Michael Jordan and former rival Allen Iverson are among the 90 – or so – investors participating in a just-completed $46 million funding round for Metaplex, a startup that reportedly allows users to build their own Solana-based non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces. The funding round was co-led by investment firm Multicoin Capital and Jump Crypto, with participation from Solana Ventures, Alameda Research, Animoca Brands, and more than 90 individual supporters. These supporters included legendary basketball player Michael Jordan who last year announced the launch of the HEIR platform on Solana, William Wesley, Allen Iverson, Shari Glazer, RÜFÜS DU
I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase ‘young people are the future’ and it’s one that seems to annoy quite a few people because it’s such a cliche. But no matter how big of a cliche it is – it’s a fact. Young people are continuing to show us that they can defy the odds, rise up against the barriers before them, and kick down doors preventing them from moving forward. One Gen-Z, Toni Fola-Alade, is doing just that. Toni is the CEO of Nomad, a digital bank for startups
Rapper Nas has joined US private equity firm Andreessen Horowitz and Alphabet Inc.’s Google in an investment round for Africa-focused mobile gaming platform – Carry1st. Carry1st, a South African publisher of social games and interactive content across Africa, has raised $20 million Series A from the investors. The startup, launched by Cordel Robbin-Coker, Lucy Hoffman and Tinotenda Mundangepfupfu in 2018, also received investments from Avenir and the founders of Chipper Cash, Sky Mavis and Yield Guild Games, took part. It wants to use this additional capital to scale interactive content across Africa, build the workforce and acquire new users. The
We’ve started a new weekly series looking at founders from different communities absolutely killing it in the tech space. Following on from our ‘Meet 3 Standout Latinx Founders Using Data And AR To Do Some Pretty Cool Things‘ feature piece – we’re now taking a deep dive into Black founders in fintech and blockchain that you should look out for this year. These financial technologies (fintech) companies use the internet, blockchain, and software technologies, as well as algorithms, to offer or facilitate financial services traditionally offered by banks. David Potter
You should probably know what NFTs are by now since these three-letter words have been floating around our headlines, Twitter timelines, and TV screens for the past few weeks now. But for those of you who are behind on this latest trend – we’ll let you off and give you a little reminder. What is an NFT? NFT means a Non-fungible token. The best explanation I’ve seen for it is “Non-fungible” more or less means that it’s unique and can’t be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is
According to government figures, Nigeria has been recording massive growth in its information technology sector, but only one-fifth of IT workers are women. Now aid groups are trying to help women and girls enter the IT world by teaching them about blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. And despite the lack of gender diversity on investment boards in the country, the funding gap, or even an unconscious bias that has frequently been reported – many female African tech entrepreneurs continue to impact the industry remarkably. For example, a report by The Women
A Black-owned music NFT platform, powered by Trapchain, Inc, has collaborated with indie music artist and native Chicagoan Willie Taylor, to drop his first NFT for his music project, “Write My Wrongs.” Taylor first gained notoriety as a contestant from MTV’s “Making the Band 4”, where Sean Combs chose him (P-Diddy) to be a member and one of the main vocalists for the band Day26 on August 26. 360NFT’s launch and debut NFT release commemorate the band’s popularity and success. Its streamlined ecosystem reportedly makes it easy for users to thrive on the blockchain without
Raising capital isn’t easy. Having spoken to dozens of founders this year, I’ve realized that fundraising money – whether that’s from investors, friends, family, or the general public – seems to be the biggest hurdle for almost every business owner. The constant headlines of Series A announcements make it seem like there’s no better time for entrepreneurs to raise venture capital, but the statistics for venture capital funding to Black founders are still quite dire. In the UK between 2009 and 2019 just 0.24 percent of venture capital went to a team
An African cross-border payments company has raised $150 million in a Series C extension round led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX. Chipper Cash, founded in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, is a no-fee peer-to-peer cross-border payment service in Africa. Users can accept payments in Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya through their app. Chipper Cash‘s investment comes barely six months after it closed its first Series C round of $100 million, led by SVB Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of SVB Financial Group. Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos
Marcy Venture Partners, the venture firm co-founded in 2018 by Jay-Z, has just closed its second fund with $325 million in capital commitments. The firm describes itself as having a “consumer, culture and positive impact” investment strategy. The team has so far written checks to at least 21 companies, including Rihanna’s lingerie company Savage X Fenty. Earlier this year, they also began investing in crypto projects, supporting Bitski, a San Francisco-based startup NFT marketplace, and investing more recently in spatial LABS (sLABS). This tech incubator focuses on metaverse and blockchain-based
