Weird VC Awards: 10 typical encryption VCs, how many have you encountered?

Original title: "the 10 types of crypto VCs you'll meet (and how to spot them)"

Author: rosie

Compiled by: TechFlow

In this industry, we have to deal with venture capital (VC) more or less. Some venture capital is a godsend, but most are not. Here is a "Wild Identification Guide" to help you recognize their true faces before it's too late.

Disclaimer: This article is a satirical work. If you feel offended, you may fall into one of the categories 1-9.

No VCs were harmed when writing this article.

1. Anti-airdrop preacher

They will talk about "building real value", but once their tokens are unlocked, they will sell out immediately. What they really mean is: "We don't support you in doing airdrops, but we will collect our own airdrops." These people will teach you how to design tokenomics when your project plummets by 80%. The first rule for VC sellers is: You can't talk about VC sellers.

2. Marketing family salesman

They invested $50,000, but now they want to pay back and forth by forcing you to spend $60,000 to hire their cousin’s marketing company. This marketing company has only three clients: you and two other projects that are also invested by this venture capital. What are their marketing strategies? I found a few internet celebrities who bought the same NFT and posted paid tweets.

3. Obsolete theorists

Their investment philosophy has not been updated since 2021. Still talking about "Web3 social" and "metauniverse infrastructure", but secretly searching under the table for "What is TEE technology" while you're doing a demo. But now, as long as your business plan contains the word "AI", they will definitely vote.

4. Founder-friendly missing person

They will spend three weeks delving into your project, asking you to fill out 17 forms to introduce you to their entire team, but disappear completely when the payment is needed. Six months later, they will congratulate you on Twitter on your successful financing from other investors.

5. Traditional finance career changer

Joining the crypto industry only in 2022, but you will never forget that they used to work at Goldman Sachs. They may be active on Crypto Twitter (CT) now, but are still addicted to showing off their past experiences on LinkedIn. Their full value-added services are “Professional Email Template” and “Equity Structure Best Practices.” Never used a hardware wallet, and would ask "What is the Gas fee".

6.FOMO Pioneer

Totally ignore your project for months until you see another venture capital mentioning your field on Twitter. Suddenly, they ran to your private message and asked for an "emergency call". They will give bad investment terms and come with an explosive deadline of 24 hours. And once you accept it, it takes them 3 weeks to send the documents.

7. Long-term Paper Hands

They watched a CNBC interview with Cathie Wood and heard her say that Bitcoin will rise to $1.5 million by 2030, and since then, they have been repeating "We are long-termists" and "we are highly consistent with the founders' five-year vision." However, once the market falls by 30%, they will sell in panic and push the blame to the "uncontrollable market environment." However, they will still insist on retaining seats on the board.

8. Short-term Thought Leader

They have accumulated 50,000 followers by reposting other people's opinions. The top tweet is about "builder culture", but they never really built anything themselves. They will propose “guidance” your project on the condition that they take away 2% of the token share. And their advice is usually: "Have you tried to get anonymous Twitter celebrities to promote you?"

9. Early investment demanders

They will pretend to be a "gift" to invest in your seed round, but they will require benefits in the B round. You need to update progress every day, allow them to control the board, and get direct access to your development team. They will send you a message at 11 p.m. on Sunday, asking: “A quick question – when can I buy a Lamborghini?”

10. True Builder Unicorn

They will ask the right technical questions, go through multiple cycles and will not waste your time. They provide not only funds, but also actual value. They understand your vision because they themselves were on the frontlines of the industry.

They are like unicorns – you may feel like they don’t exist, but once they are found, you will never consider other venture capital.

Final suggestions

Don't compromise and choose investors for financing. Finding the right partner is the key difference between the project's success and the transformation into "AI-driven Web3 social layer for DeFi users" after half a year.