Interplay

Blue Venture Community is excited to host a panel on 'The Future of On-Chain AI Agents' with our friends from Hadron Founders Club, Levitate Labs, Cogitent Ventures, and OnePiece Labs. Join our panelists for an insightful discussion on whether AI Agents will unlock the next phase of growth and innovation in Web3 or if they are only a hot narrative for this cycle and will gradually fade away. The panelists include:  - Alexander Lin: Co-Founder & GP, Reforge - Ashlan Ahmed: Founder, Axal - Danny Sursock: Partner, Archetype - Naman Kapasi: Investor, Big Brain Holdings - Damodar(DB) Bihani: Investor, Delta Blockchain Fund RSVP here: https://lu.ma/655umj22

Chris Zhang returns to the pod for a deep dive into China’s economic landscape in 2025, beyond the headlines. Linked in the comments below. We cover: - The state of China’s economy: GDP growth, trade, and industrial production. - Key concerns: deflation, housing struggles, and demographic shifts - China’s transition from manufacturing to services - U.S.-China trade tensions—tariffs, shifting alliances, and Cold War parallels - China’s tech race in AI & EVs, challenging U.S. dominance - Supply chain shifts & investment flows in a volatile global market Whether you're an investor, policymaker, or just curious about China's future role in global economics, this episode is packed with insights you won’t find in the mainstream narrative.

Exciting news! Today marks a major milestone for Bilt Rewards as we announce our first acquisition: BANYAN, a leading platform for item-level receipt data. This is a game-changer for neighborhood commerce. Banyan's item-level receipt data technology allows us to create truly magical experiences that benefit everyone in our ecosystem: - Automatic FSA/HSA savings at neighborhood merchants - Personalized welcome rewards for new residents - Brand-powered rewards for specific product purchases - Cross-merchant experiences like complimentary rides to restaurants Our founder and CEO Ankur Jain said it best: "This acquisition represents a major step forward in our mission to transform how residents engage with their neighborhoods." As we welcome the Banyan team, we're excited to reimagine what's possible in local commerce! #BiltRewards #Acquisition #NeighborhoodCommerce #FinTech https://lnkd.in/ewMKQh4f

To all the video editors, creators, and marketing teams out there, want to repurpose video for social, faster? Check out Shortcuts - a game-changing tool from our VC portfolio company Slate. The best social teams take one piece of content and get 10 different posts out of it. Many brands have a big source of longform content just waiting to be turned into social clips, but don't have the time or resources to do so. Shortcuts helps you unlock content without hours of manual work.

For the last nine months, we've been in the lab building something new. 👀 At the start of 2024, AI was taking over and we knew there was opportunity to leverage AI to create a new, valuable product for our customers. We didn’t want to just hack together an "AI-powered" feature for the sake of saying we had it. We wanted to be sure we created something that truly adds value for our customers. So, over the last 9 months we worked closely with some of the biggest brands, sports teams, and media organizations in the world as design partners, digging deep into their workflows to understand where AI could assist their social and video teams. What we found is that these professional creators can absolutely benefit from the power of AI. But what they truly need is an AI product that assists their editing workflows, rather than one that tries to tell them what to post. YOU are the experts on your audience. That's why you have your job. You know what resonates with your fans. You know what works and what doesn’t. You know what fits your brand voice and drives results on social. AI shouldn’t take that away, it should empower you to do more, faster. That’s what we focused on, and today, we’re launching Shortcuts by Slate AI. ✨ A new way for social teams to turn long-form content into short-form social clips; faster, easier, and without sacrificing creative control or brand consistency. It identifies the best moments in long-form video, makes them social-ready with your branding, and gives you the control to polish them in Slate’s editing suite. 🚀 Huge shoutout to the team that made this happen—from engineering to product to our incredible design partners. If you want to learn more, check the comments!

Big news! Wendy by The Story Company - one of our incredible Interplay Foundry portfolio companies - is officially available on iPad. Wendy is the story-building toolbox where kids create, collaborate, and expand their own story worlds. It empowers kids to bring their imaginations to life - while making reading the heart of the adventure. Why Wendy? ✅ Healthy screen-time alternative parents can feel good about ✅ Certified kidSAFE, with a 5-Star rating from Education App Store ✅ Create, share and reuse characters with friends again and again ✅ Build, read and listen to unlimited stories If you know a young storyteller (or a parent looking for a creative and engaging, screen-time alternative), check out Wendy! Download it here: https://lnkd.in/d9ADthnV Congrats to Lance Neuhauser and the rest of the Wendy team on this special milestone. #WendyApp #StorytellingForKids #CreativeScreenTime #NowLive #StoryBuilding #StoryToolbox https://lnkd.in/et3pVZFK

Big news! Wendy by The Story Company - one of our incredible Interplay Foundry portfolio companies - is officially available on iPad. Wendy is the story-building toolbox where kids create, collaborate, and expand their own story worlds. It empowers kids to bring their imaginations to life - while making reading the heart of the adventure. Why Wendy? ✅ Healthy screen-time alternative parents can feel good about ✅ Certified kidSAFE, with a 5-Star rating from Education App Store ✅ Create, share and reuse characters with friends again and again ✅ Build, read and listen to unlimited stories If you know a young storyteller (or a parent looking for a creative and engaging, screen-time alternative), check out Wendy! Download it here: https://lnkd.in/d9ADthnV Congrats to Lance Neuhauser and the rest of the Wendy team on this special milestone. #WendyApp #StorytellingForKids #CreativeScreenTime #NowLive #StoryBuilding #StoryToolbox https://lnkd.in/et3pVZFK

In this week's podcast, Phuong Ireland and I break down the most common seed-stage valuation methods including the Investor Target Ownership approach, the Berkus Method, and the increasingly popular SAFE note. We're also highlighting key founder pitfalls, such as over-inflating valuations or underpricing their startups, and explain how investor demand influences the equation. As always, appreciate you joining me on the pod, Phuong Ireland! https://lnkd.in/e9vwPHTG

In her latest blog post, VC Senior Associate Caroline Elliott explores the $500b+ overstock industry, specifically the opportunity for innovation in the beauty and personal care sector. While companies like Ghost and Max Retail have gone a long way in supporting an effective circular economy for the apparel sector, the same innovation has not yet happened in the $446b beauty and personal care industry.    If you'd like to learn more or are currently building in this space, please reach out to our team.

We’re thrilled to welcome INKZUP - a game-changing studio management platform that’s revolutionizing the tattoo industry - to the Interplay Incubator! Founded by Anitra D., INKZUP automates and streamlines tattoo business operations helping studios increase revenue, simplify bookings, manage payments, and supercharge marketing all in one place. Tattoo artists should focus on their craft, not admin work. With INKZUP they can do just that. We couldn’t be more excited to support Anitra D. and the team on this journey!