RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖Week of 2/2/23

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

Author

Joshua Howard
February 01, 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. 

In this week's RBV Weekly Newsletter:

RBV Summit to host a panel of expert Web3 investors!

Capping off the talks on Day 1 of the Red Beard Ventures Summit is a talk sure to interest our syndicate investors.  Seven experts in token investing will be on a panel together to discuss the complex questions involved with investing between tokens and equity.  Everything from OTC token purchases with discounts, to investor allocations, pre-token SAFT agreements, token warrants, and more! Our own Drew Austin will host the panel, which includes key founders and investors from some of the biggest names in Web3 investing.

As a reminder, this will be a summit of RBV portfolio and ecosystem companies, to educate, popularize, and give better familiarity to the cutting-edge tech and Web3 startups we have helped fund or worked with closely over the years. It will include a special Demo Day for the five cohort companies in the Denarii Labs token accelerator program, to showcase the new token projects they have built alongside our mentors and tokenomic experts. More information can be found at the Summit Event Page

To sign up for the Red Beard Ventures Summit 2024, visit the event page. The two-day virtual summit taking place on February 6th and 7th, is a premier event in the Web3 and Frontier Tech space covering a wide range of sectors from blockchain and tokenomics to sports, AI, biotech, and more. 

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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 of Red Beard Radio, Drew and Elana sit down with the founder of GET Protocol, the premier name in NFT ticketing solution.  

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RBV Spotlight

Hytopia testnet “HYCHAIN” now live

As Hytopia begins to transfer on-chain mechanics of the game from their Arbitrum L2 to their own custom L3, developers now have a chance to test out their contracts on the HYCHAIN testnet.  The games on HYCHAIN will experience a significant difference in the L3, with their own node service powered by $TOPIA securing the transaction ordering, scaling, and bridging between the L2.

The premiere game for HYCHAIN, Hytopia, is currently sitting at over 1.1Million players pre-registered for the beta alone. It is in development receiving alpha testing and refinement, and working with day-1 creators to build content in-game. Part of the key values of Hytopia is the open-source nature and accessibility of the very root levels of the game that allow it to be a blank canvas for artists, indie game designers, and other creators to build custom digital experiences.

For more information about the ecosystem, technology, and overall experience of Hytopa, consult the Hytopia documentation page.

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Portfolio News

  • RARI, the Layer 3 blockchain built on Arbitrum Orbit, is built to enable unique royalties mechanisms

  • LayerZero apps can now add RARI Chain from their list of supported networks

  • RARI Chain developers will also be able to connect to 45+ other LayerZero endpoints on various chains

  • The CCA is the Air Force’s top autonomous aircraft program

  • Anduril was the only non-traditional defense company selected

  • This program selected only five vendors to develop CCAs

  • aCoin, a voucher onramp to Bitcoin, is purchasable by South African processors

  • Purchasers can now use Azteco as the fastest, simplest way to redeem the voucher for the equivalent Bitcoin

  • The system works permissionlessly with the 16-digit code, directly sending that redeemed Bitcoin to your recipient address

  • CUBEs stands for “Credentials to Unify Blockchain Events”

  • The CUBEs platform is built on Layer3’s open source ERC-721 credential

  • Goals of this program include user earning mechanisms, token support partners, and improving user freedom

  • This enables Layer3 to be an omni-chain for quests that interact with many different chains

  • The system that allows freelancers, independent professionals, and workers of all types to gain benefits is now open to every US resident

  • Opolis provides health insurance, dental, vision, HSAs, payroll support, and more

  • Workers who self-employ in America can opt into the member-owned cooperative

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đź”” Active Investment Opportunities:

Rally: Re-cap Round for the Stock Market for Collectables

  • The top name in fractional investing space is rebuilding their board and raising $5M at a $5M pre-money valuation (most recent raise was Series-B for $30M)

  • Traction: $300M in partnerships in pipeline, 500k users, $60M AUM, and $3M projected revenue for 2024

  • Backed by Rev Ventures, Social Leverage, Anthemis Ventures, Porsche Ventures, and MLB

  • 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

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

  • Link to invest

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

  • 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! 

RBV Syndicate members are invited to attend Red Beard Ventures Summit 2024!

This will be a summit of RBV portfolio and ecosystem companies, to educate, popularize, and give better familiarity to the cutting-edge tech and Web3 startups we have helped fund or worked with closely over the years. It will include a special Demo Day for the five cohort companies in the Denarii Labs token accelerator program, to showcase the new token projects they have built alongside our mentors and tokenomic experts. More information can be found at the Summit Event Page

Here is a partial list of the speakers attending: 

  • Sandy Carter - Unstoppable

  • Will Weinraub - Crypto Toys

  • John Crain - Superrare

  • Roham Gharegozlou - Dapper Labs

  • Jerome Faury - Immersve

  • Amir Sarhangi - Super Mojo

  • Dirk Lueth - Upland

  • Kevin Beauregard - Atmos Labs

  • Robby Yung - Animoca

  • Adam Struck - Struck Capital

  • Ben Lakoff - Ben Lakoff

  • Sohrob Farudi - Fan Controlled Football

  • Jeri Ellsworth - Tilt 5

  • Asad Malik - iRocket

  • Peter Weijmarshausen - Humane genomics

  • Sam Clark - Terran biosciences

  • Ted Moskovitz - Texas Ranchers - Major League Pickleball

  • Randall Lane - NTL (National Thoroughbred Racing League)

  • Eric Satz - Alto 

  • Matt Mireles - Oasis

  • Maliha Akhtar - Alethea AI

This year we will also be attending ETH Denver on February 29 through March 3.

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