Venture capital is a popular source of capital for early-stage startups, but it’s definitely not the only one. Debt is an increasingly popular alternative, as is non-dilutive, revenue-based financing. So, we invited Accel Partner Arun Mathew, Clearco co-founder and president Michele Romanow, and Pipe co-founder and co-CEO Harry Hurst to TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 last week
Month: October 2021
When LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner Reid Hoffman first coined the term “blitzscaling,” he kept it simple: It’s a concept that encourages entrepreneurs to prioritize speed over efficiency during a period of uncertainty. Years later, founders are navigating a pandemic, perhaps the most uncertain period of their lives, and Hoffman has a clarification to make.
Web3 is still taking shape, so it is hard to define. At TechCrunch Disrupt, Houseparty founder Ben Rubin emphasized decentralization as Web3’s central feature. In today’s Web 2.0, individuals give money and personal data to network operators in exchange for access to information. “In Web3 there is a possibility — not saying that it’s going
This morning LeadIQ, a startup working in the sales software market, announced that it has closed a $30 million Series B led by Cathay Innovation. Other investors in the transaction include Fresco Capital, Strong Ventures, and Eight Road Ventures. LeadIQ frames its product from the perspective of missed revenue targets at companies, which it claims
New companies face innumerable challenges around fine-tuning their product and constructing the appropriate revenue model. You may be looking ahead to raising some funds and trying to juggle the administrative aspects of running a business, but before all that, the purpose of your company is to sell your solution and generate revenue. But to do
Hello friends and welcome to bonus Equity, the sort of podcast episode where you get even more chat for the same low price of zilch. We are here to ensure a high ROI for your podcasting dollar! To cap the week off, Danny and Alex and Chris got together live on Twitter to chat through the
“We believe that a thriving community is a company’s most valuable asset,” Community-led writes in its Declaration. “Community scales your business, resources and presence in ways that traditional marketing or advertising channels can’t. When done right, community enables and improves customer acquisition, streamlines support and success, bolsters retention, and provides crucial product insights. Community is
An under-the-radar, bootstrapped startup from Vienna, Austria — a hit with developers for technology that underpins user experience for some of the world’s most popular apps — is doubling down on momentum and announcing its first outside investment, in the form of a large growth round of funding. PSPDFkit — which provides APIs and an
Rivian, the electric automaker backed by Amazon, Ford and a cornucopia of heavy-hitting institutional investors like T. Rowe Price Associates and Coatue, finally made its once-confidential IPO filing public. The company, which started in 2009 as Mainstream Motors before adopting the Rivian name two years later, has exploded in terms of people, backers and partners
The pandemic ushered in the popularity of shared workspaces, known as cloud kitchens or ghost kitchens, for restaurants to cook meals exclusively for delivery. But for small, independent restaurants that couldn’t afford the upfront costs for expansion, Uber Eats alums Ken Chong and Matt Sawchuk came up with another approach. They founded All Day Kitchens
Facebook Messenger is releasing a bundle of products this morning — most notably, including cross-app group chats. Last year, the company introduced cross-app messaging between Messenger and Instagram, but now, users will be able to start group chats among Instagram and Messenger contacts. Other additions today include polls in Instagram DMs, building off the poll
Nine months after announcing a $5 million seed round, Toronto auto repair software company AutoLeap is back with $18 million in Series A funding, this time led by Bain Capital Ventures. Joining Bain in the round is existing investor Threshold Ventures, which led the seed round, to give the company $23 million in total funding.
Former Vice President Al Gore has invested $600 million of equity into UK energy startup Octopus Energy Group via his Generation Investment Management vehicle, taking a stake of approximately 13% in the business. The investment means Octopus has attained a valuation of around $4.6 billion. Octopus has made a name for itself in energy circles
Most big accelerators tend to dedicate some of their resources to dauntingly hard science problems and the companies taking them on… but for SOSV’s IndieBio, it’s the primary focus. Last time we checked in with IndieBio, their companies were working on everything from lozenges to treat gum disease, to vertical farms for the sustainable production
Vareto, a startup aiming to help companies conduct more forward-looking financial planning and analysis, is coming out of stealth today with $24 million in total funding. GV (formerly Google Ventures) led its $20 million Series A this year, and Menlo Ventures led its $4.2 million seed financing in the summer of 2020. Menlo also put
Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari announced on Friday that the ban on Twitter would be lifted, but only if the social media giant met certain conditions. The president disclosed this during his televised broadcast to Nigerians on the country’s 61st Independence Day anniversary. He acknowledged the fact that Twitter is used to disseminate information. Still, he
Some big brands spend millions of dollars on marketing each year and may only drive thousands of dollars in sales as a result. At the same time, influencers are steering thousands, or even millions, of their followers to certain brands. ProductWind aims to connect brands with influencers in one click. The company is building a
Audio social network Clubhouse, video sharing platform Vimeo and anti-ad fraud startup DoubleVerify are among a clutch of tech companies and organzations preparing to sign up to a beefed-up version of the European Union’s Code of Practice on Online Disinformation, the Commission said today. Back in May the EU’s executive said it would be strengthening
Natasha and Mary Ann and Alex were all aboard this week under the guidance of Chris and Grace, meaning that we were running full-strength for our roundup of this super busy week. Before we hop into the topics, you can follow the show on Twitter — all the cool kids do! — and keep in mind that on Mondays Equity provides a short kickoff
The capital market for startups has perhaps never been more attractive than it is today. Not only are venture capitalists raising more capital than ever, but new methods of financing startup activity are maturing. The result is a capital market that is increasingly competitive for startup attention, and business, which may lead to better prices
TikTok this week presented its new plan to ramp up advertiser investment in its video platform with the expansion of e-commerce, a new promise of “brand safety,” and the launch of several new and interactive ad formats, ranging from clickable stickers to choose-your-own-adventure ads to “super likes” and more. The additions, the company says, will
Before Gene Berdichevsky became the co-founder and CEO of battery chemistry company Sila Nano, he was the seventh employee at Tesla Motors. As principal engineer on the Roadster battery, Berdichevsky was one of the first people crazy enough to experiment with shoving a lithium-ion battery pack into a combustion engine vehicle. The result? The Roadster
Orchest co-founder and CEO Rick Lamers calls himself, his co-founder Yannick Perrenet and his team “a bunch of data nerds” that love making data tools. In this case the company is building an open source integrated development environment tool for data scientists so they can develop, iterate and deploy data pipelines without having to rely
The future of office work, post-COVID-19, is driving plenty of startup activity. Not just around core business needs like comms (Zoom, Slack et al) — but entrepreneurs are also competing to come up with the perfect tool to recreate the social serendipity of office life in order to make dispersed workers feel a bit more
Twitter really can’t go a day without releasing new products. But if you’re running an account for a business or a public figure, its latest addition might capture your interest. Soon, businesses and creators will be able to opt into “professional accounts,” giving them additional tools to distinguish their profile, quickly promote content through ads,
Brian Walsh Contributor Brian Walsh is the head of WIND Ventures, the venture capital arm of COPEC, a leading energy company in Central and South America and the U.S. WIND Ventures provides mobility, energy and retail startups and scaleups with access to Latin America. More posts by this contributor Latin American startup deals see major
Oyo is ready to explore the public markets. The eight-year-old Indian budget hotel giant has filed the paperworks with the local market regulator for an initial public offering, in which it is seeking to raise about $1.16 billion. The Gurgaon-headquartered startup — which offers an operating system of sorts to help hoteliers accept digital bookings, payments,
Last night, Facebook published two annotated slide decks in an attempt to contextualize the documents that The Wall Street Journal published this month, which reported evidence that the company is aware of its negative impact on teen mental health. These documents were released in anticipation of today’s Senate hearing on the mental health harms of
Stock options can hold a lot of potential reward for employees when their company is doing well, but not every person will have the funds to fully exercise — that is, buy up — the options they have available to them. Enter EquityBee, a marketplace for employees to connect with capital from a network of
“Every form of digital communications has its unique benefits, and delivering high quality at scale requires both extensive technical capabilities and deep subject matter expertise“, comments Oscar Werner, Sinch CEO, in a statement. “Together with Pathwire, we will be able to offer a best-of-breed product set, across messaging, voice and email, that empowers businesses and