🦄 Startups & VCs (Web3, AI & SaaS)

🚨 Your $1M token raise might be worth far less than $1M Founders love a “$1M raised” headline. But how much of that money actually reaches your treasury? 👀 One case from a recent launchpad analysis is a serious reality check: CHIPS Protocol had more than $1M in participant commitments across four launchpads. After refunds, unclaimed allocations and launchpad fees, the project received only $37,765. And the launchpad fees alone exceeded $90K. 🤯 So what looked like a seven-figure raise could leave the team with a fraction of the capital they expected. This is why choosing a launchpad in 2026 requires a different mindset. Before signing a deal, founders should look beyond follower counts, “SOLD OUT” banners and gross commitments. 🔍 The numbers that actually matter: • How much capital was retained after refunds? • What are the total fees and mandatory costs? • Who are the actual participants? • Who controls the funds and when are they released? • What happens to tokens used to pay launchpad fees? • How much traffic actually converts into KYC, purchases and settled capital? Here’s the key formula: Settled Net Proceeds = Gross Commitments − Refunds − Fees − Mandatory Costs And this can completely change the winner. A $500K refundable sale can leave a project with $45K. A $300K committed sale can leave $240K. The bigger headline can deliver dramatically less usable capital. 📉 If you're planning a token sale, this is one checklist worth reading before choosing your launchpad. 👉 Read the full Founder’s Checklist for choosing a crypto launchpad in 2026

🚩 VC Red Flag of the Week We’re launching a new weekly series where we unpack the little things in a Web3 pitch deck that can make investors hit “pass”. 👀 This week: “We have 100K community members.” Sounds impressive, right? 🚀 For a VC, the next question is: “How many actually come back?” Telegram members, Discord users, quest participants, and airdrop hunters can make your growth chart look amazing. But what happens when the rewards stop? That’s where the real traction starts showing. 🔍 Investors want to see things like: • Are users coming back without incentives? • Are wallets performing repeat actions? • Is the product generating organic fees? • Does activity survive after the campaign ends? A community of 100K can be a great distribution asset. A community of 10K that keeps using your product can be a much stronger investment signal. 💡 Founders, be honest: would you put your Telegram or Discord numbers on Slide 1 of your deck? 👇 🚩 More VC Red Flags coming next week.

Nasdaq + ESMA: A signal for Web3 founders 🚀 Two very different stories this week: 💰 Nasdaq is investing $100M in Payward, Kraken’s parent company, to work on tokenized-equity infrastructure (Source) ⚠️ ESMA is warning about the growing connection between crypto and traditional financial markets (Source) Put them together and the signal is clear: Crypto is moving closer to traditional finance. And the bar for Web3 startups is getting higher. For founders, this means more opportunities in tokenization, stablecoins, custody, settlement, compliance and financial infrastructure. But also more questions from investors: 👉 What real problem do you solve? 👉 Why does it need blockchain? 👉 Who pays for it? 👉 How do you manage risk? 👉 What proof do you have? “Building the future of finance onchain” sounds great. “We reduce settlement time from X to Y” sounds much better. 📊 The next generation of Web3 winners may be the startups that combine blockchain technology with real financial demand, strong infrastructure and measurable results. Less hype. More proof. 🧡

👀 Your Investor Said “Interesting”. Now What? You just finished a great investor call. They smiled. They asked questions. They said: “This is really interesting. Let’s stay in touch.” And you leave thinking: “Nice. We’re almost there.” 🚀 But here’s the awkward part: “Interesting” can sometimes mean “I’m not convinced yet.” Investors rarely say “Your valuation is too high” or “I don’t see enough traction” that directly. Instead, you get polite phrases that sound positive but can hide a very different message. 🔍 “Let’s stay in touch.” Translation: “I’m curious, but I don’t have enough conviction to move this forward yet.” The real signal is what happens next. ▪️ Do they schedule another call? ▪️ Introduce you to a partner? ▪️ Ask for specific metrics or data? If there’s no concrete next step, you may have received a soft pass. 👀 “You’re a bit too early for us.” Translation: “I need more proof before I can justify this investment.” For a Web3 startup, that proof could be traction, retention, revenue, protocol activity, or stronger evidence that growth goes beyond incentives and short-term hype. And then there’s the classic: 💬 “We really like the project, but…” Sometimes the missing piece is your FDV, token structure, round size, traction or investor fit. That’s why founders shouldn’t only ask: “How do I get more investor introductions?” A better question is: “Why are the investors I already reach saying no?” 🧠 Because sending your deck to another 100 funds won’t fix a fundraising blocker hiding inside the raise. This is exactly what we built PitchPop for. Paste your pitch deck or website and get a free diagnosis of the potential blockers in your raise, from valuation and proof gaps to tokenomics, deal structure and investor targeting. And if you already have investor replies sitting in your Telegram inbox, you can use PitchPop’s Reply Decoder to understand what the investor may actually be signaling. 👉 Try it here: https://pitchpop.app/ Decode the feedback. Fix the blocker. Then go back to fundraising. 🚀

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🚀 Would Your Web3 Pitch Deck Survive the VC Filter? You have 10 slides. An investor has a few minutes. And somewhere around Slide 6, you may already have lost them. 👀 So here’s a quick challenge for founders: Open your pitch deck and ask yourself: 👉 Does Slide 1 clearly explain what you do and what investors are buying? 👉 Does Slide 2 show a painful problem with a real budget behind it? 👉 Does your traction prove real usage, rather than a big community number? 👉 If you have a token, can you explain exactly what job it does and where value flows? 👉 Can you show why your project has a moat beyond being first? 👉 Does your final slide explain exactly what this round unlocks? 🔥 Here’s the real test: Could an investor understand your entire investment story without opening your appendix? If yes, you’re making their job easy. If not, you may be making your deck harder to fund than your startup needs to be. 💬 Founders, which slide is currently the weakest in your deck? 1️⃣ Problem 2️⃣ Traction 3️⃣ Tokenomics 4️⃣ Go-to-Market 5️⃣ Moat 6️⃣ The Ask Drop the number below 👇

🔥 What August VC Deals Tell Web3 Founders August brought a sharp reset for crypto VC. $596M was invested across 49 deals, down 74% from July’s $2.31B. And with no mega-rounds distorting the picture, the signal is pretty clear: 💡 Investors are still funding Web3. They are simply becoming much more selective. So, what are they actually looking for? 🏗 1. Infrastructure is taking the lead $311M of August’s $596M went into infrastructure. Think market infrastructure, financial data, tokenized investment products, DeFi credit, authentication and verification. The message for founders? - Don’t lead with the technology. Lead with the problem. Who needs your product? How often do they use it? What does it save them? And where does your revenue come from? 📈 2. Traction is speaking louder than narratives Several August deals came with something investors love: proof of demand. City Protocol already has around $30M TVL. Twyne has more than $14M TVL. FinTax serves 70+ institutional clients with around 90% renewal. You don’t need millions in TVL or hundreds of customers. Even 10 paying customers, strong retention, repeated usage or successful pilots can show that people actually need what you are building. 🏦 3. Crypto and traditional finance are getting closer One interesting example is Cambrian, whose $6M seed was co-led by Polychain Capital and Franklin Templeton. For founders, this means your pitch increasingly needs to make sense beyond crypto-native investors. Instead of saying “next-gen DeFi infrastructure”, explain how you help financial institutions move faster, reduce costs or manage risk. 📋 4. Regulation can create markets FinTax is another strong signal. As crypto regulation grows, companies need tax reporting, compliance, accounting, monitoring, identity, custody and audit infrastructure. So when a new regulation appears, don’t only ask: “Where will this hurt my startup?” 👉 Also ask: “What new problem does this create, and can we build the solution?” 🤖 5. AI × Web3 is becoming more practical Cambrian is a good example of the shift. The interesting part isn't simply combining AI and blockchain. The value comes from solving a specific problem: giving AI agents reliable, fast and verifiable financial data for economic decisions. That’s the kind of AI × Web3 story investors can understand. 💰 6. Investors want to see the business behind the token August capital allocation is another useful signal: infrastructure attracted $311M, while CeFi received $199M and DeFi $73.1M. The takeaway? - A project built around TVL, incentives or token growth needs a stronger business case today. 🔎 Try this test: Remove the token from your pitch. Is there still a valuable business? -If yes, you have something interesting to build on. 💡 When capital becomes more selective, the questions become sharper. And that gives you a clearer fundraising checklist: ✓ Why your company? ✓ Why now? ✓ Why this market? ✓ And what proof do you already have?

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Am I really seeing this? 😳 From “software is eating the world” to “full steam ahead to socialism”. Marc, blink twice if the Politburo took over the account. 😉

AI agents got crypto wallets. Banks moved money onchain. Crypto VC capital kept flowing, but toward fewer startup teams. 👉 The August Techstars Web3 Startup Digest is live, curated by InnMind. What founders should pay attention to: ☁️ Cloudflare is building stablecoin wallets for AI agents, with delegated budgets, spending caps & merchant controls. ⚖️ The US published concrete proposals for stablecoin licensing & token fundraising. 💸 July crypto funding looked healthy on the surface, but the 10 largest rounds captured 85% of disclosed VC investment. 🔐 Most stolen value came from infra & operational failures, not the smart-contract exploits founders usually obsess over. The useful question is no longer “which chain?” It is: who needs to move value, what permissions do they need & why should they trust you? Read the full founder briefing: https://read.letterhead.email/techstars-web3/78mqnogzt8

FYI: 5 web3 VCs that actually deployed in July 2026 💸 #VCrating 58 rounds closed in web3 & crypto last month, $2.01B disclosed. July 2025 had 69 rounds & $2.67B. Fewer deals, smaller total, & money still moved every week of the month. Here is who was actually writing cheques, & into what. 1️⃣ Coinbase Ventures, 5 deals. The busiest fund of the month: - Venice AI (private AI inference) $65m Series A - Velocity (stablecoin treasury & settlement) $34m Series A - Cyclops (crypto payments for PSPs) $20m Series A - ZeroDelta (multichain clearing) $6.8m seed - Tenor (non-custodial lending) seed, amount undisclosed It led none of them. Coinbase Ventures joins rounds that someone else prices, so treat it as your second call, never as your anchor. 2️⃣ Dragonfly Capital, 2 deals, led both: - Venice AI $65m Series A - Velocity $34m Series A Two leads in one month, both Series A, both AI or stablecoin rails. If that is your category & you have revenue, this is a fund setting terms right now. 3️⃣ Becker Ventures, 3 deals, all strategic rounds: - Memecoin.Fun (token launch platform) $3.5m, as lead - SwarmBase (onchain identity & coordination) $7m - Alphea (AI-native L1) $5m Small cheques, quick decisions, consumer & AI friendly. A realistic first name on a pre-seed list. 4️⃣ SBI Holdings, 2 deals, led both: - Gauntlet (institutional DeFi vaults) $125m Series C - EDX Markets (institutional exchange infra) $76m Series C Japanese corporate capital led the two biggest institutional rounds of the month. Late stage only, so file it for your Series B+ path. 5️⃣ Tether, 2 deals, led both: - Mercado Bitcoin (Brazilian digital asset platform) $20m strategic - Pact Labs (payroll & payments infra) $7m Series A Also on 2 deals each: Variant (led Infinia & Tenor), Bain Capital Crypto, Castle Island Ventures, Ripple, Animoca Brands, Hack VC, MH Ventures, Nascent. What July says about the VC trends in web3: ▪️ DeFi & CeFi took 21 of 58 rounds & $837m. Still the largest block. ▪️ AI & data: 12 rounds, second by count. ▪️ NFT, gaming & metaverse: 1 round. $4m. In the whole month. ▪️ Strategic rounds (16) outnumbered seed rounds (11). Exchanges, corporates & protocols are buying positions directly, so a pure "VC list" misses half the buyers. ▪️ 17 of 58 rounds published no lead at all. Those rounds were assembled cheque by cheque, & those are the ones a warm intro can still get into. 👉 Deals happen even in a slow month. Missing them is usually a targeting problem: pitching funds that stopped deploying, or writing to info@ instead of the partner who led a round like yours. That is what we built PitchPop for. Paste your deck & get matched to funds by real deal activity, with the named partner & a working route to them. First 3 investor matches free, no signup: https://app.pitchpop.app/ August rating drops next week. Which fund do you want us to break down? 👇

Another round closed in your niche last week. Did you know the investors backing it? Twyne raised a $2.5M seed. Cyber.Fund led the round, Ethereal Ventures co-led. Have you ever pitched them? Did you know they're actively deploying into DeFi at seed right now? Most founders don't. Because public web3 investor data is a mess: half the "active" funds on any list stopped writing checks a year ago, and a fund name alone tells you nothing about who inside leads deals like yours. So founders keep pitching investors who’re never going to reply, & the rounds in their niche keep closing without them. That's exactly what we built PitchPop to fix. Paste your deck and it matches you against: ▪️ 579 Web3 investor orgs, tracked by real deal activity ▪️ 517 of them with a named partner on file, not info@ ▪️ 203 verified rounds closed in 2026, every one with a source & facts You get the funds deploying in your niche right now, the partner who leads your kind of deal, a working route to them, & best converting outreach message written for that specific person. First 3 targets fully open. for Free, no signup, no card to test. 👉 https://app.pitchpop.app/ 👈 Public beta, still get’s improved daily. Fundraising support features & deals updated weekly. Become the early user to benefit from it all at min price! The rounds are closing either way. The question is whether the right investors know you exist. Be there at the right place & time.

VC funding is up. Seed funding is down 42%. H1 2025 → H1 2026: All venture funding: $56.5B → $58.7B Seed: $6.5B → $3.8B Series C+: $23.9B → $31.8B So no, early-stage founders are not imagining it. There is more money in venture than before. There is just much less of it available at seed stage.☹️ The market is not recovering evenly. It is concentrating at the top. Source: Carta

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The market is tough. But seems you can still raise on a launchpad… if you choose the pad wisely 😉 https://t.me/alphamind_official/643 Apply to AlphaMind here

🚀 August 2026 Seed Deals: Where Is Web3 VC Money Going? August is not over yet, and bringing some interesting signals for Web3 founders. Capital is flowing into startups connecting blockchain with real financial activity, infrastructure, data and established industries. Here are the seed-stage deals worth watching 👇 💰 Dow Protocol | $10.5M Seed Dow Protocol is building a PayFi and RWA platform that helps e-commerce merchants access working capital faster. The $10.5M round was led by MH Ventures, Mapleblock, Animoca Brands, Arcane Group, HSKChain, Essentia Partners and Quartet Group. 🌍 Vangrid | $9M Seed Amsterdam-based Vangrid is building a DePIN network that turns smartphone-captured locations into verified 3D spatial data for robotics, Physical AI, government and defense. The $9M round was structured as a SAFT, with HashKey, Borderless, Crypto.com Capital, Animoca Brands, Gate Labs and Mapleblock Capital among the key investors. 📈 River Markets | $8.5M Seed River Markets is building institutional trading infrastructure for prediction markets, helping professional traders access and manage liquidity across venues such as Kalshi and Polymarket. The $8.5M seed round was led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, Qube Research Technologies and angel investors from Google, Nvidia, Novig, JPMorgan and Citadel. ✈️ Entravel Group | $7.5M Seed Entravel provides crypto-native travel infrastructure, embedding hotel booking into fintech apps and crypto exchanges serving around 300M users. The $7.5M round was co-led by Ethereal Ventures and Finality Capital, with GSR, Varrock, G1 Ventures, Seier Capital, Veris Ventures, Funfair Ventures and WTG Ventures also participating. 📱 Memebook | $1M Seed Memebook is a Solana-based social platform combining an Instagram-style experience with wallet-based identity and verification. The startup raised $1M from TOF Ventures. 💡 What can other founders learn from these deals? The strongest fundraising stories are increasingly built around a real problem, real customers and measurable demand. For Web3 founders, the key is to show why blockchain makes the solution better, where your distribution comes from and which investors can bring strategic value beyond capital. The bigger signal from these August deals? Web3 is increasingly becoming infrastructure for real economic activity. 🔥

🎯 How to Pitch Your Web3 Startup in a Conversation with an Investor Got a meeting with a VC? Great. Now forget the 30-slide pitch deck for a moment. A strong investor conversation is about one thing: making the investor quickly understand why your project matters and why you can build it. Here are the rules founders should keep in mind 👇 🔥 Start with the problem, not the technology. Skip the long explanation of your protocol, architecture or token mechanics. Tell the investor what painful problem exists, who has it, and why your solution can solve it better. 📊 Bring proof, not promises. “Massive market” and “huge potential” are easy to say. Real traction is harder to fake. Talk about revenue, users who actually use the product, retention, transaction activity, fees, pilots, partnerships or other signals that show people want what you are building. 💡 Make your story easy to follow. A good conversation should feel like a dialogue, not a technical lecture. Explain the business first. Then let the investor dig deeper into the technology, token model or infrastructure when they want to. 🎯 Know your fundraising story. Be ready to answer three simple questions: • How much are you raising? • What instrument are you using? • What specific milestone will this round unlock? If you need a token, explain why it is essential to the network. If the product can work perfectly well with stablecoins or traditional rails, be prepared to explain the strategic reason for a token. 👀 Expect difficult questions. A serious investor may ask about token utility, TVL quality, regulation, unit economics, competition, security or your long-term moat. Don't try to dodge these questions. A clear answer, including what you still need to figure out, can build much more trust than a perfect-looking story. 🚀 And remember: the goal of the first conversation is momentum. A great meeting ends with a clear next step: another call, a data request, an introduction, or a defined diligence process. “Sounds interesting, let's keep in touch” feels nice. A concrete next step is what you should look for. Stay sharp—every tough question is a chance to stand out and prove your vision 😉

🔐 Authentication: the infrastructure you’ll need sooner than you think When you’re building a startup, authentication can feel like a “we’ll deal with it later” task. Until enterprise customers start asking for SSO, MFA, secure access and user management. Suddenly, your login system becomes a serious product and security challenge. That’s where Auth0 comes in. It’s a flexible authentication and authorization platform that helps developers securely manage logins, users, SSO, MFA and access across their applications. Auth0 also operates at serious scale, handling 10+ billion authentications every month with 99.99% uptime. 🚀 And here’s the good news for early-stage founders: eligible startups can get 1 year of Auth0 B2B Professional for FREE through Auth0 for Startups. You get enterprise-ready authentication infrastructure while keeping your early startup budget focused on building and growing your product. 🔥 The offer includes: • Up to 100,000 monthly active users • Enterprise MFA + 5 enterprise connections • Unlimited organizations, subject to system limits • 3 third-party APIs, including Auth0 for AI Agents Token Vault • Inbound SCIM To qualify, your startup needs to be venture-backed, have less than $5M in funding, less than $1M ARR, and be less than 2 years old. If enterprise customers are on your roadmap, this is the kind of infrastructure worth getting right early. And with the first year covered, there’s even more reason to take a look. 👀 👉 Get the Auth0 perk through InnMind Build for scale from day one. ⚡️ And don’t forget to explore the InnMind Perks Club for more useful tools, services and startup offers that can help you save money and move faster. 🚀

📅 10 Must-Attend Web3 & AI Events Before the End of 2026 Looking for the right conference to meet investors, partners, clients, or fellow builders? 🌍 We've just added a fresh batch of Web3, AI, blockchain, and fintech events to the InnMind Events Calendar Make it a habit to check the calendar regularly. It's one of the easiest ways to discover valuable networking opportunities, stay on top of industry trends, and find the right events to help grow your startup. 🚀 Crypto Tax Forum 2026 📅 September 9, 2026 The world's first conference fully dedicated to crypto taxation returns with experts from regulators, law enforcement, legal firms, and leading Web3 companies discussing the future of crypto compliance and regulation. Attend virtually, earn 10 CPE points, receive a Certificate of Attendance and an NFT POAP. 🎁 Use our exclusive discount code to get 30% off your ticket: innmind30 European Blockchain Convention (EBC12) 📅 September 16-17, 2026 Europe's leading institutional blockchain event brings together 6,000+ attendees, including investors, banks, asset managers, regulators, and top Web3 companies. Expect two days of networking, market insights, tokenization, AI, stablecoins, and institutional adoption discussions. 🎁 Use code IM_15 to get 15% off your ticket. AI & Emerging Technology Forum 2026 📅 September 28-30, 2026 A global gathering for AI professionals, founders, researchers, and innovators exploring Generative AI, machine learning, robotics, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and digital transformation. The forum combines expert talks, hands-on workshops, networking, and career opportunities. Web3 x AI Fusion Singapore 📅 October 6, 2026 This builder-focused event explores how AI and Web3 are coming together through decentralized infrastructure, AI-powered dApps, automation, and tokenized ecosystems. Meet founders, developers, investors, and innovators building the next generation of decentralized products. EmpowHER in AI Singapore 📅 October 6, 2026 A community-driven event celebrating women founders, AI leaders, and innovators through inspiring discussions, networking, and collaboration. It's a great opportunity to connect with startups, investors, and professionals shaping a more inclusive AI ecosystem. DeAI Summit 2026 📅 October 28-30, 2026 Hosted in Malta, DeAI Summit brings together AI leaders, decentralized AI builders, policymakers, investors, and researchers to discuss governance, compliance, AI infrastructure, and the future of decentralized intelligence. The program also includes startup pitches, Oxford-style debates, and investment panels. Wiki Finance Expo Cyprus 2026 📅 November 6, 2026 One of Europe's largest FX, fintech, and crypto expos featuring 5,000+ attendees, industry leaders, technology providers, brokers, and regulators. Explore the latest trends in payments, AI for finance, DeFi, compliance, trading infrastructure, and institutional markets. Blockchain Life 2026 Forum 📅 December 1-2, 2026 One of the biggest global crypto events returns to Dubai with more than 15,000 attendees from over 130 countries. Meet founders, investors, exchanges, miners, and Web3 leaders while gaining market insights during one of the industry's largest networking events. AI Future Forum 2026 📅 December 1-2, 2026 Running alongside Blockchain Life, AI Future Forum connects AI founders, investors, developers, and startups exploring practical AI applications, emerging business models, and the growing convergence of AI and Web3. Global Trading Show 2026 📅 December 15-16, 2026 A major multi-asset trading event bringing together traders, brokers, fintech companies, exchanges, institutional investors, and regulators. Discover the latest innovations across crypto, forex, stocks, AI-powered trading, DeFi, and institutional finance. 🚀 See you at the next event, and don't forget to check the InnMind Events Calendar regularly for new networking and fundraising opportunities.