NEAR Foundation PR Roundup for January

NEAR Foundation hopes all of you are having a great start to the year. Here are some of the top news stories from the NEAR Foundation and our thriving ecosystem, as well as press headlines from around the globe.

Calimero raises $8.5 million in funding

In an exclusive with The Block, London-based startup Calimero announced an $8.5 million funding round co-led by NEAR Foundation to bring private sharding to NEAR. Calimero’s founders, ex-NEAR engineers Sandi Fatic and Mario Halambek, are building the “AWS for private sharding” and currently have their platform in alpha testing. The story has been covered across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is creating a lot of excitement throughout the NEAR ecosystem.

SailGP opens fan-owned team for investment

Another big story that hit the press was the first fan-owned SailGP team opening for investment.  As reported in Decrypt, the team was created by a modified community DAO on NEAR protocol, giving sailing fans the opportunity to run and invest in a team in their sport. The offer will close after $35 million in funding is raised and the team will debut in June 2023.

Sheila Warren partners with Forkast News

Sheila Warren, Advisor to the Crypto Council and NEAR Foundation, partnered with Forkast News to plot the course for Web3 in 2023. She identified regulatory decisions as a key area for the year ahead, with lots of activity expected in the US congress and India leading efforts in the G20. Sheila also identified Asia, and specifically ASEAN, as the region to watch for blockchain adoption and regulatory progress.

NEAR’s global press coverage

NEAR Foundation enjoyed coverage across every region in January, with 76 media mentions globally. One story covered extensively was Marieke Flament’s hopes for 2023 with Forkast News, predicting that the ongoing Twitter debacle has warranted an overhaul of the social media status-quo. Users are searching for platforms that are unbiased in their censoring of content and more transparent in their operations, presenting a key use case for blockchains. Marieke also outlined the need for continued improvements in diversity across the Web3 space to create a better working environment for everyone and improve decision making.

Towards the end of January, we partnered with CoinDesk to take a look at the impending crypto winter and how the NEAR ecosystem will fare. The Web3 industry is in for a tough 12 months due to a contraction in user engagement and a scaling back of venture capital. However, NEAR is primed to thrive in the year ahead — with major new infrastructure, including NEAR Social and NEAR Crowd, real world value on the NEAR protocol is set to take off. The Foundation continues to support our bustling ecosystem, and the development community is only growing stronger through the community DAOs.

Finally, Marieke Flament wrote about our recent Forbes post about the importance of servant leadership in the world of tech. Forget ego — this never bodes well in the long term.  

Leaders must do their jobs “for the broader impact they can go on to have,” said Flament. “There are many ‘fake servant leaders’ who pretend they are doing it for the benefit of others but are all too often caught by their own deception and greed, leading to a loss of confidence in authority that runs deep and has a lasting impact on the way people feel about work.” 

That’s all for this month. If we missed anything out or want to share anything for next month’s roundup, get in touch!