What’s Possible: 29th October, 2021

We hope you enjoy this week's hand-picked selection of important and interesting stories from the frontiers of tech.

The economics of decarbonisation

$56tn of global infrastructure investment will be necessary if we’re to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. That’s hard to understand in the abstract – but makes more sense if you think of it in terms of global GDP. In a scenario where average worldwide temperatures rise no more than 1.5°C, they think investment in decarbonisation will have to peak at about 2.3% of global GDP by the mid-2030s.

3D Systems to expand bioprinting program

Rather than focusing solely on bioprinting human lung scaffolds, the firm now aims to develop two further organs, as well as vascularized tissues for human non-organ regenerative medicine applications.

Robotics-powered ‘microfulfillment’ startup Fabric raises $200M

Fabric claims to level the playing field with a modular, software-led robotics approach to fulfillment. AI orchestrates robots within its microfulfillment centers’ walls to break orders into tasks and delegate them autonomously. Some robots bring items awaiting shipment in totes to teams of employees who pack individual orders. Operating in rooms with ceilings as low as 11 feet, other robots move packaged orders from temperature-controlled zones for fresh, ambient, chilled, and frozen products to dispatch areas, where they’re loaded onto a scooter or van for delivery.

There’s a platform war brewing in NFT gaming.

According to investment firm Drake Star Partners, of the record $9 billion in private financing raised in the first nine months of 2021, $1.8 billion of that was for NFT-related gaming projects. Every day it seems new companies are popping up, investments are pouring in and more-traditional companies are hopping on the NFT and blockchain gaming bandwagon.

Dawn Of The Guilds: Settlers Of The Metaverse

Axie Infinity, having pioneered the concept of Play-to-Earn, experienced a meteoric rise in Q3 of this year. It now sits second only to Ethereum itself in terms of revenue generated. It’s brought significant attention to crypto gaming as a sector and has become a strong indicator for its overall health. The staggering growth of its economy and user base has prompted many to draw parallel’s with the hockey stick growth of games like Candy Crush, at the advent of free-to-play mobile. Axie is actively onboarding millions of players into the blockchain space, validating the thesis that gaming may well be the trojan horse for blockchain adoption globally.

What does China's centrally backed digital currency mean for the world?

China is betting that the digital yuan is another arrow in its quiver to strengthen influence around the world and diminish U.S. ability to counteract it. More importantly, it is accelerating a reality first broached by cryptocurrency that with the right technology, you can create your own money and the rails to move it.

Q3 Crypto Fundraising Trends

Total Q3 crypto company fundraising surpassed over 300 funding rounds accounting for $8.2 billion dollars. CeFi companies raised 50% of the Q3 capital while Infrastructure and NFTs also raised a significant amount. Surprisingly, DeFi protocols and companies raised the least amount of funds throughout Q3.

LinkedIn rolls out its freelance services marketplace globally

LinkedIn is opening up a new front in the job market for freelancers. It is taking the wraps off its Service Marketplace, a new feature that will let people advertise themselves for short-term engagements to those looking to hire people for such roles, competing against the likes of Fiverr and Upwork for sourcing skilled knowledge workers.

The Sequoia Fund: Patient Capital for Building Enduring Companies

Ironically, innovations in venture capital haven’t kept pace with the companies we serve. Our industry is still beholden to a rigid 10-year fund cycle pioneered in the 1970s. As chips shrank and software flew to the cloud, venture capital kept operating on the business equivalent of floppy disks. Once upon a time the 10-year fund cycle made sense. But the assumptions it’s based on no longer hold true, curtailing meaningful relationships prematurely and misaligning companies and their investment partners.

Interesting adjacencies

• Chris Dixon: What’s next in web3? (thread)
• Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant — The Wonders of Web3 (podcast)
• Another contender for “greatest trade of all time” (tweet)
• Nitricity: Decarbonizing fertilizer (watch)
• QAO vs California Cultured in the race for cocoa-free chocolate.
• How Did Cubes of Solid Tungsten Become A Trophy for Cryptocurrency Bros? (link)
• Institutional crypto adoption - will it happen? (link)
• The global fusion industry in 2021 (link)
• Microsoft launches campaign to fill 250,000 cybersecurity jobs (link)
• Ben Thompson: Meta (link)

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