Archive: First Stage Investor

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Crypto Insider: How to Handle the Crypto Bear Market

By Early Investing on May 23, 2022

The crypto bear market has been rough. Bitcoin started the year trading at around $47,000 and is currently trading for around $30,000. Ethereum started the year around $3,800 and is now around $2,000. And downtrending crypto prices are just one aspect of a bear market. Investor sentiment, interest rates, inflation and more all help shape a bear market. So how should investors approach the crypto bear market? In this episode of Crypto…
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In a slightly less broken world, Enosi Life Sciences would not exist as is. Enosi is a tiny drug research and development company. And that is the only ordinary-sounding thing about it. Its technology is not ordinary. Its rockstar founders are far from ordinary. And its…
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Startup Insider: The Evolution of Crowdfunding

By Early Investing on May 16, 2022

Break out the cake and champagne — it’s Regulation Crowdfunding’s sixth anniversary! On May 16, 2016, Regulation Crowdfunding — or Reg CF — went into effect and allowed startups to offer and sell securities through crowdfunding. Reg CF was first made possible by the JOBS Act,…
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The Third Time Is Not the Charm for This Startup

By Andy Gordon on May 12, 2022

NowRx will complete its third crowdfunding raise on SeedInvest later this month. We’ve recommended it twice. And it has worked out incredibly well for our members who invested.  But the third time is not…
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The wine market was worth $64 billion in 2021 — and that’s just in the U.S. Yet this gargantuan industry has been sorely lacking in innovation. Until Winc came along, that is. Winc is a wine club…
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Seattle in the early 1990s was booming. And no sector was growing faster than aerospace. But Seattle was also midwifing the birth of a new kind of coffeehouse. Starbucks reimagined the experience of a damn good cup of coffee. It struck a deep and broad chord. Starbucks stores…
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Ethereum is a crucial network within the crypto ecosystem. It’s the backbone for much of the decentralized finance world. It’s by far the most popular network for decentralized apps. And most NFTs — which reached a trading volume of more than $17 billion last year — trade on…
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Most of you know that I’m an Ethereum bull. I believe that Ethereum is one of the most important networks in the crypto space. It’s the backbone for much of crypto’s decentralized finance (DeFi) system. Most NFTs trade on the Ethereum network. And trading volume for NFTs alone…
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Our friends at KingsCrowd have been tracking online startup investing since 2018. They gather data on deal volume, industry growth, investor check sizes, founder demographics and everything in between. So we were excited to learn about their…
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Startup disruptions are like earthquakes. The bigger the earthquake, the more widespread its impact. Likewise, major disruptions can upend entire industries. Major earthquakes can topple buildings. And big disruptions can expose the vulnerabilities of powerful legacy companies, diminishing their ability to compete.  Airbnb disrupted the global…
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Crypto Insider: The NFT Bubble Is Not a Death Knell

By Early Investing on April 18, 2022

What’s one word that will spook any investor in any market? Bubble. The word tends to stir up painful memories of the dot-com boom and bust of the late ‘90s, the financial crisis of 2008… and now, the NFT market. The NFT…
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We recommended Bloomstack last June. We liked founder and CEO Eric Delisle’s idea of combining all the systems and platforms cannabis operators use into a single platform. Not only was it a great idea, but it also seemed to be working. Bloomstack was…
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Instacart got a haircut. The company sliced its valuation by nearly 40% from $39 billion to $24 billion — despite the fact that it saw 30% year-over-year growth last year. And Instacart is not the only high-tech company trimming its valuation. So what’s going on?…
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Autonomous driving hasn’t quite arrived yet. But it has spawned several startups that are playing a critical role in advancing autonomous driving technology and adoption.  The startup Argo builds cloud infrastructure — including maps, software and hardware…
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Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, is worried about the future of crypto. In an interview with Time magazine, he said he was concerned about the dangers to overeager investors, high transaction fees and the exorbitant displays of wealth that have come to be synonymous…
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VirZOOM Fights to Find Sustainable Growth

By Andy Gordon on March 31, 2022

It must be possible to feel very good and very bad about a company at the same time. Because that’s how I feel about VirZOOM. To refresh your memory, VirZOOM offers an app that can be used with just the Oculus Quest headset or in conjunction…