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☆ Marcelo Claure and Paul Judge bought SoftBank's diversity fund. Now they're trying to raise $200 million for it.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Read previewFormer SoftBank executive Marcelo Claure and serial entrepreneur and investor Paul Judge are in the throes of raising a new $200 million fund. The past year has been transitional for the fund since Claure and Judge bought the $100 million fund from SoftBank. Since then, there haven't been any new investments, but the two are poised to capitalize on the success of the first fund and are raising the second Open Opportunity Fund. He said that limited partners' interest has been positive overall since the Open Opportunity Fund's first fund has had so much success. AdvertisementJudge said that he expects the first Open Opportunity Fund to continue to deliver "top quartile" returns to its investors over the next five to seven years.

Persons: —, Marcelo Claure, Paul Judge, It's, Claure, haven't, SoftBank —, I've, Judge, George Floyd's, Masayoshi, Shu Nyatta, Stacy Brown, what's Organizations: Service, Business, Opportunity Fund, Opportunity, Fund, Mastercard, Vista Equity Partners, Ventures, Sprint, Bicycle Capital, TechCrunch Locations: SoftBank, Atlanta, America

☆ Beautycounter’s founder sold the $1 billion business and lost her job—now she’s back as CEO: 'Failure is not an option'
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-31 | by ( Tom Huddleston Jr. | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Gregg Renfrew built a billion-dollar brand, only to end up on the outside looking in after investors brought in a replacement CEO. Renfrew, 55, founded clean beauty brand Beautycounter in 2011 with the mission of disrupting the cosmetics industry by only selling products made without "questionable or harmful chemicals." Along the way, Renfrew and Beautycounter raised more than $93 million from investors, according to Crunchbase. Renfrew: It was really, really difficult. I sold the business right before the world opened up with Covid and so much was changing and swirling around.

Persons: Gregg Renfrew, Beautycounter, Carlyle, Renfrew, Marc Rey, Martha Stewart, Rey, burnishing, Renfrew's, Carlyle Roberto Marques, it's, It's, you've Organizations: CNBC, Ulta, Carlyle Group Locations: Renfrew, New York, Denver, U.S, Washington

☆ Exclusive: Organic baby food startup Yumi has slashed its valuation after running low on cash
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-31 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Yumi, a startup backed by a long list of prominent Silicon Valley investors that makes high-end organic baby food, is raising a down round that values the company at around $40 million, Business Insider has learned. The funding represents a substantial discount from Yumi's Series B round in 2021, which valued the company at more than $300 million, according to Pitchbook data. It also means Yumi has burned through more than twice as much cash, nearly $90 million dollars, as it is currently worth. Startup fundraising tumbled to a five-year low in 2023 with funding for e-commerce and shopping startups down 60%, according to Crunchbase data. Convoy, the freight startup that was once called the "Uber for trucking" and raised more than $1 billion, shut down in November.

Persons: Yumi, Evelyn Rusli, Angela Sutherland, Gerber, Sutherland, Rusli, Anne Wojcicki, Gabrielle Union, Warby Parker, Goldman Sachs, Christina Minnis, Kelly Coffey, Masha Drokova, Lauren Dillard Organizations: Business, BI, Walmart, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Enterprise Associates, Uber, City National Bank, One Ventures, Nasdaq, Startup, Convoy, Olive Locations: millennials

☆ Generative AI is booming in the legal industry. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck Robin AI used to raise $26 million from investors like Singapore's Temasek.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-10 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The startup Robin AI, recently closed its Series B funding round, which Singapore investment company Temasek led. Headquartered in London, Robin uses Anthropic's latest large language model, Claude 2.1, and offers an "AI co-pilot" to help lawyers draft and revise contracts. The startup raised a $10.5 million Series A in January 2023 and a $2.5 million seed round in 2021. Although funding for legal tech startups fell in 2023, according to Crunchbase, a handful of startups have raised new rounds of cash. Check out the eight-slide pitch deck Robin used to raise its $26 million Series B funding round.

Persons: Robin, Claude 2.1, Richard Robinson, Robinson, Darrow Organizations: Business, Temasek, AFG Partners, Google Locations: Singapore, London, what's, Asia

☆ Inside the chaotic Thanksgiving-weekend collapse of homebuilder startup Veev that left employees shocked and worried about their jobs
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

But for workers of Lennar-backed homebuilder Veev, they were spent scrambling to determine if they would still have jobs come Monday. Speaking to the "Veev Family," he wrote: "Family will stay in touch and together forever, even if it is going to be only within our hearts." The company has about 250 employees, according to news site Calcalist. "We call it the Veev family," Haller said. On a very personal note, for me Amit Haller, Veev was my personal journey in the past 15 years, half of my professional career and about ⅓ of my entire life.

Persons: Amit Haller, Veev, Haller, doesn't, we're, homebuilder, Kleiner Perkins, Bond, Lennar, Linda Keala, Ami, Amit Organizations: Business, Dragonfly, Wall, Center, Real Estate, Technology Innovation, Employees, Dafna Locations: California, Tel Aviv, Hayward , California, Haller, Reali, @nicollsanddimes, .

2023 was a tumultuous year for the venture capital industry. This year, Business Insider asked the most important VCs across the US to name the most promising VCs in their cities. Business Insider also asked the general public and last year's rising stars who they thought should make the cut. And just like last year, more of this year's rising stars are women than men, indicating that more women are being brought into the pipeline of the traditionally male-dominated venture capital industry. Scroll to see 2023's rising stars of venture capital, organized alphabetically by the investor's name.

Organizations: Silicon Valley Bank, Tech, Business

☆ The cofounder of Allbirds has some advice for startups looking to IPO: make money ahead of going public
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Allbirds was one of the last startups to go public in 2021's IPO biltz. "You need to be a great company, you need to be profitable," says Allbirds cofounder Tim Brown. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Going public before turning profitable is a thing of the past, according to Allbirds cofounder and chief innovation officer Tim Brown. "You need to be a great company, you need to be profitable," he told Business Insider.

Persons: Allbirds, Tim Brown, —, Klaviyo, Lerer, confidentially, PwC, Spencer Platt, Champagne, Brown, Joanna Glasner, Didi, Rivian Organizations: Service, Time Magazine, Maveron, Tiger Global, Casper Locations: Instacart, Silicon, Americas, Allbirds, Ukraine

☆ Two Amazon and Netflix alums have raised $1 million for their fintech startup that aims to disrupt entertainment and production financing
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Conduiit, a fintech startup that promises to save entertainment companies time and money by centralizing their production finance operations, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding. He saw how production companies were using a hodgepodge of services to manage day-to-day transactions, as well as managing individual productions in silos, resulting in lost time and wasted expense. ConduiitCharging on a SaaS model, Conduiit lets production companies access all their compliance, management, accounting, and payment tools from a single platform. "There are two Black founders in a world that doesn't have a lot of them," said Glover of Hamilton and Thurman. Only about 1% of venture funding in 2022 went to Black startup founders, according to Crunchbase data analyzed by TechCrunch .

Persons: Hiro Mizushima, Shawn Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton's, Jason Thurman, who's, HBO Max, Max, John Oliver, Drew Glover, Glover, Thurman, we're Organizations: Fiat Ventures, Aperture Venture, Business, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, HBO, Jigsaw, Laylow Productions, Productions, Silicon Valley Bank, Fiat, TechCrunch Locations: Silicon, Hollywood

☆ OpenAI’s Cast of Characters
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Jennifer Korn | Paul Glader | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

Before OpenAI, Altman was president of Y Combinator, mentoring a host of founders and expanding his network in Silicon Valley. “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” he wrote on X on Wednesday. Mira MuratiNamed by the OpenAI board as Altman’s interim successor on Friday, Murati was replaced by Shear before the weekend was done. In September, she joined the board of directors of Shield AI, a defense technology company building AI pilot technology for aircraft. Will HurdAfter joining the OpenAI board in 2021, Hurd was the third director to exit in 2023.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Elon, Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Kiko, Emmett Shear, Y, Nadella, ”, Mira Murati, Murati, Shear, “ Mira, ” Nadella, Ilya Sutskever, Brockman, Sutskever, “, we’ve, Adam D’Angelo D’Angelo, Mark Zuckerberg, D’Angelo, Forbes, ” Bret Taylor, Bret Taylor, Elon Musk, Taylor, Justin Kan, Tasha McCauley McCauley, Joseph Gordon, Levitt, McCauley, Greg Brockman Greg Brockman, Peter Thiel, Musk, Helen Toner Toner, AI’s, Toner, Joshua Kushner Kushner, Kushner, Jared Kushner, Karlie Kloss, Charles Kushner, Donald Trump, Larry Summers Summers, Obama, Clinton, Summers, Shivon Zilis, Zilis, Walter Isaacson, Will Hurd, Hurd, Nikki Haley, Reid Hoffman, Hoffman, OpenAI . Hoffman, He’s Organizations: CNN, Stanford University, Microsoft, OpenAI, Colby College, Dartmouth University, Tesla, Time, Phillips Exeter Academy, California Institute of Technology, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yale University, Justin.tv, GeoSim Systems, Rand Corporation, Centre, Bard College, University of Southern, Harvard University, MIT, Elon, Georgetown’s Center for Security, Emerging Technology, Open, Oscar Health, Memphis Grizzlies, Harvard College, Harvard Business School, Republican, CIA, Allen & Company, Texas, M University, Reid Hoffman LinkedIn, PayPal, LinkedIn, Greylock Partners, SpaceX, Boring Company Locations: Silicon Valley, St, Louis , Missouri, OpenAI, Seattle , Washington, Israel, University of Southern California, North Dakota, Beijing, Georgetown, Canada, United States, Texas, Oxford

☆ OpenAI ditched the only 2 women on its board. So far, it's replacing them with men.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Tom Carter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

OpenAI announced a new male-dominated board after Sam Altman won the battle to return as CEO. 'Please, more representation and balance'The departure of Toner and McCauley has put the makeup of OpenAI's new board in the spotlight. Emily Bell, a founding director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, wrote in a post on X : "OpenAI fires women on the board — board chair who oversaw fuck up stays." Tom Williams/Getty ImagesOne of OpenAI's main rivals also weighed in on the lack of diversity on the new board. Within the private sector, research from Crunchbase in 2022 showed that women held 16% of board seats among more than 660 companies they analyzed.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Helen Toner, Tasha McCauley, Adam D'Angelo, —, Sam Altman's, Bret Taylor —, Larry Summers, D'Angelo, Ilya Sutskever, Altman, Toner, McCauley, Emily Bell, Summers, Jeffrey Epstein, Bell, Tom Williams, Bret, Taylor, Emad Mostaque, Vinod Khosla, OpenAI's, Angela Hoover, Andi Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Tow Center, Digital Journalism, Deloitte, Alliance for Board Diversity, Fortune, New York Times Locations: Crunchbase, San Francisco

☆ The Pitch Deck Healthtech Startup Sunnyside Used to Raise $11.5 Million
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

One startup wants to help consumers be more mindful about their alcohol consumption — and it just raised $11.5 million in venture-capital funding. The startup, Sunnyside, announced that it raised a Series A funding round led by Motley Fool Ventures. Sunnyside's founder Nick Allen launched the startup in San Francisco in 2020, initially calling it Cutback Coach. Sunnyside offers a mobile app that encourages "mindful drinking" practices via weekly goal setting, text reminders, an online community, and one-on-one coaching. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck Sunnyside use to raise its Series A funding round.

Persons: Motley, Cooley, Michael Lee, Nick Allen, Allen, hasn't, Steve Lloyd Organizations: Motley Fool Ventures, Will Ventures, Uncork, Offline Ventures, Joyance Partners, Wisdom Ventures, Eudemian Ventures, Business, Big Tech, Sunnyside Locations: Sunnyside, San Francisco, Valley

☆ How working moms can make sure they don't get lost in the RTO conversation
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-12 | by ( Tim Paradis | Josée Rose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Leaders need to articulate team needs; workers need to be honest about work-life prioritization. The flexibility of signing on from their living room leaves more time for school pickups, doctor's appointments, and meal planning, but it's more of a Band-Aid than a real fix for the pile of challenges working moms often face. For these women, who want to be great moms and have fulfilling careers, and some RTO mandates may make achieving both (or either!) AdvertisementAdvertisementTaking an individual approach to employees can help them do their best work — and meet the employer's needs — especially because many RTO mandates often fail to take into account what many working moms need, Scheib said. And I think the kids will suffer at the end of the day and moms and their mental health will suffer."

Persons: —, it's, it'll, Kelly Resendez, Danna Greenberg, Wells, Cork Gaines, Greenberg, Resendez, aren't, Mandy McAllister, Kelly Scheib, Scheib, prescriptively Organizations: Service, Babson College, Bank of America

☆ The CEO of UNest, a college savings app, stepped down after she said the company was 'insolvent.' Here's what customers need to know.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-03 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

UNest is a startup that makes it easier for people to save up for major life expenses like college. Ksenia Yudina, founder & CEO, stepped down last month and warned the company was "insolvent." download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . As Insider previously reported, Ksenia Yudina, founder & CEO, stepped down last month and warned the company was "insolvent." "The board, remaining management, and investors are working closely together to secure additional funding for the company," he said.

Persons: Ksenia Yudina, —, Franklin Templeton, Star Baron Davis, Laura Dern, Michael Doniger, UNest, Ben Bergman, bbergman@insider.com Organizations: Service, Artemis Fund, Anthos, Northwestern Mutual, Star, Vanguard, Blackrock, Apex Clearing Locations: Anthos Capital, Apex

☆ Legal tech startup Responsiv is bringing AI to in-house attorneys to help them save time and money. It just raised $3 million from Greylock.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

But by building a program with "guardrails," a new legal tech company is working to bring all of the benefits of artificial intelligence to companies' in-house legal teams without the risks. Based in Chicago, Responsiv is an AI assistant for in-house legal teams. With Responsiv, in-house counsel can quickly get answers to legal questions that are easily verifiable, saving companies time and money. "There's a noticeable gap in innovation tailored specifically to in-house legal teams," Domash said. Funding for legal tech has fallen in 2023, according to Crunchbase, but many startups in the space focus on law firms.

Persons: ChatGPT, Mike Duboe, Nikita Solilov, Jordan Domash, Jordan, Nikita, Duboe, Domash, Responsiv, We'll, Darrow Organizations: Greylock Partners Locations: Chicago, Silver, Greylock

☆ The CEO of UNest resigned after she said the board asked her to approve an 'illegal' takeover, according to a leaked email. The company says customer accounts are safe.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-31 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

"This matter is very confidential and person who leaked the email can be subject to legal claims," Yudina wrote. UNest boasted 400,000 users that year and said it was on track to hit a million users in 2022. "I wasn't doing something that I perceived as illegal and unethical, therefore I stepped down from the position of CEO," Yudina wrote. "Tech industry is navigating a lot of headwinds and even strong startup founders get affected," Yudina wrote, before saying that people should be focused on supporting Israel. "As we navigate the hurdles of our daily lives, it's crucial to remember that there are people on another continent enduring unimaginable suffering and uncertainty," Yudina wrote in the message.

Persons: Ksenia Yudina, UNest, Yudina, I'm, Michael Doniger, Doniger, Franklin Templeton, Northwestern Mutual –, Star Baron Davis, Laura Dern, –, SVB, Ben Bergman, bbergman@insider.com Organizations: Silicon Valley Bank, LinkedIn, Apex, Capital Group, Artemis, Anthos, Northwestern Mutual, Star, Business, Tech, Israel Locations: Silicon, Anthos Capital, UNest, Silicon Valley

☆ Startup employees are reeling as they brace for back-to-back rounds of layoffs: 'When it happens again, you start to lose that confidence and faith in your leadership.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

For the startup employees interviewed by Insider, the constant threat of layoffs is having a detrimental effect on company morale. said one employee working at a growth stage startup that's conducted three rounds of layoffs this year. For Reay, the former Sendoso employee, constant rounds of layoffs gave him and his surviving colleagues "strategy whiplash." "When it happens again, you start to lose that confidence and faith in your leadership." Some startup employees are reconsidering their future in the industryAs startup employees brace for the potential of more job cuts, they say that the experience has them second-guessing whether to stay in the industry at all.

Persons: Sean Reay, it's, Reay, SoftBank, Sendoso, what's, I'm, Raey, SchoolMint, I've, you'd, he's, Jackie Xu, Xu Talent, Kleiner Perkins, Xu, you've Organizations: Facebook, Meta, Twitter, Sendoso, GV, Google, Employees Locations: San Diego, That's, SPAC

☆ Here's the 6 personality traits you need to found a successful startup
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-22 | by ( Polly Thompson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Researchers used AI to determine the personality traits of 21,000 startup founders. They found that the success of a startup is linked to the personality traits of its founder. Here are the six personality traits you need to be a successful founder. AdvertisementAdvertisementA startup founder's personality traits may have a major impact on their company's success, a study published in Nature suggests. AdvertisementAdvertisementThe researchers found that these core personality traits were dramatically different to the wider population, the report says.

Persons: —, Paul X, McCarthy, It's, " McCarthy, Melanie Perkins, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Horacio Villalobos Organizations: Service, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, University of Technology Sydney, University of Melbourne, University of New Locations: Nature, University of New South Wales, Sydney

☆ Meet the Gredes: The fashion powerhouse couple behind billionaire celebrity brands like Skims and Brady
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-21 | by ( Jennifer Ortakales Dawkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Emma and Jens Grede are the power couple behind celebrity brands like Skims and Brady. The European couple has co-founded seven brands between them. AdvertisementAdvertisementBehind the glitz and glamor of celebrity apparel brands like Skims , Good American, and Brady , there's a powerhouse couple with a resume and investment portfolio worth millions. Emma and Jens Grede are founders, investors, and tastemakers in the fashion industry with connections from London to Hollywood. The European couple has co-founded seven brands between them.

Persons: Emma, Jens Grede, They've, Kardashian, Jenner, —, Brady, there's, Kim Kardashian's, that's, Lauren Sherman, Kylie Jenner Organizations: Service Locations: Brady, London, Hollywood

☆ How Costco's next CEO, Ron Vachris, went from driving the retailer's forklifts to earning millions in the C-suite
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Dominick Reuter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Costco president and COO Ron Vachris will take over as CEO from Craig Jelinek on January 1. The 40-year employee started as a forklift driver at Costco's predecessor, Price Club. AdvertisementAdvertisementWhen Ron Vachris steps into his new role as CEO for wholesale club Costco, he will have worn more hats for the company than probably anyone alive. "If Vachris is appointed CEO, he would be the third CEO in Costco's history." When Price Club and Costco merged in 1993 (Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal was a protégé of Price), Vachris was tasked with overseeing the company's expansion back in Arizona.

Persons: Ron Vachris, Craig Jelinek, —, Vachris, Morgan Stanley, Simeon Gutman, Jelinek, Sol Price, Jim Sinegal, — Jelinek, Doug McMillon, Brian Cornell Organizations: Costco, Price, Service, Company, Price Club, SEC, Walmart Locations: Arizona, Colorado, Price

☆ ‘A scary situation’: As Wall Street assails Harvard, students worry about their futures
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-14 | by ( Melia Russell | Tim Paradis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Ackman, in his initial tweet about Harvard, said that "a number of CEOs" shared his desire to publicly out the Harvard students who condemned Israel. Other business leaders were quick to echo his calls, winning plaudits on social media. In a visit to Harvard, Insider spoke with a range of students about the backlash to the statement on Israel. It's ironic, of course, to accuse students of silencing dissent when Ackman and other business leaders are seeking to do exactly that. But now, some Harvard students fear that the backlash from the business community will have a chilling effect on student speech.

Persons: Bill Ackman, they've, Israel, Marc Rowan, Meyer Davidoff, Kalita, Eden Mendelsohn, what's, " Melia Russell, Tim Paradis Organizations: Harvard, Wall, Big Law, University of Pennsylvania, Invictus Pharmacy, LinkedIn, Birkoa Capital Management, Penn, Twitter Locations: Gaza, Silicon, Israel, Silicon Valley

☆ SoftBank-backed gifting startup Sendoso just completed its fourth round of layoffs in the last 16 months
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-03 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

SoftBank-backed gifting startup Sendoso laid off an undisclosed number of employees in its latest round of job cuts on Tuesday. This is the fourth time in the last 16 months that Sendoso has axed its headcount: the marketing startup in June 2022 laid off around 100 employees from its then 700-employee workforce, Insider previously reported . Sendoso most recently raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund. Better, which went public in August via a long-delayed SPAC deal, conducted another round of layoffs last month . Do you have information about job cuts at tech startups?

Persons: Sendoso, SoftBank, it's, —, Samantha Stokes, Madeline Stone Organizations: LinkedIn, U.S, Sendoso, SoftBank Vision, Greensill, Stock Locations: Ireland, sstokes@insider.com, mstone@insider.com

☆ Masterclass spent $100,000 building a replica of Bob Iger's office in a conference room because the Disney CEO's real office was too hard to film in, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

It wanted to film the Disney CEO in his office as he taught business strategy and leadership, per The Information. But the real thing didn't work as a set, so MasterClass spent $100,000 building a replica in a conference room. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementAdvertisementThe educational media company MasterClass paid $100,000 to build a replica of Disney CEO Bob Iger's office in a conference room, The Information reported. So the company decided to spend $100,000 building a replica of Iger's office in a conference room at the Disney complex, which the media conglomerate allowed MasterClass to use rent-free, The Information reported.

Persons: MasterClass, —, Bob Iger's, Martin Scorsese, Bill Clinton, Sam Bankman Organizations: Disney, Service, Fidelity Locations: Burbank , California

☆ Some startup founders say VC influence is 'debilitating.' Here's why they are turning down outside funding and bootstrapping instead.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But when it comes to his current startup, an AI platform for businesses called Iterate, Nordmark is staunchly against relying on outside funding. Nordmark is part of a growing league of founders who are opting for bootstrapping, which means growing startups without relying on outside funding from investors. Six startup founders interviewed by Insider also say that in some cases, they're actively turning down opportunities for funding to keep maximum control of their business plans. Founders who have eschewed VC funding say that bootstrapping allows them to go — and grow — at their own pace. To be sure, some startup founders are still taking big checks from VCs when the timing is right.

Persons: Jon Nordmark, Samsonite, Nordmark, they're, it's, MailChimp, Brooke LeBlanc, VCs, Dr, Bobbi Wegner, SVB, Evan Jager, we're, Dori Yona, Jason Burke, – Burke Organizations: Insider, VCs, Apple, Oracle, Intuit, Founders Locations: VCs, Boston

☆ Big startups are a bust so prestige investors are fighting for deals into tiny European companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-05 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Funding to European startups across the board dropped by almost 60% to $23 billion in the first six months of 2023, according to Crunchbase data. ElevenLabs, a London-based artificial intelligence startup founded by Google and Palantir alumni, pulled in $18 million at a $100 million valuation a year after it was founded. Mistral, another European startup set up by ex-Facebook and DeepMind staffers, raised $113 million a month after it was founded. AI has been of particular interest to investors with similar hype surrounding a deal for London-based text-to-voice startup ElevenLabs. Industry stakeholders believe that teams springing from already successful companies to set up their own startups will be very attractive with some predicting startups founded between 2022 and 2024 primed to be very in demand in the future.

Persons: Andreessen Horowitz, David Schreiber, Duco van, Pivot, Marc, Antoine Lacroix, Romain Libeau, Sifted, Filip Dames, Dames Organizations: Google, Mistral, Facebook, Ventures, Cocoa, Club, Cherry Ventures, Sequoia, Industry Locations: Europe, London, Paris, Berlin

☆ 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

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