RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖Week of 2/16/23

Team RBV Open Deals, Portfolio Updates, Crypto News, & More

Author

Joshua Howard
February 16, 2024

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. 


đź“Ł 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 Media

On this episode, Drew Austin welcomes Kyle Ellicott, partner at Bitcoin Frontier Fund to the show to discuss everything Bitcoin! Some topics they dive into include:

  • The Rise of Smart Contracts and Applications on Bitcoin

  • An intro to the Stacks network and how it brings smart contracts and programmability to Bitcoin through its layer 2 solution.

  • The upcoming Nakamoto upgrade and how it will improve transaction speeds on Stacks

  • The future of the Stacks ecosystem and greater Bitcoin layer 2 space

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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RBV Spotlight

Truflation Responds to Bad Inflation Data from BLS

The January 2024 inflation data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed a smaller-than-expected decline to 3.1%, surprising markets and contrasting with Truflation's prediction of a 2.5% rate, based on its independent US CPI index. This discrepancy largely stems from differences in measuring prices, especially in food and housing categories, where Truflation's data suggests a decrease in prices contrary to the BLS's findings of increases. This disagreement highlights the impact of methodological differences and good data; checking a few prices for a few thousand SKUs does not provide the whole picture.  Furthermore, the context of how the BLS weights these prices and what reasons they do is a closed-system, meaning that an over-assumption of prices in the previous period could show an overly-volatile drop in the next period.

Despite the lower-than-anticipated drop in inflation, the Federal Reserve is likely to maintain its hawkish stance on interest rates, given ongoing inflationary pressures and a strong economy. Upcoming economic data, including the PCE inflation number and reports on household savings and employment, will be crucial for future policy decisions. Meanwhile, the crypto market may need to seek growth catalysts beyond immediate monetary policy shifts.

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Portfolio News

  • Adding to their roster of chains available on the Layer Zero bridge, Berachain 

  • An L1 blockchain built on Cosmos SKD, it's a modular EVM that uses “proof of liquidity” in the consensus mechanism

  • Berachain actually started as an NFT project for fun, and grew to an entirely new way to view liquidity and security

  • In an effort to manage the outstanding supply of $TOPIA, the team has rebalanced their holdings

  • The entirety of the 5B supply has been minted, with 800M in circulation

  • Contracts for their staking, team vaults, swaps, nodes, as well as all their multisig wallets, have been published in the same thread

  • The startup’s cell-cultured cocoa products are part of a 10-year deal with the iconic brand

  • This marks the first time this type of chocolate will enter the global market

  • CC’s chocolate avoids the ecological and human-rights issues from normal chocolates

  • The biggest update for this version is the ability to send crypto and NFTs via text to friends not yet on the app

  • Sent assets are held in an abstracted account redeemable by their unique identifier 

  • The app also has allowed FaceID and TouchID for Apple devices

  • As part of the decentralized messaging app they have released AVA

  • AVA works as a personal assistant for all things within the Wilder universe

  • The main purpose of adding AVA is to have an AI co-pilot that doesn’t track data or is a closed-source project

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đź”” Active Investment Opportunities:

Travelswap: Denarii Labs Alumni and the Only Crypto-Native Expedia Partner

  • Building the lowest-cost and -friction crypto travel platform, with future token plans developed by Denarii 

  • Backed by RBV and angels, the platform is already post-revenue

  • Link to invest

Atmos Labs: Web3 Gaming Developer Powerhouse

  • This is the seed extension, receiving both equity and tokens, is supporting the 2024 launch of their flagship game, ExoGP

  • Atomos is building a narrative and economic ecosystem around their game series IP

  • Led by Sora Ventures, Sfermion, GSR, Tectona, and more

  • Link to invest

FranShares: Fixing the Franchise Model

  • They are fixing the operator-to-franchisee model by applying an equity share and crowdfunding model

  • Live today, FranShares has already facilitated $18M in investments with a pipeline of $200M more

  • Backers include Chicago Ventures, VU Venture Partners, and Shawntae Spencer 

  • Link to invest

Deep6 AI: Clinical Trials at Turbo Speed using AI

  • The costliest and longest bottleneck of bringing new health treatments to market is being accelerated by their AI matching system

  • By speeding this delay, Deep6 is able to save billions in revenue, massive drug cost increases, and potentially hundreds or even thousands of lives

  • Backed by Point72, GSR Ventures, Samsung NEXT, 3M ventures, and more

  • Link to invest

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

  • 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

  • Bitscraft, Delphi Digital, and Animoca Brands are all investing

  • Token sale: SAFT, $100M FMV

  • Link to Invest

Carro: Embedded Marketplaces for Influencers, Streamers, and Creators

  • Carro's platform allows anyone to sell products from the world's best brands without spending capital upfront, making inventory commitments, or handling fulfillment.

  • Rev to date, $2M; 3.x2 GMV growth Sept to Nov; partnered with 20k brands

  • Investing alongside PayPal Ventures, Alpha Edison, 11:11 Media, and more

  • Link to invest

Versus Game: Gamified Ads Using Gen-AI

  • This B2B tech helps media, publishers, and brands use generative AI to make interactive content

  • Eric Schmidt, investor and board member, said “This is the most powerful real-world AI application” he’s seen

  • Almost 1000 digital media partners including Forbes, USA Today, ESPN, ABC, Microsoft, and more

  • 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 this year, so please let us know as we are still planning our event calendar! 

This year we will be attending ETH Denver on February 29 through March 3! If you are interested in meeting, please let us know by emailing our chief of staff Lauren at [email protected].

Red Beard Ventures ETH Denver 2023 dinner

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🤝 We are hiring! 

Red Beard Ventures is seeking a Venture Capital Intern to join our team. The intern will focus on identifying and evaluating potential investment opportunities, writing deal memos, and helping with the operations of the syndicate and fund. This internship spans 6 to 12 months, requiring at least 20 hours per week of remote work. For those interested in this position, here is a link to our application.

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 🚀 

Drew, Elana, Mitchell, and LaurenÂ