Hi there 👋,
When internet speeds were glacial, Stephen Wilhite created the Gif as a way to distribute graphics in color.
His very first GIF was of a clip art airplane soaring through a pixelated sky.
Wilhite passed away last week, but the Gif will remain a popular addition to newsletters, blogs, and social media posts around the world.
Soon after his passing, Giphy’s website posted a tribute to Wilhite. A GIF.
In this issue:
📈 Market Moves
📰 News & Views
🤝🏿 Deal Summary
🧰 Cool tools
Don’t miss: What $280k buys, aggregating real estate, EFC behind the scenes, Crypto Island, and the ‘Return on Character’ ETF.
As always, thanks for being here.
Juliet Lyall
📈 Market Moves
👍 Bitcoin | $47,609.56 | +2.47%
👍 Ethereum | $3,374.56 | +2.47%
👍 Shopify | $692.30| +2.21%
👍 Coinbase | $198.43| + 6.31%
👎 Meta | $221.14 | -0.33%
Sponsored by Empire Flippers Capital
Behind the Scenes
Is it worth investing with Empire Flippers Capital? (EFC)
We looked "behind-the-scenes" at the benefits for EFC investors.
Here's what we found out:
🔔Round 1:
The growth strategies are paying off.
Investors in this round received a 5% cash-on-cash return on Q4 earnings.
Distributions from the fund are paid quarterly and investors receive detailed reports on each deal. The site operators also provide a commentary on progress.
You’ll get a redacted version of an investor's quarterly report here (email required).
🔔Round 2:
A total of 12 businesses were purchased during the acquisition period.
87% of the available funds have been spent. That's $5.25MM.
🔔Round 3:
Time is running out to participate in this round. Round 3 has attracted $4.7MM in funding and is expected to close in 3 days. (Available deals were in Thursday's newsletter)
If you'd like to participate in Round 3, don't wait!
🎯 Contact EFC today.
📰 News & Views
Recent stories that resonated with us.
What $280K Buys
In December of 2020, Spencer Scott spent $280k on MicroAcquire to purchase his first business.
At first glance, Scott’s article looks like a plug for MicroAcquire and/or his own business, but it goes beyond that. This website purchase turned into a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, with a dose of learning thrown in along the way.
The highlights:
Buying a company for $280k that did over $1.5 in TTM
Getting 💩 on by Fortune 500 companies
How he eventually purchased the business
His aim to add $10 million in ARR
We see a few flaws in some of Spencer’s math, but the 3 friends he mentions are sure to help him out.
Real Estate Aggregators
Bundling up websites to start an investment portfolio isn’t a new concept. Neither is offering shares or dividends to investors in those portfolios.
It makes sense that this model has applications outside of digital assets. And that’s exactly what’s happening in real estate.
A startup called Flock Homes is buying properties from landlords who want the benefits of owning real estate without the added burdens of taxes, tenants, and maintenance.
Once the properties come into Flock, the company owns and operates the assets, and the landlords get shares in a diversified portfolio similar to an REIT.
Owners also receive their share of all the rental income—minus maintenance, property taxes, and insurance—which is paid out in a distribution.
Currently, Flock has 110 homes in its portfolio across Denver, Austin, Texas and Kansas City. Latest news: Flock just announced a $26 million raise to expand. (Try not to cringe when you see who led the round).
🩳 The Shorts
🔹 Next-Generation Securitization: NFTs, Tokenization, and the Monetization of “Things.” A summary of a paper from the Duke University School of Law. (Probably nothing).
🔹 The Return on Character ETF (ticker ROCI): A newly launched stock targets businesses led by “high character” chief executive officers. The actively managed strategy uses a model based on “integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and compassion,” manager ROC Investments LLC said in a release. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg didn’t make the cut.
🔹 Beam me up: The Mothership is joining the independent e-commerce and Amazon seller aggregator club with a raise of $22 million in funding from a pool of individual private investors. The UK-based business aims to kick their acquisition spree into high gear.
🔹 Investing in startups from day one: at.inc/ announced it has closed on an oversubscribed $35 million Fund II to double down on its fund strategy of investing globally in founders "at incorporation" and backing them all the way with flexible capital from its influential limited partner network.
🔹 Quantbase, a New York-based fintech company that enables high-risk investing through automated portfolios, raised $500K in pre-seed funding. Quantbase’s platform features quant hedge fund strategies and crypto indices while also providing the mass appeal of strategies like the Nancy Pelosi tracker and Inverse Cramer index.
🔹 PJ Vogt, one of the founders of the hit podcast series Reply All, has returned to the audio medium with a new series full of wild internet stories. His new podcast, Crypto Island, explores some of the strangest stories on the blockchain. The first episode — Welcome to Crypto Island — explores plans for a private island for crypto enthusiasts.
🔹 Bridging the worlds of DeFi and NFTs: Launched in 2019 as an insurance-focused prediction tool, Upshot built out its real-time NFT appraisal data by asking its users to compare collectibles with incentives for honest or expert opinions. The company just raised $22 million in a Series A2 funding round led by Polychain Capital.
🤝🏿 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.
➽ MySureFit uses patented augmented reality visualization to allow online shoppers to digitally try on outfits and get feedback from those they trust before they buy. 225,000 users, 6,000+ customers placing more than 13,000 orders. Startengine.
Minimum: $252.60
Offering Type: Reg CF | Equity
➽ Lambs: Apparel that boosts your immune health, cognition, recovery, and sleep. 7x growth in 2020, on track for $15M revenue in 2022. The company is already profitable & owns valuable IP. Republic.
Minimum: $250 (taking reservations)
➽ Rehab Loan in Columbus #52: Single Family home with 2 bedrooms and 1 full bath in Columbus, OH. ARV per FTF internal valuation is $103,000. FundThatFlip. 🔒
Minimum: $5,000
Term: 5 Months
Potential Return: 8.50%
👩🏽🌾 Top Yields on Stablecoins
USDT - Vires (Waves) -32.57% APY
HUSD/USDT - MDEX (Heco) -30.67% APY
TOR/DAI/USDC- Hector (Fantom) - 30.47 % APY
💲 DeFi Yields
Pangolin via YieldYak (Avax Chain) UST-USDC: 18.1 %
Axial via YieldYak (Avax Chain) AM3D: 11.9 %
Aave via YieldYak (Avax Chain) USDC.e: 8.7%
🧰 Cool Tools
»» Fast and easy website translation: Weglot is SaaS software that helps businesses translate and display their websites in multiple languages. Weglot states that their product is compatible with all content management systems (CMS), and only takes minutes to implement. (Partech Partners just dropped a €45 million investment into Weglot to aid their expansion).
»» An all-in-one podcast tool: Listnr.fm lets you easily record, edit, host, distribute, and monetize high-quality podcasts. The simple invite link allows up to 10 guests to join your podcast at one time. Plus, you can chat and share footnotes with your guests right from the dashboard. Listnr lets you upload directly to your chosen platform and will track all your important podcast stats. We found a lifetime deal for you.
»» Proprietary software + your own manager: Fuelfinance is a cloud-based finance department for startups that takes care of your spreadsheets, graphs, and automations. You get P&L, CF, Financial Projections, Plan/Fact, Unit Economics, and probably some peace of mind. It’s all done in a format you understand—Google Spreadsheets. This could save you months of integrations and insane setup costs.
😨 Plotting fear & greed: FREE ROLL
Brought to You by Smash Digital
🦄 SEOs with Skin in the Game
Smash Digital - a growth agency, filled to the brim with unicorn images and SEO memes. A team of SEOs with actual skin in the game, ranking their own portfolio of profitable businesses, and offering the exact same services to clients.
An agency with so much link juice you’ll need a mop and bucket to clean it all up.
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Not financial, investing or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly for information, entertainment and education purposes. Nothing in here is investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your professional advisors. Do your own research.
Another great one Juliet! Flock is an interesting model - it's similar to but kind of opposite to https://www.wayhome.co.uk/ here in UK