DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Meta, Cameo, and Twitter are 3 of the latest creator economy companies to be hit with layoffs. Here are 22 that have cut staff recently.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Sydney Bradley | Amanda Perelli | Geoff Weiss | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Insider is keeping tabs on which creator economy companies are cutting back on staff. For more than a year, the creator economy was a red-hot industry flowing with new players, big deals, and massive investments. According to Crunchbase, funding for VC-backed creator economy startups topped $939 million in 2021. These sunny days are coming to a halt, however, as creator economy startups grapple with a looming recession. As the creator economy responds to the changing markets, Insider is keeping track of which companies are laying off staffers.

☆ Crypto infrastructure startup Ramp just raised $70 million despite cooling investor interest in Web3. Here's the 14-slide pitch deck it used to raise the funds.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

London-based crypto infrastructure startup Ramp has raised $70 million in a Series B round. Ramp CEO Szymon Sypniewicz told Insider the "tourists" had now left the crypto space. Crypto infrastructure startup Ramp has raised $70 million in fresh funds despite a dropoff in investor interest in Web3. "After the last round we continued growing fast, and faster than expected," Ramp CEO Szymon Sypniewicz told Insider. Ramp declined to comment on its valuation but told Insider it was a "healthy up round" on its Series A.

☆ 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.

☆ This entrepreneur says he found being laid off from Shopify 'empowering' — he now hosts improv workshops for businesses and charges around $2,000 per session
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Other Comedy Company uses improv games to help work teams meet their goals. In fact, he said he launched his business, called The Other Comedy Company, exactly one minute after he got the news. The Other Comedy Company facilitates comedy and improv workshops for businesses. Just over two months later, Shopify laid off about 1,000 people across the company. Myers said The Other Comedy Company currently employs four workshop facilitators, all of whom come from stand-up comedy or improv backgrounds.

☆ How to create employee-resource groups at your business so both existing and new employees feel welcome
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Rachel Durose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

This article is part of Talent Insider, a series containing expert advice to help small business owners tackle a range of hiring challenges. To create a feeling of belonging, entrepreneurs should create employee-resource groups, nine human-resources and diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders told Insider. Nine HR and diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders share their advice for small-business owners interested in starting and supporting employee-resource groups at their companies. "There needs to be a positive outcome for having the ERG group," she said, referring to employee-resource groups. At KPMG, one-third of employees engage in the company's employee-resource groups, Richards added.

☆ Early-stage VCs are leaving $100 billion on the table by not exercising rights to buy into later startup funding rounds. One investor is trying to make sure they don't.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Pro rata rights give early investors a place in later funding rounds and protect against dilution. Nearly 95% of pro rata rights go unused, often because investors lack the capital to exercise them. Alpha Partners provides the capital VCs need to take advantage of their lucrative pro rata rights. The company allows early-stage VCs to exercise their pro rata rights and participate in follow-on rounds by providing capital when no one else will. From a founder's perspective, pro rata rights can be a way of protecting those that took an early chance on the company.

☆ The 4 'essential' relationships that helped this 32-year-old grow her business to bring in 7 figures
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Running a successful business is hard – and building a successful business as a Black woman is even harder. Black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S., according to JP Morgan, yet they face disproportionate financial barriers. However, Black women founders only average $24,000 in profits. According to Williams, these are the four essential relationships every business owner should have to "scale their impact." I have a trifecta of successful [women] business owners and we meet weekly sharing resources with each other," Williams shares.

☆ This startup aims to mix traditional credit cards with buy now, pay later. Check out the 13-slide pitch deck Tymit used to raise $26 million.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tymit, a startup that mixes credit cards with buy now, pay later, has raised $26 million. A startup that aims to offer the best of both traditional credit cards and buy now, pay later has raised $26 million in fresh funds. Buy now, pay later has surged in popularity in recent years with a number of multi-billion dollar companies like Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm emerging as leaders in the space. Buy now, pay later startups raised over $4 billion in 2021, according to Crunchbase. Frasers, which was founded by controversial British billionaire Mike Ashley, is set to offer buy now, pay later products for its brands.

☆ 3 things not to do when pitching your startup to a VC, according to a partner at a $750 million crypto venture firm
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Marc Weinstein, a partner at VC firm Mechanism Capital, has cut 100 checks as an angel investor. The crypto venture firm grew from $500,000 to a peak AUM of $750 million in two years. But venture firms like Mechanism Capital say there are still tons of deals to be made. Founders who are 'catching the latest fad'The Mechanism Capital partner is focused on the team's backgrounds and what they've accomplished in the past. The firm, Weinstein included, looks for a certain level of consistency in their potential portfolio companies.

☆ Meet the wealthy ex-Goldman Sachs junior banker and hedge-fund manager taking over as the UK's new prime minister
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

We've got famous authors yelling at Jamie Dimon, rich Russians heading to your favorite all-inclusive, and more people complaining about Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse infatuation. The UK has a new prime minister — no, it's not the head of lettuce — and he comes from the world of Wall Street! Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister, officially became prime minister on Tuesday after meeting with King Charles. Sunak's early career reads like a typical Wall Street mogul:-Spend three years working as a junior analyst at a bank (Goldman Sachs). Grenada is proving to be an effective loophole for wealthy Russians looking to get US visas.

☆ Former Amazon managers who became successful founders say metrics and frugality aren't great for startups but customer obsession is
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Five founders shared the aspects of Amazon's company culture they brought with them, or left behind. As Insider has previously reported, some Amazon employees have described the culture as hypercompetitive and overly frugal, which can lead to burnout. Yes to customer obsessionAll five founders praised Amazon's top leadership principle, established by its founder, Jeff Bezos: customer obsession. Those are metrics Amazon also follows closely. Some Amazon employees have dubbed this phenom "frupidity," a combination of the words "stupidity" and "frugality."

☆ Investment has been pouring into technology in the agriculture space. How to play it
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Carmen Reinicke | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, the agriculture industry was dealing with a number of headwinds, from hurricanes and poor planning disrupting crop growth cycles to the impact of retaliatory tariffs slashing exports. These issues have highlighted an immense need for investment in agriculture and specifically technology to improve the efficiency of the industry. Last year, Deere also purchased Bear Flag Robotics, a Silicon Valley agriculture technology startup that develops autonomous farm equipment, for $250 million. AGCO , an agricultural machinery manufacturer, has also made several investments or acquisitions in the last few years in new technology in the space. The agriculture company in September bought Symborg, a Spanish microbiological technologies firm that makes biostimulants and biofertilizers for many kinds of crops and agriculture systems that boost results.

☆ How Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt helped write AI laws in Washington without publicly disclosing investments in AI start-ups
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Eamon Javers | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +18 min

'Conflict of interest'Schmidt's investment was just the first of a handful of direct investments he would make in AI start-up companies during his tenure as chairman of the AI commission. Altogether, Schmidt and entities connected to him made more than 50 investments in AI companies while he was chairman of the federal commission on AI. To Poulson, Schmidt was simply given too much power over federal AI policy. The new entity would continue the work of the congressionally created federal commission, with many of the same goals and much of the same staff. More than a dozen staffers from the federal commission followed Schmidt to the new private sector project.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck Y Combinator alum Shimmer used to raise $1.3 million to bring ADHD coaching to adults
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Y Combinator alum Shimmer raised $1.3 in funding from VCs like Honeystone Ventures and Koa Labs. The startup provides ADHD coaching for adults. The adult ADHD space is much smaller, with medication-focused startups like Cerebral and Done receiving regulatory scrutiny for over-prescribing controlled medication like Adderall and putting patients at risk. At Shimmer, Wang says the focus on coaching, as opposed to medication, is a better long-term solution for many people managing ADHD. Here's a look at the 15-slide pitch deck Shimmer used to raise its seed round.

☆ Although the crypto hype is fading, 3 VCs say there's still 'low-hanging fruit' opportunities in Web3 security and compliance. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Despite the crypto winter and a funding slowdown, several VCs remain interested in Web3 security. Like in most other areas of the market, venture funding for cybersecurity has dropped this year. These are prime areas, in his view, for security startups to step in. In September, Solidus Labs made Insider's list of the most promising crypto startups of 2022. Crypto security, according to Seewald, is not so different from security for other tech applications.

☆ Tiger Global dominated digital health in 2021. But it's only backed 12 health startups this year as the firm struggles in an unstable market.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Tiger Global Management poured cash into digital-health funding rounds worth billions of dollars last year as the market soared. In 2021, Tiger Global backed 10 digital-health startups in the first quarter alone. It's a dramatic shift for Tiger Global, which made 335 bets last year, more than any other investment firm, according to Crunchbase. The firm, led by Chase Coleman, has $65 billion in assets under management, according to a Tiger Global spokesperson. Here are the 12 healthcare startups that Tiger Global has backed this year.

☆ 'Feel the feelings': Millennial co-founder of a $2 billion company on dealing with rejection at work
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Gili Malinsky | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Having experienced the cumbersome nature of running the backend of a business, in 2013, Sigala co-founded HoneyBook, a platform for financial management for small businesses. The company took off, and as of 2021, HoneyBook is valued at more than $2 billion. After five years there, in 2018, Sigala co-founded her second tech venture, Kinside, a child-care marketplace. The company has raised more than $16 million thus far, according to Crunchbase, and she's currently serving as its CEO. For anyone facing rejection in their own career, however it plays out, here's her advice.

☆ Startup founders are panicked amid a market meltdown, but most VCs don't want to hear it. 'It's like don't ask, don't tell.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

"It's like don't ask, don't tell," Josh Felser, a successful founder and outspoken investor, said. The following report on how startup founders are coping with the funding crunch was originally published on August 4. Seven Seven Six partner Katelin Holloway. Her investor, Seven Seven Six, pays for its founders to participate. Caleb Frankel, whose Seven Seven Six-backed startup, EarlyBird, helps families invest in their kid's financial future, wants desperately to have kids, but he and his wife have struggled with pregnancy loss.

☆ Andreessen Horowitz and Benchmark have piled into the burgeoning FinOps sector. Now, European startups are racing to become the region's early leader.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

European startups like Sequence and Numeral want to establish themselves as the region's leaders. In March, the valuation of Californian startup Modern Treasury spiked to $2 billion as it established itself as an early leader in the burgeoning FinOps sector. In Europe, FinOps startups have captured the attention of a wealth of venture capital firms hoping to be an early backer in the region's own Modern Treasury. The US payments market is notoriously fragmented with some 5,000 banks and no universal real-time settlements platform. Indeed, investment into European startups plummeted by 38% in the second quarter of the year to $23.7 billion, according to Crunchbase data.

☆ The 26 most important VCs in Miami, according to other VCs
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( April Joyner | Emilia David | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Miami's tech-startup scene has heated up in the past two years as VCs have flocked to the city. Early-stage funding to the area has topped $2 billion this year, according to Crunchbase. Insider asked VCs to identify the top investors in the Miami area. Despite the slowdown in venture-capital investments this year, early-stage funding flowing to the Miami area is set to eclipse last year's total, according to Crunchbase, with more than $2 billion already invested. Insider asked venture capitalists and other prominent tech figures which investors Miami-area founders should get to know.

☆ Check out the exclusive pitch deck that live-learning startup Hone used to raise $30 million for online career training and upskilling
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Hone landed clients like Aramark and Indeed and raised a $30 million Series B that 3L Capital led. Unlike large, asynchronous online courses like those LinkedIn Learning and Coursera host, live, vetted, and professional teachers lead Hone's courses. Hone said it was ahead of the curve on this trend, offering online trainings since its founding in 2017. The Hone team hopes to use the new funding to expand their course catalog and offer more hybrid and in-person learning opportunities. Check out the 13-slide pitch deck that Hone used to raise its $30 million Series B round:

Insider asked VC investors which creator economy startups they find the most promising. Despite recent layoffs at companies including Spring, Linktree, PopShop Live, and Jellysmack this year, creator economy startup funding is on the rise, reaching $637 million this year as of July, according to Crunchbase. The money is often flowing to startups in smaller sums and in a more targeted fashion, VCs told Insider in August. Insider reached out to a select group of creator-focused VCs for their thoughts on the most promising creator startups. Here are 14 exciting startups poised to make an impact on the creator economy in 2022 and beyond:

And layoffs at proptech companies have become all too common. That makes it harder for such startups to find customers as well as to woo funding from VCs. We've covered the hottest proptech startups before, but the current economic environment makes it much more difficult to determine which ones stand the best chance at success. To identify the startups that deserve the most attention right now, we polled a dozen venture capitalists who invest in proptech. Some VCs identified in this list recommended multiple proptech startups.

☆ Harry Jowsey wants to be the next Ashton Kutcher, but will he be too hot for startups to handle?
▼ + stars: | 2022-06-19 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Harry Jowsey is an influencer best known for appearing on Netflix's "Too Hot To Handle." Australian-born Jowsey aims to invest in about 10 companies including dating apps and gaming sites. A social media extrovert with acting ambitions, Jowsey models himself on Ashton Kutcher, an actor and prankster-turned serial entrepreneur. Like the actor, Jowsey has been backing companies he knows, funding startups linking tech and social media. Jowsey didn't respond to Rybchin's comments and the startups mentioned in this article didn't respond to a request for comment.

Fewer than 200 Black women have ever raised $1 million or more in venture-capital funds. Black and Latina women founders received 0.43% of the $166 billion in VC funding from 2020.Insider is compiling a list of Black female founders who've raised $1 million or more in VC in 2021. What's more, companies led by Black women typically receive less than 1% of all venture capital funding, according to data from Crunchbase. If you're a Black female founder who's raised $1 million or more in VC funding this year, please contact Alexandra York at ayork@insider.com. An earlier version of this story misstated the time period in which 93 Black female founders had raised VC funds of $1 million or more.

Search resuls for: "Crunchbase"

25 mentions found