Today it makes it difficult for us to understand that everything that happened before the pandemic corresponds to a different historical moment. There was absolutely nothing related to phrases like "healthy distance", "pandemic", world crisis accompanied by uncertainty and a disease from which we do not know when we will get rid of it, business closures. READ MORE
Women weigh in on their mentors
Mentors in the private equity world can often have a tremendous impact on a professional’s career trajectory. We asked some of the private equity industry’s senior women to share their thoughts on the most influential mentors in their careers. READ MORE
Private Equity Shifts Gears For The Recovery
As Covid-19 has made its way through the economy and the business community, it’s crippled some businesses, boosted others and affected all.
Whether your company already has a private equity investment, wants to have one or competes with a business that has one, you need to understand how the pandemic will affect private equity firms and how they will respond as the recovery progresses. READ MORE
Fundraising In A Pandemic: Why A Fresh Strategy Is Imperative For Startups
Many startups went into 2020 with ambitious fundraising plans. Then, COVID-19 hit. Fast-forward several months and the amount of investment in startup funding in 2020 is expected to decrease by about $28 billion globally. What’s promising is that, with the right fundraising strategy, marketplace shake-ups can create new opportunities for early-stage businesses. READ MORE
A Decade Of Supergiants: Rounds Above $100M Dominate In 2020
Funding deals with huge dollar signs attached to them have increased in venture over the past decade, fueling the unicorn startup phenomenon. This year, even as many of those startups funded with supergiant investments finally head to the public markets, many others have continued to draw VC rounds of $100 million or more. READ MORE
Private equity dealmaking surges, with gains in the middle market
After a quiet period set off by the coronavirus pandemic, private equity deal activity in the United States surged through mid-November as investment managers prepare for a possible tax policy change under President-elect Joe Biden. And the middle market has seen an uptick in deals. READ MORE
Don't rush into public equity if you're succeeding privately, CFOs say
If your company is able to raise debt or equity to keep growing, there's no reason to jump to the public side with an IPO, CFOs and capital raise specialists said at the MIT Sloan CFO virtual summit last week. READ MORE
Private equity veterans say virtual fundraising rocks
The coronavirus-induced necessity of raising funds virtually this year has done more good than harm for well-established private equity firms, industry veterans speaking at a private equity forum sponsored by Hong Kong-based AVCJ said this week. READ MORE
VC funds and manager style: A case study
Categorizing venture capital funds and general partners' various fund-management styles can be notoriously tricky business. That's especially true in an industry known for holding a wide-ranging mix of companies in its ever-changing portfolios. READ MORE
How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism
In 2008, Jeremy Neuner and Ryan Coonerty, two city-hall employees in Santa Cruz, California, decided to open a co-working space. They leased a cavernous building a few steps from a surf shop and a sex-toy boutique, and equipped it with desks, power strips, fast Wi-Fi, and a deluxe coffee-maker. Neuner and Coonerty named their company NextSpace Coworking. READ MORE
Bitcoin Investigation Giant To Raise $100 Million At $1 Billion Valuation
A new bitcoin unicorn is about to be born. After days of rumors flying around the cryptocurrency industry, investigation firm Chainalysis confirmed exclusively to Forbes it expects to raise $100 million venture capital at a $1 billion valuation as soon as next week. Led by Tiger Global alum Lee Fixel’s newly founded venture capital firm, Addition, the Series C round is expected to be joined by previous investors Accel, Benchmark, and Ribbit. READ MORE
The most-funded VC companies in October 2020
Across industries, verticals and stages, more than a thousand venture capital startups received funding in October 2020. The companies highlighted below operate across multiple industry verticals and emerging spaces, including healthcare, transportation and foodtech. From San Francisco to Singapore, these startups stretch across the globe and raised over $5.1 billion dollars last month. READ MORE
If you didn’t make $1B this week, you are not doing VC right
The only thing more rare than a unicorn is an exited unicorn.
At TechCrunch, we cover a lot of startup financings, but we rarely get the opportunity to cover exits. This week was an exception though, as it was exitpalooza as Affirm, Roblox, Airbnb, and Wish all filed to go public. With DoorDash’s IPO filing last week, this is upwards of $100 billion in potential float heading to the public markets as we make our way to the end of a tumultuous 2020. READ MORE
The One Thing Instacart's Now-Billionaire CEO Changed After 20 Failed Startup Ideas
Instacart is having one heck of a year. The company spent $27 million on efforts to help secure the recent victory of Proposition 22 in California, which will shift labor laws that benefit gig economy-driven startups. But prior to their success at the ballot box, the company was already stacking up one achievement after another this year. READ MORE
Marissa Mayer’s startup launches its first official product
Founders, Apply the Scientific Method to Your Startup
Ask any start-up founder in recent years what guided them in the early days of their entrepreneurial journey and the Lean Startup method is likely to enter the conversation. The book by serial entrepreneur and software engineer Eric Ries, published in 2011, has become a bible for business neophytes; it has sold more than a million copies and is taught in business schools and accelerators. READ MORE
Racial Justice Movement Has Shifted VC Attitudes to Address Diverse Entrepreneurs’ Funding Gap
The discourse around race and equity is raising awareness of the funding gap for diverse entrepreneurs among venture capitalists (VCs) and is motivating them to prioritize efforts to address the uneven funding landscape, according to a new report and survey released by Morgan Stanley. Its second annual survey of U.S.-based VCs reveals that the intensified dialogue around racial inequality has captured investor attention and shifted their attitudes significantly, shaping investment strategies to include actions that address disparities in funding for multicultural- and women-founded companies. READ MORE
What a private equity acquisition means for legacy media
For media companies that are acquired by private equity firms, it can feel like the death knell is tolling. Often that’s because the expectation is that the organization will be stripped down to the studs while the new management looks for an opportunity to quickly flip the property for a healthy payday. READ MORE
World-Class Founders Avoid These 6 Behaviors In Their VC Pitch Meetings
At the earliest stages of investing there is often little - or no data - upon which to base an investment decision. And investors know that whatever deck or financial plan is put in front of them during a pitch is unlikely to survive contact with the real world. READ MORE
How the US elections will affect private equity in the long run
The US elections are one of the few elections that have a global impact. The recent presidential race, culminating in Joe Biden becoming the 46th President of the United States, has been a very closely run race. The lead up to the election, and the results of it, have had and will continue to have an impact on the global private equity industry. Here are some considerations on how the Biden victory, a win for the Democrat party, will affect private equity in the long run. READ MORE