Ev
Taking on a few advisory engagements

Hi, I'm Ev 👋

Founder based in Toronto. I build consumer products used by millions, ship stablecoin infrastructure, and help companies run AI on their own terms.

Work with me What I do
$25M+ raised at 500px from a16z & others
Millions of users across consumer apps
2018 500px acquired by a public company
100 people experience managing large teams

$ cat services.md

Where I can help

Three areas where I've done the work myself, and now advise, build, and consult for companies.

Consulting

Private & open-weights AI

Most companies don't need to send their data to someone else's API. I help teams deploy local models, wire them into their own documents and systems, and get real work out of them.

  • Local and on-prem LLMs: model selection, hardware sizing, deployment
  • Open-weights models (Llama, Qwen, Mistral, DeepSeek, gpt-oss) tuned to your use case
  • RAG over internal docs, wikis, tickets and databases
  • Integrating AI into existing workflows, with evals so you know it works
  • Privacy, data residency, and cost vs. hosted APIs
Advisory · Build

Stablecoins & digital dollars

I've been building on-chain products for years. I help businesses take stablecoins from whitepaper to production, and work out how they fit Canadian rules.

  • USDC integration: wallets, payments, payouts, treasury
  • On/off-ramps and settlement flows between CAD and USD
  • The Canadian legal and regulatory framework, in plain language
  • Smart contract and backend implementation, hands-on coding
  • Product design that hides the crypto from end users
Advisory

Consumer apps at scale

I founded 500px and grew it to millions of photographers, then built Sloika for hundreds of thousands more. I help founders with the parts that are hard the first time.

  • Zero to one: finding the wedge and the first 10,000 users
  • Growth loops, community, and distribution
  • Fundraising: from pre-seed to $25M+ in venture
  • International expansion, with a focus on Japan & APAC
  • Scaling a team toward 100 people, and selling the company

See how consulting works

Free intro call, a clear scope, then hands-on work. The first call is on me.

$ ls companies/

Companies I've built or led

  1. Faraday Machines Now

    Founder

    Frontier AI models running on Mac Studio for ultimate privacy and security.

  2. Moai.cash Now

    Founder

    The super app for everyone. Backed by notable VCs, $2M raised so far.

  3. Sloika Sunset

    Founder

    The first photography NFT marketplace, grown to hundreds of thousands of users.

  4. Sociables Sunset

    Founder

    Social connectivity in web3.

  5. Luminar app APAC market expansion Japan · Taiwan

    Led an 18-person team

    Grew Japan into the company's 3rd largest revenue market. Learned Mandarin along the way.

  6. 500px Acquired 2018

    Founder

    The world's best photography community. Raised $25M+ from a16z and others, grew to millions of users and nearly 100 employees, acquired by a publicly traded company.

Collaborated with these companies:

$ ls side-quests/

Things I build for fun

Small apps I build and run on the side.

Tinymomo

A note-taking app for busy moms.

Chow.town

Report city issues straight to your council rep.

Bitquiz

Daily quiz with bitcoin prizes, on Farcaster.

Bitworld

Daily geography quiz with prizes.

Lexipop

Daily vocabulary quiz.

DON.money

Provably fair double-or-nothing on-chain.

Sonopolis

Your personal walking tour guide.

Mapleview

Canadian parliamentary bills, explained simply.

$ whoami

A bit more about me

I was born in Moscow and grew up in Canada. After graduating with honours in Finance from Ryerson University (now TMU), I founded 500px in Toronto. We raised over $25M from a16z and others, grew to almost 100 people, and were acquired by a publicly traded Chinese company in 2018.

After that I learned Mandarin and moved my work to Asia, mostly Japan and Taiwan, leading APAC market expansion for the Luminar photo-editing app. Since then I've been building in crypto: first Sloika, now Moai.cash, which is backed by notable VCs.

Outside of work: cycling in the summer, snowboarding in the winter, and books on whatever I'm curious about that month.

$ cat press.md

Press & media

I write for Forbes about technology, startups and photography, and I'm happy to talk on podcasts, panels and in the press.

Forbes · Contributor

AI Is Already Changing The Way We Think About Photography 5 Photo Industry Trends To Keep An Eye On In 2018 With Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Burned, The Dockless Bike Sharing Market Is Imploding All articles on Forbes

Podcast, panel or press?

Private AI, stablecoins, scaling consumer apps, and growth in Asia.

Invite Ev to speak

$ mail ev

Let's build something.

Advisory, consulting, or just an interesting idea. Email or Telegram is the fastest way to reach me.

Toronto

Book a call Email me Telegram

How consulting works