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The Breakout Tech Company Of 2018

Haystack

Had I begun this tradition earlier, for those wondering, it would’ve been Airbnb in 2012, and Uber in 2011.). You may look at this and think to yourself “well, of course, how controversial is those?” ” This year, however, is like any other year in which I’ve tracked these and tried to single out one.

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Argentinian fintech infrastructure startup Geopagos leaves the boot straps behind with $35M funding round

TechCrunch

In a nutshell, Geopagos feels it is in the ideal position of being able to serve as the software enabler that can retrofit incumbents like large banks and launch the enablers like fintechs. Indeed, customers include large financial institutions, fintechs, retailers and software companies, among others.

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The Fastest Growing Areas of Startup Investment in 2015

Tomasz Tunguz

Each year, starting in mid-2012 through mid-2015, these sectors have grown their investment dollars by more than 145%, according to Mattermark data. Where are founders finding unique opportunities to innovate? The rest of the list controverts the notion that startups and investors pursue only incremental innovations.

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The Duolingo English Test

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

The “incumbent provider” of English proficiency tests, Test Of English As A Foreign Language (aka TOEFL), has had all of the companies and universities who accept it locked up for many years. But in some markets, incumbency matters more than better. It is two sides of the same coin. It costs less ($49 vs $205).

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The Rising Stakes in SaaS

Tomasz Tunguz

In 2012 ChiefMartec landscape counted 350 vendors selling to sales and marketing. Incumbent client/server technologies have lost their market dominance to new incumbents. Incumbent client/server technologies have lost their market dominance to new incumbents. Today, that figure is 5000.

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Quickly Unpacking Microsoft’s Acquisition Of GitHub

Haystack

As expected, many developers didn’t love the news that some of their work would be concentrated in the hands of a tech incumbent. 6/ “Gitting Liquid” Back in 2012, right around when I first moved here and was figuring out what VC was, I knew many of the larger firms were figuring out a way to invest in GitHub.

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These Y Combinator-backed startups are trying to build ‘ChatGPT for X’

TechCrunch

By way of background, Socialcam was a mobile photo-sharing app that Autodesk acquired in 2012, while Triplebyte is a recruiting and technical screening platform aimed at enterprise tech companies. But Ochoa argues that Lasso solves many of the setup problems associated with incumbent RPA solutions while remaining license-free.