At Crucible Labs, our expertise lies in delivering high-quality, secure, and user-friendly products tailored for both builders and investors. By bridging cutting-edge research with practical solutions, we empower our ecosystem to thrive in an open, decentralized future.
Ala Shaabana is a co-founder of Crucible Labs. Previously, Ala was a co-founder of Bittensor, and the Opentensor Foundation, where he led the development and maintenance of the Bittensor protocol since 2019. He holds a Ph.D. in applied artificial intelligence and has a background in industrial research and development on distributed computing and load prediction, having previously worked at VMware from 2018 to 2019. His work focuses on advancing decentralized machine learning and AI infrastructure.
David Lawee is a co-founder of Crucible Labs. A seasoned entrepreneur, investor and tech executive, David boasts an impressive 18-year tenure at Alphabet, where he served as Google’s Chief Marketing Officer, VP of Corporate Development, and Founder of CapitalG, Alphabet’s $7 billion growth fund.
David’s interest in decentralized applications began in 1999 with the launch of SETI@home, sparking a lifelong passion for distributed computing. David became captivated by Bittensor in 2022 after a chance meeting with Ala and Jacob, recognizing its potential to lead the development and deployment of decentralized AI.
Eugene Hu is a tech partner at Crucible Labs. Previously, Eugene was the founding engineer of Bittensor and of the Opentensor Foundation, where he has led the development and maintenance of the Bittensor protocol and Opentensor Foundation validator since 2021. Holding an M.Sc. in applied artificial intelligence and physics, Eugene comes from an academic background on game theory and distributed systems modeling with a focus on dynamic systems and multi-modal prediction.
Fahad Junejo is a tech partner with Crucible Labs. Fahad is an experienced Infrastructure Engineer with expertise in designing, implementing, and managing large-scale data environments. He has worked on diverse projects, including real-time data workflows, scalable data lakes, and machine learning pipelines. He has helped various companies embark on successful data journeys with his data first mentality.
Kelly Woodward is the Chief of Staff at Crucible Labs. She most recently was the COS at Shutterfly and previously worked within the consumer tech space. She holds her M.A in Communications and played collegiate volleyball.
Sam Pierre is a tech partner at Crucible Labs. She was a founding team member at WOMBO, where she played a key role in engineering, fundraising, and content strategy, helping drive the company’s growth to over 200 million downloads globally. She holds a degree in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Toronto and is currently exploring the intersection of AI, decentralized systems, and AI agents.
Sami Kassab is an investment partner at Crucible Labs, where he researches and supports the most impactful projects on Bittensor. Previously as a Partner at OSS Capital, Sami focused exclusively on the Bittensor ecosystem, and as Research Analyst at Messari, he pioneered research in decentralized AI and coined the term DePIN. Before crypto, Sami spent five years as a mechanical engineer in aerospace, designing aircraft engines and defense systems.
Seth Bloomberg is an investment partner at Crucible Labs. Previously as a Research Analyst at Messari, he covered and produced research in numerous sectors including decentralized AI, zero-knowledge technology, and key management infrastructure. Prior to joining Messari, Seth worked within the Financial Services and Technology space, and holds an M.Sc. in applied mathematics.
Shardul Bansal is a tech partner at Crucible Labs. Shardul was the founder of Enclaved, an electrical grid topology optimization software company spun out of Entrepreneur First. Previously Shardul worked on scaling and designing internet routing solutions at AWS Cloud Map, serving tens of thousands of customers. Shardul holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, where he led uoft.ai, the undergraduate AI group, and hosted the largest undergraduate ML competition focused on climate modeling.
Whether you’re building subnets or exploring the Bittensor ecosystem, we’re always open to new collaborations.
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