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☆ Kraken exec Ankur Ranshid just exited the high-profile crypto exchange. Here's why he left, and exclusive details on his new a16z-backed gig's $200 million funding round.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Matter Labs announced a $200 million Series C round, led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly. Kraken, which has a reported valuation of $10.8 billion, is trying to fill C-suite-level roles such as chief product officer, chief commercial officer, chief technology officer, and a chief compliance officer, Forbes reported last month. (The firm, however, told Insider in an email that the only existing vacant C-suite positions were chief product officer and chief compliance offer. Matter Labs' $200 million raiseFounded in 2018, Matter Labs is best known for developing a scaling protocol, or zero-knowledge rollup called zkSync. Matter Labs says nothing about the company's funding round or executive appointment has changed following this news.

☆ A16z-backed financial wellness benefits provider Brightside raises $33 million in Series B funding with plans to hire hundreds of employees
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Brightside works with employers to provide financial wellness benefits to employees. Brightside, which sells its financial wellness platform to businesses for use as an employee benefit, is currently based in Arizona and only serves US businesses. The latest round brings Brightside's total funding to $75 million, after a $35.1 million in Series A funding round in June 2020. Financial wellness became a big topic for employees as companies aim to provide more benefits to entice them to stay. And roboinvestment company Betterment hinted at looking to acquire financial wellness companies as it seeks to expand beyond investment.

☆ Thousands of tech workers were laid off last week. Experts say it's just the beginning.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

We've got a lot to get to today, so I'm going to get straight into the news, starting with why experts are warning that tech layoffs are just beginning. Thousands of workers were laid off last week. A Tesla alum used this pitch deck to raise a $2.5 million seed round for his startup. We got a look at the pitch deck its founder used to raise seed funding — check it out here. Plus, check out our full, searchable pitch deck database here.

☆ Andreessen Horowitz is 'betting heavily' on edtech for the next decade, says general partner Katherine Boyle. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Even with edtech funding down this year, A16z is still "betting heavily" on the space. Here's why general partner Katherine Boyle thinks edtech is worth betting on over the next decade. Andreessen Horowitz is still "betting heavily" on education-tech investing, despite signs that overall funding in the space is slowing. Global venture-capital funding to edtech startups has soared since 2019 and saw a marked jump during the pandemic. More recently, though, there have been signs that the rate of edtech investing is slowing down with market uncertainty: PitchBook estimates that total edtech funding for 2022 stands at $7.9 billion as of November 3.

☆ How fintech super-connector Rex Salisbury went from A16Z's first fintech team hire to solo capitalist with a $20 million debut fund
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Salisbury's deal flow comes from a community of fintech founders he's cultivated over the years. That surprised Salisbury, the lone partner at new fintech firm Cambrian Ventures, given that he'd never met the OatFi founders before. Though, Salisbury defied the first-time fund manager's curse when he closed $20 million for his inaugural fund in June. "I want people to have gotten value in some sense before we invest, or even if we never invest," Salisbury told Insider. When Salisbury left the firm, he took a part of the brand with him.

☆ AI tech like Dall-E 2 will eventually kill smartphone apps, A16z VC Peter Levine says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Julie Bort | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The A16z venture capitalist Peter Levine told Insider that apps were heading for obsolescence. Tech like Dall-E 2 and Stable Diffusion that generates AI artwork will have more uses, he said. Peter Levine is best known as a general partner at the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. This, instead, would be a series of AI agents that generate what you ask for when you ask for it. The Andreessen Horowitz general partner Peter Levine.

☆ Famed A16Z VC Peter Levine has donated $5 million to bring startup and company building to climate non-profits
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Julie Bort | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The cohorts will be vetted by the Honnold Foundation and the Çerçioglu will be open sourced. Flash forward to three-years after his surgery, Levine tells Insider that his recovery has been nothing short of a "miracle." The Levine Impact Lab has launched in partnership with the Honnold Foundation – a solar-technology non-profit founded by Levine's friend, renowned rock climber Alex Honnold. The idea is to bring Silicon Valley startup-like training to non-profits, particularly select organizations already involved and vetted by the Honnold Foundation. "Just because you're a non-profit versus a for-profit tech company, everyone runs into the same issues.

☆ The CEO of Capital, formerly Party Round, dishes on the strategy behind its rebrand — and why the company's ambitions have grown beyond being just a tool for startup fundraising
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Party Round is now Capital and will offer more features beyond fundraising capabilities. Party Round, the fundraising app for startups, has rebranded as Capital, expanding its services beyond a tool to raise cash. Jordi Hays, Capital CEO, said the rebrand was really tied to the company's expanding vision to support other startups as they built Party Round with the idea of becoming a sort of neobank. But now, once they've begun fundraising, Capital can issue a virtual Visa debit card to users so they can start using the cash they just received. Capital has a long history with NFTs; Party Round went viral in 2021 after it launched NFT versions of top VCs.

☆ I binge-listened to tech podcasts for a week, and what I learned about Silicon Valley is kind of scary
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-04 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

2: The hosts don't know what they don't knowThe problem is, VC podcasts don't stick to the core issues of venture capital. 3: The hosts want us to believe what they don't knowThere's a shocking amount of this kind of drivel on the tech podcasts. This is what a good tech podcast should do: Use access to the best and most successful investors and innovators to illuminate the way Silicon Valley works. But that's not what matters in the world of tech podcasts. But after 40 hours of listening to tech podcasts, I feel kind of bad about it.

☆ How security questionnaire startup SecurityPal raised $21 million from investors like Craft Ventures and a GP at Andreessen Horowitz without a pitch deck
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

SecurityPal helps companies complete security questionnaires using automation and human analysts. The startup raised a $21 million Series A round from Craft and a16z investors without a pitch deck. Hamal is the founder and CEO of SecurityPal, a security questionnaire startup that recently raised $21 million in Series A funding from Craft Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz general partner Martin Casado, and other angel investors. SecurityPal aids companies in filling out security questionnaires using a combination of automation and human security analysts. Hamal told Insider that the round came together from inbound investor interest and without the use of a pitch deck.

☆ See the 32 pitch decks that some of the hottest property-technology startups used to raise millions from top VCs like SoftBank and a16z
▼ + stars: | 2022-05-21 | by ( Alex Nicoll | James Rodriguez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

VC investment fell by 38% in 2022, but the technological transformation of real estate continues. investment fell by 38% in 2022, but the technological transformation real estate continues. Insider has collected 32 pitch decks that successful firms have used to raise funding from VCs and private equity firms. Clockwork AnalyticsThe pandemic laid bare the necessity of a technological transformation of commercial real estate. MosaicThe pandemic boosted traditional construction companies' interest in the high-tech corner of the sector.

☆ OPINION: Play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity are blowing up right now, but they look a lot like Ponzi schemes
▼ + stars: | 2022-01-11 | by ( Paul Butler | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

He suggests Axie Infinity only creates value by taking money from new players and distributing it to established players. One of the most apparently successful examples of web3 that people point to, aside from art NFTs, is so-called play-to-earn games. NFT EconomyAxies, the tradable characters at the center of Axie Infinity, are tradable as NFTs outside of the official Axie Infinity game. I've focused on Axie Infinity because it's the prominent, genre-defining play-to-earn game. I fully suspect that the pitfalls that it has encountered are ones that all play-to-earn games will eventually encounter.

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