Web3 Fundraising in the Bear Market: advice from Metis and ZKM co-Founder
What is the future of L2 infrastructure?
GM and happy Monday frens🖖
We launched a podcast! Our team will bring in the founders of the leading Web3 products and protocols to dive deep into industry topics that often fly under the radar.
The first episode's guest is co-Founder of Metis and ZKM Kevin Liu. Kevin shared his experience with fundraising and staying stable in the bear market, as well as his thoughts on the Layer2 market. Be sure to check out by clicking on the button below.
While you're here, take a little sneak peek:
— Do all Web3 projects must have tokens to receive funding?
It depends on the business nature. If a company has its own business model where they don't need a token to be involved in at the beginning, they can talk to some traditional venture funds.
If you're talking to Web3 investors, it is quite natural for them to expect tokens. Because from an investor's point of view, they need this kind of guarantee that can exit at some point.
So if you hope to raise funds, you might need to get used to this market.
— There are already dozens of Layer2 solutions out there. Every month there's a new L2 solution. Do you think the industry needs so many?
To be honest, I think we might still have too little. Consider a large business. Let’s say, in the future, when some Web2 retailer companies come online, they will definitely need a separate application chain. So Layer2 can come to help. But for now it is still at a very early stage.
Join us for a one-day event dedicated to Ethereum infrastructure!
📅Devconnect, Istanbul, November 15.
⏳Agenda: keynotes, panel discussions, speed-networking sessions!
🎓Speakers:
Bobbin Threadbare, Founder @Polygon
Alex Gluchowski, Co-founder @zkSync
Anton Bukov, Founder @1inch
Brecht Devos, Co-founder @Taiko
Dmitry Zhelezov, Сo-founder @Subsquid
Vince Yang, Co-founder @zkLink
Nebojsa Urosevic, co-founder SVP of R&D @Tenderly
Bogdan Habic, CTO @Tenderly
Liron Hayman, Head of BD @StarkWare
Jan Gorzny, Head of L2 Scaling @Quantstamp
Bowen Wang, Director of Protocol @NEAR
🔴The event is free, but there are limited seats available. Be sure to secure one!
— How to raise funds during the bear market?
Do not pursue only big investors. If you have the chance to raise funds from different investors, try to find a balance. Do not only focus on the top ones. Medium and small ones also work, and they might have more help than you could ever imagine.
— If raising funds from VCs, do you think it's better to raise funds in tokens or in equity, or both?
Different groups of investors have different preferences. But the easiest way is through tokens. Some European and North American investors prefer equity, but they still need tokens warrant.
— What do you think is the best way to start a Web3 product now?
If you can have some grant to kick off, and to build some proof of concept or MVP, it will put you in a much better position when you talk with investors.
And final insight on Web3 companies from Kevin:
“If you hope to start a blockchain project - decentralization is one of the core cornerstones for you to operate and to sustain. That should be the vision of every project.
When we design the entire infrastructure, the whole mechanism, we don't just want that large token holders to take control and vote for their favor. We really hope all the contributors can have their say.
So, in that way, when we design the whole governance structure, we hope that different layers of contributors can participate.
If you're a general community member, you can have some ways to propose. But whether the proposal is valid or not, is feasible or not, it will be decided by infrastructure contributors in the ecosystem.
In the future, every Web3 project should be decentralized. Otherwise, you can go to Web2. Welcome to Web3”.
That was a little sneak peek of our podcast. Want to hear the full version? Click the link below. And be sure to subscribe and hit the like — it’ll help us to make new episodes!
All right, that’s it for today! 👋 But wait…
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Sending growth your way,
Epic Web3