We recently caught up with longtime VC Mark Suster of L.A.-based Upfront Ventures, which last raised both an early-stage fund and a growth stage fund several years ago and, according to regulatory filings, is in the market right now, though Suster couldn’t discuss either owing to SEC regulations. We did talk about a wide range…
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Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, we talked about some sunglasses from a company that many people do not like very much. This week, we’re talking about Apple and the company 1,600 times smaller than it that’s facing similar product problems. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you…
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Blumberg Capital, founded in 1991 by investor David Blumberg, has just closed its fifth early-stage venture fund with $225 million, a vehicle that Blumberg says was oversubscribed — he planned to raise $200 million — and that has already been used to invest in 16 startups around the world (the firm has small offices in…
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When Kleiner Perkins led Stord’s $12.4 million Series A in 2019, its founders were in their early 20s and so passionate about their startup that they each dropped out of their respective schools to focus on growing the business. Fast-forward two years and Stord — an Atlanta-based company that has developed a cloud supply chain —…
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Last year at this time, SpotOn was on the brink of announcing a $60 million Series C funding round at a $625 million valuation. Fast forward to almost exactly one year later, and a lot has changed for the payments and software startup. Today, SpotOn said it has closed on $300 million in Series E…
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The venture world is growing faster than ever, with more funding rounds, bigger funding rounds, and higher valuations than pretty much any point in history. That’s led to an exponential growth in the number of unicorns walking around, and has also forced regulators and venture law researchers to confront a slew of challenging problems. The…
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Alexander I. Platt Contributor Alexander I. Platt is an associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. Once upon a time, a successful startup that reached a certain maturity would “go public” — selling securities to ordinary investors, perhaps listing on a national stock exchange and taking on the privileges and obligations of…
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Denis Kalinin Contributor Denis Kalinin works at venture fund Runa Capital as Asia Business development manager, devoted to connecting the Western and Asian VC worlds and bringing long-term value to both. China is becoming a superpower in the tech industry. According to Straits Times, China is the only place in the world where it takes…
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David Friend Contributor David Friend is a serial entrepreneur, six-time founder, and the current co-founder and CEO of cloud storage company, Wasabi Technologies. More posts by this contributor Brand power vs. product power The herd sours on unprofitable unicorns again The U.S. produces more new startups and unicorns each year than any other country in…
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Seksom Suriyapa was seemingly destined to land at a venture firm. A Stanford Law graduate, he worked at two blue-chip investment banks before joining the cybersecurity company McAfee as a senior corp dev employee, later logging six years at the human resources software company SuccessFactors and, in 2018, landing at Twitter, where he headed up…
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