Gm. Today's edition features a spicy list ranking VC firms, an analysis of Starbucks' web3 play, and a very fun fact about the late Queen of England.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

VC  

Wake up babe, a new VC ranking list just dropped

There’s nothing like a good list to stir up the venture capital ecosystem—especially when that list is ranking venture capital firms. The latest list ranking comes from two recent grads from UPenn who built a system similar to chess's ELO rankings that pits venture firms against each other in head-to-head matchups. To determine the order of the list they asked 388 founders, “Which (firm) would you rather have as an investor?” The results were juicy.

The cream of the crop

The top five firms on the Founder’s Choice list were:

1. Union Square Ventures

2. Bowery Capital

3. Bonfire Ventures

4. Initialized Capital

5. Y Combinator

Some of the firms on here—Union Square, Initialized, and YC—have recognizable brands that also correlate with a good reputation amongst founders. But the other two—Bowery and Bonfire—are much less well known showing that prestige isn't necessarily a prerequisite for founder appreciation.

A further example of this is how low some household names ranked.

Accel (133) and General Catalyst (165) were a little lower than expected but two of the biggest shocks were Bessemer Venture Partners (326) and Andreessen Horowitz (339).

About the methodology

It’s important to take any rankings with a grain of salt and the Founder’s Choice list is no different. One thing that Eric Newcomer noted in his coverage of the rankings is that there are more firms on the list (419) than founders ranking them (388). Therefore a relatively small number of founders carry a lot of weight.

• The creators of the list plan to update it in January of 2023 as more participants respond. So there will likely be some large shifts still to come.

Zoom out: Just like the yearly (and often controversial) Midas List from Forbes, Founder’s Choice has its shortcomings. That said, it is interesting to see how founders with skin in the game rank the firms they take money from.

WEB3

Starbucks unveils its web3 loyalty program

Starbucks does two things well: misspell your name on your order and run a kick-ass loyalty program. But now the coffee chain is moving beyond the normal stars-for-free-stuff model and mixing in some web3 into their loyalty program.

It’s called Starbucks Odyssey

Starbs teamed up with Polygon to let customers earn loyalty points that go towards NFTs rather than stars from the regular loyalty program. The NFTs, dubbed “journey stamps,” will unlock rewards other than a free mocha latte like trips or events.

• Is this the web3 we were promised? The big news hidden within the Odyssey launch is that you can buy journey stamps without using crypto. All it takes is a good old credit card to transact.

For a long time, mainstream web3 adoption seemed a faraway fantasy given how hard it was for everyday people to transact using crypto. But now that the biggest coffee chain in the world is jumping in, it may be the perfect gateway to unlock web3 for millions.

Bottom line: Whether this is just a marketing stunt for Starbucks or an actual commitment to the space, time will only tell.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Apple’s privacy changes were supposed to help protect user data but as time goes on it seems like the infamous iOS 14 update had another effect: making Apple a ton of money. Data from app intelligence firm Apptopia found that the average price of in-app purchases jumped 40% since last year, while Google Play in-app purchases on the other hand only saw a 9% increase during the same period. Apptopia surmises that app makers are adjusting the cost of their in-app purchases in reaction to the increased cost per install brought on by the debut of App Tracking Transparency.

Story we’re watching: Despite being blocked in the country, China has emerged as the fastest growing overseas ad market for Twitter. According to a Reuters report, Chinese officials are spending big bucks on Twitter to promote tourism to foreigners or tout economic or cultural milestones. The issue came to light during in a whistleblower complaint filed by Twitter’s former security chief Peiter Zatko. In his report, he alleged “Twitter executives knew that accepting Chinese money risked endangering users in China,” and that “Mr. Zatko was told that Twitter was too dependent upon the revenue stream at this point to do anything other than attempt to increase it.”

Rabbit hole: The last person standing in the floppy disk business (Eyes on Design)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Twitter has begun rolling out podcasts to Blue subscribers

• The Verge rebranded and launched a new site focused on a return to old-school blogging.

• Blue Origin’s latest rocket launch ended in failure and crashed shortly after takeoff. No one was hurt.

• Key takeaways from the Twitter whistleblowers appearance before congress yesterday.

THREE LIES AND A HEADLINE

Three of these headlines are made-up stories from the satirical news publication, The Onion…but one is from real life. Can you spot the truth among the fakes?

A. “New California water restrictions limit shower sex to once per week.”

B. “Controversial State Farm ad features Patrick Mahomes insisting there no way to insure against god’s judgment.”

C. “Apple announces new iPhones will no longer be compatible with human hand.”

D. “Queen Elizabeth had a 24-carat gold Nintendo—and loved to play Wii Bowling”

FOUNDERS CORNER

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

🙋‍♀️ Why senior engineers always seem to have all the answers

🤝 General advice for one-on-ones with executives

📚 Recommended reads for bootstrapping a business

THREE HEADLINES ANSWER

D. Queen Elizabeth apparently loved the boujee gaming console.