What Is Going To Happen In 2017Fred Wilson on 2017 Trump will hit the ground running, cutting corporate and personal taxes, and eliminating the preferential treatment of carried interest capital gains. The stock market has already factored in these tax cuts so it won’t be as big of a boon for investors as might be expected, but the seven and half year bull market run will be extended as a result of this tax cut stimulus before being halted by rising rates and/or some boneheaded move by President Trump which seems inevitable. We just don’t know the timing of it. The loss of capital gains treatment on carried interest won’t hurt professional investors too much because the lower personal tax rates will take the sting out of it. In addition, corporations will use the lower tax rates as an excuse to bring back massive amounts of capital that have been locked up overseas, producing a cash surplus that will result in an M&A boom. This will lead to an even more fuel to the fire that is causing “old line” corporations to acquire startups. [ AVC ] An Unforgettable Year in PhotosWell, 2016 has been a year. From tear gas in parliament to super-human athletic feats, this year had its fair share of big moments, to say nothing of the election of Donald Trump. Here's to seeing 2016 out, and keeping our fingers crossed for 2017. [ Mashable ] Andreessen Horowitz Counts The Most Tech IPO Pipeline Porfolio CompaniesAndreessen Horowitz has emerged as the investor that counts both the most investments in companies surfaced in our 2017 Tech IPO Pipeline Report, as well as the most unicorn companies among those investments. The firm has invested in some of the most highly valued private tech companies, including Airbnb, Tanium, Instacart, and many others. To identify companies in the 2017 Tech IPO Pipeline, we used the CB Insights database to identify the most promising private venture and equity-backed tech companies. [ CB Insights ] Snapchat Is Beginning to Use Machine Learning to Improve Ad TargetingSnapchat is adding ways to optimize campaign performance with the help of machine learning. Earlier this month, Snap Inc. began rolling out what it calls Goal-Based Bidding (GBB). The option, available to marketers buying ads through Snapchat's API, uses machine learning to know which users are most likely to swipe a certain type of ad. Here's how it works: With goal-based bidding, advertisers can inform Snapchat of when their main goal is increasing swipe-ups—perhaps for app installs, web views or movie trailers—instead of focusing solely on impressions. They can then provide a value for how much they think a swipe is worth, allowing Snap to auto-optimize bidding and delivery to a target audience that's likely to engage with the ad. [ Adweek ] 31 tech companies that could go public in 2017In 2016, a bunch of tech companies went public, including Coupa, Line, Nutanix, Talend, and Twilio. Now a new batch is in the running for an initial public offering (IPO). Many of these companies get their money by selling to other companies, typically the largest companies in the world. But there are also a few IPO contenders that are already household names because they have millions and millions of end users. Should even one or two of these go public in 2017, this will be remembered as a big year for tech IPOs. One of the contenders, in particular, could raise $4 billion in its deal — an ungodly sum in recent years, though not without precedent. [ Venture Beat ] THE BOT POLITICSilicon Valley’s usual solution to designing an inoffensive, eager-to-please technology has been to make it a woman. But why use gender at all? Tech startups to make your life more slick, secure and stylish in 2017This year was a mixed bag for startups. Powa Technologies, an e-commerce company that was one of Britain’s so-called unicorns (a startup valued at over $1bn), crashed hard, declaring bankruptcy early in 2016. US wearables company Pebble sold to Fitbit for less than a 10th of its peak valuation. But on the plus side, Europe minted – foaled? – 10 new unicorns, and Finnish gaming company Supercell became the continent’s first “decacorn” (a startup valued at over $10bn). But for some startups, the year ahead is nothing but hopeful. Here are some of the companies that look set to have a 2017 they will remember for some time. [ The Guardian ] VC JOBS : |