The rise of "pre-seed" venture capitalAxios reported last week that two former 500 Startups partners are raising a $50 million to invest in startups at the pre-seed stage. Then came an announcement that a new pre-seed fund called Afore Capital was launching with a $47 million debut fund. But what is "pre-seed" and why is the term showing up more and more? Short answer: Today's seed rounds are yesterday's Series A rounds, and pre-seed is the old seed. More: Investors tells Axios that pre-seed rounds typically total less than $1 million, sometimes replacing what used to be fundraising from friends, family or individual angels. They come before more formal seed rounds that now often raise $2 million or more. [ Axios ] Meet Catherine Ulrich, FirstMark Capital’s newest partnerFirstMark Capital is one of the most successful early-stage VCs in NYC. With investments in Airbnb, Frame.io, Shopify, Pinterest, InVision, and Brooklinen, among many others, the firm is now looking to grow its internal roster. Today, FirstMark Capital is announcing the addition of a new partner, Catherine Ulrich. Ulrich started out at Harvard, where she was the Coxswain for the men’s crew team, and then moved on to a job as a business analyst for a strategy consultant firm in New York after graduating. From there, she moved on to Weight Watchers and began to climb the ranks. In 2006, she started out as a Strategic Business Analyst and by July of 2013 she had risen to Chief Product Officer. At the end of 2014, Ulrich moved to Shutterstock, where she also served as CPO. She oversaw and learned from the company’s investment in machine learning and has a real passion for the intersection between machine learning and the consumer. [ Tech Crunch ] Silicon Valley Has Gone All-In on A CappellaOne of the truest things in life is that where there are nerds, there is a cappella. Thus, as Silicon Valley has taken over as the nerd capital of the world, the hills outside of San Francisco have come alive with the sound of unaccompanied vocal harmonies. “There’s like a real Silicon Valley tech-company a cappella scene,” says Deke Sharon, the genre’s current éminence grise, known for arranging the music for the Pitch Perfect movies. Come December, he will reprise his role as the master of ceremonies at the fifth annual “Techapella,” at which vocal groups comprising employees of the area’s largest technology companies will put aside their devices and their dreams of conquering the world in order to perform renditions of popular music onstage at Redwood City’s Fox Theatre in real, pasty life. “It’s like a bunch of musical nerds singing their hearts out,” says Aaron Roan, a 34-year-old data scientist for Google, who came up with the idea after Laolee Xiong, an engineer and Roan’s co-founder in Googapella, the company’s first official a cappella group, defected to Facebook, where he quickly set up a rival crew: the Vocal Network. Their first “sing-off,” in 2014, was so popular that it spawned, in the words of Pitch Perfect, “acs-children.” [ NY Mag ] The 100 coolest people in UK techBritain's technology scene includes a broad selection of interesting people working to scale companies, develop cutting-edge research, and shed light on the latest advances in tech. Business Insider has sorted through the biggest names in UK tech to find the 100 coolest people in 2017. We define "cool" as having done influential and interesting things — whether it's getting a new job, raising money, or something more off the wall. [ Business Insider ] How to Run a 170 Year Old Company Like A StartupJoe Kaeser is not wasting time—he’s taking action. He’s the CEO of Siemens AG, one of the world’s largest industrial enterprises with revenues of $88 billion. Since he took the helm of the German conglomerate in 2013, Kaeser has been moving fast to transform the industrial giant into the digital age and focusing on businesses that will serve society’s needs. Kaeser is a staunch advocate for what corporate America calls “leading with purpose,” or how businesses can do well by doing good. Siemens has been a leader in cutting the company’s carbon footprint and a strong supporter of apprenticeship programs that train students for next-generation manufacturing jobs. As he puts it, “If you’re not in the business to improve society, you shouldn’t be in business.” [ Fortune ] Digital wealth manager Moneyfarm acquires tech behind fintech chatbot ErnestMoneyfarm, the U.K.-headquartered “digital wealth manager” has acquired the technology behind personal finance chatbot Ernest. Terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, though I understand that, along with the tech, this is an acqui-hire of sorts, seeing London-based Ernest’s CTO Lorenzo Sicilia join Moneyfarm to oversee technology integration. Founded in 2015 by Niall Bellabarba, Cristoforo Mione and Sicilia, Ernest was developing a personal finance manager powered by artificial intelligence and designed to run on top of Facebook messenger. After connecting to your bank accounts, the chatbot used natural language processing to answer questions on your financial well-being and transactions, but also to give you proactive notifications to help you manage your money better. [ TechCrunch ] The Venture Capital Funnel: Analyzing The Top Startup Tech Hubs For Raising Funding — And ExitingSilicon Valley is where the greatest number of tech startups get their start and where a good deal ultimately fail. Given the brutal odds of getting funding — and even tougher odds of exiting — we analyzed the VC funding funnel by region to see what percentage of companies in each region were able to raise funding between Series A through Series E rounds, and what percentage ultimately exited. [ CB Insights ] Honest Company may be raising a down roundStartup nation: The most valuable VC-backed company in each US state [interactive graphic]This Dessert Startup Found Success In Being 'Anti-Cupcake'Study: Black and Hispanic representation in Silicon Valley has decreasedHow The Founders Of Postmates, SeatGeek And Other Next Billion-Dollar Startups Designed Their Company CulturesNick D’Aloisio, who sold startup to Yahoo aged 17, has raised funding for a new appHow These 3 Women Are Trying To Fix The Billion-Dollar Handbag IndustryHere’s how a tender offer like Uber’s would unfoldQ3 2017 US VC Report: Exit Options Dwindle While Late-Stage Dealmaking Reaches New Heights |