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July 11, 2022

QED hires Courtney Christianson as head of investor relations

By

Ashley Marshall

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QED Investors, a leading global venture capital firm focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies, today announced the hire of Courtney Christianson.

Courtney joins QED as head of investor relations and will be responsible for increasing the global scale of its investor relations function and the scope of its sources of investment capital. She will develop and strengthen relationships with new and existing investors as well as design and manage future fundraising strategies from inception to outcome.

“This is a critical role in the evolution of QED and I am thrilled to bring on such a talented and well-respected head of IR as Courtney to our team,” said QED Investors Managing Partner Nigel Morris.

“As QED continues to scale, Courtney will play an instrumental role in maintaining ongoing dialogue with potential partners, as well as managing our highly valued relationships with our existing LPs who have put their trust in us.”

Courtney joins QED most recently from KSL Capital, a leader in travel and leisure investing, where she oversaw investor relations and fundraising efforts across equity, opportunistic and credit vehicles, as well as facilitated global team LP coverage.

Previously, Courtney spent three years as the founder of Apogee HQ, a business development consultancy for venture and growth equity managers and companies. She has also served in senior roles at Alpha Edison and 3L Capital. Courtney began her investor relations career at The Blackstone Group in New York as a vice president within private equity.

“QED’s organic growth has fueled relationships with some of the most respected LPs in the world,” said Courtney. “Combining this history with today’s early stage, growth, and opportunistic platform will be an exciting next chapter, and I’m thrilled to support our QED team and investors in continued partnership.”

Courtney will be based in Denver, Colorado.

Contact

Ashley Marshall
Director, PR and Communications
QED Investors
(518) 577-9984

QED Investors, a leading global venture capital firm focused on investing in disruptive financial services companies, today announced the hire of Courtney Christianson.

Courtney joins QED as head of investor relations and will be responsible for increasing the global scale of its investor relations function and the scope of its sources of investment capital. She will develop and strengthen relationships with new and existing investors as well as design and manage future fundraising strategies from inception to outcome.

“This is a critical role in the evolution of QED and I am thrilled to bring on such a talented and well-respected head of IR as Courtney to our team,” said QED Investors Managing Partner Nigel Morris.

“As QED continues to scale, Courtney will play an instrumental role in maintaining ongoing dialogue with potential partners, as well as managing our highly valued relationships with our existing LPs who have put their trust in us.”

Courtney joins QED most recently from KSL Capital, a leader in travel and leisure investing, where she oversaw investor relations and fundraising efforts across equity, opportunistic and credit vehicles, as well as facilitated global team LP coverage.

Previously, Courtney spent three years as the founder of Apogee HQ, a business development consultancy for venture and growth equity managers and companies. She has also served in senior roles at Alpha Edison and 3L Capital. Courtney began her investor relations career at The Blackstone Group in New York as a vice president within private equity.

“QED’s organic growth has fueled relationships with some of the most respected LPs in the world,” said Courtney. “Combining this history with today’s early stage, growth, and opportunistic platform will be an exciting next chapter, and I’m thrilled to support our QED team and investors in continued partnership.”

Courtney will be based in Denver, Colorado.

Contact

Ashley Marshall
Director, PR and Communications
QED Investors
(518) 577-9984

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01

Settlement Collapse

Value transfer moves from days - corresponding banking, T+1 securities - to seconds. Working capital tied up in float is released.

02

Cost Collapse

Marginal transaction cost approaches zero: fractions of a cent, versus 1-6% on card and corresponding rails.

03

Programmability

Money becomes an object that carries logic - escrow, splits, rebates, compliance - executed by code, not back offices.

Pure infrastructure with no revenue accrual

Layer-1 chains and general-purpose middleware — outside our circle of competence and typically outside our stage.

Speculative asset creation

NFT platforms, memecoins, prediction markets styled as products — mapping to none of the five functions; structurally uninvestable for us.

Three structural truths cut across all five functions.

(a)

Regulated-first wins

The 2020/21 cycle proved permissionless purity does not survive contact with real financial regulation. GENIUS, MiCA, CLARITY and the UK/Singapore regimes are producing founders who start from “how do we get licensed” and build backwards — precisely the founder profile QED has always preferred.
(b)

Incumbents upgraded, not disintermediated

JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo are jointly building a tokenized-deposit network; Visa launched a stablecoin platform in July 2026; 140+ businesses signed an open stablecoin standard. Banks migrate — and new-generation infrastructure companies own the picks and shovels of that migration.
(c)

Emerging markets feel it first

Every function improves most where the fiat experience is worst: cross-border payments, dollar access, investment product availability, working-capital finance. Those are exactly the geographies where QED has fintech ventures’ deepest footprint. Our geographic distribution is not incidental to the tokenization thesis — it is the thesis.

Trade & working-capital finance

Finkargo( LatAm import finance) and OatFi(B2B working-capital infrastructure) sit directly on flows whose logical settlement layer is stablecoin.

Collateralized digital-asset lending

Tokenized Treasuries, equities and stablecoin holdings as instant, programmable collateral.

On-chain private credt

Maple, Centrifuge and emerging institutional protocols - credit funds migrating to programmable rails.

Why QED is advanced

Credit is QED's craft: distinguishing lending businesses from fintechs pretending to be one, charge-offs earned from charge-offs deferred. On-chain credit is a straight-line extension, not a stretch.