Fasten your seatbelt, Peter Thiel, it’s going to be bumpy for Trump in Silicon Valley!Muslim ban today, gay rights tomorrow, encryption after that — techies are going to have to get used to a very political atmosphere fast. [ Re/code ]As Sequoia upped investments abroad, other Valley VCs scaled backSilicon Valley’s most consistently successful old-guard venture firm now makes the majority of its investments outside the United States. Sequoia Capital, the storied early investor behind such iconic U.S. technology companies as Google, Cisco, Apple, and LinkedIn, has increasingly being setting its sights abroad. The firm invested in 51 funding rounds for non-U.S. companies in 2016, according to Crunchbase data. That compares to 45 rounds for U.S. companies last year. [ Tech Crunch ] AirTree, Australia’s largest VC, lures two new tech players from overseas After a spending while on a sort of technological ‘walkabout’, Australia is experiencing something of a mini-tech boom. For a long time the biggest thing you could name out of the country was Atlassian. Now other startups are joining the roster, and VC investment is ticking up. The latest sign of this is the news that local VC AirTree Ventures has added UK-based VC James Cameron, formerly of Accel Partners, to its team. [ Tech Crunch ] The Software Startup Markets Raising The Most Capital In 2017Over the last seven years, software startup investing has changed quite a bit. In 2010, classic SaaS was booming, the benefits of a subscription model were finally becoming clear to the public markets and the mass-market. Since then, many other types of software businesses have been created in new categories like agriculture technology and robotics. Which of these markets are growing the fastest for investment dollars? The chart above breaks out 14 different software categories and shows the amount of dollars invested in each category indexed to 2010 levels. In other words, if machine learning startups raised the same amount of money in 2016 is 2010, the chart would show a value of 1. If those startups raised twice the amount of capital then the figure would be 2. [ http://tomtunguz.com/ ] Some tech executives are matching ACLU donations amid immigration ban protestsTech executives are offering to match donations to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) following the enactment of an executive order banning entry to refugees and visa holders from seven countries. As multiple executives and CEOs of technology companies have come out in opposition of what’s essentially being called an immigration ban, some have chosen to do so by offering to match individuals’ donations on Twitter. Early Twitter investor Chris Sacca, for example, was an early one to start the trend and offered to match donations to those who would direct message or respond with receipts. [ TC ] A number of executives also followed:
Uber to create $3M legal defense fund for drivers affected by “wrong and unjust” banUber says it will create $3 million defense fund to help cover legal, immigration and translation costs for drivers affected by Trump’s immigration and travel ban, which Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick calls “wrong and unjust” in a new note shared to Facebook and Uber’s newsroom. The post outlines in more detail Uber’s commitment to assist drivers impacted by the executive order, which Kalanick made Saturday in a prior post. The original post by Kalanick noted that the company was reaching out to employees affected, and working to identify and render aid to drivers affected by the measures. It also noted that Kalanick would be bringing his concerns regarding the measures to the attention of Trump at a meeting of the White House economic advisory group on which Kalanick sits happening this coming Friday. Sunday’s statement is much stronger in terms of criticizing the immigration measures directly, and not just detailing steps to lessen their impact on Uber’s employees and drivers. [ Tech Crunch ] Airbnb offers free housing to people stranded by immigration orderIn the midst of chaos caused by President Donald Trump’s executive order, which stranded refugees, students and green card holders in American airports, Airbnb is offering housing to those affected. The executive order was countered with legal action and protests, which allowed some of the people detained in airports to be released. But it’s still not clear how Customs and Border Protection will enforce Trump’s order, and travelers may still find themselves turned away from U.S.-bound flights or detained upon arrival. |