RBV Weekly Newsletter🧔📖Week of 3/1/23

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

Author

Austin Ritter
March 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. 

📣 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

Sophia Amoruso is a renowned entrepreneur, bestselling author, and an inspiration to many. She first gained recognition as the founder and CEO of Nasty Gal, an online retailer of trendy and vintage clothing, which started as a small eBay store and grew into a multimillion-dollar fashion empire. She raised $60 million in VC funding and grew Nasty Gal to over $100 million in revenue before stepping down as CEO in 2015.

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

Big news a long time coming, RBV Fund I portfolio company Truth Labs has finally announced the merger between themselves and the DAO technology company Upstream (also founded by Truth CEO Alex Taub) to build a games and technology company, releasing titles and content utilizing the Truth Universe of IP.  These two companies, one who raised $16.5M in April ‘22 and the other who saw a quarter-billion dollars in secondary sales, will be releasing more of their plans in the future as the joint Truth Arts Inc. entity.  

As part of the merger, the company has announced “Operation Resurrection”, which will involve NFT holders burn their NFTs for future equity in the new Truth Arts Inc.  Burners will also receive a soul-bound NFT on BASE, to act as perpetual proof-of-ownership for any token-gated experiences.  More information about the burn-to-equity program or information on the future IP development can be found on this deep dive post: Introducing Truth Arts Inc.

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Portfolio News

  • To celebrate the massive token launch, bitsCrunch will be offering a high yield on staking their native $BCUT token

  • 50 random winners will get an additional 20k BCUT and 2k USDT

  • To participate, users must connect with Galxe to complete a quest and register their wallet

  • The Apple-focused publication sat down with David Bailey, Chief Marketing Officer at Azteco

  • David worked at apple from 2002 - 2013 as Director of Global Retail Development, right in the heyday of iPhone’s dominating run

  • The subjects delved into was career advancement, being the best manager possible, and business leadership

  • The product OrbisDB has been integrated with Ceramic to improve the developer experience

  • Orbis will bring an intuitive SQL interface, a no-code setup, and an improved SDK framework to the Ceramic environment

  • The Cosmos development toolset from Agoric now includes the featureset “Orchestration”

  • This new product allows a seamless way to coordinate multi-chain assets

  • Orchestration builds on the Cosmos tools like Inter Blockchain Communication (IBC) and General Messaging Passing (GMP)

  • The text-to-game creation AI is using Oorbit to serve these GPU-intensive actions to regular players

  • Currently in Beta, the AI is able to take a prompt like “Old West Vampire-Hunter” and create a game that follows that theme

  • Interested gamers can try out the open-access preview version at auxuman.ai

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🔔 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].

If you will be in town for ETH Denver, we would like to extend an invitation to our LPs to join us for a trip to the immersive art space by Meow Wolf: Convergence Station Friday, March 1st.  Called a “cosmic-surrealist vision”, it’s a truly unforgettable experience!  RSVP here: RBV Meow Wolf

Also, if you are interested in attending our Los Angeles Founder & Investor Pickleball event, we will be holding one on March 19th. Please reach out if you are in the area and are interested in meeting fellow LPs and startup founders in the LA area.

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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 Lauren