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- RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖
RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖
Open Deals, Portfolio Updates, Crypto News, RBV Fund I Closing & More
Joshua Howard
May 10, 2023
RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖: Open Deals, Portfolio Updates, Crypto News, RBV Fund I Closing & More
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The technologies we are seeing today are the ones that will be commonplace just a few years from now. It feels as if companies like OpenAI have been commonplace, but public knowledge was all but nonexistent before last November! Feel free to check Google Trends on that term here. Less than half a year later, the company is valued in the multi-billions, hundreds of companies have started to build off their backbone, and many of our lives have changed. This is only the beginning, and even though there is a wide sea of opportunities, somewhere out there is the next OpenAI, or Tesla, or Ethereum. Our work puts us in the privileged position of searching for that “Next Big Thing”, and we do our absolute best to make sure you, all our valued syndicate members, get a chance to invest in them before our lives are all changed yet again. Perhaps that company is still in stealth, maybe they’re raising right now, all we know is that it will happen, and we will try our best to find a way into it.
Just a quick reminder that we have started our search for candidates for our Tokenomics Accelerator, Denarii Labs. This initiative, jointly powered by Red Beard Ventures and Horizen Labs Ventures (known for creating Yuga Labs’ ApeCoin and many other successful projects), aims to assist Web3 builders in designing, developing, and executing their tokenomics and token launch strategies with the help of top-notch advisors, strategic partners, and investors.
Through the accelerator, five fortunate projects will be selected and equipped with the necessary skills to achieve an exceptional token release within three months of the curriculum. Interested parties can register at www.denariilabs.xyz.
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🚨 TL;DR: This Week in Crypto
Bittrex files for bankruptcy
SBF asks for leniency
Binance onboards Bitcoin Ordinals
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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 $100k - $1M in Pre-seed and Seed blockchain-based companies.
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🔔 Active Investment Opportunities:
Texas Ranchers, Major League Pickleball Team: The Fastest Growing Sport in the World
Ranchers global is acquiring the Texas Ranchers, one of the top pickleball teams in the league
The investment also comes with a stake in Major League Pickleball itself
The popularity of pickleball exploded in 2022, with now 36 million players worldwide
Storybook: #1 Parenting App in 90 Countries
We are cosyndicating with Umami Capital
$1.9 M in ARR, growing 20% monthly
Strong investor roster including Goodwater, Jason Calacanis, Magma Partners, Google Latino Founders Fund
Siegelman Stable: Streetwear with a Conscience - Gary Vaynerchuk Lead
Rapidly gaining mass appeal and A-list celebrity endorsements
Nearly one million dollars in gross revenue in 2022
Founded by the son from a top horse racing family, Max Siegelman, past collaborator with Kanye West, NBA teams, Puma, Hypebeast, Lexus, and more
One Earth Rising: Ownable Interoperability for Modern Gaming
Their standard has self-sovereignty and a format game engines can understand
This format seeks to become industry standard
All facets of the asset - items, moments, stats - are able to be minted
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 and loan offers to compete
110 schools are current 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 more than 90%
$22M forecast in 2023
Backed by Andreesen Horowitz
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
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
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
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!
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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 will be heading to VeeCon 2023 this month, so any of our LPs that will be in Indianapolis, Indiana please feel free to reach out! There is a rumor we will be hosting an event as well. Stay tuned for next week's newsletter for a recap!
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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 Jalak Jobanputra who is the Founder and Managing Partner of Future Perfect Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in decentralized technologies. She has invested in over 50 companies in the blockchain, crypto assets, AI, and Internet of Things spaces.
She is also the founder of Collective Future, an organization that fosters diversity and inclusion in the blockchain sector. Prior to Future/Perfect Ventures, Jalak was Director of Emerging Market Mobile Investments at Omidyar Network and Senior Vice President at the NYC Investment Fund.
Watch the Latest Episode Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHLlhAHXKYE
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🪙 Crypto News:
The SEC accused Bittrex of operating an unregistered securities exchange
The exchange has a balance sheet ranging between $500M to $1B
Previously, the company agreed to pay $29M in fines related to violations of US sanctions and anti-money laundering laws
The FTX founder argued that prosecutors overreached by charging civil/regulatory issues as federal crimes
Prosecutors argued that SBF cheated investorses, looted customer deposits, and violated anti-bribery provisions in China
SBF’s lawyers claim the charges were filed to bypass the terms of the extradition treaty between the US and Bahamas
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🗃️ Portfolio News:
Azuro V2, released in February, has re-provisioned liquidity, enabling betting on the most popular markets
The Azuro Score points earned between May 15th and 31st will also be counted double to celebrate the return
For the next few months, Azuro will be adding more sports, dApps, and betting products
Web3 land domains are a special type of universal address that spans metaverse worlds, allowing users to point directly to their virtual lands and parcels
The body aims to create a standard that will work cross-platform and be consistent
Other OMA3 board members include Alien Worlds, Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Metametaverse, Sandbox, Space, Superworld, and Upland.
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💸 NFT Alpha
Binance NFT marketplace announced support for Ordinals, adding another chain to its NFT ecosystem
Binance users will be able to purchase and trade Ordinals, along with royalty support and other revenue streams
Ordinals have seen extreme growth, hitting over 3M inscriptions
Led by 1KX, alongside Big Brain Holdings, Kronos Research, CRIT Ventures, and LayerZero Labs founders
Pudgy Penguins was purchased by Luca Netz in April 2022 amid controversy in the project
Despite the NFT market downturn, PP has pursued media projects, physical merch, and other mainstream ventures
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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