A Legendary VC’s Big Bet on NFTs

Jeff Brown
|
Apr 7, 2021
|
Bleeding Edge
|
8 min read
  • NFTs are more than just hype…
  • This tech is the stuff of science fiction…
  • An AI is saving lives…

Dear Reader,

Before we get started today, I want to remind readers that tonight is the night…

At 8 p.m. ET, I’ll be presenting on America’s Last Digital Leap. So if you haven’t yet, please make sure you’re registered to attend this free investment summit tonight.

A digital leap is when a whole industry goes from analog to digital. Think of what Uber and Lyft did to the taxi industry… what Airbnb did to the hospitality industry… and what Netflix did to the movie rental industry.

These are big shifts that make industries more efficient, improving our lives in the process. Of course, these big shifts also present investors with incredible investment opportunities.

What we are going to talk about tonight is the one industry in America that hasn’t made the leap yet. It’s an $11.9 trillion industry that’s been tied down with restrictions and red tape.

But that’s all changing.

All the early signs of a digital leap are in place. And we don’t want to miss out… This will likely be the last major digital leap of our lifetimes.

Now’s the time for us to get in position from an investment perspective. This could be the difference between a modest nest egg and a comfortable retirement.

So please tune in at 8 p.m. ET tonight. I’ll share all my research on this event, including my top way to play it. Just go right here to reserve your spot.

Now let’s turn to today’s insights…

Savvy investors are betting that NFTs are here to stay…

The non-fungible token (NFT) market is one of the hottest spaces in the blockchain industry right now. It is a new asset class that I’m monitoring closely. These are digital assets that are cryptographically secured and authenticated on a blockchain.

But with NFTs selling for millions of dollars, there’s no doubt this market is highly speculative. That’s led a lot of people to question it. Is this just a fad and a bubble? Or is this a legitimate asset class?

I’m on record saying that NFTs represent a digital leap in the collectibles industry. This is a market that may be running hot, but it’s only going to grow. And an early stage venture capital (VC) round that just happened suggests that some savvy investors agree with me.

Andreessen Horowitz – one of the most successful VC firms in history – just backed a $23 million Series A funding round for a company called OpenSea.

OpenSea is the world’s largest marketplace for NFTs. We can think of it as the Amazon of the space. Consumers can find virtually any NFT they could possibly want. Digital art, trading cards, comic books, real estate in virtual worlds, Pokémon, and more items are posted for sale on OpenSea’s platform.

The fact that Andreessen Horowitz was willing to back this upstart marketplace speaks volumes about how the firm views the NFT space.

And if we look at the list of other investors in OpenSea’s Series A round, we will see some other big names: billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban; Naval Ravikant, the founder of venture investing site AngelList; Coinbase’s former chief technology officer (CTO), Balaji Srinivasan; and even Tim Ferriss, author of the popular book The 4-Hour Workweek. Each invested alongside Andreessen Horowitz in OpenSea.

These are some of the savviest investors in the blockchain space. And they are betting big money that NFTs are here to stay. It’s important to note that these guys are usually early on a trend, but they are typically right.

I’ll be the first to say that there will be a lot of hiccups and some bad actors in the NFT space in these early days. But that’s normal for new industries during their earliest stages of development.

The big picture – the leap to digitization – makes me very confident that the NFT market is already experiencing exponential growth. And that makes OpenSea a company that we need to follow going forward. Let’s add it to our early stage watchlist.

Augmented reality contact lenses are coming…

Some really neat advancements in the augmented reality (AR) space caught my eye recently. An early stage company called Mojo Vision has developed AR-enabled contact lenses. This is impressive.

Mojo Vision’s AR Lens

Source: BBC

Whenever we talk about augmented reality in The Bleeding Edge, we often refer to “form factor.” People don’t want to walk around wearing big bulky headsets. They will only adopt AR technology if companies can figure out how to compress it into small, normal-looking glasses.

Miniaturization, battery consumption, and lens technology have all been the driving factors. They have been major challenges for the industry.

Well, here we have a company that’s taken it one step further.

What Mojo Vision has developed is basically a micro-LED display at millimeter scale. It’s a tiny screen that fits directly on the contact lens. It then presents images directly in the wearer’s field of vision.

And here’s where it gets even more impressive – Mojo Vision developed batteries that fit around the edge of the contacts. And the batteries don’t get hot. Obviously, it would be very problematic if they did.

What’s more, the company developed a tiny image processor that makes it all work. Usually, this part is external to the AR device. In fact, many AR prototypes simply tether to a smartphone to get the processing power they need.

But when it comes to contacts, having an external processor would cause slight delays. Since the images are displayed in the contact itself, these delays could actually create problems, or potential danger for someone who has some form of impaired vision.

So what we’re talking about here is the stuff of science fiction. People could wear these AR-enabled contacts without anyone else knowing about it. That’s not the case with AR glasses.

Mojo Vision is designing these contacts to help people with vision conditions see better. But that’s just the starting point. The technology could work for people who already have great vision as well.

Imagine walking into a meeting room and having the name of everyone displayed in our field of vision. And imagine looking at an engine in need of repair and having each individual part highlighted for us.

It’s not hard to see how these contacts would be incredibly useful. And the lenses would be nearly unnoticeable to those we are around.

I don’t think the consumer market will go right to AR-enabled contacts. We’ll need to see mass adoption of AR glasses first – that’s an easier jump for people to make.

And there is still the need for greater improvement on battery technology and power consumption to make contact lens form factor a reality.

But I can absolutely envision AR contacts being sold as the next big thing in AR after eyewear has become prominent. We will want to keep an eye on Mojo Vision and others developing this kind of technology.

This AI can spot strokes in less than six minutes…

We’ll wrap up today with another early stage VC round that caught my eye.

A company called Viz.ai just raised $71 million in its Series C funding round. This raise values the company at $641 million, bringing it closer to unicorn status. I expect the next round will put Viz.ai over that $1 billion threshold.

What’s exciting about Viz.ai is that it has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) geared toward saving lives. The AI plugs into computerized tomography (CT) scanners from multiple manufacturers to automatically search brain scans for signs of stroke. Then it notifies the doctors and specialists immediately.

In a study across 139 hospitals, the AI could typically spot strokes and notify doctors in less than six minutes. And it could do so with 94% specificity regarding where the large vessel obstructions were in the patient’s brain.

Viz.ai’s technology was able to shave off almost 87 minutes on average compared to the old, “analog” process that is traditionally used to assess signs of stroke. This is a remarkable improvement.

As we know, every minute counts when it comes to a stroke. Patients need to be placed on oxygen and receive medical attention as soon as possible to prevent long-term negative impacts such as loss of cognitive ability and bodily control.

So this incredible technology can have a tremendous impact for stroke victims. And it could cut down on overall medical costs because stroke patients who receive rapid care can recover more quickly, avoiding the need for more intensive, longer-term care.

And the bigger picture is that Viz.ai’s platform has proven itself to be so useful, it is expanding into other areas.

The company is working on an AI to help with cardiovascular, pulmonary, and trauma care as well.

I’m a big fan of this kind of product strategy. Nail it on one specific application, get the business humming, and then expand to adjacent areas where the technology can be leveraged. 

Viz.ai is about to see some explosive growth.

So let’s also add Viz.ai to our early stage watchlist today. This will be an exciting company to follow going forward.

Regards,

Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge

P.S. In many ways, we can think of Viz.ai as a company that’s helping facilitate a digital leap. It is removing the manual process to identify strokes and replacing it with a digital-first approach.

While exciting, what Viz.ai is doing represents a digital leap on a micro level.

At our investment summit this evening, we’re going to talk about an entire $11.9 trillion industry that’s about to take a massive digital leap. This is a huge trend that could net massive investment returns for early investors.

So I hope readers can join me tonight. We’ll talk about what I believe will be the last “macro” digital leap of our lifetimes. And I will share my ideas for how we need to position ourselves in advance.

The summit will start at 8 p.m. ET sharp. Please go right here for all the details.


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