Gm. Yesterday was day 1 of the Masters, the PGA Tour’s first major of the year.

To some, that sentence might not mean a damn thing. To others, it means you just had your least productive Thursday of the year.

Here's to an even more unproductive Friday. 

THREE FUNDS TO WATCH

NFTS

Axie Invincible

A week after a hacker drained $600 million from the Ronin blockchain, Sky Mavis bounced back from that bit of turbulence by announcing a new $150 million raise. Simultaneously, it launched a free-to-play version of its flagship NFT game called Axie Infinity: Origin. All in all, not a bad week for the PR team. 

A fresh start?

Sky Mavis announced that the raise will be used to pay back victims of the hack. Couple that with the launch of Axie Infinity: Origin’s alpha, and it’s clear that the company is making a strong push to get some positive press circulating.

• In its fundraising announcement, Sky Mavis also detailed how it’s beefing up security to prevent future hacks. The firm is auditing the Ronin Network and bumping the number of validator nodes from 9 to 21 to shore up the weak point the attackers exploited. 

• The launch of Axie Infinity: Origin as a free, introductory version of the full game comes on the heels of a 45% dip in active users since November. Sky Mavis is hoping that its experiment with a freemium model will pay off and funnel new users to the paid version.

Zoom out: It might sound crazy that Sky Mavis was able to raise a huge sum right after a catastrophic hack, but Axie Infinity just might be too big to fail. Binance, Animoca Brands, and a16z all chipped in for the bailout, showing the lengths the major players in the ecosystem will go to to protect Axie from going belly up and tainting the space for years to come.

BY THE NUMBERS 

Let's dig into some fundraising data

The first quarter of the year ended a few days ago, but quarterly reports on the state of the venture world are still rolling in. Here's a round up of most important stats from the past three months. 

• VCs are rollin' in cash: US VCs raised $74 billion in fresh funds in Q1. That's a new record for any three-month period...ever.  

• But they are holding onto it: Despite the record haul, firms are parting with the cash at a slower pace than last year, deploying $7 billion less than the same period in 2021. Perhaps they see some rainy days ahead? 

• Small fish are thriving: Micro-funds, which have $50 million in AUM or less, raised a total of $5 billion last year. That's slightly below 2019's total, but still set a record for most amount of individual vehicles funded with 339.  

• Overall, the market is getting less founder friendly: DocSend reports that investor usage of its services "steadily decreased throughout the quarter, dipping below 2021 levels." Founders on the other hand moved in the opposite direction with 10% more pitch decks created than in Q1 2021. That's the first time founder supply is outpacing investor demand since 2020.

Bottom line: Last night, Mark Andreessen tweeted "Is this a vibe shift? This feels like a vibe shift," which just about sums it all up. Well said Mark, well said. 

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Y Combinator’s batches have been getting bigger and bigger over the years—the average size doubled between 2016 and 2020, then doubled again in the past year alone. So, Justine Moore of a16z posed the question to her newsletter audience: has YC’s brand changed as the batch size has increased? As you can see from the chart above, over 56% of respondents said that the brand has deteriorated while just 13% said the brand has improved. 

TLDR: Inside Fast’s last few days, from the perspective of the city it was supposed to turn into a tech haven (Tampa Bay Times)

Rabbit hole: Redesigning an app, one day a week at a time (Pketh)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Epic and Lego are teaming up to create a metaverse for kids. 

• Coinbase debuted crypto trading in India much to the chagrin of the anti-crypto government.

• Activision Blizzard gave full-time jobs to almost 1,100 games testers, complete with benefits and a pay raise.

• Meta is building a virtual currency that employees are referring to as “Zuck Bucks.”

GUESSTIMATE

It always stings to think about the companies you should have invested in a decade ago, but it makes for great trivia. 

We'll give you the current valuation of a public company, and you have to guess what its market cap was in 2012.

• Disney - $240.1 billion

• Meta - $606.9 billion

• Microsoft - $2.3 trillion

• Tesla - $1.1 trillion

• GameStop - $11.5 billion

• Crocs - $4.2 billion

FUNDRAISING FRIDAY

“Testing the waters” before raising is tempting, but you’re probably better off not doing it. 

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this week that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🏹 A guide detailing how to successfully launch on Product Hunt

🧪 Unit testing is overrated in software

⚓ Price anchoring is the psychology tip you didn’t know you needed

GUESSTIMATE ANSWER

• Disney - $89.6 billion (+168%)

• Meta - $63.1 billion (+861.9%)

• Microsoft - $223.7 billion (+928.2%)

• Tesla - $3.9 billion (+28,105.1%)

• GameStop - $3 billion (+283.3%)

• Crocs - $1.3 billion (+223.1%)