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On this episode of the Somewhat Frank Podcast, Frank Gruber (@FrankGruber) and John Guidos (@JohnGuidos) discuss whether NFTs are just a fad, or here to stay. Frank also chats about his recent NFT experience when he featured his newly minted NFT and the auction. See it here.  

Frank and John also celebrate the following people from their networks:

• Blake Hall & the team at ID.me on reaching unicorn status with a $1.5B valuation.
• Elizabeth Yin and Eric Bahn on raising their second fund.
• Mike Levins on raising $10M in funding for their insurance tech company, Counterpart.
• Suneel Gupta’s book Backable is out and it’s a best seller!
• Rick Klau on being appointed California’s next Chief Technology Innovation Officer.
• Kevin Willer, Stuart Larkin, and the team at Chicago Ventures for raising a new $63M fund.
• Jenny Fielding on the launch of The Fund Midwest.
• Chester Ng and the Atomic team on a new $260M fund.
• Brian Luerssen on launching a new fund to invest in underrepresented founders in Chicago.
• Lisa Hellebo has launched a $10M rolling fashion fund.
• Zach Lipson on raising a Series C for Dutchie bringing the valuation to $1.7B.
• Brit Morin on being SF Magazine’s cover story for her work on female entrepreneurship.
• Ellery Linder & Danielle Rushton, 2019 Top 5 Startup of the Year® Finalist, relaunch as Wherewithal.  
• David Spinks on the launch of his book the Business of Belonging.
• Susan McPherson on the launch of her book, The Lost Art of Connecting.
• Cyrus Radfar on co-founding SPINE to supercharge existing spreadsheet tools.  

 Frank and John also talk about the following upcoming events: 

• The Unvalley Conference is coming back on May 19th and 20th. Short link: https://est.us/UVPK
• NASA iTech is hosting an event on May 27th showcasing 10 companies with innovations that might help with future NASA missions – RSVP.

We also want to take a moment to invite all of our listeners to get involved with our program by visiting: established.us/programs. This is the best way to get notified of the various startup opportunities that we come across while working with various partner organizations and in a number of ecosystems across the country. The guys talk about these new books/articles: 

• Is bringing your old photos of your grandparents to life with AI, creepy or cool? – New AI ‘Deep Nostalgia’ brings old photos, including very old ones, to life
• Space vacations are coming soon – World’s first space hotel scheduled to open in 2027 
• There are a lot of ways to get your workout in and stay healthy and active – How to Get a Peloton-Style Workout Without Splurging
• This is an unbelievable feat by an athlete at any level, let alone college, and should be celebrated! – A Softball Pitcher Struck Out Every Batter? She Hadn’t Noticed  
• This is a Wright Brothers moment for Mars! – NASA’s Mars helicopter takes flight, 1st for another planet

 The guys are also watching the following shows/movies:

• Made for Love (HBOMax) – This comedy, sci-fi series combines traits and trends being used by some of the tech leaders out there today to create a wild tech CEO aimed at leveraging technology to intertwine itself into the human mind for the sake of love, and profit of course. 
• Seaspiracy (Netflix) – Supported by Leonardo DiCaprio, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species – and uncovers alarming global corruption. It may have you rethinking your consumption of seafood. 
• Sasquatch (Hulu) – Follows investigative journalist David Holthouse as he attempts to solve a bizarre twenty-five year old triple homicide that was said to be the work of a mythical creature.

As always, thank you for listening and feel free to reach out and let us know what you think at: somewhatfrank@est.us.
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