This VC Firm Invested $200 Million in Slack. Now Its Stake Is Worth $4.6 BillionStewart Butterfield loved the game, but not enough people agreed with him. He spent two years and raised roughly $11 million to build an online adventure game called Glitch that featured garrulous, blue-headed creatures and milk-drunk butterflies. Once people had a chance to play it and Butterfield could track the numbers, the verdict was clear: Glitch was a flop. “There was this night where I just lost faith,” Butterfield said in a podcast interview. He decided in 2012 that it was game over. Butterfield made plans to shut down the company and give the remaining money back to his investors. [ Fortune ] The Wild West of the budding cannabis industryUnder one interpretation of US law, Bharat Vasan is a drug-dealing kingpin. But to the hundreds of investors, entrepreneurs, opportunists, experts and executives hanging on his every word inside an airy event space one Tuesday last month, the CEO of Pax Labs was something else entirely. A business mogul. A role model. A man who saw the future. Never before had I seen so many people dressed so nicely, gathered in such a swanky spot, to talk about marijuana. [ Pitchbook ] Bill Gates on Startups, Investing and Solving The World's Hardest ProblemsThere are few opportunities more rewarding as an early-stage venture firm than allowing your portfolio founders to meet one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, Bill Gates. Bill is a known innovator and entrepreneurial icon for his world-changing work at both Microsoft and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We are tremendously honored to have him among our small group of luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next generation of Village Global founders and teams. Houston’s Mercury Raising $125M Fourth FundHouston-based Mercury Fund has raised $82 million for its fourth fund, Mercury Fund Ventures IV, for which it aims to raise a total of $125 million, according to a regulatory filing that PE Hub reported on Thursday. Founded in 2005, Mercury Fund has $275 million under management (per its website) and has historically focused on investing in “middle America.” That doesn’t mean it doesn’t back companies on the coasts. Its most recent investment was participating in South San Francisco-based BlackThorn Therapeutics’s $76 million Series B. [ Crunchbase ] The One Behind ONE Championship: How He Built A US$1B Company Out Of His Love For Martial ArtsAsian societies place great importance on excellence and success, and the same applies to the business world. What a lot of people don’t see is the hard work and effort that goes on behind the scenes. Success doesn’t come easy, and self-made multi-millionaire Chatri Sityodtong can attest to that. I had the opportunity to speak with the inspirational founder, chairman, and CEO of ONE Championship to learn about his struggles and failures over the years, and how it has helped shape him into the successful figure he is today. [ vulcanpost ] Ninjacart Closes Its Ongoing $100Mn Series C Round From Tiger Global, OthersBengaluru-based agritech platform Ninjacart has added another $10 Mn to close its ongoing Series C round from a clutch of investors, including company’s existing investors Tiger Global, debt venture fund Trifecta Capital, along with Tanglin Venture Fund, Steadview Capital, and ABG Capital. [ inc42 ] You’re a New Tech IPO Millionaire, Now What?From Uber to Lyft to Airbnb, it's the year of the tech initial public offering. Jonathan DeYoe, a Bay Area financial adviser to some of the new IPO millionaires, explains how many of his clients acquired so much stock and what he suggests they do with their new riches. Illustration: Timothy Wong for The Wall Street Journal. [ WSJ ]‘This is Your Life in Silicon Valley’: Nomiku Founder CEO Lisa Fetterman on why Silicon Valley doesn’t care about female foundersWelcome to this week’s transcribed edition of This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. We’re running an experiment for Extra Crunch members that puts This is Your Life in Silicon Valley in words – so you can read from wherever you are. [ Tech Crunch ] What Corporate VCs Can Learn From The First Decade Of Intel CapitalCorporate venture capital (CVC) firms broke records last year. Funding increased 47% to $52.95 billion and 264 new corporate venture groups invested for the first time, a 35% increase over 2017. There were 773 active CVCs worldwide in 2018, participating in 23% of all VC-backed deals, with the average CVC deal size reaching an all-time high of $26.3 million, according to CB Insights. [ Forbes ] Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative gives $68M to fund Human Cell Atlas projectsAn ongoing global project to map the human body cell by cell has received a $68 million shot in the arm from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. It will support dozens of individual projects contributing to the eponymous atlas of human cells. The Human Cell Atlas is a collection of projects that aim to document healthy human cells at about as detailed a level as is practical. And CZI has been supporting it for a few years in various ways as part of its ongoing philanthropic work in basic research. [ Tech Crunch ] Vestiaire Collective Eyes International Expansion After $45 Million Funding RoundVestiaire Collective, a Paris-based social commerce platform, completed a €40 million ($45 million) round of financing led by Bpifrance and Chief Executive Max Bittner on Thursday, citing plans to launch new technology and expand to markets in Asia and the Middle East. The Vestiaire platform allows users to not only buy and sell items but also communicate with one another — a feature that differentiates it from other leading vintage luxury services. [ business of fashion ] Druva Joins Unicorn Club With $130 Mn Funding Led By Viking Global InvestorsWith an office in Pune, cloud data protection firm Druva has raised $130 Mn in a funding round led by Viking Global Investors. With this, the company will join unicorn club at a valuation of over $1 Bn. [ inc42 ] AI start-up hoping to put lawyers out of business wins global awardAn Indian start-up developing AI for contract management has been named the winner of a global start-up competition. The Get in the Ring start-up competition was held earlier this week at the Global Meetup 2019 event in Berlin, with thousands of start-ups from more than 80 countries taking part. Its organisers revealed the winners as SpotDraft from India, Dynaxion from the Netherlands and Fiskaly from Austria. [ Silicon Republic ] Chicago Startups Raise More VC Funding Despite Public FlameoutsChicago, across many dimensions, is a city that’s second to none. With apologies to Milwaukee, Detroit, Toronto, and those averse to puns about the Great Lakes, Chicago’s urban lakefront is truly superior, as is the restaurant scene. A crown on the nation’s breadbasket, it’s through the city’s exchanges that the world trades its agricultural commodities and financial derivative products, like options and swaps. [ Crunchbase ] Slack's stock soars to rarified air after 2019's latest unicorn listingEnterprise messaging platform Slack has gone from its primitive Tiny Speck days to hanging with the big boys like Lyft and Zoom Video. Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing UpJerry Colonna‘s book, Reboot, came out this week. He had given me the manuscript to read so many months ago that I had to go back and read it again before I could write about it. So I bought the book yesterday and read it again over the last twenty four hours. AVC regulars don’t need any introduction to Jerry. I’ve been writing about him, citing him, and telling stories about him since the very start of this blog. Jerry is my friend, my former partner and co-founder of the first business I ever started, Flatiron Partners, and one of the best people on planet earth. Jerry’s book is about two things that are really the same thing, himself and his work to help people, mostly entrepreneurs, discover themselves. [ AVC ] THE SAAS VALUATION ENVIRONMENT IN MID-2019Every six months or so, I take a look at how the public markets are valuing next-generation software companies. There’s been quite a bit of volatility over the last five years, and this update is no exception. As of mid-June, the public markets value software companies at all-time highs. E29 "Angel": Dave Morin, Slow Ventures: 250+ investments, building Facebook, Path, mental health-PT1E29: "Angel" podcast: Dave Morin of Slow Ventures shares insights from 250+ investments (Slack, Pinterest, Twitter), architecting Facebook & building Path, promoting mental health with Sunrise, combatting the internet's true tax of depression & how founders can get help - Part 1 A. Richard Newton Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series - Scott KuporScott Kupor, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author, Secrets of Sand Hill Road (6/2019) has seen it all. He'll offer firsthand experiences and insider advice for every entrepreneur trying to secure venture capital funding. Scott has been with Andreessen Horowitz since its inception in 2009 and has overseen the firm’s growth from $300 million in assets to over $7 billion. The fireside chat format is moderated by 1st year student Rishi Modi and SCET chief learning officer Ken Singer. E948: HackerOne CEO Mårten Mickos grows bug bounty army to 400k by providing a path to hack for goodE948: HackerOne CEO Mårten Mickos shares insights on how he grew his bug bounty army to 400,000 strong by providing a path to hack for good, most common security vulnerabilities, worst security breaches, hacking the Pentagon, protecting the open source that unites us & scaling a company culture that defaults to disclosure |