Arjun Sethi

Arjun Sethi (born January 15, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur, investor and executive. Currently a co-CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, he is also chairman of Tribe Capital, In recent years he has co-founded a number of technology startups, including Kapital, he studied economics from Boston University

Career Early roles and startups (1990s-2012) Early in his career, Sethi served as chief product officer of the app monetisation company Tapjoy, and in 1999 he co-founded the manufacturing company Advanced Tuning Products. Sethi's first technology startup was ROFLplay, had 150 million monthly active users across its portfolio of games at its peak. Lolapps named Sethi as its CEO in March 2010, The merged entity, 6waves Lolapps, was the second largest game publisher on Facebook after Zynga as measured by monthly active users. With Sethi serving as chief product officer until 2012, and acquired by Stillfront Group in 2022 for $201 million.

MessageMe and Yahoo (2012-2015) Sethi left 6waves Lolapps in 2012 to join the venture capital firm Social Capital as an entrepreneur in residence. and raised around $12 million from Greylock Partners. MessageMe's rapid growth led to Facebook revoking its access to the Facebook Platform’s “Find Friends” functionality for competitive reasons. NBC later published court documents containing emails where Facebook expressed concern over negative publicity related to the revoked access, particularly given Sethi’s relationship with Social Capital and previous position at Lolapps.

Yahoo acquired MessageMe in 2014 for a price between $30 million and $40 million. Yahoo shut the app down and put Sethi and the ex-MessageMe team to work on a Yahoo messaging app meant to compete with Snapchat and WhatsApp. Yahoo's acquisition of MessageMe was part of CEO Marissa Mayer's larger strategy to bring in new talent via small startup acquisitions. He served as Senior Director of Product Management, Growth, and Emerging Products at Yahoo, leading development of the company's messaging products. Leading the Social Capital venture team, he also oversaw investments in companies such as Cloud Kitchens and Front.

In 2018, Sethi and two former Social Capital investing partners, Ted Maidenberg and Jonathan Hsu, formed Tribe Capital. and uses quantitative data to inform investment decisions. Serving as Tribe's CEO, With $200 million targeted for its first fund, he also added to his earlier investments in Carta, Relativity Space, and Cover. Other Tribe investments have included FTX, Applied Intuition, EquipmentShare, Docker, Republic, Instabase, and Momentus. Tribe raised $335 million for its second fund and $394 million for its third fund, and has started an investment program for accredited investors.

Angel investing, Kapital, Tribe spinoffs (2020-2024) With personal investments in companies such as Opendoor, Gusto, and Long-Term Stock Exchange, and Rubrik, he was named to the Forbes 2020 Midas Brink List.

Sethi joined the board of Kraken in 2021. Tribe filed plans for a second SPAC IPO later that month. In July 2022, Sethi announced that Tribe was launching a incubator program. Tribe Crypto Labs' first incubation was Nibiru, a crypto derivatives trading protocol that Sethi co-founded and launched in September 2022. He raised $7.5 mill. at a $100 mill. valuation, with investors such as Tribe Capital, Republic Capital, and Kraken.

Sethi is listed as a co-founder of Kapital, a fintech company headquartered in Mexico City and focused on AI and blockchain. In 2023, Kapital raised $165 million and acquired Banco Autofin Mexico in 2023, also opening a physical bank branch in Bogota, Colombia. Kapital was named to the 2024 CNBC Disruptor 50 list five months later.

By September 2023, he had invested in 100 technology companies, including independent investments in Opendoor, Gusto, and Truecaller. At the time, Tribe Capital had approximately $1.6 billion in assets under management, about 20% of which was invested in India. In April 2024, Tribe Capital formed Tribe Capital Management India Pvt Ltd. Co-owned by Sethi, the asset management company is based in Gurugram and initially invested in Shiprocket.

Termina and Kraken co-CEO (2023-2025) When Sethi stepped down as Tribe's CEO he began focusing on the Tribe spinoff Termina, Sethi initially raised $10 million for its growth, also investing personally.

He was appointed co-CEO of Kraken in October 2024. who had been CEO since 2023. In December 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that Kraken had donated $1 million to the Trump campaign. It was also reported that Sethi and Kraken chairman Jesse Powell had both met with Trump throughout his campaign and after the election, discussing topics such as crypto policies.

In April 2024, Sethi co-founded the startup Foundation, Inc. with Sankaet Pathak and Mike LeBlanc.

Boards Sethi serves on the board of directors of companies such as Kraken, Front, Relativity Space, Cover, Carta, SFOX, Social Capital, and Tribe Capital. In October 2024, he remained Tribe Capital's chairman.