Source: 1confirmation; Compiled by: 0xjs@Jinse Finance
Recently, the company behind the NFT project Meebits, MeebCo, announced the completion of a $3 million new round of financing, fully invested by 1confirmation.
1confirmation also posted an investment memo on X explaining why they invested in MeebCo, as follows:
Summary:
Meebits is an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) series created by Matt Hall and John Watkinson of Lava Labs in May 2021. Lava Labs is also the team that created the CryptoPunks series in June 2017 and the Autoglyphs series in April 2019.
CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs are now widely regarded as iconic series in the NFT and generative art fields, with floor prices exceeding $100,000. Meebits is a more accessible series launched by Lava Labs, with a current floor price of around $1,400. There are 20,000 NFTs, with 10,000 airdropped to CryptoPunks holders and another 10,000 minted at 2.5 ETH. Based on the floor price, the current fully diluted valuation (FDV) is $28 million. We believe that, based on its artistic creativity and the real-world impact of the community and the new company developing IP and bringing value to the series, the Meebits series is significantly undervalued and has a clear 20x upside potential.
We will invest $3 million in the newly formed Meebit company (MeebCo), which will be led by founder and CEO Sergio Silva. The company will acquire the Meebits intellectual property and NFT series from Yuga Labs and focus on developing these IPs. We are the sole investor in the new organization, and the board of the new entity will consist of 1confirmation, Sergio, Yuga Labs, and future employees. Mike Tomaino will join the board of the new entity.
Key Assumptions of MeebCo:
1. Unique art and community: We believe that in the long run, the core value drivers of NFTs are artistic creativity and community strength. Meebits has a unique combination, and if we can expand the community and bring real-world impact to the IP, it will create significant long-term value.
2. Perfect leader: Sergio Silva is a passionate member of the Meebits community, and he will translate this passion into effective leadership, becoming the perfect leader for the new era of Meebits.
3. Creating real-world impact and brand: The team will leverage these artworks to create meaningful impact in the real world and build one of the iconic consumer brands of the next decade. The opportunities for this IP are limitless, with the three main directions currently being games, content, and toys. The 3D nature of the characters also makes them well-suited for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) as these technologies progress, providing further development potential for Meebits in these areas.
Team (Score 9/10):
Founder and CEO Sergio Silva is proactive and passionate about Meebits. He previously worked at Fireblocks and founded Popset. His main skills are promoting Meebits and building partnerships to expand the ecosystem. He is full of positive energy, highly capable, and will be responsible for assembling the team and developing the products.
Product (Score 7/10):
The current product is the artwork, and there are no other products. The company's main task is to develop products that can enhance the visibility and value of Meebits. What these will be is still unknown, and it will depend on Sergio and the team's execution. The path taken by the Meebits company may be similar to the way the Pudgy Penguins team revived their series.
Community (Score 9/10):
Meebits currently has over 6,000 holders, a strong community that is our most critical asset. The uniqueness of Meebits lies in the fact that the series is relatively accessible (the current floor price is around $1,400), but also has high-end artistic properties (a double-nosed pig was sold for over $2 million). One of Sergio Silva's main focuses will be to grow the community from 6,000 people to 100,000 as quickly as possible.
Token Mechanism (Not Applicable):
There is currently no fungible token, but there is a possibility of issuing one in the future.
Key Risks:
1. Execution risk: Although there is an excellent series of works and a strong community, there is currently no formed product. The team must focus on the right products and launch them. It is currently unclear whether the final product will be a game, a content series, toys, or some combination of these, or something completely different.
2. Timing and upside risk: NFTs are currently out of favor in the market. We believe they will return on a larger scale, and projects with creativity and strong long-term communities (whose members are not just there to make money) will lead the trend, but we may also misjudge.
Summary (Team + Product + Community + Token Mechanism, Overall Score 8.33):
For us, this investment is unique because we are actually co-founding this new entity with Sergio Silva, and the company does not yet have a clear product direction. But we believe that the combination of creativity and community makes Meebits one of the best investment opportunities in the current NFT field, and we are excited to make this investment from the 1confirmation NFT fund. We are confident that the world's largest consumer brands will soon be community-owned, and we believe Meebits has the potential to be one of them.
