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☆ SpaceX, Tesla, and Boring Company execs are helping Elon Musk at Twitter, records reveal
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Lora Kolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Ever since, he has enlisted high-ranking executives and engineers from his other businesses, including SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company, to help out at the social media company, according to internal records obtained by CNBC and conversations with recent Twitter employees. Musk has also enabled partners from investment firms who participated in the Twitter buyout access to work within the social media company. In his testimony, Musk characterized Tesla employees' work for him at Twitter as "just a voluntary thing." He also said: "This was sort of an after-hours, just if you're interested in evaluating the -- helping me evaluate Twitter engineering, that would be nice. In addition to Tesla employees, Musk has also enlisted execs and employees from SpaceX, the reusable rocket and satellite internet services company he founded in 2002, to help him at Twitter.

☆ Former FTX engineer quietly became multimillion-dollar Democratic donor after new role at cryptocurrency exchange
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried wasn't the only company executive who put big money behind campaigns aligned with the Democratic Party. Singh donated $8 million to federal campaigns in the 2022 election cycle, and all of it went to Democrats, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets. He was among a handful of former senior officials at FTX who were deeply involved with financing the 2022 midterms. Two years later, Singh donated $1 million to Future Forward USA, a PAC that backed President Joe Biden's 2020 run for president, records show. Singh, who was among the FTX leaders initially fired after the company collapsed, did not return repeated requests for comment.

☆ This startup is creating realistic sound experiences in virtual reality. Check out the pitch deck Treble used to raise a $5.7 million seed round.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

An Icelandic sound startup just closed a 5.5 million euros (around $5.7 million) seed round. Treble Technologies helps architects and game designers design better sound experiences using simulations. His company, Treble Technologies, has nabbed 5.5 million euros (around $5.7 million) to improve the way sound is designed. The company has also secured a 2.5 million euros (around $2.6 million) European Innovation Council grant. Check out the 22-slide redacted pitch deck Treble Used to raise the Seed round below.

☆ Upollo wants to stop account sharing and repeat free trials. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck it used to raise $2.75 million in seed funding from Index Ventures and others.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Upollo aims to convert account sharers and repeat trial users into paying customers. Here's an exclusive look at the 19-slide pitch deck the startup used to raise its seed round. Most companies attempting to stop account sharers or repeat trial users build their software in-house, Meyer said. But they focus more on preventing the use of fraudulent credit cards for free trials, rather than stopping account sharers and repeat trial users themselves, Meyer told Insider. Here's an exclusive look at the 19-slide pitch deck that Upollo used to raise $2.75 million in seed funding from Index Ventures:

☆ Here's the pitch deck that dating app IRLY, cofounded by internet star Cameron Dallas, used to raise its pre-seed round
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Marta Biino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The video-dating app IRLY just brought on the Vine superstar Cameron Dallas as a cofounder. The company also announced a pre-seed funding round of 475,000 Canadian dollars. IRLY shared the pitch deck it used to raise the round. Shortly after, Dallas got in touch with the founders of IRLY — the Canada-based university students Connor Rose and Laura Rollock — on LinkedIn. IRLY had raised its pre-seed round before getting in touch with Dallas, at the start of 2022.

☆ Tosca Musk, Elon’s sister, has a business venture of her own – and it’s all about romance and female sexuality
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Faith Karimi Cnn Photographs Austin Steele | Faith Karimi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

It’s their first public film premiere since the pandemic started. Musk, 48, is the force behind Passionflix, which adapts romance novels into movies and streams them to a devoted niche audience. “Passionflix focuses on adapting romance novels exactly as the fan and the author envision it,” Musk says in a separate CNN interview. From left to right: Tosca Musk, Kimbal Musk, mother Maye Musk and Elon Musk at Maye's 50th birthday party in 1998. One of the founding members, she says she spent the pandemic years curled up on her couch, watching Passionflix movies.

☆ Early Figma and Revolut-backer Index Ventures just launched a $300 million fund to back pre-seed and seed stage startups
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

San Francisco and London-based VC firm Index Ventures has launched a $300 million seed fund. San Francisco and London-based VC firm Index Ventures has launched a new $300 million fund that will invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups globally. Amid the global downturn that's shaken the tech industry, it's been "business as usual" for Index Ventures, Hammer said. The hope is that the seed fund will systematize the firm's efforts toward early-stage startups and entrepreneurs. "It was so tempting two years ago to back these growth rounds — but we launched Origin I, because we operated intuitively."

☆ This biotech startup helps scientists design proteins using AI. Check out the 16-slide deck Cradle used to raise $5.4 million in seed funding.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Biotech startup Cradle just raised $5.4 million from Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. Check out the 16-slide deck Cradle used to raise the fresh funds. Inside that factory are proteins, which behave like machines," said cofounder Stef van Grieken. Amid a shaky economic downturn, van Grieken found that having a strong founding team — including Uber's first employee and a host of experienced biologists — helped with the fundraise. Investor appetite for generative AI and biotech has also remained stable, which was a boon, van Grieken added.

☆ Prediction Capital just closed the first tranche of its $30 million fund to back early-stage fintech and consumer startups in the DACH region
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Prediction Capital has launched its first fund to back early-stage fintech and consumer startups. The $30 million fund, backed by Swiss family office Infinitas Capital, will focus on the DACH region. The Malta-based firm, which has reached the first close of its new $30 million early-stage fund, will focus on startups in the DACH region. Its focus is early-stage startups, across pre-seed to Series A, and initial ticket sizes will range from $250,000 to $500,000. With the help of the family office, Prediction Capital has been able to close four deals so far.

☆ After FTX's collapse, VCs across industries are finally admitting to crypto's failures — and they're preparing for 'more blows to come'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Investors stuck to crypto startups they considered "safe bets," but FTX's failure challenges that idea. Crypto startups held yacht parties through the summer and into early fall at events such as NFT.NYC and Messari Mainnet. "The whole crypto space is a high-leverage space, and it's susceptible to cascading failures." The events of the past week are unlikely to whet risk-averse LPs' appetite for crypto, investors told Insider. Even so, several investors who have backed crypto startups told Insider that despite the industry's recent travails, they remain believers in the technology.

☆ Egyptian startup Blnk raises $32 million in funding round
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Mahmoud Salama | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

CAIRO, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Blnk, a fintech platform that enables instant consumer credit in Egypt, has closed one of the country's biggest funding rounds for a startup this year, raising $32 million, its chief executive said. The company, launched in October 2021, raised $23.7 million in equity and debt funding and $8.3 million in securitised bond issuance, co-founder and CEO Amr Sultan told Reuters. The $11.2 million debt funding was secured from a number of leading local banks. The $8.3 million securitised bond issuance was underwritten by National Bank of Egypt and Banque du Caire. The company says it has disbursed more than $20 million in loans to date.

☆ When he's not starring on Love is Blind, Berkeley Haas' Sikiru 'SK' Alagbada likes to invest in startups. Here's what he looks for.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

"Love Is Blind" contestant Sikiru "SK" Alagbada got into UC Berkeley's MBA program in 2021. Alagbada worked as a data engineer and is now the co-chair of LAUNCH, the UC startup accelerator. "It's almost like a mini-YC," he said, referring to the famous Silicon Valley startup accelerator, Y Combinator. He looks for startups that have a clear "founder-market fit," whether it's in terms of technical expertise or a strong network, Alagbada told Insider. When it comes to his personal investing, Alagbada prioritizes startups based in Africa.

☆ Here's an exclusive look at the 19-slide pitch deck a Tesla alum used to raise a $2.5 million seed round for his Web3 climate-tech startup
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Return lets people buy carbon credits to offset their crypto activity. What jumped out at White, however, was another line of business at Tesla: the sale of carbon credits. Companies, organizations, and individuals buy carbon credits to offset greenhouse-gas emissions from their activities. Several projects — such as Toucan Protocol, with which Return has partnered — aim to bring transparency to carbon credits by listing them on blockchains. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck that helped White raise seed funding:

☆ Advertisers begin to grill Elon Musk over Twitter 'free-for-all'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Nov 2 (Reuters) - Elon Musk promised advertisers he would keep Twitter from turning into a "free-for-all hellscape." This week, advertisers are beginning to demand details on how he plans to uphold the commitment. The agency's top clients are expected to join the meeting, the media buyer said. Even as Musk took meetings with major agencies and advertisers this week, he took to Twitter on Wednesday night with a poll asking users whether advertisers should support freedom of speech or "political correctness." "Those type of provocations are not helping to calm the waters," the media buyer said.

☆ How Y Combinator-backed Web3 startup Courtyard raised $7 million and plans to redefine NFTs and the marketplace for digital collectibles
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( April Joyner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Y Combinator-backed Web3 startup Courtyard has raised $7 million in seed funding led by NEA. Nicolas le Jeune was working at YouTube when he caught the NFT bug. Le Jeune, Courtyard's CEO, cofounded the startup with Paulin Andurand, who serves as the company's CTO. Le Jeune and Andurand launched a proof of concept by buying up packs of Pokémon cards with money lent from a friend. Fortunately, le Jeune and Andurand had already begun to make inroads with investors.

☆ Google's former payments chief just unveiled his plans for a digital family office that relies on AI and already has $90 million in funding from backers like Ribbit Capital and Coatue
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Caesar Sengupta spent 15 years at Google and was its payments chief before leaving in 2021. Arta is backed by investors such as Sequoia Capital India and Ribbit Capital. Sengupta left Google in April of last year with seven other Google employees to start Arta: Charles Dong, Chirag Yagnik, David Shapiro, Edward Chiang, Felix Lin, Mark Striebeck, and Zelidrag Hornung. "This is so different from what Google does, we left and Google was extremely supportive," said Sengupta. Sengupta and other former Google executives on the Arta team left in the midst of a series of exits of high-ranking Google employees.

Personette, who was chief customer officer, follows executives including former Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, whom Musk fired last week. Chief People and Diversity Officer Dalana Brand announced on Tuesday in a LinkedIn post that she had resigned last week as well. General manager for core technologies Nick Caldwell confirmed his departure on Twitter, changing his profile bio to "former Twitter exec" by Monday night. Jason Calacanis, an angel investor and Musk confidant working on Twitter, on Monday said Twitter was having "a very productive day" meeting with marketers and advertisers. Experts have said hateful content has skyrocketed since Musk closed his acquisition of Twitter last week.

☆ Elon Musk enlists more than 50 Tesla workers, 2 Boring Company staff, and one Neuralink employee to work at Twitter post-takeover, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk has authorized Tesla, Boring Company, and Neuralink staff to work at Twitter, per CNBC. Some Tesla directors were also enlisted to work at Twitter, CNBC reported, citing documents. More than 50 employees at Tesla have been authorized to work at Twitter, according to internal documents seen by CNBC. As well as Tesla workers, the world's richest man has also enlisted two staff members from his tunnelling venture, The Boring Company, and one employee from his brain-chip business, Neuralink, CNBC reported, citing the documents. CNBC's report follows the firing of some top executives at Twitter, as well as CEO Parag Agrawal, hours after Musk took over the site.

☆ Elon Musk has pulled more than 50 Tesla employees into his Twitter takeover
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Lora Kolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesNew Twitter owner Elon Musk has pulled more than 50 of his trusted Tesla employees, mostly software engineers from the Autopilot team, into his Twitter takeover, CNBC has learned. At Twitter, Musk is counting on his lieutenants and loyalists to decide who and what to cut or keep at the social network. It is not immediately clear how Tesla employees are expected to split their schedules between the automaker and Twitter. Typically, when Tesla employees work for other Elon Musk ventures, usually SpaceX or the Boring Company, they can get paid by the other venture as a consultant. Employees say Musk wants that work done by the first week of November.

☆ Women in venture capital are writing the rules of maternity leave and bending the male-dominated culture to their will
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Melia Russell | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

And with more women entering the male-dominated venture industry, firms are being forced to craft maternity leave policies on the fly to accommodate new mothers. Forty years ago, the clubby male world of venture capital admitted so few women that maternity leave as a benefit was effectively nonexistent. "There is no playbook about how to take maternity leave or raise a family while also accelerating your career as an investor." Lux CapitalLike in many male-dominated industries, maternity leave as a benefit for investors doesn't come up in conversation until someone needs it. Though, the best policies, investors said, give women choices about how they operate on leave, rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all leave.

☆ My startup was acquired for $320 million. Here's how I built and exited it in 10 years, and my advice for founders building in a niche market.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Lauren Crosmedlicott | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Investors often told Griffiths her product was too niche and didn't have a strong enough market. After exiting Knix for $320 million this summer, she shares how to convince VCs on a new market. Here are my top tips for fundraising and building a successful business around a niche product:1. When investors say a product is niche, ask yourself: Am I getting this feedback because the addressable market is too small? When Knix started, we mainly sold to wholesalers, depending on them to tell the story of the product to get people to buy it.

☆ Twitter's Hunger Games: Elon Musk oversees a weekend of coding sprints, stack ranking, and boot-licking as some employees fight to keep their jobs.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Several Musk allies have been added to a company directory, with Musk being named CEO internally. Elon Musk put Twitter employees to the test this weekend to see who is capable, and willing, of surviving under his new reign. Musk has a 16 year old son, Saxon James Musk, whom he frequently mentions on Twitter, although the Twitter workers have yet to see any confirmation that James Musk is of any relation to their new owner. "This is it," one of the people familiar said, describing the feeling at the company under Musk. Many engineers were tasked over the weekend with "sprints," set periods of time for coding work to be done.

☆ Leonid Radvinsky bought OnlyFans after building an empire of porn sites. Now he wants to join the ranks of the super-rich and give away his fortune.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Leonid Radvinsky bought OnlyFans, an adult content platform, in 2018 for an undisclosed sum. The subscription-based adult content platform was founded in the UK by Tim Stokely in 2016 before Radvinsky took control. OnlyFans is not his first foray into the world of adult content. It ran a number of websites in the early 2000s that marketed "hacked" and "illegal" passwords to porn sites, Forbes reported last year. Radvinsky's next venture came in 2002 when he set up MyFreeCams, a porn site that featured "models" who got naked and offered sexual performances on webcams.

☆ For the first time in years, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are 'weak' and VCs are eager to back alternatives, they say.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

VCs see an opportunity to back the next big social network and take on existing giants. "Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, they're weak, and they're just losing that edge," one investor said. And there may be room for even more young social media companies to rise. For her, identity verification and responsible content moderation are non-negotiable in any new social platform that she backs. "There is a sense of decline for some of these large social media platforms," Lee said.

☆ See the pitch deck media company Jubilee used to raise $1.1 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Marta Biino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Jubilee is a media company best known for its YouTube videos about empathy. See the pitch deck that persuaded investors to bet on Jubilee and its new venture. In September, the media company Jubilee announced a $1.1 million seed-plus round, led by Strong Ventures and with the support of several angel investors. "We were really strategic to actually look for angel investors who had tech experience," Lee said. Read through 12 pages of the pitch deck Jubilee used to raise its $1.1 million seed-plus round:Note: Four slides containing confidential information were removed at Jubilee's request.

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