Dove Dispatch #23 (Bradley Miles - Roll)
Seed extensions, presenting your project to investors, and much more
GM and welcome to Dove Dispatch #23. We’re making a small change to our distribution format and condensing our content into a single issue each week. We’ll publish fundraising updates every Tuesday as usual, and alternate our content between analyses and interviews with founders and investors.
We recently published our Q3 2021 Crypto Fundraising Report. Go check it out!
Dove Metrics is sponsored by The Index Coop - a community-led initiative focused on making crypto investing simple, accessible, and safe. They create and maintain the world’s best crypto index products: DeFi Pulse Index ($DPI), ETH2x-Flexible Leverage Index (ETH2x-FLI), BTC2x-Flexible Leverage Index (BTC2x-FLI), Metaverse Index ($MVI), and Bankless BED Index ($BED).
Roll enables people with a sizable following to create social tokens, allowing them to own, control and coordinate the value they create across platforms.
They recently announced a $10M Series A round led by IOSG Ventures, with participation from Animoca Brands and other top investors.
Co-founder and CEO Bradley Miles dropped a ton of knowledge about his experience with fundraising.
Audacity Fund, a crypto VC fund built on top of Syndicate and focused on funding Black and African crypto founders worldwide, participated in your $10M Series A round - their approach and structure being different, how important was it to have them on board?
One of the things I’d love to do in the next five years as a founder is make it easier for founders of color to enter this space and bring more diversity to the Web3 creator economy as well.
Erikan and the Audacity team think the same way, I’m very happy she’s on board and it’s been great working together. We have a similar view on how social tokens and DAOs can shape creator culture this decade.
You guys love to say that you are building "the Stripe for social tokens" - to what extent does this kind of statement can be powerful when pitching investors? Any advice for founders presenting their projects to funds?
Crypto can be complicated and crypto founders have a tendency to make their projects come across as even more complicated in copy and conversation. Anything you can do personally to simplify this process for others will go an extraordinarily long way, including distilling your company’s value prop to a few words. It’s been extraordinarily helpful for us.
Fundraising isn’t a process that you should start unless you absolutely have to. It takes an extraordinary amount of time away from developing the product, culture and community around your business. If you’re building something that people want to invest in, the market will let you know, you won’t necessarily need to do a ton of outreach.
In July 2020, Roll was part of the CoinList Seed Summer 2020 Batch. Three months later, you announced a $1M Seed extension round - how helpful was the CoinList program to complete your funding process?
CoinList Seed is great. There are a few friends and companies that were also in that batch (Biconomy and Abridged) that are doing incredible things as well.
You raised a $1.7M Seed round in June 2019 and announced an extension a year later - what was the reasoning behind that? Any thoughts on the emergence of this new financing round?
We did a seed and folks reached out after so did an extension. Drafting documents and term sheets takes a significant amount of time. It's often better to do a SAFE / seed extension for smaller amounts. We're encountering folks that now with folks that want to invest after our Series A but we don't intend to open anything up anytime soon.
You typically do an extension when you have a collection of small folks that can be strategic and value accretive, we had that in Balaji, Trevor, IOSG, Digital Galaxy, and others that were part of that extension.
In April 2020, Alex Masmej raised $20k using your platform, and since then, hundreds of artists, entrepreneurs, investors, and streamers have done so. How raising funds via personal tokens could potentially compete with traditional funding processes in the near future?
Token fundraises were something we experimented with in 2020 with $ALEX (Alex Masmej) and $KERMAN (Kerman Kohli), great community leaders, and now successful entrepreneurs in their own right.
These were more GoFundMe-style raises that specifically went to the individual. With the explosion of DAOs we’re now seeing in the space, a newer model is emerging to fund a creator’s DAO instead of simply the creator themselves. This is much more akin to organizational funding and has a bright future.
We don’t see Roll as a crowdfunding platform but we’re supportive of Roll creators that want to do this. The future for this type of crowdfunding is bright and will be on multiple platforms.
Many thanks to Bradley for sharing such insightful insights.
Last week 27 projects announced fundraising rounds:
Good Games Guild ($1.7M) | A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that focus on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that often used in blockchain-based games & virtual product — with participation from OKEX, Mapleblock Capital, LD Capital, Basics Capital, Twin Apex Capital, AU21 Capital, Alves Ventures, Kyros Ventures, FOMOCraft Ventures, Titans Ventures, Signal Ventures, Scorpio VC, Master Ventures, ExNetwork Capital, Dutch Crypto Investors, OIG Investment Group, and Kieran Warwick.
Obol Technologies ($6.15M) | A research and software development team focused on building more resilient and distributed staking infrastructure on public blockchain networks — with participation from Ethereal Ventures, Acrylic, Coinbase Ventures, Figment Capital, Jonny Ray, Ben Edgington, Stefan George, Mariano Conti, Evan Van Ness, Ryan Adams, David Hoffman, Jim McDonald, Anthony Sassano, Tim Ogilvie, Jack O'Holleran, Konstantin Richter, Joe Lallouz, Stable Node, Everstake, DeFi Alliance, yield ventures, IOSG Ventures, The LAO, Delphi Digital, Chorus One, Staking Facilities, Stakefish, and Blockdaemon.
Genopets ($8.3M) | The world’s first move-to-earn NFT game powered by Solana — with participation from Konvoy Ventures, Pantera Capital, Old Fashion Research, Alameda Research, Solana Capital, Xoogler Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Collab+Currency, Spartan Group, Animoca Brands, OliveX, Hyper, CMT Digital, DeFi Alliance, Eniac Ventures, CMS Holdings, GBV Capital, Yield Guild Games, Merit Circle, Bitscale Capital, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Evernew Capital, Fundamental Labs, Valhalla Capital, CinchBlock, Raptor Capital, Magnus Capital, Prabhakar Reddy, Richard Ma, Kevin Lin, John Robinson, Brian Corrigan, Keisuke Honda, and Melanie Strong.
PrivacySwap ($1M) | Privacy centric solutions with strong token utility - built on BSC
FIAT DAO ($2M) | Leverage and secondary liquidity for your DeFi fixed income assets — with participation from ParaFi Capital, Fourth Revolution Capital, Morgan Creek Digital, Mechanism Capital, Standard Crypto, Folius Ventures, Not3Lau Capital, D64 Ventures, Santiago R. Santos, Johannes Pfeffer, Tyler Ward, Troy Murray, Adam D'Augelli, Noah Jessop, Ashwin Ramachandran, Lawrence Diao, T.J. Kelly, and Ryan Phua.
Laguna Games ($5M) | A research and game development studio behind Crypto Unicorns — with participation from BITKRAFT Ventures, Transcent Fund, Headline Ventures, Delphi Digital, and Polygon Studios.
Aurora ($12M) | An EVM built on the NEAR Protocol, delivering a turn-key solution for developers to operate their apps on an Ethereum-compatible, high-throughput, scalable and future-safe platform, with low transaction costs for their users — with participation from Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, and Dragonfly Capital.
Makor ($17M) | An international agency brokerage and investment banking group with proven leadership across all asset classes and regions — with participation from Algorand Foundation and Alan Howard.
Highstreet | Digital marketplace where users can shop in group in virtual reality— with participation from Binance Labs and Animoca Brands.
Supreme Finance ($2M) | An adoption-focused DeFi protocol on which we intend to create a fully integrated user-friendly platform/service, to connect as many crypto-muggles with the many decentralized financial products and services already on the market — with participation from Blockchain Lab.
Antex ($7.3M) | Provides the decentralized foundational layers for a new digital economy with the following products: stablecoin, crypto/fiat, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), launchpad, lock liquidity, and lock token and plays the role as a bridge for applying crypto to real daily life through the VNDT wallet and VNDT stablecoin — with participation from NextTech Group, Next100 Ventures, Gelos Ventures, Halvings Capital, Amun Capital, Atlantic Capital, MIC Holding, Victory Capital, AVA Capital, ADN Capital, BSCLaunch, Crypto Era, Trade Coin X1000BTC, Ant Trading, Launch Zone, Easy Crypto, AliTrade, 68 Trading, BFA Group, CHIP Group, KTS Capital, Easy Trading, and S-Finances.
Creaton ($1.1M) | A decentralized content management and sharing platform — with participation from Tykhe Block Ventures and BTSELabs.
Arcana Network ($2.3M) | The storage and privacy stack for Ethereum dApps — with participation from Republic, Woodstock Fund, Digital Currency Group, Hyperedge Capital, SHL Capital, Fenbushi Capital, LD Capital, Arcanum Capital, Paradigm Shift Capital, Ganesh Swami, Ajeet Khurana, Buidlers Tribe, Nishal Shetty, Ajit Tripathi, and Mohit Madan.
Nova Finance ($3M) | Building programmable assets and automating investor strategies on Solana — with participation from Animoca Brands, SkyVision Capital, Rarestone Capital, Solana Capital, 3Commas, Solanium Ventures, AscendEX, Morningstar Ventures, DFG (Dynamic Fintech Group), LIAN Group, Genblock Capital, Spark Digital Capital, Stacker Ventures, Jsquare, Mirana Ventures, and CitizenX Crypto Ventures.
Alty ($1.5M) | The first crypto wallet for WhatsApp and Telegram — with participation from Borderless Capital.
ShoeFy ($3.65M) | Contemporary way of repositioning the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) in an unprecedented method with the help of Fungible Tokens (FT) — with participation from DuckDAO, Moonwhale Ventures, ExNetwork Capital, AU21 Capital, Basics Capital, Dutch Crypto Investors, Oddiyana Ventures, Gate.io, Catena Capital, Ferrum Network, Coins Capital, Blue Moon Capital, China Polka, BMW Capital, Halvings Capital, Intr Funding Capital, Avalon Wealth Club, Redhat Capital, Kommunitas, NFT STARS, Ragnar Digital Investment, BlockMint, and Kangaroo Capital.
Colexion ($8M) | The most premium blockchain-based NFT marketplace to discover and buy exclusive digital collectibles of megastars curated by top crypto artists — with participation from Suniel Shetty.
Celsius Network ($400M) | A blockchain-based lending platform that is accessible through a free mobile app — with participation from Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Quebec and WestCap.
Yup ($3.5M) | A social network for curators that rewards users for liking and sharing content across the web — with participation from Distributed Global, LD Capital, Dapper Labs, Ambush Capital, Danny Zuckerman, Patrick Rivera, Alex Gausman, Bill Block, Scott Moore , Joe Lallouz, Nader Al-Naji, Stefen Delev, David Phelps, Tomer Ben-David, Scott (Genie), Carlos Diaz-Padron, and Gail Wilson.
dHedge ($2M) | Decentralized hedge funds on Ethereum and Polygon — with participation from Synthetix, 0x Ventures, Mask Network, Ellipti, Meld Ventures, and Rob Salha.
SheeldMarket ($10M) | A cryptocurrency trading platform intended to keep the positions of the market participants hidden — with participation from Semantic Ventures, Pascal Gauthier, Draper Dragon, Axeleo Capital, Atomico, and Alexis Bonillo.
NFTically ($500k) | A platform aimed at buying or selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or creating white-label stores — with participation from Gaurav Munjal, Kunal Kapoor, Nitish Mittersain, Roman Saini, Sujeet Kumar, and Surojit Chatterjee.
DeHorizon ($8.5M) | Bridging the gap between great artists, independent developers, and award-winning celebrities, including the development, promotion, and distribution of blockchain-based games to make DeHorizon an interactive and decentralized Metaverse Game Ecosystem — with participation from Everest Ventures, Sfermion, Dragonfly Capital, Animoca Brands, Yield Guild Games, Mechanism Capital, gumi Cryptos, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Bitscale Capital, Republic Realm, YouBi Capital, The LAO, LD Capital, Dialectic Capital, Momentum 6, Stable Node, Taureon Capital, Digital Finance Group, Zonff Partners, Pluto Digital Assets, WaYi, Crasolum, LucidBlue Ventures, OKEX, Maeve Ventures, Jerome Wong, Darren Lau, Santiago R. Santos, Ruby Capital, Meteorite Labs, Tess Ventures, Kardia Ventures, Akatsuki, Puzzle Ventures, Formless Capital, Miss ₿itcoin, and Bo Feng.
Elliptic ($60M) | Making cryptocurrency transaction activity more transparent and accountable — with participation from Evolution Equity Partners, SoftBank, Albion VC, Digital Currency Group, Wells Fargo, SBI Financial Services, Octopus Ventures, SignalFire, and Paladin Capital Group.
Strip Finance ($1.5M) | Decentralised marketplace for easing liquidity in NFT & DeFi — with participation from Old Fashion Research, Nothing Research, Tenzor Capital, ExNetwork Capital, Valhalla Capital, Block0, Shima Capital, Lancer Capital, MEXC Exchange, Kryptos, The NewField Fund, ZBS Capital, J10M Capital, Wave 7, Tamar Menteshashvili, Ryan Fang, Marco Robustelli, Aditya Nagarsheth, Evan Luthra, Palash Jain, and Tushar Aggarwal.
Futureswap ($12M) | Ethereum which runs our smart contracts and node network — with participation from Ribbit Capital, Framework Ventures, Placeholder, True Ventures, and others.
MoonPay ($400M) | A financial technology company that builds payments infrastructure for crypto — with participation from Coatue Management, and Tiger Global Management.
We have also added the following investors: Formless Capital, Ambush Capital, Tykhe Block Ventures, Hyperedge Capital, Paradigm Shift Capital, Intr Funding Capital, Kommunitas, Ragnar Digital Investment, Kangaroo Capital, Amun Capital, ADN Capital, and many angels.
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See you on Tuesday for the next issue,
The Dove Team