Posts from crowdfunding

It has been a long time since I did a Funding Friday here at AVC. I used to do them every Friday. We have funded a lot of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries here over the years. Here are a few examples.

L’Appartement 4F

Land To Sea

There is a new wrinkle in crowdfunding restaurants, bars, coffee shops, bakeries, etc courtesy of USV portfolio company Blackbird, which I recently wrote about.

Blackbird is a loyalty/membership platform for the hospitality industry and it allows operators to issue memberships in-store (at check-in or check-out) or elsewhere. Although Blackbird did not imagine its platform being used for crowdfunding, operators have started to use it that way.

A great example is gertrude’s, a new restaurant in Prospect Heights Brooklyn which hopes to open next month.

gertrude’s is offering anyone the opportunity to become a member in advance of opening and there are three levels of membership:

The benefits of each membership ladder on top of each other and get better and better.

If you live in NYC, particularly if you live in our near Prospect Heights, you can help gertrude’s pay for the cost of opening the store and get your money back in the form of dining opportunities and long-term membership benefits.

This strikes me as a fantastic way for restaurant operators to defray (or ideally fully fund) the cost of opening a new venue. They give up less equity and spend less on raising it and their customers become VIPs and regulars and enjoy the benefits of that. A true win/win.

If you want to help gertrude’s get open, go here and become a member.

My friend Alex Iskold ran the 1K project during the pandemic to help families that were struggling with lost jobs/income, etc. I blogged about it here and AVC readers were generous with their support.

Alex came to the US from Ukraine many years ago, but he has many friends and family members there. So naturally, he has relaunched the 1K project focused on the suffering that is happening in Ukraine.

I supported a family and hopefully, some of you can join me in doing that. And those of you who don’t have the resources to support a family might be able to chip something in. Every little bit helps.

I love using robotics to teach kids to code. A K12 teacher told me many years ago, “when the robot doesn’t do what you told it to do, you know your code is wrong and you need to fix it.” Robotics brings code to life for kids and that’s a great thing.

So when I saw this Kickstarter project, Codrone, I backed it immediately. So did 120 other people and so this project is going to come to life. If you want to back it too, you can do so here.

A friend sent me this Kickstarter project which is about a public art project highlighting three languages that are at risk of extinction.

I backed it and I think you might want to as well. You can do so here. The project ends this weekend so if you want to back it, do so now.

Last month our portfolio company Kickstarter announced the creation of a protocol organization that will develop a web3 protocol for the crowdfunding of creative projects.

They are now assembling a protocol team and are talking to candidates to lead that effort. The protocol lead role is an exciting one that combines product leadership, smart contract development, team management, and a lot more.

I believe Kickstarter is at the forefront of a wave of companies that have been built on web2 technologies that will be adopting web3 approaches to move their products and stakeholder networks forward. And so leading this protocol effort will be an opportunity to help shape what that looks like.

If you are interested in this role or know someone who would be great for it, please email me and I will make the connection.

I backed this project the minute I saw it this morning. The idea of a wall-mounted device like a Nest Thermostat that controls/dims lights and lets you turn up or down your music seems awesome to me. The Nest interface is simple, intuitive, and works wonderfully.

Also, the video is fantastic. More like a movie trailer than a promotional video. It’s embedded below on the blog but if you are reading this on email, click here and watch it.

I backed this project this morning. The Tether Bike Light is “a bike safety device that projects a safe zone around your bike, responds to road users around you, identifying safe and unsafe roads in your city.”

I like the idea that “locations of overtakes are recorded to identify safe and unsafe zones in your city to help plan safer routing.” That is very cool.

Here’s the video if you want to learn more.

My friend Stephen sent me a text with a link to this Kickstarter project. I backed it immediately and went one step further than I ordinarily do, I bought a pre-order copy of the book.

The NBA is back in season, I went to the opener on Weds night here in NYC, and it was a thrill to be in the arena watching incredible athletes play my favorite game to watch.

So I am excited to get this book and put it on my coffee table. I will have endless fun rifling through the pages.

And if you are an NBA fan like me, do yourself a favor and watch this video.

My friend Mike Masnick, founder and leader of Techdirt, is crowdfunding a new paper on NFTs.

I backed the project just now with 0.1 ETH and you can do the same here.