Through this partnership, the NEAR community and Afropolitans will collaborate on several fronts.

Afropolitan Founders will have access to:

• educational information to make good decisions about hiring, incorporation, compensation and technical development in web3, along with an informed and highly engaged pool of talent in the form of the NEAR community, for all the roles they need to hire.
• NEAR ecosystem contributors and investor introductions to help take their products to market as they build on NEAR.

Afropolitan Creatives will enjoy the support and network of thousands of creators from around the world.

Afropolitan Developers will have access to

• basic explanations, working examples, and documentation required to build on NEAR.
• an array of technological primitives and projects to ensure that their journey from an idea to launch is rapid, iterative, painless, and supported by an active and inclusive community.

Commenting on the partnership, Eche Emole, co-founder of Afropolitan, said: “Afropolitan’s partnership with NEAR will allow us to have the best network level clarity and accelerate the decentralized network state vision. This partnership will help us build the infrastructure to enable community participation in large-scale decisions that affect the community, for example, resource allocations or technical governance, in an inclusive and completely decentralized way.”

Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation, said: “This is a significant partnership for NEAR as it aligns with our key mission to empower local communities around the world to build their digital economies and shape their own future with the power of Web3. We are impressed by what Afropolitan stands for and believe that NEAR can help it reach its objectives to build a far reaching business network that is both inclusive, sustainable and transparent.”

What you should know about the NEAR Foundation

NEAR Foundation is a non-profit organization that oversees the development of the NEAR ecosystem built around NEAR Protocol, a high-performance, certified climate-neutral layer-1 blockchain designed to be super-fast, incredibly secure, infinitely scalable and very easy to use. Through its simple, secure, and scalable technology, NEAR empowers people to invent and explore new experiences.

Business, creativity, community and technology are being reimagined for a more sustainable and inclusive future on the NEAR blockchain.

How about  Afropolitan?

Afropolitan is creating a Digital Nation to enable all Africans to build abundant lives. Inspired by the writings of tech entrepreneur and crypto philosopher Balaji Srinivasan, Afropolitan aspires to build a global network of Africans online before forming connected communities in the real world.

A concept known as the network state. At its core, Afropolitan curates Black and African talent, culture, capital, information, and experiences for a globally distributed membership.

In its early stages, Afropoliton empowers its 220,000-strong network to connect, share and grow as a community.

Spanning more than 33 countries across the globe, Afropolitans have access to podcasts, seminars, and other ways to network and connect.

Afropolitan’s social layer will enable members to invite new members and share resources, economic opportunity, culture, and media, creating an exponential network effect as more members join the network due to its growing value.

NEAR and Afropolitan will work together to deploy the decentralized governance infrastructure for Afropolitan’s digital nation, enabling the network to grow through rapid onboarding of users and developers, service design, and service delivery.

The post NEAR partners with Afropolitan to Deploy Decentralized Governance Infrastructure appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The fund will leverage the opportunities of Web3 as it reimagines culture and entertainment, from how it is financed, produced and distributed to how it’s consumed, owned and monetized. 

Caerus is a newly launched investment firm that will back and build projects that place creators, talent, IP owners and the highly engaged communities they serve, at the heart of these new enterprises.

NEAR will cornerstone the VC Fund, which will have an initial closing of $50m and a target of $100m for seed to series A investments. 

Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation, said:

“Our cultural passions for live sport, film or music have historically been leveraged to on-ramp billions of consumers to new technologies. The creators, talent and franchises with reach and influence spearheaded that growth and will now drive the adoption of blockchain at scale. But this time, they and their fans will have greater access to the value created.” 

Caerus was founded by IMG/Endeavor executive Nathan Pillai, an industry veteran who brings two decades of experience across the entertainment ecosystem.

He spent the past five years with IMG/Endeavor (NYSE: EDR), spearheading M&A and venture development of entertainment properties, including Larry Ellison’s SailGP. 

Pillai commented:

“We’re yet to imagine the plethora of use cases for how Web3 technologies will change how culture is experienced, entertainment is consumed, and value is distributed. And that was the genesis of Caerus: to be a catalyst for innovation that unleashes a new generation of platforms, applications and services across sport, music, film, TV, fashion, art and gaming which offer greater equity for talent and consumers alike.”

Flament added: 

“We’re backing Caerus because they have a uniquely differentiated proposition and robust investment thesis predicated on the tokenization of entertainment and decentralization of rights and licensing. In this new economy, we believe that new incentive structures, native business and funding models will empower creators with more control of what they produce and the rewards that come.”

Caerus’ first investment will be the Venture Lab which will work exclusively with creators, talent and franchise owners to build the next generation of platforms and applications that unlock value from their IP, reach and influence. It will attract Web3’s leading engineers, developers and venture builders who want to create category-defining products around iconic talent and IP. The Lab will offer cross-functional support to portfolio projects and will be supported by advisory partners who will be announced by the end of this year.

Pillai added: 

“I’ve been hugely impressed by NEAR’s value proposition for developers and users, but more importantly, their mission to empower creators and consumers of culture with more control over their assets. We’re creating this partnership to help revolutionize the existing multi-layered entertainment ecosystems, growing the size of the market whilst promoting greater equity.”

NEAR’s usability as a blockchain enables developers to deliver intuitive experiences for large fan bases. With 18 million accounts created, and 550,000 members, the NEAR community is a globally distributed home to innovators, developers and contributors supporting the protocol’s platform, ecosystem and applications.

The post NEAR Anchors New $100m VC Fund appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.