Last week, we announced our €3,000,000 fundraising
Despite a challenging bear market, we made it through
As the CEO of @Bubblemaps, this has been an incredible learning experience. Here's what I've discovered ����
1. Seize every pitching opportunity
Our win against 700 startups at @ParisBlockWeek was a game-changer. Be it smaller events, a school conference, a panel about on-chain data, or anything else, I never turned down an invitation. You never know who's listening!
2. Cold contact is time-wasting
VC public emails are overloaded. The two options that work: contact a fund analyst and climb up the ladder, or get referred by an entrepreneur/investor.
3. Even better, make VCs come to you
To be on their radar, be active in your ecosystem. With Bubblemaps, we joined Google Cloud’s incubator, @PyratzLabs, @cronosapp, HEC x L’Oréal... Lots of chances to be noticed. Plus, we attended every crypto event possible.
4. Revenue isn’t the only indicator of traction
Web traffic, social media reach, and partnerships are also convincing indicators for investors. Just because you're not profitable now doesn't mean you won't be.
5. Crypto is an attention economy
Building a loyal community can be even more important than your product. Genuinely provide value to your readers through unique content and compelling insights. Our analysis on a16z and Uniswap became viral on Twitter and significantly helped our roadshow.
6. Think financially when facing a VC
The investor is seeking return on their investment. Sell your vision, and learn how to speak their language: valuation, revenue projection, exit strategy... Remember, you only have one chance to convince them!
7. Keep the momentum
A fundraising can last for six months or even a year. It’s crucial to keep the initial investors interested all through the process. Update them regularly and keep them excited.
8. Winning investors is half the battle
What follows is the delicate phase of negotiating the shareholders’ agreement, signing, and transferring the funds. That's when you're going to lose sleep
9. Raising funds is a choice, not a must
For us, it was a nearly year-long roadshow. That's a lot of time and resources not going into the product and business. Quick profitability without fundraising is also a solid option!
It's extremely hard to raise funds at the moment, but the payoff is worth it. Good luck to everyone looking to climb this mountain!
I worked on an early, very different iteration of the @unity pricing changes ~1 yr ago
My thoughts:
1. Unity strategically had no choice but to make changes
2. Devs are upset, but it isn't quite as bad as it seems
3. Unity's comms & implementation wasn't great
More below 👇
1/ excited to share that @a16z is leading the $15M Series A round in @PahdoLabs - developers of upcoming anime RPG Halcyon Zero and a UGC platform where players can create their own anime-style worlds via AI tools & procedural generation
more👇
https://t.co/rWR9a7U5rh
GAMES ARE EATING THE WORLD
Apps are moving from:
2D ->3D
Linear ->Interactive
1P ->Multiplayer
Static ->Personalized
Why we believe @a16zgames that building the "picks & shovels" to make this happen will yield multiple $10B+ businesses🧵👇
Join us: https://t.co/w0cPLZx21h
Heard from VC LPs this week.
Moderated a panel with two endowment LPs - one under allocated to VC, one over allocated. - A 🧵 of a few takeaways 👇
1) “Top quartile returns aren’t enough, we look for GPs who can deliver top decile … and access to top GPs no longer an issue”
The Generative AI revolution hitting Games isn’t a distant fantasy, it’s already HERE
We heard from 243 game studios - large and small - the results were astonishing ��
87% of studios are CURRENTLY using AI
Here are the big findings 👇
Most protocols are far too focused on tokenomics.
At best, it’s time that could be better spent elsewhere. At worst, it leads to worse products (or ponzi loops).
In this thread, we’ll lay out some thoughts on what sustainable business models looks like in crypto. 🧵
1/ The IP landscape is dominated by brands such as Pokémon while new entrants struggle to gain market share due to high initial costs, time to bootstrap, and limited distribution.
Crypto disrupts the IP market by being open, efficient, and accessible.
https://t.co/HUYLi6drKO
You asked, we shipped 🚀
Now you can see where ETH principal withdrawals are from
At 870,688 ETH, Kraken and Coinbase account for the majority (78.3%) of the principal withdrawals so far
See the table view below ⬇️
Botting is a HUGE problem in Web3 gaming...
It breaks the game experience but can also now rob people of their valuable assets.
A 🧵 on how to minimize botting in Web3.
Many Web3 gaming projects fail to understand that community is THE MOAT.
In the industry's current stage, you won't succeed without it.
A 🧵 on building sustainable gaming communities.
MiCA, the landmark EU crypto regulation, officially passed the plenary of the EU Parliament 🇪🇺
-517 MEPs voted in favor
-38 against
-18 abstentions
Next steps
-final formal vote in the Council of the EU (EU member states) on May 16
-MiCA publication in the Official journal of the EU 20 days after that
-Entry into application in June 2024 for stablecoin issuers, in December 2024 for everything else (crypto-asset service providers etc.)
I'll share an in-depth overview of MiCA's rules and implications later today.
Btw: The TFR (AML travel rules for crypto) also passed (529 in favor, 29 against).
What a day in crypto policy.
Around 1pm CET, the plenary of the EU Parliament will briefly discuss both MiCA and the TFR, before the two regulations are officially voted on and passed tomorrow (expect no in-depth debate). Live stream: https://t.co/SI2JjTl1zO
At 4pm CET, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Financial Services Committee of the House will hold a hearing entitled "Understanding Stablecoins' Role in Payments and the Need for Legislation", with @ddisparte, @jchervinsky & @austincampbell as witnesses, amongst others. Live stream: https://t.co/l9cjkOPSs5
A crucial day for the industry, can't wait!
Existing privacy solutions in Web 3 have seemingly failed to deliver products that are widely adopted. Whether they are financial or data focused, they have thus far lacked the necessary value proposition to sway users towards usage.
But why is this?
In my latest piece for the Zee Prime Blog I have delved deep in the philosophy behind these solutions and how we should think about improving their value proposition going forward.
Privacy solutions have failed to date because of their inability to offer competitive products to their intrusive counterparts. Switching to a private solution from current models, effectively leads to a worse UX for the user due to the content becoming more irrelevant. While on the financial front, private financial rails facilitate intolerable behaviour such as theft and fraud.
As a result, we should move towards "compliant" privacy solutions and shift their framing towards an ability to create rules for decentralized societies. Such solutions enable the establishment of a moral code and more advanced societal structures can be built. It is upon these structures that we can expect to attract more “normie” type users.
This can be executed in multiple ways, including within the confines of entirely dark systems. Spectrums of privacy and compliance will clearly emerge, ranging from fully governmentally compliant to compliant within their own predefined code. Two examples of interesting projects taking different approaches include @silentdao_ and @darkfisquad. While silent aims to bring compliant privacy to mainnet apps, the DarkFi team is building a bespoke L1 with homomorphic encryption that will enable dark engineering.
Overall we think both kinds of approaches are important for building the next stage of Web 3. Whatever your personal beliefs are on the topic, what is clear is that we should aim to minimize toxic behaviour that is universally bad, as nobody wants to live in an environment where you can get robbed with zero recourse.
Please enjoy the read and if you have any ideas on building new protocols or just want to discuss the topic more broadly feel free to DM me.
https://t.co/UdDTgtl5D0
🤔Do you remember:
- https://t.co/LpRCYTNzOr?
- https://t.co/RNZz6g9NgE?
- https://t.co/JgmluqGqt5?
The Golden Age of browser games is long gone, but we're soon to see a renaissance
Here's why the next Fortnite will be played from a browser 👇
Gaming will never be the same
The world is changing, we talk about AI and ChatGPT day in and day out.
This will also have significant impact on the whole gaming industry.
I organized my thoughts on the topic below: 👾🧵