Daniel Barabander

Daniel is an Investment Partner and the Chief Legal Officer at Variant. 

Daniel brings a unique combination of experiences to the role: a former YC-backed founder, a software engineer with a builder’s mindset, and a recognized expert on the intersection of frontier tech and the law. Daniel’s approach to investing blends technical depth with legal fluency — he speaks both “smart contracts” and “dumb contracts.”

Before Variant, Daniel helped lead crypto matters at the law firm Cravath, where he advised on everything from M&A to enforcement and helped traditional institutions, DeFi protocols, and stablecoin issuers operate in uncertain regulatory terrain. He began his career as a PM at the New York Stock Exchange, then taught himself to code and launched a startup that digitized ordering for restaurants. He draws on these experiences to help founders build defensible products and scale with legal and institutional rigor from day one.