Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners Closes Second Fund with $325 Million in Capital Commitments

By Jeff rey McKinney

JAY-Z’S MARCY VENTURE PARTNERS

has closed its second fund with $325 million in capital commitments.

The venture firm, which closed its debut fund with $85 million, is now managing $600 million in assets altogether, says co-founder Larry Marcus, TechCrunch reported. It was co-founded in 2018 by Shawn Carter (Jay-Z), former Roc Nation CEO Jay Brown and former Walden VC general partner Marcus.

Marcy Venture Partners is among the holdings of JAY Z, Hip Hop’s first billionaire and “Hard Knock Life” rapper. The aim of the co-founders is to drive the consumer and mass-market to allow culture to transcend across products, services, media and technology. Also describing itself as having a “consumer, culture and positive impact” investment strategy, the firm reports most of its existing portfolio companies are founded or run by people who identify as women or people of color.

The firm is focused on pushing forward its key values, which consist of empowerment, inclusivity and accessibility. To date, the venture capital firm has allocated funds to 21 companies, including skincare, food companies, and Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty. The fund reportedly firm led a $70 million funding round for the lingerie company.

Marcy Venture Partners has had a busy year and continues to proceed briskly. In May, Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners dabbled into crypto projects investing in Bitski — an NFT marketplace based in San Francisco. It reputedly has also invested in spatial LABS, a tech incubator founded by Ghana-born Iddris Sandu (see page 78).

Jay-Z and tennis champion Serena Williams joined the cryptocurrency wave by investing nearly $20 million into NFT platform Bitski. As NFT sales keep surging, the Brooklyn emcee and pro athlete deemed it necessary to get their piece of the pie. Bitski prides itself in being “the Shopify of NFTs” and will continue developing its platform after closing a $19 million Series A funding round led by Andreesen Horowitz, Forbes reports. www.blackenterprise.com/jay-zs-marcy-venturepartners-closes-second-fund-with-325-million-incapital-commitments Image credit: Jay-Z Architectural Digest

WORLDCOIN IS UNVEILING a new global

cryptocurrencythat will be given to every

human on earth. It has raised $25 million at a $1 billion valuation.

Coming out of stealth recently, the company is unveiling hardware device, dubbed an Orb, for the first time, along with testing data that suggests it could onboard its first billion people into crypto within the next two years.

Cofounded by Alex Blania, Sam Altman and Max Novendstern, Worldcoin plans to create a new

global digital currency that is fairly distributed

and used by as many people as possible. Its investors include Andreesen Horowitz, the big Silicon Valley investment company that has made a lot of cryptocurrency bets. Altman is president of Y Combinator and CEO of OpenAI.

To rapidly get its new currency into the hands of as many people as possible, the project lets

everyone claim a free share

of it. While a globally adopted cryptocurrency would open social and economic doors for billions of people, cryptocurrency as a technology is still in the early stages of adoption, so far only reaching about 3% of the world’s overall population. Worldcoin hopes to change this, rapidly, the company said.

How it works

Prospective users will be able to claim their free share by using one of the thousands of Orbs that will be operated by independent entrepreneurs around the globe.

The Orb is a secure custom hardware device that captures an image of a prospective user’s eyes to