Breaking : Uber Backer Benchmark Discuss Stock Sale to SoftBank, Others
Women speak to Megyn Kelly about sexual harassment in Silicon Valley A recent study found that 60 percent of women who work in the tech industry have reported unwanted sexual advances. NBC News’ Megyn Kelly joins TODAY to preview Sunday’s edition of “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly,” in which she sits down with six women who share their stories. [ NBC ] The Most Active Investors In India TechSince 2012, Mumbai-based Blume Ventures has invested in 76 different companies, making it the most active investor in India. [ CB Insights ] Women Get More Questions On Risk From Startup VCs Than Men Do--And Far Less MoneyIn the midst of revelations that many of tech's leading women have long endured sexual harassment by investors, researchers have determined that the deck is also stacked against women when competing startups face VC scrutiny--and when the funding's shelled out. Last week, researchers from Columbia University and the Wharton School of Business announced the results of their study on how women and men fare when questioned on the viability of their startup ventures. [ Forbes ] Marc Andreessen says he’s reading these eight provocative books to better understand our worldMarc Andreessen’s (now dormant) Twitter feed was like the Venture Capitalist’s Review of Books. He issued a steady stream of dozens ofrecommendations (more than 100), revealing a catholic diet of science fiction, economics, American history, political science, and deep dives into the American hippopotamus industry. They’re still coming. In an interview with startup founders in the Stripe Atlas program at the payment company Stripe, the Netscape co-founder and VC who has backed in some of the biggest hits of the last decade (e.g. Airbnb, Twitter, Facebook), summarized the most challenging books he’s reading to better understand the world. [ QZ ] Insticator raises $5.2M to help publishers make their stories more interactiveInsticator is announcing that it has raised $5.2 million in Series A funding. The startup allows online publishers to add quizzes, polls and other interactive elements (either created by Insticator or by the publisher themselves) to their stories. They then make money from those widgets by running ads in them, too. Other startups trying to do something similar include Playbuzz and Qzzr (formerly known as Boombox). Founder and CEO Zack Dugow said the Insticator widget is designed to strike an important balance — it increases engagement for publishers and serves as a “highly visible ad unit” without annoying readers by being too visible or aggressive. He also said the widget is highly customizable, so that it “looks and feels very native to the site itself.” Kleiner Perkins-Backed Startup BetterWorks Faces Harassment Suit
The top 17 startups to launch so far in 2017While much of Silicon Valley has been consumed by the drama at Uber, tech's most valuable startup, a whole new class of companies launched in the first half of 2017 hoping to change the world, become the next unicorn — or just build a successful business. Business Insider spoke to founders and venture capitalists and took a look at funding data to identify some of the startups that had the biggest starts in 2017. Some names on the list are officially launching out of stealth, while others are still in their early stages. Chinese AI Start-Up SenseTime Raises $410 Million Series B RoundChinese artificial intelligence start-up SenseTime has completed a US$410 million series B round, in what the company calls the largest private financing rounds ever closed by an AI start-up globally. The company said it is now valued at over RMB10 billion (US$1.47 billion) in an announcement, revealing its valuation for the first time. It means another company has joined China Money Network's China Unicorn Ranking, which currently counts 108 unicorns in China with aggregate valuation of US$445.66 billion. |