Sources: a16z’s flagship crypto fund lost ~40% of its value in H1 2022, above the 10%-20% losses at rival funds; a16z has dramatically slowed crypto investments (Berber Jin/Wall Street Journal)

Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Sequoia apologized to its fund investors for the $150M it lost on FTX and told them it would improve its due diligence process on future investments  —  Venture-capital firm tells fund investors that it will improve due diligence on future investments after $150 million loss on crypto exchange

Alex Heath / The Verge:
In an internal memo, Meta’s VP of Metaverse said Horizon Worlds is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building it isn’t using it very much  —  Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship “metaverse” app — is suffering from too many quality issues …

Berber Jin / Wall Street Journal:
Accel, Lightspeed, Sequoia, a16z, and other firms are increasingly buying public tech stocks, capitalizing on low prices, as the private startup market stalls  —  Startup investors, known for making risky bets on unproven companies, are taking advantage of lower share prices following a market rout

Wall Street Journal:
Internal Meta docs detail its metaverse struggles; Horizon Worlds has ~200K MAUs vs. a goal of 500K by end of 2022; 9% of worlds are ever visited by 50+ people  —  Most visitors to Horizon Worlds generally don’t return after first month; ‘an empty world is a sad world’

Sam Goldfarb / Wall Street Journal:
Coinbase’s stock has dropped 81% in 2022, taking its market cap down from $81B at its IPO to $11B, as the broader crypto market falters and investors lose faith  —  Prices of exchange’s bonds and stock reflect anxieties after collapse of rival FTX and sharp declines in bitcoin

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Meta announces Horizon Worlds avatars are getting legs using an AI model to predict the body’s position, an avatar store, avatars are coming to Reels, and more  —  Meta’s Horizon avatars will be getting legs.  So far, the company’s avatars have weirdly just hovered off the ground …