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- RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖
RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖
Open Deals, Portfolio Updates, Crypto News, RBV Fund I Closing & More
Joshua Howard
October 27, 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 Alan Perlstein about California Cultured's groundbreaking Lab Grown Coffee and Chocolate. Discover how science and technology are stepping up when supplies are running low. Don't miss out on the latest advancements in food production! 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:
Huge crypto rally possibly thaws 1.5 year long winter
TradFi adopts blockchain for EU bonds
The Sandbox hires content leader
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🪙 Crypto News:
Despite the refutation from ETF submissions, the market plans for approval
Halving coming up early next year also pressures buyers
CME Open Interest futures exceeds $100k, a new all-time-high
The digital securities issuer sent the first of it’s kind tokenized bond on the Corda blockchain
World Bank CFO: “A transition to digitization is underway in the capital markets”
This is the latest in a series of big moves into DLT by TradFi
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🗃️ Portfolio News:
The world-famous rapper has joined the ownership group for the Major League Pickleball team
Lil Wayne will also be joining in an advisory role for the development of apparel collaborations with the Ranchers
Nicola Sebastiani was most recently at Sony’s Playstation division, building on mobile gaming
His history includes roles at Apple, Square Enix, and Ubisoft
As Chief Content Officer, he will be responsible for The Sandbox’s in-game and user-created content, as well as that of their partner network
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💸 NFT Alpha:
Consolidated Trading got a bump from BRC-20 author Domo
The fund has already deployed 3 BTC into Bitcoin Rock, and plans to acquire tokens, special inscriptions, and other Bitcoin-native alternative assets
Contributions to the fund have already hit $1.5M
Anndy Lian cites major recent NFT moves by Visa, Coca-Cola, Marvel, and other giants
He recently worked on a project with Red Bull and Formula One, The Velocity Pass
Other signs of life are in infrastructure; Fractional, which re-fungibles NFTs, is his example
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🔔 Active Investment Opportunities:
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
Brightvine: mortgage data on the blockchain as an industry standard
Brightvine is building a suite of next-generation products for the securities industry using AI document review and blockchain recordkeeping
Their goal is to embed themselves into the investment banking industry with their time-saving AI tool, then use those connections to become the one-stop-shop of securitization
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
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 of a top horse racing family, Max Siegelman, past collaborator with Kanye West, NBA teams, Puma, Hypebeast, Lexus, and more
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