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☆ Ali Partovi learned to code in a war zone. Now, he's trying to build a new kind of venture fund.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

download the appSign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. But amid the chaos, there was one solid thing in Partovi's life, one thing he knew he could always put in order: computer code. Related storiesNow, Partovi has reached the top echelon of seed investors, ranking 13th on Business Insider's Seed 100 list. 'Neo Scholars'Through his seed-stage fund Neo, Partovi has amassed a formidable portfolio of early-stage investments, including Ramp, Deel, Vanta, MosaicML, and many more. As these "Neo Scholars," as they're known, graduate or drop out to build startups, Neo backs them with money from its investment fund.

Persons: —, Ali Partovi, Saddam Hussein, Partovi's, Hadi, Partovi, Facebook, Uber, There's Erik Goldman, Dropbox, Vanta, There's Ari Steinberg, who's Organizations: Service, Business, Boston University, Sharif University of Technology, Harvard, Microsoft, University, CS, Stanford, Facebook, Airbnb Locations: Tehran, Iran, Iraq, North America, Silicon

☆ How Termina selected and ranked the 2024 Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists of the top early-stage venture capitalists
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Jake Ellowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewThe Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists are derived from a statistical analysis of investor track records. Incubated by Tribe Capital, Termina is an AI-software platform that powers quantitative due diligence for leading investors around the world. Show intermediate signs of future success with seed investments that consistently receive follow-on investment. Ten percent of all seed investors in scope were women, up from 8% when the first Seed 100 was released in 2021. The result in just one year is the largest-ever rebalancing of how investors allocate seed capital across sectors.

Persons: —, We've, We're, OpenAI, Termina, Jake Ellowitz Organizations: Service, Business, Tribe Capital Locations: USA, Canada

☆ How former Slack and Twitter executive April Underwood used angel investing to create a career in venture capital
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Leena Rao | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

That entrepreneurial, technology-focused spirit has driven Underwood to an illustrious career at some of the industry's biggest companies, including Google, X, Slack, and Intel. As she built products at these tech giants, Underwood quietly invested in over 50 startups, including the genetics-testing unicorn Color and the cap-table giant Carta. Underwood began investing while at X, then called Twitter, where she was the company's director of product. Shortly after, #Angels was born, the investment collective cofounded by Underwood, Verrilli, Jana Messerschmidt, Chloe Sladden, Katie Stanton, and Vijaya Gadde. Since 2015, the group has backed over 100 startups, including Forward, Clubhouse, Instacart, Material Security, and Airtable.

Persons: Underwood, she'd, Slack, Jessica Verrilli, who'd, Stewart Butterfield, Cal Henderson, Ev Williams, Jack Dorsey, Verrilli, Jana Messerschmidt, Chloe Sladden, Katie Stanton, Vijaya Gadde, you've, I've, they've Organizations: Amarillo College, Business, Google, Intel, GV, Cue, Twitter, Health, Security, Slack Locations: Amarillo , Texas, Amarillo, Termina, San Francisco

☆ These supersized clownfish robots could be coming to waterways in the Middle East
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Amy Gunia | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Without better data to understand the health of increasingly stressed waterways, the fight to save these most precious of resources will be ineffective, says Simeon Pieterkosky, co-founder of the technology company Aquaai. The technology could also find a use in the Middle East, a region that is battling water scarcity. Aquaai co-founder and CEO Liane Thompson. Aquaai is currently upgrading its underwater drones and is in discussions with various government agencies about trials to put the newest version to work. There are a smattering of other agencies and companies developing underwater drones for a variety of purposes.

Persons: Simeon Pieterkosky, ”, Aquaai, Pieterkosky, Liane Thompson, Aquaai Thompson, Thompson, Robert C, Brears, “ Organizations: CNN, United Arab, Abu Locations: California, Norway, East, North Africa, Thompson, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi’s, Beijing

☆ The man who led Google Photos to 1 billion users is now the newest group partner at Y Combinator
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Lieb, having a background in semiconductors and not server management, reached out to his fellow Y Combinator founders for support. After a year and a half of advising at the accelerator, he's stepping up as a group partner, Y Combinator tells Business Insider exclusively. It was never released, but many of the ideas would later come back in the form of Google Photos. From there, he reached into the Y Combinator alumni network to find other promising upstarts. David Lieb, second from left, speaks to a group of Y Combinator founders.

Persons: David Lieb, Lieb, Alex Polvi, Combinator —, Garry Tan, Jared Friedman, Harj Taggar, Michael Seibel, Sam Altman, it's, Y Combinator, " Lieb, Dan Lieb, Y, Xoogler, Patrick, John Collison's, Mixpanel, Jake Mintz, Forbes, Kevin Systrom, Flock, Andy Huibers, Mary, 72m2YgJZq8 — David Lieb, Ryan Peterson, He's Organizations: Apple, Business, Investors, Google Locations: Cloudkick, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Flexport

☆ 43-year-old started a side hustle in college with $150—now it brings in $200 million a year: It took 'everything that I had'
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Tom Huddleston Jr. Lauren Shamo | Tom Huddleston Jr. | Lauren Shamo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

By the time he graduated in 2004, Berkowitz signed a lease to open Insomnia's first brick-and-mortar location, near another college campus in Syracuse, New York. Now, with Krispy Kreme looking to sell Insomnia, Berkowitz says he's "grateful for the journey." Seth Berkowitz estimates he spent roughly $150 on baking ingredients to start Insomnia Cookies. "2009 and 2010 [were] some of the hardest years ever at Insomnia Cookies," says Berkowitz, adding: "There wasn't anyone else to do it. 'Insomnia Cookies is a perseverance story'

Persons: Seth Berkowitz, Krispy, " Berkowitz, Berkowitz, he's, Grubhub, Uber, —, Jared Barnett —, Barnett Organizations: CNBC, University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse , New York ., College Park , Locations: Syracuse , New York, Champaign , Illinois, College Park , Maryland, Syracuse, New York, Philadelphia

☆ Meet Sharon Zhou, the AI founder doing just fine without Nvidia's chips
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The Santa Clara giant's chips, known as GPUs, became the hottest property of the generative AI boom. In April last year, Zhou and her cofounder Greg Diamos, based in Palo Alto, brought their new startup, Lamini AI, out of stealth. It makes using AI models with GPUs like the H100 and Nvidia's new Blackwell chip, as simple as a plug-and-play system. Fortunately for them, after consulting with Diamos, according to Zhou, AMD was on its way to building a rival system that they would eventually test. it's indiscernible to customers to run Lamini on Nvidia and AMD GPUs," she explained.

Persons: —, giant's, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, hasn't, Jensen Huang, Sharon Zhou, Andrew Ng, Zhou, Greg Diamos, Lisa Su Organizations: Service, Nvidia, Business, Harvard, Stanford, Anthropic, Amazon, AMD Locations: Santa, Palo Alto, OpenAI

☆ Robo-lawyer startup DoNotPay did something almost unheard of in Silicon Valley: It paid a dividend.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In January, the legal startup DoNotPay sent more than $1 million to employees and investors in its first-ever dividend. He got the idea from one of his own angels, Sahil Lavingia, whose startup Gumroad issued a dividend last year. The expectation is that when a company sells or goes public, employees will cash in their shares for untold riches. Last year, the digital commerce startup Gumroad paid a dividend of $1 million across employees, investors, and thousands of crowdfunding backers. Cash rewardsBrowder said he wanted to offer a dividend to reward those employees and investors who bet on the startup early.

Persons: Joshua Browder, Browder, DoNotPay, it's, Sahil Lavingia, Josh Seidenfeld, Cooley, Steve Huffman, Spencer Platt, Seidenfeld, Lavingia, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, Dylan Field, Scott Belsky, Daniel Dines, Balaji Srinivasan, Cash, there's Organizations: Business, Big Law, Employees, Founders Fund, Adobe Locations: San Francisco

☆ Some VCs are over the Sam Altman hype
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

In late 2023, when OpenAI sought $300 million from investors, CEO Sam Altman chose a different approach. In some corners of this clubby world, over $7 coffee and artisanal cocktails, the meteoric rise of OpenAI and Sam Altman is giving way to an inevitable backlash. "He's a kingmaker," a Silicon Valley startup founder and angel investor who knows Altman. Sam Altman and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment. A certain somethingMany of the VCs who spoke with BI said Altman has a certain something.

Persons: —, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, they'd, I've, Ali Ghodsi, Altman's, Ghodsi, Steve Jobs's, Paul Graham, he's, Sam, Jack Altman, It's, it's, Elon, Alexander the Great, Adam Neumann Organizations: Service, NEA, Business, Altman's, The Washington Post, The, YC, BI, WeWork Locations: Sequoia, Silicon Valley, The, San Francisco

☆ Mathilde Collin built a $1.7 billion email startup by the time she was 32. She's now stepping back at an inflection point for Front.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

And so last fall, Collin kicked off a search for a new board director, to fill in her knowledge gaps. Now, Collin says she will step down as chief executive of Front after her hunt for a board director took an unexpected turn. She will move into an executive chair role on April 15, when O'Connell takes up the mantle as chief executive, Front tells Business Insider exclusively. Known for her sharp wit and radical candor, Collin started the business out of college in her native France. Advertisement"We're at a scale now where the CEO can't come in and sort of wave the proverbial magic wand and make things happen," said Mohammed Attar, Front's chief product officer.

Persons: Mathilde Collin, Collin, Dan O'Connell, O'Connell, Garry Tan, Paul Buchheit, Jack Altman, Kyle Vogt, Cruise, Jeff Lawson, Mohammed Attar, —, Josh Stein, Stein Organizations: Service, Business, Dialpad, Front Locations: San Francisco neighborhood, France, Dialpad

☆ Fintech Naro wants to take advantage of Europe's ETF boom. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck it used to raise $3 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Naro, a German fintech startup, has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding. Cologne-based Naro, founded in 2022, wants to take advantage of the boom in exchange-traded funds — or ETF — products in Europe to offer white-label services to various banks, funds, and brokers. Naro's pre-seed funding round was led by Berlin's La Famiglia alongside Discovery Ventures, plus investment from Robin Capital, Angel Invest, and various angels. Funding will go towards expanding the startup's current team of 10 staff as it looks to partner with potential customers looking to build out products within their existing infrastructure. Naro's business plan subsequently changed from its original slides, you can see a version of its pre-seed pitch deck below:

Persons: Chris Püllen, Püllen, Naro's, Berlin's La Organizations: Business, Trade Republic, Discovery Ventures, Robin Capital, Angel Invest, Credit Suisse Locations: Naro, Cologne, Europe, Germany

☆ VC Dick Costolo dishes on the new startup funding frenzy and valuations coming back to earth. 'The world now is much more sane.'
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-26 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

He prefers getting to know founders long before they decide to raise money so he can pounce on the right opportunity. Investors, including hedge funds, hurtled term sheets at founders to beat the competition, skipping the usual diligence along the way. Flush with cash, the partners are seeing a flood of hyper-growth startups come to market for funding after a two-year dry spell. The funding blockage is also softening as valuations come back to earth, Costolo said. "Prices are a lot more sensible now," Costolo said, noting the exception of valuations in artificial intelligence.

Persons: Dick Costolo, Costolo, Costolo isn't, Adam Bain, Twitter's, Dario Amodei, Kimberly White, Getty Costolo, they're, Bain, David Fischer Organizations: Twitter, Business, Advisors, Software, Carta, TechCrunch, Google, Nvidia, Fund, Health Locations: Jackson Hole , Wyoming, Detroit

☆ Generative AI startup Latimer, known as the 'BlackGPT', will launch a new bias detection tool and API
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Monica Melton | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The AI startup, named after inventor Lewis Howard Latimer and affectionately known as "The BlackGPT" is an answer to the bias, lack of cultural competency, and erasure found in popular AI tools like ChatGPT, says Latimer CEO and cofounder John Pasmore. Pasmore said the company has plans to launch about five more products specifically focused on bias detection. The move-fast, break-things energy in AI created an opportunity for Latimer, Pasmore said. This method is baked into Latimer's nascent suite of business offerings set to launch after the release of its API. He is confident that there is "a billion-dollar opportunity" to address bias in incumbent AI offerings for enterprises.

Persons: —, Latimer, Lewis Howard Latimer, John Pasmore, Pasmore, Molefi Kete Asante, Brown, it's Latimer, Esther Dyson Organizations: Service, Business, Black, Morgan State, TRS Capital, Syncom Venture Partners Locations: Swiss

☆ EV boat maker Arc debuts a premium wake sport model for $258,000
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-21 | by ( Lora Kolodny | In Lorakolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Arc Boat Company's fully electric Arc Sport model gets four to six hours of typical use on a single charge. Arc Boat Company began sales of its second electric boat model in just three years this week. The new $258,000 Arc Sport was designed for wake sports enthusiasts and follows the company's earlier Arc One, a limited-edition luxury cruiser. The 23-foot Arc Sport can carry up to 15 people at a time. Arc plans to begin deliveries of its new battery electric Arc Sport to customers this year.

Persons: Mitch Lee, Ryan Cook, Arc, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Will Smith, Andreessen Horowitz, Lee, Rivian Organizations: Boat Company, GM, Sacramento –, SpaceX, EV, Eclipse Ventures, Menlo Ventures Locations: Malibu, Stockholm, Sacramento – San Joaquin, Stockton , California, Lyft, Brunswick, MarineMax

☆ This startup wants to find cancer faster with AI-powered full-body scans. See the 22-slide pitch deck that got Ezra $21 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Read previewLast August, Kim Kardashian posted on Instagram that she'd gotten a full-body MRI scan from the startup Prenuvo, which sparked a national conversation about the merits of preventive imaging. With Kardashian's help, the scans were finally making headlines — and healthtech startup Ezra felt their impact. "The day that Kim Kardashian got a scan, even though it wasn't an Ezra scan, our day-over-day revenue spiked," Ezra CEO and cofounder Emi Gal told Business Insider. Those tailwinds have propelled growth for Ezra, which partners with radiology clinics to perform full-body MRI scans. And, with Ezra's scans, that startup has "helped hundreds of people find cancer," he added.

Persons: —, Kim Kardashian, she'd, Ezra, Emi Gal, Amir Dan Rubin, Anne Wojcicki, Vlad Tenev, David Prior, Esther Dyson, — Gal, Ezra Flash, radiologists, Gal, We've Organizations: Service, Business, VC, FirstMark, Firms, Allianz Life Ventures, Mana Ventures, Ventures, Seedcamp, LDV Locations: Gaingels, Republic

☆ Y Combinator-backed trading app Pluto Markets just raised $2.6 million with this 14-slide pitch deck
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Pluto Markets, a trading app backed by famed accelerator Y Combinator, has raised $2.6 million in fresh funds. The Danish fintech startup, founded in 2021, wants to upend the market for retail trading offerings in Europe. "Companies raised a lot of money to blitz scale across the EU but have now focused on their core markets. Unlike most fintech brokerages, Pluto secured an EU-wide investment license before it had raised $1 million in funding, having bootstrapped and stayed lean. You can check out Pluto Market's 14-slide pitch deck below:

Persons: Joakim Bruchman, Goldman Sachs, We've, Bruchmann, Pluto, Oscar Vingtoft Organizations: Business, Companies, Trade Republic, Saxo Bank, EU Locations: Danish, Europe, Denmark, France, Germany, Berlin

☆ When Soccer’s Content Mine Loses Sight of Reality
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-27 | by ( Rory Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The show, depicting Liverpool’s preparations for the 2012-2013 Premier League season, ran for only one series, amounting to just six episodes. Its subsequent cultural half life has been limited, too; those few elements which have lingered illustrate perfectly why it was not renewed. It would emerge later, of course, that both incidents were a little more nuanced than first assumed. The envelope trick had been adapted from a method once used — albeit with considerably more success — by Alex Ferguson. The portrait had been a gift from a disability charity with which Rodgers had worked closely during his time at his previous club, Swansea.

Persons: Marc Andreessen, ruefully, Brendan Rodgers, …, Rodgers, Alex Ferguson Organizations: maven, League Locations: Liverpool, Swansea

☆ Ex-Shopify merchants built a no-code platform to simplify e-commerce. Check out the 13-slide pitch deck Krepling used to raise $3.3 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-25 | by ( Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Brothers Liam, 23, and Travis Gerada, 20, were Shopify merchants before they decided to get into the more technical side of e-commerce. They found that running a modern e-commerce business requires many different software integrations that often don't share data with each other, making it difficult to manage and make decisions. Some use Shopify or other platforms like WooCommerce, while others have used Krepling to grow from the ground up. "We found that merchants were typically expanding their e-commerce stack to optimize the cost to reach different consumers across many different channels. Take a look at the 13-slide pitch deck that Krepling used to raise its seed round:

Persons: Liam, Travis Gerada, they're, Krepling, Jason Calacanis, Liam Gerada, Gerada Organizations: Business, Bull City Venture Partners, Ventures, Tribes Ventures, Colabora Ventures, Broadshade Investments Locations: GMV

☆ Forta is betting big that AI can help improve access to autism therapy. Take a look at the presentation the healthcare startup used to raise $55 million from Insight Partners.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The healthcare startup, Forta, raised a Series A funding round in January led by Insight Partners. Das added that because every child using Forta receives personalized care, the startup's AI is trained to look at health records and recommend treatments. Indeed, a clinician shortage is creating opportunities for digital health startups to build out mental healthcare services. Mental health coaching startup tapouts just raised a $3.2 million seed round, while incumbents Brightline and Hazel Health have each raised tens of millions of dollars to provide pediatric mental healthcare. Take a look at the 14-slide pitch deck Forta used to raise its $55 million Series A funding round.

Persons: —, Warby Parker, Allbirds, Forta, Ritankar Das, Forta's, Das, Hazel Organizations: Service, Business, Insight Partners, Exor Ventures, Ventures, Mental, Hazel Health

☆ Has the LA scene fizzled? SoCal has fallen further behind the Bay Area, NYC and Boston for startup funding: 'People deep in AI are just not in LA'
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

But last year, the LA tech scene stalled, according to Carta data. Startup funding plummeted everywhere, but nowhere experienced a steeper decline than LA, where funding declined 65% from 2022. CartaLA's startup funding dropped 65% last year, a steeper decline than the Bay Area, New York or Boston. "They're very deep AI companies, but they're being applied to a vertical, which is one of the strengths of LA," Ingersoll said. Bird goes bust and Snap snaps backThere was more bad news for LA's startup scene in 2023 than just the dismal funding numbers.

Persons: Ethan Aldrich, Aldrich, there's, Andreessen Horowitz, a16z, Katia Ameri, Ameri, VCs, Nikita Bier, Bier, Mark Suster, Suster, LA's, we're, Palmer Luckey, Minnie Ingersoll, Ingersoll, Bird, Zillow, Spencer Rascoff, Evan Spiegel ERIC PIERMONT, Ishan Singh, Singh Organizations: Stanford, Business, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue Management, LA Tech, LA, Carta, Honest Company, New, Boston, Microsoft, Clark, SpaceX Locations: Santa Monica, Southern California, LA, Santa, Hayes, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, New York, Boston, Carta, San Diego, Seattle, Hawthorne , CA, Costa, Bay

☆ Invite-only Lapse wants to rival Instagram. It's about to raise a lot of cash to do just that.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Lapse, a buzzy social media app that wants to rival Instagram, is set to raise fresh funding, Business Insider understands. Based on the number of shares allocated, the company has raised approximately £24.48 million, $31 million. One London-based source familiar with the deal said Lapse was set to secure around $30 million. A look at the Lapse app. It aims to help satisfy the demand for more authenticity on social media.

Persons: Instagram, Jacob Andreou, Ben, Dan Silvertown, Plural's Ian Hogarth, Dmitry Tokarev Organizations: Business, Meta, Greylock Ventures, Facebook, Companies, Octopus Ventures, Redbus Ventures Locations: London

☆ Generative AI startup Recraft just raised $12 million from Khosla Ventures and Nat Friedman with this 22-slide pitch deck
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Read previewRecraft, a startup that aims to vastly improve the quality of AI-generated images, has raised $12 million in fresh funds. "We are building some unique things using technology that no one else has," Anna Veronika Dorogush, Recraft's CEO and founder told Business Insider. Recraft has brought in $12 million from Khosla Ventures and former GitHub CEO, Nat Friedman, with participation from RTP Global, Abstract VC, Basis Set Ventures, Elad Gil, and other angel investors. The startup originally wanted to raise $10 million but increased the round size due to being heavily oversubscribed, Dorogush said. AdvertisementThe company hasn't spent money on marketing, relying on word-of-mouth referrals to accrue more than 350,000 users, Dorogush added.

Persons: —, Anna Veronika Dorogush, Recraft, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, Dorogush, hasn't Organizations: Service, Business, Khosla Ventures, RTP Global Locations: London, New York

☆ These are 30 of the most successful early-stage startup investors in the world, according to a proprietary AI model known as 'Moneyball for VC'
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Ben Bergman | Samantha Stokes | Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. TRAC , a San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm cofounded by Fred Campbell, Joseph Aaron, Scott Pyne, Steve Marek, and Dick Fredericks in 2020, has set about to take a more systematic approach to venture capital. Advertisement"A SuperForecaster is in the top 1/10th of 1% of all early-stage investors," Aaron told Business Insider. But now TRAC has agreed to name names, revealing a random sampling of 30 of the 287 SuperForecasters in its model. They rarely make follow-on investments.

Persons: —, Fred Campbell, Joseph Aaron, Scott Pyne, Steve Marek, Dick Fredericks, Phillip Tetlock, Dan Gardner's, Aaron, SuperForecasters Organizations: Service, Business Locations: San Francisco

☆ Some of the best early-stage startup investors share a common trait that should be a lesson for Silicon Valley
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

In today's big story, we're looking at the best investors when it comes to early-stage companies. The big storyPicking winnersCaterina Fake, Cindi Bi, and Suleman AliInvesting can be a crapshoot, especially when it comes to early-stage companies. AdvertisementThe investors, profiled by BI's Ben Bergman, Samantha Stokes, Rebecca Torrence, and Leena Rao, have an incredible track record for early-stage investing. Silicon Valley can be known to have a herd mentality, especially when it comes to venture investors. And yet, some of the best early-stage investors have proven to have far better success going out on their own.

Persons: —, we've, Caterina Fake, Suleman Ali, BI's Ben Bergman, Samantha Stokes, Rebecca Torrence, Leena Rao, Joseph Aaron, cofounders, Tanja Ivanova, isn't, Chanos, Elon Musk, Jim Chanos, Tesla, Musk, Dan Ives, Goldman Sachs, Goldman, Brittany Hosea, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Philipp Schindler, Google's, Alyssa Powell, Michelle Obama, Betty White, Steve Harvey, Muhammad Ali, Benjamin Franklin, Al Capone, Calvin Harris, Charles Schwab, They've Organizations: Service, Business, Reuters, Getty, Elon, Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Google, BI Locations: pant, San Francisco, Brittany, China, Davos, ChatGPT's

☆ Influencers are becoming investors. This company is helping them close deals.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-08 | by ( Amanda Perelli | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

One company helping early-stage startups connect with influencers for capital and marketing services is the Utah-based creator incubator Spacestation. "Influencer marketing is an incredible channel, but it can also be quite expensive for an early-stage company. So, they're getting our investment, but then they're also getting direct access to these creator investors." "This should not be the only investment kind of activity that anybody does, including creators," Holladay added. Where it makes sense, our creator investors help minimize that risk by taking an active role in driving brand growth.

Persons: Logan Paul, Shaun McBride, Tim Holladay, Holladay, they're, We're, Spacestation, it's, we've Organizations: Business, YouTube, Spacestation Investments, Investments, NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB, Ventures, Newcastle Network, SpaceX Locations: Utah, Boston, influencers

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