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- RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖
RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖
Open Deals, Portfolio Updates, Crypto News, RBV Fund I Closing & More
Joshua Howard
November 03, 2023
Welcome to the latest edition of the Red Beard Ventures newsletter, where we dive into exciting updates and insights from all over blockchain, frontier tech, and the angel investing landscape.
In this week's RBV Weekly Newsletter:
📻NEW EPISODE of Red Beard Radio 📻:
In this video, we talk with Alex Pattis of Riverside Ventures and get in to the world of Angel Investing. We go through tips and tricks to starting and running a successful syndicate, what to look for when investing in start-ups, target valuations and what we are seeing in the current market, and how both Red Beard Ventures Syndicate and Riverside Ventures Syndicate have each invested in over 200 companies and grown their LP bases to 4k-5k.
Click here to watch this week’s full podcast!
Each Wednesday at 3pm, Join us for a weekly dose of investing knowledge and industry expertise. Subscribe now! → @red-beard-radio
Red Beard Radio is Sponsored by Alto. Alto makes it easy for individuals to invest in alternative assets with their retirement funds through a self-directed IRA. Access private deals on Alto Marketplace, their new platform for accredited investors.
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📣 As a reminder, Red Beard Ventures has a syndicate, fund, and a tokenomics accelerator:
The Red Beard Ventures Syndicate is stage agnostic and invests in Frontier Technology with a focus on Web3, Space, FinTech, Sports, Robotics, Biotech, and Climate. We invest anywhere between $100k - $1.5M.
The Red Beard Ventures Fund I invests $100k - $1M in Pre-seed and Seed blockchain-based companies.
Denarii Labs is a tokenomics accelerator in partnership with Horizen Labs Ventures, where we invest $100k into companies interested in designing and launching a token, over a twelve-week hands-on program.
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🚨 TL;DR: This Week in Crypto
This Week:
Coinbase offers leveraged futures
Portco NoRamp launches podcast
Bitcoin ETF possible this week
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🪙 Crypto News:
Retail crypto traders with a Coinbase Advanced account now have access to Coinbase Financial markets
The contracts are sized at .01 BTC or .1 ETH, for lower-volume traders
These futures contracts allow the users to utilize leverage, meaning smaller price movements can have a reaction in amplified ways
Scott Johnsson of Davis Polk posted that the commissioners for Greayscale’s approval will meet Nov. 2
It’s still possible there will not be any news, if the deadline is pushed again
This comes just after an appellate judge ruled that the ETF application required a response
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🗃️ Portfolio News:
The Texas Ranchers will be playing on home turf for this multi-day tournament
Between Margaritaville Hotels and Resorts and “Latitude Margaritaville” communities in Dallas, they boast over 30 dedicated courts
If any RBV syndicate LPs are in Dallas, please reach out to [email protected]
The founders of NoRamp have published a podcast focused on the startup and blockchain industry
They have four episodes populated by now, interviewing founders and executives of some of the biggest successes in recent venture capital
CEO Daniel Kiani and Chief of Staff Ben Ornstien publish this podcast weekly on several podcast apps and and YouTube
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💸 NFT Alpha:
The sale of the copied NFTs was not deemed an artistic parody
Ryder Ripps, open critic of the project, must pay in damages the total profit of the sale, plus $200k in statutory damages
“This victory not only defeats scammers but supports creators advancing Web3 experiences worldwide,” Yuga Labs spokesperson
The artist once called the “American Mirror” is the creator of iconography synonymous with the culture
Acting as a digital certificate of authenticity, the NFT associated with the limited prints will be issued by the Norman Rockwell Museum
Only 350 individual NFTs will be minted, and each purchase comes with a physical print of the associated piece of artwork
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🔔 Active Investment Opportunities:
Oort: Decentralized AI-powered AWS
Also investing out of Red Beard Ventures Fund I, where we have committed $500k
Oort offers 80% savings, AI-powered smart search, and blockchain integrations
Their no-code LLM is able to act like an expert on any dataset available, with simple conversational commands
We are receiving a 1:1 Token warrant for our investment
Veremark: Global background checks for the remote-worker world
This Series B round is with Stage2 Capital, Samaipata Ventures, Triplepoint, and more
Veremark stores encrypted background check data on the blockchain as a verified digital credential
Experiencing massive growth and giant clients like McDonalds, Grant Throton, Pepsi, and more
Revenue for 2024 projected to be $9m, up from a projected $4.2M this year
Minima: the future of the “Internet of Things”
Minima is purpose-built for device-to-device or device-to-blockchain communication
This is the first solution that’s economical, scales well, and is technologically advanced enough to handle mass data through extremely small hardware
The IoT landscape is projected to hit $5,000,000,000,000 (five trillion) by 2030
IoT infrastructure has been lacking innovation, hindering this growth
Canva: deeply discounted shares in a quadruple-deca-unicorn
We are bringing this amazing allocation to our LPs at a significant discount
Last round valuation was $40B; these shares are at a 36% discount
Canva has significantly higher revenue than their main competitors
Millions of users and growing, adding AI tools, and more
Tactogen: Mental health medicine using MDMA therapy
Science is now learning of the therapeutic effects of MDMA, and Tactogen is developing non-psychedelic ‘enactogens’ that provide a more focused, gentle healing
Conservative estimates suggest up to 25% of adults could benefit significantly from MDMA therapy
First patent awarded in April, on the road to FDA approval
Investing alongside Lifeforce Capital, and co-syndicating with Gaingels
National Cycling League: an NFL-style fan-friendly facing format
NCL is a revolution (get it, like a bicycle) in a sport ripe for racing fans of all types
Expansion plan in place expected to generate $5.2M in revenue from 8 events
10 signed teams, 2 year broadcast deal with Warner Bros., and Discovery+ listing
Low CapEx model for a high participation sport is a recipe for success
The National Thoroughbred League (NTL): Pioneer of team-based horse racing
Invest alongside Red Beard Ventures as part of the 100% ownership of the New Jersey Horse Racing team.
Key figures include rappers Nelly and Rick Ross, NFL star Kayvan Thibodeux, the NBA's Danny Green and retired basketball player Baron Davis.
Revenue streams from league-wide, mixed, and local sources.
Upcoming launch in Nashville with a $500,000 race and a concert by Anderson Paak.
NTL incorporates Web3 concepts for NFTs, digital games, virtual experiences, metaverse activations, and DAO participation.
Tafi: The Global Leader in 3D Assets and Text-to-3D genAI
Largest commercial library of 3D assets in the world; customers include Coca-Cola, HBO, Warner/DC, Coinbase, and others
Their product DAZ 3D (link to demo here) creates ultra-HD fully compatible and customizable characters
Exclusive partnership with NVIDIA to train even greater AI capabilities
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
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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!
If you are an investor in MLP and want to attend, please email [email protected]
If you are an LP or Investor and want to join, please use our VIP COMP CODE.
We hosted another event in Santa Monica for Founders and Investors - Thank you to everyone who came!
If you are a founder and want to come to the next one RSVP here.
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🤝 We are hiring!
We are looking for part-time 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, Mitchell, and Lauren