Is Gwyneth Paltrow shining a light on the facts, or just basking in the spotlight?Goop is responding to critics—again. Today, in a letter titled “Uncensored: A Word from Our Doctors,” the lifestyle website defended its support of unorthodox health practices, and the medical professionals who advocate them. The three-tier piece includes a general note from the editors along with statements from two doctors who are Goop contributors. [ Fast Company ] Airbnb is expanding its business travel offering with a deep integration into Concur, the leading enterprise expense-management system. The companies jointly announced on Thursday that Airbnb listings will start showing up in Concur's travel search results. "This is the first time Airbnb listings will appear on a corporate travel partner's platform," according to the $31 billion startup. Airbnb's efforts to support its growing B2B division are part of ongoing trend: Consumer-focused gig-economy companies want to serve the enterprise. By showing up in Concur search results, Airbnb's lodging options will be conveniently distributed to 36,000-plus Concur clients (including 70 percent of Fortune 100 and 500 companies). The volume is significant: In the first quarter of 2017, a busy day for Concur meant "more than 216,000 trips booked," according to the company. [ Inc. ] THE BLURRING OF EARLY & LATE STAGE, WHY YOUR GO TO MARKET STRATEGY IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW THAN EVER & WHY VENTURE IS THE ACADEMIA OF TECH WITH ROSEANNE WINCEK @ IVPRoseanne Wincek is an investor with IVP, one of the leaders in growth financing with a portfolio including the likes of Snap, AppDynamics, SuperCell and Slack. At IVP, Roseanne focuses on investing in later-stage, high-growth consumer and enterprise companies, currently serving as a Board Observer for MasterClass and actively working with IVP’s investments in Compass, Glossier, and Qubole. Prior to IVP, Roseanne was a Principal with Canaan Partners where she completed transactions for Beckon, Metacloud, and Stayful, just to name a few. Prior to VC, Roseanne was a co-founder @ imthemusic working to built music apps on the early Facebook platform. [ 20 VC Podcast ] GOOD GRIEF: MARISSA MAYER IS REPORTEDLY ON THE SHORT LIST TO SAVE UBERAs Uber worries about the Travis Kalanick-shaped hole atop its corporate hierarchy, the board is racing to replace him and a legion of other departed executives in its C-suite. Despite the slew of scandals surrounding the company in recent months—including an intellectual property theft lawsuit, allegations of workplace sexual harassment, and a toxic corporate culture—applications are flooding in to replace Kalanick, The New York Times reports. What Uber arguably needs now, in light of a public-relations nightmare that began when a former engineer published a blog post detailing harassment and retaliation she says she endured at the company, is a woman to clean up Kalanick’s mess. One notable name on the shortlist is reportedly former Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer, who is recently unemployed after walking away with $186 million, despite overseeing a series of questionable acquisitions, pricey hires, and two massive security breaches that ended in Yahoo effectively closing up shop and selling its primary web assets to Verizon. Flybridge Recruits Female Founders to Run Women-Only Venture Capital Fund. The new pre-seed fund looks to invest $100,000 in each of 30 women-led companies.Flybridge Capital Partners is taking a small, yet potentially important, step toward making venture capital a more reasonable and inclusive place for women. On Wednesday, the firm announced the creation of the XFactor Fund, a pre-seed stage fund that will invest solely in women entrepreneurs. The fund, and the amounts to be invested, are relatively small. The fund has $3 million, and it plans to invest $100,000 in 30 different companies. There will be no follow-on investing from the fund, although of course the hope is that when the XFactor companies are ready for another round they will be eager to consider Flybridge. What's most interesting about the fund, however, is who's running it. Chip Hazard and Kate Castle, both partners at Flybridge, will participate. But Flybridge has also asked a group of women entrepreneurs to become general partners in the fund. These women will be bringing their own deal flow and recommendations for investment. "We had been talking about starting a fund for so long that it's really a dream come true," says Ooshma Garg, founder and CEO of meal-kit company Gobble, and one of the women who will be running the fund. Other founders who will be participating in the XFactor Fund include:
While some of these founders have made angel investments in startups before, Brescia says the appeal of working alongside other female founders, in a more structured investment environment, was persuasive. [ Inc. ] Jet.com is installing Latch access systems in 1,000 NYC apartment buildings for easier deliveries Jet, the online retailer bought by Walmart last year, has struck a deal with smart access provider Latch in an effort to make deliveries easier for its customers in urban areas. Over 100,000 residents living in 1,000 buildings will get free and full access to Latch’s residential “R” system for the exterior door of their building, with the install paid for by a “joint investment” from Jet and Latch. This means residents can use their phone as a key, grant access to guests without walking downstairs and of course get packages delivered safely without being home. Building managers can also use Latch’s system to grant access to trusted delivery providers like USPS at their discretion, but all of these 1,000 units will already be set up to provide access to Jet’s delivery partners. [ Tech Crunch ] In Light of Recent Legislation, 6 Tips for Employers on How to Extend Competitive Offers -By Cat Hernandez, Talent Partner, Primary Venture Partners Photos: Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook and Ivanka Trump are hanging out this week at an exclusive mogul retreatThe who’s who of the tech and media worlds have descended upon Sun Valley, Idaho, this week for the annual invite-only gathering hosted by the investment bank Allen & Co. Many of the usual suspects were in attendance, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. But there were a few new notable attendees this year, namely Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. The timing is interesting given Kushner is dealing with the recent revelation that he and other members of President Donald Trump’s campaign team met with a lawyer tied to Russia. [ Recode ] Marc Andreessen says he’s reading these eight provocative books to better understand our worldMarc Andreessen’s (now dormant) Twitter feed was like the Venture Capitalist’s Review of Books. He issued a steady stream of dozens ofrecommendations (more than 100), revealing a catholic diet of science fiction, economics, American history, political science, and deep dives into the American hippopotamus industry. They’re still coming. In an interview with startup founders in the Stripe Atlas program at the payment company Stripe, the Netscape co-founder and VC who has backed in some of the biggest hits of the last decade (e.g. Airbnb, Twitter, Facebook), summarized the most challenging books he’s reading to better understand the world. Andreessen, like all VCs, is paid to invest in the next big thing. One of the ways he does that is by keeping an eye on “what do nerds do on nights and weekend,” what he called the single most reliable source of new ideas adopted by the broader culture and economy (if interested, check out cryptocurrency, biohacking, quantified self, synthetic biology, virtual reality, drones, and self-driving cars). [ QZ ] |