Unboxing Stitch Fix’s S-1When Zuiily went public in 2013, it sparked a resurgence of interest in an otherwise lagging e-commerce market. Quickly trading up to reach an $8B market cap — valuing the company at over 10 times revenues — Zulily became the poster child of the flash sales boom. Over the ensuing months and years, concepts such as curated commerce, conversational commerce, flash sales, contextual commerce, digitally native vertical brands, subscription commerce and assisted commerce became a frequent part of the startup lexicon. [ Tech Crunch ] THE ARMY OF SILICON VALLEY ACTIVISTS TRYING TO ELECT DEMSRYAN KO SPENDS his work days bouncing between conference calls and strategy meetings. But Ko—a 28-year-old MIT-trained McKinsey & Company consultant in San Francisco—is also a political junkie. So last year, when Donald Trump’s electoral chances started looking nontrivial, he dropped everything and headed to Virginia for three months to volunteer as a regional director for Hillary Clinton. She won the state by more than 5 percentage points, one blue state in the sea of Southern red. (Ko’s LinkedIn profile reads: #ImStillWithHer.) Then he had to deal with a massive post-election hangover. “I come back to my liberal bubble in the Bay Area in December, start my white-collar job on the 48th floor of the second-tallest building in San Francisco, with my five-dollar cup of Philz Coffee,” he says. “And I wondered: ‘How do I stay involved?’ ” [ Wired ] CapHorn Invest raises $150 million fund to invest in B2B startupsFrench VC firm CapHorn Invest recently closed a new $150 million fund (€130 million). Around 250 CEOs and executives of big established companies invested in the fund as limited partners. This is CapHorn Invest’s second fund. The firm plans to focus on Series A rounds, from $600,000 to $6 million (€500,000 to €5 million). What’s interesting about this VC firm is that it focuses on B2B companies that try to disrupt old and dusty industries. Each partner is focusing on one vertical in particular. CapHorn Invest is also looking at companies that can sign deals with its LPs. As long as it’s a double opt-in model, it could help startups find new clients. [ Tech Crunch ] Through Silicon Valley eyes: the Detroit differenceDetroit and Silicon Valley are separated by 2,500 miles of middle America. There's also an ocean between them in the way they think about business and success. More than a dozen West Coast venture capitalists flew east last week to visit Detroit as part of a new mission led by Michigan Economic Development Corp.'s mobility arm PlanetM to bridge the divide. Gathered around a table Tuesday at the The Peterboro restaurant, the California investors exchanged photos comparing the proximity of California wildfires to their homes and, between bites of beef lo mein and curry whitefish, debated the future of mobility and Detroit's role in it. [ Crains Detroit ] New venture capitalists find strength in numbersThe large number of new venture capital funds may hint at broader structural changes in the startup ecosystem, but for the young and eager partners at the helm of many of these funds, all the rush of money means is more competition. Ian Rountree, the twenty something captain at the helm of Cantos Ventures, an SF-based micro-fund, is characteristic of a new breed of venture capitalists in tech — a group of small funds looking to go toe-to-toe with some of the valley’s most entrenched seed funds like First Round Capital and SV Angel. Rountree is experimenting with a strategy so antithetical to the venture ethos that most of the perceived tier one funds wouldn’t even consider it. Alongside about thirty other investors, Rountree is operating what amounts to a decentralized venture capital fund over, wait for it…Slack. [ TechCrunch ] The Rising Stakes In SaaSLast week, I participated in two discussions about the changes in the SaaS world. I believe they are fundamental. The most important force shaping the industry today is competition. The level of competition in many core SaaS segments is intense. Why? The SaaS era is about 20 years old. Salesforce was founded in 1999. Since then, many major categories of software have been saasified. Venture capitalists have financed many of those businesses. Over that 20 year period, annual SaaS investment has increased 20x, peaking in 2014 at $7B. [ Tom Tunguz ] GitHub’s scandalized ex-CEO returns with ChatterbugTranslation earbuds might eliminate some utilitarian reasons to know a language, but if you want to understand jokes, read poetry, or fall in love in a foreign tongue, you’ll have to actually learn it. Unfortunately, products like Rosetta Stone leave people feeling burned after claiming the process should be easy while never helping you practice talking with a real native speaker. You know, the skill you actually want. Just memorizing vocabulary doesn’t make you fluent. [ TechCrunch ] Several women accuse tech pundit Robert Scoble of sexual assault, harassmentRobert Scoble, a longtime fixture of the Silicon Valley punditocracy, has been publicly accused of sexual harassment and assault by multiple women. In a public Facebook post on Friday, Scoble wrote that he was "deeply sorry to the people I’ve caused pain to. I know I have behaved in ways that were inappropriate." "I know that apologies are not enough and that they don’t erase the wrongs of the past or the present," he continued. "The only thing I can do to really make a difference now is to prove, through my future behavior, and my willingness to listen, learn and change, that I want to become part of the solution going forward." [ Arstechnica ] The Theory of Tokenism and Token Economics with James SowersJames Sowers who is an angel investor, crypto capitalist, and an early pioneer into initial coin offerings. He has participated in token sales of two ICO unicorns, and he is also currently advising several upcoming token sales. Thank you to James for taking the time to answer some questions below! [ Huffington Post ] Experiments in Art and Technology with Artforum Editor Michelle KuoLyft hires Katie Dill as VP of DesignLyft has hired Katie Dill as its new Vice President of Design, overseeing design in a broad sense across the company, covering user experience, product and more. Dill joins from Airbnb, where she was Director of Experience and helped usher in the peer-to-peer rental business’s new brand identity. Prior to her time at Airbnb, Dill was a Creative Director at renowned firm frog design in San Francisco. She came to design in a somewhat roundabout way, she told me in an interview, having started off in college with a Bachelor’s degree in History. [ Tech Crunch ] ActionIQ raises $30 million from Andreessen Horowitz for marketing activation platformSingapore Venture Capital Surges as Startups Seek Room to Grow |