AVC

I am heartened to see both sides of the political aisle in the US came together yesterday to agree to move forward on a $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill. There are parts of the bill that I don’t like (asking blockchain smart contracts to send 1099s to the IRS seems nuts to me) and parts that were taken out that I think are critical (like building a nationwide EV charging network). But perfect is the enemy of the good. We have not had a functioning legislative branch at the federal level in the...

Rocky Mountain Power emailed me last week and offered us a “100% Solar Match” which means that we can “match” all of our energy consumption in our home in Utah with power from their 20 megawatt solar plant in Holden Utah. This doesn’t mean our home will be now be operating with energy from that plant but it does mean that we have opted for 100% solar. If every Rocky Mountain Power customer opted for this match, they would have to build more solar plants and decommission carbon based energy fa...

I have written about stablecoins in the past. I think they are a very important part of the crypto asset landscape. Two of the top ten crypto assets by market cap are stablecoins, Tether ($62bn) and USDC ($27bn). You don’t buy these assets to generate gains because they are price stabilized. You hold them like cash, to be able to move in and out of trades, purchase things, etc. Countries around the world are looking at stablecoins and thinking “we should issue these assets via our central ban...

The Gotham Gal and I are watching Succession after being told by so many friends and family members that we had to see it. We are in season two and last night we watched an episode where Logan Roy tries to acquire a family-owned media business. The selling family, led by the mother, tells him they will do the deal if he names his daughter Shiv as his successor. Logan explains that is not how he does things and that he will name his successor on his time and terms. The mother explains it is a ...

My family has a history of irregular heartbeats, from PVCs to AFIBs. So when I saw my cardiologist recently, I asked him how I could track my beats. I have worn a Holter Monitor a few times and did not want to do that again unless it was absolutely necessary. He pointed me to this Kardia Mobile device which I purchased on Amazon a few weeks ago. This Kardia Mobile 6L device is remarkable. It delivers a “6 lead” EKG reading into your smartphone by putting the device on your knee and pressing b...

ETHEREUM: THE INFINITE GARDEN is a “feature-length documentary film that explores the innovative real-world applications of the Ethereum blockchain, the die-hard community of enthusiasts and developers, and its creator, Vitalik Buterin, whose vision for the internet has the potential to change the world.”The film is being crowdfunded on the Ethereum blockchain and the campaign ends at 6pm eastern time today. When you choose to back the project, you will have a choice to pledge one ETH and get...

Over the last 18 months, the early-stage financing market has seen dramatic changes characterized by these three things:A shift from in-person fundraising to virtual fundraisingA reduction in financing process timelines from months to weeksA continued increase in the amount of capital available for early stage companiesI believe that for the most part, these changes will be permanent. And I believe that for the most part, these changes are good for early-stage company formation and innovation...

My partner Albert shared this article yesterday which suggests that the price of carbon will have to reach $150/ton by 2030 in order to create the conditions for the world to get to zero carbon by 2050. The current price of a ton of carbon on the EU’s Emission Trading System is about $60/ton and you can buy carbon offsets for much less than that although you may be purchasing junk credits if you are not careful. If you bought carbon today at $60/ton and held it until 2030 and sold it at $150/...

I’m going with something a bit different today on Funding Friday. Longtime AVC reader Kirsten Lambertsen has created an email newsletter featuring creators and their projects across many different creator platforms. It is called Patron Hunt. It looks like this:I just signed up and you can do that too right here.

There are many stories of chefs, bakers, etc cooking from their homes and apartments during the pandemic and now turning that activity into permanent businesses with storefront leases. I’ve backed quite a few projects like this on Kickstarter and found a great one today. L’Appartement 4F is a couple who baked in their tiny Brooklyn apartment during the pandemic, found a clientele for their products, and now are opening a bakery in Brooklyn Heights. You can watch the video here.

The two most used measures of a venture fund’s performance are the “cash on cash” return and the “internal rate of return” (IRR). One measures how much an investor got back divided by how much they put in (cash/cash). The other measures what the effective rate of return is on the investor’s money. You might think these measures go hand in hand, but that is not the case. I was reminded of that last week when I was reviewing USV’s second-quarter reports that we will send to our investors soon. ...

This morning I was sitting outside of my coffee shop, sipping on a cortado and reading the news on my phone while the NY Times, which I buy for The Gotham Gal every morning, sat folded up next to me. I gave up on mainstream news media two decades ago and have been relying on the Internet for news for a long time now. By “Internet”, I mean blogs, Twitter, and increasingly, email newsletters. What I was reading this morning on the bench sipping coffee was News Items, an email newsletter by John...