Jane.VC, a new fund for female entrepreneurs, wants founders to cold email themJane.VC, a new venture fund based out of Cleveland and London wants entrepreneurs to cold email them. Send them your pitch, no wealthy or successful intermediary necessary. The fund, which has so far
raised $2 million to invest between $25,000 and $150,000 in early-stage female-founded companies across industries, is scrapping the opaque, inaccessible model of VC that’s been less than favorable toward women. [ Tech Crunch ] Andreessen Digs Into CryptoWhen venture capitalists first started looking at deals in the cryptocurrency and blockchain market, most took a traditional investing approach, hunting for equity stakes in startups. Eventually, they had to rethink their approach to deal-making in the business to include investments in tokens themselves, according to a prominent venture capitalist in the category. At Andreessen Horowitz, that has meant recently embracing token-based investments alongside the traditional equity investments for which it is best known, said general partner Katie Haun at The Information Subscriber Summit in San Francisco on Thursday. [ The Information ] Big-Data Analytics Firm Palantir Technologies Eyes IPO - ReportPalantir Technologies Inc. - a private big-data analytics software company - is considering going public, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Oct. 18. The 14-year-old California company could see its valuation hit $41 billion, the Journal reported, as the company was in discussions with investment banks Credit Suisse (CS - Get Report) and Morgan Stanley (MS - Get Report) for a possible initial public offering later next year, according to the report. [ The Street ] Brandless wants to create the next great consumer packaged goods brand — but it hasn’t built customer loyalty yetThis summer, the company received $240 million in funding from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which valued the company at over $500 million. For a consumer-focused company as young as Brandless, that’s an incredibly rare and large investment (and why we’re paying attention to a fledging e-commerce brand). It’s also risky, since Brandless has entered a highly competitive space with
little room for error. [ Recode ] Silicon Valley is awash with Saudi Arabian money. Here’s what they’re investing in.Saudi Arabia’s money is in multiple funds with global ambitions. One of the biggest is the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which said it plans to grow from around $100 billion today
to $2 trillion by 2030. Among the public funds investing in US companies, the top ones tracked by private equity research firms are listed below. [ QZ ] Research over 15K+ Venture Capital Investors on our platform. First Round Capital Targets $200M+ For Seventh Flagship FundOn Thursday morning, Philadelphia-based early-stage fund First Round Capital filed SEC paperwork indicating intent to raise approximately $220 million between two new venture funds. [ Crunch Base ] Checkout First Round Capital's Deals, Exits and Fund Raised Data. Amplifyher Ventures launches to fund startups led by womenAmplifyher Ventures is a new firm looking to invest in female founders. Amplifyher was created by Tricia Black, Facebook’s former vice president of advertising sales. Since her time at Facebook (where she was the seventh employee), Black has been angel investing, and she also co-founded Victress Capital. [ Tech Crunch ] Startup Technology – Technical Founder Advice By: Y Combinator YC Partner Jared Friedman joins founders Lillian Chou (COO, Second Measure), Diana Hu (CTO, Escher Reality), Calvin French-Owen (CTO, Segment) and Ralph Gootee (CTO, PlanGrid), to talk about what can go right and wrong building technology. [ Y Combinator ] WhiteSource raises $35 million to help companies monitor open source elements of their softwareElon Musk introduced us to the hyperloop. Now, thanks to Uber, we have a Powerloop, too. This Millennial Left Her Successful Corporate Career To Start A LinkedIn For EntrepreneursShirley Yang graduated college with the aspirations to climb the corporate ladder and do it well. Yang started her career on the product team at Myspace, owned by Fox Interactive, followed by Sony Playstation then Audible, an Amazon company. [ Forbes ] Female-Founded Fertility Startup Future Family Raises $10 Million Series AFertility start-ups are proving to be, well, fertile ground for investors. Future Family, a female-founded company offering guidance and financing for the fertility process, just raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Aspect Ventures. [ Forbes ] Funding in Q3 Soars to New (Old) Heights as Investors Continue to Take Big SwingsNationally, 2018 continues to be on pace to see the most venture dollars ever invested in private companies. New York is following suit, with both deals and dollars in Q3 up from last quarter. The quarter saw 49 deals, up 17% from Q2 and up 26% from this time last year. More notably, however, was total funding, which hit $87.6 million - a sharp increase of 31% from last quarter, and up 26% from Q3 2017. This is a sum we haven’t seen the likes of since Q1 2016, when seed activity in NYC reached its peak of $113 million from 74 rounds. [ Primary.VC ] |