Gm. You wouldn't steal a JPEG (or would you...)
Welcome to Issue 04 of The Quest Digest, where we break down Silicon Valley news for you every week, in 3 minutes.
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Bored Apes startup Yuga Labs raises $450M seed round
Bored Apes Yacht Club maker Yuga Labs has raised a $450 million round from Andreessen Horowitz at a $4 billion valuation. Other investors in the round include Animoca Brands, LionTree, Sound Ventures, Thrive Capital, FTX, and MoonPay.
The news follows the launch of BAYC’s official ‘Ape Coin’ token and leaked pitch deck revealing plans to build a MetaRPG and interoperable gaming metaverse.
Our Take
Already the CEO sees “a new economy possible with the IP of Apes, Punks, and Meebits, owned by the community”.
Yuga Lab’s capital raise will give the company the speed to race to the Metaverse against competitors, and it’s hard to argue that they don’t have the resources and backing to do so.
SEC proposes rules requiring companies to disclose climate emission
The SEC has proposed rules that would require companies to report how their operations affect the climate and production of carbon emissions.
The draft proposal is currently subject to public feedback, with the final rule being decided towards the end of the year.
The rules would seek to measure and display big companies’ contributions to greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1 and 2 emissions), as well as direct and indirect emissions from business partners (scope 3 emissions).
Our Take
By enforcing that companies forecast the risk of climate change in their business, investors are allowed to make smarter decisions aligned to their values.
The push to disclose scope 3 emissions would also hold companies accountable for all carbon and methane emissions, from manufacturing to physical distribution.
We also see this proposal as a potential market maker for the carbon accounting industry to service companies – seeing a whole new industry and wave of startups.
Despite this, the process will be slow. Corporate groups are unlikely to budge in favour, with some arguing the SEC lacks the authority to make such changes.
Sequoia launches seed-stage investment program
Silicon Valley giant, Sequoia Capital has launched a seed-stage investment and mentorship program called Arc. The 8-week program will initially be based in the Sequoia London and San Fransisco office.
Startups will get an upfront investment of $1 million from Sequoia, on-site visits to Sequoia-backed companies and mentoring on company design from affiliated partners and operators.
Applications for the program are open until April 8.
Our Take
The announcement comes as VCs across Europe are finding ways to build relationships with founders earlier and earlier. Accel, Atomico, Hedosophia have kicked off new scout programs and SoftBank launched a European version of its accelerator program for founders last year.
All of this means good news for startups. As the VC space gets more competitive, founders are getting offered more resources when growing their business which spurs more innovation.
🔥 Press Worthy
Web 3 startup, Unstoppable Domains seeking funding at $1B valuation
Capitolis valued at $1.6B after $110M raise
LG Energy to invest $1.4B in the US to increase battery production
Instagram re-launches the chronological feed
YouTube to stream free, ad-supported TV shows
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The Quest Digest is written by Hannah Ahn and edited by Brent Liang, two dropouts who hate long tech newsletters. You can sign up to our next issue below.