NEW TWIST ON VENTURE CAPITAL TAPS A WELL-CONNECTED VILLAGEVENTURE-CAPITAL INVESTING OFTEN resembles a competitive blood sport, with hundreds of firms battling to get into the best deals. There are only so many good deals to go around, and the hottest startups don’t always pick the firms with the most money. Promising companies often choose their investors based on the firm’s reputation, the services it offers—such as help with PR or recruiting—or its Rolodex of industry power players. For firms to stand out, it helps to have a few successful entrepreneurs and tech luminaries as partners, advisers or investors. Many successful executives invest heavily in startups and venture funds. Village, a new Bay Area venture firm that launches publicly Monday, took that idea to the extreme. The firm has recruited a long list of “featured luminaries” as investors. [ Wired ] Waymo clarifies it actually wants $1.8 billion from UberLast week, Uber’s legal team told Judge William Alsup that Waymo was seeking $2.6 billion for an allegedly stolen trade secret related to the company’s autonomous vehicle efforts. Over the weekend, Waymo filed a document with the court noting that the correct figure was actually $1.859 billion. It’s not clear why this seemingly important detail was left uncorrected for nearly a week. The filing also includes some additional clarification around the way in which the damages figure was calculated. [ TechCrunch ] Silicon Valley and governments have to play nice if we want to save the worldTechnology doesn’t always cooperate with us when we want it to. And sometimes governments don’t want to cooperate with it, either. At the United Nation’s High-Level Event on Innovation and Technology, the key tech event for last week’s general assembly gathering, no one could seem to get the microphones working. Despite some of the tech industry’s most important titans being present—such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Mozilla Foundation executive chairperson Mitchell Baker—the 2.5-hour session on Sept. 18 was plagued with technical problems, including the entire conference room going dark. Twice. [ QZ ] AI startup Appier hires Sean Chu from Microsoft to head its Asia growth strategyAppier, the artificial intelligence startup that recently raised a $33 million Series C from three of Asia’s biggest Internet companies, has hired former Microsoft Japan marketing senior director Sean Chu to oversee its growth strategy. As Appier’s new chief strategy officer, Chu will be based in Tokyo and helm Appier’s operations in Japan and Korea. Last month Appier announced its Series C, which brought its total funding so far to $82 million, from SoftBank Group, Line Corp., Naver Corp., EDBI (the Singapore Economic Development Board’s corporate investment arm) and AMTD Group. Appier’s goal is to strengthen in presence in the markets its new investors represent, which include Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, before expanding into other regions. The company’s main products, the CrossX Programmatic Platform and Aixon, help brands use artificial intelligence to predict consumer behavior and make marketing decisions. [ TechCrunch ] Florian Graillot Launches Insurtech Focused Venture Capital Firm Astorya.vcVenture capitalist Florian Graillot has officially launched Astorya.vc, a new early stage venture capital firm focused on insurance innovation. Based in Paris, France, the firm will invest in European insurtech startups developing such technologies as artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data, mobile,among others. which are reshaping the life, health and property & casualty insurance industry. [ FinSME ] China's Netflix to Seek at Least $8 Billion Value in IPOBaidu Inc.’s iQiyi is targeting a U.S. initial public offering as soon as in 2018 that could value China’s most popular Netflix-style streaming video service at more than $8 billion, two people familiar with the matter say. The company controlled by search giant Baidu is about to kick off negotiations with banks and deal arrangers and is shooting for a valuation of as much as $10 billion, the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. Baidu wants to continue holding a controlling stake in iQiyi upon the IPO via dual-class shares, the people said. The IPO process however is in its early stages and the final valuation could change. [ Bloomberg ] The Space Tech Market Map: 57 Startups Charting The Final FrontierNASA’s embrace of private spaceflight has paved the way for private sector investments, and funding to “new space” companies has rocketed as a result. Space tech is breaking barriers. With rocket and satellite development costs falling, a regulatory embrace of private spaceflight (“new space”), and better remote sensing and data analytics capabilities, funding to space tech companies has rocketed from almost nothing in 2012, to approximately $4B in combined funding over the past two years. Space tech includes startups involved in the construction and launch of satellites or rocketry into outer space, as well as ancillary companies working to aggregate and analyze satellite data. [ CB Insights ] Zuck and Bezos back seed stage scout fund Village GlobalProduct Hunt’s first employee Erik Torenberg is ready to fund fresh new startups, not just reveal them to the world. Today is the soft launch of Village Global, a seed and pre-seed early stage venture capital fund looking to connect entrepreneurs to cash as well as all-star mentors. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates are amongst the LPs putting money and advisorship into Village Global. [ TechCrunch ] Your Whole Goal Is to Not Quit - Courtland Allen of Indie HackersThe Habit Behind This Founder’s Fast Financings, Product Development and Book DealDoorman, a startup delivering packages when you schedule them will be no more after October 6th, 2017. The startup sent a letter over the weekend letting customers know it would no longer be in business in two weeks, saying it was “joining forces with a larger team.” We’re not sure if this joining of forces means Doorman has been acquired or if it’s some other structure. We’ve reached out to Doorman for more details but have so far not heard back. [ TechCrunch ] CrunchFund has a new partner: Susan HobbsGroupon’s billionaire cofounder Eric Lefkofsky just raised $70 million for his new companyThe hottest startups in Tel Aviv‘Essential startup advice’ from top Silicon Valley accelerator Y CombinatorToyota Needs These Startups to Crack the Driverless CodeTrump directs $200 million to tech education for women and minoritiesAbout Silicon Valley’s crazy housing situation: One real estate exec deconstructs the market |