Quick News №8

Quick News №8

Exciting news from the venture capital market from 17 to 23 May.

It is said that running at night is bad practice. We’re saving your body, so at the end of the day, there’s just a little eye-rolling through last week’s news.

Adding to the Discord platform news is an investment in a project from Mindrock Capital. A fund run by Pavel Cherkashin has bought the company’s shares on the secondary market, investing $3M. Today the popular service among gamers is valued at $10B. The fund sees great growth potential for the project, which recently turned down a takeover deal from Microsoft.

Another interesting round in recent days is $10M for neural control interface maker Blackrock Neurotech from Peter Thiel. The project is a direct competitor to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, and while the latter is still implanting monkeys, Blackrock Neurotech reports tests on 28 patients, including those with paralysis and ALS. The implanted chips allowed them to increase activity in the right areas of the brain.

At the same time, Elon Musk was busy doing his other favorite thing: influencing the price of cryptocurrencies. The entrepreneur’s latest announcement that Tesla may sell all of its bitcoin holdings influenced the currency, which was already losing value. The currency was losing value “thanks to” the introduction of several serious cryptocurrency restrictions in China. As a result, bitcoin, Ethereum, Doge lost more than half in a few days.

The fact that the Ethereum Foundation promised to “bury” mining with a move to Ethereum 2.0 and the Beacon Chain network added to the anxiety of crypto miners. In short, the new “sharding” method will increase transaction speeds while reducing power consumption by a factor of two.

If you think blockchain is about space technology, here’s some real news about technology and space. The European Space Agency plans to build a network of satellites and deliver a GPS system to the moon, making exploration of the Earth’s satellite easier and more accessible. Meanwhile, on Mars, Perseverance, NASA’s Mars rover, has begun its duties of collecting soil samples. The Mars rover, Curiosity, another American rover, and its Chinese counterpart, Zhurong, are already on Mars.

At the same time on Earth, the third test flight of Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft has completed successfully. This means that company plans to take tourist flights into space are a step closer.

But while space is still a distant matter, the human issues here on Earth are being solved. For example, how to get to know each other in a post-Covid world. Match Group’s dating apps, which include market leaders Tinder, Bumble and Badoo, have decided to give the benefits of premium service to vaccinated users. Whatever the corporation’s motives, the move is socially responsible and interesting in terms of marketing.

We conclude our digest with a short summary of opportunities for startups:

• A Chinese-Russian innovation and entrepreneurship competition awaits AI and robotics, MedTech and SportTech startups that want to enter the Chinese market or find local partners.

• The Resources of the Future platform has been launched: the project plans to help startups interact with corporations — refine products to meet their requirements, undergo testing, and participate in competitive selections.

• LegalTech startups will be welcomed in the accelerator by IE International University. You may apply here.

Have a productive week!