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New Pick: A Startup That’s Literally Reinventing the Wheel
By Andy Gordon on April 21, 2022
Startup disruptions are like earthquakes. The bigger the earthquake, the more widespread its impact. Likewise, major disruptions can upend entire industries. Major earthquakes can topple buildings. And big disruptions can expose the vulnerabilities of powerful legacy companies, diminishing their ability to compete. Airbnb disrupted the global hospitality market. Uber disrupted the global taxi business. Amazon disrupted retail. All huge disruptions. We’ve seen it time and again: The bigger the disruption, the bigger the upside of the…
News Fix: Cannabis Industry Reaches New Highs
By Allison Brickell on April 20, 2022
It’s April 20, which means cannabis enthusiasts around the country are celebrating what Ronald Reagan once called “probably the most dangerous drug in the United States.” Today, that remark seems pretty outdated. A full 37 states have legalized marijuana in some form (medically or recreationally). Eighteen…
Watch for Red Flags Around Boards of Investors
By Vin Narayanan on April 19, 2022
Those of you who follow me on Twitter (you can follow me @vinistic) know that I’m obsessed with Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter and take it private. In case you missed this story, here’s a quick timeline: April…
Crypto Insider: The NFT Bubble Is Not a Death Knell
By Early Investing on April 18, 2022
What’s one word that will spook any investor in any market? Bubble. The word tends to stir up painful memories of the dot-com boom and bust of the late ‘90s, the financial crisis of 2008… and now, the NFT market. The NFT…
Crypto Monitor: The Critical Role of Interoperability Chains
By Early Investing on April 15, 2022
Various crypto networks have made money transfers and transaction verification fast and efficient. But there are still limitations on how different networks can communicate with each other. Ethereum and Ripple, for example, can’t exchange data. That’s where interoperability chains come in. Interoperability chains allow for data…
Instagram Embraces NFTs
By Vin Narayanan on April 15, 2022
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are having a moment. These tokens typically represent some sort of collectible — often a digital collectible. But NFTs can also be used to represent wine, sneakers and other physical goods. Like bitcoin, NFTs are based on blockchain technology. Each NFT…
Bloomstack Pivots, Seems on Track to Survive and Thrive
By Andy Gordon on April 14, 2022
We recommended Bloomstack last June. We liked founder and CEO Eric Delisle’s idea of combining all the systems and platforms cannabis operators use into a single platform. Not only was it a great idea, but it also seemed to be working. Bloomstack was…
Now Is the Best Time to Be a Startup Investor
By Vin Narayanan on April 13, 2022
Andy Gordon and I recommend a startup for our First Stage Investor members to invest in every two weeks (click here to sign up). When Andy and I first started working on startups together in 2018, we couldn’t do…
Angel Insider: SEC Proposes SPAC Rule Changes
By Early Investing on April 12, 2022
SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) soared in popularity last year. In 2021, the market saw a record 613 SPAC ICOs. The popularity of these “blank check companies” is unsurprising. Going public via IPO is a complicated and expensive process.
Startup Insider: What Instacart’s Valuation Trim Means for the Startup Market
By Early Investing on April 11, 2022
Instacart got a haircut. The company sliced its valuation by nearly 40% from $39 billion to $24 billion — despite the fact that it saw 30% year-over-year growth last year. And Instacart is not the only high-tech company trimming its valuation. So what’s going on?…
New Crypto Recommendations and Other Changes to Crypto Asset Strategies
By Vin Narayanan on April 8, 2022
Last month Adam Sharp mentioned I would be taking over as your Crypto Asset Strategies guide. Adam has only been gone a few weeks. And he is sorely missed. But in the life of a crypto investor, the only…
Ethereum Merge Searches Give ETH a Boost
By Vin Narayanan on April 8, 2022
Google searches are an interesting signal in crypto investing. They’re not necessarily predictive. But they do often correlate with price. The correlation between Google searches for bitcoin and the price of bitcoin is fairly well established. The more searches…
New Pick: A Moonshot That’s Charging Into the Autonomous Driving Era
By Andy Gordon on April 7, 2022
Autonomous driving hasn’t quite arrived yet. But it has spawned several startups that are playing a critical role in advancing autonomous driving technology and adoption. The startup Argo builds cloud infrastructure — including maps, software and hardware…
Lessons From a New Startup Investor
By Allison Brickell on April 6, 2022
I’ve been working at investment-related companies since 2015. But I’m still pretty new to the investing world. My background is in communication and journalism, not finance. So for the last seven years or so, I’ve been researching the online startup markets and observing my colleagues’ approach to investing.
Investing With a Potential Recession on the Horizon
By Vin Narayanan on April 5, 2022
I broke my ankle pretty badly a couple of weeks ago. It’s going to take four to six months to heal. I’m wearing a walking boot now. And as far as I’m concerned, the walking boot might be the greatest invention since the printing press. The…
Crypto Insider: Vitalik Buterin Is Concerned About Crypto’s Future
By Early Investing on April 4, 2022
Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, is worried about the future of crypto. In an interview with Time magazine, he said he was concerned about the dangers to overeager investors, high transaction fees and the exorbitant displays of wealth that have come to be synonymous…