator across multiple ventures spanning fintech, gaming, and blockchain infrastructure. ^[2]

Education

Zhou graduated from the Questrom School of Business at Boston University with a BS in Finance and Entrepreneurship in 2015. ^[1]

Career

Zhou began his career with Citi in 2011 as a Private Wealth Management Intern in Shanghai, where he worked on client-facing financial services within a traditional banking environment. During his time at Boston University, he founded the Boston University Trading Club in 2012 and led it until 2014, building a student organization focused on capital markets education through simulated trading and analytical training. He also served as CEO and founder of Against3.com from 2009 to 2011, an early entrepreneurial project.

From 2014 to 2016, he founded and served as CEO of Alt-Options LLC, launching one of the first bitcoin options trading platforms in the United States. In parallel, he served as President of the Questrom Senior Mentor Program from 2014 to 2015 and worked on early-stage advisory and mentoring initiatives within the Boston University ecosystem. In 2016, he became a Global Entrepreneur in Residence at Babson College, a role he held until 2023, during which he focused on supporting entrepreneurial education and ecosystem development in the Greater Boston area.

In 2016, he founded FirstBlood, an esports-focused blockchain platform, which he led until 2025. Since 2021, he has been the founder of Mana Interactive Inc., a venture-backed neobank targeting gaming users with integrated financial services. Alongside his operating roles, he has been active as an angel investor since 2015, investing across pre-seed to Series A stages in sectors including fintech, gaming, crypto, and consumer brands, with a portfolio spanning multiple blockchain and technology companies.

In 2025, he founded Mana, a fintech company focused on rewarding gamers, which raised a seed round of over $7 million. He also launched Potion.gg, a gaming rewards platform, and introduced the Mana Card, a rewards-based banking product for gamers. ^[4]