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☆ 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

☆ I've been to more than 30 countries, but I'll always think this European city is the best destination for children of any age
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-27 | by ( Erika Ebsworth-Goold | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewAs a travel writer, one of my greatest loves is experiencing a new country, region, or city with my son. But if you ask me, London is also the best spot to bring your kids, especially if they range in age. Here's why I'll always believe London is a terrific destination for children of any age. Children under 11 travel for free when accompanied by an adult, and discounts are available for older kids. The city is full of parks for children to play inLondon has incredible green space for such a large city.

Persons: —, I've, Erika Ebsworth, Big Ben, we've, Gordon Ramsay's, Martin Organizations: Service, London, Business, Transportation, Heathrow Express, Airport, Paddington Station, Hyde Park, Royal Observatory, Prime Meridian, Food, British Museum, Magna Carta, Tate, Eurostar Locations: London, Hyde, Greenwich, London . London, Ethiopian, Harrods, St, Trafalgar, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Birmingham, Brighton, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam

☆ SimpleClosure just landed more VC funding, and its a sign that another wave of startup shutdowns is likely on the way
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-27 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Infinity Ventures's Jeremy Jonker, former head of corporate development and PayPal Ventures at PayPal, led the most recent funding round, joining investors including Michael Vaughn and Jon Pomerantz of Vera Equity and Rex Salisbury of Cambrian Ventures. "It's been sign up after sign up after sign up," he told Business Insider in an interview. SimpleClosure's funding round comes as more startups than ever are shutting down thanks to a tech-market downturn that's left plenty of companies in the lurch. 770 startups shut down in 2023, up from 467 the year before, according to data from cap-table management startup Carta. "More than half of our customers have been entrepreneurs who are already starting their next company," Yona said.

Persons: VCs, Jeremy Jonker, Michael Vaughn, Jon Pomerantz, Vera Equity, Rex Salisbury, Dori Yona, SimpleClosure, Yona, he's, couldn't, doesn't, there's, We've, what's Organizations: Business, PayPal, Cambrian Ventures, SimpleClosure, Carta Locations: fintech

☆ 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

☆ Startup funding is falling in most major cities. So why is Boston pulling ahead?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( Melia Russell | Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

AdvertisementThe Bay Area took the lion's share of capital raised on Carta in 2023, followed by Boston, then New York. AdvertisementAccording to Carta data, select metro areas saw the total early-stage funding raised decline by at least a third from 2022 to 2023. Yet early-stage funding was only down 24% in Boston, however, the smallest decrease of the metro areas that Carta tracks. According to Carta data, about $2.6 billion of capital raised in biotech flowed to Boston startups last year. Beyond biotechThe Carta data shows Boston also had strong showings across investment in software-as-a-service and hardware.

Persons: —, Zach Weinberg, Roche, Carta, Founders, that's, Rudina Seseri, Seseri, Peter Walker, Michael Greeley, Greeley, Mark Castleman, Castleman, Clement Cazalot, Cazalot, Walker Organizations: Service, Massachusetts Turnpike, Partners, Business, Carta, Boston, East Coast, Companies, Area, Flare Capital Partners, pharma, Intel Ignite, Glasswing Ventures, Founders, Machinery, Pritzker Group, Armory Square Ventures, Way Ventures, Klaviyo's, New York Stock Exchange Locations: Boston, New York City, East, Boston , Cambridge, Newton , Massachusetts, Newark, Jersey City , New Jersey, New York, San Francisco, Bay, France, Copley

☆ This island in Italy is home to the world's longest-living people—here's how they eat to promote longevity
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-02 | by ( Raeleen D'Agostino Mautner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Sardinia, Italy is one of the world's five "Blue Zones" — or places around the world where an unusually large number of people live to 100 or longer. For these vibrant Sardinian senior citizens, what they eat plays an important role in longevity. But you don't need to live in Italy to get these culinary health benefits. Here's how to eat like a Sardinian for a longer life:1. Grow some of your own foodSardinians like to forage for wild asparagus, wild greens, berries and mushrooms.

Locations: Sardinia, Italy, Sardinian

☆ 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

☆ This US couple bought a home in the ‘forgotten region’ of Italy. Here’s what happened next
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-22 | by ( Tamara Hardingham-Gill | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

New beginningChuck Stevens and Ben Di Rienzo bought a home in the town of Vinchiaturo Molise in southern Italy’s Molise, known as the ‘forgotten region.' “For the first couple of months, it felt like we were on vacation,” says Di Rienzo. “Just learning about real Italian life living. “The chefs in the area here really put their heart and soul into things,” says Di Rienzo. “The expectation of getting your house renovated within six months to a year, that’s not going to happen,” says Di Rienzo.

Persons: Charles “ Chuck ” H, Stevens, Berardino, Ben ” Di Rienzo, who’ve, ” Stevens, Di Rienzo, Chuck Stevens, Ben Di Rienzo, Ben DiRienzo, Covid, they’d “, “, ”, Di Rienzo’s, “ Ben, ’ ”, ’ ” Di Rienzo, –, ” Di, they’d, they'd, Max, “ We’ve, They’ve, they’ve, ’, he’s “, Rienzo, Ben DiRienzo “, that’s, It’s, I’m Organizations: CNN, CNN Travel, “, US, ” Locations: Manhattan, New Jersey, “ New York, Italy, Vinchiaturo Molise, Italy’s Molise, Europe, United States, “, Italian, Molise, Tuscany, Amalfi Coast, America, New York

☆ Here are the 25 startups that sponsor the most H-1B visas for immigrants looking for work
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Melia Russell | Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The H-1B visa has served as a prominent pathway for skilled foreign labor into the American job market. The H-1B visa program is the nation's largest temporary work visa program, with over 600,000 workers across 50,000 employers. However, obtaining an H-1B visa remains challenging due to high demand. According to data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the 2024 H-1B visa lottery saw applications rise to a record-breaking 780,000. Using recent data from the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Business Insider put together this ranking of the top H-1B startup employers between October 1, 2022, and September 30, 2023.

Persons: USCIS, Jason Finkelman, Finkelman Organizations: Business, Citizenship, Immigration Services, White, Information, Regulatory Affairs, of Foreign Labor Locations: Hyderabad, Beijing

☆ The great startup cash crunch is underway — and it's forcing late-stage companies to face their demise
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-05 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The VC funding picture for late-stage startups is looking pretty grim with capital hard to come by. Some late-stage startups are now folding and selling off their best assets during this cash crunch. AdvertisementAdvertisementIt's been a pretty brutal year for startups and their founders looking to raise venture capital funding. AdvertisementAdvertisementThis longer wait time between rounds isn't totally surprising since VC funding this year has been its lowest since 2018. Startup extinction season is well underway and it seems as though we're seeing a startup per week bite the dust.

Persons: It's, —, Olive AI, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Marc Benioff, Dan Lewis, Lewis Organizations: Service, Venture Monitor, US, Convoy, CNBC, Olive AI Locations: Canada

☆ The startup extinction wave is rising and it's beginning to wash over the cloud industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Startup shutdowns will continue at an elevated pace for the next 2 to 3 quarters, according to Peter Walker, head of insights at Carta. There's one big caveat to these concernsThe generative AI boom is firing up demand for AI cloud services. And they're using some of that new money to spend on AI cloud services. The company's cloud growth was healthy in the third quarter, helped by demand for new AI services. The company has been rolling out a slew of AI cloud offerings lately.

Persons: It's, —, Carta, Peter Walker, Bernstein, Ruth Porat, Amy Hood, they're, we'll Organizations: Service, Carta, Services, Google, Amazon, Microsoft

☆ At unicorn startup Carta, a culture of absolute fealty to an erratic and vindictive CEO, employees say
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +17 min

Both men remained valued employees at Carta, with the sales representative even getting promoted just weeks after the alleged "helicopter penis" incident, according to former employees. CEO Henry Ward cofounded Carta, originally called eShares, in 2012 as a service for startups to digitize their paper stock certificates. Today Carta helps startups track their investors, employees manage their equity awards, and venture capitalists administer their funds. The lawsuit says that 10 days after Rogers filed her complaint, Ward "began treating Ms. Rogers in an aggressive and demeaning manner during several meetings." Many of the employees who have spoken out publicly about Carta and Ward have found themselves embroiled in expensive legal battles.

Persons: Lisa Whittaker, Whittaker, Jerry Talton, David Kim, Andrea Lamari, Kim, Henry Ward, Andreessen Horowitz, Ward, Henry, Alex Kurland, Carta, Peter Thiel, Simon Cowell, Talton's, Suzanne Elovic, Elovic, Lamari, Jeff Perry, Perry, salespeople, JT Goodman, Goodman, Goodman didn't, Jeff Perrry, Allie Rogers, Rogers, Rodgers, Rachel Mayes, Ward doesn't, Mayes, Jeff, Jeff Perry countersued, Orrick Herrington, Sutcliffe, Kleiner Perkins, Ellen Pao, Amanda Sheets, Sheets, Pushback, Lindauer, Whitaker, Whittaker wasn't, Barbara Byrne, Byrne, Talton, Joe Osnoss, Osnoss, Heidi Johnson, Johnson Organizations: Carta, UBS, Gold Club, Lightspeed, California Civil Rights Department, Meritech, YouTube, Win, York Stock Exchange, San, San Francisco Superior, San Francisco Superior Court, Barclays, Lehman Brothers, Montana Human Rights Bureau Locations: San Francisco, Brazil, Silicon Valley, California, Palo, Iranian, Lindauer, Silver, Montana

☆ Top Italy court confirms acquittals in Monte dei Paschi derivatives case
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-11 | by ( Marco Carta | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

View of the entrance to the headquarters of Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the oldest bank in the world, which is facing massive layoffs as part of a planned corporate merger, in Siena, Italy, August 11, 2021. Among the 15 defendants cleared by Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation were former MPS Chairman Giuseppe Mussari and its former Managing Director Antonio Vigni and Deutsche (DBKGn.DE) and Nomura (8604.T). The appeals court cancelled seizures imposed on Deutsche Bank and Nomura Holdings Inc (8604.T) for 64.9 million and 88 million euros, respectively. The case centred on two derivatives transactions — dubbed Alexandria and Santorini — that Nomura and Deutsche Bank arranged for MPS in 2009. MPS, the world's oldest bank still in business and Italy's fifth biggest listed lender, had reached a court settlement in 2016 in the derivatives case at a cost of 10.6 million euros.

Persons: Jennifer Lorenzini, Siena, Giuseppe Mussari, Antonio Vigni, Nomura, Marco Carta, Keith Weir, Valentina Za Organizations: Monte, REUTERS, Rights, Monte dei, Deutsche Bank, Nomura, Italy's, Cassation, Deutsche, Nomura Holdings Inc, MPS, Prosecutors, Thomson Locations: Monte dei, Siena, Italy, Milan, Alexandria

☆ The 52 most important VCs in Boston, according to other VCs
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-09 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

In September, one of Boston's own homegrown companies, Klaviyo, was among the first tech startups to pry open the IPO market, which had been closed for a two-year stretch. According to research by Carta, Boston has a healthy lead on other cities for total capital raised across biotech, health-tech, medical devices, and energy companies so far this year. It's also worth mentioning that funding to Boston startups has cooled from the peak in 2021, as has funding everywhere. In celebration of this vibrant scene, Insider is recognizing the most important venture capitalists in the greater Boston area. We asked VCs from across the country about the Boston investors to know, and we also referred to our past reporting on the top seed investors to find more picks.

Persons: Andrew Bialecki, It's, VCs Organizations: Boston, Carta Locations: Boston, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck two former VCs used to raise $4.7 million in funding for their startup The Grand, whose coaching service is used by Googlers, founders, and NBA players alike
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-03 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

In the midst of a funding crapshoot for young startups, The Grand, a four-year-old startup that provides career coaching as a service, has raised $4.7 million in a round of seed funding led by Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six. You could say founders Anita Hossain Choudhry and Rei Wang had a leg up on creating the pitch deck they used to convince venture capitalists to back their startup. The goliath of coaching startups is BetterUp, a startup that offers individual and group coaching and has raised $600 million in funding so far. The Grand is now walking in lockstep with roughly 1,000 members, including Googlers, founders, and pro athletes. Check out the pitch deck that The Grand used to raise $4.7 million in seed funding.

Persons: Alexis Ohanian's Seven, Anita Hossain Choudhry, Rei Wang, Hossain Choudhry, Wang, Oscar, it's Organizations: Google, Intuit, Angel City Football Club, NBA, Carta Locations: Ohanian, lockstep

☆ Exclusive: Carta is suing yet another former employee to prevent the release of damaging recordings of its executives and board members
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-28 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tech unicorn Carta filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California in August against its former Chief Product Officer Heidi Johnson, demanding she turn over secret recordings of the company's top executives and board members. It's the second time the company has gone to federal court in order to prevent the release of what it says are damaging recordings. In court documents reviewed by Insider, Carta states that Johnson was fired in November 2022 for having a "polarizing" management style and for taking unauthorized leave. Shortly after her termination, both Johnson and Talton filed complaints with the company's board raising issues about her firing and the conduct of CEO Henry Ward. Additionally, Carta is seeking monetary damages from Johnson for breach of contract with the amount to be determined at trial.

Persons: Carta, Heidi Johnson, It's, Johnson, Andreessen Horowitz, Jerry Talton, Talton, Henry Ward, Lindaur, Emily Kramer Organizations: Northern District of, Lightspeed, New York's Southern, Carta Locations: Northern District, Northern District of California, Silicon, New York's, New York's Southern District, Carta

☆ Italy's Top Court Removes Block to Regeni Murder Trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-27 | by ( Sept. | At P.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +2 min

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's top court ruled on Wednesday that the trial of four Egyptian security officials over the disappearance and murder of an Italian student could go ahead, despite concerns the defendants did not know they had been charged. Reviewing the issue, Italy's top court said in a statement that the legal code relating to this question was unconstitutional given the lack of cooperation from the suspects' home state, opening the way for the trial to resume. Giulio Regeni, a postgraduate student at Britain's Cambridge University, disappeared in Cairo in January 2016. Italian and Egyptian prosecutors investigated the case together, but the two sides later fell out and came to very different conclusions. Italy's legal system is notoriously slow and there was no immediate indication of when the trial might resume.

Persons: Francesco Lo Voi, Giulio Regeni, Magdi Sharif, Tarek Sabir, Hisham Helmy, Ather Kamal, Sharif, Crispian Balmer, Marco Carta, Bill Berkrot Organizations: Britain's Cambridge University, Egypt's General Intelligence Locations: ROME, Rome, Cairo, Cairo city, Italian, Italy

☆ The guy who designed the iPhone and MacBook is reportedly talking to ChatGPT boss Sam Altman about a new AI device
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-27 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

iPhone designer Jony Ive and ChatGPT-head Sam Altman may be building an AI product togetherMasayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, is also looped into their conversations, The Information reported. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . The potential AI product is still shrouded in mystery. The announcement of the potential AI hardware product comes as tech companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon race to build AI technology in an effort to beat OpenAI's conversational AI chatbot ChatGPT. Meanwhile, as for the CEO of SoftBank, Son is no stranger to ChatGPT.

Persons: Jony, Sam Altman, Son, It's, —, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Jony Ive, OpenAI, Masayoshi, SoftBank, SoftBank didn't, ChatGPT, LoveFrom, King Charles III Organizations: Service, OpenAI's, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Ferrari, Astra, CNBC Locations: OpenAI

☆ Young startups are feeling the pinch as seed funding succumbs to the VC winter
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

There were 441 seed rounds recorded on Carta in the second quarter of this year, the slowest quarter for deal activity since early 2019. Funding for early-stage startups leveled off in the second quarter of this year. That has to do in part with a greater number of seed startups trying to raise extension rounds, multiple investors said. Carta data shows the median seed valuation hit $13.7 million in the second quarter, which is significantly higher than any quarter prior to 2021. "The founders that are raising seed rounds are raising them for decent cash and at decent valuations — healthy on both fronts," said Peter Walker at Carta.

Persons: That's, Jenny Fielding, Fielding, Carta, Andreessen Horowitz, they're, Marlon Nichols, Lily Lyman, —, it's, Brian Sugar, Sugar, Peter Walker Organizations: Carta, Ventures, New, Sequoia, Greylock Partners, MaC Venture Capital, Fund, Sugar Capital Locations: New York, Boston, Carta

☆ Customer data, transactions, financials: Still reeling from the market implosion, VCs are demanding to see numbers to back up founder pitches
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Founders say VCs are increasingly demanding detailed data and visibility into their startups before considering a deal. But some in the industry say that for early stage startups, a reliance on data can create an illusion of certainty. Half a dozen early stage startup founders tell Insider that gone are the days when a good idea and flashy pitch deck were enough to close a deal. He described it as looking for "the golden playbook for investing in early stage startups." For his part Hasan says that when speaking to potential investors, he views an obsession with financials and data as a red flag.

Persons: Miguel Guerrero, Guerrero, He's, Fahad Hassan, Hasan, Keyvan Firouzi, Firouzi, Jason Calacanis, it's, Dorothee Grant, Avante Price, James Cham, Cham, Hassan Organizations: IRL, Activant, Stanford, Carta, Investors, Bloomberg Beta Locations: New York

☆ Flexport rescinds dozens of job offers amid messy executive shakeup
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-08 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Flexport founder Ryan Petersen said his supply chain management firm would rescind dozens of job offers just days before many applicants were scheduled to start work — a move that followed a dramatic leadership shakeup this week. “I am deeply sorry to those people who were expecting to join our company and won’t be able to at this time,” Petersen wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday. Can’t just give out cash tho.”A Flexport spokesperson said the company didn’t have additional comment beyond Petersen’s tweets. The rescinded offers came at the end of a wild week for the San Francisco-based firm, which Petersen founded in 2013. In a 2023 company post, he explained his interest in angel investing and in joining Thiel’s Founders Fund as a partner.

Persons: New York CNN — Flexport, Ryan Petersen, “, won’t, ” Petersen, “ It’s, ”, Flexport, Can’t, Petersen, Andreessen Horowitz, Sofbank, Peter Thiel’s, Donald Trump, he’s, Dave Clark, Clark Organizations: New, New York CNN, San, Bay Area, Thiel’s, Fund, Carta, Amazon, Flexport Locations: New York, San Francisco, Silicon, Bay

☆ Andrew Bialecki built Klaviyo into an email titan by breaking all the norms. Now he's taking it public as its largest shareholder.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-01 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Andrew Bialecki is preparing to take Boston startup Klaviyo public eleven years after founding it. Bialecki, who cofounded the marketing tech company in 2012, owns more than a third of Klaviyo, according to the company's recent S-1 filing. In the last eleven years, the 37-year-old has quietly built the hottest Boston startup you've never heard of. For comparison, HubSpot's Brian Halligan and Toast's Chris Comparato reported salaries of roughly $240,000 before taking their Boston startups public. Bialecki has also sold few shares of Klaviyo in inside rounds, according to two people familiar with the company's financials.

Persons: Andrew Bialecki, Jason Lemkin, Peter Walker, Klaviyo, Yankee frugality, Barry Chin, Ed Hallen, Hallen, Bialecki, Alexa von, TJ Mahony, he's, Elias Torres, Bootstrapping, Jon Karlen, Karlen, Mahony, Alex Clayton, frugality, HubSpot's Brian Halligan, Toast's Chris Comparato Organizations: Boston Globe, Getty, MIT's Sloan School of Management, Capital, Harvard University, Predictive Technologies, Fortune, Red Sox, Meritech Capital, Boston, Black, Patriots Locations: Boston, Coast, Bialecki, Washington, DC, Klaviyo, Braze, Miami

☆ Jill Lepore Revisits American Myths With an Eye to the Present
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-26 | by ( Sloane Crosley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

THE DEADLINE: Essays, by Jill LeporeIn 1636, at the height of the Dutch economic hysteria known as Tulipomania, John Harvard helped found the first college of the American colonies. It’s a good thing I do not have Jill Lepore’s job. The phrase “historical framework” is insufficient when it comes to Lepore, who also provides the picture and the glass. Through these figures Lepore covers American consumerism, literary biography, journalism, intellectual property law and other cultural curiosities. But it’s her inclinations toward misfits and old narratives we have taken for granted that make “The Deadline” glow.

Persons: Jill Lepore, John Harvard, Jill Lepore’s, John Harvard’s, ”, Lepore, Jane Franklin, Lela, Robert L, Ripley, Who ”, Rachel Carson, Mary Shelley, “ Frankenstein, Fredrick Douglass, Joan Didion’s, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s, “, Karl Marx, Walt Whitman Organizations: Yorker, Magna Carta, Mattel, Affordable, Lepore

☆ Lending startup Captain raised $107 million in the boom times. Now it's up for sale amid layoffs and a capital drought.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Melia Russell | Rob Price | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Captain, a startup that aimed to quicken home repairs after natural disasters, is winding down. The Louisville-based company had previously raised $107 million across venture and debt equity. CartaMany early-stage startups such as Captain, which had raised $107 million across equity and debt capital, have struggled to raise new funding as a drought in venture capital spreads through Silicon Valley. Liabilities pile upThe company relies on debt financing to pay contractors upfront for materials, supplies, and labor costs. In his email, Gray said prospective buyers were aware of the outstanding liabilities and the sale price would be used to satisfy those liabilities, "with wages being the most paramount," he said.

Persons: Demetrius Gray, Gray, Captain, Red Swan, Pete Flint, Flint, PATRICK T, FALLON, Talent, Melia Russell, Rob Price Organizations: quicken, Carta, TechCrunch, GGV, fintech, Munich Re, San Francisco Superior Court Locations: The Louisville, Silicon Valley, Carta, Louisville , Kentucky, NFX, CoVenture, Munich, Maui

☆ The 23 most important VCs in the Rocky Mountain region, according to other VCs
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The Rocky Mountains are luring venture capitalists from tech hubs like Silicon Valley and New York. In 2022, according to data gathered by Carta, Denver was the 11th-busiest metropolitan area for venture investment in the country, with more than $2 billion in capital raised on Carta. Startups in Salt Lake City collected another $900 million in funding last year. In 2022, Denver and Boulder, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, Utah, ranked among the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas by venture investment. CartaOur list includes both seasoned venture capitalists who have been elevating Rocky Mountain tech for years and ambitious newcomers looking to strike gold in an overlooked territory.

Persons: Chris Sacca Organizations: Carta, Rockies, Rocky, Foundry Group Locations: Silicon, New York, Denver, Boulder , Colorado, Salt Lake City , Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Carta, Salt Lake City, Boulder

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