With July now behind us, we have a full month of trading data from the NFT market to digest. The numbers are mixed. While there are some positive signals from the non-fungible token market that matter, others are decidedly negative. Trading continues, but at what appears to be a far slower pace.

For companies in the NFT space, the news is likely unwelcome. The larger blockchain world is in a period of correction, but to see key NFT market metrics fall as quickly as we have makes us wonder what could reignite demand. It seemed doubtful that the period of hype that gave us endless Bored Ape derivatives would last forever. But what’s next?

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

Let’s peek at the July data and then dive into what could return NFTs to prominence. After all, NFT trading has risen a few times during the first decade-plus of the blockchain era — such as it is — so surely it can rise again?

To start, we’ll check in on the market-leading OpenSea, and then we’ll add in other NFT marketplaces to get a good vibe for the non-fungible token market. After that, we’ll theorize some ideas that could make NFTs less uncool again. To work!

A lackluster July

The overall direction of NFT trading volume has been negative for some time, as the following chart from The Block and CryptoSlam makes clear:

…read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/01/what-will-it-take-to-reignite-the-nft-market/

For venture investors, noise is ironically important. Wading through constant streams of capital-seeking founders and startup pitches may be the hardest part of the job, but it’s also imperative to the success of the same job.

So, what happens if energy around entrepreneurship slows? As the downturn looms, are fewer founders going to take risks? According to Redpoint managing director Annie Kadavy, there will be fewer total companies started in the next year than there were in the last two. And, somewhat counterintuitively, the investor thinks that the looming slowdown is “a great thing.”

“In an environment where it’s really easy to raise a seed round, it’s really easy to get your first product up as long as you can throw more money at the problem you’re trying to solve…that is a different profile of risk,” she said, “versus it’s really hard to raise money, and I have to build those products because I care so deeply about the problem.”

She added: “I think that the total number of founders we’re going to see will be fewer, but the quality bar is going up.”

Led by Kadavy and managing partner Erica Brescia, Redpoint Ventures’ early-stage team announced today that it has closed a $650 million fund to back startups. The investment vehicle is the firm’s ninth early-stage focused fund closed to date, which it will invest in companies from seed through Series B stages. The check size will range between $2 million to $15 million, depending on the company.

The firm is targeting the majority, around 70%, of its investments from this fund to be in the Series A space, with the remaining 30% dedicated to seed and Series B startups. It’s aiming for Series A ownership stakes of between 15% and 23%.

Brescia, who joined Redpoint last year after getting plucked from her role as GitHub’s COO, says that the firm hasn’t seen much activity lately from megafunds such as Tiger Global or SoftBank.

“The more players you have in the market, especially [last year] does tend to drive up prices…and now we’re seeing valuations come way back down,” she said. “I think that’s healthier for founders and for investors, and I’m sure that part of that is because we’re seeing fewer players actively pursuing the same company.”

It’s not just valuations that are changing due to a shift in sentiment; the investor said that competition is changing in startup land as well, thanks to the conservatism of megafunds. “One of the things that makes it much more challenging, much more expensive to build an early-stage company, is the number of well-funded early-stage competitors that you have to go down,” Kadavy said. “But if that can be two companies or three companies instead of 10 or 12 or 15, the likelihood of success, the ability of those companies to hire and retain great people, the ability for them to continue to fundraise, it all goes up.”

Brescia added that Redpoint’s product and a megafund’s product …read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/01/techs-riskiest-founders-are-getting-a-650-million-bet-from-redpoint-ventures/

If Pinterest is a bellwether of consumer spending, things are not looking up just yet. Still, investors in the social network rallied as Q2 revenue came in roughly in line with expectations and user declines were not as horrible as they thought. That’s not to say Pinterest’s earnings were good. Pinterest missed on earnings and delivered zero user growth in its most recent quarter, citing a combination of factors, such as the lingering impacts from the pandemic, reduced traffic from search engines, the rise of TikTok, and — like many companies reliant on digital advertising — the broader macroeconomic uncertainty that has pulled down other tech stocks, including Meta, Twitter and Snap.

Meta last week delivered its first quarterly revenue decline, while Snap missed analyst’s expectations and declined to forecast its future performance. Twitter, amid a contested acquisition by Elon Musk, has also been fending off an advertiser exit due to the uncertainty over the Musk sale.

Pinterest, meanwhile, posted its own fairly disappointing Q2 results with revenue up 9% year over year, reaching $665.9 million, which was below Wall Street estimates of $667 million. Or, as the Wall St. Journal put it, it was the lowest revenue growth in two years. The company also posted a new loss of $43.1 million and earnings of 11 cents adjusted per share, versus the 18 cents expected. More worryingly, it informed investors its third-quarter revenue growth would be in the “mid-single digits,” when analysts were predicting 12.7% revenue growth.

Users’ numbers stayed flat at 433 million monthly actives — the same number it reported in the prior quarter, and down 5% year over year. However, this was one of the few bright spots amid otherwise troubling news as analysts had been forecasting a bigger drop to 431 million users.

The stock popped on the news that the loss wasn’t as bad as expected, and because revenue was close to expectations. In after-hours trading, the stock was up over 20%, as Pinterest additionally benefited from praise by investor Elliott Investment Management, which recently took a more than 9% stake in the company. (Pinterest confirmed the investment on the earnings call.)

In its letter to shareholders, Pinterest admitted there was “work to be done to grow” users, particularly in its mature markets in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

This was also the first quarterly earnings under new Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, who joined the social image sharing service after leading payments and commerce at Google, and before that, serving as COO at PayPal.

Ready spoke to his plans for Pinterest’s future with a sense of both optimism and urgency, calling it a “very unique platform” but one that must be made more attractive to advertisers and content creators alike. His letter suggested, too, the threat from short-form video, like TikTok, which was listed …read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/01/pinterest-popped-20-on-earnings-that-werent-as-terrible-as-expected/

Telecom operators in India agreed to spend $19 billion in the government auction for the 5G airwaves, New Delhi said Monday, the highest from them in any spectrum sale, as the world’s second-largest wireless market readies the rollout of improved and faster voice and data speeds.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea competed with one another for seven days and made majority of the acquisitions to purchase 71% of all offered spectrum, which the government said exceeded its expectations.

Tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s Jio, which counts Google and Meta among its backers, was the most aggressive participant with spendings of $11.13 billion, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Monday in a press briefing. Google-backed Airtel made spendings of worth $5.44 billion, whereas Vodafone Idea, the Indian unit of British giant Vodafone Group and billionaire Kumar Mangalam’s Idea Cellular, made spendings of worth $2.37 billion.

Even as India is the second largest wireless market, it has been slow in comparison to several markets in setting up the networks for the rollout of 5G technology, which carriers across the globe say offers significantly faster data speeds and could play an instrumental role in applications around innovations in autonomous mobility and telemedicines and robotics among other industries.

The lure of faster speeds is likely to help telecom operators struggling with declining revenues in recent years persuade consumers to pay more for data, analysts say.

“We have always believed that India will become a leading economic power in the world by adopting the power of breakthrough technologies. This was the vision and conviction that gave birth to Jio. The speed, scale and societal impact of Jio’s 4G rollout is unmatched anywhere in the world. Now, with a bigger ambition and stronger resolve, Jio is set to lead India’s march into the 5G era,” said Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, in a statement. “Jio is committed to offering world-class, affordable 5G and 5G-enabled services. We will provide services, platforms and solutions that will accelerate India’s digital revolution, especially in crucial sectors like Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Manufacturing and e-Governance.”

Reliance’s aggressive spendings demonstrate its growing digital ambitions. The oils giant, which launched its telecom operation six years ago, has established itself as the largest wireless carrier in India with over 420 million subscribers. By offering cutrate data prices, Jio won subscribers and forced the industry to lower tariffs, kickstarting an era that has significantly driven the mobile data consumption in the South Asian nation and benefited countless startups.

“The Hail Mary moment there was Reliance Jio’s arrival in the market. It democratized data and smartphones at a scale that we have not seen in countries other than China,” said Karthik Reddy, a VC at early-stage focused venture firm Blume Ventures, in an earlier TechCrunch interview.

New Delhi said Reliance acquired spectrum in 700MHz, 800MHz, 1800MHz, 3300MHz and 26GHz bands, Bharti Airtel acquired spectrum in 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100MHz, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz frequency bands, whereas Vodafone Idea cornered spectrum in 3300MHz and 26GHz bands.

India said it expects …read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/01/india-5g-auction-ambani-reliance-jio-airtel-vodafone-idea/

In its latest effort to boost users and specifically app usage, Twitter is testing out a new way to get people engaged: those who are new to the social network will be able to give the app a test drive without signing up for an account. The limited functionality will let those who download the Twitter iOS app (ie, not Android for now) read tweets, and follow up to 50 users. You will also be able to search for tweets, explore news and trending topics, and get notifications.

Twitter said this test is available to a small number of users on iOS but didn’t specify if it was limited to a select number of countries.

This is a significant departure from how Twitter’s app is currently set up. Currently, you have to sign up for an account even to view tweets on the app. (And to be clear, you can still view Tweets without signing up or registering on the web.)

But while you can read tweets and reply to them, you can’t retweet or like tweets without an account, or tweet afresh in this experiment.

Nor can you do too much in the way of personalization. Twitter allows Try Twitter users to configure limited personalization based on people you follow and places you’ve been to. You can change location settings under Settings and privacy > Privacy and security > Content you see > Explore settings.

Twitter has long been working on reducing the friction of becoming a Twitter user.

Last year, it introduced third-party sign-in buttons, so that people signing up or logging in could associate their sign-ins with Google or Apple accounts. (That remains an option for those signing up for accounts on Twitter, although it’s moot for Try Twitter.)

Related to that, and more generally, Twitter has faced a lot of criticism for being too complicated for new people to get started and become regular users of the app — something it has been tweaking over the years by making it easier to find accounts to follow, pre-loading suggestions to match people’s interests, and improving the mechanics around tweeting, reading and filtering out content you might not want to see.

In Twitter’s Q2 2022 earnings results announced last month, the company noted that its monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) — a metric that Twitter has crafted for its own usage — have increased 16.6% year-on-year to 237.8 million. It happens to be in a legal dispute with would-be acquirer Elon Musk, which has partly stemmed from a disagreement over user numbers, yet its overall effort to grow its base remains a top priority regardless of how that plays out.

App researcher Jane Manchun Wong first spotted the so-called Try Twitter feature, and later Laura Burkhauser, product manager, confirmed the experiment.

What’s the difference between a startup and a small business? Semantics, mostly. As many startups find themselves struggling to raise funds from venture capitalists as financing continues to decline this year, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) could prove to be a powerful resource for capital, even if startups traditionally look for funds from other sources.

Chris Hurn, the founder and CEO of Fountainhead, knows the potential benefits of taking on government financing. Fountainhead is a nonbank lender of government-guaranteed loans. Hurn said the current generation of entrepreneurs is laser-focused on raising equity-based funding from backers like venture capital firms — but that isn’t their only option, especially as equity gets more expensive in current market conditions.

“The problem is that business owners oftentimes overlook pretty readily available debt capital,” Hurn told TechCrunch. “They don’t have to give up any equity. [SBA loans] can oftentimes be the exact stepping stone they need to get to the next stage.”

…read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/31/us-startups-seeking-funds-shouldnt-overlook-financing-from-the-government/

As the fintech venture market goes, so goes the venture market itself. Why? Because fintech investment has historically made up around one-fifth of every venture dollar invested — at least in recent years. And after both fintech investing and venture capital itself went a bit bonkers last year, both are dealing with a new, more conservative reality.

For fintech startups, the downturn is real, and many upstart companies — we learned during our recent fintech investor survey — are looking to avoid de-novo rounds that include a new valuation (no one wants to raise a down round!). Therefore, extension rounds are an attractive option for many founders.

But as TechCrunch has reported, while extension rounds are popular even beyond fintech today, there are often more startups hunting for the round type than there are checks. So, to better understand the market for fintech extension rounds today, we have one more set of answers from a group of fintech venture investors we surveyed. Here’s the question we posed:

How popular are extension rounds proving? Are you seeing more companies opt to raise extensions rather than new rounds compared to, say, 2021 and 2020?

Eight investors answeredPaul Stamas of General Atlantic, Alda Leu Dennis of Initialized Capital, Michael Gilroy of Coatue, Justin Overdorff of Lightspeed Venture Partners, Addie Lerner of Avid Ventures, David Jegen of F-Prime Capital, Nik Milanović of The Fintech Fund, Jay Ganatra of Infinity Ventures. (Their answers have been lightly edited for clarity.)

Michael Gilroy, general partner and co-head of fintech, Coatue

…read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/31/how-fintech-startups-are-navigating-the-extension-round-rush/

It takes a veritable army to make TechCrunch Disrupt — which takes place October 18–20 in San Francisco — the well-oiled experience that savvy startuppers have come to know and love. And we couldn’t do it nearly as well without our incredible volunteers.

If you’re looking for a no-budget way to experience Disrupt up close and personal, sign up to volunteer for work exchange. Not only will you get a behind-the-scenes look at how to produce events, but you’ll also earn a free pass ($1995 value) to experience the event.

You’ll work hard, play hard and get free access to all three days of Disrupt. Whether you dream of becoming a startup founder, marketer or event coordinator, this is a great way to see what it takes to produce a world-renowned tech startup conference.

Plus, your free pass gives you access to the full Disrupt experience — the main stage, the TechCrunch+ stage, the expo floor — where you’ll find the Startup Battlefield 200 — and the Startup Battlefield competition.

Volunteers handle a variety of tasks to help make this startup conference an epic experience for everyone. At any given time, you might help with registration, wrangle speakers, direct attendees, stuff goodie bags, place signage, scan tickets or help with pre-marketing activities.

We need volunteers on October 17–20. If you can meet the following criteria, we want to hear from you:

• Attend a mandatory orientation on Monday, October 17 at Moscone Center.
• Work a minimum of 10 hours during the entire conference, starting from October 17 (the day before the conference starts) to October 20. You’ll find volunteer shift availability in the application. We might select you for some pre-event opportunities, which would count toward your hours.
• You may be scheduled for an 8- to 9-hour shift or you may be scheduled with two separate shifts of 4 to 5 hours each. Shifts can start as early as 6:30 a.m. PT or end as late as 8:30 p.m. PT
• You must provide your own housing and transportation.
• Due to the high volume of applications, we will notify only the selected applicants.

Read the volunteer FAQ for more information.

Lend us a helping hand, and we’ll hand you a free pass. Save money, gain valuable experience and still have plenty of time to take in all the startup goodness that TechCrunch Disrupt has to offer. Apply to volunteer by October 3 to get your free pass, and we’ll see you in October!

…read more

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/31/volunteer-at-techcrunch-disrupt-and-attend-all-three-days-for-free/