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RBV Weekly Newsletter
Open Deals, Portfolio Updates, Crypto News, RBV Fund I Closing & More
Joshua Howard
March 29, 2023
RBV Weekly Newsletter: Open Deals, Portfolio Updates, Crypto News, RBV Fund I Closing & More
Hi Mitchell,
We are happy to announce that our team will be attending Consensus at the end of April! The premier event for the Web3/Crypto world, held in Austin TX, brings together some of the brightest minds and best startups in the industry. We cannot wait to dive into all the cutting-edge tech, make deeper connections in the industry, and of course source some truly top-quality opportunities for our syndicate LPs.
If you are planning on attending, please feel free to reach out - we will take special care to keep you in the loop regarding events or talks we are participating in, or simply find time to meet personally if possible. Stay tuned and be sure to read these updates in the coming weeks for updates!
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TLDR: This Week in Crypto
Binance sued by CFTC
SBF faces new charge: $40M bribe to China
EU gives mandate for smart contract “kill switch”
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As a reminder, Red Beard Ventures has both a syndicate and fund:
The Red Beard Ventures Syndicate is stage agnostic and invests in Frontier Technology with a focus on Web3, Space, FinTech, Robotics, Biotech, and Climate. We invest anywhere between $100k - $1.5M.
The Red Beard Ventures Fund I invests $250k - $1M in Pre-seed and Seed blockchain-based companies. Our 2nd and final close will be March 31, 2023.
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Active Investment Opportunities:
Degen Labs: an NFT solution to sales commission in the gig economy
They’ve built TAP (Tokenized Affiliate Protocol), which allows for any organization permissionless access to a decentralized and globally distributed salesforce
Any company can connect to a globally distributed salesforce to reduce overhead
Salespeople can hold the NFT to accrue commission or sell to value investors who want the passive income
Pilot program Degen Distillery has already partnered with UK’s largest pub chain
Meratas: Expedia for student loans - last check, oversubscribed round
This round is led by Jason Calacanis, legendary investor from The All In podcast
Multi-lender marketplace allows users to compare loan terms and loan officers/lenders to compete among themselves
110 schools are paying customers, at $1300/mo
Projected revenue of $6M in 2023
Toka: Cybersecurity tools for modern international protection
Second year of revenue doubled with multiple government PoCs
Gross margins are more than 90%
$22M forecast in 2023
Backed by Andreesen Horowitz
The Sandbox: Global leader and largest metaverse platform
$SAND is a Top 50 Cryptocurrency >$2B
$250M+ current virtual real estate LAND value
>$700M digital asset portfolio
$4.3M highest LAND price paid
~3X more LAND sales than competitor Decentraland
250K+ creators and brands are using the no-code tools to mind new items and experiences each month!
GET protocol: The Premium NFT Ticketing Solution
GET has been building NFT ticketing since 2016
They have a full range of ticketing products for event holders, from self-service to full concierge, and also whitelabel solutions
Issued nearly 3.4 Million tickets (1.7M in 2022 alone), over 17k events
Investment includes a token grant AND discounted token purchase rights
Colossal: A Real-Life Jurassic Park
Colossal is using genetic engineering to clone extinct species
The Woolly Mammoth is set to once again walk the Earth in 2027!
Their technology of reconstructing ancient DNA to the point of cloning is revolutionizing the biotech field
This is their series B, and we are co-syndicating with our friends at C3
They have signed ten LOIs with zoos for paid exhibits, with a projected $500M in yearly revenue
Simply Eggless: The Future of Egg Alternatives
Simply Eggless is the second-largest producer and supplier of plant-based eggs globally, with a revenue of $2M in 2022
Their products are sold in over 2.8k stores in North America and the company is looking to expand to 1k more stores, serving their massive popularity among Gen Z and Millennials
The main ingredient used by Eggless is lupin bean, which offers high protein, excellent baking functionality, and is environmentally friendly
The competitors in vegan egg alternatives all fall behind Simply Eggless, which has a much more versatile and shelf-stable product
Knights of Degen: Co-Founded by Drew Austin! Web3 Sports & Gaming Ecosystem + $10M in Sales + Acquired League DAO Defi Fantasy Protocol
KoD is building a meta-game for sports betting fans that rewards degen activities, from betting, to fantasy gaming, to building as a DAO contributor.
Assets of KOD include fantasy gaming software, bet2earn protocol, mobile application, media network, p2e gaming assets and teams, professional sports ownership stakes, nfts, and more.
The KOD Inc. cap table will be allocated 30% of the Degen Token market supply.
BoostVC (Coinbase, Etherscan, Alta, Wyre) is leading the round w/ participation from RBV Fund I
Seed, $30M Post-Money + Token
Blocklords: GoT Meets Axie - Revolutionizing Play-To-Earn Gaming
Blocklords already has 120k pre-registered for their play-to-earn game
The medieval-based game allows players to craft their narrative while simultaneously earning cryptocurrency for tasks they complete within the game (Play-to-earn model).
Blocklords is focusing on delivering value to the user first to build up the user base and ecosystem first - This approach seems to be working by their massive sign-up and connection numbers
Money earned can be used to progress in the game or traded on crypto exchanges.
Bitscraft, Delphi Digital, and Animoca Brands are all investing
SAFT, $100M FMV
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Upcoming Events:
In-person events are a great way to stay informed in our industry, so we are planning for a very full 2023. We would love to hear about any other conferences you will be attending this year, so please let us know as we are still planning our event calendar! We have provided our tentative list for 2023 below:
Consensus
VeeCon
Bitcoin Miami
ETH Portland
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New Podcast Episode:
In this week's episode of The Girls Table, Elana Dickman, also known as TradingFemale is joined by Jacob Jaber who is currently the Co-founder & Chairman of Philz Coffee.
If you haven’t been to Philz Coffee yet, I must say you are missing out. Philz Coffee’s unique blends, community-oriented stores, and one-cup-at-a-time approach have drawn a cult following nationwide. Founded by Phil (Jacob's Dad) with Jacob by his side, the first store opened in the Mission district of San Francisco in 2002. Jacob started running the business at the age of 18 and has since guided Philz to national expansion, opening more than 70 stores on the East and West coasts.
Philz has raised $75 million in venture capital, and the once-small Bay Area cult coffee shop is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the national coffee scene.
Watch the Latest Episode Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB8NHsReS9w
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Crypto News:
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged Binance and Founder CZ on Monday
Charges are regarding options trading, lax KYC policies, and US customer policies
Internal logs show that Binance directed employees to use a VPN to enable options and leverage trading
Internal logs also revealed a system of 300 accounts Binance used to trade on their public order books
This is the 13th charge in the indictment from November
It regards a situation where Chinese authorities froze over $1B of Alameda accounts
The accounts were frozen by the Chinese banking official that received the $40M transfer in November 2021
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Portfolio News:
Available for a limited time only, ZED RUN released a collection of racing jackets, hoodies, t-shirts, beanies, and hats
This is a “phygital” collection, meaning each physical item has a digital twin
Preorders will end as the collection sells out
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NFT Alpha
The plan was ordered by now-UK PM (then Finance Minister) Rishi Sunak
Reasoning for the stop order was that demand is too low
UK Economic Secretary reasserted the government’s plans to delve deeper into blockchain technology back in December
The gaming studio, which has doubled down on Web3 in the past year, released NFT cards of their classic Final Fantasy game
These NFTs will come as part of physical card packs, with 6 paper cards and 1 digital one per pack
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We had a successful first close for Red Beard Ventures Fund I, and started receiving commitments towards our second and final close. We would love to talk if you are interested in learning more about the fund, you can reply back to this message to schedule a time to speak with the team.
Below we have provided some additional information about RBV Fund I:
Red Beard Ventures Fund I is a full-stack web3 fund investing across blockchain consumer applications, infrastructure, gaming, the metaverse, and DeFI in both equity and tokens and Pre-Seed through Series A
Fund I closing March 31, 2023
We have completed 15 deals, deploying $6.5M in capital
All LPs in the fund will have their carry reduced by 50% (20% reduced to 10%) on any investments made via the syndicate going forward
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We are hiring!
We are looking for syndicate vertical leads in the following categories - if you are interested please reach out and we can discuss the opportunity in greater detail:
Biotech
Space
Robotics & Automation
Climate
Fintech & SaaS
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Onwards
Drew, Elana, Whit, Mitchell, and Lauren