Archive: venture capital

In the wake of yet another mass shooting, many Americans are outraged and terrified. While lawmakers continue to argue over gun control legislation, the effects of gun violence are being felt across the country.  That includes businesses too. The May 24 shooting in Uvalde, Texas — which left 19 children and two adults dead — has prompted thousands of Salesforce employees to push their company to cut ties with…
Premium
Sometimes — and especially in bear markets — investors need to be opportunistic. That’s why Andreessen Horowitz just launched a $4.5 billion fund for crypto projects. A16z is going bargain hunting. And with good reason. “Bear markets…
Premium
In a slightly less broken world, Enosi Life Sciences would not exist as is. Enosi is a tiny drug research and development company. And that is the only ordinary-sounding thing about it. Its technology is not ordinary. Its rockstar founders are far from ordinary. And its…
Premium

The Third Time Is Not the Charm for This Startup

By Andy Gordon on May 12, 2022

NowRx will complete its third crowdfunding raise on SeedInvest later this month. We’ve recommended it twice. And it has worked out incredibly well for our members who invested.  But the third time is not…
Premium

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…

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…
Premium

Angel Insider: VCs Are Missing Out on Female Founders

By Early Investing on March 29, 2022

Historically speaking, funding for female founders has been pretty paltry in the venture capital (VC) world. From 2011 to 2020, the amount of VC money going to female-only-founded startups never went above $4 billion. In 2020 — despite U.S. startups raising a record $143 billion — funding to…
Premium

Take Advantage of the Golden Age of Medtech Investing

By Vin Narayanan on February 8, 2022

A basic market inefficiency has created a massive opportunity for startup investors interested in medical technology and drug development startups. And angel investors savvy enough to understand what’s going on have a rare opportunity to invest in medtech startups with massive upside that have been significantly…
Premium

Robo Advisory Startups Are Coming for Crowdfunders

By Andy Gordon on February 3, 2022

The buyout that caught my attention this week involved fintech wealth management firm Wealthfront. UBS — the largest private bank globally — bought it for $1.4 billion.  The acquisition got plenty of press. Several articles focused on the low buyout price. For venture capital (VC) firms…

Bitcoin Enters the Jack Dorsey Era

By Vin Narayanan on January 19, 2022

Bitcoin is now in the Jack Dorsey era. The former Twitter CEO (and co-founder) is betting big on bitcoin. Dorsey renamed his payment company — formerly Square — “Block” to signal its new focus on crypto and blockchain technology. And his outsized presence looks like it may dominate…
Note from Early Investing Senior Editor Allison Brickell: It takes a lot of work for a startup founder to secure funding. As our own Vin Narayanan wrote back in 2019, “Raising money is hard. It’s a grind. No matter…

Top 10 Startup Valuations Both Online and Offline

By KingsCrowd on December 1, 2021

Note: Determining startup valuations is more of an art than a science. Lately, we’ve written about how startup valuations are reaching eye-popping highs. But how do online startup valuations and offline startup valuations compare? That’s the question that our friends at KingsCrowd address…
Premium
In the first three quarters of this year, U.S. venture capitalists (VCs) invested around $59 billion in European startups. And European VCs aren’t worried about it — as long as their startup ecosystem keeps growing. This has a lot of implications for startup investors in the…

Explosive Returns Drive Record Crypto Investment

By Adam Sharp on November 12, 2021

Venture capitalists (VCs) invested a record $6.5 billion in crypto in the third quarter of 2021. Here are some highlights from a November 2 CoinDesk article. The U.S. continued to lead the world in VC funding into the crypto…
Premium

Strong Follow-On Deals Have These Features

By Adam Sharp on October 26, 2021

When I first got into startup investing, I was mostly investing in early-stage deals. Valuations usually fell between $3 million-to-$10 million (with a few exceptions of around $40 million). I was focused on trying to find the potential big winners as early as I could. And I definitely…
Premium

Startup Insider: Investing Lessons From the Toast IPO

By Early Investing on October 4, 2021

Toast — a provider of hardware and software to restaurants — went public a week and a half ago at a roughly $30 billion valuation.  But unlike most billion-dollar startups, Toast wasn’t on venture capitalists’ radar from the beginning.