Randi Zuckerberg’s congregation buys NFT Community Meta Angels

• Randi Zuckerberg’s company Assemble is buying NFT community Meta Angels for an undisclosed sum.
• Meta Angels will run alongside Hug, Zuckerberg’s Web3 community to welcome newcomers to NFTs.
• As the crypto winter challenges Web3 startups, Zuckerberg says consolidation will be critical.

When Randi Zuckerberg, Alexandra Cavoulacos, and Allyson Downey sought to learn more about Web3 several years ago, they found kindred spirits in each other as they entered an often unfriendly place for newcomers.

In particular, crypto had gained a reputation as a male-dominated, even bro-y, space that could at times be hostile to women and non-binary people. Zuckerberg, Cavoulacos and Downey all tried to help change that.

Zuckerberg — the sister of Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, and the former director of marketing development at Facebook — co-founded the Web3 community Hug. Around the same time, Cavoulacos, who previously co-founded The Muse, and Downey, CEO of product review company Stellar, launched Meta Angels, a community built around a pool of 10,000 non-fungible tokens.

Now the three Web3 founders are teaming up. Assemble — the parent company of Hug and other tech projects that remain under wraps — is acquiring Meta Angels, Zuckerberg and Cavoulacos told Insider. Cavoulacos will join Assemble as COO, while Downey will be an advisor to the company. Hug and Meta Angels will continue to operate as separate communities, they said, but they will eventually share operations and open up mutual benefits to members of both groups. They did not disclose the terms of the deal.

“We got into Web3 around the same time and came on board as co-founders,” Cavoulacos said. “It just felt like we could build bigger things together.”

In addition to the NFT collection, Meta Angels offers a professional networking community and advice forum for its more than 10,000 members. The community has a function called the Wish Well, where members can post requests. In some cases, the feature has helped members find jobs, Cavoulacos said. Through Meta Angels, Zuckerberg met Debbie Soon, with whom she founded Hug.

With Assemble, Zuckerberg aims to create, step by step, an umbrella company for crypto-focused companies. Cavoulacos likened it to building the “IAC of Web3,” referring to the conglomerate that owns Internet companies like Ask, Angi and Care.com.

“Randi is building an interesting empire in the space,” Cavoulacos said.

Given the current “crypto winter,” Zuckerberg said, consolidation will likely be important for many Web3 startups to survive. Consolidation in the Web3 industry is already underway, with Sam Bankman-Fried, the multibillionaire founder of crypto exchange FTX, acquiring stakes or direct ownership in several crypto companies, including the assets of bankrupt lender Voyager Digital.

Zuckerberg isn’t aiming for a “private-equity play,” she told Insider, but she is exploring the possibility of bringing other Web3 communities under Assemble’s umbrella.

In Zuckerberg’s view, the technology behind crypto startups may take years to mature and gain mass use, but it is a challenge she is prepared for. She compared it to her experience when Facebook launched its live streaming feature, which took years to catch on.

“It doesn’t scare me to be in an industry where it takes years to become mainstream,” she said.