SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son says he wants to invest in either Uber or LyftSoftBank has been heavily linked with an investment in Uber in recent weeks, and today CEO Masayoshi Son confirmed his interest in pursuing a deal. However, in a twist, Son said that SoftBank is also considering buying into Uber’s arch enemy in the U.S., Lyft, instead. [ Tech Crunch ] Inside the world of Silicon Valley's 'coasters' — the millionaire engineers who get paid gobs of money and barely work
On a sunny summer morning, a Facebook engineer woke up to go to work but felt ill. She ran to her bathroom and threw up. "I thought I was getting sick," the engineer recalled. It wasn't a virus or food poisoning. She was having a bad reaction to her job. [ Business Insider ] In its push to compete in Southeast Asia, WeWork is pouring a (brand-new!) $500 million into the region Less than two weeks ago, WeWork took the wraps off a new massive round of funding — $500 million from the Chinese private equity firm Hony Capital, the Japanese internet giant SoftBank, Greenland Holdings, and China Oceanwide. Now, the company is announcing that it’s pouring that exact amount — $500 million — into expanding into Southeast Asia and Korea. Interestingly, it says this $500 million is new and not the same capital, though it isn’t disclosing from where the money is coming. [ Tech Crunch ] Paris has ambitions to become a global tech hub. Can Emmanuel Macron make it happen?Maxime Serret, a student from one of France’s top engineering schools, looked amazed. We met outside Anticafe, a coffee shop that charges patrons €5 ($5.90) per hour and everything else—wifi, espresso, strawberries, avocado (of course)—is included. He was really there, though, to see the adjoining “Station F,” a huge new super-incubator for tech companies that recently opened in Paris. Serret is the sort of person that Station F was built to attract. The Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts et Metiers student is already part of a startup and heard about it from a colleague who studied at 42, a groundbreaking coding school. Serret marveled at Station F’s size: The former train depot in the 13th arrondissement—where tapestries for French monarchs used to be made—is designed to house 1,000 new companies, taking up some 34,000 square meters (366,000 square feet). Investors like venture capital fund Daphni are located on-site, as are 3,000 desks for startups. Eventually, the complex will also feature 100 shared apartments. [ QZ ] Why We Invested: VCs Sound Off On 7 Recent Early-Stage Startup InvestmentsWhen a startup achieves a successful exit, its early-stage investors can be eager to pat themselves on the back. A common self-congratulatory tactic is the look-back blog post spotlighting all of the potential the VC saw in the exited startup from its earliest beginnings. But hindsight is 20/20 and makes every smart decision seem inevitable in the rearview mirror. It’s riskier, from a reputation perspective, for VCs to share an in-the-moment look at why they invested in an early-stage startup now – when success is far from inevitable. [ CB Insights ] The Most Active Investors In Construction TechLooking at the number of investors that made at least one investment into a construction tech company every year since 2012, we see that 2016 hit an all-time high of 94 investors, following some ups and downs in prior years. This is a 169% increase from the number of investors in 2012 (35). [ CB Insights ] 500 Startups didn't tell investors about McClure situation500 Startups did not inform its limited partners of sexual harassment allegations against firm founder Dave McClure, nor that he had stepped down from running day-to-day operations of the firm, until after the situation was made public in early July by The New York Times. This is according to conversations with two limited partners – and from comments made by current 500 Startups CEO Christine Tsai, speaking confidentially on a recorded LP call that was obtained by Axios. After tweeting a request for ideas about how he should direct his future philanthropy, a company that specializes in harnessing the wisdom of crowds used their tech to find consensus on how the world thinks the Amazon founder should donate his billions. [ Fast Company ] Millennial Dad Site Fatherly Raises $4 Million to Expand Into Video and EventsFatherly, a New York City-based media startup, has raised $4 million in venture funding from BDMI, the investment arm of media company Bertelsman, and talent agency UTA. The company plans to use the money to expand the scope of its content, launch a podcast, develop original video series, and expand internationally in the next 18 months. [ Fortune ] Iflix Video-Streaming Service Secures $133 Million in FundingIflix, a Malaysian video-streaming service that operates mostly in emerging markets, said on Monday that it had received $133 million in a round of funding from a group led by the American media and information company Hearst Corporation. Founded in 2015, Iflix is available in 19 countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The service has five million subscribers, though it is dwarfed by Netflix, which added 5.2 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2017 alone. [ NY Times ] Airbnb’s director of experience design on using ‘stories’ to designKatie Dill is the director of experience design at Airbnb. In this episode, she channels her inner Steve Jobs to explain how design is not just how it looks, but how it works, both in the workplace and on the screen. She also dives into the significance of using tools of design — intentionality, research, iteration, and collaboration — to help shape the internal structure and strategy of an organization — a concept she believes isn’t used enough in the corporate world. [ Tech Crunch ] |