li

Startups

“A16z Elevates Jennifer Li to Co-Lead $1.25B Infrastructure Fund Development”

Powerhouse venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is promoting Jennifer Li to general partner after six years at the firm. She’s being tapped to help invest the new $1.25 billion Infrastructure fund managed by longtime a16z general partner Martin Casado. The Infrastructure fund is part of the fresh $7.2 billion that the Silicon Valley VC giant just raised. Li has been an investing partner on the Infrastructure team for a while, which means she was already writing checks and taking board seats. Plus she’s one of only four GPs on the Infrastructure team.

Dylan Williams
April 19, 2024
1 Comment

Crypto, Fintech

Ex-Gaming Entrepreneurs Secure $2.5M in Funding for NFT Marketplace in Effort to Keep Users, Even During Non-Profitable Periods

Former web3 gaming founders raise $2.5M for their NFT marketplace to retain users even when there ‘isn’t money to be made’Even though NFT sales volume is still down 88% from 2022 all time-highs (and down 38% year-to-date), Pallet Exchange is building a new type of NFT marketplace focused on user retention. “It’s cool if there’s a lot of financial innovations happening, but at the same time we saw there’s pain points from a user experience,” Li said. It’s using social media tactics like in-app messaging that lets people interested in the same NFT collections engage with each other on its marketplace. That’s when Seiyans, an Sei-based NFT collection fueled by meme culture, capitulated the new blockchain and marketplace into the talk of the crypto world. Down the line, Pallet plans to look into working with big partners in the art marketplace and create a separate marketplace for those creators.

Ava Patel
March 14, 2024

Venture

AC Ventures Shuts Down Fresh Fund Focused on Indonesia, Garnering $210M in Capital

AC Ventures has already started investing from Fund V in startups like Indonesian electric vehicle maker MAKA Motors and sustainable farming startup Koltiva. Fund V will add around 25 companies to AC Ventures’ current portfolio of 120 startups. One of AC Ventures’ priorities is investing in firms that have high environmental and social impacts. It says that its third fund, Fund III, had an overall impact ratio of +37% as measured by Finland’s The Upright Project, putting it above the Nasdaq Small Cap Index average of +29%. Wong says AC Ventures is a signatory of the UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles and IFC’s Invest2Equal program.