Cypher Capital

Bijan Alizadeh works in the blockchain and digital assets sector across the MENA region. He co-founded Phoenix Group, which developed operational mining farms in Abu Dhabi, Canada, and the USA, and in 2022 founded Cypher Capital, a Dubai-based venture firm investing in Web3, crypto, blockchain, and digital asset projects. He later founded Falcons, a luxury collectibles auction platform, in 2023, and Storm Group, an AI infrastructure and digital asset venture, in 2025.

Karan Gandhi is a Partner at Cypher Capital, a Web3 venture capital fund based in the Middle East. Before entering the blockchain space, he worked as a senior venture architect building tech startups for a licensing authority in the UAE, and has advised startups on fundraising, business models, and market strategy. He is a CFA charter holder with over 9 years of experience across private equity, venture capital, and banking.

Pawel Mowlik was born in Poland and raised in Northern Germany, and has worked across Switzerland, New York, and London. He has over 20 years of experience in finance, including hedge funds, private equity, and investment markets since 2006. At Cypher Capital he leads client and investor relations, focusing on relationship-building across the digital asset space.

Sumeet Surana is an entrepreneur turned investor who joined Cypher Capital in 2022, with a background spanning investment banking, technology startups, and private investments. He began his career at JPMorgan covering the technology sector, later worked at an early-stage tech startup, and founded an ed-tech startup. He holds a degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from INSEAD.

Harsh Agarwal is an Investment Director at Cypher Capital, a blockchain-focused venture fund based in Dubai. He has more than seven years of experience in blockchain, having started as a Bitcoin miner and worked in research and DeFi at JP Morgan. He previously set up the venture arm at Kyber and worked on Polygon's growth, and now serves as Investment Director at Cypher Capital and Phoenix Group.

Farbod Nassiri joined Phoenix Group in 2021 after more than 12 years working in civil and marine engineering. In 2022 he took over Cypher Capital's treasury and operations, focusing on the firm's financial coordination and contributing to its growth and strategic direction.

Kim Wong is Chief Investment Officer at Cypher Capital, where he leads the firm's investment strategy across digital assets, multi-strategy trading, and institutional portfolio management, including the launch of hedge fund strategies for digital asset markets. He previously served as Managing Director and Head of Active Treasury and Products at M2 and held senior trading roles at Citigroup's Global Markets division, where he ran a convertible bond trading and arbitrage desk. He holds a First-Class Honours degree in Engineering from University College London.

Madina Abdibayeva has over a decade of experience spanning Big Four auditing, management consulting, Swiss private banking, digital asset platforms, and asset management. Her work covers business development, capital raising, and strategic partnerships in digital assets and blockchain within regulated financial environments, working with high net worth individuals, family offices, and institutional investors across Central Asia, the GCC region, and international markets. She has also contributed to the development of a financial centre operating under an English common law framework in Central Asia.

Max Fedin is a technical investor and blockchain engineer with more than eight years of experience across decentralized infrastructure, consumer crypto, and venture capital. As Tech Lead at Cypher Capital, he has conducted over 50 technical due diligences and helped build the fund's technical evaluation framework. He previously held engineering leadership roles in Web3 and fintech, and holds a Master of Data Science from Monash University.