Sandeep Nailwal is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Polygon , one of the world's leading Ethereum scaling solutions. Beyond building one of Web3's most successful infrastructure projects, Nailwal has made over 30 investments in blockchain and tech startups as an active angel investor. He joined hands with Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun in late 2017 to create Matic Network, the precursor of Polygon , which would go on to become a multi-billion dollar ecosystem.
Nailwal attended the Indian Institute of Management and previously worked at Scopeweaver as a co-founder and CEO . His blockchain journey began with Bitcoin in 2013 , though his true turning point came when he coded his first Ethereum decentralized application years later. His investment range is $10K to $500K, with a focus on Web3/Blockchain, Web3/Crypto, and FinTech at pre-seed and seed stages .
Notable Investments
Nailwal has 2 unicorns in his portfolio, namely Berachain and Humanity Protocol . His investment portfolio includes ether.fi, FanTV and 146 more companies . Recent notable investments include Self as part of their Seed VC on November 13, 2025 and D3 Global's $25M Series A led by Paradigm, joined by Coinbase Ventures and other notable investors . Other portfolio companies mentioned include Morph, Mystiko.Network, Dolomite.io, Clique, Sahara AI, Lava Foundation, FanTiger, and Joyn . Nailwal primarily invests in United States, India and 21 additional locations .
Team and Investment Vehicles
Nailwal co-founded Symbolic Capital in 2022, raising $50 million to support Web3 projects, particularly from emerging markets . The Symbolic Capital fund reflects his personal mission to back underdog founders. He promised himself that one day he would build a firm committed to betting on underdogs, a firm that would invest in companies based on merit, not connections or pedigree . He is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates .
Recent Activity
In June 2025, Nailwal took charge at the Polygon Foundation as chief executive officer, claiming unilateral control of the organization . His changes include a plan to rapidly launch a full-featured Agglayer, Polygon's cross-chain aggregator, and evolve Polygon PoS into the high-throughput GigaGAS chain featuring 100,000 transactions per second . Nailwal also intends to sunset the Polygon zkEVM chain, recognizing that the product lacked a strong strategic position .
His latest venture, Sentient, boasts an intriguing lineup of co-founders including an IISc professor, a Princeton professor, a YC alum, and aims to decentralize AI . On the philanthropic side, his organization Blockchain For Impact (BFI) committed USD 200 million to scale healthcare startups and expand biomedical research initiatives . He also initiated a COVID-19 relief fund in India, raising over $2.2 million , which included support from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Nailwal's portfolio shows consistent focus on blockchain infrastructure, DeFi protocols, and Web3 tooling. He has 6 portfolio exits including Orb Club, Arcana, ToposWare and Divergence . While his notable wins include early backing of now-unicorn projects, Polygon Labs underwent restructuring in February, laying off 60 employees or about 19 per cent of its staff , reflecting the challenging market conditions Web3 companies faced. His investment strategy remains grounded in supporting scrappy founders from emerging markets who face similar barriers he once encountered when building Polygon. Public information about specific AUM beyond the $50 million Symbolic Capital fund or detailed investment performance metrics is limited. His track record as both operator and investor positions him as one of India's most influential voices in global crypto markets.
