The Crypto World’s Fake AdvisersSteve Chen is a longtime Silicon Valley engineer who lately has turned his attention to blockchain. One of two blockchain startups he founded, Echolink.io, aims to check resumes for accuracy. The startup’s own website could have used the service. Until recently, Echolink’s website listed a team of respected blockchain industry people as advisers—such as Justin Poirier, founder of Tokenized Capital, and Christopher Kanaan, vice president of engineering at blockchain startup Ripple. But Mr. Kanaan, through a spokeswoman at Ripple, and Mr. Poirier say they never advised the company and weren’t aware their names had been used on the site. “I don’t know this guy at all, and I definitely didn’t advise them,” said Mr. Poirier in an interview. [ The Information ] Barry Diller says he will not take independent chairman role at UberBarry Diller, a prominent media executive and a mentor to Uber’s new CEO, said Tuesday that he would not serve as the first independent chairman of the company’s board. Diller told Recode in a brief interview that he was not interested in the job. Several Uber insiders have hoped that the chairman of IAC would take the position to support new Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who worked for Diller as the CEO at Expedia. [ Recode ] How Valuable Is a Unicorn? Maybe Not as Much as It Claims to BeUber is said to be worth $62.5 billion. Airbnb is valued at $31 billion. Elon Musk’s SpaceX Technologies is valued at $21 billion, and Pinterest at $12.3 billion. Those eye-popping valuations regularly fill articles and water-cooler conversations in Silicon Valley, all under the umbrella of “unicorn” companies — a term for private companies that are said to be worth more than $1 billion. That moniker now applies to at least 135 businesses, making the descriptions of them as unicorns, well, less apt. (Maybe donkeys?) Early investors and employees spend countless hours calculating and recalculating how much their stake is worth. [ NY Times ] Airbnb has been the dominant player in the vacation rental market for some time, but now Vacasa has entered the neighborhood in a big way. The Portland-based company, which was founded in 2009 and has a strong foothold in the Pacific Northwest market, just closed a $103.5 million Series B round led by new investor Riverwood Capital, with participation from NewSpring and previous investors Level Equity and Assurant Growth Investing, according
to Geekwire. Here's How the World’s Top VCs Bet on Blockchain in 1 Chart So far, VC firms have struck 59 deals this year, already exceeding the 57 signed last year. Now you can see where the biggest brand name investors’ purses intersect. CB Insights, a market research firm that tracks the venture capital industry, mapped out the relationships between some of the most prestigious VC dealmakers in a new report previewed exclusively with Fortune. Vine’s founders are back with HQ, a live trivia game show app“It’s a way to give people a chance to have fun, maybe win, maybe learn something new.” That’s how former Vine co-founder Rus Yusupov describes his new trivia game show app HQ, which feels like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire meets Facebook Live. At 3pm and 9pm Eastern, thousands of people open up HQ’s iOS app and play along as excitable host Scott Rogowsky asks around a dozen multiple choice questions one at a time. Guess right within 10 seconds, and you move on to the next question after Scott finishes joking about the answers. Guess wrong, and you can still comment and watch to see which players nail them all and split prize money they cash out on PayPal. [ Tech Crunch ] How This Crowd-Sourced Startup Is Disrupting The Beauty IndustryBrandy Hoffman, a beauty executive, and Patricia Santos, a VC, met while championing a brand in Korea, China and Southeast Asia. Over the course of many long haul flights, the pair formed not just a fast friendship, but also the foundation of a fully crowd-sourced beauty brand, Volition. Their vision: real women submit ideas for products they’ve been searching for and Volition’s chemists and labs vet the ideas for feasibility. Two years later, sales are growing 70% month over month and five of the brand’s bestselling formulas have launched at Sephora. Here, the cofounders share their secrets for success. [ Forbes ] Free streaming TV service Pluto TV raises $8.3M, in new round led by SamsungFree streaming TV service Pluto TV announced today it has received a new $5 million investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, the VC arm of the Samsung Group. Combined with other investors, the full round totaled $8.3 million, the company says. Pluto TV declined to disclose the other investors in the round, but said they’re a mix of both new and prior investors. [ TechCrunch ] Magic Leap confirms $502 million fundraiseMagic Leap, the secretive "mixed reality" startup, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $502 million in new venture capital funding led by Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek. This is the same round that Axios discussed last week, based on a Delaware regulatory filing (which authorized up to $1 billion in new shares at an increased valuation). The post-money valuation appears to be around $5 billion. [ AXIOS ] What Happens When You Sell Your Startup? Facebook’s Building 8 head, Regina Dugan, is leaving the companyAmazon Studios head Roy Price resigns amid harassment allegations, company saysProof that Americans are lying about their sexual desiresThe War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet NightmareTerminal wants to help your startup expand globallyBlack lawmakers give tech sector low marks amid Silicon Valley tripEpithets, racist drawings at Tesla factory, ex-workers saySecrets to scaling a startup, from the cofounder who expanded Lyft to more than 600 citiesTake Your Fundraising Pitch from Mediocre to Memorable with These Storytelling Tips |