Bessemer Venture Partners has a brand new $1.85B fund Bessemer Venture Partners, an investment firm founded more than 100 years ago, is the latest to complete the fundraising circuit. The firm has brought in $1.85 billion for its tenth flagship VC fund, its fourth consecutive billion-dollar fund, according to PitchBook. This is the fourth massive fundraise for a VC fund in the last week. Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital announced the close of $1 billion in new capital for its sixth flagship venture fund on Tuesday in what was
similarly the firm’s largest raise to date. [ Tech Crunch ] All Raise Will Match Underrepresented Investors With Big-Name VCsFor All Raise to meet its goal of doubling the percentage of female partners at U.S. venture capital firms in 10 years, it has to start with the women already working in venture. [ Fortune ] Why Is a Startup Worth $1 Billion Called a Unicorn? The VC Who Invented the Term ExplainsCowboy Ventures founder Aileen Lee was making a point that's even more valid today. You've likely heard the term "unicorn" many times. It refers to a startup with a valuation of $1 billion or more. You get it--unicorns are rare, or at least used to be before the current venture capital craze. And, like unicorns, those valuations could be mythical. But where did the term come from in the first place? [ Inc. ] Why Silicon Valley investors just can’t quit Saudi moneyIt’s not just startups that thrive on Saudi Arabian cash. It’s venture capitalists, too. Silicon Valley is beginning to question its ties with Saudi Arabia. But there are many skeptics these days who privately question whether the relationship will actually change once the news of the day moves away from the Middle East. [ Re / Code ] Envoy Conquered The Front Desk. Now It's Raised $43M To Make Offices SmartAs data is becoming the new currency, the privacy and ownership of personal data are undergoing major transformations. The new European regulation regarding data protection (GDPR) is promising to put individuals back in control of their personal data and unify data protection and privacy laws, while amending business practices and the way companies interact with customers and promise traceable, monitored access to personal data. [ Calcalis Tech ] Research: How Cloud Computing Changed Venture CapitalHow has technology changed which deals venture capitalists (VCs) fund and how they fund them? Venture capitalists essentially invest in startup ‘experiments’, and subsequently provide more funding to the experiments that work, so that they can run more experiments. This leads to many failures (roughly 55% of startups) and a few successes (6% return > 5x the total amount invested). So an innovation that changes the cost of experiments changes the landscape for venture funding. [ Harvard Business Review ] Latinx Female Founders Receive Only 0.4% of Venture Capital FundingLatinx women received 0.4% of $400 billion in venture capital funding between 2009 and 2017, and only 58 LatinX women have ever raised over $1 million in venture funding, according to a new report. [ Fortune ] Bessemer Venture Partners Raises $1.85B For Fund X, Its Largest YetToday, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) announced it has successfully closed $1.85 billion in commitments for its tenth flagship venture fund (which we’ll refer to here as “BVP X”). [ Crunch Base ] VC funding for mortgage tech stays strong after billion-dollar bumpRibbon has raised $225 million in a combination of Series A equity and debt funding to help homebuyers pay their mortgages. Bain Capital Ventures, Greylock, NFX and NYCA participated in the equity portion, and they also provided the business with its $4 million seed round last year. [ Pitchbook ] Six big things: New billions keep piling up in US VC fundsThrough the first three quarters of 2018, US venture capital firms were on pace to set an annual fundraising record. Is such a pace sustainable? This week brought nearly 7 billion new reasons to think so. |