Quick news №28

Our (hopefully, yours) favourite crypto news block is rich in events today! Crunchbase took and calculated how much money crypto related startups raised this year: today it is already $16B —  the last record was two years ago, and then it was a figure of $4.9B. Another interesting observation —  from another research —  is statistics on funds that invest in crypto startups. Expectedly, the leader is Andreessen Horowitz with his three crypto funds, but the unicorn forge Tiger Global is breathing in his back —  this year he took part in 14 rounds of the sphere.

We already hear the voices of skeptics with their words about the “crypto bubble” and the volatility of the crypt. And what about the story, where recently, after 11 years, a bitcoin wallet was activated, on which there were 50 coins. And while we dream that our investments will bring at least a minimum percentage, the owner of the forgotten wallet has increased his fortune 750,000 times —  from $4 to $3M. That is why it is important not to forget passwords from all personal accounts!

Another offshoot of the blockchain theme is NFT and the universe around it. Founded in 2021, the startup UseTech develops next-generation NFT infrastructure based on blockchain, big data, neural networks —  everything that we love. For this, the project raised funding of $11.3M with an estimate of $154.7M. Remember Substrapunks —  the first NFT on Polkadot? This is the development of the guys from UseTech!

From other, funny, news from the NFT universe —  the artist Pokras Lampas sold a duck created in a blockchain game for ₽4M. This, of course, is not a record, but the duck turned out to be spectacular!

Another universe, but already a meta-universe, was supportive of a Canadian company last week. As you've probably heard, Facebook will soon be Meta. Investors also overheard this and began to buy up its shares. Only they turned out to be not Zuckerberg's, but Canadian ones —  the company Meta Materials, which produces composite materials. The general director of the project was not taken aback —  and welcomed Facebook to the metaverse in his tweet.

In our last Quick News, we mentioned the upcoming IPO for the EdTech project Udemy. Then there was a question about the price per share —  and so the valuation of the company ended up at its lower limit —  $27.5 —  amounting to $3.7B.

Startups from countries close to us are also encouraging —  two Ukrainian and one Russian startups raised solid rounds last week. Thus, the Influ2 marketing B2B platform of Ukrainian entrepreneurs closed round A for $8M under the leadership of the American investment fund Rally Ventures. By the way, investors from the Valley are generally supportive of Ukrainian startups. Another example, Let’s Enhance, which raised $3M under the leadership of venture capital firm Chamaeleon from the Valley, is developing an automated platform for AI-powered imaging.

The round of the WeLoveNoCode platform was inspiring —  Nikolay Davydov, the Lieberman brothers, the Angelsdeck club and other investors invested $1M in it. The story is inspired by two things. At least, the CEO of the startup Nikita Shevchenko says that after watching Yuri Dud's film about Silicon Valley, he dreamed of meeting Davydov —  it turned out a year later! And the second —  the entrepreneur from Sakhalin was 20 years old at the time the project was launched. Youth is not a limitation for entrepreneurship! 

Have a productive week!