Skyscanner CEO discusses why he just sold his company for $1.7 billionBig news emerged from M&A land earlier this morning, when travel search giant Skyscanner revealed it had been acquired by one of China’s biggest online travel companies, Ctrip, in a deal worth £1.4 billion (USD$1.74 billion). Founded out of Edinburgh, Scotland in 2003, Skyscanner is one of the world’slargest travel search engines, by traffic, with 50 million monthly users. It has also been an entirely independent company, unlike fellow travel search giants — such as Kayak, which was acquired by Priceline in 2012. And it had taken on very little outside investment before it finally sucked up £128 million (USD$192 million) late last year — an event that elevated the startup into the limelight as a “unicorn.” [ Venture Beat ] How Design Startup Canva Used Social Proof To Get Valued At $345MDecision making is a social exercise. This may seem counterintuitive for those that identify with independent rationality, but our brains are hardwired to seek cues and indicators from our environment. We look to the actions of other people as a way of evaluating the most appropriate behaviour for ourselves. This is known as social proof and can be impactful on growing a successful startup. In the context of Canva, a DIY design platform from Australia recently valued at $345 million, this psychology has helped legitimise the brand’s credibility. [ Forbes ] Venture capitalists and the search for moonshotsIn Silicon Valley, there are companies that prefer to target low-hanging fruit, problems that may not be significant but that have a high likelihood of gaining traction quickly. But a few are bucking this trend, instead opting to look at the bigger picture and developing technology that can genuinely solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. [ Venture Beat ] This is how you persuade a VC to give you millionsHow do you persuade a venture capitalist to give you money? Traditionally, startup founders prepare a deck of slides and make a formal presentation to a VC fund in the hopes of getting an investment. But it turns out that "the pitch" and "the deck" are only a small part of what VCs really think about before they decide to write someone a cheque for thousands or millions of pounds. They are often more concerned with how "intense" you are about the problem you're trying to solve, whether you've got a good story to tell ... and whether you're a jerk or not. Silicon Valley Is Hard At Work Solving The Wealth Inequality ProblemInequality is a very visible problem in Silicon Valley. We have incredible wealth and incredible poverty side by side. This is, of course, true across the nation. Part of the solution is making the $470B we spend nationally on government safety net programs work better, and our contribution to that is bringing “Silicon Valley” practices of starting with users and iterating rapidly based on user data to the delivery of the safety net. Of course, these are widely used practices that are not specific to any geography, but they are characteristic of tech startups, so it’s a convenient if imprecise term. [ Forbes ] Private equity, venture capital deals fall 30% to $13.6 billion in Jan-Sept 2016: ReportPrivate equity and venture capital investment inflows into the country declined 30 per cent in the first three quarters of 2016, driven by fewer deals in the consumer technology segment, a report said. "Deal volume decreased by nearly 25 per cent to 764 during the first three quarter of 2016 as against 1,032 in the same period in 2015, while deal value decreased at a steeper rate of 30 per cent to $13.6 billion from $19.1 billion last year," Bain & Company said in its report. Aussies in Silicon Valley start founders networkA group of Australian start-up entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley have founded a networking group aimed at supporting local entrepreneurs who make the move to the US, with the hopes of growing the ecosystem to have a group valuation of $100 billion by 2026. The Aussie Founders Network (AFN) has been launched by Silicon Beach founder Elias Bizannes, Accelo chief executive Geoff McQueen, CloudPeeps founder Kate Kendall, 5th Finger founder Patrick Collins and Phaedon Stough, founder of MitchelLake and Innovation Bay. [ Afr.com ] VENTURE CAPITAL JOBS |