Kayako’s CEO on building a bootstrapped businessKayako isn’t a new company — the bootstrapped business has been around for 16 years — but it does have an interesting story. Kayako is a unified customer service platform, meaning that companies use their software to manage customer feedback and support across multiple platforms, including phone, email, Twitter and Facebook. With fewer than 100 employees (barely), Kayako has never taken outside funding. It has offices in three countries, is profitable and continues to grow. How, you may ask? TechCrunch visited their London headquarters to chat with founder and CEO Varun Shoor to hear about Kayako’s history and his unconventional path to success. The 7 Most Creative Entrepreneurs of 2016 Advertising Age recognized these founders who came up with interesting and unusual innovations over the past year. [ Inc. ] A Chill Sets In: Looking Back On The Year In Venture CapitalRecord amounts of investment were channeled to startups in 2015, much of it coming from “tourist investors” like hedge funds and mutual funds. The sudden increase in available capital drove up valuations across the industry and birthed a seemingly never-ending string of new unicorns (companies privately valued at more than $1 billion). Venture capital investment Just like many venture investors warned at the beginning of this year, VC funding took a dip from the highs seen in 2015. Last year saw a whopping $79.2 billion funneled to US-based startups through the completion of 10,486 deals, according to the PitchBook Platform. Even accounting for a lag in reporting, there’s no doubt this year will fall short of those figures, with investors putting to work just $68.3 billion so far via 7,966 deals. While we won’t know final numbers for a few weeks, it’s looking like total capital invested this year will be comparable to levels seen in 2014, while deal count will likely be at its lowest point since 2012. Venture capital-backed exitsAnother concern that arose during last year’s funding craze was how all that money would flow back to LPs. After all, for the VC model to work, huge funding rounds with stratospheric valuations must lead to huge exits. Although usually not a very vocal group, some LPs even chimed in on the debate, warning that the huge influx of capital and the lack of exits has in the past led to (and would likely again lead to) a congested industry. So how’d it all play out? Checking in on VC-backed exit activity for US startups in 2016 yields mixed results. Although the total amount of capital exited increased from last year (see below), the number of exits decreased noticeably, from 935 to just 719—representing a drop of nearly 25%. [ PitchBook & ValueWalk ] 33 Biggest BuzzFeed Tech Stories in 2016VENTURE CAPITAL JOBSVenture Partner - Investor Relations at venture/science, SF, USBusiness Analyst at Lurkin, Los Angeles, USResearch Engineer at Lurkin, Los Angeles, Remote, USBrand Ambassador at PCH Exclusive Homes, Newport Beach, USProduct Manager (Mandarin speaker) at MRKTX, San Francisco, USManaging Director at Originate, Los Angeles, USData-Driven marketing internship at Angeloop, Oakland, San Francisco Bay Area, USInformation Systems Analyst 2 at UC San Diego, CA Artificial Intelligence ( Internship) at RobotX Space, Santa Clara, US. Business Development (M&A) Trainee at Enter Capital San Francisco, Remote · InternshipProduct Launch Pro, (Cofounder) at Enter Capital, San Francisco, US.Associate Director- Business Development, at Tracxn!, Palo Alto, USBusiness Development and Market Research Associate at AlphaVate, Philadelphia, USCo-Founder with experience fundraising &/ marketing at Montage, NY, US. |