Gm. If BeReal made a metaverse, would they call it Real Life?

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

BEREAL

Copy and Paste

"The app has no business model."

On October 20, TechCrunch reported that BeReal raised $60 million in a Series B this summer and is now up to 20 million daily active users (DAU). That puts their valuation at around $600 million.

Despite 20 million addicted users across the globe, The French company still has not figured out a way to make money. Instead of a thoughtpiece about BeReal and its competition, we thought of something better.

Here's 5 ways BeReal can start turning a profit.

1. BeReal starts a metaverse called Real Life.

2. BeReal sues TikTok for copying their 1-photo-a-day thing.

3. BeReal uses their French heritage to starts selling croissants.

4. BeReal hires Sam Parr from The Hustle and turns into a BeMotivated app that screams at you 1x/day to go workout and make more money.

5. BeReal starts a game show called BeReallyReal where contestants have to take a selfie 1x/hour for 14 days straight. No sleep. The winner gets a check from a16z.

DEFI

SBF: Hero or Villain

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is weird. We all know that. But he's always been seen as a chaotic good: a terribly dressed, lovable genius affably known as SBF who is here to make a lot of money in crypto and then donate it.

The crypto space turned on SBF this week.

Bankman-Fried shared an "industry norms manual" that suggested decentralized exchanges (DEXs) should be regulated. Considering SBF spends millions (or billions) on lobbying in Washington, people are pissed off.

The Dilemma

Centralized exchanges like SBF's FTX control your keys (and crypto) whereas DEXs like Uniswap do not. Hence, DEXs are deemed safer and less prone to the issues that come with centralization like bankruptcy or corruption.

If SBF is really about the crypto ethos, why is he lobbying against DEXs? It seems like he's choosing his bag over crypto's most sacred philosophy while claiming to care about user safety and moderate regulation. The crypto world is not happy.

Crypto Twitter Reacts

"Now is the time to get loud and fight," tweeted Scott Lewis, inventor of the DeFi aggregator and founder of DeFi Pulse. " Sam Bankman-Fried has spent $39,306,000 buying DC politicians since January," he continued.

Respected solidity dev 0xfoobar tweeted, "today's proposals and the well-overdue expose of secret backdoor lobbying from SBF are nothing short of pathetic". One crypto user even made a dank Shrek meme.

Not everyone is against SBF though. Many believe that crypto regulation is coming regardless, and thus it's better to have the devil you know than the devil you don't. Either way, SBF is playing some 5D chess and no one knows his thought process except him.

Email us back what you think. Is SBF the hero or villain?

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: RoboBurger raised $10 million for their burger-making robots. We've seen the future and the future tastes like bacon cheeseburgers.

Story we're watching: Kudos raised $7 million for their Google Chrome plug-in and app that optimizes your credit card points in real-time and lets you do one-click checkout. It's easy to hate on one-click checkout apps, but this one is pretty neat not gonna lie.

Rabbit hole: The Cartoon Bank (The New Yorker)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• ByteDance, parent company to TikTok, allegedly planned to use the app to monitor the locations of select American citizens.

• Instagram is testing out allowing users to schedule posts in-app. Buffer and Hootsuite executives are crying and hiding under their desks.

• a16z hired former deputy staff director Collin McCune of the House Financial Services Committee to head up their government affairs and lobbying.

• Bluesky, the Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized social protocol, had 30,000 waitlist signups in 2 days. Btw, Nikita Bier's Gas App has that many signups every hour. 😮

GUESSTIMATE

How many wallets have been created through Reddit and Polygon's NFT partnership?

Hint: It's roughly the amount of a lot of crypto seed rounds.

FUNDRAISING FRIDAY

Check out this list of the 30+ Top Pre-Seed VC Funds shared by Lolita Taub.

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Company

Microsoft: 1,000 people (~5%)

goPuff: 250 people (~2%)

Leafly: 56 people (21%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

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

🎤 Tim Ferriss hosted media dealmaker Aryeh Bourkoff on The Tim Ferriss Podcast #629

🤝 Harvard Business School posted a guide to finding the right startup co-founder.

💻 Elad Gil posted a new blog comparing AI from startups and incumbents.

GUESSTIMATE ANSWER

Over 3 million. Reddit now has more wallets than OpenSea.