7 YC startups find success in the heartlandSetting up camp in Silicon Valley may seem like the obvious choice for tech startups, and one common way to get there is through an accelerator. Each year, these programs churn out hundreds of freshly-minted companies, dispersing seed money across a wide range of sectors. Yet for alumni of the Y Combinator (YC) accelerator, a small number of these entrepreneurs have chosen to base their headquarters beyond the confines of Silicon Valley. VentureBeat spoke with them to better understand the importance of lower costs, access to talent, and proximity to customers away from the Mecca of tech. [ Venture Beat ] TheSkimm Built a Massive Email Following. Now It Wants More.This podcast is a year old but totally worth it! - VP Team. But the founders, Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg, aren’t content with a newsletter they say is opened by 1.5 million people. On the latest episode of Re/code Media with Peter Kafka, Zakin and Weisberg said they see email as just the first of many marketing tools they will use to reach their audience of predominantly young, well-educated women. [ Recode ] 79% of startup crowdfunding goes to female foundersIn the last week, we have seen a lot of press about women founders coming forward with stories of unfair and inappropriate treatment that they have faced from male investors in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Much has been written and many great suggestions made, on how we can improve this situation and build a tech startup ecosystem that is inclusive of female and minority founders and investors. While Republic is only one year old and our sample is still small, we are proud to have been a growth catalyst for so many inspiring female founderswe have met and worked with. One campaign at a time, equity crowdfunding is flipping traditional funding statistics on their head. Diabetes platform mySugr exits to Roche for as much as $100MmySugr, a popular digital diabetes management platform which emerged from Austria a few years ago, has been acquired by health giant Roche. It now becomes the heart of Roche Diabetes Care’s new patient-centered digital health services. Roche plans to maintain its acquisition as an open and independent platform for health insurance companies, medical technology companies, and pharmaceutical companies. The mySugr app serves as diary for diabetics tracking their blood sugar, medications and activity levels and works in cooperation with insurers. It has been working with Roche since 2014 and previously got funding from Roche’s Venture Fund. [ Tech Crunch ] Inside The Q2 2017 Global Venture Capital Ecosystem - Crunchbase Report
One thing is clear: the market for startup equity is on a firmer footing now than it was three months ago. With two successive quarters of growth, both in the number of deals struck and the amount of money invested, as well as a growing appetite on the part of public markets for shares in venture-backed startups, there’s reason for cautious optimism going into the second half of this year. Using data and projections from Crunchbase, this report from Crunchbase News dives deep into the state of the global venture capital ecosystem. Here, we want to assess investment and liquidity – Money In versus Money Out. In the Money In section, we will cover Crunchbase’s projections of how – and how much – the global venture capital ecosystem invested in Q2 2017. We’ll then evaluate how that result compares to both Q1 2017 and Q2 2016, giving us perspective on sequential quarter and year-over-year performance. In the Money Out section, we’ll review acquisition statistics and highlight other notable liquidity events, including the thawing market for technology IPOs. WELCOME TO OUR STARTUP WHERE EVERYONE IS 23 YEARS OLD BECAUSE WE BELIEVE OLD PEOPLE ARE VISUALLY DISPLEASING AND OUT OF IDEASPriscilla Chan is running one of the most ambitious philanthropies in the world Priscilla Chan remembers the moment she decided to become a doctor.She was a 21-year-old undergrad at Harvard College working at an after-school program for students from a nearby low-income housing project. One of those students, a young girl, had gone missing for a few days. When she returned, Chan was shocked to find that the girl’s two front teeth were broken. French VC Fundraising Shows Startup Money Is Pouring Into ParisTwo of France’s bigger venture-capitalists, Partech Ventures and Idinvest Partners, are closing funds this month, adding to recent examples of investors pouring money into European startup investments. Partech Ventures said Monday it increased its latest venture fund to 400 million euros ($456 million) from the likes of Cisco Systems Inc., Nokia OYJ, Renault SA and others -- more than it had initially anticipated when it closed the first round a year ago. Idinvest Partners, another Paris-based VC, expects to close a 250 million euro fundraising in the coming weeks, including from state-backed Bpifrance, insurance companies, and financial investors, said Benoist Grossmann, managing partner. [ Bloomberg ] NYC Seed Deal Report for Q2 is out. Biggest trends for the quarter were:
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