News Digest TheSkimm Explores Possible Sale, Investment After Receiving InterestTheSkimm, the daily news digest that has taken off with younger women, is exploring a possible sale after being contacted by an interested buyer, according to people familiar with the matter. After receiving the inbound interest, theSkimm has been holding preliminary discussions with media companies to gauge their interest in investing or acquiring it outright, said the people. They cautioned that it is possible that no deal will materialize. As many digital publishers are looking for exits in a market poised for consolidation, theSkimm has been a success story in reaching a younger, engaged audience with its free, early morning newsletter that sums up the news of the day in a concise but chatty style for an on-the-go professional. Founded in 2012 by former NBC employees Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg, theSkimm so far has raised more than $16 million from investors including Homebrew Ventures, 21st Century Fox and RRE Ventures. In June 2016, theSkimm completed an $8 million round that valued the company at $55 million, Recode reported. (21st Century Fox and Wall Street Journal parent company News Corp share common ownership.) [ WSJ ] Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos used to be just like you, says Y Combinator’s Daniel GrossWhen Daniel Gross moved to Silicon Valley from Jerusalem, he thought he was right to be intimidated by his new peers. But the Y Combinator partner, formerly the director of machine learning at Apple, says he was happy to be wrong about that. “The day-to-day emotional rollercoaster ride is intense,” Gross said of being a tech entrepreneur on the latest episode of Recode Decode. “But the thing you need to realize — if you’re listening to this and you’re outside of Silicon Valley and it all looks hard and unapproachable — is that it’s very gradual. Everyone starts out with very, very humble beginnings.” [ Recode ] Here Are the Worst IPOs of 2017IPOs are risky endeavors for both companies and investors. Companies are subject to pressure from Wall Street investors, who now judge the price of their stocks every day. Investors are tasked with judging the price of the stock based on a limited set of information and history. Sometimes IPOs skyrocket, doubling or tripling in value in just a few weeks (or even days, in some cases). Other times they fizzle out, losing hundreds of millions in dollars for their investors. 2017 saw some high-profile IPO flops. Here are the three worst IPOs of the year. Compass, a New York-based real estate startup, said Thursday that it had raised $450 million in funding from SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund. The deal values Compass, which has now raised $775 million in total, at $2.2 billion. Cofounded in 2012 by CEO Robert Reffkin and executive chairman Ori Allon, Compass has quickly established itself in top-tier markets like New York by wooing top agents. Its technology platform helps agents price and market properties by automating
workflows and giving them access to data insights. After signing on with Compass, agents see a 25% increase in commission income in their first year, the company says. Silicon Valley figures get swept up in the unfolding sexual-harassment crisisWhile Hollywood, New York City and Washington D.C. have been rocked by recent sex-harassment scandals, roping in a herd of celebs and pols from Charlie Rose to Roy Moore to Sen. Al Franken and Garrison Keillor, two prominent West Coast addresses have also been put on the national Men-Acting-Badly map. Bitcoin Soars to Almost $20,000 on Coinbase ExchangeInvestors are paying a premium for bitcoin on Coinbase, one of the largest online exchanges for buying and selling the cryptocurrency. [ Bloomberg ] Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin FrenzyThe booming stock market of the 1920s had the New York Stock Exchange. The tech bubble of the 1990s had Nasdaq and E-Trade. And the virtual currency market of the last year has had Coinable. Coinbase has been at the center of the speculative frenzy driving up the value of Bitcoin — which topped $13,000 on Wednesday — and similar currencies. While there are many Bitcoin exchanges around the world, Coinbase has been the dominant place that ordinary Americans go to buy and sell virtual currency. No company had made it simpler to sign up, link a bank account or debit card, and begin buying Bitcoin. The number of people with Coinbase accounts has gone from 5.5 million in January to 13.3 million at the end of November, according to data from the Altana Digital Currency Fund. In late November, Coinbase was sometimes getting 100,000 new customers a day — leaving the company with more customers than Charles Schwab and E-Trade. [ NY Times ] Glossier’s Emily Weiss built a budding beauty brand with the internet’s helpEmily Weiss may be one of the only people on the internet who actually looks forward to reading the comments. That’s because Weiss, the founder of beauty and fashion startup Glossier, relies on comments from her customers to actually build her business. Earlier this year, Glossier used feedback from Instagram users to help create a moisturizer. It did the same with a face wash in 2016, and it has also asked customers to weigh in other products, like their favorite candle scents. [ Recode ] |