🚀 Meme culture makes history
A crypto collective's bid for the U.S. Constitution.
It’s been a big year for decacorns. According to a Crunchbase News analysis, 30 startups have been newly valued at $10B+ this year. That’s already double 2020’s number, which was a record high.
Private decacorns are relatively new - the first one was Facebook in 2007! Companies used to go public before hitting this valuation, but the massive amounts of capital available from investors have enabled them to stay private for longer.
news 📣
🥗 Sweetgreen goes public. Salad chain Sweetgreen got a warm welcome to the NYSE, closing its first day up 76%. While the company’s profit margin fell during COVID, CEO Jonathan Neman said the pandemic was an opportunity to “reset.” Two-thirds of Sweetgreen’s orders now come through digital channels, and the company acquired kitchen robot maker Spyce to start automating prep.
🛍️ Faire raises $400M. Wholesale marketplace Faire reached a $12.4B valuation in a new round led by Durable Capital Partners. More than 300k small retailers use Faire to buy products from 40k brands - the company facilitates these orders and takes a cut of transactions. Faire plans to use the round to double its headcount (700 employees now), and expand throughout Europe.
✍️ Grammarly’s mega-round. Editing tool Grammarly announced a $200M round at a $13B valuation (a 13x increase in the last two years). If you’re one of 30M+ people who use the company’s Chrome extension, you may want to check out the new desktop apps. Grammarly also has a paid enterprise product that helps employees stick to their company’s style guide and brand voice.
📸 IG upgrades. Instagram launched two new features - one highly requested (delete photos from a carousel), and one wild card! Users can now “rage shake” to report performance issues, which will help the team prioritize bugs. The company also announced the end of messaging app Threads, which launched in late 2019 as a way to send photo messages to close friends but struggled to attract users.
what i’m following 👀
Fred Wilson’s take on the rise of seed rounds at $100M+ valuations.
A Web3 skeptic on why she’s jumping in.
The Staples Center will now be called the Crypto.com Arena.
Elizabeth Holmes has started testifying in her own trial - a surprise move.
File this under sentences you never expected to read: in just 72 hours, a collective of crypto enthusiasts raised over $40M to buy the U.S. Constitution - and they were defeated by the hedge fund CEO at the center of the GameStop controversy.
Let’s unpack that! Last Thursday, one of the 13 remaining copies of the Constitution was auctioned off at Sotheby’s. One of the bidders was Constitution DAO, a collective of 17k+ individuals who crowdfunded more than $40M to buy the document.
This DAO used Twitter and Discord to drum up excitement and contributions - you may recognize #wagbtc (we’re all going to buy the Constitution) or (📜,📜) thanks to their efforts. Each contributor earned tokens that would have allowed them to vote on questions like where the Constitution should be displayed.
Though Citadel CEO Ken Griffin won the auction, I’d argue that this movement was a bigger win for the crypto community. It introduced millions of people to the concept of a DAO and illustrated the power of ownership in Web3. Unsurprisingly, it was also a triumph for memes - check out a recap of the best ones here.
jobs 🎓
Wheel - Ops Associate (Remote)
Coterie - Associate Product Manager (Remote)
Republic - Gaming Analyst (Remote, NYC)
Office Hours - Growth Associate (SF)
Asana - New Grad Data Scientist (SF)
Roblox - Biz Ops Associate (San Mateo)
Galaxy Digital - Ventures Analyst (NYC)
Ramp - Chief of Staff (NYC)
internships 📝
Cowboy Ventures - Venture Intern (Remote)
Doordash - Summer Software Engineer Intern (Seattle)
Poshmark - Summer Software Engineer Intern (Redwood City)
9 Count - Influencer Marketing Intern (LA)
Flip - Partnerships Intern (LA)
GlossGenius - Social Media Intern (Remote, NYC)
Five Four Ventures - Spring MBA Intern (Remote, NYC, SF)
Duffl - University of Arizona, ASU, and UCLA Campus Admirals (Various)
puppy of the week 🐶
We have a very special feature on behalf of a friend - Mizzie was a Catahoula Leopard Dog who passed away this week.
Mizzie enjoyed retrieving balls, playing gently with animals of all types (especially cats), and swimming in pools and the ocean.
She was also an amazing family protector, once fighting off a rabid dog who was attacking her trainer! She will be greatly missed 💔.
Hi! 👋 I’m Justine Moore, an early stage consumer & SMB investor. I’m currently Head of GTM at Canal. Thanks for reading Accelerated. I’d love your feedback - feel free to tweet me @venturetwins.