The Morning After. What Have We Done?The morning after. I Tweeted vociferously last night in my stupor and despair. Most of my tribe emoted publicly, too, any many more countless others texted me constantly in disbelief. I haven’t felt this way since 9/11. No — I’m not equating the two actions. I’m just telling you the depths of how this decision makes me feel. [ Both Side Of The Table ] It’s November 9th, 2016, and while I am attending the same tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal as I had the previous two days, it seems like a completely different event. The enthusiastic gathering of about 50,000 geeks and tech titans who'd previously walked gleefully through the four conference buildings, introducing themselves to anyone within earshot, and drank local beer well before the noon hour, turned to a somber and eerie hush on this post-election morning. [ Fast Company ] This 21-year-old is turning down $100,000 because Peter Thiel's support helped Trump win the electionPeter Thiel's support and backing of Donald Trump hadn't been sitting well with Cosmo Scharf for awhile. The 21-year-old had a unique tie to the venture capitalist: Scharf was a Thiel Fellow, one of the 20 or so kids a year given $100,000 to drop out of school and chase their entrepreneurial dreams. Scharf, who received the money for his work in the virtual reality community in LA, was concerned about Thiel's backing of Trump from the beginning. He'd been uneasy about it, but realized when he was in the shower the morning after Trump won that he just couldn't be a part of the program because Thiel had helped him win. [ Business Insider ] HOW A TRUMP ADMINISTRATION COULD TERRORIZE SILICON VALLEYIn the wake of the stunning presidential election that has brought Donald Trump to the White House, Silicon Valley is rattled. “Heartbroken,” Slack C.E.O. Stewart Butterfield said. Sherpa Ventures managing partner Shervin Pishevar suggested that California secede. And onstage at a technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal, thousands of miles away from Trump Tower, Dave McClure, the founder of Silicon Valley start-up accelerator and seed fund 500 Startups, had a complete Trump-induced meltdown. “If you're not fucking pissed right now, what is wrong with you?” he said. “What is fucking wrong with you if you’re not pissed right now?” [ Vanity Fair ] Zuckerberg: the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the election is ‘crazy’After a day of criticism over his company’s role in spreading fake news about political candidates, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rejected the idea that the News Feed had tilted the election in favor of Donald Trump. “Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way — I think is a pretty crazy idea. Voters make decisions based on their lived experience.” [ The Verge ] A Steve Jobs life hack helped this 32-year-old CEO raise $40 millionThe late Steve Jobs was an advocate of the morning pep talk. In his famous 2005 commencement address at Stanford, the Apple co-founder and tech visionary said: "For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been, 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." Melody McCloskey, the 32-year-old co-founder and CEO of online beauty startup StyleSeat, is of a similar opinion. She says that morning pep talks helped her overcome obstacles and raise more than $40 million from investors. [ Yahoo News ] LATEST FUNDING Neo Technology, whose database platform powered the Panama Papers, nabs $36M Facebook popularized the idea of a “graph” (specifically social graph) to describe the relationship between you and the web of people and interests that surround you, and to help figure out what kind of content you like to see. That’s proven to be a somewhat problematic concept when it comes to social graphs, but it turns out to be an effective concept for how to tackle a number of business problems. CureVac Secures Additional $29.5M Investment to Advance mRNA ResearchCureVac AG announced that the company secured a total of $29.5 million in a financing led by new investors Baden-Württembergische Versorgungsanstalt für Ärzte, Zahnärzte und Tierärzte (via the LBBW Asset Management Investmentgesellschaft mbH, Stuttgart) and Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg. CureVac plans to utilize these funds to advance the development of its innovative messenger RNA (mRNA) product portfolio. [ ddd mag ] RiskIQ raises $30.5 million to use machine learning to assess security risksRiskIQ, a startup with a new kind of security technology, has raised $30.5 million in a third round of funding. Georgian Partners led the round, with participation from existing investors Summit Partners, Battery Ventures, and MassMutual Ventures. RiskIQ notes that threats outside the firewall are vast and dynamic, so the company provides clients with access to the widest range of security intelligence and applications necessary to understand exposures and how to take action. [ Venture Beat ] Colombian Startup Rappi Wants to Deliver 'Everything'“We actually can be profitable,” Rappi’s founders optimistically proclaimed to a roomful of investors and journalists in March. It was a detail that needed underscoring considering the focus of their startup, an on-demand delivery service. The once hearty appetite for them among investors has vanished because of the sector’s thin margins, high labor costs, and tricky economics that have caused many similar companies to cut jobs or shut down. [ Fortune ] Drone startup Zipline says drones are really needed for health care, not burritosZipline, the company that launched the world’s first drone delivery program for medical supplies in Rwanda last month, announced it raised $25 million in funding today, with investments from venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. Visionnaire Ventures led the latest funding round, which brings the drone company’s total capital raised to $43 million. [ Recode ] Cape Analytics rakes in $14 mln Silicon Valley-based Cape Analytics, which “leverages geospatial imagery, computer vision, and machine learning to generate property data,” has secured $14 million in funding. Formation 8 led the round with participation from other investors that included Data Collective, XL Innovate, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures, Promus Ventures and Montage Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Formation 8’s Shirish Sathaye has been added to Cape Analytics’ board of directors. [ PE Hub ] P2P currency exchange marketplace CurrencyFair raises $8.8 million CurrencyFair, a peer-to-peer currency exchange marketplace based in Ireland, has closed an €8 million ($8.8 million) funding round led by existing investors Octopus Ventures and Frontline Ventures. Founded out of Dublin in 2009, CurrencyFair serves as an affordable means for businesses and individuals to transfer money into different currencies, with users on the platform buying and selling currencies directly between themselves. [ Venture Beat ] Teamleader scores €10M Series B to help SMEs go digitalBelgium startup Teamleader, which began life while co-founders Jeroen De Wit, Willem Delbare and Mathias De Loore were studying together at university, has raised €10 million in Series B funding. The round is led by previous backer Fortino Capital. Teamleader’s cloud platform aims to help SMEs go digital, offering an all-in-one solution for things like CRM, invoicing, project management and customer offers. [ Tech Crunch ] Glint adds another $10M to its Series C fundingFor many companies, it seems to be hard for them to get a sense of how engaged their employees are. Even as every other aspect of work has become real-time, employee engagement is still stuck in the past, with most relying on an annual survey to get a sense of how employees are feeling. It's an outdated system. [ vator.tv ] ICX Media Raises $3M in Seed FundingICX Media, Inc., a Washington, DA-based multi-platform distribution and marketing intelligence technology for independent content creators, closed a $3m seed funding round. The backers were not disclosed. The company intends to use the funds to expand the adoption of its platform. [ Finsmes ] MORE LATEST FUNDING Enterprise Therapeutics reels in $5 mln Hiring portal iimjobs.com raises $2 mn in Series A fundingCrayon Raises a $3.4M Seed, Looks Beyond Marketing SentiOne raises $3.5 million to monitor social media Russian Marketplace Lending Startup Blackmoon Financial Secures $2.5 Million in Equity Funding LATEST EXITS Adobe is acquiring ad tech company TubeMogul for $540 million Adobe is acquiring ad tech company TubeMogul for $540 million, net of debt and cash, the company announced on Thursday.The deal will see Adobe acquiring all TubeMogul's common stock for $14 per share. TubeMogul went public in 2014, listing at $7 a share. Its stock was trading at around the same price when the deal was announced. [ Business Insider ] MORE LATEST EXITSinVentiv Health Announces Closing of Significant Investment Agreement with Advent International FUND RAISED Onex closes $1.1 bln for fourth mid-market PE fund Onex Corp has raised $1.1 billion for its fourth mid-market private equity fund. ONCAP IV’s limited partners included return and new backers. |