Welcome to Edition 005 of the No Cap Newsletter ! We’ll cover industry news, key program learnings, and of course, spotlight a RippleX Fellow doing awesome things! 🚨 RIPPLEX FELLOWSHIP WINTER 2022 RECRUITMENT 🚨 The RippleX Fellowship program is now recruiting for the Winter 2022 cohort. Join our community of fellow founders and aspiring venture capitalists, learning about the intricacies of company building and venture capital through hands-on workshops and discussions. Learn more about the program here:  https://bit.ly/3FizHNE Apply here:  https://bit.ly/30zyMJo Check out our testimonials here:  https://bit.ly/3qOdnas Applications are due December 10th at 5 PM EST. 💰 Founder Fundraising Let’s look into the future - you’re the CEO of the most innovative company solving a tremendously difficult problem. The hype surrounding your company continues to grow, and you’re finally ready to scale. With the limited capital at hand, the next move will be vital for the company’s future. This is where you decide to make the strategic call and begin fundraising. How would you start? How does one get a meeting with an investor? This is where you’ll need to be proactive and leverage your network to find the appropriate connections. It’s always best to get a warm introduction to a VC, but the alternative can always be to apply directly to their website or reach out to an analyst/associate via LinkedIn or email. You never know how far a cold email/message can take you. VCs are always actively looking to find the next startup to invest in, so make yourself seen as much as possible. Attend networking events, meet new founders, connect with accelerators/incubators and that’s just the start. Tell your story loud and clear. Develop and refine the narrative that will help illustrate your initial idea and its objective as you navigate the investor through each chapter. This is your opportunity to share the problem you’re looking to solve and compel your audience to support your journey - let your product shine. . Here are a few tips: Come prepared with a pitch deck and product video to lead the story Prepare a one-page FAQ on common questions Know your audience - review investor backgrounds and network connections Moving forward. Once you’ve completed the pitch, take some time to follow up with answers to any questions/concerns that they might have. Provide an explanation of the next steps to address any needs to move forward and your upcoming priorities in the funnel. Take it a step further by sharing the prior month’s updates which will give some color to the business. In the worst-case scenario that it doesn’t work out, it’s alright to ask for feedback. You’ll recognize that it’s not the end of the road, so continue the process with other investors and adjust the pitch as you progress. Hustle hard and secure the bag. Interested to get more tips? Check out our blog post . Let’s Dive into the Industry 💸Big Baller Funding 1inch : The exchange of cryptocurrencies can be completed in many ways and one of the most popular being DeFi or Decentralized Finance protocols such as Uniswap, SushiSwap, etc. However, traders can find themselves losing out on the best rates possible and this is when 1inch emerged to advocate for traders. It aims to aggregate decentralized protocols to provide traders with the best exchange rates. This startup has raised $175 million in Series B funding led by Amber Group. However, this wasn’t a typical VC equity exchange, but rather they sold the equivalent of $175 million in 1INCH tokens currently valued at $4.44 USD per token. Read more. 🌟Rising Star Fourthwall : The creator economy has seen an immense spike over the past few years as creators are moving towards new opportunities to monetize their brand. However, in many cases, it can be overwhelming to manage multiple streams such as merchandise, Patreon membership, or subscription-only newsletters. This is where Fourthwall is introduced - an all-in-one creator commerce platform with built-in tools to provide creators to develop a website and consolidate all their streams of income. This startup has recently raised $17 million with notable investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Initialized Capital, and Seven Seven Six. Read more. 🌱Kick Starter Dent Reality : Navigating the grocery store can often be frustrating, especially when you’re in a rush to find your favorite snack with a few minutes to spare. Dent Reality has raised a $3.4 million Seed Round led by Pi Labs to provide a more immersive experience to consumers by implementing Augmented Reality into the mix. The startup enables shoppers to be navigated through the store via their phone and locate their desired items. Read more. 💡 Fellow Spotlight Madison Rifkin - Co-Founder & CEO at Mount We are excited to introduce Mount , led by Madison Rifkin from Cohort #5. Madison has been recognized as one of Colorado Inno Under 25 and this comes with no surprise with her intent to innovate a $540 billion industry. Mount is a SaaS platform that provides private real estate companies to enable amenity rental services. This new stream of revenue can provide private real estate companies such as Airbnb, Hotels, Hostels, and Apartments the opportunity to curate new experiences for their guests by providing and monetizing fleets of recreational assets (i.e. scooters, golf clubs, surfboards, etc.). Mount recently raised $133,000 with notable investments from Blue Startups and Seed Round Capital. However, this was no ordinary fundraising. The company took on a crowdfunding approach via WeFunder to provide anyone and everyone to invest. This meant that they provided full transparency of their performance, financials, and future goals to kick start their growth. Interested in learning more? Check out their blog posts . See what Madison said about her experience with the fellowship program 👇 “RippleX is an amazing program that taught me how VC's work and what they think about when investing. This was incredibly helpful as I'm a founder and currently in the middle of our seed raise. This program set me up perfectly to anticipate what to expect during this funding process and it helped me feel prepared to move forward in the founder/funding space.” Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Dominic at dom@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).