Good morning!
This Wednesday edition features:
A major venture firm sets up shop in Miami
NFT trading volume hit $10.67 billion in Q3
The Facebook whistleblower testifies
SoftBank is cutting more deals than ever
And The Verge reviews Android 12
It’s October 6, 2021.
1. #MiamiTech
Global venture firm G Squared announces expansion to Miami (Refresh Miami)
G Squared, the San Francisco-based global growth-stage venture capital firm, announced yesterday the close of its new $1.2 billion venture fund, G Squared V, and as part of the announcement, the firm said it will soon be opening an office in Miami. The new office will join the firm’s other physical locations in Chicago, San Francisco, Zurich, and Greenwich.
The firm focuses on investments in growth-stage technology companies through the life-cycle of their businesses. The partners have invested in nearly 100 portfolio companies since it was founded in 2011. The newest fund will focus on fintech, insurtech, consumer internet, mobility, and SaaS. Notable holdings include 23andMe, Coursera, Instacart, Lyft, Pinterest, Spotify, Brex, Impossible Foods, Toast, Turo, and FIGS.
As part of the great migration of investors and founders to the Magic City over the past year, the Miami area has welcomed a number of new offices for prominent venture firms, such as Founders Fund, Atomic, and Catalyst, and a large expansion by SoftBank. Florida Funders also recently opened a Miami office, and a number of NYC investors have put down Miami roots, including Alpaca.
2. NFTs
NFT trading volume hit $10.67 billion in Q3, up 700% from previous quarter (Decrypt)
Trading volume of NFTs hit $10.67 billion in the third quarter of the year, an increase of 704% from the previous quarter. Dappradar's Q3 2021 Dapp Industry Report singled out Ethereum and Ronin, which accounted for 77.73% and 19.53% of the record numbers.
NFTs have exploded in popularity in 2021, with Dappradar recording a year-over-year increase in trading volume of over 38,000%. Meanwhile, play-to-earn NFT game Axie Infinity became the most traded NFT collection ever, topping $2 billion in all-time trading volume during the quarter.
Dappradar notes that interest in games dapps is rising, with the number of NFT and games dapps launches increasing since June, while new decentralized finance dapp launches have tailed off over the same period. However, user numbers have dipped slightly, with NFT dapps registering 102,000 unique active wallets on average during the quarter.
Following record-breaking trading volumes of $5.2 billion in August, September proved to be a quieter month. But trading volumes are picking up again. OpenSea's single-day trading volume of $136.8 million on Sunday was its highest since it hit $138.5 million on September 5.
3. Facebook
Facebook whistleblower: The company knows it’s harming people and the buck stops with Zuckerberg (CNBC)
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told a Senate panel Tuesday that Congress must intervene to solve the “crisis” created by her former employer’s products. Haugen, who unmasked herself Sunday as the source behind leaked documents at the core of a revealing Wall Street Journal series about Facebook, testified before the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection.
The former Facebook product manager for civic misinformation told lawmakers that Facebook consistently puts its own profits over users’ health and safety, which is largely a result of its algorithms’ design that steers users toward high-engagement posts that in some cases can be more harmful. Though she stopped short of accusing top executives of intentionally creating harmful products.
“I saw that Facebook repeatedly encountered conflicts between its own profits and our safety,” Haugen said in her written testimony. “Facebook consistently resolved those conflicts in favor of its own profits. The result has been a system that amplifies division, extremism and polarization — and undermining societies around the world.”
Haugen also said that Facebook’s algorithm could steer young users from something relatively innocuous such as healthy recipes to content promoting anorexia in a short period of time. She proposed a solution for Facebook to change its algorithms to stop focusing on delivering posts that create more engagement and instead create a chronological feed of posts for Facebook users. That, she said, would help Facebook deliver safer content.
4. VC
SoftBank is cutting more deals with fewer staff than ever (Bloomberg)
SoftBank has cut 115 deals this year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data released by the company. That is more than the combined number of deals the first Vision Fund made since its start in 2017, showing Masayoshi Son remains confident in his investing capability despite blunders with office-sharing service WeWork and financier Greensill.
The faster pace of deal-making is sure to raise questions about whether Son is risking similar missteps, especially as a string of high-profile departures depletes top talent at the Vision Fund. Seven managing partners have left since March of last year, and last week Deep Nishar, the sole senior managing partner, and leading authority on AI, said he would depart by the end of the year.
The total headcount at SoftBank Investment Advisers, which oversees both Vision Funds, has shrunk from about 500 people early last year, to about 400 now. Several senior people who departed grew frustrated with Son’s overriding influence, which left them with little real authority.
The Vision Fund’s compensation structure also caused tension, with executives limited in their ability to profit from successful startups they introduced to Son. SoftBank’s shares, which are down about 40% from their March peak, fell as much as 3.3% in Tokyo on Monday.”
5. Android
Android 12 review: It’s mostly about the looks (The Verge)
The most exciting thing about a big Android update is getting to try all of the new show-stopping features that’ll change the way you’ll use your phone. Android 12, which releases in a few weeks on Pixel phones (3 and up) and just a select few other devices later this year, is interesting because, well, it doesn’t have a bunch of those.
The Verge reports have been using Android 12 on the Pixel 3 since the first developer preview, and on the Pixel 4A 5G more recently during the latest release candidate. Google recently announced that it released the Android 12 source on Android Open Source Project (AOSP), but instead of releasing it broadly as it has in years past, Pixel owners will need to wait a few more weeks.
For the most part, it’s still Android. You can easily get by on the new update without using the smattering of new features that Google buried in the settings, though it’s worth seeking out a few of them. Check out The Verge’s full report here to learn more about the new operating system.
6. Funding, IPOs, M&As
🏭 GlobalFoundries Files For U.S. IPO: The world’s third-largest semiconductor foundry is headed for an IPO.
📈 TradeZero to Go Public Via SPAC: TradeZero is an online brokerage providing software for stock trading.
💳 AvidXchange Files For U.S. IPO: The payments firm is looking to raise up to $506 million that could value it at $4.4 billion.
🖼 Masterworks Raises $110 Million: Masterworks sells fractionalized shares of paintings and other works by famous artists.
☁️ Ladder Gets $100 Million: Digital life insurance company Ladder raised new funding led by Thomvest Ventures and OMERS.
📺 Perion Acquires Vidazoo For $93.5 Million: The deal will expand the Tel Aviv-based adtech company into new markets.
🧠 Gap Acquires CB4: Gap is acquiring the Israeli AI-powered company to boost its retail operations. Terms were not disclosed.
✍️ Inkitt Inks $59 Million: The startup operates a free platform of the same name for anyone to write and publish stories.
🪙 Dapper Labs Acquires Brud: Dapper Labs is acquiring the creators of Lil Miquela to build a unit focused on DAOs.
📦 Licious Becomes Unicorn With $52 Million: The Bangalore-based e-commerce-for-food startup is India’s newest unicorn.
☁️ Stable Raises $46.5 Million Series A: The insurtech helps to minimize a business’ risk to volatile commodity prices.
🔒 Duality Nabs $30 Million: Duality has a privacy-focused data collaboration tool built using homomorphic encryption.
🪙 Ramp Lands $30 Million Series A: The Warsaw-based crypto on-ramp firm is now valued at over $300 million.
⚕️ GraphWear Closes $20.5 Million Series B: GraphWear is pursuing a needle-free approach to glucose monitoring.
As always, please feel free to share questions, feedback, or requests for future newsletters.
Cheers!
Eric
#BeAmbitious