VCs say too few "unicorn" IPOs is causing liquidity crunchLaw firm Lowenstein Sandler recently hosted dozens of venture capitalists and limited partners in San Francisco to discuss some of the latest trends in their business. Axios sat in on a discussion about "unicorns"—startups valued at more than $1 billion—and late-stage investing. Highlights:
Silicon Valley is hot on a new cryptocurrency that could become worth 100 times its current valueEther, the unit of cryptocurrency used on the Ethereum blockchain, has given investors a wild ride lately. Its value more than doubled in May, peaked in June at more than $400 an ether, and then lost more than half that value by early this week. That may sound like a bubble bursting. But some investors are still optimistic and are prepared to ride it out. Aaron Batalion, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, said he expected to see more 50% price jumps in ether, with big returns down the road. "Over the next five to 10 years, I believe it will be worth 10 or 100 times its current value," Batalion said. Jason Calacanis, an early investor in startups including Robinhood and Uber, recently tweeted: "I think I need to own some #Etherium -- what % of net worth would you allocate to crypto as a 46 year old with stable income?" [ Business Insider ] Real estate venture firm Fifth Wall launches an early-stage acceleratorThe venture capital firm Fifth Wall, an investor in construction and real estate-focused startups that is backed by some of the country’s largest real estate companies, is expanding into early-stage investing with the launch of a new accelerator program. For the firm’s co-founder and co-managing partner, Brendan Wallace, the accelerator is an opportunity to reach out to companies when the firm’s input can make more of a difference. Because the company’s backers include some of the nation’s largest real estate and construction firms, Fifth Wall has deep insights into which types of technologies will be most interesting to the industry and can play the role of kingmaker, according to Wallace. [ Tech Crunch ] Another VC resigns after accusations of 'misconduct'Frank Artale, a former Microsoft executive and co-founder of venture capital firm Ignition Partners, has resigned at the firm's request, following two allegations of inappropriate conduct. No specifics were provided of either incident. From a statement made last night by Ignition, which has offices in Bellevue, Wash. (where Artale was based) and Silicon Valley: "We took this serious and near-immediate step, in part, due to this complaint, combined with a third-party accusation of inappropriate conduct by Mr. Artale in 2016. At that time, we engaged outside counsel and conducted an exhaustive investigation into the event. While the investigation did not substantiate the allegations, it did indicate that he demonstrated poor judgment, which we addressed with him. Following that report, we retained an expert consultant to conduct sensitivity and anti-harassment training." [ Axios ] Tovala founder & CEO David Rabie intros smart, cloud-connected oven to cook meals w/smartphoneFood is one of the hardest spaces that any founder can operate in. Food should be innovated upon, and we should be having many more services and products that make our life more delightful. But, we’ve seen more failures than successes here in Silicon Valley. Our guest today, Tovala founder and CEO, believes he will crack the space with his cloud-connected “smart oven” that cooks ready-made meals in under 30 minutes with the scan of a code and the touch of a button. In fact, Tovala is launching today, July 11. Join us as David shares his approach to funding and scaling, his thoughts on the Amazon and Whole Foods acquisition, how he defines success, and more. Technologist, Humanist, Venture Capitalist. Josh Elman on why human insights are the key to the next great technology platformJosh Elman knows what people want. A visionary product manager who helped grow some of the most prominent startups in Silicon Valley into the juggernauts they are today, Elman seems to have a sixth sense for zeroing in on what’s next. He was an early product manager at both LinkedIn and Twitter, and during his tenure, each of the social networks grew their user bases by 10x. He also helped launch Facebook Connect, and for the last several years has been a general partner at Venture Capital firm Greylock Partners, where he invests in new social networking and media startups. He serves on the boards of new social apps including Medium, House Party, and Musical.ly. So what makes Elman such a soothsayer when it comes to how we connect and communicate? The 5 most valuable startups in the US At a $9.4B market capitalization and a $1B 2017 revenue run-rate, Dropbox would have a 9.4x price to sales multiple, double that of Box at its IPO. WeWork’s latest round, a massive $760 million funding reported earlier this week, has increased the valuation of the co-working space provider by about $4 billion. With VC-backed companies crossing the $1 billion threshold at a pace of around one per week, it’s easy to take in a jump of that magnitude without batting an eye. But let’s put the $4 billion increase to WeWork's valuation in context with a few points of comparison:
Meanwhile, WeWork’s fresh funding has pushed its valuation to more than $21 billion and established it as the third most valuable startup based in the US. We've put together a list of the five most valuable VC-backed American companies, created using current PitchBook data. Making Money While Doing Good: Why I Joined XFactorErica Brescia of Bitnami and XFactor Ventures With the United Slate, Sam Altman presents a political vision for California… and the U.S.As the country grapples with income inequality, a lack of affordable housing, and a potential labor crisis brought on by technological advancements like artificial intelligence and automation, Y Combinator president Sam Altman is launching a new initiative to try and create political solutions in his home state and potentially the nation. For the past year or more, Altman has been dabbling in this realm with political experiments on the local and national level. The president of the wildly successful accelerator — which has backed startups like Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe — has launched a basic minimum income initiative in Oakland, traveled across the country to take its political pulse, and toyed with the idea of running for Governor in California. Those efforts have culminated in Altman’s United Slate for California and, potentially, America. The new initiative, which Altman launched today, is a combination of a political platform and a call for candidates that the 32-year-old tech millionaire can support in their bids for governor, lieutenant governor, and Congress. [ Tech Crunch ] |