November 10th - This Week in Alternative Investments

Author

Adam Katz
November 10, 2023

Bitcoin
(EOD 11/9)
$36,593 (+$1,691 since 11/2)
Card Ladder 50
(Daily - 11/9)
13,225 (-236 since 11/2)
Thomson-Reuters VC Index
(Daily - 11/9)
13,779.74 (+1,332.23 since 11/2)
FHFA House Price Index
(Monthly - August ‘23)
411.8 (+2.4 from July)


Headlines

  • A Picasso sold for $139 million to kick off New York's fall art auction season

  • A rare Babe Ruth baseball card could sell for over $10 million

  • Global venture funding dropped by 24% year-over-year in October

  • Moody’s launched a private credit rating and research group


Plus: WeWork’s bankruptcy, Shein’s potential IPO, a $44 million diamond and more.

Partner

Help Reshape the World of Startup Investing - Investment Round Closes Nov 15

StartEngine is one of the US’s first platforms specifically designed for online startup investing. Led by Activision co-founder Howard Marks along with strategic advisor Kevin O’Leary*, StartEngine opens up access to private companies, a potential $10 trillion market usually reserved for the wealthiest of investors.

And get this: while you’d usually use StartEngine to invest in other private companies, now you can invest in StartEngine itself.

With 5x revenue growth from 2019 to 2022**, this put StartEngine on Inc. Magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in the U.S.*** two years in a row (2022 and 2023). After a strategic asset acquisition of competitor SeedInvest, StartEngine boasts a community of nearly two million people**** who have committed over $1.2 billion to date*****.

If you want to become a shareholder, act now as this opportunity is only available until November 15th.

Smart Humans Podcast

Smart Humans explores the world of alternative investments. From Venture to Collectibles, Real Estate to Art and beyond - we discuss a new world of investment opportunities and the catalysts that impact their demand.

In this episode, Slava talks with StartEngine’s Howard Marks about the democratization of venture capital

Claude Monet’s “Le bassin aux nymphéas” sold for $74 million (Christie’s)

Market Updates

Sotheby’s sale of the Emily Fisher Landau collection netted over $400 million. The New York fall art auction season is in full swing, and the Landau sale included the most expensive sale of the year - $139.4 million for Picasso’s “Femme à la montre”. The total sales of $406.4 million fell within pre-sale estimates, a good sign given that Christie’s first auction of the season fell short of expectations. Another good sign is that last night’s 20th Century Evening Sale at Christie’s exceeded expectations, with the featured artwork - Monet’s “Le bassin aux nymphéas” - selling for $74 million and the total sales reaching over $640 million. All told, over $2.5 billion worth of art is expected to be sold this season, and if the total falls short of that estimate, it will give further credence to the idea that the high-end art market is softening.

One of only ten known copies of Babe Ruth’s first baseball card is being auctioned next month. The 1914 Baltimore News card was produced when Ruth was a minor leaguer and this particular version is the 2nd highest graded one in existence. It has been displayed in the Babe Ruth museum in Baltimore for the last 25 years and changed hands in a private transaction in 2021 for a reported $6 million. This is the first time a 1914 Baltimore News Ruth card has been auctioned in over a decade and some in the industry are speculating it could sell for $10 million or more when the auction ends December 3rd. The sale will be a good bellwether for the high-end vintage market, as most of the baseball card market has seen prices drop over the past two years.

Global venture capital funding was $21 billion in October, down from $28 billion last year. This according to a report from Crunchbase, which also noted that the total is also below the average monthly funding thus far in 2023, and reflects a nearly two-thirds decline since 2021. While late-stage funding dropped by 18%, seed stage and early round funding dropped by around 33%, reflecting the difficult fundraising environment for less established startups. On the bright side, AI and health care companies led the way, with each sector seeing nearly $5 billion in fundraising last month.

The ratings agency Moody’s is now going to be rating the private credit market. The new group will have over 50 analysts who will rate and research different private credit opportunities worldwide. As this market has reached over $1.3 trillion in assets under management and begun to offer opportunities to individual investors, there is a growing need for third party research and analysis. This announcement is a reflection of private credit’s newfound standing as an asset class and comes just a month after Moody’s warned that its rapid growth and limited transparency could pose systemic risks to the broader economy.

Learn

Research and Insights from the Vincent team

Why Should You Invest in Pre-IPO Venture?

Venture investments give investors the chance to be a part of dramatic growth stories and get in on the ground floor of a company before they hit it big.

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More stories worth checking out

  • WeWork, once a $47 billion unicorn, filed for bankruptcy and has seen its stock lost over 99% of its value over the last year.

  • Controversial fast fashion giant Shein is targeting a $90 billion IPO - despite private trades valuing it closer to $50 billion.

  • The “Bleu Royal” diamond - the largest ever blue diamond to be auctioned - sold for nearly $44 million at Christie’s.

  • IBM launched a $500 million venture fund dedicated to generative AI, becoming the latest tech giant to enter the AI arms race.

  • Robinhood’s crypto trading revenue dropped by 55% in Q3, though the recent crypto bull-run may help its Q4 numbers.

  • Quantum computing startup Photonic raised $100 million, which included an investment from Microsoft, as the emerging technology continues to attract venture capital interest.

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Disclaimers:

Reg A+ offering made available through StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc. No broker-dealer or intermediary involved in offering. This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. Please see the most recent supplement, offering circular, and selected risks.

*Kevin O’Leary is a paid spokesperson for StartEngine. See his 17(b) disclosure, https://www.startengine.com/17b.

**Based on StartEngine’s unaudited financials: $1.88M for first half of 2019 compared to $9.9M for first half 2023, since these are semi-annual numbers and have not been audited, they may not include year-end adjustments necessary to make those financial statements comparable to audited results.

***Inc 5000 measures fastest growing private companies by revenue growth over a three-year period.

****StartEngine Community: Count of 1.8 million is determined as the number of unique email addresses in StartEngine’s database as of 10-6-2023.

*****Includes $760M in funds raised as of May 9, 2023 via Reg. CF and Reg. A+ combined through StartEngine’s funding portal and broker dealer, StartEngine Capital, LLC and StartEngine Primary, LLC respectively, as well as StartEngine’s own raises. Also includes $470M in funds raised previously through offerings conducted on www.seedinvest.com outside of the StartEngine platform. In May 2023, StartEngine acquired assets of SeedInvest, including email lists for SeedInvest’s users, investors and founders seeking to raise funds.