When it comes to types of venture capital instruments, party rounds are as controversial as they come. A party round is an early-stage financing round, usually occurring between the pre-seed and Series A stages, that includes a laundry list — or “party” — of individual investors. It’s different from a more traditional round, which may
Month: August 2022
Two weeks ago, longtime venture capitalist Chris Olsen, a general partner and cofounder of Drive Capital in Columbus, Ohio, settled into his seat for a portfolio company’s board meeting. It turned out to be a maddening exercise. “Two of the board members didn’t show up, and the company had a resolution on the agenda to
NASA has finalized an agreement with SpaceX to purchase five more astronaut transportation missions to and from the International Space Station, further entrenching the space company’s position as the prime services vendor for the space agency. The new contract — for the Crew-10, Crew-11, Crew-12, Crew-13 and Crew-14 missions — is valued at $1.4 billion.
Lyft is facing a fresh batch of lawsuits from drivers and passengers who say they were sexually and physically assaulted during rides and accused the ride-hailing company of failing to protect its users. Seventeen lawsuits were filed in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to Peiffer Wolf Carr
Mavenoid, a Swedish company that provides both human- and AI-enabled support and troubleshooting tools for hardware companies, has raised $30 million in a series B round of funding. Founded out of Stockholm in 2017, Mavenoid works with hardware and consumer electronics companies including HP, Husqvarna, and Jabra, serving to automate technical support and onboarding for
Firewalla, maybe the only company that can say that its hardware firewalls have something of a cult following, today announced the latest addition to its portfolio: the $569 Firewalla Gold Plus. The Gold Plus will feature four 2.5 gigabit Ethernet interfaces and its deep packet inspection hardware can handle up to 5 gigabits at a
It’s happening — Paramount+ now has an in-app Showtime bundle. Previously announced back in February, the company is offering a new bundle to U.S. subscribers that brings all the content from Showtime to its flagship streaming service. The two services were already available in a discounted streaming bundle, but now U.S. subscribers can upgrade in-app
The process of finding job candidates often entails a lot of tedious manual work for recruiters, like sending versions of the same email over and over again. That’s why Kula was created. The platform not only automates tasks like sending introductory messages, but also surfaces promising leads from the first-degree connections of an organization’s existing
The process of sending and receiving payments in a $1.5 trillion B2B payments market in sub-Saharan Africa is one where merchants commonly use manual invoices and inefficient processes that burden merchants and make them struggle with their businesses. Duplo, a B2B payments startup that solves these issues by enabling African enterprises to collect payments from
Few areas in tech today are as polarized as the blockchain gaming space. Legacy developers and gamers are calling play-to-earn games Ponzi schemes, while crypto-believers say games that incorporate “tokenomics” are the future for empowering players and creators. Before the debate is settled, the ecosystem around blockchain games is already getting built and funded. Los
Ticketmaster will now let event organizers issue NFTs (non-fungible tokens) tied to tickets on Flow, a blockchain operated by a16z-backed Dapper Labs. The Live Nation subsidiary said that event organizers can make these NFTs available before, during, or after the event and even enable special experiences like loyalty rewards or celebrity meet-and-greets — or simply
NetEase, a Chinese technology company and billion-dollar video-game publisher, has acquired French video-game studio Quantic Dream. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal means that NetEase now has its first studio in Europe, and comes just a few months after the Hangzhou-based company launched its first hub in the U.S., located in Austin,
Sony Music filed a lawsuit against TikTok-competitor Triller for copyright infringement, Variety reports. This lawsuit is the latest event following a troubling pattern of alleged missing payments for the app, which plans to go public even though its $5 billion SPAC deal fell through. Last year, the company announced a $14 million program that would
The q-commerce belt tightening continues: U.S. category veteran Gopuff, the SoftBank-backed delivery platform juggernaut — which was being valued at $15 billionN as recently as 2020, and had been rumored to be prepping for an IPO at the start of this year (er, nope that didn’t happen!) — is dialling back its ambitions in Europe.
Rachel Parrinello Contributor Rachel Parrinello is a principal in The Alexander Group’s San Francisco office and is a leader in sales compensation, media sales and technology practices. John Stamos Contributor John Stamos, a principal in The Alexander Group’s Chicago office, has extensive experience leading large-scale sales transformation engagements, enterprise program build-outs and global compensation redesign
California lawmakers have passed a bill that seeks to make apps and other online spaces safer for kids in the absence of robust federal standards. The bill, if signed into law, would impose a set of new protections for people under the age of 18 in California, potentially punishing tech companies with thousands in fines
Despite serving as the online watercooler for journalists, politicians and VCs, Twitter isn’t the most profitable social network on the block. Amid internal shakeups and increased pressure from investors to make more money, Twitter reportedly considered monetizing adult content. According to a report from The Verge, Twitter was poised to become a competitor to OnlyFans by
A new company is looking to do for B2B hardware sales what a growing number of companies have been doing in the consumer sphere, by making it easier for businesses to pay for equipment in instalments through rentals and subscriptions. While companies such as Klarna and Affirm have been pushing payment services that help consumers
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Nov.11 — Elon Musk’s vision for space-based internet service as SpaceX launches its second batch of sixty Starlink satellites. Bloomberg’s Dana Hull has the latest on “Bloomberg Technology”.
Kate Anthony started in the Lone Star State. It was there, in 2019, that she launched her app Euphoria, seeking to provide information and resources on gender-affirming care. She knew the stakes were going to be high, and as the state passed anti-trans legislation, she and her company were forced to flee. Settling in Denver,
Women-led mobile gaming startup Robin Games raised funding around the idea of carving out a new niche in the market of “lifestyle gaming.” The idea, the company explained at the time of its 2020 public debut, was to create a fantasy gaming experience that’s more sophisticated and stylish — something more in line with the
Populus, the San Francisco-based transportation data startup, got its start as shared scooter mania took hold and cities tried to make sense of how infrastructure was being used by fleets of tiny vehicles. Now, Populus co-founder and CEO Regina Clewlow is positioning the company, which collects data on transportation fleets and shares it with cities,
I’ve always wondered who gets to name demographic cohorts. My parents were pre-Baby Boomers, which made them part of the Silent Generation. (I’m Generation X, so feel free to ignore me entirely.) Generation Z is stereotyped as being materialistic, mistrustful and extremely reliant on personal technology. And now that they are entering the ranks of
After SpaceX announced its Starlink Maritime service last month, it was only a matter of time before some household name in boat world went all-in on the satellite service. Sure enough, today Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines announced it will be adding the service to its whole fleet, after a pilot service on one of its
Blank-check companies may be little more than a quick way to de-horn unicorns Alex Wilhelm Anna Heim 12 hours Yesterday, we asked how low SPAC-led public debuts could go, and the answer was very close to zero. Some now-public companies that rode blank-check companies to the public markets have seen 90% or more of their
It’s an exciting day for Studio Ghibli fans — fans in the United States and Canada, that is. The majority of Studio Ghibli’s film catalog has just been released to major digital rental platforms, such as Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, Microsoft and Vudu, a report by Variety confirms. For the first time, Studio Ghibli’s films can
The first major subsidy contract under the U.K. Government’s £5 billion ($5.9 billion) Project Gigabit scheme has officially been awarded, with Wessex Internet securing £6 million ($7 million) to connect remote properties in South West England to high-speed broadband. In a world that has rapidly embraced remote work over the past couple of years, the
Ben Boissevain Contributor Ben Boissevain is the founder of Ascento Capital, a boutique investment bank that provides advisory services for M&A, capital raises and valuations to technology companies in the U.S. and internationally. More posts by this contributor Mark-to-market to arrive at a realistic valuation and improve your fundraising odds How to prepare for M&A,
Keyboard tech licensing startup Fleksy has expanded its SDK offering with an eye on winning over indie devs and app makers with an accessible, SaaS-like platform entry-point to its software licensing business. CEO Olivier Plante says Fleksy now has a dozen enterprise customers for its keyboard SDK — which offers a suite of features like
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