Amy Wu
@amytongwu
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82,378
Following
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Consumer & Gaming Partner @MenloVentures . Previously @Lightspeedvp , @Insightpartners , @wbd , @welcomeSW
Brooklyn, NY
Joined April 2021
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My United flight to Denver is currently offering $2,500 vouchers with overnight hotel and we haven’t gotten enough volunteers yet to rebook 🤯
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1/ Sharing a life update! I’m thrilled to join
@FTX_Official
to lead FTX Ventures, gaming, and commercial initiatives reporting to
@SBF_FTX
, in the company’s next chapter as a leading global financial services and web3 company.
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1/ Excited to announce our $100M joint web3 gaming initiative with
@FTX_Official
and
@Solana
Ventures! We’ll be investing in gaming studios, platforms, and infra companies at the intersection of blockchain and gaming in the
@Solana
ecosystem and beyond.
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Heard yesterday from a founder: it costs $200k in salary for an experienced ML eng based in London what it would cost $800k to hire in the Bay
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1/ After speaking with several large game publishers the past wks it’s clear that
@AxieInfinity
has lit a fire around the adoption of blockchain in gaming ($10M+ rev / day will do it). Some takeaways 👇
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1/ Sharing a life update: I’m thrilled to join
@MenloVentures
as their newest GP to lead investments in consumer and gaming
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1/
@axieinfinity
. It took them 3+ yrs to make their first $10M in revenue and 5 days to make their latest $10M. Runrating $1B+/mo of GMV. 350k DAUs. What is going on here…
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1/ We at
@FTX_Official
are excited to launch our gaming division, offering FTX-as-a-Service (FaaS) to gaming companies across the world who are innovating in web3.
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1/ As a gaming and a crypto investor, I get asked sometimes what’s the bigger opportunity. Well today, there are ~10M active DeFi users, 100-200M cryptocurrency holders. There are 2B gamers in the world today.
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1/ Just spent a week in Korea and blown away by the innovation in web3 and gaming, and retail enthusiasm for crypto, despite the fallout from Terra. 🇰🇷
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- spends $1.8M of $2.5M raised on its domain name then releases a Black Mirror promo video. Have to hand it to them it’s a bold launch
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I’ve played
@duolingo
for 80 days straight. It’s one of the best gamified consumer apps I’ve used. Others agree, Duo has:
- 61M MAUs / 16M DAUs (+62% yoy)
- $370M in 2022 rev (+47% yoy)
- Cashflow positive ($46M in 2022)
Below I breakdown the features that make it so good👇
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1/ Excited to announce our
@FTX_Official
global partnership with
@Reddit
today with Reddit Community Points! Users need Eth for gas fees to transact with their Points on-chain, and FTX Pay allows them to do that.
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Last wk ppl told me
#NFTNYC
would be weird because crypto was dead. Happy to report the opposite happened. 4,000 community members came out to celebrate
@BoredApeYC
and check out CEO
@VStrangeYUGA
and team’s
#apefest
playground
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1/ As a gaming + crypto investor, I’ve been thinking about the intersection of the 2 for months. We’ve yet to see a major game or publisher adopt blockchain tech. Yet it’s really intriguing. Why has this been so hard?
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1/ So honored to join the
@apecoin
DAO board, launched today along with the $APE token!🧵
Introducing ApeCoin ($APE), a token for culture, gaming, and commerce used to empower a decentralized community building at the forefront of web3. 🧵
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1/ Have been using the
@solana
Saga phone all weekend and tl;dr it’s an Android phone that’s finally comparable to (in some specs better than) my iPhone 14 pro max, feels sleek/high-end, with essentially a built-in hardware wallet (Seed Vault, imo it’s most unique feature)
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1/ Have been thinking about the evolution of VC investing in crypto, if we believe it to be as big or bigger than the internet shift of the late 90s and mobile of the 00s. Today, there are no more “internet” or “mobile” tech investors. To not be is to be irrelevant.
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Step 1 open world lobby, step 2 game studios building player experiences in game, step 3
#BAYC
metaverse. Roblox was founded 18 yrs ago. Bullish for the long-term here with this
@yugalabs
team! 🦍🦍🚀
And here’s a sneak peak of the First Trip, the tech demo from
@Improbableio
. Can’t wait to share the experience with you.
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What actually do people first say on Zoom calls other than “so where are you guys based”?
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Instead of checking prices every minute, it’s healthier to go heads down and build.
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Been having a lot of career convos with young people thinking about next roles, particularly between VC and operating. Having done both myself and made plenty of mistakes, here’s some advice I’ve been sharing:
- Bear mkts are great times to be an investor since it produces great
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1/ After spending more time in the
@AxieInfinity
ecosystem, I feel that the heart of the play-to-earn (P2E) model lies in the new guild system, like
@YieldGuild
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Prediction: NFTs will become mainstream marketing for brands. Eg
@Starbucks
can drop NFTs to their top customers (meet Howard Schultz… name a coffee after you.. free lifetime coldbrew) and others to regulars, with free coffee air drops, tradable on their app. I’d collect that 🙌🏻
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I get asked all the time if I’ve stopped investing in crypto companies. On the contrary I’m as excited as ever about applications in blockchain uniquely facilitated by the tech. It’s inherently harder to copy by incumbents
What I’m looking for in web3 consumer today:
- Your
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1/ Have been thinking about the future of web3 gaming after a recent trip to the Nordics (Slush), home to some of the world’s greatest gaming companies (Supercell, King, Minecraft..). Web3 was on everyone’s minds. Then the Ubisoft incident happened, a repeat of the Discord one.
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1/ Valve banned blockchain games from Steam yesterday. It’s not surprising. Web2 centralized platforms get a cut of all value generated from its ecosystem. Blockchain circumvents that and decentralizes value back to builders and users
Community: A few minutes ago, we were notified that
@Steam
will be kicking *all blockchain games* off the platform, including Age of Rust, because NFTs have value. Behind the scenes, we've had good communication and have been upfront with Steam.
#blockchaingames
#NFT
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1/ Play-to-earn in blockchain gaming. Some thoughts on what I think it is, what it is not, and the future
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1/ FTX Ventures is excited to co-lead the $300M
@Mysten_Labs
round with
@jump_
. The talented Sui founders
@EvanWeb3
,
@EmanAbio
,
@b1ackd0g
,
@Gdanezis
,
@kostascrypto
created the Move language while leading blockchain R&D for FB, and now launching the Sui L1.
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1/ In a short period of time, *every* gaming pitch I now hear is at minimum crypto-curious. Gaming-native teams know how to design great games; crypto-native teams know how to build web3 communities. To build a great web3 game you need both + thoughtful tokenomics: 👇
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The number of founders I talk to who haven’t been out to mkt this yr to raise yet and don’t realize how hard it is now is scary.
If you don’t have the growth numbers (users or $) and plan to raise at more than $10M valuation, it’s likely not happening or at a crippling down
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New metaverse ID thx to the stunning artwork of the
@AuroryProject
team. You guys rock. Love this! 🙏🏻
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1/ .
@jeremysliew
and I are thrilled to lead the $100M Series A of
@Splitgate
, the competitive AAA arena shooter that’s taken the gaming world by storm. In 1 month post console launch they’ve had over 13M downloads.
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1/ Yesterday, Discord walked back plans to integrate Eth-based NFTs and Metamask after overwhelmingly negative user feedback, particularly from paid Nitro users. It’s fascinating and I encourage everyone to read the comments to better understand the other side.
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There are 400M gamers and growing in the $1.8B India gaming market today. Bullish about India and excited to partner with
@sandeepnailwal
@0xPolygon
@gabusch
@YieldGuild
@shutterbugsid
@nishantsharma18
on
@YGGIndia
!
IndiGG has raised $6M to boost play-to-earn gaming in India! 🇮🇳
Investors include
@Sequoia_India
,
@LightspeedIndia
,
@animocabrands
,
@variantfund
,
@jumpcapital
and more.
Thanks again to
@YieldGuild
x
@_PolygonStudios
for putting gamers first!
Read more:
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1/ What I’m excited about in 2022:
⁃Convergence of consumer tech & web3
⁃Web3 gaming beyond P2E (👀on Korean teams)
⁃Rise of L2 ecosystems
⁃Eth apps bridge to
@solana
⁃Dev ops tooling cross-chain
⁃Decentralized security
⁃Blockchain in healthcare, IoT+
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In this environment, grateful to get to keep supporting amazing founders with our new $1.35B raised. Consumer, gaming, and blockchain founders, excited to talk to you 🚀
Exciting News from Menlo Ventures: We have raised $1.35 billion in new capital to invest in a new generation of startups.
With this new funding, we make a commitment to support the forthcoming generation of AI startups. Generative AI represents a seismic shift that will add
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Was at a VC dinner last night where the main topic was the max divergence of public multiples (now 5.2x fwd EV in software and 15.9x for top cos) vs private VC multiples. In AI land we’re back at 2021-era 100x multiples, this time without the elevated public comps. Growth funds
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Excited to judge the next
@solana
hackathon. $5M of prizes & funding up for grabs across DeFi, web3, gaming, DAO categories:
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I’ve been a fangirl of
@BanklessHQ
for so long, it was an honor to chat all things gaming, the latest on Ubisoft, the future of web3 games with
@RyanSAdams
in their latest episode 🙌🏻🙌🏻
Crypto gaming 101
1. What is Crypto Gaming?
2. How do you identify the next Axie?
3. Why are Guilds good investments?
4. How do you earn in Crypto Gaming?
5. What about fun?
Invest in assets, tokens, or infrastructure?
We cover it all with
@amytongwu
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Met the
#GOAT
Jensen Huang at
@nvidia
HQ with
@MenloVentures
and 10 of our portcos who pitched him and his exec team.
Jensen somehow made everyone feel special, remembering first names and details, intensely curious, real-time action-oriented, and genuinely funny. 🐐
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1/ We at FTX Gaming are excited to announce our partnership with
@YGGIndia
today to expand into India gaming! 🎮🚀
@FTX_Official
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Founders should stress test whether their VCs are working this summer by asking for calls Friday afternoon
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1/ Post-
#BreakpointLisbon
, some reflections:
- Few teams in the world know how to build community like
@Solana
- From humble roots and perhaps because, comes a great desire to win together
- # of new projects across gaming, social, and DeFi is accelerating
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Ok my takeaway from Chain Runners is VCs are deeply uncool and when we start pumping an NFT, run LOL
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Devs and VCs who pivoted from crypto to AI just spent the last 12 hrs researching superconductors
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Our first ever
@FTX_Official
conference is about to kick off in the Bahamas this wk! 🤩 I’ll be surfing the Bahamar grounds if you’re around and also check out the
@solana
@ProjectSerum
@PythNetwork
Hacker House onsite!
#CryptoBahamas
#serumsurfers
🌴🌴
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1/ FTX Ventures is excited to co-lead the $25M private token round of
@C2X_WORLD
, partnered with
@Com2uS
and
@Com2uS_Holdings
, publicly-traded gaming co HQ’d in Korea. Web3 gaming is still early, but teams like C2X are trailblazing ahead in 2022.
Hello
#C2X
Explorers!
We're proud to announce the closing of our $25M funding round led by
@FTX_Official
@jump_
and
@animocabrands
.
We selected these partners based on their history in leading ventures in their industries.
Full Press Release:
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1/ “Crypto is dead.” Every other day someone asks me to name 1 blockchain project people actually use. One I often bring up is
@AudiusProject
, a decentralized music streaming platform on the
@solana
blockchain founded by
@roneilr
, which has:
⁃6.7M unique monthly users
⁃263M
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Thank you to our partners
@paradigm
,
@lightspeedvp
,
@Temasek
++ for continuing to support us at
@FTX_Official
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2/ We’re launching FTX Ventures today, a $2B fund for builders, by builders. We’re excited to support great teams across crypto, web3, and more. If you’re excited to work with
@SBF_FTX
,
@ramnikarora
,
@armaniferrante
,
@ajm_alameda
, J, Brian Lee+, hit us up!
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1/ Today,
@ravi_lsvp
and I are excited to announce that
@lightspeedvp
is leading the $100M+ Series B round of
@Arbitrum
@OffchainLabs
, leading L2 Ethereum scalability solution and the first to publicly launch on mainnet
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Polkadot team signing marketing sponsorships first 6 mos this yr
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11 days into Jan, back to 10+ zooms / day. So many strong teams raising. Bullish about 2022
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Til next yr
#CryptoBahamas
thx to all the old and new friends in industry who joined us this wk!
@FTX_Official
@zhusu
@PrimordialAA
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1/ Have been thinking more about
@Jihoz_Axie
’s chart that shows
@AxieInfinity
D30 and D90 retention basically the same. D90 of 50%+ is dope. But the insight is this is the retention curve of someone holding a job, not just playing a game.
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1/ We’re thrilled to announce the
@FTX_Official
acquisition of Good Luck Games, maker of
@StorybookBrawl
, a beloved card-based autobattler PC game!
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We are excited at
@lightspeedvp
to double down on
@SBF_FTX
and
@FTX_Official
’s B-1 round. In 2 mos they’ve:
- Acquired
@ledgerx
to pave the way for US futures trading
- Launched their NFT marketplace
What will they do in 10 yrs?
🚀🚀🚀
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#yanggang
conversions at the
@FTX_Official
dinner
#ethdenver
@ilblackdragon
@ravi_lsvp
@Nikilster
@jaesonma
@NEARProtocol
@0xbabble
@ramnikarora
@zmanian
@sandeepnailwal
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My takeaways from
#SALTny
:
1. We’re closer to institutional adoption of crypto
2.
@Scaramucci
ages like Benjamin Button
Excited to bridge tradfi x crypto with our
@SkyBridge
partnership 🚀
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What % of NFT buys right now are for the love of collection vs speculation?
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Jeff Bezos shared some 🔥 advice in his recent podcast with
@lexfridman
:
“Humans are social animals not truth seeking animals. Important truths can be uncomfortable and make people defensive. Any high-functioning organization has to have mechanisms and a culture that supports
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Hard to believe
@FTX_Official
was founded only 2 years ago.
@SBF_Alameda
and team are a force at the intersection of crypto, fintech, and beyond.
@lightspeedvp
is thrilled to partner with you guys!
1) I'm deeply humbled by the support we've gotten from our new partners:
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Just learned that Lisa Su, AMD CEO and Jensen Huang are cousins 🤯
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1/ It’s an eye-opening time for venture-backed gaming studios. A wave are set to launch open beta in the next 12 mos. But with 10,000 games launched on Steam per yr or Android per week, the odds are stacked against success for game 1. Studios should think strategically 👇
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Magic the Gathering… the OG trading card game did its best yr in 2020 ($580M rev) and I’d estimate has 30M+ active players. Black Lotus floor price of $40k+. A genius mix of gameplay, community, monetization, and lore, and a case study for web3
Random fact:
"2020 was officially the best-selling year ever in Magic the Gathering’s 27 year history...in 2020, Magic made $581.2 million, an increase of 27% compared to 2019"
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Back from a fun
#GDC2023
and sharing a few learnings across traditional and web3 gaming:
1/ After a few quiet yrs,
#EpicGames
launched UE5.2 (new genAI / metahuman tools highlighted) and perhaps more importantly, the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), finally bringing UE-level
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The Congress crypto hearing will be live-streamed here today, 10am ET. Anyone else following along?
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1/ Announcing the first
@lightspeedvp
web3 gaming investment at
#NFTNYC
, co-leading the $21M Series A of
@farawaygg
with
@FTX_Official
, alongside
@sequoia
,
@a16z
,
@PanteraCapital
,
@jumpcapital
,
@solana
,
@BoredElonMusk
,
@gabusch
,
@Jihoz_Axie
,
@Melt_Dem
++
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I recently attended my 15th yr and this past wkend my SO’s 20th yr college reunion and was struck by similarities:
- Almost no one wanted to talk about work (compared to 5th and 10th yrs). Instead people felt a lot of gratitude… to see familiar faces, have their health, and
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It’s been an honor getting to work with
@nicolemuniz
@guyoseary
@CryptoGarga
@GordonGoner
and the
@yugalabs
team and we at
@FTX_Official
are thrilled to join as an investor! 🦍
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1/ Gm. Have been thinking how to bring more people (eg women) into crypto, to trade, grow the industry, and more diverse founders. I think the hardest part is to start. DeFi products are daunting to use the first time. Communities / gatekeepers feel daunting to approach
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