Posted In:

ecommerce, Alternative Investment


#453
Collectibles Growth In The Cards

Published:

Sep 03, 2022


Author:

Cindy Grazer

Posted In:

ecommerce, Alternative Investment

Published:

Sep 03, 2022


Author:

Cindy Grazer


Share:

The collectibles market has been ripe with news. Last Sunday, a 1952 mint condition Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for $12.6m at Heritage Auctions, a new record for sports-related collectibles after Sotheby’s auctioned off Diego Maradona’s jersey from the 1986 World Cup for $9.3m in May.

While the sports card and other collectibles market have always held its own loyal fan base, COVID-19 appears to have brought trading volumes and prices to a new high. According to a Wall Street Journal article, the 10 most expensive sports trading cards have all sold during the pandemic. This is likely a function of multiple factors: more time at home to develop interest, increased discretionary income from less spending/relief, and an effort to diversify investments. In the current rising inflation environment, this need for alternative asset classes continues to grow.

Catering to consumer demand, companies have also invested behind collectibles trading. Just a few weeks ago, eBay acquired trading card marketplace TCGplayer for $295m to grow its 26 year-old trading cards business. In January, Fanatics closed its acquisition of Topps Co., a 70 year old trading card brand.

Outside of traditional collectibles, NFT trading and platforms have also taken off in a significant way during the pandemic, albeit with some signs of slowing down in recent months. While no market goes up forever consistently, there’s reason to believe collectibles and alternative assets will continue to grow. Awaiting the next Wild Card.

Collectibles Growth In The Cards

Portfolio News


01
Flutterwave


Goldman Sachs completes acquisition of NextCapital Group - NextCapital’s platform will become part of Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s Multi-Asset Solutions (MAS) business, and the company’s team of over 150 professionals has joined the firm. The transaction will accelerate the expansion of Goldman Sachs’ services to the growing defined contribution (DC) retirement market through personalized managed accounts and digital advice. Read more

Decentralized staking protocol, GoGoPool, raises $5m in round co-led by Framework Ventures and CoinFund - The fundraise also included a number of other notable investors including Avalaunch, FinTech Collective, Republic Capital, Builder Capital, Genesis Block Ventures, AlphaCrypto Capital, and Flow Traders. Serving both liquid stakers and validator node operators, GoGoPool is the only natively-built liquid staking protocol on the Avalanche blockchain that addresses the challenges of liquid staking and the launch of subnets, the blockchain’s primary solution for scaling. Read more

Flutterwave secures Switching and Processing License, Nigeria's highest payments processing license - The Switching and Processing license allows Flutterwave to enable transactions between banks, fintechs and other financial institutions. The Company is also able to process card transactions, participate in agency banking and offer various payment services without any intermediary. Prior to this license, Flutterwave operated with its Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) and International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licenses. Read more

Sabi, Africa’s leading B2B platform for informal traders, opens Johannesburg office - Sabi will be operating through a partnership with Vumele in the new Johannesburg office location to enable and empower South Africa’s informal economy. Sabi recently opened an office in Johannesburg and already has offices in Nigeria and Kenya. Read more

NYDIG announces lightning accelerator project called “In Wolf's Clothing” - The accelerator, which will be run in eight-week cohorts, is geared toward individual founders and small teams, developers working on Lightning, Taro and covenants, and pre-seed, seed, series A companies. Transportation and lodging will be provided for participants from anywhere in the world. There will be significant seed capital for each team with already-recruited investors and full-time, in-house expertise. Read more

Colorado Springs' Catalyst Campus gets connected with advanced fiber optic network - Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation's new fiber network went online this week, making it the first open-access 100-gig network in the state. The fiber infrastructure, built by Underline, is one of three networks being built in Colorado Springs. For Catalyst Campus, the installation of Underline fiber optic technology is crucial for cybersecurity and innovation, Kevin O'Neil, founder of Catalyst Campus, said. Read more

Collectibles Growth In The Cards


EBay to acquire collectible tech platform TCGplayer - Furthering its focus on the collectible market, eBay on Monday announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire TCGplayer, a technology platform for the collectibles industry, according to a company press release. Read more

The most in-demand investment might be your baseball card collection - The market for baseball cards is on fire. Auction houses and appraisers say they are seeing surging demand and higher prices in the sports memorabilia market, particularly for baseball cards and other sports trading cards. A 1952 mint condition Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for $12.6m on Sunday, a record price for a piece of sports memorabilia. Read more

Industry News


Binance looks to bolster lead in crypto market with free trading - Binance, already the world’s biggest digital asset trading venue by volume, is waiving fees for a month for customers trading ether — the second-biggest digital token — using Binance’s house currency known as BUSD. The initiative comes ahead of a widely anticipated upgrade to the ethereum blockchain, where ether transactions are recorded. Read more

The Fed gives a timeline for FedNow, its payments platform - FedNow should launch in 2023 between May and July, which is the most specific the Fed has been yet about when the service will go live. Products enabled by FedNow will have nearly instant settlement around the clock and will be less expensive for merchants. Read more

Meme stock mania is here to stay — even with those wild price swings - Nearly two-thirds of Wall Street professionals and individual investors surveyed believe meme stocks — and the volatility that comes with them — are here to say. The same respondents are also more bullish on crypto than SPACs and meme stocks over the next six months. Read more

Ticketmaster taps the Flow blockchain to let event organizers issue NFTs tied to tickets - The Live Nation subsidiary said that event organizers can make these NFTs available before, during or after the event and even enable special experiences like loyalty rewards or celebrity meet-and-greets — or simply offer memorabilia in an NFT format. Read more

US equity management fintech Carta acquires UK’s Capdesk - The deal allows Carta to muscle in on Capdesk’s network of European startups, gaining a foothold in the region while bypassing the varied regulatory requirements of different countries: Capdesk has already done that work for it. Read more

Africa is still scratching the surface on fintech penetration and growth - McKinsey and Company published this week on the African financial services sector, stating “this market is likely to grow by 10 percent per year to reach approximately $230 billion by 2025.” Blockchain, payments and wallets are tipped as the financial services sectors that could grow fastest. Read more

California Assembly passes crypto regulation bill that requires bank-issued stablecoins - California Gov. Gavin Newsom is set to sign a recently passed bill that would require digital asset exchanges and other crypto companies to obtain a license to operate in the state. The Digital Financial Assets Law, dubbed California’s "BitLicense," takes after New York’s BitLicense regulation, which came into effect in 2015. California’s law, if signed by Newsom, a Democrat, would go into effect in January 2025. Read more

NFT case promises to test boundaries of insider-trading laws - A group of lawyers argues that prosecutors’ first NFT insider-trading case opens the door to an overly broad use of the wire-fraud statute to penalize unauthorized use of workplace information. Read more

WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann’s new real estate startup sounds an awful lot like one he invested in two years ago - Forbes has a long form read on how staff at real estate startup Alfred arrived at work last Monday and were surprised to discover that their largest investor, former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann, appeared to have started a rival company — and raised $350m to compete against them. Read more

As online gambling grows, so does the financial crime risk - Online gambling is booming across the U.S. and compliance experts caution that it creates opportunities for criminals to launder money or take part in other financial crimes. Read more

Commercial-property funds for small investors face tougher regulation - The North American Securities Administrators Association is considering new policies that would establish limits on how much an individual can invest in nontraded real-estate investment trusts. Read more

Select Financings


Anchor - Nigeria based banking-as-a-service platform raised $1m in pre-Seed funding led by Byld Ventures. Read more

Bitlevex - Estonia based crypto options trading platform raised $50m in new funding led by Gem Digital Limited. Read more

Caju Benefícios - Brazil based benefits management company raised $25m in Series B funding led by K1 Investment Management. Read more

Clockwork - Decentralized automation network for Solana raised $4m in Seed funding led by Multicoin Capital. Read more

Duplo - Nigeria based B2B payments company raised $4.3m in Seed funding led by Liquid2 Ventures. Read more

EarlySalary - India based digital lending company raised $110m in new funding led by TPG's Rise Fund and Norwest Venture Partners. Read more

FX HedgePool - New York based peer-to-peer foreign exchange platform raised $8m in Series A funding led by Information Venture Partners. Read more

Grey - Nigeria based international bank account provider for African freelancers raised $2m in Seed funding led by YC. Read more

Haru Invest - Singapore based digital asset management platform raised $4m in new funding led by Cocone Corporation. Read more

IPiD - Singapore based cross-border payments startup raised $3.3m in Seed funding led by Rapyd Ventures. Read more

Justhome - Berlin based financing platform for first-time homebuyers raised €3.3m in new funding led by Target Global. Read more

Koop - Decentralized web3 protocol focused on the creator economy raised $5m in Seed funding led by Variant Fund. Read more

Landa - New York based real estate investing company raised $25m in Series A funding led by NFX. Read more

Lightnet Group - Singapore based blockchain cross-border payments company raised $50m in Series B funding led by LDA Capital. Read more

Luabase - Philadelphia based blockchain data company raised $4.5m in Seed funding led by Costanoa Ventures. Read more

Pezesha - Kenya based SME embedded finance platform raised $6m in Series A equity led by Women’s World Banking. Read more

Propseller - Singapore based real estate transaction platform raised $12m in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures. Read more

Sei Labs - New York based crypto company raised a $5m in Seed funding led by Multicoin Capital. Read more

Solid - San Mateo based embedded finance company raised $63m in Series B funding led by FTV Capital. Read more

Stake - Dubai based platform for buying fractions of rental properties raised $8m in Series A funding led by BY Ventures. Read more

Topi - Berlin based point-of-sale rental company raised $15m in new funding led by Index Ventures. Read more

VRGL - Dallas based wealth management analytics company raised $15m in Series A funding led by MissionOG and FINTOP Capital. Read more

Willow Servicing - San Francisco based cloud-based mortgage servicing platform raised $6m in Seed funding led by Thomvest Ventures. Read more

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