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Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Online fundraising, financial services |
Founded | 2016 |
Founder | Kendrick Nguyen, Peter Green, Paul Menchov [1] [2] [3] |
Headquarters |
Republic is an investment platform headquartered in New York City that allows individuals to invest in startups, [4] growth-stage pre-IPO companies, real estate, video games, and crypto companies (despite the crackdown on fraudulent initial coin offerings in 2018). [5]
Republic was founded by Kendrick Nguyen, Paul Menchov and Peter Green in 2016 as a spin-off from AngelList. [6] [7] By July 2021, the company had deployed over $500 million in investments. [8] [9]
In November 2020, Republic launched the Republic Cities program in Dallas to fundraise for companies in Dallas from the local community. [10]
In 2021, Everyrealm (at the time, Republic Realm), formerly a metaverse real estate investment channel of Republic, purchased a parcel of virtual land in Decentraland for close to one million US dollars. [11] The lot has turned into a virtual shopping district and houses JPMorgan's lounge. [12]
Republic has its own profit-sharing digital security token, the Republic Note, but has not minted the tokens or made any new developments since launching. [13] [14] [15]
In October 2021, Republic announced a $150M Series B round led by Valor Equity Partners. [16]
Republic Capital, its venture arm, has invested in companies including Carta, Dapper Labs, Klarna, Kraken, Pipe, and Plaid.
In June 2019, Republic acquired SheWorx, a company that helps female entrepreneurs raise capital. [17] Lisa Wang – the founder – subsequently left Republic. [18]
In April 2020, Republic acquired Fig, a video game crowdfunding platform. [19] [20] The first offering from Fig that was co-hosted by Republic was that of Intellivision Amico. Despite its fundraising success – to the tune of $39 million across multiple campaigns (including one on competitor site StartEngine) – it has faced multiple delays and remained in development until July 2022. [21] [22] [23]
In June 2020, Republic made an acqui-hire for Compound, a real estate investment platform to create Republic Realm. [24] However, the division later spun off and rebranded as Everyrealm. [25] In October 2022, a sexual harassment and racial discrimination lawsuit was filed against Everyrealm and Republic. [26]
In November 2020, Republic acquired certain assets of NextSeed, a local crowdfunding platform. [27]
In December 2021, Republic entered into an agreement to acquire British equity crowdfunding business Seedrs for $100 million in an effort to expand to Europe. [1] [2] [28] This acquisition faced pushback from regulatory bodies and the Seedrs investor base, citing preferential treatment given to large shareholders. [29]
In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usage, a "metaverse" is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social and economic connection.
Chris Dixon is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and previously worked at eBay. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hunch. He was #1 on the Midas List in 2022. Dixon is known as a cryptocurrency and Web3 evangelist.
Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd is a Hong Kong-based game software company and venture capital company co-founded in 2014 by Yat Siu and David Kim. The company initially focused on developing mobile games, then shifted to blockchain gaming and NFTs in 2018.
Seedrs is an online equity crowdfunding company, headquartered in East London's Tech City, founded in 2009 and launched by Jeff Lynn and Carlos Silva in 2012. Since 2022 it has been a subsidiary of American crowdfunding company Republic.
Seedcamp is a European seed-stage venture capital fund, headquartered in London, launched in May 2007 by a group of 30 European investors. The fund's Managing Partners are Reshma Sohoni and Carlos Espinal.
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Krista Kim is a Canadian-Korean contemporary artist and Vogue Singapore's metaverse editor known for incorporation of light, digital technology, and sound into her artistic creations. Her portfolio includes touring installations, displays, and the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), some of which were developed in collaboration with major corporations.
An initial coin offering (ICO) or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding, although a private ICO which does not seek public investment is also possible. In an ICO, a quantity of cryptocurrency is sold in the form of "tokens" ("coins") to speculators or investors, in exchange for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether. The tokens are promoted as future functional units of currency if or when the ICO's funding goal is met and the project successfully launches.
Nium is a Singapore-headquartered cross-border payments company. Initially founded by Prajit Nanu and Michael Bermingham, and launched as consumer-remittance platform Instarem in 2014. In 2016, the company introduced its B2B payments platform and rebranded as Nium in 2019, subsequently elevating Pratik Gandhi to co-founder in 2021.
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain, and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner, allowing NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs can be created by anybody, and require few or no coding skills to create. NFTs typically contain references to digital files such as artworks, photos, videos, and audio. Because NFTs are uniquely identifiable, they differ from cryptocurrencies, which are fungible.
Decentraland is a 3D virtual world browser-based platform. Users may buy virtual plots of land in the platform as NFTs via the MANA cryptocurrency, which uses the Ethereum blockchain. Designers can create and sell clothes and accessories for the avatars to be used in the virtual world.
The Intellivision Amico is a home video game console that is being developed and marketed by Intellivision Entertainment. It was originally slated to be released in October 2020, but repeated delays followed, leaving the console without a release date.
BUX is a European mobile brokerage company, based in Amsterdam and London. Retail investors buy shares, ETFs and cryptocurrency through the BUX app. BUX allows users CFD trading through its Stryk app and crypto trading using the BUX Crypto platform.
Securitize, Inc is a financial technology company that provides businesses a platform to raise capital from institutional, accredited or retail investors (crowdfunding) with shares issued in the form of digital tokens recorded on the blockchain, including for Oddity and digital custodian Exodus, which used the Securitize platform to raise $75 million in 2021. Securitize also operates a broker-dealer marketplace on which tokenized shares in private companies are traded. Securitize has approximately 3,000 clients with a combined 1.2 million investors and is regulated by both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA. In June 2022, Securitize became authorized by the Spanish government to enter its securities test environment.
Web3 is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics. Some technologists and journalists have contrasted it with Web 2.0, wherein they say data and content are centralized in a small group of companies sometimes referred to as "Big Tech". The term "Web3" was coined in 2014 by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, and the idea gained interest in 2021 from cryptocurrency enthusiasts, large technology companies, and venture capital firms. The concepts of Web3 were first represented in 2013.
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Kendrick Nguyen, Republic's founder, said: "We knew international expansion was necessary to achieve cross-bordered participation [...]"
Despite a potential crackdown on U.S. offerings, many upstart crypto-trading platforms are barreling into uncharted territory
Last June, developer Everyrealm (formerly known as Republic Realm) bought a piece of Decentraland land for $913,000. The land has now been turned into the Metajuku shopping district, where JPMorgan's lounge is located.
She left SheWorx and Republic on strong terms, according to Pialy Aditya, Republic's chief strategy officer, who says that Wang "will always remain a good friend to Republic."
Ex-NFL player Teyo Johnson has filed new allegations against the crypto startup and its CEO