Monday, July 6, 2020
Realme X3, X3 SuperZoom, Narzo 10, Realme TV to Go on Sale in India Today
Reframing "tech vs. journalism" discussion as "managers vs. employees" shows why journalists who have called attention to workplace activism have become targets (Casey Newton/The Interface)
Reframing “tech vs. journalism” discussion as “managers vs. employees” shows why journalists who have called attention to workplace activism have become targets — Last week, the worlds of technology and journalism were transfixed by a conflict that played …
US House Judiciary Committee says the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google will testify at a hearing on July 27 related to an antitrust probe (Reuters)
US House Judiciary Committee says the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google will testify at a hearing on July 27 related to an antitrust probe — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief executives of Amazon.com (AMZN.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook (FB.O) …
Poco M2 Pro Set to Launch in India Today: How to Watch Livestream
Redmi Note 9 Pro to Go on Sale Today via Amazon, Xiaomi India Site
Secretive data startup Palantir has confidentially filed for an IPO
Secretive surveillance startup Palantir said late Monday it has confidentially filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public.
Its statement for the secretive, government-friendly big data operation, co-founded by Peter Thiel, said little more. “The public listing is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.”
Palantir did not say when it plans to go public nor did it provide other information such as how many shares it would potentially sell or the share price range for the IPO. Confidential IPO filings allow companies to bypass the traditional IPO filing mechanisms that give insights into their inner workings such as financial figures and potential risks. Instead, Palantir can explore the early stages of setting itself up for a public listing without the public scrutiny that comes with the process. The strategy has been used by companies such as Spotify, Slack and Uber. However, a confidential filing doesn’t always translate to an IPO.
A Palantir spokesperson, when reached, declined to comment further.
Palantir is one of the more secretive firms in Silicon Valley, a provider of big data and analytics technologies, including to the U.S. government and intelligence community. Much of that work has drawn controversies from privacy and civil liberties activists. For example, investigations show that the company’s data mining software was used to create profiles of immigrants and consequently aid deportation efforts by the ICE.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread throughout the world, Palantir pitched its technology to bring big data to tracking efforts.
Last week, Palantir filed its first Form D in four years indicating that it is raising $961 million. According to the filing, $550 million has already been raised and capital commitments for the remaining allotment have been secured.
With today’s news, the cash raise looks complementary to the company’s ambitions to go public. One report estimates that the company’s valuation hovers at $26 billion.
Palantir’s filing is another example of how the IPO market is heating up yet again, despite the freeze COVID-19 put on so many companies. Last week, insurance provider Lemonade debuted on the public market to warm waters. Accolade, a healthcare benefits company, similarly is sold more shares than expected.
Victress Capital, a fund founded by women to back women founders, just closed its second fund
Women start 40 percent of the businesses in the U.S., but they receive just 3% of venture funding. It doesn’t take a math whiz to recognize that such an extreme funding gap could spell opportunity, but it might help if you are math minded, a longtime investor, and happen to be woman and so conceivably understand certain products and pitches better than some men.
That was certainly the thinking of both Lori Cashman and Suzanne Norris, who came together in 2016 to form Victress Capital outside of Boston, a consumer-focused seed- and early-stage firm that just closed its second fund with nearly $22 million in funding to back gender diverse teams, meaning there is at least one woman on the founding team.
Cashman is a Duke grad who has spent her career as an investor, including previously cofounding a private equity firm, Linear Capital, to invest exclusively in owner-managed businesses. Norris, meanwhile, who has two degrees from Harvard, has been an investment banking analyst, a management consultant, and spent nearly four years as a VP focused on e-commerce with Kate Spade.
The two friendly acquaintances originally joined forces to enhance their “cognitive diversity,” says Cashman, scraping together a total of $2 million from friends and family so they could establish a track record.
Ultimately, they used that money to fund 14 startups by writing checks ranging from $100,000 to $150,000. A couple of them have already been acquired. Moxxly, which sold silent, wearable breast pumps, was acquired by Medela, a leading breast pump maker, in 2017. Last. summer, it was shut down, but Cashman and Norris suggest that investors (another of whom was Randi Zuckerberg) got their money back and that they were happy to see it acquired by what what seemed at the time like a very strong strategic partner. A second portfolio company, Werk, more recently sold to a Chicago-based startup called The Mom Project for undisclosed terms.
Others of their bets include Daily Harvest, a direct-to-consumer organic food delivery business that has so far raised $43 million from investors, according to Crunchbase; Mented Cosmetics, a cosmetics company catering to women with darker skin tones that has raised $4 million to date, according to Crunchbase; and Copper Cow Coffee, a young L.A.-based startup that makes organic Vietnamese coffee and has raised $3 million, per Crunchbase.
The idea all along was to raise a larger fund so that as Victress’s young portfolio matures, it can invest more into its breakout winners, as well as to fund other innovative young startups. In fact, toward that end, Victress — whose newest fund came largely came from family offices — has added to its team in recent years. In February, it. brought in Kate Castle, a longtime marketing partner at Flybridge Capital Partners who later cofounded XFactor Ventures as a partner. In 2018, it also hired HBS alum Madeline Keulen, who previously interned with Victress and is now a vice president. (Because of Norris’s background and network, Victress receives some of its deal from Harvard and HBS and typically brings in HBS students as interns.)
It wasn’t easy assembling its team — or its new fund. Norris half-kiddingly calls $20 million “no man’s land” in the eyes of institutional investors. Though they are just now closing the vehicle, they began assembling checks for it in late 2018 and have already funded seven startups that represent 25% of their new investing capital.
Still, they’re playing the long game and think the relationship-building they’ve done along the way will pay off — both with institutional investors that will be tracking this second fund and with venture firms around the country with whom they’ve been co-investing and that now reach out to Victress when they are looking at nascent startups with diverse founding teams.
A big win should also help, of course. While it’s impossible to know now whether they’ll have one, the team seems particularly excited about a Minneapolis-based startup that they’ve backed called Rae that makes what it markets as libido-enhancing vegan vitamins and that not only sells them directly to consumers but has shelf space at Target, a retail giant that has remained open throughout the pandemic.
It’s very valuable real estate, and Rae was able to secure it partly because its cofounder and CEO, Angie Tebbe, spent the previous 12 years as a senior director in merchandising, where she oversaw the private label products in the chain’s beauty and wellness aisles.
Rae’s products are also priced affordably, with a 30-day supply of vitamins costing $14, compared with many alternatives that cost twice as much and more.
That’s partly why Victress is so enthusiastic about the startup. Victress is focused on tech-enabled consumer services, marketplaces and digitally native brands. But if a startup in the last camp wants its attention, it had better also feature an “authentic, accessible price point for majority of America,” says Cashman. “That’s important to us.”
Report: Active users on Ethereum-based dapps doubled in Q2; DeFi applications accounted for 97% of activity with transaction volume reaching $5.7B in June (Alexander Behrens/Decrypt)
Report: Active users on Ethereum-based dapps doubled in Q2; DeFi applications accounted for 97% of activity with transaction volume reaching $5.7B in June — The Dapp.com Q2 2020 Dapp Market Report shows big gains for Ethereum in users and transaction volume, led in large part by the DeFi boom.
Crypto Facilities, a subsidiary of Kraken, obtained a Multilateral Trading Facility license in the United Kingdom, first-ever for a cryptocurrency firm (Andrew Hayward/Decrypt)
Crypto Facilities, a subsidiary of Kraken, obtained a Multilateral Trading Facility license in the United Kingdom, first-ever for a cryptocurrency firm — The cryptocurrency exchange's subsidiary has secured a UK MTF license, and can reach new customers in Europe thanks to the official stamp of approval.
Sunday, July 5, 2020
Huawei Not Totally Banned From France, Says Watchdog: Report
PUBG Mobile: Teen Reportedly Spends Rs. 2 Lakh on In-App Purchases
UPPSC PCS 2020 – Interview List Released
Himachal Pradesh University Recruitment 2020 – Apply Online for 274 Peon, Chowkidar, Clerk & Other Posts
BSSC 2020 – Urdu Anuwadak, Sahayak Urdu Anuwadak & Rajbhasha Sahayak Exam Date Announced
UPSEE 2020 – Rescheduled Exam Date Announced
Some crypto executives worry Trump's memecoin undercut the industry's credibility at the very moment crypto is seeking a prominent place in mainstream finance (New York Times)
New York Times : Some crypto executives worry Trump's memecoin undercut the industry's credibility at the very moment crypto is s...
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Jake Offenhartz / Gothamist : Since October, the NYPD has deployed a quadruped robot called Spot to a handful of crime scenes and hostage...
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Lorena O'Neil / Rolling Stone : A look at the years of warnings about AI from researchers, including several women of color, who say ...
