#category-/Business & Industrial/Business Finance/Venture Capital

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Catapult Ventures launches with $55 million seed fund for AI startups

Catapult Ventures launches with $55 million seed fund for AI startups

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Sure, there is still much hyperbole around certain applications of AI (and whether they truly can be called AI), but with smart speakers topping Christmas shopping lists and commercial driverless taxi services now in operation, AI is more science fact than ever.

Against that backdrop, a new venture capital (VC) firm…

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Week 39, 2020

NVIDIA to Acquire Arm for $40 Billion, Creating World’s Premier Computing Company for the Age of AI

NVIDIA - September 13, 2020 - 6 min

This purchase will deeply influence the future of computing. We probably won’t see the effects for 5-10 years.

Nvidia’s Integration Dreams

Stratechery by Ben Thompson - September 15, 2020 - 19 min

Great overview of the NVidia-ARM acquisition with historic and industry context.

SiFive hires Qualcomm exec as CEO for RISC-V alternatives to Nvidia-Arm

VentureBeat - September 17, 2020 - 5 min

RISC-V is an instruction set architecture, just like ARM, that companies can use to build chips. The biggest difference is price: while manufacturers need to pay royalties to ARM for using it’s architecture, RISC-V is completely free.

An update for our TikTok family

TikTok - September 20, 2020 - 3 min

The USA-TikTok saga is closer to an end:

“Both Oracle and Walmart will take part in a TikTok Global pre-IPO financing round in which they can take up to a 20% cumulative stake in the company. We will also maintain and expand the US as TikTok Global’s headquarters while bringing 25,000 jobs across the country.”

How a marked-up term sheet and messy rollout threw TikTok deal into disarray

Reuters - September 23, 2020 - 5 min

Some of the terms of the deal are not 100% clear yet:

“ByteDance said it would hold an 80% stake in TikTok Global itself, until it launches an initial public offering in the next twelve months, and that it would then gradually reduce its stake.”

“Oracle said on Monday that ByteDance would not have a stake in TikTok Global, and that it would be ByteDance’s investors who would be awarded the remaining 80% stake.”

Building YouTube Shorts, a new way to watch & create on YouTube

Youtube - 3 min

YouTube is launching their TikTok competitor, called Shorts.

Airtable raises $185M and launches new low-code and automation features

TechCrunch - September 14, 2020 - 5 min

“The spreadsheet-centric database and no-code platform Airtable today announced that it has raised a $185 million Series D funding round, putting the company at a $2.585 billion post-money valuation.”

The Billionaire Who Wanted To Die Broke… Is Now Officially Broke

Forbes - September 15, 2020 - 7 min

“It took decades, but Chuck Feeney, the former billionaire cofounder of retail giant Duty Free Shoppers has finally given all his money away to charity. He has nothing left now—and he couldn’t be happier.”

Delivery Hero strengthens its global footprint and acquires Glovo’s operations in Latin America

Delivery Hero - September 16, 2020 - 5 min

The deal is valued at €230M.

Will Smith and Airbnb team up so fans can now stay at the ‘Fresh Prince’ mansion

The Loop - September 14, 2020 - 4 min

Stripe Workers Who Relocate Get $20,000 Bonus and a Pay Cut

Bloomberg - September 15, 2020 - 3 min

A classic carrot and stick strategy. Relevant comic strip.

Opendoor, a Leading Digital Platform for Residential Real Estate, Announces Plans to Become Publicly-traded via Merger with Social Capital Hedosophia

Businesswire - September 15, 2020 - 11 min

“The transaction values Opendoor at an enterprise value of $4.8 billion, and is expected to provide up to $1.0 billion in cash proceeds”

Chamath launches SPAC, SPAC and SPAC as he SPACs the world with SPACs

TechCrunch - September 19, 2020 - 2 min

Chamath Palihapitiya is behind last year’s Virgin Galactic and now Opendoor’s SPACs. And he’s planning more.

Buffett-backed Snowflake’s value doubles in stock market’s largest software debut

Reuters - September 17, 2020 - 3 min

“Snowflake shares started trading at $245 apiece on Wednesday, more than double its $120 IPO price, and closed up 111% at $253.93 to value it at over $70 billion.”

Amp It Up!

Linkedin - May 13, 2018 - 17 min

This 2018 essay from the CEO of Snowflake’s reads like an alpha business bro parroting the same old startup advice down to Steve Jobs quotes. You will probably not learn anything new, but it serves as a good primer into the mind behind the biggest software IPO pop ever.

Uber backup driver charged in fatal 2018 self-driving car crash

The Verge - September 16, 2020 - 2 min

Uber is throwing under the bus the backup driver that was overseeing the self-driving car when it hit a cyclist.

The TinySeed Investment Thesis — TinySeed: The Startup Accelerator for Bootstrappers

TinySeed - 15 min

“We believe investing broadly into the earliest stages of the Independent SaaS market — specifically, the set of B2B SaaS companies who are not necessarily reliant on traditional venture capital — can provide venture returns with less than venture risk.”

Zwift, maker of a popular indoor training app, just landed a whopping $450 million in funding led by KKR

TechCrunch - September 16, 2020 - 3 min

The exercise-at-home market is booming, and this Peloton competitor is cashing in.

Affirm Raises $500M Series G Round

Affirm - September 17, 2020 - 2 min

The company, founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, offers a point-of-sale (POS), buy now, pay later (BNPL) service.

Klarna raises $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation

TechCrunch - September 15, 2020 - 3 min

“Klarna’s main product is an alternative payment method on e-commerce platforms. It lets you buy now and pay later over three or four installments with 0% interest.”

Evernote’s CEO on the company’s long, tricky journey to fix itself

Protocol - September 16, 2020 - 10 min

Evernote’s CEO on how they had to undergo a 18-month deep code rewrite that was the root of many of the product’s longstanding issues. Technical debt is real and it can undermine your company. Now, they’ll try to take on note-taking newcomers like Roam and Notion.

Chime is now worth $14.5 billion, surging past Robinhood as the most valuable U.S. consumer fintech

CNBC - September 18, 2020 - 4 min

“In this latest round, a Series F that raised $485 million, Chime more than doubled its valuation from December and is worth almost 900% more than just 18 months ago, when it hit a $1.5 billion valuation.”

How does the laser technology in EUV lithography work?

Laser Focus World - August 29, 2019 - 12 min

There’s a new laser technology for semiconductor manufacturing that’s been in the making for quite a while but could signify a big leap in the industry.

The Era of Visual Studio Code

Roben Kleene - September 21, 2020 - 18 min

Great overview of the history of text editors and why Visual Studio might stay at the top for a while.

Nikola shows the tech hype cycle can’t stop worshipping founders

The Verge - September 25, 2020 - 7 min

The founder and CEO of electric truck company Nikola resigned after a report last week suggested the company has overstated the technological capabilities.

The company’s shares fell 33 percent in two weeks.

My semiconductor conspiracy theories

‌Aishwarya Nagarajan - September 20, 2020 - 8 min

The case for how a semiconductor fabrication company in Taiwan could spark the next world war.

How we used data to design modern record certification plaques

Sony Music Data and Insights - September 21, 2020 - 5 min

“Record labels regularly present their artists with recording certification plaques to celebrate milestones in the journey of a song or an album.”

Sony redesigns the record certification plaques for 2020 using data science.

Microsoft Pledges to Get Gaming Service on iPhones

Bloomberg - September 21, 2020 - 1 min

Following Apple’s AppStore rules, Microsoft said they’s bringing xCloud to iOS. We’ll see what the implementation finally looks like, as the rules estate each game needs to be submitted separately as an independent app.

Microsoft is acquiring Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax

The Verge - September 21, 2020 - 2 min

“Microsoft has agreed to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Doom and Fallout studio Bethesda Softworks, for $7.5 billion in cash”

Zynga co-founder’s Playco is already a mobile gaming unicorn

TechCrunch - September 21, 2020 - 3 min

I’m always wary of startups with huge valuations pre-launch. Specially if it’s in the gaming industry where it’s virtually impossible to predict what users will like next.

QR codes bring helpful context to the Apple Store experience

9to5Mac - September 21, 2020 - 3 min

There’s a bigger pandemic trend of using QR codes to create contactless experiences. They mainly substitute shared pieces of printed text (e.g. restaurant menus) and, in this case, shared objects.

Gig Economy Company Launches Uber, But for Evicting People

Vice - September 21, 2020 - 6 min

“The website also featured a quote, attributed to The New York Times […] A search reveals this phrase hasn’t appeared in the Times. The company did not respond to requests for comment or a source for this quote, but the mention of the Times has since disappeared from its website.”

“At the time of writing, Civvl and OnQall did not return requests for comment, but did appear to block the author’s IP address from visiting OnQall.com. ”

This is what I call culture-market fit.

Creating Your Own Widgets: A New Category of Apps Emerges

Macstories - September 21, 2020 - 16 min

Since iOS 14 was launched, there’s been an outpouring of apps to customize your home screen, and videos to tech you how to. Turns out people like to customize the devices they use for most of the day.

On Widget Shaming – 512 Pixels

512 Pixels - September 23, 2020 - 2 min

On the other side, people are critiquing many peoples home screens as lacking “taste”. But taste is subjective.

Following TechCrunch reporting, Palantir rapidly removes language allowing founders to “unilaterally adjust their total voting power”

TechCrunch - September 21, 2020 - 2 min

“Palantir has now filed a sixth amendment with the SEC just a few hours after it filed its previous amendment, and the company has removed all references to this special mechanism from its SEC filing.”

Aston Martin reveals first racing simulator: The AMR-C01

Aston Martin - September 14, 2020 - 4 min

If you’ve always wanted to feel like James Bond while driving an Aston Martin from the comfort of your home, this is your opportunity. The experience can be yours for a mere $75k. But be quick, units are limited to 150.

Microsoft says it detected active attacks leveraging Zerologon vulnerability

ZDNet - September 24, 2020 - 2 min

The Zerologon vulnerability is one of the worst in recent times. Update your Windows machines.

Daniel Ek will invest over $1 billion in European moonshots

Protocol - September 24, 2020 - 1 min

More European startups success stories will hopefully help fuel 🤑 the European tech ecosystem.

Anduril among companies tapped to build the Air Force’s ‘internet of things’ for war

TechCrunch - September 24, 2020 - 3 min

The Ex-Oculus founder military drone company is among the ones chosen by the Air Force as supplier.

Also, “Internet of things for war” is dystopian AF.

How Twitter Survived Its Biggest Hack—and Plans to Stop the Next One

WIRED - September 24, 2020 - 14 min

The most surprising takeaway is many Twitter employees were not using physical 2-Factor authentication (using a physical USB key instead of a SMS or TOTP code).

Spotify, Epic, Tile, Match, and more are rallying developers against Apple’s App Store policies

The Verge - September 24, 2020 - 3 min

They’re calling themselves the Coalition for App Fairness, and their aim is to “create a level playing field for app businesses and give people freedom of choice on their devices.”

Ring’s newest security camera is a $249 autonomous indoor drone shipping in 2021

TechCrunch - September 24, 2020 - 4 min

Amazon announces new cloud gaming service called Luna

The Verge - September 24, 2020 - 3 min

Amazon is joining Google Stadia and Microsoft’s xCloud in the cloud gaming space.

Expanding to the US

Index Ventures

Index Ventures, one of the biggest VCs in Europe, is launching a guide for European startups to expand to the USA, based on experiences from some of the biggest success stories like Spotify.

Amazon disavows $500 “Prime Bike,” says it has no formal connection to the product

The Verge - September 23, 2020 - 2 min

Not even Amazon can police Amazon for Amazon counterfeit products.

Firefox usage is down 85% despite Mozilla’s top exec pay going up 400%

calpaterson.com - September 22, 2020 - 11 min

Journalists Are Leaving the Noisy Internet for Your Email Inbox

The New York Times - September 23, 2020 - 6 min

I wonder if Substack is simply subsidizing a few tens of creators to build momentum and absorb the long tail of writers that will not make a fulltime income in the platform but will increase their bottom line.

Twitter to start testing voice DMs

The Verge - September 23, 2020 - 1 min

▶ ◉──────── 02:37

Microsoft’s Edge browser is arriving on Linux in beta next month

The Verge - September 22, 2020 - 1 min

This is the first time a Microsoft browser will be officially supported in Linux.

Old television kept wiping out village’s broadband for 18 months

CNN - September 22, 2020 - 2 min

“For 18 months, residents of a village in Wales have been mystified as to why their broadband internet crashed every morning.”

“Now engineers have finally identified the reason: A second-hand television that emitted a signal that interfered with the connection.”

Russia wants to ban the use of secure protocols such as TLS 1.3, DoH, DoT, ESNI

ZDNet - September 22, 2020 - 3 min

Following in China’s steps. This is proof the latest security protocols work well to prevent espionage.

Recurring Revenue: The Rise of an Asset Class

Medium - September 21, 2020 - 15 min

Apple CEO Impressed by Remote Work, Sees Permanent Changes

Bloomberg - September 22, 2020 - 2 min

“Cook said he doesn’t believe Apple will “return to the way we were because we’ve found that there are some things that actually work really well virtually.””

Apple is unique among big tech companies in their adamant reject of remote work. But it looks like hell just froze over.

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Iceland Venture Studio debuts $5 million fund to help pioneering tech startups

Iceland Venture Studio debuts $5 million fund to help pioneering tech startups

Iceland Venture Studio is unveiling a $5 million investment fund and coaching program to help grow tech startups in Iceland.

Reykjavík-based Iceland Venture Studio has raised more than $1 million of the fund and is now in the process of raising the remainder, said Bala Kamallakharan, founder and CEO of both Iceland Studio Venture and Startup Iceland, in an email to VentureBeat.

I enjoyed visiting…

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Heartland Tech Weekly: Midwest startup communities still struggle to welcome outsiders

Heartland Tech Weekly: Midwest startup communities still struggle to welcome outsiders

Included in this week’s “Beyond VB” section is a blog post that got a decent amount of pickup in my Twitter feed this week. In it, Jeffrey Carter, cofounder of Chicago’s Hyde Park Angels and West Loop Ventures, gives his theory on why Chicago lost out on Amazon HQ2. His belief: Chicago is too much of a closed network — the same people are always working on the same entrepreneurship and business…

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Amazon Alexa Fund-backed ParkWhiz raises an additional $5 million

Amazon Alexa Fund-backed ParkWhiz raises an additional $5 million

ParkWhiz, a Chicago parking logistics startup founded by Aashish Dalal and Jon Thornton, is on a roll. A little over two months after completing a $20 million series D funding round led by NewSpring Capital, it today revealed a $5 million equity deal — an extension of the series D — with Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Alate Partners, Chaifetz Group, and Purple Arch Ventures. That brings its total raised to…

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Bain Capital Ventures closes new funds totaling $1 billion for startups in SaaS, security, financial tech, and health

Bain Capital Ventures closes new funds totaling $1 billion for startups in SaaS, security, financial tech, and health

Bain Capital Ventures announced today that it has raised $1 billion in investment capital to target startups from the earliest to growth stages.

That figure includes a $650 million core fund, a $250 million co-investment fund for larger growth investments, and another $100 million from Bain partners. That will give Bain $4.9 billion in assets under management as the bi-coastal VC firm seeks to…

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Comeback Cities tour takes politicians, venture capitalists to tech startups in the South

Comeback Cities tour takes politicians, venture capitalists to tech startups in the South

Today, a group of politicians and venture capitalists are wrapping up a three-day tour of tech startups in the southern United States, the latest effort to bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and other tech communities.

Led by Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), more than a dozen venture capitalists visited with entrepreneurs and investors in Charlotte,…

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Aqua integrates its blockchain property management platform with Hilton

Aqua integrates its blockchain property management platform with Hilton

The travel industry can’t just rely on allure, rewards, influencers, and promotions to survive. It needs to become more efficient and bring down costs. As with many other industries at the moment, blockchain technology can help.

Consumer profile company Aqua Intelligence has launched its Property Management System and announced integration with significant hotel chain Hilton Worldwide. Aqua’s…

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Chrysalix Venture Capital raising $120 million fund to back Industry 4.0 startups

Chrysalix Venture Capital raising $120 million fund to back Industry 4.0 startups

Chrysalix Venture Capital has closed the first part of its new Industry 4.0 fund, which will target startups focused on more energy-efficient production.

The Chrysalix RoboValley Fund will be on the hunt for startups in areas such as industrial 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, and internet of things (IoT) that are seeking to reinvent production methods.

Founded in 2001, Chrysalix…

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Index Ventures raises $1.65 billion for 2 new funds

Index Ventures raises $1.65 billion for 2 new funds

Venture capital (VC) firm Index Ventures has announced a whopping $1.65 billion in funds as it targets global startups at various stages.

The money is split across two pots — $650 million for the firm’s ninth venture fund (aimed at earlier stage startups), and $1 billion for its fourth growth fund (geared toward “scale ups”).

Index Ventures’ previous fund closed at $550 million in 2016, while…

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Dropbox competitor Egnyte gets $75 million from Goldman Sachs

Dropbox competitor Egnyte gets $75 million from Goldman Sachs

Five years after it last raised venture capital financing, enterprise cloud storage company Egnyte announced today that it has raised $75 million from Goldman Sachs.

CEO Vineet Jain says the company has been cash flow positive since the fourth quarter of 2016 — and talked last year about preparing for a 2019 IPO — so the announcement comes as a bit of a surprise. Jain told VentureBeat in a phone…

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VCs await regulatory clarity on Opportunity Zones, the latest tactic to draw capital to the Heartland

VCs await regulatory clarity on Opportunity Zones, the latest tactic to draw capital to the Heartland

It’s an oft-cited statistic that 75 percent of venture capital in the U.S. goes to just three states: New York, California, and Massachusetts — and it has for years. If it’s going to take years to close that gap, why not offer an incentive for investors to put their money in other places?

That’s the thesis behind Opportunity Zones, a tax incentive program laid out by Congress in last year’s Tax…

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P2P lender Funding Circle plans $387 million London IPO

P2P lender Funding Circle plans $387 million London IPO

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform Funding Circle has announced plans to raise £300 million ($387 million) through an initial public offering (IPO) of its shares, according to a document filed with the London Stock Exchange.

Funding Circle connects small companies that are seeking capital with investors, who may include individuals, financial institutions, or even government agencies. Founded…

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Scale Venture Partners closes $400 million fund, launches Scale Studio to help startups benchmark growth

Scale Venture Partners closes $400 million fund, launches Scale Studio to help startups benchmark growth

Scale Venture Partners has announced a new $400 million fund to continue on its previously stated mission to “invest in the future of work.” This is the VC firm’s sixth fund, and follows its previous $335 million fund from two years ago.

Foster City, California-based Scale Venture Partners was the Bank of America’s in-house VC arm from 2000, but was spun out on its own in 2007 with a new name…