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☆ Read the 19-page pitch deck ex-Meta staffers used to raise $1 million for their comedy startup
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Sydney Bradley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Danny Frenkel, the CEO of comedy startup PunchUp Live, said the industry had a pretty standard path to success. Comics would aim to score a special on Comedy Central, Netflix, or HBO to become a big headliner at large venues. But Frenkel said the problem was comedians were '"renting" those audiences from social-media platforms. PunchUp helps comedians navigate social-media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Check out PunchUp Live's 19-page pitch deck:Note: PunchUp redacted financial projections originally included in the deck.

Persons: Danny Frenkel, Frenkel, Alex Dajani, Steve Byrne, Sam Morril, Rachel Feinstein, Mark Norman, PunchUp, Morril, he's, " Frenkel, Meta Ray, Heracles Capital Organizations: Comedy Central, Netflix, HBO, Business, YouTube, Meta, Reality Labs, Heracles, Hustle Fund, Evil Twin

The creator economy buzz has simmered down but some startups are still catching investors' attention. Insider asked over a dozen VCs and angel investors to share which startups are on their radar. Here are 14 startups to watch in the creator economy as 2023 comes to a wrap. Yes, the buzz around the creator economy has fizzled out and consolidation has swept through the industry, but some startups are still catching the attention of investors. Insider asked more than a dozen venture capital and angel investors specializing in the creator economy, from firms including Hustle Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and MaC Ventures, about the creator startups they think are most promising this year.

Organizations: Hustle Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners, MaC Ventures

☆ Series, a fintech helping enterprises automate back-office functions, just raised $25 million in fresh funds with this Notion memo
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Series, a fintech startup that aims to simplify finance and operations management for enterprises, has raised $25 million in fresh funds. The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2021, enables enterprises to handle a vast array of business departments from a single platform. Series' platform allows companies to manage areas including payments operations, business-to-business payments, payroll, HR, and treasury management. Series has raised $25 million across pre-seed and seed funding which it did using a pitch memo in Notion, an increasingly common form of attracting investor attention. Series most recent funding round closed earlier this year and the fresh capital has gone towards hiring as it looks to grow out its 30-strong team.

Persons: Brexton Pham, Kleiner Perkins, Rob Lowe Organizations: Hustle, One Ventures, Caffeinated, Wischoff Ventures Locations: San Francisco, HOF Capital

☆ Here's the 14-slide pitch deck Deft, an AI-powered search engine for e-commerce, used to raise $1.8 million in a round backed by Jason Calacanis
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Deft, an AI-powered search engine startup for e-commerce, has emerged from stealth with a $1.8 million funding round. "Google and Amazon continue to push the most relevant searches down so they can make more money and marketers have figured out how to bump up results using SEO," Zach Hudson, Deft cofounder and CEO, told Insider. The rise of AI following the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT 3 last year led to increased pressure to launch for Deft, Hudson added. Deft is emerging from stealth with its product after raising $1.8 million in funding at the beginning of 2022. The company's funding round comes from Hustle Fund, Frontier VC, Vitalize, Long Ecommerce Ventures, 43 Ventures, Launch, and angel investor Jason Calacanis alongside a variety of founders.

Persons: Alex Gunnarson, Zach Hudson, Hudson, Long, Jason Calacanis, I've Organizations: Google, Hustle Fund, Frontier, Long Ecommerce Ventures, Ventures

☆ Emerging venture fund managers had few banking options to begin with. After Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, where do they turn now?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Melia Russell | Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Silicon Valley Bank had long banked a class of startup investors known as emerging managers. He was able to quickly switch from Silicon Valley Bank with an email to his contact at AngelList. Novak is part of a contingent of investors who are shifting their banking strategy in the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank's failure. After Silicon Valley Bank's demise, the big banks have gotten more selective, the three investors said. The big banks like JPMorgan set account minimums for its private banking group, locking out emerging fund managers.

☆ In a tech downturn, breakout stars of venture capital are going abroad to hunt for funding. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The flow of capital motivated more investors to split from established firms and raise their own funds, but it hasn't always been easy. For years they've gone abroad to raise capital from limited partners, mostly wealthy individuals and family offices. This isn't new territory for international investors. He continues to use his personal wealth to back startups and venture funds mostly stateside, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Brianne Kimmel's Worklife Ventures. Even those with ties to international investors may struggle to raise funds as fears of a global recession escalate.

☆ Waivr's founders had failed at their first idea. Here's how they ended up landing $1.4 million for their company.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It raised a $1.4 million pre-seed round from Costanoa Ventures, NextView Ventures, CRV, and others. Their first idea was a lot like their payments startup Waivr, but without the focus on subscriptions. That beta test on the market had 300 people, whose transaction data they gathered. The founders noticed that people were overdrafting mainly on subscription payments, so they moved to focus on that. That's how Waivr, a startup seeking to facilitate real-time subscription payments with safeguards to prevent accidental overdrafts, came to be.

☆ Startups, Investors Bet on Remote Work Future
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Angus Loten | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Even as more employers signal an end to remote work, tech startups and their investors are betting that it is here to stay, offering a range of digital tools designed to support a permanent workforce outside of the office. “Investors are super-pumped on remote,” Mr. Salam said. “Remote work is a durable phenomenon,” said Ravi Gupta, a partner at Sequoia who led the firm’s investment in Remote. Mr. Riggs said Frameable currently has hundreds of commercial customers, who rent its software with rates varying by the number of users. “I may be a bit biased, but I absolutely believe remote work is here to stay,” said Remote’s Mr. van der Voort.

☆ Silicon Valley's not-so-secret thing for turning everyone into millionaires is angel investing. Here's how they do it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Once only for the superrich, angel investing is now open to anyone with a few thousand dollars. With an estimated 360,000 active angel investors, it's become a favorite pastime in Silicon Valley. "It felt like gambling," David Spreng, a veteran venture-debt investor who's been angel investing as a side hustle for more than a decade, said. He wrote his first angel check shortly thereafter, a $1,000 investment in an electric-aircraft maker. The currency of Silicon Valley"Your currency, for lack of a better term, in Silicon Valley is you either started a company or you angel invest, right?"

☆ An exclusive look at the 19-slide pitch deck a real-estate-investing startup aimed at millennials and Gen Zers used to raise a total of $9 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Fintor raised $6.2 million in October, bringing its total funding to $9 million. The fractional-real-estate firm caters to younger investors by making buy-ins low — as little as $5. Its CEO, Farshad Yousefi, walked Insider through the pitch deck Fintor used to raise the money. Backers including Public.com, Hustle Fund, 500 Global, and Graphene Ventures contributed $6.2 million to Fintor's latest funding round, bringing the total raised since 2021 to $9 million. Yousefi argued that investing in real estate via traditional means — like buying a home, getting a mortgage, and renovating it yourself — can turn off younger investors.

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