Web3 AI Financing New Rules: Why Are Medium-Sized FDV Projects Devouring Funds?

Author: 0xJeff

Compiled by: Tim, PANews

Original Title: From Fair Launch to Attention Capital Market, the Web3 AI Primary Market Gameplay is Facing a Major Change

In just one quarter, the Web3 AI field switched directly from the fair launch model (Virtuals) to a medium scale medium FDV strategy model (i.e., attention capital market).

Some Virtuals ecological projects and CreatorBid performed excellently in the early stages of their launch, but the attractiveness of the products gradually weakened over time. The speed of this weakening is proportional to the scale of the project, the timing of the team's launch, and the amount of funds raised for product development.

According to the previously shared content, the core challenge faced by fair launch teams is the widespread lack of funding support before token issuance. Most teams cannot bear the costs of self-financing to guide development, and the fair launch model uses token trading fees as the main source of income to drive project operations.

This does not solve the cold start problem; in reality, it is often one or two independent developers working together to launch a project, set a roadmap, and release a demo version to stimulate community enthusiasm, before issuing tokens. The token price is hyped up until the bubble bursts, and the momentum for development ultimately fizzles out.

The only viable way is for developers to self-fund the launch of the product, gradually hire a team, and ultimately release a minimum viable product (MVP).

The current market shows two significant trends: the appeal of fair launch models continues to decline, coupled with a lack of quality AI product supply, leading to a continued shift in capital and market attention. Medium-sized teams that have been working diligently on their products for 1-2 years, with an FDV in the range of $40 million to $80 million, are benefiting from this. These teams have optimized their products to a near-scalable mature stage.

Many people spent several months on product testing, interviews, gathering feedback, and iterative improvements.

This trend has been exacerbated by the rise of attention capital markets, with ongoing transformations in the InfoFi field converting noise into signals through capital commitments. The spammers are proving through their actions that they are not just here for "airdrop farming," but actually hold beliefs in the opinions expressed.

A good team consensus has been formed, and next we will see clearer data indicators to distinguish who is just taking advantage of the situation and cashing out, and who truly trusts the project and the team, and supports them with real money.

We are now witnessing the intense chemistry between Kaito and Cookie's first launch.

Theoriq vs Almanak

The initial FDV of the Theoriq project is set at $75 million (a 50% discount compared to the previous round of venture capital valuation). The token release rules are: 25% unlocks at TGE + 37.5% unlocks after 1 year + the remaining portion is released linearly over the following year.

Almanak has a FDV of $90 million, fully unlocked. The top 25 Almanak users can invest based on a FDV of $75 million.

The token terms of Theoriq are quite favorable (50% discount compared to the previous round of venture capital pricing). Based on community feedback regarding improving the unlocking conditions for the token generation event, the project team has adjusted the token allocation plan to 100% unlocking at TGE.

The current FDV of the two projects is 75 million USD and 75 million or 90 million USD respectively. They have a high probability of performing well, as this is the first project for Kaito and Cookie (they need to raise the coin price to attract more quality teams to join).

The products being developed by both teams have substantial value in the DeFi field, including scalable infrastructure and various applications, aimed at attracting more users and capital on-chain.

Which project should I invest in? Why?

I have invested in both projects. I have already invested in the Almanak Legion round and will add investment in the ACM round.

The Almanak product is better prepared and is expected to achieve product-market fit earlier than Theoriq.

Theoriq demonstrates extraordinary strategic ambition, with the team building vertical workflows for specific clients, continuously enhancing the AlphaSwarm functionality system, and showcasing technological efficiency through the infrastructure layer. Its ultimate goal is to become the preferred service discovery platform (also known as an "app store") for the meta-intelligent agent scheduling system, achieving an intelligent matching ecosystem that dynamically allocates the best agent clusters based on user needs.

Almanak will focus on the AI vault system, which features security, controllability, audit transparency, and verifiability: on one hand, it is designed specifically for institutional capital needs, and on the other hand, through the combination of smart contracts and professional program agents, along with the most convenient interface experience, it enables creators to expand and optimize more vault strategies.

The key to the project's good performance in the short term really depends on the execution of the GTM (Go-to-Market Strategy) at launch, the ability to manage market makers, and whether it can effectively absorb the selling pressure in the early stages of listing.

Overall, based on the performance of the project launch, we may witness a new round of positive appreciation trends for KAITO and COOKIE (value comes from direct percentage airdrop profits and the increase in allocation for stakers).

I am very excited and look forward to seeing more AI teams launch their new projects on Kaito and Cookie soon.