issue 185
Hello! What’s old is new again. People are getting very close to the over-complicated idea I had about a year ago — producer collectives, all on-chain, with baked in legal and financial frameworks on a per-project basis. I was very excited about it then, pressure tested it with like 40 potential members, it held water, but let the ship sit in the harbor for a few months as life had other ideas in store for me. We plan, God laughs.
And in the clear-eyed months since, I realized I was just proposing a co-op. Communistic capitalism. The ‘secret sauce’ would’ve been the curatorial approach to market (film/tv execs) and templatized legal documents, kinda like the off-the-shelf services that AngelList, Stripe Atlas, and Cooley offer for startups and fund managers. Though most deals differ by case. If I wanted to be trendy (the last stage before tacky), I would now call it a DAO — a decentralized autonomous organization. All the rage these days.
I had a couple very smart friends tell me I was literally just proposing an online company formation platform with cute community features, with a slightly different spin around income share (I took a page out of Lambda and Pando). And that there were existing merit-based incentive schemes for co-op members, called stock options and dividends/distributions. Shared ownership :: federated partnership. And once someone were to have a runaway hit, they’d break off and create their own shop. And that being on-chain didn’t solve much of anything - smart contracts, as opposed to dumb ones? They were right, I was wrong - to an extent. I let that ship sail, well sorta.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this one, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more realistic (read: pessimistic, jaded) about new technologies and their applications. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Many are solutions in search of problems; bundle, unbundle ad inf. I admit, beginning with the film/tv business would’ve been a faux pas, it’s ridiculously hard to get a project made (cash inflows with producer fees) - talk about a long lead sales cycle. Members could make more money growing and selling vegetables at your local farmer’s market. Now that’s a co-op.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. What is Polæ. See you next week.
Tech
PreShow, gamers earn in-game currency by ‘watching’ ads, raised $3m TC
Yousician, music education training, raised $28m TC
Instreamatic, interactive audio ad insertions, raised $6m TC
Genies, celebrity avatars and much more, raised $65m Mary Meeker TC
Portal One, app that blends gamers with live shows, raised $15m TC
Applied XL, editorial algos that track journalists, raised $1.5m TC
Keeper Tax, taxes for freelancers and gig workers, raised $13m Cision
Epic Games acq ArtStation ASblog
Campfire, XR product design, raised $8m VB
Mux, video platform API, raised $100m Cision
Zynga acq Uncosoft, hyper casual game dev out of Turkey TC
Mr Yum, QR codes for music venues, raised $11m TIO
Lobus, art management on the blockchain, raised $6m TC
Madefire, app-based comic books, shutting down after raising $20m TC
Pachama, platform that uses Lidar and sats to monitor climate change, raised $15m Med
SuperSapiens, athlete performance monitoring, raised $13m Cision
Catch, fishing subscription and content, raised $38m (nice Kyle) CB
Placer, location data analytics, raised $50m TC
Playstation invests in Discord, plans integration VB
Cameo builds fan wallets Med
AI Dungeon (uses GPT3) apologizes over generative responses Med
FB buying VR dev Onward TC
Face Generator creates synthetic faces PH
Lit Method, fitness workouts on social raised undisclosed from JayZ PopS
Toucan, language learning startup replaces words in browser, raised $4.5m TC
Zoom launches immersive rooms for all participants to be in same zone (yuck) VB
Media
Verizon to divest AOL and Yahoo media brands, Apollo acq for $5b WSJ VZ
Genies and Warner Music sign avatar merch deal WMG
Spotify’s open access platform Every
Blackstone buys eOne’s music catalogue from Hasbro for $380m Bberg
Dutch politicians tricked by deepfake video (yikes) Engadget
Genius Sports acq Fan Hub, free to play games BW
Chernin’s Action Network to be acq for $240m to Better Collective WSJ
YouTube bans fake animal rescue videos (this was a thing??) Times
DraftKings buys podcast rights in $50m deal from ESPN’s Dan Batard (wut) WSJ
Legendary hires Liontree to help them hunt for deals, get Spac’d or studio deal Bberg
Wilpon family exploring sale of NYT Mets regional network Sport
Lionsgate tried to buy Showtime, rejected by ViacomCBS Insider
Roku pulls YouTube tv from app amidst negotiation Var
25Madison, company incubator led by Michael Lynton, raised $60m (Apollo, Endeavor) 25M
Peacock signs up 9m subs after adding The Office (don’t know if paid/free) Verge
Music Credit Loan to lend against IP catalogues CU
NPR paid podcast push Current
Southern Theaters using Rox* for PVOD platform Pro
OnlyFans reports almost $400m in rev last yr Adweek
Mapbox, 3D mapping to get SPACd by Softbank Bberg
Spotify’s Daniel Ek contemplating Arsenal acq ESPN
Forbes to get SPACd in $700m deal Reut
Night Media and Jukin form Views, NFTs for viral videos Tube
WayRay, holographic car dashboards to get Spac’d Bberg
Gray TV closes on $2.7b deal for Meredith’s tv stations Var
A crazy Trump Media Group pitch with a SPAC and more Axios
Juju Smiths signs strategic partnership with Queens Gaming TEO
Extremists who’ve been shunned from FB/Twtr going to Twitch NYT
Entertainment
David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future to begin prod, Neon has NA rights (take all my money) Dead
Endeavor went public Var
Tribeca shorts and immersive lineup (Hint: ctrl f Polae in immersive…) Shorts Immersive
Hivemind, Eric Heisserer, partner with game pub Paradox to develop World of Darkness universe Var
Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort 3 year deal with Paramount Var
Netflix orders 1899 from Dark creators Dead
Amazon, Outlier Society option You Made a Fool of Death with Beauty (v competitive) Dead
Elizabeth Olson, David E Kelly set Candy Montgomery project at HBO Max w/ Kidman as EP Var
Taika to play Blackbeard in HBO Max comedy series Var
Battle Slayer tops NA box office, record for anime VF
Amblin teams with Emily Gordon/Nanjiana to develop Doubtful Guest THR
ITV Studios sets up shop in Spain Var
Hulu acq $ugar series, dark comedy about Silicon Valley sex ring THR
IMDB TV orders Dick Wolf crime drama and more Var
Heavy Metal sets dev deal with Range Media, pitching projects Var
Amazon takes US rights to A Hero Var
Bo Burham sets Nflx special he recorded at home (this guy is a legend) Var
Paddington 2 topped Citizen Kane as highest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes Wrap
Anonymous Content ramps up film/tv studio group Dead
Netflix opens hub in Sweden, focus on Nordic originals THR
Pixar staffers peeved no extra incentive for their films on Disney+ Insider
Bafta craft award noms Var
Collaborative
Takeaways from the US Census data AP
IDEO founder collective Med
Profile on Reese and Hello Sunshine Time
WSJ data analysis and viz on return to normal WSJ
Jarrod Dicker and Tal Shachar on creator DAOs Darkstar
AI that can write “creatively” (I plan to use on one of my projects) NewYorker
RDJ’s Footprint Coalition shareholder letter PDF
Matt Hartman on consumer media and NFTs Med
MediaMonks esports presentation Slides
Marvel celebrates the movies YT
GPT-3 for Mandarin PDF
People are breeding and betting on digital horses Sportico
Creators selling spreadsheets of information (lists!) Mash
Emrata NFT of a photograph without her copyright (yo dawg) Verge
Celebrity impersonators on Cameo (wtf) Vice
UTA Ventures Spring 2021 newsletter PDF
How China’s NewsBreak helps service American media giants Prot
Pentagon takes UFOs seriously NewYorker
Interview with the head of innovation at Spotify CNN
Computer vision surveillance to monitor social distancing PDF
Goldman Research on sports gambling YT
Physical trailer YT
Mapping the Brazilian favelas using Lidar DB
La Piscine trailer restoration (beauty) IW
The livestream gaming ecosystem graphic NewZoo
David Gabeau on tokening natural assets USV
John Wu and Matt Turck put together ML company index MTblog
Nexon bought $100m worth of BTC Med
Eric Feng on NFTs Med
Microbes siphon carbon from tectonic plates Science
Music livestreams that keep faltering Bboard
Inside a 3d printed home in Italy AD
Greg Noone on computer vision / facial recog inside brick and mortar stores TM
From the attention economy to the creator economy (only VCs write this shit) Forbes
The transformation of recent women’s sports teams NewYorker
CA’s climate fund policy actually did the reverse of what it intended ProP
LP perspectives on emerging fund managers (solid) Mtwtr
How TikTokers try to game the algo Markup
Billie Eillish Your Power music vid YT
Grid of recent deals in the “creator economy” Sheets
Companies in Boost’s sci-fi demo day Med
Subscription fatigue is real Vox
Tomorrow War teaser YT
Profile on Megan Leeds, Roblox streamer Bberg
Derek Shloss on generative crypto art and CryptoPunks Med
SEC turns down crypto ETF (for now) SEC
Former Netflix IT exec going to prison for kickback scheme CBS
JayZ’s Marcy Ventures raising $200m for fund II SEC
Metaverse market map Med
Oral history of the Osama Bin Laden killing, 10 years has passed Politico
How Dazn and World Surf League are using original content to their advantage SP
Kanye sneakers sold for $1.6m (dumb) Yahoo
Bezos’ Blue Origin challenges SpaceX and NASA deal NYT