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Neel Popat
Founder & CEO at Donut
Neel Popat is the CEO and Founder of Donut, a fintech company that focuses on investment solutions. He has been leading Donut since August 2018. Prior to founding Donut, Popat worked as an Investment Manager at Graphite Capital and European Capital, where he developed his expertise in investment management.34
In addition to his role at Donut, Neel Popat has been involved with On Deck as a Fellow since January 2021. He has also held positions at Rothschild & Co. and participated in various entrepreneurial initiatives, including being part of the Entrepreneur First program.14
Popat is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and has a significant following on LinkedIn, reflecting his active engagement in the fintech community.24
Highlights
Hey all 👋
I’m super thrilled to announce that every Donut user will receive 100% of their funds back from Genesis.
We’ve been testing withdrawals over the past days and will gradually increase the pace soon.
So, how did we get here?
Let's cast our minds back to Nov 2022. FTX just imploded. It triggered a chain reaction, and tragically one of our lending partners Genesis faced a "liquidity" crisis.
4 days destroyed 4 years of work.
Even now, writing this message is painful.
Throughout the turmoil, our users were our guiding light. We received countless messages of support. Many have become (virtual) friends, standing by us through the twists and turns of bankruptcy.
To every Donut user: thank you for your 625 days of patience.
Okay, so you get hit by a meteoroid. You have two options:
- Feel sorry for yourself
OR
- Get up and keep walking
We chose the latter. I can't stress this enough: you must keep moving forward.
If you're reading this facing a tough moment, know that you will get through it ❤️
This experience has given me a unique perspective — founder friends now call me first in a crisis. It's valuable experience gained.
This journey also revealed how different people handle adversity. Most investors became pillars of support, sending quotes, messages, and even organizing trips to lift my spirits.
To my unwavering support network: your kindness will never be forgotten.
And to our team.
Publishing weekly updates, building tools in your spare time. Your unwavering commitment to our users will always be a source of pride.
The bankruptcy was a brutal gauntlet.
Today, we close this chapter.
Tomorrow, I channel that hard-won wisdom into my next venture.
Love, Neel
“The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.”
In the last 6 months, we’ve iterated our core home screen three times.
This journey has been filled with incredible learnings and mistakes, as we’ve grown Donut up from a single feature app, to do way more around the core earnings experience.
Yesterday, we launched our latest evolution:
- Simpler core display (balance, earnings, APY)
- Interactive chart
- More education for web3 newbies
We remain focused on building the easiest way for everyday people to access DeFi & web3.
/fin
P.S. shoutout to Elijah on the design and the entire Donut team for keeping things freshhhh
