STARTUP X
The F42 brief #012
👋 Hi, I’m Derek, and welcome to the Fusion42 newsletter! This is your go-to source for navigating the startup ecosystem and making things easier for everyone involved. Here, beyond Consensus views for Maverick Founders and Investors to overcome common challenges, so you can build and scale with confidence. No BS , no Fluff, just the TREWS to help you get **it done. Join 8,000+ founders and discover what truly matters for your venture—and how to set yourself up for lasting success.
Here’s your Monday dose of The F42 Brief, where we give you essential updates and innovations that are moving and shaping our startup space.
What’s inside »
📈 Trending Now
The one thing that’s making all the noise …. with a bit of fact checking.
💸 New Funds looking to give you cash
Who has launched a new fund to invest in startups last week.
💡Innovator Spotlight
Founders that are doing suff differently.
🛠️ Tool of the Week
Something useful to up your startups velocity.
📌 Note to Self
Stuff I constantly remind myself about, don’t want make the same mistakes again.
📈 Trending Now
Transformative ideas poised to define innovation in 2025, as highlighted by insights from 50 a16z partners.
The biggest takeaway here is that AI is fast becoming a driving force across all sectors, sparking innovation, reshaping industries, and redefining the way we experience technology in ways we've never seen before. Whether it’s infrastructure, healthcare, consumer tech, or business, AI’s influence is deeply woven into the story of 2025. Here’s what stands out:
Scalability and Efficiency: AI is taking on complex tasks, from streamlining compliance processes to managing healthcare staffing, delivering huge productivity gains and freeing people to focus on more creative work.
Personalisation and Accessibility: Advances in on-device AI and real-time tools are making technology more intuitive, proactive, and available to everyone.
Industry Transformation: Traditional fields like energy, defence, and real estate are being overhauled by AI, paving the way for cleaner energy, decentralised systems, and scalable new business models.
Strategic Infrastructure Investments: Nations are racing to develop AI Hypercentres, where cutting-edge tech and energy investments will shape global leadership in AI innovation.
Cross-Sector Applications: Gaming technology is pushing boundaries far beyond entertainment, transforming industries like defence and real estate, while crypto tools tackle challenges in finance and governance.
In short, AI is weaving itself into the fabric of our systems and democratising innovation, creating a feedback loop where technology transforms industries and empowers people to push progress even further.
A Breakdown of a16z’s Vision for 2025:
Key Trends and Insights
American Dynamism
Bio + Health
Consumer Tech
Crypto
Enterprise + Fintech
Games
Growth-Stage Tech
Infrastructure
American Dynamism: Driving Innovation in 2025
1. The Resurgence of Nuclear Energy
Nuclear power is experiencing a revival, driven by AI’s growing energy demands, regulatory reforms, and the need for clean, reliable energy sources. Revived plants like Three Mile Island signal the start of a new era in sustainable power.
2. The Jobs of the Future: Hardware-Software Integration
Demand for engineers in hardware-software crossover fields is rising as industries like robotics, manufacturing, and defense reshape technical roles. These are the careers poised to outpace traditional software engineering.
3. Space Exploration: Starship’s Leap into the Future
Starship's reusability is unlocking a new frontier in space exploration, enabling heavy-lift missions, microgravity labs, and rapid global transport. 2025 may mark the beginning of new space-driven industries.
4. Decentralized Defense Systems
The future of defense lies in autonomous, decentralized systems, where drones and battlefield AI operate independently, relying on scalable energy and compute solutions in remote and hostile environments.
5. XR Devices: Developer-Ready for Physical World Applications
New XR platforms like Apple’s Vision Pro are creating opportunities in robotics and world modeling. These devices are driving advancements in physical-world-focused applications and simulations.
6. Earth Observation Data: From Satellites to Industry Solutions
The boom in Earth observation satellites is creating opportunities for industry-specific tools that address real-world challenges like supply chain management and urban planning, turning raw data into actionable insights.
7. Robot Data Collection: Scaling for General AI
Innovations in robot data collection are laying the groundwork for general-purpose robotics. From teleoperation to synthetic environments, 2025 will focus on translating vast datasets into real-world applications.
8. Free-Space Optical Communications: Advancing Connectivity
Free-space optical links are poised to revolutionize communications with faster, more direct data transmission. Advancements in beam steering and error correction will enhance global connectivity and defense systems.
Bio + Health: Transforming Healthcare in 2025
1. Big is Back: Tackling Common Diseases
Biotech startups are returning to focus on major diseases like diabetes, obesity, and autoimmune disorders, driven by breakthroughs such as GLP-1 drugs and CAR-T cell therapies, promising a new wave of innovation in treating the world's most pervasive health challenges.
2. Democratizing Health Through Technology
AI-powered health tools, from biomarker analysis to wearable devices, are empowering individuals with actionable insights, shifting healthcare from reactive "sick care" to proactive prevention and early detection for a healthier future.
3. Super Staffing: AI in Healthcare Workforces
With staffing shortages in healthcare, AI is stepping in as a "super staffing" solution, automating administrative tasks and assisting clinical professionals to maximize efficiency and scale healthcare delivery.
4. Drug Targets Are Avocados
Biological drug targets are like avocados—timing is everything. Startups must leverage unique insights and AI tools to identify emerging targets, staying ahead in the race for game-changing medical breakthroughs.
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For the ❤️ of Startups
Consumer Tech: Transforming Daily Life with AI in 2025
1. The “AI Drummer” and Real-Time AI
AI is breaking latency barriers, enabling real-time co-creation across music, video, and education. With advancements like Latent Consistency Models, AI tools can adapt instantly to creative or instructional cues, redefining workflows and sparking innovation.
2. Specialized AI Video Tools
AI-generated video is evolving with use-case-specific training, from hyperrealistic avatars to cinematic storytelling. This specialization promises tailored solutions for content creators, transforming videos into highly polished art forms.
3. The Year of the “AI Brain”
Large Language Models (LLMs) are unlocking personal "digital brains" that organize and analyze personal data to enhance decision-making, productivity, and self-understanding, offering users a more insightful way to navigate life and work.
4. Personalized Knowledge Work
AI is learning to match individual styles in writing and presentation, offering users tools that sound and work like them. This new wave of AI-driven personalization brings tailored assistance across professional workflows.
5. Analyzing Qualitative Data with AI
Emerging tools are merging unstructured data like narratives and external context with traditional analytics, enabling a richer, more comprehensive understanding that can revolutionize decision-making and unlock strategic opportunities.
Crypto: Driving Decentralization and Utility in 2025
1. AI Needs Its Own Wallets
AI systems are poised to act as independent market participants with their own crypto wallets, enabling autonomous transactions, managing resources, and participating in decentralized networks, from energy distribution to gaming.
2. Decentralized Autonomous Chatbots (DACs)
Chatbots powered by trusted execution environments (TEEs) will evolve into autonomous income-generating entities, managing their crypto assets and building followings, potentially becoming the first billion-dollar independent AI entities.
3. Proof of Personhood for a Trustworthy Web
To counter online impersonation and deepfakes, privacy-preserving proof of personhood systems will become essential, ensuring trusted digital identities and creating barriers to malicious actors.
4. Better Information Aggregation Beyond Prediction Markets
New decentralized mechanisms will emerge to aggregate and verify information, transcending prediction markets to power decision-making in governance, finance, and community systems.
5. Stablecoins for Enterprise Payments
Stablecoins will expand beyond peer-to-peer payments to enterprises, replacing credit card systems and reducing transaction fees, offering businesses a cost-efficient and scalable alternative.
6. Tokenized Government Bonds
Governments may trial blockchain-based bonds, providing interest-bearing digital assets that offer transparency, accessibility, and liquidity for decentralized finance applications.
7. Legalizing DAOs with DUNA
Wyoming’s DUNA (Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association) legal framework for DAOs is set to empower decentralized blockchain governance, setting a precedent for broader adoption in the U.S.
8. Liquid Democracy Goes Onchain
Blockchain technology will power secure, private voting systems and experiment with “liquid democracy,” enabling voters to directly participate or delegate decisions for localized governance.
9. Reusing Infrastructure for Scalability
Crypto developers will shift from reinventing infrastructure to leveraging off-the-shelf blockchain components, focusing on product differentiation and building scalable, user-ready web3 services.
10. UX-First Crypto Design
Crypto startups will prioritize intuitive user experiences, designing applications with the end user in mind while abstracting away complex blockchain infrastructure to drive mass adoption.
11. “Hiding the Wires” for Mainstream Web3 Apps
Simplifying interfaces and communication will help decentralized apps reach broader audiences, making blockchain-powered tools as accessible as sending an email or swiping a card.
12. Crypto App Stores and Discovery
New decentralized app stores will provide distribution channels outside traditional platforms, enabling wider access to crypto tools and user-centric ecosystems like Solana’s dApp Store.
13. From Crypto Owners to Users
Efforts will focus on converting passive crypto holders into active users, leveraging improved blockchain infrastructure and user-friendly applications to drive engagement and innovation.
14. Tokenizing Unconventional Assets
Tokenization of unconventional assets, from medical data to biometric information, will unlock new economic opportunities, creating liquidity for previously inaccessible or unrecognized resources.
Enterprise + Fintech: Revolutionizing Operations with AI in 2025
1. Regulation as Code
AI-driven tools will transform complex regulatory compliance into an efficient, query-based process, using regulation-specific LLMs to simplify workflows and reduce costs for industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare.
2. Replacing Legacy Systems
AI-powered, multimodal "systems of engagement" will disrupt legacy systems like Salesforce, enabling dynamic, task-performing tools that empower human reviewers instead of manual data entry.
3. From Differentiation to Defensibility
Startups will shift focus from simply solving niche problems to building lasting competitive moats, leveraging AI to create indispensable, defensible products with high switching costs.
4. AI Moves from Data Collection to Action
AI systems will go beyond collecting data to recommending actionable steps, becoming core operating systems for roles like sales executives and financial analysts, with trust eventually leading to fully automated actions.
5. AI Reshapes Traditional Services
AI-driven startups will revamp traditional low-margin service industries such as insurance and real estate, automating workflows to create scalable, high-margin business models.
6. The Rise of AI-Native UX
2025 will see the emergence of AI-driven UI and UX paradigms, where tools shift from manual input to direct AI actions, allowing users to review or quality-check outputs instead of managing workflows.
7. AI Copilots for Every Role
Every white-collar role will have an AI copilot by 2025, streamlining repetitive tasks and freeing professionals to focus on strategic and creative work, paving the way for nearly full automation in some roles.
Games: Transforming Entertainment and Beyond in 2025
1. A Next-Gen Pixar Will Emerge
AI-powered interactive video technology will enable infinite, personalized gameplay, blurring the lines between film and video games. This innovation could give rise to a new media company redefining storytelling.
2. AI Companions With Inner Worlds
The next generation of AI companions will evolve into lifelike, engaging entities with their own virtual friends, motivations, and emotional depth, offering users richer, purpose-driven interactions.
3. Game Tech Powers Tomorrow's Businesses
Game technologies like Unreal Engine and generative AI are revolutionizing industries beyond gaming, from defense simulations to autonomous systems, creating new efficiencies and possibilities across sectors.
4. A Second Wave of “Faceless” Video Creators
AI tools empower anonymous creators to produce high-quality, engaging content without revealing their identities, broadening the scope of digital creativity and redefining audience expectations.
Growth-Stage Tech: Shaping the Future of Industry in 2025
1. The Decline of "Google It"
AI-driven search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are eroding Google’s dominance, offering deeper, more interactive search experiences and paving the way for a new era in information retrieval.
2. A Golden Era of Sales
Generative AI is revolutionizing sales, automating administrative tasks and enabling consultative selling, leading to a surge in productivity, efficiency, and hiring within sales organizations.
3. Beyond GPT Wrappers
The next wave of AI apps will leverage multi-model strategies, blending large and small models to deliver tailored, ROI-driven solutions that surpass simple GPT-powered tools.
Infrastructure: Building the Foundations for a New AI Era
1. Hypercenters: The Regional Race for AI Infrastructure
Countries are racing to build AI Hypercenters with gigawatts of compute capacity to meet the growing demands of AI and secure leadership in global technological advancements.
2. Small, But Mighty: On-Device AI
Smaller, on-device AI models are set to dominate due to their practicality, privacy, and real-time responsiveness, driving new user behaviors and widespread adoption.
3. Beyond "Reason": AI Makes Strides in Math, Physics, and Coding
Advancements in training techniques and inference methods are enabling AI to achieve remarkable performance in complex reasoning tasks like math and physics, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
4. Generative AI Everywhere
AI models are transitioning from cloud servers to small devices like smartphones and appliances, enabling fast, localized applications that transform everyday user experiences.
💸 New Funds looking to give you cash
This week, over $2 billion in venture capital funding has been announced across 32 new and ongoing funds targeting early-stage innovation in AI, healthcare, climate tech, and deep tech. The funds span globally, with highlights in Western Australia, Israel, Japan, and the Baltics, focusing on seed to growth-stage startups and niche strategies like secondary investments.
Key Highlights:
Global Reach: Investments target startups across the US, Europe, the GCC, and emerging regions.
Tech-Driven: Heavy focus on AI, sustainability, cybersecurity, and biotech.
Growth Focus: Early-stage investments dominate, with notable support for regional innovation hubs.
This week shows strong global momentum in funding technologies solving real-world problems, while driving local growth and global impact.
WA Venture Capital Initiative (WAVC)
Managed by the WA Government, the WA Venture Capital Initiative (WAVC) is a $45 million fund supported by the Cook Government, aiming to leverage a total of $150 million in investments for local start-ups and scale-ups. The fund partners with seven venture capital firms to invest in emerging businesses in Western Australia across various sectors. The initiative focuses on priority industries such as energy, tourism, education, defense, mining, space industries, health sciences, and agriculture. The fund is designed to stimulate the local innovation ecosystem, supporting early-stage investments and helping businesses scale while creating local jobs.
Artesian Venture Partners
Artesian Venture Partners, a partner of the WAVC initiative, focuses on venture capital investments in early-stage startups across various sectors, including health sciences and renewable energy.
Brandon Capital Partners
Managed by Brandon Capital, this life sciences investment fund specializes in medical research and health technologies, contributing to the development of healthcare innovations. Brandon Capital Partners is a key partner in the WAVC initiative.
FundWA
Managed locally by FundWA, this fund supports startups and scale-ups in Western Australia. Partnered with the WAVC, it fosters innovation and economic growth in the region.
Melt Ventures
Melt Ventures, a partner of the WAVC initiative, focuses on early-stage investments in sectors aligned with Western Australia’s innovation priorities.
Purpose Ventures
Managed by Purpose Ventures, this fund invests in purpose-driven startups focusing on innovation and sustainable solutions across priority sectors. As a WAVC partner, it plays a crucial role in supporting startups in the region.
Skalata Ventures
Skalata Ventures, a partner of the WAVC initiative, focuses on supporting early-stage businesses in scaling their operations and achieving long-term success.
Salus Ventures
Salus VC Fund I, Sovereign Capabilities Fund launched in early 2023, focuses on pre-seed and seed investments in emerging technologies. The fund targets artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, automation, defense, and national security technologies. It plans to deploy $250 million over the next five years. Recently, Salus Ventures strengthened its leadership by adding strategic advisors to enhance national resilience investments.
Siena Venture Partners OÜ
Siena Secondary Fund II: This Estonian venture capital fund focuses on secondary investment strategies, acquiring shares from early investors, employees, and founders. Targeting a fund size of EUR 50 million, Siena invests in fast-growing technology companies in the Baltic States, Central and Eastern Europe, and selectively in the Nordic region.
Rubio Impact Ventures
Rubio Impact Ventures: Based in the Netherlands, this VC fund focuses on investments that combine social impact with financial returns. Rubio's first fund was €40 million, and its second fund €110 million, with a third fund currently being raised. The fund targets critical sectors such as climate, health, education, food, and agriculture, investing in early-stage to growth-stage companies.
NewSchools Venture Fund
NewSchools Venture Fund: A venture philanthropy fund focused on education, planning to invest $100 million over the next two years. The fund targets three strategic areas: creating new charter and district schools, developing learning solutions (core and supplemental products), and improving the future of the teaching profession. The fund emphasizes foundational literacy, numeracy skills, and leveraging generative AI in education.
INITIATE Ventures
INITIATE Ventures: A new venture capital fund launched in November 2024, focusing on healthcare, life sciences, and technology. The $45 million debut fund targets early-stage companies raising Seed to Series A rounds. It invests in biopharma tech and services, precision medicine, R&D tools, and health tech, while also co-creating and launching startups via its startup studio.
Ibex Investors
Ibex Israel Secondary LP: Managed by Ibex Investors, this $40 million secondary fund was launched in December 2024 to expand their investments in Israeli startups. The fund targets early-stage and growth-stage companies, focusing on sectors like enterprise software and cybersecurity. Notable portfolio companies include BeamUp, Appwrite, Honeycomb, Visionary.ai, and Weka.
Glen Ventures Eurêka Investment Fund
Glen Ventures has been awarded a $5 million mandate from the Eurêka investment fund, backed by the Quebec government and managed by Investissement Québec. The fund focuses on early-stage healthcare technology startups, particularly those derived from Quebec's public research institutions. Glen Ventures supports these startups through financing rounds, co-investing, and guiding them toward commercialization.
CDP Venture Capital
CDP Venture Capital SGR Corporate Partners I Fund is an Italian VC operator with a portfolio of funds including Corporate Partners I Fund. It invests in innovative sectors such as energy, services, manufacturing, and infrastructure, with specific compartments for EnergyTech and ServiceTech. The fund has a target size of €400 million, with €300 million already raised, and promotes innovation by collaborating with Italian corporates.
Blue Bear Capital
Blue Bear Capital Fund III: Closed at $160 million on November 21, 2024. This fund focuses on AI-based solutions for energy, infrastructure, and climate challenges, targeting sectors like sustainable energy, electric grids, transportation, and logistics. Investments are aimed at companies in the commercial ramp-up stage using operational AI.
Bek Ventures Fund III
Launched in November 2024, Fund III from Bek Ventures focuses on investing in founding teams from Central and Eastern Europe with potential for billion-dollar outcomes. Despite not specifying the exact fund size in the article, it is confirmed to be over €235 million. The fund, which was oversubscribed, primarily invests in technology sectors, from seed to growth-stage startups.
Aliph Capital
Aliph Fund I: Managed by Aliph Capital, this GCC-focused growth fund targets mid-market companies across Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Aliph Fund I employs an active ownership model to drive value creation and tech enablement. The fund is targeting a size of $250 million and is actively fundraising.
Vintage Investment Partners
Vintage Investment Partners - Growth IV: This global investment firm, with $4 billion in assets under management, focuses on fund-of-funds, secondary funds, and direct growth fund investments. Their specific fund, Growth IV, has raised $200 million, targeting technology sectors such as semiconductors, ICT, software, Internet infrastructure, and medical devices across the USA, Europe, and Israel. The fund looks for leading startups and growth-stage technology companies, demonstrating a broad approach to investing in high-potential ventures.
Tru Skye Ventures
Tru Skye Ventures: Co-founded by former NBA All-Star Metta Sandiford-Artest and Boost Mobile CEO Stephen Stokols, this venture capital fund aims to raise $100 million by the end of the fiscal first quarter of 2025. The fund focuses on investments in sports technology, health, and wellness, and digital media platforms.
Outset Ventures
Outset Ventures: Led by notable entrepreneurs including Sir Peter Beck and Sean Simpson, this early-stage venture capital fund specializes in deep technology startups. While not a new fund launch, Outset Ventures is currently in the process of closing its second funding round, aiming to raise at least $30 million. The fund focuses on high-risk, innovative investments.
Next Tier Ventures
Next Tier GVC Gaesco S.C.R.S.A.: Launched in December 2024, this €50 million fund aims to invest in B2B AI startups across Europe, the United States, and Latin America. The fund plans to engage in 30–35 operations, focusing on enhancing industries through AI technology applications.
Lattice Third Fund
Lattice is actively seeking to raise a new venture capital fund, focusing on early-stage investments in the cryptocurrency sector. While the size of the new fund is not yet specified, their previous fund in 2022 was $60 million. They have a history of investing in companies like Immunefi and Protocol Labs.
MountTech
MountTech Growth Fund: Led by Dr. Ajay Kumar, the fund emerged in 2024 focusing on startups in sectors such as defense and national security, space and aerospace, cybersecurity, semiconductors, communications, critical minerals, and industrial sectors. Investments range up to Series A, with ticket sizes from $1-3 million.
PCA, led by Masaki Hasegawa Iidabashi Cross Partners
Launched by the Japanese software company PCA in December 2024, this venture capital fund is sized at ¥2 billion ($13.3 million) and has a 10-year operational plan. It focuses on startups developing back-office software and innovative business models.
Mitsui Mining and Smelting Company & SBI Investment
Mitsui Kinzoku-SBI Material Innovation Fund II: Launched on January 1, 2025, this ¥5 billion ($33.3 million) corporate venture capital fund is jointly managed by Mitsui Mining and Smelting Company and SBI Investment. The fund focuses on sustainability-related areas, targeting sectors such as environment and energy, life sciences, and innovative electronics.
Global Brain Corporation
Global Brain Flagship Fund IX (GB-IX): Announced its final closing at JPY 32.48 billion by the end of December 2024. The fund primarily targets businesses in Japan at various stages, aiming to enhance enterprise value with a focus on areas like intellectual property, HR, PR, and GR. It also emphasizes incorporating ESG factors in its investment strategy.
Fly Ventures
Fly Ventures Fund III: Closed at €80 million on December 6, 2024. Based in Berlin, this venture capital fund targets seed-stage European startups, focusing on technical founders in deep tech sectors including AI, industrial tech, and developer tools. Typical investments range from €1-4 million.
De-Sign
De-Sign Capital: A new corporate venture capital fund launched in December 2024 by De-Sign, a Japanese office design company. The fund invests in early to later-stage startups focused on workplace digitalization technology and office space-related services. The fund size is undisclosed. It provides strategic support, including office building and sales assistance, to portfolio companies.
Calculus Capital
Calculus VCT: Managed by Calculus Capital, this venture capital trust focuses on investments across technology, healthcare, and entertainment. It was not launched recently but maintains its VCT status to offer tax-efficient benefits. As of September 30, 2024, it has net assets of £41.29 million. The fund provides up to 30% income tax relief and tax-free dividends.
Atlas Venture
Atlas Venture Fund XIV, managed by Atlas Venture, launched in December 2024, with a fund size of $450 million. Focuses on early-stage biotech companies, primarily through seed and series A rounds.
Cadenza
Cadenza AI Venture Fund, an early-stage venture capital firm, closed a $50 million fund on December 3, 2024. The fund targets pre-seed and seed investments in the artificial intelligence sector, focusing on infrastructure and enterprise applications. Cadenza aims to invest in companies that enhance workforce efficiencies and disrupt incumbent enterprise software providers.
💡Innovator Spotlight
Bitcoin Hits $100,000, Signaling a New Era for Crypto
Bitcoin has shattered a significant milestone, surpassing $100,000 for the first time, marking a new chapter in the cryptocurrency’s evolution. This achievement represents more than just a price surge — it signals Bitcoin’s growing acceptance as a legitimate and essential asset class.
From Recovery to Revolution
Rising from $15,000 just two years ago after enduring major setbacks, Bitcoin’s meteoric climb was propelled by the introduction of spot ETFs, which provided a seamless entry point for traditional investors. The backing of a crypto-friendly regulatory environment, including government signals to integrate Bitcoin into national reserves, has amplified investor confidence.
A Challenge to Gold’s Reign
Investment firm Bernstein predicts Bitcoin could replace gold as the premier “store of value” within the next decade. With its finite supply and increasing institutional adoption, Bitcoin mirrors gold’s historical role but with digital-age flexibility. ETFs alone have drawn $100 billion in Bitcoin investments this year, positioning the cryptocurrency as a cornerstone of corporate and national treasuries.
The Bigger Picture
Bitcoin’s rise parallels broader shifts in financial systems, as companies like MicroStrategy accumulate significant holdings, and government conversations hint at a potential national Bitcoin reserve. As regulatory guidelines ease adoption, Bitcoin’s influence is extending beyond speculative trading to become an integral part of multi-asset portfolios.
Key Indicators to Watch
Metrics like Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D) and Coinbase app rankings hint at the industry’s trajectory. As BTC.D dips and retail interest grows, signs of frothiness suggest careful navigation ahead for investors.
From ETF-driven adoption to its potential displacement of gold, Bitcoin’s journey reflects innovation and resilience, cementing its place as a defining force in modern finance.
🛠️ Tools of the Week
Bluesky – The New Goldmine for Website Traffic
Bluesky is rapidly becoming the go-to platform for driving referral traffic, outperforming X (formerly Twitter) and Threads in significant ways. With 23 million users and growing, it offers a fresh take on social media that prioritizes open links, transparency, and user control.
Why Bluesky Stands Out
Unmatched Referral Power:
Publishers like The Guardian Australia report more traffic from Bluesky in a week than X delivered all year, with The Boston Globe seeing 4.5x more conversions from Bluesky than Threads.No Link Penalties:
Unlike X, Bluesky embraces external links. COO Rose Wang explains, "Post all the links you want—Bluesky is a lobby to the open web."Custom Feeds & Personalization:
Built on the open-source AT Protocol, Bluesky lets users curate their feeds like playlists, fostering an experience tailored to their interests.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
EUobserver:
Bluesky (3.3K followers): 3.8K unique visitors
X (203K followers): 1.32K unique visitors
Aftermath:
Bluesky’s referral ratio shifted from 9:1 (Twitter-to-Bluesky) to just under 2:1 in three months.
The Secret Sauce
Bluesky is borrowing TikTok’s early strategy of making everyone famous. Remember how TikTok catapulted creators like Charli D'Amelio to stardom? Bluesky is doing something similar, offering unparalleled visibility to its users and posts.
Bluesky’s Key Features
Decentralization:
An open network that empowers users and developers while preventing monopolies.Developer-Friendly Ecosystem:
APIs encourage innovation, allowing custom apps, bots, and feeds.User Empowerment:
Bluesky gives users control over moderation, filters, and personalized timelines.
Why It Matters
For publishers, indie hackers, and creators, Bluesky is emerging as a vital platform for traffic farming and audience growth. If you're building a product or growing your digital presence, Bluesky’s open approach and pro-link stance make it an essential tool to watch in 2025.
Don’t wait until the platform becomes saturated. Start leveraging Bluesky now to amplify your reach!
📌 Note to Self
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Derek