In episode 002 of Blockchain Chatter, Dexter Cousins is joined by David Engel, Head of Business Development for Starkware, a Layer 2 scaling solution that helps companies build on top of Ethereum while reducing the cost of doing so by up to 1000x.
David is a business development executive, with deep experience in accelerating the growth of Web3 and Fintech companies.
Prior to StarkWare, David was a Fintech BDM at AWS, in both the ANZ and EMEA markets from 2019-2022.
David has also been a Commercial Director for the Australian and New Zealand markets for Verrency, a fintech platform that allows card issuers to innovate faster, and at scale, as well as Australian Country Manager for i2c, a Silicon Valley-based cloud payments processor.
StarkWare is paving the way to a Web3 future, using uncheatable cryptographic technology to scale blockchain for mass adoption.
StarkEx, StarkWare’s SaaS-based scaling service, has settled over $770B, processed over 294M transactions, minted more than 90M NFTs, and serves hundreds of thousands of users monthly through customers like ImmutableX, dYdX and Sorare.
StarkNet, a permissionless, general-purpose scaling solution, is live (Alpha) on Ethereum Mainnet. Developers from across the world are using it to build tomorrow’s decentralized applications.
When Brendan Malone brought the Acorns micro-investing concept from the US to Australia in February 2016, the idea was straightforward: break down the barriers to investing so that every Australian could get into the stock market for as little as $5. A decade on, that idea has compounded into $2.1 billion in funds under management, […]
David Hyman's Next Chapter After Building a $107B Platform David Hyman spent 13 years building Lendi Group into Australia's largest non-bank mortgage platform. $107 billion loan book. Five million customers. 220 retail stores. $350 million in annual revenue. He stepped down as CEO in January 2026. Instead of relaxing on a beach he was building […]
How Checkbox AI CEO Evan Wong Built a $100M Legal AI Company in 9 Years Checkbox AI CEO Evan Wong just closed a $23 million Series A at a $100 million valuation. The journey from bootstrapped startup to serving over 100 enterprise organizations—including SAP, PepsiCo, Telstra, and Woolworths—took nine years, three funding rounds, and a […]
Revolut Australia CEO Matt Baxby just crossed a milestone that most Australian neobanks never reached: 1 million customers and profitability. In the latest Fintech Chatter episode, the Revolut Australia CEO breaks down how they went from three employees in February 2020 to 100 employees, $250 million saved for Australians, and $4.4 million in profit while […]
