Top 4 Curated Venture Capital Weekly Update for Dec 7, 2022 💰
🗒️ Korean VC Firm Daesung Private Equity Announces $83 Million Metaverse Fund
Bitcoin.com: Daesung Private Equity, a Korean venture capital firm, has announced the launch of a metaverse fund of 110 billion won ($83.5 million). The fund, which will have the participation of the Korean state represented by Korea Venture Investment Corporation’s Korea Fund of Funds, aims to put investments into virtual reality (VR) and digital twins-related businesses.
Daesung Private Equity to Launch Metaverse Fund
Korean venture capital firm Daesung Private Equity has decided to get into the metaverse investment field. The company announced on Nov. 30 the launch of a metaverse-focused fund, that would have 110 billion won (equivalent to $83.5 million) to invest.
The “Metaverse Scale-Up Fund,” which the company claims is Korea’s biggest private fund in the sector, will see the participation of the Korean state with the support of the Korea Venture Investment Corporation’s Korea Fund of Funds.
60 billion won (close to $46 million) was also injected by different companies of the Daesung consortium, including Daesung Holdings, Daesung Energy, and Daesung Clean Energy. Other institutions participating in the fund are the Industrial Bank of Korea and Shinhan Capital.
🗒️ Startups Facing Mass Layoffs As VC Firms Reverse Course
Forbes: Twitter feeds are filled with cascading reports of deep layoffs in Big Tech: Amazon setting plans to trim 10,000 non-warehouse jobs right before the holidays, Elon Musk axing half the staff of 7,500 at Twitter, Meta cutting 11,000 jobs.
Mark Zuckerberg telling his troops: "I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.” Can we please slow this roll? Cutting staff is a necessary part of any established company’s business cycle. It is fundamental to the private equity business, where I started my career as an analyst, using Excel spreadsheets first introduced seven years before I was born.
When Amazon trims 10,000, it is a rounding error in a workforce of 1.5 million, after increasing staff by 5.2% or 74,000 jobs in the past year. At Twitter, cutbacks were planned even before Elon Musk took over: its employees’ median compensation is $240,000 per year. As for Meta, its cuts of 11,000 jobs or 13% of its workforce come after it had expanded staff 28% in just one year, up almost 20,000 new jobs to 87,000 people.
🗒️ On-Demand: Alternative Investments Year-End Audit Planning Webinar Series Part II - Venture Capital Valuation Considerations
EisnerAmper: Thanks Astrid. Hello everybody, and welcome to part two of our Alternative Investments Year-End Audit Planning Series.
Today's session will cover venture capital valuation considerations as we approach year-end. I'm joined today by Bill Johnson, CEO and Transaction Advisory Services Leader at Empire Valuation Consultants and Craig Ter Boss EisnerAmper Partner in our Corporate Finance Group. Both Bill and Craig help their venture capital and private equity clients and teams navigate challenging valuation issues, especially in today's turbulent market.
Today, Bill and Craig will be covering several important topics that VC managers and CFOs will need to bear in mind, including recent trends in VC markets, market participant pricing considerations, valuation considerations, allocation considerations, and key takeaways as year-end fast approaches. Bill, Craig, I'm going to kick things over to you.
🗒️ DOD launches investment arm to fuel innovation
Washington Technology: The Defense Department is standing up an organization to route more private sector money towards key technology areas such as quantum computing and advanced materials.
All everyone across the public sector ecosystem wants to achieve is successful technology developments and deployment at the scale.
But money problems of all types get in the way: sometimes not having enough of it, other times not being categorized right, and just not moving it fast enough.
Private sector organizations, and particularly those involving venture capital, work very differently of course with more flexibility and agility in how they manage and move money.
The Defense Department is looking to copy their pace and cadence with a new organization unveiled Thursday that will focus on steering capital in more commercial-like manner.
Within the next 90 days, DOD will push to staff and stand up its new Office of Strategic Capital under the leadership of Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Heidi Shyu.