How the Co-Founder of Gilt Groupe and Glamsquad Plans to Beautify Your ClosetHow amazing would it be if you snapped your fingers and your closet magically organized itself?While we're not there yet, Fitz, a new startup from Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, the co-founder of Gilt and Glamsquad, aims to bring that dream one step closer to reality. The company's goal is "to make getting dressed easier," Wilkis Wilsontold Fortune last month. Fitz offers a $300, three-hour in-home appointment with two of Fitz's stylists in which the experts organize, assess, and make suggested additions to a client's wardrobe. That includes completely emptying the closets and—after deciding what to donate, resell, or send to a tailor—putting the remaining items back in an organized way. [ Fortune ] These are the companies investing most aggressively in AR and VRThe main takeaway from Facebook’s F8 developer conference last week was that the social media giant is making big bets on augmented and virtual reality. Worldwide revenues for the augmented reality and virtual reality market are projected to approach $14 billion in 2017, according to IDC, the market research firm. But that’s forecast to explode to $143 billion by 2020. [ Re/code ] 91 Global Startups Are Now Unicorns Worth $1 Billion or MoreMembership in the Unicorn Club is exploding. These unicorns, or startup companies valued at more than a billion dollars, are increasingly based outside of the U.S. In fact, nearly half of the 193 current members of the unicorn club (with a total cumulative valuation of $665 billion) are based outside of the U.S., according to data from CB Insights, a venture capital and angel investment database. [ Inc. ] Yik Yak shuts down after Square paid $1 million for its engineers Yik Yak co-founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington published a farewell note to users on Friday, announcing they would shut down their once-popular anonymous social network this week. The app allowed people to connect with other users within a certain radius, and was widely marketed in and used on college campuses. According to an SEC filing issued on April 16th, Square, has agreed to hire several of Yik Yak’s employees and acquire a non-exclusive license to some of the company’s intellectual property for $1 million. That’s a deeply disappointing result for a startup that garnered lots of support from venture investors and users. [ Tech Crunch ] Quitting the Silicon Valley Swamp. After 15 long years, I've said all I have to say about tech awfulness.My 20s were a blur of jobs and relationships abandoned, most due to a combination of restlessness, ambition, and alcoholism. The net result of that recklessness: A fat advance check for my first book, Bringing Nothing To The Party. No wonder I got a taste for it. Later I quit my apartment in London - and London itself, and then England - and embarked on a new life spent living in hotels. Along the way I quit most of my possessions until I could fit my life in a single carry-on bag. On the eve of my 30th birthday I finally quit alcohol, and have been sober ever since. All of which saw me rewarded with yet another check, for a second book called The Upgrade. (And then a third: Sober Is My New Drunk.) [ Pando ] Why Didi could speed past Uber as world's most valuable startupDidi Chuxing may be on its way to beating out Uber as the most valuable private company in the world. The Chinese ridehailing company has reportedly confirmed its $5.5 billion fundraise at a valuation of at least $50
billion. That would make it the third most valuable private company across the globe, per PitchBook data, behind only Uber (about $68 billion) and fellow Chinese company Ant Financial (~$60 billion). The Startups Economy Is Finally StabilizingAn index tracking the health of U.S. startups rose for the first time since 2015 this week. After a prolonged retrenchment, startups in the U.S. are finally seeing better days. The Bloomberg U.S. Startups Barometer rose 0.6 percent from a year earlier, marking the first year-over-year increase since the end of 2015. Bigger funding totals and more exits buoyed the index. [ Bloomberg ] Red-hot software start-up Rubrik has zoomed to a $1.3 billion valuation in two years
To Reclaim The Soul Of Silicon Valley, Look Back At These Four Qualities That Defined Its Early DaysCalm and compassion pervade the air around Julie Hanna. Perhaps that is because she has seen so many facets of the world. Egyptian-born Hanna, who went on to become one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent entrepreneurs and executives, lived on the front lines of civil war in Jordan, before fleeing with her family to Beirut and eventually immigrating to the United States. During a recent interview in San Francisco, we talked about the key elements of Silicon Valley’s mindset and culture, and how they could be exported to places like Jordan, the Middle East, and worldwide. [ Forbes ] Elon Musk’s latest venture, The Boring Company, looks like an underground rollercoaster for your carWhen Elon Musk has an idea, he likes to get started. Tunneling, an obsession inspired in part by Los Angeles’ horrendous traffic, is no exception. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX tweeted his intentions to start “The Boring Company” last December and by Jan. 17, he had news. “Exciting progress on the tunnel front,” he tweeted. “Plan to start digging in a month or so.” [ QZ ] |