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From the founders of Acast, Sesamy is setting out to ‘de-wall’ digital content • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Acast, Media & Entertainment, Sesamy, VentureNo Comments on From the founders of Acast, Sesamy is setting out to ‘de-wall’ digital content • ZebethMedia

A new startup from the founders of Acast today announced a $3.4 million seed round of funding to “de-wall” digital content including ebooks, audiobooks, and news articles. After recently severing ties with Acast, a popular podcasting platform they founded some eight years ago, Karl Rosander, Måns Ulvestam, and Markus Ahlstrand have turned their attentions to Sesamy, a company that wants to make waves in the digital content space via two core products. Founded out of Sweden in 2021, Sesamy in its original guise was purely an online store where publishers of ebooks, audiobooks, and podcasts could sell their wares as one-off purchases that can be consumed inside any app on any device. So if someone wants to read an ebook on a Pocketbook ereader, for example, rather than being locked into Amazon’s walled Kindle ecosystem, then that’s where Sesamy enters the fray. But it also allows people to easily export and read on Kindle or Kobo if they wish — it’s about giving the user flexibility. Similarly, if a consumer want to buy an audiobook and listen to it through their favorite podcast app, then this is what Sesamy promises. Under the hood, Sesamy uses the same kind of DRM protection that other platforms use, ensuring that only the buyer is able to consume the content on a device or app linked to their Sesamy account. Sesamy said that it already has partnerships in place with “every major publisher” in Sweden and Denmark. Sesamy’s online store Fast-forward to last month, and Sesamy unveiled the next step in its digital content roadmap: allowing news publishers to sell access to paywalled articles via one-off purchases. Pay-per-article In truth, this is a problem that numerous companies have attempted to solve: how to let people pay to read a paywalled article without committing to an entire subscription. There are long-established platforms such as Blendle, and newcomers such as Zette which offer pay-per-article integrations for digital publishers, but one of the core arguments against such services is that they effectively cannibalise a publisher’s potential subscription revenue. And so Sesamy has built what it calls a “SmartID” system that allows paywalled publishers to optimize single-purchase prices, and even prompt readers to sign up for a subscription to save money if it detects that they are already reading three or four articles a month from a publication. The idea here is to closely align a publication’s subscription and pay-per-article offerings, aggregating large amounts of data to help the publication figure out the best price to charge based on the length of the article and what readers elsewhere have been paying, as well as other attributes such as whether an article is a major exclusive and how old it is — so the price can maybe be reduced after a few days or weeks. “At Sesamy, our goal is a simple yet comprehensive one: to bring back open to the internet,” said Sesamy CEO Måns Ulvestam, who was also Acast’s CEO until 2017, in a statement. “This is why our paywall technology is transparent and flexible for both digital content creators and consumers alike; giving consumers the option to make single purchases of articles whilst ensuring subscription revenues are not cannibalised.” For now, Sesamy has just a couple of SmartID partnerships in place with Swedish publications Breakit and Kvartal, who are now working to integrate Sesamy’s technology into their respective platforms. But with another $3.4 million in the bank, taking its total funding to $7.5 million since its inception, the company has aspirations to grow in international markets, with plans to extend to its paywall technology deeper into Europe, and eventually the U.S., though it hasn’t given any indication on its planned timescale. Additionally, there could be scope to extend its current online store product to other markets, though it was non-committal on the specifics. “We certainly remain keen to expand our B2C offering into suitable markets across Europe as and when the right opportunities present themselves,” a spokesperson said. Sesamy’s seed investment was led by GP Bullhound, with participation from Co_Made, Tham Invest, Brofunds, Hållbar and the Sesamy founding team themselves.

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Modus expands to sub-Saharan Africa with the launch of its AI and blockchain-focused $75M fund • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in africa, AI, blockchain, modus, Startups, VentureNo Comments on Modus expands to sub-Saharan Africa with the launch of its AI and blockchain-focused $75M fund • ZebethMedia

New York-based venture platform Modus has launched Modus Africa, a venture capital fund for AI and blockchain startups across sub-Saharan Africa, ZebethMedia has learned. The fund is expected to reach a final close in the first quarter of next year. The spinoff continues Modus’s string of moves over the past 18 months, which has seen it add branches in Abu Dhabi, Cairo, and, most recently, Riyadh, supported by institutions like Mubadala’s Hub71. Modus says that its entry into Africa creates an “additional conduit of market access for Modus portfolio companies while also enabling African startups to scale into the MENA region.” As a “holistic venture platform,” Modus runs three business units focusing on entrepreneurs and startups in the MENA and GCC regions. They include the Venture Builder, which works with idea and early-stage MVP stage companies. Then there’s Corporate Innovation, a service platform that leverages the firm’s internal know-how to support corporations and government entities. And its Venture Capital arm provides investment to early and midstage-sized startups, such as staffing platform Ogram. On its website, Modus says its fund is backed by several investors ranging from UHNWI, family offices, private investors, and government-backed entities from the U.S., the EU, and MENA. Although Modus primarily invests in foreign-based companies that are “portable to the Middle East,” as well as startups in Egypt and the GCC, its expansion into sub-Saharan Africa isn’t surprising. Last year, African startups raised over $5 billion and minted five unicorns (per this report, the continent observed a 250% year-over-year growth in funding and surpassed capital deployed in MENA). And despite the current macroeconomic trends and conditions that have resulted in layoffs, down rounds and shutdowns, startups on the continent are set to top last year’s fundraising record numbers. Unlike other firms with marked funds interested in Africa, Modus’s interest in AI and blockchain technologies is intriguing. Though it has household names such as Tunisia’s InstaDeep, Kenya’s Sama, and South Africa’s DataProphet — and several web3 startups claiming to build on the blockchain — Africa’s AI and blockchain sectors are still relatively nascent. The thinking behind adopting this strategy can be traced to Vianney Mathonnet and Andre Jr. Ayotte, the general partners of Modus’s Africa-focused fund. Both partners, in an interview with ZebethMedia, described how several stints working in banking, finance and Dubai-based family offices pointed them to the emergence of blockchain technology and its outsized opportunity and application in Africa. “Not long after we launched this project after noticing how massive blockchain and AI could be in Africa, we were approached by Modus Capital because they wanted a Pan-African strategy themselves,” said Ayotte. “They were looking for people with the know-how, the network, experience to do that, so we started discussing how the partnership would work. Ultimately, what happened is that our project became the Modus Africa fund.” L-R: Andre Jr. Ayotte and Vianney Mathonnet (General Partners, Modus Africa) According to a statement, Modus says Africa has the potential of reaching 200 million+ new blockchain users in the next four years, fueled by necessity and a fast-growing tech-savvy population. Nevertheless, the six-year-old VC firm isn’t only taking a chance on purely AI and blockchain startups; instead, it is cutting checks in startups across broader sectors that are implementing those technologies into their products. The firm is currently closing three investments in startups using AI and blockchain across insurtech, fintech and health tech, said the general partners who control the fund’s thesis, direction and investment strategy while leveraging Modus’s 50+ team to carry out due diligence and portfolio management. Mathonnet said the “jurisdiction-agnostic” Modus Africa will invest in about 45 seed-stage startups and allocate 50% of the $75 million SDG-focused fund for follow-on investments, especially in Series A rounds. These checks will range from $350,000 to $1.2 million across both stages. “We as a fund will reinvest in our winners and our LPs are also looking to reinvest in them outside the fund, catalyzing even more money in the ecosystem in Africa,” said the partners. “In terms of countries, we know that tech talent and incubators are really strong in tech ecosystems like Kenya and Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa, and it’s inevitable that a good deal flow within all these regions. With that said, though, we are exploring new regions and searching for key partnerships to enter those markets and add some support and sustainability for deal flow.” Some of these markets include the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Niger and others in Francophone Africa. Speaking on the formation of Modus Africa, Kareem Elsirafy, the managing partner of Modus, said in a statement: “Modus is proud to be launching an Africa-MENA investment corridor to continue supporting and investing in emerging innovation ecosystems. The Modus platform is uniquely positioned to deliver impact and value to African communities through operational, institutional, and financial capital. We’re excited to have Vianney and Andre leading the way on this journey.”

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Nigerian startup that stored its ‘day-to-day operational budget’ on FTX announces staff cuts  • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments on Nigerian startup that stored its ‘day-to-day operational budget’ on FTX announces staff cuts  • ZebethMedia

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello, and welcome to the beginning of another week. As mentioned last Friday, Haje is off scuba diving, leaving the rest of us to pick up the Twitter and FTX pieces. No bother, we are here for you. Mary Ann starts us off by reporting on SoftBank writing down an almost $100 million investment into FTX. And with that, let’s dig in! — Christine The ZebethMedia Top 3 This FTX business has wide reach: Tage reports on what happens to a young company that held some assets in FTX and now can’t access them due to, well, you know. In this instance, African web3 startup Nestcoin said it had to lay off employees as a result of not having that access. A true comparison: Now people in Europe can know the joy and wonder that is the Klarna price comparison tool, which Paul writes may just be a “credible alternative to Google and Amazon.” Oops: Bird, a micromobility company, told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had included unpaid customer rides in its revenue, thus having overstated that particular number for two years. Jaclyn has more. Startups and VC At this point, we all expect our data to move pretty quickly, but there is so much of it that it’s still a headache. This is where Quix comes in, Mike writes. The real-time data startup grabbed $12.9 million in Series A funding, not to do this with ksqlDB, Java-based solutions or any of those fancy schmancy SQL-based analytics solutions. Oh no, Quix is developing event-driven applications with Python. And we have five more for you: The show must go on: Just because FTX is having issues doesn’t mean other companies are shying away from association. Jacquelyn reports on the Joepegs NFT marketplace, which raised $5 million in a round co-led by FTX and Avalanche. “Adult friendships are fickle beasts”: Indeed they are, but have no fear, 222 will help you find that perfect friend who doesn’t care that you make more than they do or who “tends to be lazy,” if that’s what you’re into, Kyle writes. Singapore, get your exotic taste buds ready: Vow, an Australian-based cultured meat company, gobbled up $49.2 million in Series A funding to get its first cell-based meat product into Singapore restaurants, Christine writes. Spring into action: Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future signed a $350 million financing deal to hopefully get it out of its previous monetary challenges and to launch its first vehicle, Jaclyn reports. “The sun’s a ball of buttah”: Butter, now flush with $9 million in funding, led by Gradient Ventures, is helping smaller food distribution businesses comply with food safety rules, Catherine writes. Preparing for fintech’s second decade: 4 moves your firm must make now Image Credits: Emilija Manevska (opens in a new window) / Getty Images According to consultant Grant Easterbrook, fintech startups that hope to succeed over the next few years must be prepared to go up against: Major banks and financial service providers with loyalty programs and “super apps.” Emerging DeFi protocols “that can offer financial products that involve real-world assets.” Banking, invoicing, lending, payments, accounting packaged as “embedded financial products.” Multiple countries issuing their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). “Your firm will need a very strong value proposition to compete with all four types of competitors,” writes Easterbrook, who shares his ideas for navigating the next decade of fintech in a TC+ guest post. Two more from the TC+ team: See, Mom? Layoffs can teach us something: The big tech layoffs have not been great, but Natasha M writes that even though we could see more, entrepreneur Nolan Church, who helped lead Carta’s 2020 layoffs as its chief people officer, has some perspective on Twitter’s recent layoffs. If VCs aren’t investing in you, who are they investing in?: That’s what Becca discusses in her latest piece that looks at all the dry powder in the VC world, and why it’s not yet being deployed. ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. And just like that, VLC’s download ban in India was lifted, Manish reports. Nine months ago, the country’s electronics and IT ministry instituted the ban on the popular media playback software, something VLC worked to try to reverse, stating that the ban had been “put into place without any prior notice” and didn’t allow VLC a chance for rebuttal. Natasha L has more on our favorite social media channel, this time writing that “Twitter is no longer fulfilling key obligations required for it to claim Ireland as its “so-called main establishment under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.” Can’t wait to see where this goes. And we have five more for you:

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Long live the vibe capitalist! • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Crypto, diversity, EC Cryptocurrency, EC News Analysis, EC venture capital, FTX Bankruptcy, Sam Bankman-Fried, Startups, VentureNo Comments on Long live the vibe capitalist! • ZebethMedia

Last week, many investors were left with egg on their faces after FTX’s valuation went from $32 billion to zero in a New York minute. VCs were left wondering, “What the hell happened?” And they’re still wondering, “Wait — did I do something wrong? Is it me?” Why yes, actually, it is you. People are led to believe that, for the most part, investors are clear-eyed, data-driven people who carefully explore the financial underpinnings of the companies they invest in. There is little room for emotions like jealousy or the fear of missing out (FOMO). Of course not. And these people investing billions of dollars surely have their eye on the ball, right? Well, not exactly. In a surprisingly honest tweet today, former SoftBank COO Marcelo Claure, who stepped down in late January after a reported battle over pay, had this to say about the FTX fiasco: I have been reflecting personally on the whole FTX fiasco and it taught me one more time that we should NEVER invest because of FOMO and we should always 100% understand what we are investing in. I totally failed here on both. — Marcelo Claure (@marceloclaure) November 12, 2022 This is from the same guy whose former firm also invested significant money in WeWork, another spectacular example of poor judgment on the part of investors. Steve Jobs once said, “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.” At the time, Jobs was talking about building products, but evidently, this also applies to the people funding the startup ecosystem. While it’s good that Claure was so open, honest and reflective, perhaps we should all remember that investors are not any smarter than anyone else. They’re human after all, and their classic lack of self-awareness combined with venture enthusiasts’ myopia is perhaps the problem. Most investors and the founders in whom they invest are white men, and you get double points if you went to Stanford, Harvard, or MIT. These folks are handed the mantle of genius in all that they do and touch. The next Warren Buffet is rarely if ever, predicted to be a Black man.

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SoftBank writes down nearly $100 million investment in FTX • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Crypto, cryptocurrency, FTX, Softbank, VentureNo Comments on SoftBank writes down nearly $100 million investment in FTX • ZebethMedia

As more details emerge regarding the events that led to FTX’s bankruptcy and stunning collapse, the cryptocurrency exchange’s investors are also being scrutinized. Namely, many people are asking just how could so many high-profile investment firms pour a collective $2 billion with apparently so little due diligence. The notorious Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank, for example, is just one of many such firms that backed FTX after the startup raised a $400 million funding round in January, valuing the company at a staggering $32 billion. SoftBank, which invested as part of its Vision Fund 2, revealed days ago that it sunk just under $100 million into the company. That investment is now marked down to zero with SoftBank saying “it would not face a material markdown in the value of its stake,” according to MarketWatch.  Of course it’s not the first time SoftBank has made an, er, error in judgment when it comes to its investment. It (in)famously poured at least $18.5 billion into WeWork, which along with its co-founder Adam Neumann, spectacularly fell from grace. SoftBank also put money in Katerra, a construction tech startup that also burned through more than $2 billion in funding before shutting down in June 2021. The firm also loaned $100 million to blood testing company Theranos in 2017 through a private equity arm. And it also pumped $500 million into digital mortgage lender Better.com before signing up to co-lead its never materialized SPAC. That company has been the subject of various scandals over the past year and has been struggling in the face of rising mortgage interest rates, a slowed housing market and volatile CEO. ZebethMedia has reached out to SoftBank for comment on its investment in FTX. On November 12, Nikkei Asia reported that SoftBank Group had “lost all the cumulative investment gains it had made through its Vision Fund business as global rate rises and a weakening economic outlook hammered the valuations of portfolio companies.” The publication went on to add that the “Vision Funds’ unrealized gains since the start of investment in 2017 fell to negative $1.46 billion in the July-September period, down from positive $8.49 billion three months ago, according to its quarterly earnings presentation.” SoftBank’s disclosure regarding its FTX investment came soon after Sequoia Capital also marked down to zero the value of its stake in  FTX — “a stake that accounted for a minor percentage of Sequoia’s capital but as of last week likely represented among the most sizable unrealized gains* in the venture firm’s 50-year history,” as reported by TC’s Connie Loizos on November 9. But Sequoia had egg on its face for more than just putting capital into FTX. It also very recently (in late September) published on its website what Bloomberg described as a “ long, meandering profile of Sam Bankman-Fried, a.k.a. SBF, the now-disgraced founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.” Ironically entitled “Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex — And Maybe You Should Too,” the 14,000 (yes, you read that right) piece was apparently “prominently displayed on the Sequoia website, right underneath the dictum, ‘We help the daring build legendary companies,’ ” as reported by Bloomberg. Unsurprisingly, as more details came out around the goings-on within FTX, that piece was taken down. Bankman-Fried stepped down from his role as CEO of FTX on November 10. The New York Times reported earlier today that “Pantera Capital and Galois became the latest hedge funds to announce losses tied to FTX, $130 million and $40 million, respectively.” Also among FTX’s long roster of investors are: NEA, IVP, Iconiq Capital, Third Point Ventures, Tiger Global, Altimeter Capital Management, Lux Capital, Mayfield, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Ribbit Capital, Temasek Holdings, BlackRock and Thoma Bravo. Got a news tip or inside information about a topic we covered? We’d love to hear from you. You can reach TKTKT at TKTK or TKTKT. Or you can drop us a note at tips@techcrunch.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.

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Cleanup, aisle FTX • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Equity Monday, Equity podcast, FTX, Startups, VentureNo Comments on Cleanup, aisle FTX • ZebethMedia

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Here’s what we got into on our Monday episode, a weekly kick-off of sorts: Stocks are mixed around the world, up in parts of Asia and Europe, but down sharply in the United States to start the week. Crypto prices have recovered modestly, but remain sharply depressed from the last week. The FTX damage continues to reverberate. Speaking of crypto, the FTX saga continues. The latest includes a hack on Friday, and a massive emission of new FTT tokens that was so poorly received that major exchanges pulled deposits of the now-radioactive security. All the exchange drama has led to other exchanges taking fire, and Coinbase looking great in contrast. Elsewhere in tech-land: Fake meat raises a bunch more money, Klarna is doing some neat product work, India has unbanned VLC, which was a head-scratcher to begin with, and e-commerce infra startups are still raising capital! And that’s all the time we had this morning! More Wednesday! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

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Zenlytic develops commerce-specific, self-serve business intelligence tool • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in bain capital ventures, business intelligence, Commerce, Ryan Janssen, Startups, Venture, ZenlyticNo Comments on Zenlytic develops commerce-specific, self-serve business intelligence tool • ZebethMedia

Zenlytic, a business intelligence tool for commerce, secured $5.4 million in seed funding to continue developing its natural-language interface for non-technical users who want to corral their customer acquisition, conversion and retention software into one tool without needing a data team. Bain Capital Ventures led the round and was joined by other investors, including Primary Venture Partners, Correlation Ventures, Company Ventures, Habitat Partners (Red Antler) and the Sequoia Scout Fund. As my colleague Kyle Wiggers wrote earlier this year, business intelligence is getting some love from venture capital firms as the category yields more solutions for managing and analyzing large amounts of data so customers can identify new revenue opportunities. However, Ryan Janssen, co-founder and CEO of Zenlytic, is out to turn business intelligence on its head by doing something he believes the industry says it’s doing but has never really delivered — true self-serve capabilities. Prior to starting the company, Janssen and co-founder Paul Blankley were data scientists consulting with commerce brands on how to use data and noticed that no matter the size, they had similar issues. “One of the biggest ironies is they have a wealth of data to make decisions, but because their core product is not tech, they generally have smaller tech teams, are late to develop tech teams,” Janssen told ZebethMedia. So they set out to build their own take on business intelligence with Zenlytic, what he described as a true self-service tool specifically designed for commerce companies. Users can unite all of their customer acquisition, conversion and retention SaaS tools into one cloud data warehouse and access customizable analytics. “Unreliable data is worse than no data at all,” Janssen added. “Brands need customer logic, but today’s tools are typically one-size-fits-all. Our tech unlocks better self-serve by rolling up natural language capabilities powered by GPT-3 and OpenAI to make it feel like you are having a conversation with an internal data person.” The $5.4 million in new funding is spread across two rounds, including one that happened about two years ago and the other one, led by Scott Friend, a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, this year. Friend told ZebethMedia that commerce is one of the core focuses of the firm and he spent most of his career in commerce analytics. While looking for new software companies helping brands do things they couldn’t do before, he found Zenlytic and saw that it was doing something that he had recognized a need for, but could not find. “We didn’t have nearly the brilliance of Ryan and Paul, but did think there needed to be a self-serve way for people to ask questions about their business data without having to hire an analytic team,” Friend said. “We stumbled into Zenlytic and when we saw versions of the product, we were blown away by their idea of being able to ask a question and have the machine do all the analysis. That is a dream for people running brands.” Meanwhile, Zenlytic is very much still in its early stages, so there wasn’t much to report on traction, according to Janssen, and much of the funding will go into expanding the company’s team as it moves toward being a product-led business. He expects the company to triple its team of four people in the next year as it adds more product and analytics folks to develop additional capabilities.

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African web3 startup Nestcoin declares it held its assests in FTX, lays off employees • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Crypto, VentureNo Comments on African web3 startup Nestcoin declares it held its assests in FTX, lays off employees • ZebethMedia

African web3 startup Nestcoin has laid off some of its employees as its business was impacted by FTX’s demise. This information was shared by the startup’s CEO Yele Bademosi, who, in a tweet, said last week’s events impacted his one-year-old startup “as we held our assets (cash and stablecoins) at FTX to manage our operational expenses.” Since Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, made up of FTX, Alameda Research and FTX Ventures, collapsed last week, there have been various reports of companies whose money are stuck on FTX, its crypto exchange platform. Some of them include Galois Capital, a hedge fund with half of its assets stuck on FTX; Genesis Trading, who had about $175 million locked on the crypto exchange; Multicoin, the famed web3 venture capital firm which had nearly 10% of its assets under management trapped. Nestcoin joins that list which seems to be growing by the day; it seems all its assets (cash and stablecoins, as mentioned by the CEO). According to several reports, companies with money stuck on FTX might get their money back depending on how much FTX’s assets are ultimately worth. From its 23-page bankruptcy filing, FTX has more than 100,000 creditors with assets in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion, as well as liabilities ranging from $10 billion to $50 billion. Nestcoin is one of a handful of companies that have received capital from FTX and Alameda Research, alongside other U.S.- and Western-based companies. FTX, for instance, led the $150 million Series C extension round in Chipper Cash, an African payments company; Alameda Research, on the other hand, has backed Nestcoin, Nigeria- and Kenya-based web3 company Mara, Congolese web3 startup Jambo. It’s still unclear if these other startups held their assets in FTX, but that’s likely the case given what’s come to light with Nestcoin, even though Alameda Research, its investor, has less than 1% equity. We used the closely-associated exchange, FTX, as a custodian to store a significant proportion of the stablecoin investment we raised – i.e. our day-to-day operational budget,” said Bademosi in his tweet. “We were not undertaking any trading, but simply custodied our assets on the FTX exchange. While there are uncertainties, including the outcome of our assets held at FTX, we as a company have to adjust our plans, rethink our strategy and take steps to better position ourselves for the future.” To that end, Nestcoin has had reduce its headcount. According to two people familiar with the matter, Nestcoin layoffs will affect at least 30 employees from sub-departments, including Breach, Brunch and MVM, a sister product that raised $3 million months ago; for those remaining, they will see their salaries cut as much as 40%, the people said. While this is a challenging time for us and the industry as a whole – we see this as a wake up call to focus on building a more decentralized crypto future where no one organization or person can amass enough power to influence a nascent industry that has the potential to do good. In the past few days l’ve strengthened my resolve and remain committed to “doing crypto” in line with its true spirit and founding ethos. At Nestcoin we have a renewed sense of purpose – we realize that for crypto to truly go mainstream, we must accelerate the transition to self custody by building compelling trustless crypto products. To succeed, we will remain relentless, resourceful and flexible as we navigate these hard times. Please note, the products Nestcoin has released to-date are DeFi protocols & non-custodial in nature and, as such, we have never held customer funds and this incident has no impact on our customers financially. This is a developing story…

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Vow’s first cultured meat product close to Singapore unveiling after $49.2M Series A • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Blackbird, Cultured meat, George Peppou, Prosperity7 Ventures, Startups, Venture, VowNo Comments on Vow’s first cultured meat product close to Singapore unveiling after $49.2M Series A • ZebethMedia

Another cell-based meat company is poised to have its meat products introduced in restaurants. Vow’s first product brand, Morsel, which was created from its cultured meat technology, will go into Singapore restaurants by the end of this year. Singapore was the first nation to approve cultured meat products for sale, with Eat Just being one of the first companies to sell its lab-grown chicken there. This milestone comes as the three-year-old Australian company, which touts itself as “Australia’s first cell-based meat company,” raised $49.2 million in Series A funding. Cell-based technology is one of the solutions increasingly used that creates meat from the cells of animals instead of the animals themselves. This is not only to save animals from slaughter, but to provide a more sustainable method of food production. Vow co-founder and CEO George Peppou told ZebethMedia that scaling and manufacturing are the biggest single costs for the company and a driver for going after funding. “Before the round, we had an underlying product and customers who were interested,” he said. “We had built Factory 1 and had everything in place going into the regulatory process in Singapore, Australia and the U.S. However, there was way more demand than supply. If we could raise a large Series A, we could introduce Morsel to multiple markets and prove out the big view on what the food looks like.” Morsel is a cultured umami quail product, and the way chefs are experimenting with it is to position it on the menu, not as quail, but as a new type of meat. It has a roasted umami flavor with aromatic seafood notes, providing a more unique experience and something that you would expect to see on a fine-dining menu, Peppou said. Blackbird and Prosperity7 Ventures, an Aramco Ventures growth fund, co-led the Series A and was joined by Toyota Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Grok Ventures, Cavallo Ventures, Peakbridge, Tenacious Ventures, HostPlus Super, NGS Super and Pavilion Capital. The new capital comes nearly two years after Vow grabbed $6 million in seed funding. The company was focusing its technology on more exotic meats, like buffalo, kangaroo or alpaca. At the time, it was also building a design facility and laboratory in Sydney, and in October announced that the facility was open. When it is fully operational, the company said it will produce “as much as 30 tonnes” or 66,100 pounds of cultivated meat each year. But as we’ve discussed many times within this publication, scale continues to be a challenge for cultured meat producers due to the cost of the materials and volume needed to reach price parity with current meat products and eventual company profitability. To put this in perspective, it is feared that as the human population nears 9 billion by 2050, a meat-centric diet will not yield enough calories to feed everyone. Giant food producers and startups alike are collectively trying to find a way to produce more food, and plant-based has been identified as one of the ways to do it. Currently, Vow’s Factory 1 is working on producing between one kilo, or two pounds, and tens of kilos every few days, Peppou said. He believes the company has a good strategy for achieving a bigger scale, and with the new capital will speed up getting its Morsel product to market, future product development and hiring across new divisions, like product and marketing. Peppou expects to grow the manufacturing team from four people to between 15 and 20 people in the next few months. By the middle of next year, the overall Vow workforce will be around 80 people. It is also expanding manufacturing by beginning the development of its second factory that the company said will be “100x larger” than its first. “Currently, every part of the process is a long way before hitting the factory’s physical limits, which is intentional,” he added. “We will continue to test with a high margin for error and then ramp up close to capacity while also looking at what Factory 2 needs to look like.” Singapore and Australia currently have a bespoke approval process for cultured meat products and a clear regulatory framework for that approval, Peppou said. He expects to be able to get Morsel to market within a year in both of those countries. The U.S., however, is “a bit more ambiguous because there isn’t a specific regulatory framework, so the timeline for introducing products is less clear,” Peppou added.

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