Tom Shaughnessy is a United States-based crypto entrepreneur and angel investor best known as co-founder of Delphi Digital, one of the more cited independent research and investment shops in the digital assets industry. He entered crypto after a background in traditional finance, including a stint at Deutsche Bank, and helped establish Delphi Digital around 2018 as a research-first firm that later extended into venture activity through Delphi Ventures.
As an individual angel, Shaughnessy has made a small number of direct investments – the public record shows roughly six disclosed positions. His personal bets largely mirror the thesis he has articulated publicly: early-stage infrastructure, DeFi primitives, and consumer-facing on-chain applications with genuine user traction. Public information on deal sizes and exact entry dates for his personal angel book is limited; Delphi Digital's venture vehicles hold the majority of his disclosed deal history.
Notable investments
- Axie Infinity (Sky Mavis) – one of the most-cited early wins for the Delphi network; the play-to-earn title drove a generation of GameFi interest before its 2022 Ronin bridge hack and subsequent token decline.
- dYdX – decentralised perpetuals exchange; Delphi was an early backer and design partner before dYdX migrated to its own Cosmos-based chain.
- Synthetix – synthetic asset protocol on Ethereum; Delphi contributed governance input and received early SNX allocations.
- Terra / LUNA – a notable failure. Delphi was a vocal supporter of the Terra ecosystem and held significant UST and LUNA exposure. The May 2022 depeg and collapse wiped billions in value industry-wide and has been acknowledged as a painful lesson by participants including the Delphi team.
Public information on the specific six companies attributed to Shaughnessy's personal angel portfolio – distinct from Delphi Ventures – is limited. The investments listed above reflect Delphi-affiliated activity with which he is closely associated.
Team
Shaughnessy co-founded Delphi Digital alongside Kevin Kelly and Yan Liberman, who lead research and strategy respectively. The firm has grown to several dozen researchers, developers, and investors across its research, ventures, and labs divisions. Shaughnessy has been an active public communicator through the Delphi Podcast (formerly Chain Reaction), interviewing founders and researchers across DeFi, NFTs, and crypto infrastructure.
Recent activity
As of late 2025 and into 2026, Shaughnessy and Delphi have shifted focus toward on-chain consumer applications, modular blockchain infrastructure, and AI-adjacent crypto tooling. Delphi Labs, the protocol development arm, has shipped products including Mars Protocol. Public commentary from Shaughnessy has emphasised the need for crypto applications to reach users outside the existing on-chain audience. No major new public angel rounds attributed solely to him have been widely reported in the 12 months prior to this writing.
Shaughnessy sits at the intersection of research and early-stage investing, a position that gives him deal flow but also exposes him to reputational risk when high-conviction calls – Terra being the clearest example – go wrong. His geographic focus is the United States, with portfolio exposure spanning Ethereum-based DeFi and Cosmos ecosystem projects. Further detail on his personal angel positions beyond what Delphi discloses publicly is not readily available from open sources. For current portfolio disclosures, the Delphi Digital ventures page and his Crunchbase profile are the most reliable starting points.