🚀📺StartUp: The Crypto Series. Can we Learn from GenCoin's Fundraising Journey?
Have you checked out the TV series "StartUp" by Crackle yet? It premiered in 2016, in the early days of cryptocurrency industry, and streamed on Netflix in 2021 bullish year.
The story is about a crypto startup from Miami: GenCoin, a new cryptocurrency with a mission to help the unbanked population in their community and take on the traditional banking system.
Btw: we featured it in our top list of 20 recommended films for crypto entrepreneurs.
A colorful group of co-founders that has nothing in common:
👤 Izzy, a Hispanic hacker (CTO);
👤 Nick, a white banker (Fundraiser),
👤 and Ronald, a black gangster (hmm.. troubleshooter & bizdev?)…
All got united by a big vision, have put everything they had to kick their startup off the ground.
It’s not only a fun watch with an intriguing story!
“StartUp” shows the hard path of being a crypto startup entrepreneur… Pitfalls, ups and downs, challenges… Fundraising journey, VC pitch, rejection by investors, bootstrapping, dealing with criminals and corrupted FBI agent, protecting their technology from being stolen, conflicts between the co-founders and maintaining relationships within the team.
That’s something! Agree? 😉
What I love about this show is that it doesn't sugarcoat🍭 the harsh reality of the startup world. But the show doesn't just highlight the struggles - it also shines a light on the potential of blockchain technology to change the world! 🌎
The scenes where they pitch to VCs and work to raise funds are spot-on. And I want to share with you a couple of shots of these 👀
(btw, I bet you won’t find these cuts in the web! We’ve spent a couple of days to prepare this content exclusively for our channel subscribers. So share your ❤️ and spread it around)
👇next👇
… and here is a short recap of the VC fundraising in crypto in 2022 🥶
However, there is still more than enough venture capital money to be deployed in 2023 before the next bull run. The fact is: you need to perform better to receive it!
BTW: interesting fact 👉 In the genesis block hash, Satoshi Nakamoto included the headline from this screenshoted article in The Times newspaper «Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks».
This refers to how governments deal with crises: they print large amounts of money, devaluing people's savings.
⚔️Who wins Web3 Battle: Polygon VS Solana?
Last week’s data by Token Terminal revealed that the number of daily active users on Polygon (MATIC) network grew rapidly over the past few days, outperforming Solana (experiencing reputational problems after the story with FTX) and other popular protocols.
2022 was a hard year from all perspectives, and tough for crypto businesses facing the bear market challenges. But Polygon made a smart decision hiring YouTube’s head of gaming, Ryan Wyatt, as the CEO of Polygon Studios earlier this year, and here us why 👇👇👇
Do you remember 2021, when Polygon was just one of many L2 Ethereum scaling networks, together with Metis (pitched its seed round on InnMind), Arbitrum, Optimism, Immutable-X, etc.? With an ambitious, but a bit clumsy team that was struggling to grow the ecosystem of developers, startups and apps.
Seems they learned the lessons from previous crypto winter seasons and focused in 2022 on user acquisition and adoption, building relationships with huge brands and companies that could push the mass adoption of web3 (and Polygon ecosystem).
✔️This summer Reddit rolled out “Collectible Avatar” NFTs on Polygon, resulting in the creation of more than 4 million new wallets to claim the NFTs.
✔️Meta tapped into Polygon to explore the NFT space via Instagram, enabling its billion-plus users to mint their photos and images on Polygon.
✔️Starbucks partnered with Polygon to launch Odyssey Web3 (a Web3-powered extension of the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program)
✔️Nike announced it will unveil in 2023 its new Web3 platform .Swoosh, offering Polygon-based NFT products.
✔️+ Disney, Mastercard, and many more web2 giants are entering the web3 world through Polygon network.
✔️Even 45th 🇺🇸 president Donald Trump, known for his skepticism regarding crypto, launched recently his NFT collection on Polygon, pushing up the NFT transactions volume and bringing new active userts.
And as a result, MATIC has climbed to the 10th-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market cap, weathering the crypto market decline better than many other top coins.
Our Supershort Takeaways:
👉 Polygon has potential to overcome competing chains in 2023
👉 If you build a web3 startup, don’t underestimate the classics: sales and bizdev with web2 brands for more adoption
👉 In competition games, the winner is the one who understands the prioritization of marketing and user acquisition. Startups are not exception.
PS: ❤️ this post? Tweet it!🤝
☠️Broken Web3 Marketing☠️
This is another good read for startup founders and all those who are involved in marketing of web3 and crypto projects 👉 Why Web3 Projects Fail With Growth Marketing: 3 Fundamental Mistakes, published yesterday in Hackernoon.
Save it in your bookmarks and … If you’re following your favorite web3 project or building your own, how many of these fundamental marketing mistakes did you count while analyzing its marketing strategy? 🤔
‼️Crypto VC pitch session: 2022 year’s final 👈 LIVE NOW
Join our live stream and see WHAT questions venture capitalists are asking the founders before investing and WHAT web3 startup attract the most interest by crypto VCs. You can also ask questions in the live chat 😉
Venture Funds:
- Stratifed Capital
- 369 Capital
- Everyrealm VC
- Infinity Ventures Crypto (IVC)
- Asva Ventures
- Alphabit Fund
- Blockrocket
- Kyber Ventures
Web3 Startups:
1. Polity Network (Liechtenstein)
Bastion offers the first easy to use decentralized platform from user and governance perspective to support asset managers and advisors on asset management.
2. UnoFarm (Singapore)
UnoFarm is a unique cross-chain autofarming solution with transparent automated strategies and beautiful analytics.
3. Aurus - Tokenised Gold (Netherlands)
Aurus aims to revolutionise the gold industry, using blockchain technology to make gold easier to trade and use, opening it to the masses.
4. Promptsea (Japan)
A Web3 marketplace for AI-artwork to be traded as NFTs and using Merkle tree semantics.
5. Shell Shocked (Kazakhstan)
GameFi's revolutionary P2E shooter for Web3 and Web2 gamers.
6. Metasport Arena (Spain)
A sports and entertainment metaverse dedicated to fans to follow their favorite teams, brands and idols.
🤯 The European Central Bank (ECB) dumps on Bitcoin⁉️
Last week Ulrich Bindseil and Jürgen Schaaf, the director general and adviser of the ECB published a blog article on the Central Bank's official website entitled «Bitcoin’s Last Stand». Surprisingly, this article has nothing to do with in-depth research and analysis, and represents a pretty one-sided view on Bitcoin's current state and future.
Among the negative aspects of Bitcoin, the ECB staff points out that it:
- does not generate cash flow (like real estate) or dividends (like equities),
- cannot be used productively (like commodities) or provide social benefits (like gold),
- has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions,
- the Bitcoin system is an unprecedented polluter.
Authors come to conclusion: «since bitcoin appears to be neither suitable as a payment system nor as a form of investment, it should be treated as neither in regulatory terms, and thus should not be legitimized».
This created a huge wave of critics towards the ECB expertise itself and the authors’ conflict of interests. For instance, Ulrich Bindseil is known for his various articles on central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and their use cases, which creates an obvious conflict of interests since Bitcoin is a decentralized competitor of these.
Is it an attempt of ECB stuff to use the recent FTX collapse and liquidity scandal to dump Bitcoin even further and use this situation as a push towards CBDC, as many people in crypto community concluded? 🧐
👥👥 Web3 Community Building: do you do it right?
I bet you’ll recognize a few typical mistakes, that every web3 startup team is doing in community building. But good news: after watching this video interview with community strategist Katya Kozyreva, you’ll have a better idea on how to build and manage community in web3 in a right way.
A few key takeways from the video:
🔑- Don’t mess up your community KPIs with marketing KPIs. They are not equal!
🔑- If you need community for marketing reasons, better even not to start: SMM will be cheaper, faster and more efficient!
🔑- Community manager is NOT a chat admin, but an engine that drives the engagement, grows value and provokes horizontal connections. Don’t underestimate this role and needed qualification!
🔑- Twitter is NOT a community building channel. But it is a great channel to reach and warm up your audience.
🔑- Startups with limited resources should stick on just one channel for community building. Don’t split your efforts between telegram-discord-reddit-etc., it will create less effect and more friction.
Interesting? Then watch the full video 📹
PS: If you still have questions about community building, ask them in the comments in youtube and we’ll answer them soon. Promise!🤝
Cults of Personality in Crypto
Cointelegraph piblished today a thoughtful article about cults of personality among the crypto fans.
Indeed, instead of focusing on building cults of personality, the crypto community needs to focus on projects and founders building products that use web3 to solve problems and bring real value.
«Stop listening to the loudest voices in the room and start listening to the wiser ones».
On InnMind we give the stage for these voices of web3 builders: on pitching sessions, workshops, blog articles and video interviews.
Watch our recent live panel discussion with web3 builders from EYWA.fi, Farm.XYZ and Bybarter - the 3 startups that are bruinging great value for the industry and have a potential to become real leaders in the web3 sector.
And if you believe in true values the decentralized web, don’t forget to support them with your👍, comments and shares!
Fundraising on a bear market
- Who said VC fundraising is hard? …
- It says nothing.
- Fundraising is EXTREMELY hard, time and resource consuming process that burns founders’ nerve cells 😩
Especially on a bear market.
BUT
There are ways to make it a bit smoother 👉 pitching on InnMind crypto VC pitch sessions, where you’ll present to ~10 warm and active VC investors in one time, get feedback, raise their interest and later on receive warm introductions to follow-up for a $$ deal.
Right now we’re hosting another live pitch session with Web3 infrastructure and DeFi deal-flow. Join live stream and watch how startup founders are presenting to venture capitalists and raise funding: https://youtu.be/udWjO6_eq2w
🚩🚫RED FLAGS CHECK LIST for crypto entrepreneurs and investors❗️
Due-dilligence and deep startup analysis is a must-have for all professional crypto VC investors. It mitigates unnecessary risks when it comes to investing in early stage projects. And if they notice any red flags, it’s usually a stop factor preventing from investing.
Another side of the medal: in 2020-21 bull run a lot of new «crypto VCs» appeared and earned millions in short term investments (usually dumping on retail investors right after IDO).
They have pretty poor understanding of the concept of venture capital investing, when VC provides support to portfolio companies, opens doors, holds, and exits when the traction and the capitalization of the startup grows, not at the first speculative price moves.
InnMind team created a check-list of red flags from professional VCs. It can be used to analyse a startup before investing or to check and improve your startup metrics before approaching VCs for funding.
Additional bonus 🎁: in another tab you’ll find the check-list of red flags for founders to analyse potential investors and avoid getting funding by speculative dumpers.
Download it here 🔽 and subscribe to our channel to keep updated with cool news, tools and other useful stuff for web3 founders and investors🤝
Colin Wu, Chinese Crypto Reporter, published in his twitter:
«As FTX and Alameda begin bankruptcy and reorganization in accordance with Chapter 11, the companies and tokens they invest in are also on the verge of being liquidated. We have counted the companies that FTX and Alameda have invested in so far»
Here is the document
Why FTX is shaking the whole crypto market?
After just a few "calm" weeks on crypto market, bitcoin touched the new low along with growing scandal around FTX, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges led by industry veteran Sam Bankman-Fried.
So, what happened?
It all started last week when the crypto media outlet CoinDesk reported, that Alameda Research, the large crypto-trading firm also founded by Sam and tied to FTX, holds a large share of its reported assets (totaled about $14.6 billion) in FTT tokens (an illiquid token of FTX, controlled by the same Bankman-Fried).
Community decided, that this kinda smells…
This publication provoked the snow ball move: Binance started selling FTT, alongside with institutional and retail investors; FTT token price dropped over 80% provoking the dump of other related tokens; FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried lost nearly 94% of his total wealth (~$14.6 billion dollars) within a day; US regulators started investigation of FTX case.
OKEX founder also commented the situation in his twitter, while Head of R&D at CoinMetrics shared his version of what has happened with industry leaders.
PS:
What is certain: this story is not close to the end, and as a result we can see even more sudden collapses and huge re-structurisation on the crypto market. But hopefully this situation will be a lesson for all entrepreneurs, investors and market players to pay more attention to transparency by the top financial companies, and at the same time to remember about the real values of web3 and decentralization. Agree?
2️⃣5️⃣ Most Important Metrics VC Investors Look at While Funding Series A
You wanted to know VC investors’ mindset? Here you go!
Leta Capital VC disclosed certain patterns and metrics that they use as a barometer to measure the attractiveness of the A-series startups from an investment perspective.
Source
Crypto data analytics company Messari released its annual report 👉 Crypto Theses 2023.
It is a very long, but still amazing and insightful read, both for newbies and web3-savvy entrepreneurs and industry veterans.
Don’t get scared by 168 pages 😮 of text. Use table of contents to navigate to the sections you need the most.
Happy New Year ☃️🎄 and Bitcoin’s Birthday 🎂
Today many of you come back to business after a short winter break. And we remind you that the same day 14 years ago (Jan. 3rd 2009) the first genesis block was generated in Bitcoin blockchain. We combined these 2 special dates together to send you double greetings from InnMind team😘
To crypto entrepreneurs and investors we wish this year to be positive, supportive and GREEN in all charts! Stay away from scam and FUD, and don’t slow down 👉 this will be YOUR YEAR to skyrocket 🚀
To all the startup founders out there pushing their businesses to new heights: your path may not always be easy (hah, it’s f*ng hard, let’s be honest!), but we wish you to remember the reason WHY you're on this journey instead of being in the safe and predictable corporate environment 👉 freedom, flexibility, the ability for rapid vertical and horizontal growth within the company, the absence of bureaucracy, and the pleasure of working with amazing people who inspire, uplift, empower and give us strength!
Don't let the challenges and difficulties overshadow the joy of being able to truly make an impact. Let’s build financial freedom together and have a successful and fulfilling 2023!
(c) image by DALL-E AI
How NOT to invest: Lessons Learned
Crypto sector democratized investments: it’s not a joke anymore that even if you’re just 18 yo (or younger), you can gain the first investment experience with crypto.
And we have quite an interesting read for you today from the guy, who started investing in crypto startups and IDOs at his 17th, earned a lot and lost everything. But as a result he received a priceless knowledge that you can get from him for free.
Ready to spend your 3 minutes to gain this priceless advice and understand the thinking of a common newbie investor? Read Investing in Crypto Startups When You Are 18 y.o. Lessons Learned
📉Huobi sais Crypto Market to Reach the Bottom in Q1 2023
Huobi Research released the Global Crypto Industry Overview and Trends: 2022–2023 Annual Report.
In this document, the authors make forecasts for the crypto industry in 2023.
Their predictions:
1️⃣ The market will reach the bottom in early 2023;
2️⃣ Social tycoons in Web2, such as Twitter, will continue to pursue Web3, introducing new paradigm of SocialFi;
3️⃣ Ecological prosperity for Layer2 will happen in 2023;
4️⃣ Accelerated ZK network will start to launch;
5️⃣ Dapp chain will usher in a period of rapid growth;
6️⃣ Bona fide demand for on-chain storage is growing rapidly, and the storage segment will embrace substantial and organic development;
7️⃣ On-chain regulation will be strengthened and some protocols may be endangered;
8️⃣ Cryptocurrencies will be adopted as payment or authorized as fiat currency by more countries 🚀
💲 Blockchain VC Funding Insights 💲
$21.7 billion of venture capital was raised by blockchain companies in 2022 (Year-To-Date) across 1380 deals. It’s the data from the recent German Blockchain Report by CVVC. 80% of these deals are related to early-stage ventures.
Comparing to 2021, in 2022 we see significant increase in the number of deals (+39%) and funding (+55%) in blockchain infrastrcuture vertical. While Custody and Exchanges are the categories where YTD funding had not topped 2021 funding.
30 new blockchain unicorns🦄 were born in 2022, which is 10 less than compared to 2021 though.
The US leads with almost 50% of blockchain deal share. Hovever, the European blockchain venture funding also looking very strong, with over $1 billion invested in 79 deals in Q3 2022 only, particularly in early stage companies.
Btw: «Europe’s blockchain venture funding has hit the $1b mark for the third time in as many quarters. This is the first time that this has ever occurred, with Q2
breaking the records for funding raised as well as deal count at $1.4b and 112 deals».
According to the report, Blockchain funding as a percentage of total venture funding is at record high on a year-to-date basis both globally (6.59%), as well as for Europe (5.44%).
When looking for differences from previous bear markets, the amount of capital still being deployed right now is one of the most obvious evidence of this sector to be on the rise🚀 and long-term investors being here. Agree?
The world’s largest institutional investor is bullish on web3? 🤯
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager with over $10 trillion of assets under management, believes that tokenization is the future of markets! Recently their CEO Larry Fink shared his vision of decentralization & web3, and his belief in the tokenization of assets as the future of markets and securities 👇
https://youtube.com/shorts/riTE_j-wN5E
Is it a hint that we will see way more institutional players joining the web3 and crypto sector on the next bull run?
🔥🔥 10 pitch decks that raised $15 Billion 🦄
Serial techpreneur Brett Adcock (Founder/CEO @ Figure, Archer ($2.7B IPO), Vettery ($100M exit) created an epic twitter thread with the pitch decks of 10 companies that raised HUGE funding rounds recently.
Many of these companies are not startups anymore, but IPO stage unicorns. But it can be still quite useful for startup founders’ inspiration (maybe you can find here some ideas for your ongoing fundraising).
And at the end of the day: what founder doesn't dream to build a unicorn?!
1️⃣ Archer Aviation: raised $1.1B at $2.7B valuation
https://s27.q4cdn.com/936913558/files/doc_presentations/2021/2_21_Investor-Presentation.pdf
2️⃣ SoFi: raised $2.4B at a $8.6B valuation.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1818874/000110465921001952/tm211973d1_ex99-2.htm
3️⃣ Clover Health: raised $1.2B at a $3.7B valuation
https://investors.cloverhealth.com/static-files/8947bb5e-eb8d-4aa5-9c11-186c518d7676
4️⃣ Hims and Hers Health: raised $233M at a $1.6B valuation
https://s27.q4cdn.com/787306631/files/doc_presentation/HH-Investor_Presentation.pdf
5️⃣ Arrival: raised $629M at a $13B valuation
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1789760/000119312520296650/d91730dex992.htm
6️⃣ QuantumScape: raised $1.2B at a $3.3B valuation
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1811414/000156459020042442/kcac-ex993_61.htm
7️⃣ Lucid Motors: raised $6.8B at a $24B valuation
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1811210/000110465921026357/tm217491d2_ex99-2.htm
8️⃣ Polestar: raised $2.4B at a $21B valuation
https://www.datocms-assets.com/11286/1632735805-210927-polestar-investor-presentation-final.pdf
9️⃣ Heliogen: raised $385M at $2B valuation
https://1lfzd51welg49wnal3h3ei2m-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Heliogen_Investor_Presentation-FINAL.pdf
1️⃣0️⃣ Billtrust: raised $450M at $1.4B valuation
https://www.billtrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Billtrust-Investor-Presentation-Materials-October-19-2020.pdf
And if you need pitch deck template for early stage startups, you can find some cool ones in our knowledge base!
💹📈📉Weekly Review of the Crypto Market Macro Updates
The new analysis of macro trends, main events and important industry news from our partner Gotbit, a professional crypto market-maker on DEXes and CEXes.
This week:
📶- What's going on with the BTC?
🏷 - How the World Cup affects the crypto market?
🐋 - How Zero COVID restrictions might affect the global economy?
🗓 Calendar of major events
This report aims to help you while making decisions about your project’s future. Enjoy reading!
#cryptomarketrewiew
🧩This Week’s Web3 Recap: will $1 bln from Binance save the market?
After a string of bankruptcy filings by large crypto companies, such as Celsius Network, Voyager Digital, Three Arrows Capital, followed by an epic crash of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges FTX, and their affiliate trading company Alameda Research, the crypto community started paying attention to financial transparency, reserves and liquidity information from centralized exchanges.
Binance was the first to publish its proof of assets, which included wallet addresses and activity. Other exchanges, like Kucoin, Chainlink Labs, Huobi, Bitfinex, Bybit, and others, followed the transparency trend, releasing their financial information.
Proof of financial reserves immediately became a hot topic, and it doesn't seem to be a short-term trend. The leading crypto market data aggregator CoinMarketCap (CMC) announced the launch of a new feature, giving users an overview of the proof of reserves (PoR) for crypto exchanges.
According to the announcement, the tracker details the total assets of the company, and its affiliated public wallet addresses, along with the balances, current price and values of the wallets.
However, the PoR by CMC is now criticized as being "biased and sloppy and lacks the depth", which probably opens opportunities for crypto startups, offering more comprehensive data products that can satisfy the growing industry demand.
Meanwhile, Binance continued attempts to reserve its place as an industry leader and trendsetter. Yesterday it announced committing $1 billion to establish an industry recovery initiative (IRI) to invest in companies from the digital assets sector. It intends to ramp up its commitment amount to $2 billion in the near future depending on need.
Other big players also joined this call: Jump Crypto, Polygon Ventures, Aptos Labs, Animoca Brands, GSR, Kronos and Brooker Group have committed to participating with an initial aggregate commitment of around USD 50 million.
Same day Bybit, a crypto derivatives exchange, announced the launch of a new $100 mln support fund to help institutional traders access liquidity in the wake of the FTX collapse.
...
Seems in the near future we will see more and more similar news from crypto market players, announcing industry support initiatives.
I won't guess their motivation behind it: do they really aim to help web3 and crypto sector to recover, or do they want to restore the trust of the community in the centralized entities and bring back their clients? If it will generate at least some positive effect, together with new opportunities for web3 builders, that will be worth it.
And what do you think? 🤔
(c) also published in Techstars Decentralized Web Digest
It took just 1 week to collapse: FTX story in short
Really, just digest this:
0️⃣ November 2nd: Coindesk reports about Alameda balance problems
… and then the real sh*t starts:
1️⃣ November 6th: CZ from Binance tweets about plans to sell FTX tokens $FTT
2️⃣ November 7th: FTX & Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) tweets that everything is OK with companies’ financials
3️⃣ November 8th: FTX freezes withdrawals requests. SBF and CZ negotiate about FTX acquisition by Binance
4️⃣ November 9th: Binance officially rejects any plans to acquire FTX
5️⃣ November 10th: SBF finally tweets «I’m sorry». Meanwhile, trying to find investors for FTX
6️⃣ November 11th: FTX and all affiliated firms (Alameda, FTX US, etc.) file for bankruptcy
7️⃣ November 12th: FTX got hacked and lost over $400 millions of clients' assets
The remaining questions:
🚫 What CEX(es) will be the next?
🧩 How huge and massive will be the shift towards Web3, DeFi and real Decentralization? Are you prepared?
Why cool startups fail?
Nelli from InnMind published a thoughtful post about founders’ personas and it’s impact on a startup success, after observing thousands of early-stage startups in web3 and crypto.
Remember: Your biggest competitor is YOU!
Sam finally said «I’m sorry».. But a few tweets later blamed everything on CZ 😫
The story is not over…
▶️LIVE NOW: Crypto VC Pitching session with GameFi, NFT and Metaverse startups raising funding rounds from VC investors https://youtu.be/LUCR13QrdkE
Why you should watch it?
— to get better prepared for your own VC fundraise 👈
— to find new investment opportunities in cool selected startups 👈
— to find potential business partners and investors among participants of the session 👈
VC investors on the session:
✅ Newman Capital
✅ Asva Ventures
✅ Oddiyana Ventures
✅ Cryptomeria Capital
✅ Scaleswap
✅ Newtribe Capital
✅ and a few active business angels and private investors 😎