A chat with Pluralsight founder Aaron Skonnard on the global move to sharpen tech skills through online trainingUtah has a strong history in the tech industry — Omniture, WordPerfect and Landesk all started there, Pixar co-founder Ed Catmul and Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell both graduated from the University of Utah and several colleges and universities in the area churn out advanced engineering degrees in the hundreds every year. It’s also starting to become a place known for growing profitable unicorns, including Qualtrics, now worth $2.4 billion; Domo, valued at $2 billion; InsideSales, worth $1.5 billion; and developer training platform Pluralsight, now worth $1.14 billion and listed as one to watch for going public this year. [ Tech Crunch ] GRAYDON CARTER AND TORY BURCH ON FASHION, TECH, AND HOW A BILLION-DOLLAR COMPANY STAYS “SCRAPPY”At Vanity Fair’s Founders Fair in Brooklyn, Burch explains how she started her business and why pivoting her company was “excruciating.” [ VF ] VCs planting seeds in the cannabis industryThe startup world has seen a growing number of cannabis-related companies crop up over the past several years, a development that's likely driven by the increasing number of US states to legalize marijuana in some capacity. The industry is ripe for technological innovation—and several companies and venture investors are taking advantage. Unicorn Outcomes: Sequoia Capital Sees The Most $1B+ Exits And Tends To Get In EarlyWe ranked investors with the most companies in their portfolios exiting at $1B+, and those that were best at entering at seed and Series A. [ CB Insight By providing free training and support to socially disadvantaged, aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs, FARMroots is diversifying the (very old, very white) industry.Here’s why seasoned entrepreneur Constantin Bisanz decided to invest in wellnessConstantin Bisanz is no stranger to success: In 2011, he sold his fifth company to eBay for $220 million. But as a believer in holistic wellness yoga and meditation, Bisanz wanted his next venture to help people lead healthier lives. His company, Aloha, does just that through easy-to-incorporate protein powders, snack bars, and teas, as well as recipes for healthy meals. [ Vox ] How MakeSpace Recently Closed $30 million in New FundingJust over a year ago I wrote about how MakeSpace had raised $17.5 millionin capital to build out its operations in 4 cities: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C. I pointed out that the storage market in the US alone is ~$30 billion / year and there is no dominant provider — the largest player has < 10% market share. In 2017, Only 17% Of Startups Have A Female FounderThe percentage of startups that have at least one female founder was flat in the first quarter of 2017. Crunchbase’s inaugural study on female founder representation of US-based companies was published in May 2015. As the discussion on the lack of women in engineering teams gathered pace, we concluded that Crunchbase was uniquely placed to address the issue of women being represented in tech when it comes to founders. As the open dataset for the startup community, we added gender to Crunchbase in March 2015 to further the research on leadership, founders, and gender. [ Crunchbase ] 17 fintech businesses that could one day be worth over $1 billionGP Bullhound, a boutique investment bank focused on tech, on Thursday published an in-depth report looking at the global fintech industry. The report found 39 fintech companies around the world already valued at $1 billion or over, and found that global venture capital investment into the sector has risen almost fivefold in the past three years to reach $13.6 billion in 2016. |