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Blake Lezenski
Investing in the best teams in luxury fashion | VC & Advisor | Head of Corporate Innovation at Outlier Ventures
Professional Background
Blake Lezenski is a prominent figure in the intersection of luxury fashion and blockchain technology, serving as the Partner Program Director at Outlier Ventures. With a focus on Web3 luxury fashion, he has played a critical role in leading the execution of the FARFETCH Dream Assembly Base Camp program, successfully guiding 39 startups through five distinctive cohorts. His expertise in the digital fashion space has led to his recognition as a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) within the Web3 community. Blake's contributions extend beyond startup incubation; he is deeply embedded in the global digital fashion network and has been selected for advisory roles with the Metaverse Fashion Council and Digital Fashion Week.
Blake’s professional journey is marked by a rich tapestry of experiences that include roles as an investor, consultant, and advisor. Prior to his current position, he was pivotal in supporting fashion tech founders, aligning his knowledge of investment and market dynamics with the emerging trends of digital fashion and e-commerce.
Earlier in his career, Blake built a robust pipeline of cleantech startups while at InnoEnergy VC, where he honed his skills in venture capital and sustainable innovation. He subsequently launched Beyond Capital, a consultancy firm dedicated to advising blockchain founders, thus further cementing his role as a connector in the tech industry. His work with Uber Eats in Central America and the Caribbean was instrumental in leading the scale-up efforts across the region and the implementation of Uber’s first data monetization project, showcasing his ability to drive growth and innovation within rapidly evolving marketplaces.
Education and Achievements
Blake Lezenski's educational background lays a strong foundation for his multifaceted career. He holds a Master of Science (MSc) in Business Administration, Management and Operations from the prestigious Imperial College Business School, where he developed his strategic vision and operational expertise. Additionally, he earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Political Science and Government from University College London (UCL), where he cultivated a keen understanding of the socio-political landscapes that influence business and innovation.
His achievements are numerous and reflect his commitment to excellence. Blake's strategic oversight and mentorship have been instrumental in aiding startups to navigate complex market challenges, positioning them for success in the digital economy. His angel investing experience further bolsters his credibility, providing him with a strong toolkit for supporting early-stage founders in the niche but rapidly expanding Web3 luxury commerce and digital fashion sector.
Notable Roles and Contributions
Blake Lezenski's career trajectory includes several notable positions that underscore his leadership and innovative mindset:
- Head of Corporate Innovation at Outlier Ventures: Blake led initiatives that fostered collaboration and integration between corporate entities and innovative startups.
- Advisory Board Member at Digital Fashion Week: In this role, Blake provided strategic insights on the latest trends and developments in the digital fashion landscape.
- Owner of Beyond Capital: As the founder of this consultancy firm, he advised various blockchain startups, providing critical expertise in the rapidly changing digital marketplace.
- Accelerator Lead for FARFETCH Dream Assembly Base Camp at Outlier Ventures: Leading cohorts focused on luxury fashion, Blake ensured that participating startups received robust support, mentoring, and resources to grow.
- Venture Growth Manager at Next Big Thing AG: Here, he contributed to scaling innovative ventures, thus enhancing his expertise in driving growth initiatives.
- Operations Manager – Analytics & Automations at Uber: Blake's early experience with Uber was marked by his leadership during the company’s critical growth phase in Latin America, where he was integral to operational strategy and data utilization.
- Investment Manager at EIT InnoEnergy: Blake played a key role in identifying and nurturing startups dedicated to sustainable energy solutions.
- Diplomacy Intern at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in London: This position provided Blake with valuable insights into international relations and diplomatic processes, framing his understanding of global business environments.
In addition to these roles, Blake also contributed significantly as the Head of Communications at The New Back Room and as a PR Manager at Upper West London, further underlining his extensive experience in communications and brand management.
In summary, Blake Lezenski has carved out a dynamic career at the intersection of technology, fashion, and sustainability. His leadership, innovative approach, and ability to bring together diverse stakeholders have positioned him as a thought leader within the W
Highlights
The Futureverse Base Camp at Outlier Ventures received a record-breaking 500 applications—with only a 1.4% admission rate, the program is harder to get into than Harvard University. The selected cohort is bringing together brilliant founders from all over the globe, each taking on unique challenges as we move towards full digital #interoperability.
Intraverse a Gaming-as-a-Service platform for user acquisition, engagement, and retention through cross-community gamified experiences 🕹️
Lifelike Digital introducing their inaugural digital human product - Gym Vibe, to enable everyone to access the benefits of a spatial web-based, AI-powered Personal Trainer 🦾
MintPass, a recommend-to-earn app, rewarding a community of travelers for sharing their recommendations, incentivizing a global travel companion ecosystem 🧳
Nucanon leveraging advanced #AI for co-creative storytelling to generate lore-consistent characters, locations, quests, and dialogues in gaming and entertainment ✍️
Plurality Network connecting Web2 social data with Web3 accounts that users selectively share with dApps and eCommerce for a fully personalized experience 🌐
REKT infrastructure to build User Generated Wagering Markets and create p2p competitions with the help of machine learning technology 🎲
Spark integrates crypto and TradFi into a comprehensive workflow with a unified interface intuitive for both digital asset professionals and brands just embarking on their #Web3 journey ⚡
Despite their varied roadmaps, they're united behind the common purpose of creating a user-centric #OpenMetaverse. This starts at the data layer, propagates across decentralized and #spatialcomputing, and culminates in a reinvented experience for users across the entire reality spectrum—from virtual, through mixed and augmented reality, all the way to physical experiences.
Exciting times are ahead—can't wait to see what the future holds for this community of innovators!
Join us in London next week for New Codes Digital Fashion Summit, where I have the honor to share the stage with Phillippa Morgan, Raúl Cerezo and Tesxe to discuss the emergence of digital-native labels in #luxury #fashion in a conversation led by one and only Anastasia Almakaeva 👘
I look forward to seeing all the friends & fashion KOLs that I see in the amazing speaker line-up - thank you Joe O'Callaghan for bringing us all together🙏
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.