🎨 The $69m NFT
Roblox explodes onto the market, NFTs continue to spread fast & there's a new VC model in town
So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍 Someone was crazy / smart enough to buy an NFT for $69m, Terry Crews launched a cryptocurrency & we celebrate International Women’s Week 💯
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The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥
12 tech & startup stories in 149 super short seconds.
👩 International Women’s Week! Check out this brilliant list of the top 100 women in Fintech. Expect to see names from Paypal, Revolut, Monzo and many more! See the full list here.
🚀 Starling Bank is a Unicorn! Starling Bank has announced £272m in funding at a £1.3bn post-money valuation. Starling has an annualized revenue run rate of £145m and has posted operating profits for the past four consecutive months. There are lots of videos about Starling Bank, but this talk from Anne Boden 2 years back is probably the best. Watch it here.
🤖 Homer AI? Could The Simpsons replace its voice actors with AI deep fakes ? Find out here.
🍊A New VC Model? Passion Capital, the early-stage fintech VC, is crowdfunding from the general public via Seedrs. This is a pretty cool model, giving the general public access to potential VC style returns. To date, Passion capital has made 81 investments in companies like Monzo, Go Cardless and Tide, Full story here.
🌎 $45bn Imagination Platform Roblox, a gaming platform with 150m monthly users, surged 60% in its first day of trading on the NY Stock Exchange to reach a valuation of $47bn. The game centres around an online universe where players can interact with 20 million games created by other users and developers. Minecraft 2.0 or the gaming platform of the future?
🎨 The Most Expensive NFT Ever Sold! An NFT (Non-Fungible Token) has sold through Christie’s for $69.3m. Read the full article here, get the basics on NFTs here or buy your own here.
🏀 Slam Dunk On the topic of NFTs, a 31-year-old financial analyst who came across NBA Top Shot, has built a portfolio of trading cards worth $20m in only a matter of months. He recognised its potential early and spent $175k on 3,800 ‘moments’. Read more about the fast-growing platform here.
💸 The Founder of Ethereum! Tim Ferris has released a brilliant podcast with Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Etheruem. Listen on Spotify here or Apple podcasts here. Not quite ready to dive into the deep end? Get a basic overview of Ethereum here.
🎉 White $hicks Actor Terry Crews is launching a new social currency called $POWER. In partnership with Roll, the currency will allow Crew to distribute a blockchain based currency. Members of his community will be able to receive $POWER based on their engagement and go on to spend it on things like art, content, cash and more.
☁️ Dropbox has acquired DocSend for $165m. Watch the CEO talking about the acquisition and the future of cloud storage here. This seemed low to us…
💰 Super-SPAC Southeast Asian ride-hailing startup, Grab, is in negotiations to go public through a SPAC merger that’ll value the company as high as $40bn. This will make it the biggest deal of its type in history. It’s backers include Softbank, Uber & Toyota. A primer on SPACs is here.
🎳 Right Up Our Alley An 87 second one-shot drone video has gone viral due to it’s extraordinary footage. It was filmed as part of a project to document and market local businesses in their fight to survive during coronavirus. Watch it here.
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Over & Out,
Nick & Louis