🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

29 November 2022 16:55

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!

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

25 November 2022 17:57

👀Live now: https://youtu.be/46Rna7Tn4Tk 👀

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

23 November 2022 17:54

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

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

16 November 2022 08:36

🚩🚫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🤝

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

14 November 2022 10:58

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

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

10 November 2022 16:06

​​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?

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

08 November 2022 09:35

💹📈📉Weekly Review of the Crypto Market Macro Updates

Our weekly #cryptomarketrewiew section with an 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?

📈- Why are altcoins overflowing with pumps now at the bear market?

🐋- Binance’s role in Musk’s Twitter takeover

🗓 Calendar of major events

This report aims to help you while making decisions about your project’s future. Enjoy reading!

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

03 November 2022 08:35

Elon will trasform Twitter into a crypto payment platform?

Elon Musk took over as CEO of Twitter last week. And it seems his desire is to remake the payments industry (as he did already years ago in PayPal, but this time by using crypto and blockchain as fundamentals).

Experts say «Musk’s Twitter play as the reincarnation of Libra, which sought to provide crypto wallets to Facebook’s more than 1 billion users. The plan foundered under withering scrutiny from Congress, but Twitter can succeed where Facebook failed because its payment backbone is the Bitcoin Lightning network, a mostly decentralized structure that doesn’t have the same political baggage as a project led by Mark Zuckerberg».


As an evidence, look at some the people he has brought in to help him:
☑️ Binance founder Changpeng Zhao;
☑️ David Sacks, another PayPal Mafia member who is deeply involved in crypto;
☑️ Sriram Krishnan, who invests for a16z Crypto and who has an Ethereum address in his Twitter handle.

Let’s hope 🤞 they will help him do it properly, bringing the beauty of crypto and blockchain in everyday life of twitter users and stimulating mass adoption. And not using twitter as a tramplin to pump Dogecoin 😏

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

28 October 2022 14:37

To create DApps, you need either in-depth knowledge of software development or competent employees who know everything about decentralized applications. Creating such a project will cost you $45,000-$60,000. Therefore, it is much more profitable to create the app yourself or in a team with your friends. But, so that you can approach this business with a great knowledge, you need to be trained to create DApps. The Realm Academy, an online education platform with a lot of tutorials on metaverse and web3 topics, will help you with this🧐

Realm Academy programs focus on many of today's crypto education topics: such as navigating the metaverse, introduction to blockchain and NFT.

You can also save on your Realm Academy tuition by joining the InnMind Perks Club and getting a 20% discount on courses⚒

Learn more about Realm Academy and the benefits of Perks Club here

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

27 October 2022 13:56

According to MarketWatch, the global media and entertainment blockchain market will reach $1.54 billion by 2024. And there's a reason for that - many startups are actively using this technology, not only for the ease and convenience of paying for services such as Bitcoin, but also for the security and protection of their company's data. If you want to provide your startup with reliability, performance and support, then look to the QuickNode platform✨

QuickNode helps startups gain access to 15 chains across more than 20 networks, and advises developers and companies in creating, launching and scaling their blockchain-based apps (dApps).

By joining the InnMind Perks Club, you can take advantage of a 35% discount on QuickNode services and save your money on software⚒

Learn more about QuickNode and the benefits of Perks Club here

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

26 October 2022 15:29

🧐 Some takeaways from Aptos token dump 🧐

Startups make mistakes and fail very often.

Even well-funded, super hyped crypto projects, backed by the top-tier VC funds (like APTOS), are not secured from this…

And the only way to get better is analyse your own and others’ mistakes and learn on them.

Our partner Gotbit.io, the #1 market-maker for crypto startups, analyzed the recent launch of Aptos Protocol and its frustrating $APT token price drop after the long-awaited listing on Binance Exchange.

Hope it will give you some meat for thoughts while analysing projects for invesments or preparing your own token launch

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

24 October 2022 14:30

🚀 #InnMindAccelerate Updates 🚀

Apart from regular fundraising support & VC Pitching Sessions, we also run InnMind Accelerate, an intensive 3-months program designed for a limited amount of startups looking for acceleration and fundraising traction! We recently finished the 3rd week of our journey together with 10 selected startups!✨

During these 3 weeks, founders had numerous sessions with their personal mentors, group workshops, VC Pitching session and much more! Amongst the special guests we had On Yavin from Cointelligence Fund, Ivan Semenov from Cryptomeria Capital and many others! In addition, entrepreneurs attended a session by Ekaterina Khan from Skill Labs on proper interaction with KOLs.

There’s still a lot of work, information, experience and meetings with leading analysts and venture investors ahead.

To learn more about the InnMind Accelerate program and apply for the next batch in 2023, visit our site

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

19 October 2022 15:00

To turn an idea into a real business you need money. Sometimes your own savings are not enough for this, and that is why business angels - venture capitalists - come to the aid of startups✨

Despite the difficult economic situation, the venture capital market is relatively stable. According to PitchBook analysts, U.S. venture capitalists raised $62.3 billion in 4,456 deals in the second quarter of 2022, a strong result compared to 2021

However, 2022 has been a really tough year for crypto and Web3 startups and many of them are having trouble finding an investor💪

So, the InnMind team decided to help startup founders and put together a comprehensive list of cryptocurrency VC funds to help navigate the web3 and cryptocurrency venture capital sector. You can read about them in our new article

We also decided to give out a full list of cryptocurrency VC’s to anyone interested. In order to get the dataset, please leave your email under our blog article and we will be sure to send you all the information you need.

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

18 October 2022 16:57

The first thing 90% of venture capitalists in web3 and crypto do is evaluate startups’ TOKENOMICS✨

This is one of the core due-diligence aspects before deciding whether to invest or not. And this is where many startups FAIL to get funded. BUT calculating and balancing it yourself is really a tough task, requiring a LOT of time, energy and resources from founders⚒

InnMind team has designed a special TOKENOMICS CALCULATOR template which will help you design the balanced tokenomics 10 times faster and easier!🔥

Only today and for 24 hours we’re launching a special offer for all those founders who will purchase tokenomics calculator during this period

Go to our site and get special bonuses

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

13 October 2022 12:13

⚒ According to DocSend research, which analyzed 200 pitch decks, investors spend on average 3 minutes 21 seconds looking at a startup's pitch deck at the pre-seed stage and 3 minutes 44 seconds at the seed stage

The main criteria for a successful presentation were said to be its logic, clarity, conciseness and style. So, how to write a pitch deck in order to impress an investor?
🔹 Include growth rate data (CAGR)
🔹 Show your serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM)
🔹 Tell us about the basic income generation model

A well-prepared pitch deck will serve as a solid basis for your partnership with investors. If you do not know how to prepare the right pitching documents for your Web3 project, go to our app, where you can find pitch deck templates for all occasions

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

29 November 2022 08:57

💹📈📉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

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

25 November 2022 10:09

🧩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

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

16 November 2022 15:52

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?

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

15 November 2022 10:15

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!

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

10 November 2022 22:27

Sam finally said «I’m sorry».. But a few tweets later blamed everything on CZ 😫

The story is not over…

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

09 November 2022 17:14

▶️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 😎

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

04 November 2022 11:26

Startup Pitch Deck advice from A16Z

Josh Lu from from a16z made a twitter thread where he shared some common bad practices for startup pitch decks.

«Numbers don’t lie!» - he sais. So be transparent with investors and avoid these tricks

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

31 October 2022 17:11

Reddit is pushing NFT market UP again!

With 52 million daily active users and ~430 million monthly users, Reddit is one of the most popular social media channels in North America (while is still very underestimated in Europe and CIS).

Earlier this summer Reddit launched its Polygon-based NFT marketplace, allowing users to purchase blockchain-based profile pictures based on the social network’s logo, Snoo.

By the end of October, the cumulative sale of all Reddit NFTs has exceeded $8.6 million, challenging blue-chip NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club. Last week, a Reddit executive reported over 3 million users opening Polygon wallets for them.

This pushed the OpenSea Polygon volume to all-time high of around $3 million last week. Impressive outcome from the activity of one market player, agree?

And now imagine: what will happen with the market and adoption adoption when more players like Reddit will join the NFT and crypto move… 🤩

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

27 October 2022 16:22

Yesterday we hosted one more crypto VC Pitching session, focused on Web3 infrastructure and DeFi startups in active fundraising phase

We had 6 startups presenting to 12 VC engaged investors 🤩

Who did a show:
🔹 Weld Money - they are issuing VISA/Mastercard cards with NFTs on it, from Lithuania
🔹 Futurent.io - web3 investing platform, from United Arab Emirates
🔹 Power DCloud: Fully Decentralized Web3 Platform - truly decentralized infrastructure, from Estonia
🔹 ecoPros - clean energy, from Germany
🔹 Water150 - blockchain and clean drinking water, from Sweden
🔹 DoxyChain - a bridge between web 2.0 and web 3.0 for documents, from Poland

Don't worry if you missed the session! Follow the calendar on the InnMind website and sign up for the next one on 09.11.

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

26 October 2022 17:14

LIVE NOW:
Web3 Infrastructure and DeFi Startups pitching to Crypto VC investors 👇
https://youtu.be/xRpM4sKNZac

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

25 October 2022 16:01

It usually takes startups between 6 and 12 months to find a venture capitalist😨

The web3 and crypto venture capital sector is more dynamic, but on a bear market it still can take you 4-6 months to sign the deal. If it takes you more time, you should probably wonder why it is not working. It is true that finding your business angel isn't easy, but it is a task well within the reach of promising startups. To shorten your time searching for a good VC, check out our top list of the most active investors:

🔹 InnMind Capital, a business network investing in decentralized infrastructure and applications, new blockchain protocols, Web3, DeFi, gaming, NFT and other projects. The average size of an investment check is up to $250,000.
🔹 Waterdrip Capital is a company that invests in blockchain startups that work on various areas of the blockchain ecology, including public circuits, Defi and DAO applications, and NFT-related projects. The average investment check is up to $500,000.
369 Capital is a company that makes strategic investments in blockchain startups. The average size of an investment check is up to $250,000.
🔹 Clock Capital is a blockchain fund focused on investments (primary and secondary) and post-investment management. It focuses on public circuits, DeFi, Web3.0, metaverse and other areas with creative and tech entrepreneurs.
🔹 OIG Capital is a private venture capital firm that gives crypto projects all the resources they need to raise capital and facilitate organic community growth.
🔹 Sanctum Global Ventures is dedicated to providing strategic and tactical advice to startups looking to enter emerging markets.
🔹 LucidBlue Ventures is an investment firm and venture creation platform focused on blockchain, digital assets and digital finance.
🔹 Shima Capital is an investment fund dedicated to supporting cutting-edge blockchain startups.
🔹 Magnus Capital is an investment advisory firm focused on digital assets.

More information about venture capitalists can be found on our site

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

20 October 2022 17:24

Only 1% of all crypto and web3 startups receive funding from venture capitalists.

After all, investors invest their funds based on the startup's valuation. Therefore, as a startup founder, regardless of the business model and development stage, sooner or later you will be faced with the need to evaluate it.

To quickly and efficiently calculate the value of crypto startups, the InnMind team has released an intuitive, yet reliable and versatile tool - the Startup Valuation Calculator. It evaluates a company based on the most important aspects:
✨ The startup's capabilities compared to other competitors
✨ The client base, revenue and overall growth rate of the company
✨ The skills of the development team
✨ Intellectual property and patents held by the startup

Thanks to this tool you can find out the approximate value of a startup in just a few minutes.

At the moment our calculator is best suited for revenue-generating startups: from seed to A-stage and beyond. Soon we will update it and add an extended algorithm for evaluating startups in the pre-revenue stage🔥

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

19 October 2022 11:14

Meet another great startup, that aims to disrupt the P2P sector in the cryptocurrency space: ByBarter.io⚒

Investing in the crypto industry does not have to involve buying digital currencies. Statistics shows that it is more reliable to invest in crypto ecosystems that help build industry infrastructure. According to information resource Pitchbook, venture capital investment in such projects amounted to $10 billion in the first quarter of this year😨

Among such projects, ByBarter, the world's first decentralized, non-custodial P2P-As-A-Service platform, which enables P2P transactions directly from your self-custodial wallet, is worth mentioning. This project originated from the idea of Satoshi Nakamoto - his vision of the Peer-2-Peer value transfer system was not fully realized by centralized exchanges. Therefore, the authors of ByBarter decided to remove all barriers and give people back the power over their assets✨

If you want to learn more about how to pitch your project, join InnMind!🔥

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

17 October 2022 12:36

More and more fashion brands are turning their attention to the metaverse

The market share of the metaverse in fashion is expected to increase to USD 6.61 billion between 2022 and 2026 and the market growth rate is expected to accelerate to 36.47% per annum. In addition, many large venture capitalists are pouring millions into metaverse fashion startups. The Fabricant, for example, announced this spring that it had raised $14 million in a funding round🪡

CrazyMeta is focus in “Phygital”, which is creating its own promising cool brand that combines the metaverse and the real world. CrazyMeta is going to use the power of Web3 with decentralized management, NFTs and Tokenization in creating an ecosystem by rewarding designers and creating digital fashion in the form of NFTs and cross them into limited physical collectibles.

CrazyApez a product line of CrazyMeta has just been release with the promise of “Making the Bored Ape COOLER by making them physical mystery box collectibles”

If you want to learn how to pitch your project properly and interestingly, then get in touch with the experts at InnMind🎠

🦄Web3 Startups and VCs

12 October 2022 11:40

💹📈📉Weekly Review of the Crypto Market Macro Updates

Guessing what will happen with crypto this week and when the market sentiments will switch to «positive» mode?🧐

We introduce the new weekly section on our channel: #cryptomarket weekly review from our partner Gotbit, a professional crypto market-maker on DEXes and CEXes.

«In this paper you will find out how main political events influence markets and visualization of crypto indicators and indexes. Enjoy reading!

This report aims to help you while making decisions about your project’s future!