Joyce kim
Joyce Kim is a co-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation and a former executive director of the organization. Her career has included law, technology entrepreneurship and venture capital.[1][2]
Education and early career
Before Stellar, Kim worked as a corporate and mergers-and-acquisitions attorney, served as chief executive of Soompi, co-founded the mobile-commerce company simplehoney and worked in venture capital at Freestyle Capital. MIT Media Lab's biography records her graduation from Cornell University at 19 and subsequent graduate study at Harvard University and Columbia Law School.[1]
simplehoney and Ripple
Kim co-founded simplehoney with Eric Nakagawa. The company developed applications for travel and shopping, bringing a consumer-product background to her subsequent work in digital payments. On 3 April 2013, simplehoney announced that it had been acquired by OpenCoin, the company developing the Ripple protocol. Its founders and team were to join OpenCoin and work on consumer engagement and usability.[3]
The acquisition announcement described the team's role as making the payment network easier to understand and use. It connected Kim's earlier consumer-technology work with a payments project before Stellar's establishment in 2014.[3][2]
Stellar Development Foundation
Stellar's launch announcement identified Kim as the foundation's executive director, alongside Jed McCaleb and David Mazières leading protocol development. The project described an open-source protocol for transfers between currencies.[2]
The July 2014 announcement presented Stellar as an open-source financial protocol supported by a nonprofit foundation. It separated the foundation's executive role, held by Kim, from protocol development led by McCaleb and Mazières.[2] MIT's biography describes financial access as a central motivation for her involvement in Stellar and records her speaking at the United Nations and World Bank about open networks and economic access.[1]
In a 2017 interview with Forbes, Kim connected her interest in payments to her family's experience sending money between Korea and the United States. She described an interest in financial infrastructure that addressed everyday needs, particularly outside Silicon Valley. These were her stated motivations, rather than evidence that every proposed use of cryptocurrency had achieved those goals.[4]
MIT Media Lab fellowship
On 10 July 2014, MIT Media Lab announced Kim as one of nine incoming Director's Fellows. The announcement described her work on monetary protocols and financial access. The fellowship brought people from different fields into contact with the laboratory; it was distinct from an academic faculty appointment.[5] MIT's current profile lists her as a former fellow.[1]
SparkChain Capital
In October 2017, SparkLabs announced SparkChain Capital, a blockchain-focused fund with a stated size of US$100 million, led by Kim. Forbes identified her as its lead partner and reported a planned focus on early-stage companies internationally. Kim had previously advised SparkLabs' first fund.[4]
In the interview, Kim emphasized evaluating entrepreneurs and teams and building durable technology businesses. The fund announcement and its investment plans describe the position in 2017; they do not establish current assets under management or subsequent investment performance.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 MIT Media Lab: Joyce Kim, checked 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Stellar Development Foundation: Introducing Stellar, 31 July 2014.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 simplehoney: simplehoney Acquired by Ripple Developer OpenCoin, 3 April 2013.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Elaine Ramirez, Forbes: South Korea's SparkLabs Launches $100M Fund To Power Blockchain Startups Worldwide, 18 October 2017, updated 21 October 2017.
- ↑ Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab: Announcing the Director's Fellows Second Cohort, 10 July 2014.