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☆ HongShan split from Sequoia last year as US-China relations worsened. Now, it's eyeing up Europe.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-19 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Last June, storied investor Sequoia Capital announced it was to split itself into three separate entities. Sequoia Capital would look after the US and Europe; Peak XV Partners would manage its investments in India; and HongShan Capital would be based in China. The emergence of HongShan as an active investor in Europe would result in the firm "competing with former family," one source said. The expansion could be aimed at attracting businesses that target the Chinese market or companies set up by Chinese entrepreneurs away from home, the FT said, citing sources who had spoken with Shen. HongShan Capital's most recent fund includes LPs such as CalPERS, the University of Texas Investment Management Company, and the University of Washington endowment.

Persons: HongShan, Neil Shen, Shen Organizations: Sequoia Capital, YouTube, Sequoia, Partners, HongShan, Business, United, Strategic, University of Texas Investment Management Company, University of Washington Locations: China, Europe, India, London, Singapore, Asia

☆ Agtech valuations were crushed in 2023. But food security concerns will keep it on the agenda.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-05 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Agtech Unicorn Index, which tracks venture-backed startups in the sector worth over $1 billion, recorded a 20% decline in 2023, according to the Morningstar Unicorn Market Monitor Q4 2023 update. Advertisement"There are more software companies that have sprouted over the past decade, but it traditionally requires fairly technical knowledge about plants and biology." London’s vertical farming unicorn InFarm also struggled and shuttered in Europe . Indeed, PitchBook’s Frederick anticipates agtech will outperform the broader VC ecosystem in the near term due to issues around food security, per PitchBook’s Agtech Q4 2023 report. More broadly, the number of companies hitting unicorn status was at its lowest level since 2017, with 81 new unicorns entering the Morningstar PitchBook Global Unicorn Index in 2023.

Persons: —, Alex Frederick, Frederick, Po Bronson, Bronson, PitchBook’s Frederick, agtech, ” Frederick Organizations: Service, Business, Morningstar, US, Farmers Business Network Locations: cybersecurity, Europe, Ukraine, India, California, Spain

☆ 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

☆ Meagan Loyst, the founder of Gen Z VCs, asked her social media followers for the one thing they would change about venture capital. Here's what they told her.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-28 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Loyst founded Gen Z VCs, a community of over 25,000 young investors, founders and operators. A plurality of young investors and founders said they wanted venture capital to be more accessible. AdvertisementAdvertisementFor newcomers, the clubby world of venture capital can often seem like a black box. AdvertisementAdvertisementAccording to her poll, 45% of respondents said they wished the venture capital industry was "more accessible" to newcomers. AdvertisementAdvertisementLoyst's survey responses are reflective of how many young investors and founders feel shut out of the venture capital industry today, which could potentially get worse during the venture capital downturn.

Persons: Loyst, Z, —, Meagan Loyst, Hippeau Organizations: Service, Black Venture, Venture, Sequoia, Forbes, Oxford University

☆ Europe is minting red hot AI startups like DeepL and Synthesia. Meet 15 of the most prolific investors backing the region's breakout stars.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-28 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | Tasmin Lockwood | Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Meanwhile, Andreessen Horowitz has poured cash into the AI-voice-intelligence startup ElevenLabs and the Nordic AI startup Sloyd. Some of Europe's most prolific AI investors are national funds and startup accelerators. London's Phoenix Court, the parent company of the VC firm LocalGlobe, took the top spot for total investment value — with $713 million poured into AI startups since 2020. MMC Ventures, also in London, followed suit with $628 million in investments in AI startups. Insider has profiled 15 investors at these firms who have spearheaded investments into European AI startups, in no particular order.

Persons: ChatGPT, Andreessen Horowitz, LocalGlobe Organizations: Venture, Lightspeed, New, Nordic, Court, MMC Ventures Locations: French, New York, Europe, London

☆ Silicon Valley fund Bessemer Venture Partners expands European investment team with hire of ex-SoftBank VP
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-22 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Silicon Valley fund Bessemer Venture Partners has expanded its European investment team with the hire of former SoftBank vice president Justina Chung. Chung has joined Bessemer's London office, which is led by partner Alex Ferrara who opened the fund's European operations in 2020. Bessemer made its first European investment in 2004 and has continued to back startups in the region, including German fintechs Upvest and Mambu as well as British neobank Zopa. Chung was a vice president at SoftBank's Vision Fund, where she served on the boards of temp staffing agency Jobandtalent and second-hand designer fashion marketplace Vestiaire Collective. "It's clear that great founders begin their journey here, in Tallinn or Stockholm, London, Paris or Berlin," Chung, who is now a vice president at Bessemer, told Insider.

Persons: Justina Chung, Chung, Alex Ferrara, Bessemer, Jobandtalent, Goldman Sachs Organizations: Bessemer Venture Partners, LinkedIn, Bessemer's London, SoftBank's Vision, Sorare, SoftBank, Credit Suisse, Bessemer, US Locations: San Francisco, Tallinn, Stockholm, London, Paris, Berlin, Europe, Mistral

☆ Startup extinction season is going to kick into high gear — and there's likely going to be a bloodbath soon for some of the 50,000 VC-backed startups
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-26 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

There are more than 50,000 US VC-backed startups, and many will be looking for capital soon. Some startups will be looking for funding in Q4 or be forced to look for a sale or shut down. The startup has followed the typical survival strategy of a desperate startup this year by first cutting costs with layoffs. We all know venture capital funding is tough to come by these days. Venture capital funding was overly abundant in the latter half of 2020 and all of 2021.

Persons: Melia Russell, Rob Price, It's cratered, Kyle Stanford, PitchBook, –, they've, it's, aren't, Stanford Organizations: Morning, US VC, Venture, Stanford, Tiger

☆ An outsider's take on finding success on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

At first glance, Kristofer Baxter doesn't seem like an ideal candidate for offering tips about succeeding on Wall Street. His outside perspective offers a unique look at what it takes to find success on the Street. Too often, people explaining how they found success on Wall Street, or anywhere, amounts to them bragging about how hard they worked. Read more on key lessons from a top engineer at Citadel about finding success. The famous VC firm is going to launch a fund of funds for backing other VCs focused on finding early-stage startups.

☆ Tech employees should expect more debloating even after 330,000 jobs got wiped
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Twitter have collectively chopped around 70,000 staff — but ongoing concerns about profitability and over-hiring means they could slim down more. Google and Amazon should cut more jobs: analystsAnalysts note that Google, for example, added around 71,000 employees in the past three years. They say Meta has seen "limited impact on its growth" after laying off around 25% of its workforce since November. The bank's analysts say that profitability per employee at Amazon excluding its warehouse workers — a measure of its efficiency — is "significantly below peers." With less cash available, cuts will likely persist and workers in tech should brace for more instability this year.

☆ Silicon Valley Bank became the go-to bank for startups with a network of top-tier VCs. Underrepresented founders say that created barriers to access for them.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( April Joyner | Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

But some early-stage founders told Insider they had trouble getting access to SVB's services. SVB's reliance on VC networks made it less accessible to some underrepresented founders, they said. With its focus on venture-backed startups, Silicon Valley Bank provided loans and lines of credit to businesses that often wouldn't qualify for such services at a larger bank. But the earliest-stage companies — those without significant venture funding or a notable VC backer — were still sometimes shut out, founders told Insider. Jean-Charles and Alvarez-Bailey said they didn't believe bias or discrimination was at play in SVB's decisions — they simply didn't meet the bank's VC funding threshold.

Employees have been working around the clock to onboard as many startups as possible in the wake of the implosion of Silicon Valley Bank. Silicon Valley Bank, which had more than $175 billion in deposits and served nearly half of US VC-backed startups, was taken over by US regulators on March 10. "That said, I am worried that this bias towards a Big Four bank is a double-edged sword," Shekar added. "SVB did not think like a big bank. They could understand your operating plan when a big bank would balk at it," Ashley Tyrner, CEO and founder of FarmBoxRX, told Insider.

Greg Becker, who was the longtime CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, pictured last year. "Looks like Silicon Valley Bank is in some deep shit," Uncommon Capital general partner Jamie Quint tweeted. Startup founders scrambled to get their funds out of Silicon Valley Bank after its collapse. Andreessen Horowitz announced this week that it will continue banking with Silicon Valley Bank "for the foreseeable future" but is crafting a longer-term plan to diversify. Even so, he added, "I think we'd be supportive, as they stabilize, for them to be one of many partners that our founders bank with."

☆ New SVB CEO urges top venture capital clients to move deposits back
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 14 (Reuters) - Silicon Valley Bank's new Chief Executive Tim Mayopoulos on Tuesday urged the failed bank's top venture capital clients to move their deposits to its newly created bridge entity, people who attended a virtual meeting with him said. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) appointed the former Fannie Mae CEO to head Silicon Valley Bridge Bank N.A. Mayopoulos told clients deposits at the bank were now among the safest of any U.S. banks or institutions, attendees at the meeting said. Hemant Taneja, CEO of venture capital firm General Catalyst, recommended on Tuesday that its clients who had banked with SVB keep or return at least 50% of their capital to the bank. He has also served as general counsel of Bank of America, and held senior roles at Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

Venture capital firms on both sides of the Atlantic have been urging their portfolio companies to move money out of embattled lender Silicon Valley Bank, deepening fears of a run on the tech-focused bank. Silicon Valley Bank shares plunged 60% Thursday after disclosing that it needed to shore up its capital with a $2.25 billion equity raise from investors including General Atlantic. Pear VC, an early-stage VC firm based in San Francisco, urged its portfolio network to withdraw funds from SVB on Thursday. The wind-down of crypto-centric Silvergate Bank and pressure on Silicon Valley Bank this week reminded some founders of the 2008 financial crisis, in which banks toppled during the mortgage bust. We are seeing other funds encouraging companies to withdraw their funds from SVB.

☆ Europe's venture capital firms are facing a painful 2023 as some struggle to prove returns to LPs in bid to raise fresh capital
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Some of Europe's venture capital firms are struggling to show returns on their investments. Europe's venture capital sector has enjoyed a booming run in recent years. Now, the dramatically changed economic landscape has left not only the startups facing a scarcity of available capital, but also the venture capital firms that fund them too. There are likely to be countless more who are also struggling to raise capital. For some smaller firms, the frothy days of 2021 are looking increasingly like a distant memory.

☆ Ketamine is being sold as a depression wonder drug. For some, it's making everything worse.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Anna Silman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +42 min

The infusions at the ketamine clinic in his West Texas hometown were a Christmas gift from his grandmother. About five years ago, more and more of my friends started using ketamine recreationally. IV ketamine treatment centers charging $400 to $2,000 an infusion popped up all over the country. "Ketamine used as directed in an appropriate clinical setting very rarely leads to any dependence," Mindbloom says on its website. Like Nadia, most of the people I interviewed said when they started using ketamine, they didn't think it was possible to become dependent on it.

☆ Europe's tech ecosystem nursed a hangover in 2022 as the post-pandemic party ended and VCs returned to fundamentals
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Callum Burroughs | Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

VCs returned to slower capital deployment and due diligence processes after a record-breaking 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic and the last remnants of the era of cheap money led to reckless abandon in funding markets with tech startups raising capital at record rates, often at valuations untethered from reality. VC cash dried up considerably this year with investors pumping $16 billion into startups in the third quarter of 2022, a 44% annual decline. Numerous VCs told Insider the past two years had felt like an out-of-control celebration with many "now looking around at the aftermath and thinking about tidying up. " "The ecosystem is nursing its hangover after two years of a big party," Arne Morteani, founding partner at Kiko Ventures said.

☆ This startup is developing a medical food that treats migraines. Check out the 17-slide deck KetoSwiss used to raise $4 million in seed funding.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Swiss startup KetoSwiss has raised $4 million in seed funding from The William K. Warren Foundation. The startup is developing a product that aims to eradicate the root cause of metabolic migraines. Check out the 17-slide deck the startup used to raise the fresh funds. A startup developing a medical food to treat a sub-set of migraines has just raised $4 million in seed funding. KetoSwiss has taken a novel approach to treat metabolic migraines, which Gross has theorized as being the result of metabolic abnormalities in the body.

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