1.
Setting politics aside, Sequoia raises $3.4 billion for US and China investments
Noted Silicon Valley venture capital fund Sequoia Capital has raised nearly $1 billion for later-stage U.S. investments and roughly $2.4 billion for venture and growth deals in China, according to paperwork filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The firm, famous for its investments in U.S. companies like Google, Instagram, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Snap and WhatsApp, is also an investor in some of China’s most successful
startups. [ Tech Crunch ]
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2.
Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin Stepping Down at Alphabet
3.
Ray Dalio: Principles, the Economic Machine, Artificial Intelligence & the Arc of Life | AI Podcast
Ray Dalio is the founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest and most successful investment firms that is famous for the principles of radical truth and transparency that underlie its culture. Ray is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with ideas that extend far beyond the specifics of how he made that wealth. His ideas, applicable to everyone, are brilliantly summarized in his book Principles. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
4.
J Ventures Fund Unveiled
The fund raised most of the commitments for the first fund from Jewish and Israeli investors in Silicon Valley. Among its limited partners are the Lauder family, Isaac Applbaum, Amir Faintuch, Alon Girmonsky, and senior executives from Google and Facebook. Most portfolio companies of the first fund were U.S.-based. They include Afresh Technologies Inc., in which J Ventures invested jointly with Eric Schmidt and Dror Berman’s Innovation Endeavors; Hourly, in which it invested jointly with Haim Sadger and Aya Peterburg’s S Capital; Kameleon Security, in which it invested jointly with Pinhas Buchris’s State of Mind Ventures; and Mdgo Ltd., a joint investment with Hyundai and
Bessemer Ventures. [ calcalistech ]
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5.
Technology won’t make everyone a billionaire, but it shouldn’t leave them poorer, either
In this edited extract from their new new book, Innovation + Equality: How to Create a Future That Is More Star Trek Than Terminator (MIT Press) Dr Andrew Leigh and Professor Joshua Gans, explore the choices to be made as technology changes our lives for both better and worse. Across many countries, inequality is higher than it has been in generations. Societies are more technologically advanced than ever. [ Startup Daily ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
6.
Fronted, from former Bud, Monzo and Apple employees, wants to make life easier for renters
Fronted, a new London-based startup aiming to make life easier for renters, is breaking cover today. The company, founded by Jamie Campbell, Simon Vans-Colina, and Anthony Mann — former employees at Bud, Monzo and Apple, respectively — will launch early next year with a fintech product to help renters finance their rental deposits. [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
7.
VC confidence shaken by unicorn shortfalls as year winds down
8.
Softbank to Face Valuation Cut in OneConnect IPO
Masayoshi Son, head of Japanese conglomerate Softbank, is facing another valuation cut in one of his investments. Ping An Insurance’s OneConnect Financial Technology Co. launched its $500 million U.S. initial public offering on Tuesday at a much reduced valuation compared with its last funding round in which SoftBank participated in 2018. This latest sale comes just a couple of months after the investment powerhouse saw the value of one of its most high-profile investments, WeWork, tumble from $47 billion to less than $8 billion. [ Bloomberg ]
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9.
E1006 Farmer's Fridge CEO Luke Saunders makes healthy food vending machines & crafts menus with data
Farmer's Fridge CEO & Founder Luke Saunders is creating a connected network of vending machines offering fresh & healthy meals, shares insights on creating a restaurant-like experience, solving food-supply chain issues, capitalizing on grassroots marketing & real-world virality & using sales data to create the most appealing menu
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10.
Carlyle’s Goyal on Finding Opportunities in Clean Energy
Pooja Goyal, partner and head of renewable and sustainable energy at the Carlyle Group, discusses transitioning to renewable sources of energy and mitigating the impact of climate change. She speaks with Bloomberg’s Alix Steel on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas.” [ Bloomberg ] Checkout
15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
11.
Mobile Games and Ronaldo Make 39-Year-Old a Billionaire
Singapore’s newest billionaire is a former government employee who rode mobile sensation Free Fire into the ranks of the ultra-wealthy this week. The battle royale or fight-to-the-death title distributed by Sea Ltd. ranked among the five most downloaded games on the Apple and Google app stores for three straight quarters this year and has amassed $1 billion in adjusted revenue since launching in 2017. That propelled a tripling in Sea’s market value and the fortune of co-founder Gang Ye, a Carnegie Mellon University alum who’s worked for Wilmar International Ltd. and Singapore’s Economic Development
Board. [ Bloomberg ]
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12.
Reflections from Four Decades in Venture and What’s Next: How Will the 2020s Impact the Venture Capital Industry?
Your startup’s fate depends on if and when there is growth in the market you’re addressing. I know two of these scenarios well. My first startup, reMail, was an email productivity startup in 2009, which fell neatly into #2: Email was a saturated market, and we were only able to carve out a small niche. With Namo Media, we hit the jackpot of scenario #4 and landed in the native ads space just as the space experienced rapid growth in 2013 and everyone was looking for new products. [ Medium ]
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13.
Indonesian fintech startup Halofina snags pre-Series A funding
Indonesian financial management startup Halofina has raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A funding round led by Mandiri Capital Indonesia and backed by Finch Capital. The deal counts as the company’s second round of funding, having previously received backing from Singapore-based Plug and Play, and Rekanext as well as Indonesian firm Radika in late 2018. Founded in 2017 by Adjie Wicaksana and financial industry veteran Eko Pratomo, Halofina is an AI-based personal financial planning application that helps users — largely the millennial generation and middle-upper income group — manage their finances and build investment strategies. [ Deal Street Asia ]
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14.
Binance Acquires Beijing-Based Blockchain Data Startup DappReview
Binance has acquired DappReview, an evaluation platform that offers data-driven research and advertising services to blockchain-based decentralized applications (dapps). The acquisition of Beijing-based DappReview will help the world's leading exchange by volume to further develop its existing dapps and create new blockchain use cases, said Viktor Radchenko, founder at Binance's Trust Wallet. "In the near future, Trust Wallet will integrate DappReview APIs to provide
easy access to explore new dapps and crypto games, as well as more insight into DeFi [decentralized finance] services, analytics and usage," Radchenko said in an interview. [ coindesk ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
15.
Silicon Valley's brand of philanthropy
Silicon Valley's new, moneyed class has a very different view of philanthropy, often inspired by "effective altruism"— using data and analysis to choose causes and approaches that will yield the most impact. Why it matters: This brand of philanthropy is focused on large problems — like access to education and issues in the developing world — and can come at the expense of local community needs and other more traditional areas of
giving (like the arts). "Effective altruism" calls for using cost-benefit analysis to back nonprofits that can show the most measurable and demonstrable results. And in Silicon Valley, philanthropy is increasingly expected to be a two-way street — especially one that comes with clear data. - “Philanthropy is not
altruism,” says Shannon Farley, co-founder of Fast Forward, an accelerator for tech nonprofits.
- “We talk [to donors] about philanthropy as a way to get skills or exposure to issues" they may not know about, adds Farley.
- Her organization spends a fair amount of time helping nonprofits show how each dollar makes a difference. [ Axios ]
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16.
Gift Guide: TechCrunch writers recommend their favorite reads from 2019
2019 offered a blistering catalog of books to peruse, on top of the prodigious publishing schedules of the past few years (if you think we are at Peak TV, you might want to check out your local bookstore for a counterpoint). We already checked in with Extra Crunch readers and did a sort of reader’s choice selection of their twelve favorites, but I also asked our TechCrunch editorial staff about what they read this year and would recommend. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
they came back with a mix of books (and audiobooks!) on tech, startups, biographies, graphic novels, and true crime fiction like the proper nerds we all are over here. [ Tech Ceunch ]
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17.
Commerce Ventures Raises $60 Million Fund III to Continue Investing in Retail and Financial Services Sectors
Commerce Ventures, a leading venture firm focused on technology innovations in the fintech and commerce ecosystems, today announced it has closed its third fund with over $60 million in committed capital. The fund’s limited partners are comprised of strategic individuals who have run some of the largest companies in retail, payments, banking and insurance. Corporate investors include one of the largest payment networks in the world, one of the largest insurance companies in the US, one of the most respected banks in the US, and the leading providers of financial technology to banks, consumers and small businesses. [ webwire ]
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18.
Podcorn connects advertisers with podcasters and manages sponsored messages in podcasts
Podcorn, the service that connects brands with podcasters to acquire in-broadcast sponsored time (not pre- or post-roll advertising), is officially launching its services today. “For brands, the benefit is that we are scaling the discovery of relevant podcasters of all sizes and making it possible to work with hundreds of really targeted podcasters within their niche at scale,” writes Podcorn co-founder Agnes Kozera. “Historically, if you look at
programmatic pre-roll ads in video, programmatic wasn’t enough to sustain the creator ecosystem in terms of revenue and a lot of audiences skip those ads. And importantly, only a small portion of top creators end up making a sustainable income from programmatic because it is strictly based on impressions so smaller creators with niche but very engaged audiences don’t generate a sufficient amount of revenue.” [ Tech Crunch ] Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our
platform.
19.
Nuveeen CEO Adnani on the Road Ahead for Responsible Investing
Vijay Adnani, Chief Executive Officer, Nuveen and Sir Ronald Cohen, Chairman of the Global Steering Committee for Impact Investment and The Portland Trust, speak about what’s next for responsible investing with Bloomberg Financial Correspondent Sonali Basak at the Global Responsible Investing Forum in New York. Checkout 15K+ Venture Capital Data on our platform.
20.
What Page and Brin Stepping Down Means for the Future of Alphabet
Gene Munster, Loup Ventures partner, reacts to Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepping down from their roles as chief executive officer and president of parent Alphabet Inc. He speaks with Bloomberg's Taylor Riggs and Alistair Barr on "Bloomberg Technology."
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