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☆ Hot AI startup Scale AI, valued at $7 billion, has laid off 20% of its staff. Insiders say employees found out when they were locked out of their computers.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Scale AI laid off 20% of its workforce this morning, Insider has learned. Scale AI has raised more than $600 million from investors like Tiger and Y Combinator and was valued at $7 billion. Buzzy artificial intelligence data-management startup Scale AI, which was last valued at $7 billion in 2021, laid off 20% of its workforce Monday morning, Insider has learned. Founded in 2016 by Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo, Scale AI was a member of the prestigious accelerator program Y Combinator's summer 2016 cohort. However, the job cuts at Scale AI – once a Silicon Valley darling – seem to suggest otherwise.

"As counterintuitive as it may sound, this layoff left me in a really good position," the 24-year-old said. U.S. tech giants including Meta, Microsoft (MSFT.O), Twitter and Snap (SNAP.N) have purged more than 150,000 staff, according to Layoff.fyi, which tracks technology job losses. Day One Ventures, an early stage venture fund in San Francisco, launched a new initiative in November to fund startups founded by people who had been laid off from their tech jobs, touting the slogan "Funded, not Fired". Silicon Valley investor U.S. Venture Partners and Austrian VC firm Speedinvest have meanwhile earmarked a similar amount for newly founded companies. Fong told Reuters that experience in Big Tech firm gave founders a "strong brand that can be leveraged to meet investors, potential customers, and recruit team members".

☆ Indian startups raised a record $49 billion in 2021. Here's 5 reasons why the region is set to become the next tech powerhouse, according to investors.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

India's startup ecosystem is one of the world's largest, trailing behind Europe and the US. Startups in the region landed a record $49 billion in 2021, according to Dealroom data. It was a major milestone for the country's tech ecosystem — and one that highlighted the momentum the region has gained over the past six years. India's tech ecosystem has long been in the shadow of its more established counterparts like China, Europe, and the US. But 2021 was a pivotal year for India's startup ecosystem.

☆ The 10 most active European and US investors betting on India as Asia's tech powerhouse, as it hits 100 startups worth $1 billion or more
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Funding from US and European HQ'd investors into Indian startups. 2021 was a banner year, with nearly 75% of the total funds into Indian startups coming from foreign investors. Foreign investor traction in India remains strong, said Draganov, who expects US and European venture capitalists to maintain their presence in India in the coming years. Using data from Dealroom and PitchBook, Insider profiled the most active investors that are headquartered in Europe and the US that have backed Indian startups since 2016. Based on the deal volume and size of investments into Indian startups since 2016, here are the top European and US firms investing into Indian startups, in alphabetical order.

☆ VCs say superpowered software, a dearth of new funds, and rampant M&A among the tech trends to watch in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

We asked investors from firms like Accel, Sequoia, IVP, and Lightspeed to share their forecasts. Party rounds are out, unicorns are in, and the venture market will get worse before it gets better. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops — delivered daily to your inbox. Loading Something is loading. We asked them to reveal the hot sectors they're eyeing, the trends that will fizzle, and the new realities of fundraising — for both startups and venture fund managers — in a tech downturn.

☆ $3 billion customer-management startup Podium laid off 12% of staff
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Rosalie Chan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The $3 billion customer-management startup Podium laid off 12% of its staff Thursday. The $3 billion customer-management startup Podium laid off 12% of its staff Thursday. Podium, based in Lehi, Utah, has raised $201 million from venture-capital firms including Accel, IVP, and Summit Partners, according to PitchBook. The company, which helps businesses communicate with their customers, had about 1,300 employees, according to PitchBook. Affected employees learned they were laid off through email or when they were no longer able to access their work tools.

☆ Exclusive: Sentry, recently valued at over $3 billion, has acquired Codecov, a maker of software development tools
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Application monitoring service Sentry has acquired development tool maker Codecov. Sentry recently raised $90 million in Series E funding, which valued the company at more than $3 billion. Sentry, a startup that makes an application performance monitoring platform, said it has acquired Codecov, a startup that makes software development tools. The company, which has raised over $200 million to date from Accel, NEA, Bond and others, was recently valued at more than $3 billion. Combining the two services will allow Sentry to monitor for errors at every stage of the development process, Sentry CEO Milin Desai tells Insider.

☆ Ex-employees from Europe’s 60 biggest fintech unicorns like Revolut and Klarna spawned 310 new startups, new data shows
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The biggest fintech startups in Europe are producing a large chunk of new founders in the industry. It's a sign that Europe's tech ecosystem is maturing, according to VC firm Accel. Europe's fintech boom is solving one of the biggest problems in the region's tech ecosystem, according to a new analysis: experienced founders. "Fintech has played a core role in the growth of the European tech ecosystem," Accel partner Luca Bocchio told Insider. The biggest producer of new startups, according to Accel, is N26.

☆ Want to create a startup? Join another first
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Supantha Mukherjee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A sticker of French ride-sharing start-up BlaBlaCar is seen on a car May 27, 2017 at Le Coudray-Montceaux, near Paris, France. Each of those companies has led to the creation of more than 20 startups, helmed by former employees. Former employees from each of the newer startups like Babylon, Celonis, iZettle (IPO-IZET.ST) and SumUp have also created more than 10 companies. "Unicorns tend to create more rounded founders than large organizations like the tech behemoths because people have had kind of a better training ground for entrepreneurial activity," Nelis said. Employees in a startup tends to get access to many different functions from engineering to sales, giving them exposure to various parts of the business, he said.

☆ 7 recruiters at high-flying venture firms like Accel, Index, and Lightspeed share their best tips for jobseekers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

"Be honest about why you need to find a new role"Lauren Illovsky is a talent partner at Gradient Ventures. Gradient VenturesPeople who get laid off might be tempted to try to hide it from recruiters. There's no need for tricks, said Lauren Illovsky, a talent partner at CapitalG, a firm that's backed by Alphabet. "In this climate, you don't need to worry about reputational damage from being let go due to a company restructuring or change in company priorities," Illovsky said. She tells people to treat a layoff like any other job transition.

☆ Snyk: 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

As more companies write their own code to power digital operations, they need to bolster and modernize their online security. It's a "cloud-native" technology, engineered by Snyk to speed up production and help enterprises prevent future security issues. Developers at AWS, Google , Atlassian , Comcast , Twilio , CVS , Overstock, Manulife and Revolut are among the millions in DevOps across sectors of the economy that are using Snyk. Investors include venture arms of Atlassian and Salesforce, Tiger Global, Baillie Gifford, T. Rowe Price, Accel, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Geodesic Capital and Temasek. The 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise list is powered and inspired by the members of CNBC's Technology Executive Council (TEC).

☆ Monte Carlo: 2022 Top Startups for the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Companies and their data analytics teams have more information to work with than ever before, but how do they know the data flowing through pipelines and across enterprise stacks is reliable? That's a question that led to the birth of the "data observability" niche, and has helped to turn some startups quickly into big companies, such as Databricks, and also pushed fellow "Top Startups" company Monte Carlo to a billion-dollar plus valuation. Founded by two executives who previously worked in customer experience and data security, Monte Carlo helps companies ensure that the increasing flow of data isn't only secure, but is available across an enterprise in real-time, leading to improved customer understanding and prevention of costly mistakes. Monte Carlo customers include companies across many sectors of the economy, from JetBlue to Affirm , Autotrader, Compass , Asics, GoodRx , and Shipt. Investors include some of Silicon Valley's largest VC firms, including Accel, GGV Capital and IVP.

☆ Hot startups like Miro and Canva are racing to dominate virtual whiteboards, an emerging category of workplace tools that sparked Adobe's $20 billion bid for Figma
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Virtual whiteboards are becoming essential workplace tools, as evidenced by Adobe's bid for Figma. The $20 billion price tag only further signaled the boom around virtual whiteboards, which allow users to collaborate visually and are quickly becoming essential tools alongside videoconferencing and workplace messaging. Besides Figma, Miro has gained momentum over the past two years, growing to 40 million users from 5 million users. But industry insiders think virtual whiteboards will become just one piece of a visual-collaboration arena. As a result, companies like Miro, Canva, and Lucid are on similar paths toward becoming larger visual-communications platforms.

☆ 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.

☆ Tiger Global-backed unicorn trading app Public.com set to expand into the European market in 2023 and make acquisitions
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

New York-based trading app Public.com is set to launch in the European market in 2023. The startup, which is valued at $1.2 billion, is backed by Tiger Global and a string of celebrities. Public's shift into the European market comes as talks to acquire Dutch counterpart Bux collapsed. Public.com, a US trading app backed by Tiger Global and a string of high-profile celebrities, is set to enter into the European market next year. The move comes as talks to acquire European counterpart Bux collapsed, a source familiar with the matter said.

☆ Tech companies have a 'war chest' of cash to see through downturn, says VC
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailTech companies have a 'war chest' of cash to see through downturn, says VCPhilippe Botteri, partner at venture capital firm Accel, says that now, unlike during the 2008 financial crisis, tech companies are in decent position to weather the economic downturn as they have large piles of cash reserved from the pandemic boom.

☆ Accel-backed insurance startup Luko doubles down on core business in push to profitability as it struggles to fundraise in gruelling market
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Accel-backed insurance startup Luko has struggled to raise during the market downturn. The Paris-based company, which was founded in 2018, predominantly operates as a home insurance business by selling policies to homeowners and renters using its proprietary AI. The round valued the business at around 260 million euros ($253 million), according to one London-based source. Funding to insurance tech startups also plummeted 50% year-on-year to $2.41 billion in Q2, according to data from brokerage Gallager Re. The home insurance startup has also been forced to lose employees across the business in recent months in a bid to conserve cash.

☆ Investment in cloud firms plunged 42% in Q3, says venture capitalist Accel
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Supantha Mukherjee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

While 51 cloud software developers raised funds at valuations of over $1 billion in the first quarter of 2022, only three did so in the third quarter, Accel's 2022 Euroscape report showed. The valuation of publicly listed cloud companies has also dropped to $1.2 trillion from $2.8 trillion in the last 12 months, Accel said. Rising interest rates and climbing inflation has led to contracted software valuations," said Philippe Botteri, a partner at Accel. "But we firmly believe that strong secular trends, like the shift to cloud, will continue to propel European and Israeli SaaS forward." There is around $770 billion available to buy cloud companies, with $440 billion of cash on the balance sheets of strategic investors and $330 billion of dry powder from technology-focused private equity funds, Accel estimated.

☆ Venture Firms Are Betting on Public Tech Stocks as Startup Market Stalls
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Berber Jin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

One of Amplitude’s largest shareholders when the data-analytics firm went public was Sequoia Capital. Venture-capital firms are jumping into the stock market, buying up battered shares in publicly traded tech companies at a time when they are investing less in the startups that have long been their focus. Some major venture firms including Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners have purchased more stocks of companies they first backed as startups this year, defying the industry norm of selling those shares soon after public listings.

☆ Venture-Capital Firms Buy Up Public Tech Stocks as Startup Market Stalls
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Berber Jin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ $17.5 billion tech juggernaut Miro quietly snapped up video-chat startup Around in the ongoing battle to catch Zoom
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Ben Bergman | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

It was acquired by Miro in June but both parties kept quiet until contacted by Insider. Terms were not disclosed though one source put the value of the deal as high as $300 million. Miro, a visual collaboration company last valued at $17.5 billion, has quietly acquired Around, a next-generation video conferencing app. "A Zoom video call is basically a telephone connected to a video camera," Zane said. "We want to get the community to give us feedback in terms of the problems that we are solving."

☆ Thoma Bravo to take software firm ForgeRock private in $2.3 bln deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Oct 11 (Reuters) - ForgeRock (FORG.N) said on Tuesday it will be acquired by buyout firm Thoma Bravo in an all-cash deal valued at about $2.3 billion, just over a year after the digital identity management company went public. ForgeRock shareholders will receive $23.25 for each share held, which represents a premium of about 53.4% to the stock's last closing price. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterShares of ForgeRock jumped 50% to $22.76 before the bell. San Francisco-based ForgeRock provides identity and access management solutions for consumers, workforce and internet of things devices. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh KuberOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Public.com, an investing app backed by Will Smith and Maria Sharapova, is in talks to acquire Dutch trading startup Bux
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Investing app Public.com is in talks to acquire Dutch trading startup Bux, sources say. Bux was valued at an estimated $320 million to $480 million in 2021, but the expected deal price is lower. Investing app Public.com is in talks to acquire Dutch stock trading startup Bux, according to two sources with knowledge of the discussions. New York-based Public has been in active talks with Bux for two months, the sources said. Bux has never stated its valuation but was valued between $320 million and $480 million at its 2021 funding round, according to Dealroom estimates.

☆ Fictiv raised $100 million in funding backed by Bill Gates for on-demand manufacturing. See the 15-slide pitch deck that persuaded investors.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Martin Coulter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Supply-chain startup Fictiv recently raised $100 million in a Series E funding round. Insider got an exclusive look at the pitch deck Fictiv used to bring investors on board. Fictiv, a supply-chain-management startup, recently raised $100 million in a Series E funding round backed by Bill Gates and Accel. Activate Capital led the Series E round, with participation from new investors Angeleno Group, Cross Creek, and the Westly Group. Insider got an exclusive look at the pitch deck Fictiv used to bring investors on board.

☆ Here are Thursday's biggest analyst calls: Amazon, Eli Lilly, Bed Bath & Beyond, Nike, Exxon & more
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-22 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Thursday: UBS upgrades Eli Lilly to buy from neutral UBS says it's bullish on the company's weight loss drug and sees upside potential. Morgan Stanley reiterates Amazon as overweight Morgan Stanley says the company's fulfillment network is the next great catalyst for Amazon shares. "The cybersecurity industry comprises what we see as five main pillars: identity, endpoint security, data security, network security, and cloud security. Morgan Stanley reiterates Microsoft as overweight Morgan Stanley says it sees an attractive risk/reward after meeting with company management. Morgan Stanley reiterates Meta as overweight Morgan Stanley says that reports of Meta cutting costs could prove to be an earnings tailwind.

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