RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖Week of 09/27/24

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. 

📣 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 where we invest $100k into companies interested in designing and launching a token, over a twelve-week hands-on program.
  

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RBV Spotlight 🚀

Mintify Becomes First Webacy Approved Partner!

Mintify, an NFT orderbook platform has been officially recognized as the first Webacy Approved partner! 

This means that Mintify has successfully passed Webacy’s vetting process, meeting its standards of safety and security. With this, Mintify will be able to leverage Webacy’s EmbeddedSafety APIs to enhance smart contract security by scanning upcoming mints in real-time for vulnerabilities. Users will also be able to access risk assessments directly on their wallets from Mintify’s platform. 

Congrats to the team!

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Portfolio News

Limewire launches Blocknode, a Decentralized GPU marketplace

• Limewire has launched Blocknode a GPU network which connects GPU providers and AI users, allowing the monetization of idle GPUs and competing on cost, onboarding fronts and unique tokenomics fronts against more established GPU marketplaces.

• Users can choose between on-demand or spot GPU instances, spot meaning accessing cheapest process at lowest demand environments or on-demand meaning accessing guaranteed GPU instances whenever you want regardless of price 

• Limewire’s system is unique as GPU providers earn LMWR tokens by contributing unused resources, creating a win-win for both providers and users in a decentralized ecosystem.

Flowty Launches new NFT Marketplace

• Flowty’s new self-service NFT launchpad lets anyone, regardless of experience, create NFT collections for free in under 5 minutes.

• Collections automatically meet Flow Blockchain’s metadata standards and are supported on Flowty’s marketplace.

• As part of the launch, Flowty is giving away 20,000 FLOW tokens across 20+ platforms.

Layer3 expanding to Solana

• Layer3 is a platform designed for dApp distribution, aimed to provide strong user experience and 24/7 engagement for users across web3, while supporting decentralized protocols through the $L3 token.

• Layer3 is aiming to serve as a distribution hub for Solana protocols, allowing seamless user interaction and incentives.

• Top projects like Drift Protocol and Magic Eden are partnering with Layer3, offering users trading, lootboxes, and rewards, all powered by the $L3 token launching soon on Solana.

AltoIRA Partners with Sidecar

• AltoIRA, a platform enabling investors to use retirement funds to invest in alternative assets is partnering with SideCar Angels, a Boston-based investment group focused on investing at the same terms as lead investors

• Alto has announced a sleight of partnerships aimed at keeping asset options available to users robust, incurring diverse access to unique asset classes to invest retirement funds in

• With the new partnership, accredited investors using Alto can leverage SideCar's syndicate model to simplify investing in startups, real estate, and more. Visit SideCar Angels and AltoIRA for details.

Ben Gladwin named interim Head Coach of Crawley Town F.C. 

• Crawley Town F.C, is a professional football (soccer) club based in West Sussex, England, currently competing in EFL League Two, and will be promoted to League One for the 2025-2026 season.

• First-Team Coach Ben Gladwin has been appointed as the Interim Head Coach following the departure of Don Lindsey who has joined another league 2 team MK Dons

• Gladwin’s interim role marks a period of transition as the club navigates its next steps and league promotion. Let’s go Crawley Town!

DFNS now supports Kaspa Currency: 

• DFNS is a wallet and service company providing keyless infrastructure for securing digital assets, and Kaspa is a scalable proof-of-work blockchain that uses the blockDAG structure to achieve high throughput and fast transaction confirmations.

• By integrating Kaspa as a Tier 1 blockchain, Dfns enables developers to interact with the network using MPC wallets, which enables developers to transfer KAS securely, check balances, and broadcast txs, all in a secure environment. :

• The partnership strengthens the Kaspa ecosystem by enhancing both the developer and retail experience

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🔔 Active Investment Opportunities:

PWR Chain: First Blockchain to Create Direct Interoperability with Web2 | Token Warrant

• PWR Chain is revolutionizing blockchain infrastructure by creating direct interoperability with Web2, enabling seamless deployment of programming languages across external VMs, side chains, and smart contracts.

• Testnet live since 2023 with various projects already building on the platform. Mainnet launch scheduled for Q4 2024. PWR Chain uniquely eliminates platform limitations, mirroring the decentralized structure of the internet.

• $6M Pre-Seed raise via SAFT with a $90M pre-money valuation cap and token price of $0.09. 

• Backed by notable investors including Tim Draper’s Draper Associates, Magnus Capital (Astra Protocol, Desofy), Alphabit Fund (Sire), GVG Capital, and Crypto Oasis Ventures.

• Co-founder & CEO Melanie Mohr, serial entrepreneur with 20+ years in media and mobile technology, and Co-founder & CTO Edy Haddad, blockchain veteran with on-chain records for gas-efficient smart contracts, are leading this transformative project.

• Link to invest

OnChain Studios (Cryptoys): Revolutionizing Digital Toys | Dapper Labs Led Series A+ and Backing from a16z and Draper Associates | Cosing Soon

• OnChain Studios is building Cryptoys, fully interactive digital toys on a platform hosting games, apps, and immersive experiences, capitalizing on the rapid shift of children's play to digital formats.

• $2M in sales during beta, partnerships with Disney, Mattel, and NASCAR, 4 major IPs launched including Star Wars and Mickey and Friends.

• Patent-pending COPPA-compliant Guardian Controls for under-13 market, built on Flow blockchain, combining Play-to-Earn games with next-level experiences.

• Strong team and backers: Led by CEO Will Weinraub, backed by Dapper Labs, Andreessen Horowitz, Draper Associates, Acrew Capital, and Coinfund.

• Raising $10M Series A+ via SAFE with $30M post-money valuation cap and token warrant. 

• With traditional toy companies struggling to adapt (Mattel $6.4B, Hasbro $9.4B market caps) and digital play leaders thriving (Roblox $28B), Cryptoys is well-positioned in this growing market.

• Link to invest

xMarkets: Creator-Focused Prediction Market Platform | Polymarket ($1B Valuation) Competitor 

• xMarkets is revolutionizing prediction markets by enabling verified X users with 1,000+ followers to create markets on any topic using AI-driven tools for clarity and efficiency

• AI agent for market creation, $100 fee for quality curation, multiple resolution methods (LLMs, market creators, pricing oracles), and seamless X integration

• Secured KOLs with 10M+ followers, planning September launch ahead of presidential election. 

• Competitor Polymarket valued at ~$1B

• Led by experienced team: Co-founder AJ, MIT CS grad and former Microsoft ML Engineer, previously founded DeFi projects reaching $50M TVL and $1.1B market cap. 

• Backed by notable investors: Wes Cowan (Juice.finance), Paul Taylor (BlackRock), OneFlow Digital founder, Rahim Noorani (Satori.finance), Peter Huo (Whampoa Digital), and Eckhardt Capital. 

• Raising $1.5M Pre-Seed with $15M post-money valuation cap SAFE + $XMKT token warrant. 

• Link to invest

StackingDAO: Liquid Staking on Stacks (The largest L2 on BTC) | Building what Lido (1.83B FDV) is for Ethereum

• Stacking DAO is building a liquid staking protocol for Stacks, the largest L2 on Bitcoin, solving issues like long unlock periods, high minimum requirements, and manual relocking.

• $110M TVL since December 2023 launch, fastest-growing DeFi protocol in Stacks history, holding 17% of stacked STX.

• Backed by Portal Ventures, Golden Chain Republic (Republic's Digital Asset Arm), Modular Capital, and Cherry Crypto.

• Strong potential to become the Lido (current $1.83B FDV) of Stacks, offering auto-compounding tokenized representation of stacked STX (stSTX).

• Link to invest

Monoquant: Revolutionizing Quantitative Trading for Crypto

• Monoquant is developing an AI-powered platform that democratizes quantitative trading in the $2.1T cryptocurrency market, allowing investors at all levels to create, backtest, and deploy automated trading strategies.

• Impressive data moat covering 60% of DeFi and 70% of CeFi markets, with over 4 trillion data points.

• Secured broker agreements with major exchanges (OKX, Binance, Crypto.com, Bybit, MEXC) spanning ~85% of CEX volume.

• Backed by Cherry Street Digital Assets Fund and Alumni Ventures.

• Raising a pre-seed round at an attractive $20M post-money valuation cap with SAFE + token warrant. $MONQ token with 15% unlock at TGE, 3-month cliff, 12-month linear vesting.

• Link to invest

Travelswap: Exclusive Expedia Crypto Partner Disrupting Travel

• TravelSwap, an Expedia exclusive, combines travel booking with 100+ crypto payments, tokenized reservations, and rewards.

• Impressive traction since July 2023 launch: 1,000+ bookings, 50+ B2B partners, 10k+ users (50% MoM growth), 12%+ repeat bookings.

• 2024 plans: $TRAVL token, last-minute DEX, V2 B2B platform, expanded offerings.

• Link to invest

SatRepublic: Leading Ordinals Studio Launches tool for collectors and developers

• SatRepublic, the Ordinals Studio behind Pizza Artifacts, SatScribe is launching Runevo, a mobile-first infrastructure designed to enable users to transact, monitor, trade, and snipe Runes, Rare Stats, and Ordinals.

• Pizza Artifacts, the first historical collection of Ordinals fully inscribed on the exotic 'pizza' Sats from the pizza transaction of May 22, 2010, trading at 25x mint; SatScribe, the first public platform for inscribing on rare and exotic Sats, which has done over 150k paid inscriptions for users; and Runevo, a collection of 6.025 pre-rune Ordinals that sold out in under 24 hours to raise $1.4mm USD, or 17.4 BTC.

• Link to invest: 

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🥳 Upcoming Events: 

Events are a great way to stay informed in our industry, so we are planning for a very full 2024. We would love to hear about any other conferences you will be attending or the remainder of this year, so please let us know as we are still planning our event calendar! 

We will be attending Token2049 in Singapore during September! Please email [email protected] or [email protected] if you plan to be there too!

We will be hosting an event in Singapore and we would love to have - make sure to RSVP!

Stay tuned for updates on future events, and until then, keep spreading joy and positivity in our community!

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🤝 We are also 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 🚀