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☆ A 16-Month-Old Chatbot Startup With No Revenue Is Now a $1 Billion Unicorn
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Alyssa Lukpat | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-16-month-old-chatbot-startup-character-ai-is-now-a-1-billion-unicorn-97aa194f

Brian Chesky, a former hockey player and industrial design student, is now worth $9.6 billion. Chesky started Airbnb after renting out his apartment to conference-goers who couldn't find a hotel. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy PolicyBefore running Airbnb, Brian Chesky attended art school. As of March 2023, Airbnb is worth $76 billion. Here's how the Brian Chesky, an upstate New York native, became one of the richest young tech founders in America.

☆ Exclusive: $7 billion tech unicorn Carta bet big on managing employee equity for public companies. Now it's telling them to get off its platform.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

$7 billion unicorn Carta is officially retreating from its equity management software for public companies, according to multiple sources Insider has spoken to. Thousands of private companies use the platform to track company and employee ownership, process venture investments, and administer employee stock programs, among a slew of other services. Carta had seen the company through its 2017 public listing on the London Stock Exchange, helping its employees and shareholders navigate the complex world of public stock markets. Transfer agents are regulated entities that all public companies are required to use to track stock ownership. "I guess getting into the public markets is something that they sort of dipped their toe in and now want to withdraw," he said.

☆ America needs immigration reform, or it risks of losing an entire generation of tech workers to countries like Canada, the UK, and Japan
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Emilia David | Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

While the US still attracts talent, workers increasingly go to places like the UK or Canada. With other countries easing immigration for tech workers, the US may find itself lagging. Without change, and fast, experts say this could mean an entire lost generation of tech talent for American tech. "Foreign countries have figured out ways to more aggressively attack top-tier tech talent," Hiba Anver, an immigration attorney with Erickson Immigration Group, told Insider. America's loss is other countries' gainMeanwhile, other countries are making it easier for tech workers like Negandhi and students to immigrate.

☆ Snakes, rats and reptilian squatters: single family rental investors get a rude awakening as landlords
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Single-family-rental landlords are like most other homeowners, just at scale. Indeed, rising interest rates have drastically reduced access to capital for everyone, including single-family landlords who've borrowed heavily to finance their purchases. Here are a few stories of the wild world of institutional single-family-rental property management. An iguana stuck inside a Divvy Homes property in Florida. Single-family-rental landlords face the twin challenges of customer service and homeownership, often at the same time.

☆ Credit Suisse's $3.2 billion cut-price sale signals an ongoing crisis that could expose unicorn fintechs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The firesale of Credit Suisse to UBS is putting the banking world on high alert. A $54 billion loan from the Swiss National Bank wasn't enough to keep Credit Suisse afloat, and UBS stepped in. Credit Suisse suffered idiosyncratic problems, such as a spying scandal involving former CEO Tidjane Thiam, as well as crises relating to its relationships with hedge fund Archegos Capital and financial group Greensill Capital. "There's already a lot of soul searching about what fintech business models are," says Paul Rolles, an ex-Morgan Stanley managing director and cofounder of money-management service HyperJar. Rolles believes the banking issues of the past couple of weeks are as much about confidence as intrinsic issues.

SAO PAULO, March 13 (Reuters) - Mexican unicorn Clara has secured $90 million in fresh debt funding led by U.S. debt provider Accial Capital, the company said on Monday, as it looks to boost its expansion in Latin America. Meanwhile in Colombia, where Clara has over 1,300 clients, the money will help it establish a second office in the country, located in Medellin. The new funding marks the second debt facility secured in less than a year by Clara, having announced a $150 million debt line from Goldman Sachs (GS.N) in August 2022. But he did not rule out new announcements on the equity side in the future as well. ($1 = 5.2181 reais)Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Josie Kao and Mark PorterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

SAO PAULO, March 13 (Reuters) - Mexican unicorn Clara has secured $90 million in fresh debt funding led by U.S. debt provider Accial Capital, the company announced on Monday, as it looks to boost its Brazil expansion. The new funding marks the second debt facility secured in less than a year by Clara, having announced a $150 million debt line from Goldman Sachs (GS.N) in August 2022. The executive noted the move allowed the firm to separate money used to increase liquidity solutions for customers from that used to invest in team and products. But he did not rule out new announcements on the equity side in the future as well. ($1 = 5.2181 reais)Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Josie KaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Silicon Valley investors and founders express shock over SVB's collapse, describe struggles to get money out
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Jonathan Vanian Ashley Capoot Jordan Novet Annie Palmer | Jonathan Vanian | Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesVenture capitalists and technology executives are scrambling to make sense and account for the potential repercussions of the sudden implosion of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday that U.S. federal regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank , the premiere financial institution for Silicon Valley tech startups for the past 40 years. On Friday, Yang returned to the Silicon Valley Bank branch 15 minutes before it opened to remove the remaining money. One person showed a tweet on their phone suggesting that bank employees had been instructed not to come to work. Watch: CEO's react to the closure of Silicon Valley Bank

☆ Meet the 8 Black and Latina female founders whose startups have reached a $1 billion valuation or higher
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A report found nine Black and Latina female founders have reached a $1 billion or higher valuation. The biennial report, which Project Diane and the organization DigitalUndivided released Wednesday, compiled data from more than 750 Latina and Black female founders who have received outside funding. The report also found that there are now more than 350 Black and Latina female founders who have raised at least $1 million in funding, and at least nine Black and Latina female founders have reached a $1 billion valuation. Here are eight Black and Latina female founders who have achieved this feat, in order of the highest current valuation. Each company on this list has at one point achieved a $1 billion valuation, but some have lost that value over time.

☆ Tech staffing unicorn Andela is buying a smaller industry peer, as startups are looking to combine amid a tough funding market
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Remote tech-talent startup Andela is acquiring the engineering assessment platform Qualified. Companies outside of tech are still hungry for engineering talent, Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson said. Founded in 2014 with an initial focus on training and hiring African engineers, Andela now connects companies with remote technical workers in 170 countries worldwide. At first glance, the deal seems to counter prevailing trends in the tech industry: Startups are widely seeking to preserve cash as venture capital funding has slowed down, and tech companies of all sizes have undergone significant layoffs. "They've all realized they have to become tech companies," he said.

☆ She was weeks away from maternity leave at Twitter. Then Elon Musk took over
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

Twitter now reportedly has fewer than 2,000 employees following more cuts late last month, down from around 7,500 before Musk took over. CNN“We were on the Twitter-coaster, the Elon Musk chapter, for seven months,” Ali said. De Caires is one of the former Twitter employees taking legal action against the company following mass layoffs after Musk took over. Jeff Chiu/APInstead, Twitter employees say they heard very little from their new leader in the days immediately after his takeover. Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan is representing around 1,500 former Twitter employees taking legal action against the company following Musk's takeover.

☆ A Big Tech contractor thought he'd found the ideal full-time job at a $1 billion startup — then got laid off. He's a temp employee again, but now thinks his job is more secure.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Much of Big Tech's workforce is temporary, but full-time startup jobs aren't so permanent, either. A tech contractor who got laid off from the startup Oyster says job security doesn't exist anymore. He landed a full-time job at Oyster, a human-resources tech startup that had recently become a unicorn, meaning it had been valued at $1 billion or more. Now he's back working as a contractor at a public tech company, where he believes his role is likely more secure. Now he's a contractor again, but doesn't necessarily see the temporary role as a bad thing.

☆ Tiger Global-backed $2 billion marketplace startup Ankorstore is set to become the latest tech unicorn to cut jobs, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

French retail marketplace startup Ankorstore is set to cut a significant amount of roles, sources said. The Tiger Global-backed company has raised 365 million euros (around $387 million) to date. It is the latest high-profile Tiger Global startup to slash jobs, following on from Stripe and Getir. Ankorstore, a $2 billion marketplace startup that counts US investing giant Tiger Global among its biggest backers, is set to cut a substantial amount of its workforce, sources say. Investment firm Tiger Global had been a major pandemic startup investor, with a particular uptick in European deals through 2021.

WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's team is moving to tap top Democratic allies and even some people once seen as possible rivals as key representatives of his expected re-election bid. Biden's team is making other steps, too, including thinking through possible options for a campaign manager a host city for the 2024 party convention where Biden would be formally nominated. The campaign's strategy is expected to be set by the same inner circle that guided Biden's 2020 race against Republican former President Donald Trump, including his final 2020 campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon. In the absence of a formal re-election announcement, the White House continues to book Biden in campaign-style appearances across the country. On Monday, Biden is expected to speak to the International Association of Fire Fighters, the first major labor group to endorse him ahead of the 2020 campaign.

☆ The unraveling of fintech darling Vise
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +28 min

It was April, and more than two dozen salespeople who worked for the fintech startup Vise had been ordered to a multiday off-site at the W Hoboken hotel in New Jersey to share exhaustive reports on their performance. Even salespeople at bigger, established, top-tier investment-management firms typically wouldn't close $250 million in a year, multiple sales employees said. (K-means clustering is an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm often referred to as a form of AI, Vise's founders said). (Vise's founders disputed this, saying the company received updated financial data only once a day for its portfolio-construction engine.) And to address its "leaky funnel" of overestimating prospective sales, Vise was to stop outreach to new clients while it onboards and upsells to existing clients, the document said.

☆ Some Flexport insiders say layoffs and an influx of former Amazon leaders are wrecking morale. Others say the change is needed.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Emma Cosgrove | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

And like every other logistics company, it just saw the biggest boom in freight volume in a century, followed by a steep drop. They like to speak louder than the other people in the room," said one laid-off employee who described Flexport feedback pre-Clark as conversational. The company needs to adapt," another laid-off employee said, adding that the introduction of precise metrics for measuring success was needed. I can say generally, the company's shift to profitability came at the cost of employee satisfaction, but I think that's pretty typical," said another laid-off employee. "Now it seems like it's about how much money Flexport can make," said one laid-off employee.

He's helped design the apps for a host of successful startups, including Gorillas and Arive. He then helped build Zapp, an app for delivery services in the UK, before designing the layout for Gorillas' app. He has since started his own business, Blossom, a design studio for apps, while he's also a designer-in-residence at the Swedish venture-capital firm Creandum, advising startups in the firm's portfolio on app design and recruitment. The company already had a functioning app, but Haas said the company tasked him with "cleaning up" the design. That's why the team also conducted interviews with the brands that sell their items via Arive's app, Haas said.

☆ MediaMath seemed destined for a $1B fairy-tale exit. Instead, most early investors got nothing.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

At its Halloween party in 2015, the adtech startup MediaMath seemed on the brink of greatness. The machine-learning revolution that took over the financial industry was finally happening in marketing, and many industry insiders considered MediaMath to be the hottest adtech company of the time. "We never came close to consummating such a deal with MediaMath nor entertained the purported valuation," said a representative for Singtel. The Trade Desk, the most comparable independent DSP company to MediaMath, was riding high after its 2016 initial public offering. The quasi-equity agreement was structured to protect Searchlight if MediaMath didn't perform to certain quotas or if things went south financially.

[1/5] An employee prepares online grocery orders in the storage area of Czech online grocer Rohlik Group in Prague, Czech Republic February 1, 2023. HUGE GROWTH POTENTIAL Rohlik, founded in 2014, leads the Czech market by mainly targeting customers in big cities through its string of distribution warehouses. "Competition is still mainly driven by stationary retail but a small number of online grocery players are gearing up in each market to become leading e-grocery platforms." KOSIK TURNS EASTAs Rohlik bets on Germany, Kosik is looking eastward, entering the Slovak market and expanding in Bulgaria. CEO Ivan Utesil said the company would also seek to cut into Czech market share by capitalising on its tie-in with German wholesaler Metro (B4B.DE) in some regional areas.

☆ How Wall Street firms lift the velvet rope on funding deals for buzzy startups like Stripe for their wealthiest clients
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Hayley Cuccinello | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Goldman Sachs has invited wealth management clients to invest in fintech unicorn Stripe, as reported by Bloomberg. The message was a rare peek into how the richest bank clients can access investments normally off-limits to individual investors. Insider redacted the wealth management vice president's name and email address to protect their privacy. Citi and JPMorgan, for instance, both have teams dedicated to direct private investments for private bank clients. Private wealth is a real power alley for us, and those continue to be good sources of funding," said Salisbury at a conference in September.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg announces Meta's new large language model as A.I. race heats up
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Kif Leswing | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Meta has trained and will release a new large language model to researchers, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday. Large language models underpin applications such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing AI, and Google 's unreleased Bard. "LLMs have shown a lot of promise in generating text, having conversations, summarizing written material, and more complicated tasks like solving math theorems or predicting protein structures," Zuckerberg wrote on Friday. Jerry: "George, if you had one of these, would you wear it?" "Meta is committed to this open model of research and we'll make our new model available to the AI research community," Zuckerberg wrote.

He asked ChatGPT to write a book titled, "This book is made by AI." Inspiration arrived when I read an Insider article about an entrepreneur who'd used ChatGPT to write a children's book. I entered: "This prologue looks promising for the book 'This book is made by AI.' But I do think AI will be a great tool authors can use for new ideas. I don't think ChatGPT can ever completely replace a computer programmer because it doesn't know what the final result for each specific task should look like.

☆ Investment banks approach Monzo over potential IPO as $4.5 billion fintech plots investing push, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Investment banks have been in talks with Monzo over a future IPO, sources told Insider. The London-based fintech has also been in discussions to grow its wealth and investment offering. A number of leading investment banks have held initial talks with British fintech unicorn Monzo about a public listing that could take place as early as next year, sources say. Some investment banks have opted to cull teams of staff focused on M&A and stock issuance in recent months, most notably Goldman Sachs. The fintech has also been on the lookout for acquisitions and partnerships in the wealth and trading space, two sources told Insider.

☆ Ride-hailing app Cabify shutters Ecuador operations
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 15 (Reuters) - Ride-hailing application Cabify will end its operations in Ecuador in mid-March after a "constant process of analysis" on the market, the company said on Wednesday. Late last year, the company, which says it has more than 42 million registered users, said it would invest $300 million through 2024 to expand its presence in Latin America. It did not specify how many users or drivers were affected by the closure in Ecuador. Cabify, which is headquartered in Spain and a considered a "unicorn," a start-up with a valuation above 1 billion euros, is planning to go public soon. Reporting by Valentine Hilaire; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Brendan O'Boyle and Anthony EspositoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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