(Ξ) Lido raises ETH stakes, startups watch pennies, poker in the metaverse, venture scout program.
Plus: Two new funds and 5 tops listings.
Hi there 👋,
Who said crowdfunding is dead?
Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson just broke the Kickstarter record for the most successful crowdfunded project of all time.
Sanderson’s achievement isn’t just notable for the sheer amount of money raised, but for the speed. The project was announced on Tuesday, March 1st and Sanderson achieved his funding goal of $1,000,000 in 35 minutes. The old record of $20,338,986 was broken by early Friday morning, March 4th.
In this issue:
📈 Market Moves
📰 News & Views
🤝🏿 Deal Summary
🧰 Cool tools
Don’t miss: Startups watching their pennies, Lido liquid staking, Flashpoint’s venture scout program, and poker in the metaverse.
As always, thanks for being here.
Juliet Lyall
P.S. If you enjoy this newsletter, please feel free to share it!
📈 Market Moves
👍 Bitcoin | $39,190.20 | +2.04%
👍 Ethereum | $2,640.43 | +3.53%
👎 Shopify | $599.79 | -0.17%
👍 Coinbase | $170.34 | +2.27%
👎 Meta | $200.16 | -0.36%
📰 News & Views
Recent stories that resonated with us.
Startups Are Flush With Cash - And Watching Every Penny
From a report:
As investors write bigger checks, many founders have taken advantage of huge investments that significantly extend their startup’s life.
Kruze Consulting, an accounting firm that works with more than 600 venture-backed startups, says its clients now have $5.42 million in cash, on average. For comparison, in 2018 Kruze’s clients had an average of $3.27 million in cash.
But while the bank balances are bigger, startups are more frugal.
Kruze’s clients expect their cash balances to last them 26 months, on average. That’s more than twice as long as the 12-month average in 2018, with only about 65 percent more cash.
Founders are cautious about how long the boom times will last and are cutting back on “unnecessary” expenses. They’re spending less on major expenses like office space in order to extend their runway.
One major (and unavoidable) expense for early-stage startups, is people, and talent has become a lot more expensive.
It is a challenge to stay current on what ‘market’ is since the competition is so fierce. Money is getting thrown at in-demand candidates to close them.
— Matt Soule, Parallel Systems
More of this story on Wired.
Two New Funds
Founders Fund took the wraps off more than $5 billion in fresh capital commitments across two new funds.
To learn more about how its new funds are likely to be invested, TechCrunch talked with two long-time partners of the 35-person outfit. Lauren Gross and Brian Singerman answered questions about how the firm is structured these days, how often investing decisions involve the firm’s famous co-founder, Peter Thiel, and whether Founders Fund plans to incubate more companies.
Best of the Rest
🔹 Poker meets the Metaverse: Poker was a huge hit in the early days of the internet - until all those annoying laws got in the way. Now, Poker is making a comeback in the metaverse. 30% of the the daily active users in Decentraland are there to play poker in the Decentral Games casino. Decentral Games founder, Miles Anthony, says that the game has generated more than $7.5 million in revenue in the past three months.
🔹 Lido wants to help stake Ethereum: We won’t get into the proof of work versus proof of stake argument here. Let’s just say that more eth needs to get staked for the blockchain to evolve. TechCrunch reports that Lido raised $70 million from a16z and “is the market leader for Ethereum liquid staking.” That’s a lot of coin, frankly, but if startups are expensive these days, crypto startups are doubleplusexpensive.
🔹 Flashpoint has extended its Venture Scouting program. The VC is now expanding its network in Europe and the U.S. by partnering with angel investors, tech executives, and best-in-class entrepreneurs. Those who can monetize their network and attract deal flow by introducing the group to the top early-stage startups in the market earn attractive benefits. Currently, over 20 scouts from CEE, Israel, and Western Europe have joined the program.
Sponsored by Flippa
🖐 Five of the Best
Here are our top verified picks this week:
➽ FBA: Beauty creams FBA Store generating $1.6M in Annual Revenue
Asking: $1,070,000
The metrics that matter:
$41,833 monthly profit
8 years old
11 Trademarked Brands
➽ Service: Cybersecurity Brand making $5,000 profit per month
Asking: $179,000
The metrics that matter:
5 years old
78% profit margin
90% subscription renewal on second year
➽ Content: Marketing “How To” Blog with an Authority Score of 45
Asking: $160,000
The metrics that matter:
4 years old
85K monthly organic page views
$5,833 monthly profit
➽ FBA: 10yo Hobby & Game FBA Store
Asking: $80,000
The metrics that matter:
10 years old
$2,369 monthly profit
Selling 17 private label products
➽ Content: Health & Nutrition Publishing Business
Asking: $72,000
The metrics that matter:
7 years old
Authority Score of 31
$2,104 monthly profit
Want more inspiration?
Check out the Alts Discord channel.
🤝🏿 Deal Summary
🔒 = Accredited Investors Only
None of these deals is a recommendation from investing.io. This content is for information purposes only. All returns listed are estimations from the respective platforms, and not advice from investing.io. Do your own research.
➽ Fetii is a rideshare platform that utilizes an IOS/Android app and a network of large capacity vehicles to transport groups, businesses, and events on-demand.
$3,000,000+ Revenue Run Rate | 300% Quarter-over-Quarter growth | 2021 First Full Operating Year. Wefunder.
Investment type: Convertible Note
Minimum: $250
➽ Square Mile Farms: Bringing vertical farming to urban spaces to boost wellbeing and sustainability. Established network of 60+ farm units across 27 sites in London | Contracted service revenue increased 28% month on month. Seedrs.
Equity offered: 10.84%
Share price: £1.47
➽ Banksy Laugh Now: Venture Raise. This work is from an edition of 150 of the Laugh Now that were signed. Startengine.
Offering Type: Equity
Minimum: $120
Price Per Share: $8.00
👩🏽🌾 Top Yields on Stablecoins
USDC/rUSD - Quickswap (Polygon) - 38.48% APY
USDO/BUSD - PancakeSwap (BNB Chain) - 31.54% APY
USDT - Bancor (Ethereum) - 26.27% APY
💲 DeFi Yields
Hundred.Finance (Fantom Chain) *note: We list the fully-boosted yields here MIM: 19.94%, DAI: 10.18%, FRAX: 5.59%, USDC: 8.88 %
Hundred.Finance (Arbitrum Chain) *note: We list the fully-boosted yields here MIM: 5.67%, DAI: 11.98%, FRAX: 15.73%, USDT: 19.70 %
Pangolin via YieldYak (Avax Chain) UST-USDC: 16.8 %
Axial via YieldYak (Avax Chain) AM3D: 8.7 %
Random Tweet
KPMG Canada purchased their first NFT.
🧰 Cool Tools
»» Forget about switching tabs and copy-pasting. Bardeen saves you time by automating repetitive tasks with a single shortcut and lets you control your web apps from anywhere. All actions can be performed without switching tabs, right from the web page you have currently open. Bardeen is available as a Chrome Extension.
»» Avoid long explanations, countless screenshots and meetings. Instacap gives you asynchronous visual feedback directly on top of any webpage or file via a single link - no sign ups or meetings required. You can annotate, screen capture & share feedback on top of any PDF document or image. When text and typing is too slow or limiting - add a transcribed voice note instead.
»» See what's happening on Web3. When you follow Ethereum wallets you can track and discover the NFT activities of your favorite people and groups in real-time. Context shows events such as minting, buying, selling, and bidding. Or you can curate the NFTs you love and help a creator reach a wider audience.
🤫 A sculpture with secrets: FREE ROLL
Brought to You by Smash Digital
🦄 SEOs with Skin in the Game
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Always a red flag for me when I see a startup raise a round from serious angels / VCs and then does a follow on crowdfunding “for the community”!
Also, I just can’t buy a wearable NFT to play poker in the metaverse, I’m just not that down with the kids ha.