Reddit is raising a huge round near a $3 billion valuationReddit is raising $150 million to $300 million to keep the front page of the internet running, multiple sources tell TechCrunch. The forthcoming Series D round is said to be led by Chinese tech giant Tencent at a $2.7 billion pre-money valuation. Depending on how much follow-on cash Reddit drums up from Silicon Valley investors and beyond, its post-money valuation could reach an epic $3 billion. [ Tech Crunch ] These are the 11 richest women in tech
Harbor’s Tokenized Equity Platform Offers (Another) Alternative to Traditional VC FundingA new startup called Harbor Platform Inc. wants to help companies turn their equity into blockchain-based tokens. Like initial coin offerings, Harbor’s platform could be another challenge to venture capital’s dominance of early-stage financing. Tokenized equity could serve as an alternative to traditional venture capital funding, along with... [ WSJ ] Under 30 To The Top: VC Firm Bessemer Promotes Talia Goldberg To Partner At Age 28She headlined the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 Venture Capital class as the youngest vice president in the storied history of VC firm Bessemer Venture Partners. Now, less than two years later, Talia Goldberg has finished her rise through the ranks with a promotion that makes her one of the youngest investment partners at an established VC firm. [ Forbes ] Raisin raises $114M for its pan-European marketplace for savings and investment productsRaisin, the pan-European fintech marketplace for savings and investment products, is disclosing that it has raised $114 million in Series D funding. Existing investors Index Ventures, PayPal, Ribbit Capital and Thrive Ventures all participated in the round, which brings the total raised to date to $200 million. [ Tech Crunch ] Twitter's Jack Dorsey Says the Only Crypto He's Holding Is BitcoinTwitter Inc.’s CEO Jack Dorsey took to the social network Tuesday evening to tell the world his crypto picks when a user asked him which coins and tokens he was holding. The comments came after a tweet in which he highlighted experiments with the Lightning Network, an initiative being developed to make crypto payments faster and cheaper by removing the need to record every transaction on the blockchain. [ Bloomberg ] This Founder Is Talking About Something Very Embarrassing (Men Might Want to Listen)Zachariah Reitano was an entrepreneur-in-residence at a venture capital firm when a health problem he'd had as a high schooler flared up. Living with the condition drove Reitano to start Roman,
a men's health company. He teamed up with Rob Schutz and Saman Rahmanian to launch the business, which does everything from online diagnosis to delivery of personalized medications and addiction treatment. Roman is now a year-and-a-half old, growing fast--Reitano says revenue is up 2,000 percent since January 2018--and will soon launch a new women's vertical under parent company Ro. The company's success is in part a result of Reitano getting comfortable with telling his own private story. --As told to Christine Lagorio-Chafkin [ Inc. ] Y Combinator’s Women-Only Forum Is Becoming Its Own BusinessNavigating a career in Silicon Valley can be hard without the right connections and advice. For women, often outnumbered in tech workplaces, it can be even harder. There aren’t as many other women to help answer big questions: What’s a standard salary for my role? How do I bounce back from a career misstep? How do you find a mentor? Cadran Cowansage, a 33-year-old software engineer, had a day job working at startup accelerator Y Combinator, but in 2017, she
started to spend her nights and weekends building Leap, an online community for women in tech. She wanted to answer those questions and more—how to fire someone, how to handle difficult conversations, when to raise funding and which investors are most friendly to women. She launched the platform as a part of Y Combinator, but as it grew, Cowansage started thinking about making it a standalone business. [ Bloomberg ] |