Why Vinod Khosla thinks radiologists still practicing in 10 years will be ‘causing deaths’Doubling down on comments he’s made throughout the years regarding AI’s potential impact on the medical industry, legendary Silicon Valley investor and Sun Microsystems founder Vinod Khosla said on Wednesday that he believes “any radiologist who plans to practice in 10 years will be killing patients every day,” because machine-powered solutions will have advanced to such a point that they’ll be far more effective than professional human practitioners. [ Tech Crunch ] Scooter Startup Bird Buys Struggling Competitor ScootElectric scooter-rental startup Bird Rides Inc. has reached a deal to acquire Scoot Networks Inc., a company that also operates a fleet of shared mopeds and standing scooters. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. People familiar with the matter said Scoot is being acquired for a significantly lower price than the approximately $70 million it was last valued at in 2017. The people said the price is closer to $25 million. It was both a cash and stock deal, said one of the people. [ WSJ ] $1B+ Market Map: The World’s 361 Unicorn Companies In One InfographicOur market map highlights which markets boast the most private companies with billion-dollar valuations. There are 361 private companies around the world valued at $1B+, all featured on our real-time unicorn tracker. These companies are collectively worth over $1.1T and have raised a combined total of nearly $275B. Last year, 120 new companies joined the global unicorn club — a 67% increase from the 71 new unicorns in 2017. [ CB Insights ] Photo of Silicon Valley tech executives doctored to include women: reportA photo of Silicon Valley tech executives is taking heat after two women were photoshopped to be added to the group, BuzzFeed News reported Wednesday. The photo of the "tech titans," was published by GQ last week and featured LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston at a gathering in a small Italian village. The group was reportedly visiting luxury designer Brunello Cucinelli, BuzzFeed reported. [ The Hill ] Burgers, bubbles and Beyond Meat's wild ride[Over the past month and a half, few stocks have sizzled like Beyond Meat, a maker of vegan burgers and other meatless proteins that conducted a VC-backed IPO at the start of May. A steady climb in share price continued almost unabated, and the company's market cap continued to balloon. $300M And An IPO: What’s Up In CybersecurityToday, two cybersecurity companies made waves in the worlds of both tech and business, raising huge sums for their companies and reaching new thresholds of corporate maturity. One raised a pile of capital, pushing its worth over the psychologically-important $1 billion mark. And the other raised a pile of capital, going public in the process. [ Crunchbase ] No One Knows What Anything Is WorthCrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, priced its shares last night above its raised range. By choosing a $34 per-share IPO price, CrowdStrike, which raised nearly a half-billion dollars, got itself a greater than $6.6 billion valuation.[ Crunchbase ] SoftBank Leads $300 Million Investment in Brazil’s GympassSoftBank Group Corp. is leading a $300 million investment in a Brazilian startup that makes gym workouts more accessible for corporate employees. Gympass, founded in 2012, provides monthly passes to more than 2,000 companies so they can help pay for fitness programs for workers. It has a network of about 47,000 gyms that offer activities ranging from yoga and ballet to high-intensity training and martial arts. [ Bloomberg ] KKR leads $300M investment in phishing training company KnowBe4You might not have known about KnowBe4 before, but you should now, because this morning the company announced a massive $300 million investment led by private equity firm KKR. The deal is based on a $1 billion valuation. Existing investors Elephant and TenEleven Ventures also participated in the round. [ Tech Crunch ] Techstars Seattle leader Chris DeVore to step down, will focus on Founders’ Co-op venture capital firmAfter nearly five years leading Techstars Seattle as managing director, Chris DeVoreis stepping down on July 1.In an interview with GeekWire, DeVore said he’ll continue to stay involved with the accelerator and its portfolio companies. But he’s ready for someone else to take over as managing director so he can focus on running Founders’ Co-op, the Seattle venture capital firm that recently raised a $25 million fund, its largest ever. [ inc42 ] BetterUp, a career and life coaching platform for employees, raises $103 millionSan Francisco-based career coaching startup BetterUp has raised $103 million in a series C round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Threshold Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Tenaya Capital, Freestyle Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank. [ Venture Beat ] Sowing the seeds for a vertical farming revolutionInfarm has secured an €88 million (about $100 million) investment in an Atomico-led round, with existing backers including Cherry Ventures, TriplePoint Capital and Balderton Capital supporting the fundraise, per reports. The Berlin-based urban farming platform has earmarked the capital for R&D investments, as well as its expansion in Europe and the US, where it is reportedly in discussions with supermarkets and restaurant chains. The company combines vertical farming with data-driven remote-controlled maintenance and claims to be around 400 times more efficient than soil-based agriculture, while farming without pesticides. [ Pitchbook ] ADC Therapeutics bumps up series E by $76M, prepares lead drug for 2020 filingADC Therapeutics has expanded its series E by $76 million, bringing the financing to $276 million and its total haul to $531 million. The cash will advance the company’s pipeline of pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD)-based antibody-drug conjugates, including an FDA submission for its lead program in 2020. [ Fierce Biotech] Startups Swarm To Build Bee-Based BusinessesBaby plants aren’t delivered by stork; they fly in on the hairy little legs of bees. Several upstart companies are offering pollination as a service, deploying boxes of bees on-prem to help farmers increase crop yields. One of them is called BeeFlow, which develops bioengineered food for bees. The company’s website says its products “can enhance their immune system and teach them to pollinate specific targeted crops.“ It claims to deliver between 20 and 90 percent gains in crop yields. BeeFlow has raised $450,000 to date, according to Crunchbase data. [ Crunchbase ] Why AI is making tech giants like Google and Amazon even harder to beatBe sure to check out an executive summary of PitchBook's Emerging Tech Research report on AI & machine learning. Taking on big tech. The issue is becoming so popular it's bringing together political adversaries like Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi. Even Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz. Last week, the House Judiciary Committee announced it would be launching a bipartisan antitrust investigation into companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. [ Pitchbook ] Coinbase Strategy Teardown: How Coinbase Grew Into The King Midas Of Crypto Doing $1B In RevenueTo sustain the cryptocraze, Coinbase will need to foster real applications of cryptoassets — and not just speculation. Coinbase is the most popular consumer-facing cryptoasset exchange in the United States. Operating since 2011, the company allows users to buy, sell, and store cryptoassets, like bitcoin and ethereum. [ CB Insights ] E945 Scaling Your Startup "Delighting Your Customers": NPS, PMF, focus, feedback, interviews, toolsE945: Scaling Your Startup, "Delighting Your Customers": Talking to customers, tracking NPS & product-market fit, maintaining focus, getting feedback, tactics & tools for customer success with Jason Calacanis & LAUNCH Managing Directors Jason Demant & Jacqui Deegan -- E9 of 10-ep miniseries TF3 | Venture Capital Outlook on Blockchain | Anthony Pompliano, Alex Shin, Rui ZhangListen to Anthony Pompliano, Alex Shin, and Rui Zhang talk venture capital outlook on blockchain at TF3 on March 28th 2019 moderated by Jonathan Blanco Tracy Young on Scaling PlanGrid to 400+ People with YC Partner Kat Manalac
Tracy Young is a cofounder and the CEO of PlanGrid. PlanGrid makes mobile construction productivity software. They were acquired by Autodesk in 2018 and were part of YC’s Winter 2012 batch. My Company Raised Nearly $500 Million. It Has Taught Me When to Say 'No' to FundingShortly before a multi-million-dollar deal in one of Kabbage's fundraising rounds, my co-founder Rob Frohwein began to have doubts about our potential investor. The signals were subtle but telling. The investors insisted that we sign the document before they did, which telegraphed a simple truth: They didn't trust us to follow through on the agreement. We really did need the money, and securing the venture deal was dependent on the investor's participation. The final straw was a dispute about a signature page held in escrow. At the eleventh hour, Rob went with his gut--and I fully supported it. [ INC ] Curated by Venture Pulse Team. Find us on : [ Venturepulse.org, CrunchBase, AngelList ] |