The most valuable venture-backed startups in all 50 statesVenture capital-backed companies based out of California are usually recognizable. But what can get lost in the mix are the companies based throughout the rest of the country. VC research firm Pitchbook compiled every state's most valuable VC-backed startup into an interactive graphic. We assembled all 50 startups, including that of Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. [ Business Insider ] Andreessen Horowitz has a new crypto fund — and its first female general partner is running it with Chris DixonSilicon Valley powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has some big, and bigger, news today. First, it closed a dedicated crypto fund late last week from a subset of its limited partners, who’ve provided the firm with $300 million in capital commitments. The fund had become the worst-kept secret in the venture industry, largely because so many other venture firms are trying to figure out their own related strategies and have been watching closely a16z’s slow but growing number of investments in crypto-related startups over the past five years. [ Tech Crunch ] Venrock partner Mike Tyrrell I first met Brian O’Kelley in the summer of 2008, when he was looking to raise his first institutional round of funding for AppNexus. Brian had a vision for how the online advertising market was going to evolve and believed that building highly scaled services for both sides of the industry – publishers that want to sell ads and marketers who want to buy them – would enable a more efficient and cost-effective marketplace. Software, data, and machine learning ultimately enabled ad transactions to occur programmatically and in real time on the AppNexus platform. We at Venrock believed in Brian’s vision, but that was not the main reason we invested. We look first and foremost for special entrepreneurs, like former Venrock entrepreneurs Gordon Moore at Intel, Steve Jobs at Apple, Gil Shwed at Check Point, Steve Papa at Endeca, and more recently Michael Dubin at Dollar Shave Club. We call these folks “Forces of Nature”. New York’s RRE Ventures raises $265M for its new fundRRE Ventures has raised $265 million for its latest fund. The firm was founded back in 1994, and this is its seventh fund (eighth if you include a separate “opportunity” fund for making follow-on investments). Exits in the last few years include Bitly (acquired by Spectrum Equity), Business Insider (acquired by Axel Springer) and TapCommerce (acquired by Twitter). General Partner Raju Rishi said that RRE will continue to follow its current investment strategy. That means putting about 60 percent of its money into Series A investments, 5 to 10 percent into seed deals and the rest in B or C rounds. [ Tech Crunch ] This ex-Googler pawned her 24-karat gold jewels she inherited from her mother and sold some of her Google stock to launch her new startup
Jay Z teams up with VC to launch fundJay Z and business partner Jay Brown have filed paperwork to form an investment firm called Marcy Venture Partners. Larry Marcus of San Francisco-based Walden Venture Capital is also named on the regulatory filings. AT&T confirms it is buying ad platform AppNexus, reportedly for between $1.6B-$2BAnother legacy carrier built on offering phone services is now taking a deeper dive into the world of advertising and specifically ad tech to help catapult itself into the next generation of tech and communications. Today, AT&T confirmed that it is buying AppNexus, a programmatic advertising marketplace that competes against the likes of Google and Facebook and describes itself as the world’s largest independent digital ad exchange. [ Tech Crunch ] Jason Calacanis: Aussie founders should think bigger“The worst thing you can do is talk to people about it. If you talk to people about it you will talk yourself out of it 100 percent of the time.” For those of us who can’t decide on a new smartphone without reading several dozen reviews and asking everyone in the office for their advice, this may seem like impossible advice to follow, but it’s what high profile Silicon Valley investor Jason Calacanis believes is the key to angel investing. [ Startup Daily ] Dementia venture fund raises $350 million to hunt new drugsAmorelie: How A Savvy Sex Shop Founder Sold Her Startup To A TV Titan14-year-old venture capitalist planning to ‘change the world’Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake has joined the board of GlossierA year and a half ago, Glossier founder and CEO Emily Weiss was just looking for an introduction to Katrina Lake. Now, Lake — the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix — has joined Glossier’s board of directors. With the move, Lake has become the first independent director for the startup beauty brand, joining Weiss, Glossier president Henry Davis, and three venture capital investors on the company’s board. [ Recode ] Can This Startup Break Big Tech’s Hold on A.I.?Why Series As Are Much Easier To Raise In 2018 Than The Past 5 YearsInside the Secret World of Venture Capital |