Ignite · 2026-06-16 · 47 min
Jonathan David Nelson has lived a stranger founder journey than most: missionary kid in Latin America, trauma nurse, software engineer, founder community builder, and now capital markets contrarian. After building Hackers and Founders from a bar meetup into a global startup community, Jonathan now runs HF Capital - an AI-native investment bank focused on IPOs, secondaries, and M&A. In this episode, Jonathan breaks down why he believes the U.S. public markets are failing most companies below decacorn scale, why the London Stock Exchange may be a better path for growth-stage startups than another brutal private round, and how AI could rebuild the infrastructure behind investment banking. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 00:01 - Introduction to Jonathan David Nelson and HF Capital 01:23 - From Missionary Kid in Latin America to Trauma Nurse 03:10 - How Hackers and Founders Started as a Bar Meetup 04:26 - Why Fundraising Is a Brute Force Algorithm 05:37 - Understanding Capital Flow Like Blood Flow 08:15 - Advising the SEC and the Limits of Crowdfunding 09:40 - Why Startup Exits Remain the Broken Piece 10:47 - Why U.S.
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