2018 VC investment into crypto startups set to surpass 2017 tallyFor months now, much of the media attention on the crypto space has been directed at ebbs and flows in the price of bitcoin on one side, and whiz-bang ICOs on the other. The price of the most valuable cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (specifically the BTC chain), has backpedaled significantly from highs set in December 2017. [ Tech Crunch ] When venture capital becomes vanity capitalI’ve written a lot about the benefits of efficient entrepreneurship. I’ve explained my view conceptually, tried to illustrate the mechanics of how excess capital kills promising companies, and shared data from 71 IPOs that demonstrates that even in success, more capital raised is not correlated with better outcomes. Just in case all of that was too conceptual, this blog post is designed to appeal to another emotion—greed. [ Tech Crunch ] The Lawyer Who Wants to Make Silicon Valley a Safe Space for ConservativesOn a recent night in San Francisco, the woman representing the Google engineer famously fired for arguing women aren’t genetically suited to work in tech doesn’t have it in her to attend a dinner of her peers. Those peers—other San Francisco judges and attorneys—run the spectrum, in her view, from liberal to far lefty. The sort of people she’s surrounded by and specializes in riling up. But it can be exhausting. [ Bloomberg ] YC Alumni Go Big: The 15 Most Valuable Y Combinator-Backed StartupsY Combinator’s (YC) accelerator program promotes promising startups in “batches” by providing them with seed-stage funding and three months of Silicon Valley’s best advice and networking opportunities. The firm gives its startups the materials, know-how, and introductions they need to propel themselves to success. [ Crunchbase ] Travis Kalanick joins medical tech startup’s board of directorsFormer Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has joined the board of directors for Kareo, a medical health tech startup, Axios reports. TechCrunch has since confirmed the appointment, along with the addition of Rob Reid to the board. This is Kalanick’s first public appointment since his ouster from Uber in June. Kalanick was an angel investor in Kareo, a company that has raised about $125 million in venture funding. The company is geared toward physicians with independent practices to help with patient communications, payments and marketing. [ Bloomberg ] Tech investing is a lot about big trends and timing them. We knew mobile was going to be a game changer as far back as the mid 90s, but it didn’t really take off until the iPhone came along in 2007. We knew personal computing was going to be a big deal in the late 70s, but computers didn’t become truly personal until operating systems got graphical user interfaces in the mid 80s. The internet was super interesting in the late 80s and early 90s but it didn’t go mainstream until we had web browsers in the mid 90s. Artificial intelligence has been around as a computer science effort for sixty years but it didn’t start impacting our every day experiences until it was packaged up (and effectively made to disappear) in web and mobile apps and increasingly cars and voice activated devices. [ AVC ] Silicon Valley Is Over, Says Silicon Valley“Oh my god, this is so cute!” Robin Li, an investor with the San Francisco venture capital firm GGV Capital, was standing in the lobby of the Madison building in downtown Detroit. Built in 1917 as a theater and refurbished several years ago as a tech co-working space, the Madison checks all of the aesthetic boxes of hipsterdom: reclaimed wood, exposed brick walls, pour-over coffee served by tattooed baristas. “This is nicer than San Francisco,” Ms. Li concluded. [ NY Times ] Volvo Launches a Venture Capital Fund to Invest in StartupsThe Number One Goal is Getting Started - Avni Patel Thompson of Poppy14 International Accelerators Speak Out on the Top 4 Components for Startup SuccessUnknown Chinese start-up amasses 1 billion overseas users in just three yearsSee who's leading the charge in backing female-founders. And who has work to doSilicon Valley elites can't get enough of...chickens? Venture Funding In IoT Startups Continues To Go UpDespite Uber debacle, HackerOne’s CEO argues why every company should work with hackersVenture Funding Into AI And Machine Learning Levels Off As Tech MaturesCaterina Fake on turning down VC roles a decade ago: ‘I just kind of didn’t fit in’MILLENNIAL VIAGRA STARTUP HIMS IS NOW WORTH $200 MILLIONWolf Ruzickam (EastBanc Technologies) at Startup Grind DC |