Thu.Nov 18, 2021

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Betting Beyond the Bowl: Investing in Sweetgreen Was Always About More Than Salad

Revolution

In 2013, Sweetgreen had 22 locations in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Boston, and New York?—?the first a 560-square-foot shack in our backyard. Fast forward to today, the tech-forward company spans more than 140 stores nationwide; partners regularly with chefs , artists , and cultural icons ; caters to millions of app users; and has officially debuted as a public company on the NYSE.

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Five Tips for SBA Community Navigator Pilot Program Awardees

Source Link

Congratulations to all the grantees awarded funds to participate in the SBA Community Navigator Pilot Program. You are embarking on work that is critical to building back inclusive and more resilient communities. We are excited to see so many in our SourceLink? network become hubs and/or spokes, and eager for this program roll out as it mirrors our own philosophy of building collaborative networks of entrepreneurship and small business owner support.

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Here’s where MLOps is accelerating enterprise AI adoption

TechCrunch

Ashish Kakran. Contributor. Share on Twitter. Ashish Kakran , principal at Thomvest Ventures , is a product manager/engineer turned investor who enjoys supporting founders with a balance of technical know-how, customer insights, empathy with challenges and market knowledge. In the early 2000s, most business-critical software was hosted on privately run data centers.

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The Benefits of Encouraging Creativity and Innovation in the Workplace

StartupNation

Creativity is essential for any organization if you want to keep your business moving forward. There are numerous organizations that have designed a cool, funky, creative environment for their employees to help them relax and spark creative thinking to get their projects moving forward. Some organizations go as far as having regular brainstorming sessions when working on a project to allow employees to contribute and build on a project.

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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What is the Best CRM and Marketing Tech Platform for a New Private Equity/Venture Capital Fund?

David Teten VC

One of the first decisions we had to make in setting up our new VC fund, Versatile Venture Capital , was our CRM and marketing technology infrastructure. . I’m very interested in the tech stack of private equity/VC firms , both to improve the efficiency of Versatile VC and also as a focus area for our investing. I run PEVCTech , a community focused on this area.

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10 Reasons Why I Use Bubble.IO to Iterate on Startup Ideas

Entrepreneur's Handbook

??You shouldn’t have to onboard a technical co-founder just to test a business idea. Bubble is a no-code platform that enables you to build web apps. Here’s my simple definition of a no-code platform: A platform that allows you to build an interactive web app through a “drag and drop” user interface and easy-to-implement logic. Working on a no-code platform is almost like writing in plain English.

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OTA Insight books $80M for its hospitality business intelligence tools, used by 55K hotel properties globally

TechCrunch

Travel and tourism, two of the hardest-hit industries in the Covid-19 pandemic, are slowly starting to show some signs of recovery. Now, OTA Insight — a company that builds business intelligence tools for one of the key sectors in that space, hotels — is announcing a round of funding as it too picks up more business on the upswing. The company has raised $80 million, a Series B led by Spectrum Equity, with previous backers Eight Roads, F-Prime Capital and Highgate Technology Ventures

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How Local Startups Can Leverage Small Business Funding

StartupNation

There are many small business loans available for startups. Learn more about the different financing options and how you can get a startup loan for your business. There’s a bit more that goes into running a business than a million-dollar idea and an endless supply of Red Bull. Profitability is the metric of success and it takes money to make money – especially when you’re first starting out.

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Cron is a new calendar app following in Sunrise’s footsteps

TechCrunch

Meet Cron , a new calendar app for the Mac that wants to bring some innovation to this space. The startup directly mentions Sunrise as an inspiration for those of you who still remember it. Sunrise used to be a popular calendar product that was acquired by Microsoft. Cron has attended Y Combinator’s winter back of 2020 and has raised a $3.5 million seed round in March 2020.

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PE Mastery: CAPTARGET's Playbook for Quality Lead Flow

CAPTARGET presents a masterclass in M&A deal sourcing. Learn to cast a wide net, embracing seller self-identification. Consistency is the linchpin: keep the origination process steady for a reliable flow of opportunities. Diversify your tactics, employing various tools and vendors. Tech matters! Understand DNS settings, domain authority, and brand presence for optimal outreach.

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What’s a Company Name Really Worth?

StartupNation

Top brand consultancies and naming agencies charge five- or even six-digit fees to develop company names. What’s behind those price tags, and what’s a less expensive approach to finding the perfect name for your company? In 1999, Salon published “The name game,” a 5,000-word hit job on “big-league corporate naming.” The article portrays a late-’90s brand consulting industry full of pettiness, delusions of grandeur, faux-Latinate names like Agilent and Naviant, and price tags ranging from $

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Making the case for IVP: Initial viable product

TechCrunch

Aron Solomon. Contributor. Aron Solomon, J.D., is the head of Strategy for Esquire Digital and the editor of Today’s Esquire. He has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was the founder of LegalX, a legal technology accelerator. More posts by this contributor. Introducing the Open Cap Table Coalition. If you don’t want robotic dogs patrolling the streets, consider CCOPS legislation.

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Why Working from Anywhere Matters from Dell

StartupNation

Where work or learning physically happens no longer defines the user experience. Fueled by an appetite for digital experiences and capabilities, we’ve clearly entered a “do anything from anywhere” world, creating limitless potential for borderless innovation and flexible collaboration. Now that remote and hybrid experiences—where team members shift between performing remotely and on-site—have become standard, chief information officers have new opportunities to rethink their approach to technolo

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MLOps startup Comet nabs $50M Series B just six months after raising its A

TechCrunch

As machine learning becomes a more integral part of running businesses, the model-building process still requires iteration and experimentation. Comet has created an entire platform to get models from idea to product, and today the company announced a $50 million Series B. The investment comes on the heels of the company’s $13 million A round in April.

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Monetizing Analytics Features

Think your customers will pay more for data visualizations in your application? Five years ago, they may have. But today, dashboards and visualizations have become table stakes. Turning analytics into a source of revenue means integrating advanced features in unique, hard-to-steal ways. Download this white paper to discover which features will differentiate your application and maximize the ROI of your analytics.

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How We Entered the Chinese Red Ocean EdTech Market And Survived

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Designed by Rawpixel.com?—?Freepik.com Expanding into a new market is always a risk, especially if your niche in this market is already a red ocean and the market itself is very different from those you’ve already mastered. The Chinese market has always been a tough nut to crack for Western and European companies. The probability of bringing a successful EdTech company here is very small since this market in China is already occupied by local players.

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Nigeria’s Kippa gets $3.2M pre-seed for its small business finance management app

TechCrunch

Millions of small businesses globally, especially in emerging markets, have stayed offline for the better part of the past decade. Due to that, most of them still rely on scribbles using pen and paper or ledgers for bookkeeping and storing important information. In Nigeria, some go to the extent of keeping information offhand. All these inefficiencies, asides from being time-consuming, lead to errors and affects cash flow and finance, which is why almost nine out of 10 small businesses in the co

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Netflix Started With 4 Words?—?“That Will Never Work”

Entrepreneur's Handbook

4 reasons harnessing criticism can be a superpower Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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Generate Biomedicines raises $370M Series B with a focus on protein-based drugs

TechCrunch

The drug development space is continuing to attract more and more investment. On Thursday, another major player, Generate Biomedicines, announced a $370 million Series B round. . Generate Biomedicines is touting a platform-based approach to drug development, but with its own spin: a focus on proteins. . Generate’s thesis is simple: Rather than making connections between targets and proteins that already exist in nature (or, most often, in scientific data and literature), it aims to underst

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How to Stay Competitive in the Evolving State of Martech

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

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Official Podcast + YouTube Launch

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Hi Everyone! We’re happy to announce we are officially on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , and YouTube. Now you can watch and listen to inspirational startup stories with practical takeaways too. For short clips and regular content, follow us on Instagram too. Each show will have a mix of riffing and hard questions that provide a deeper look into the backgrounds and businesses of successful entrepreneurs, investors, creators, marketers, and influencers.

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Eatron, which makes ‘intelligent automotive software’, raises $11M Series A led by MMC

TechCrunch

An electric vehicle is, essentially, just “software on wheels”, and requires lots of moving parts, not physical but, of course, virtual. That software needs to continually optimize the performance, efficiency and safety of the EV it’s running. But a problem has arisen: Not enough auto-makers unpack their software for others to help improve it.

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[Sufresca in PR Newswire] Sufresca accelerates its green solution to reduce waste and plastic

OurCrowd

AgriTech start-up presents easy plug-in business model for its edible coating that extends the life span of fresh produce. Read more here. The post [Sufresca in PR Newswire] Sufresca accelerates its green solution to reduce waste and plastic appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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Workday to acquire external workforce management startup VNDLY for $510M

TechCrunch

Workday announced this afternoon that it intends to acquire VNDLY , a Mason, OH startup that helps companies manage external workforce personnel for $510 million. Workday helps companies manage finance and human resources tasks, and VNDLY fits nicely into the latter category providing them with software to manage contractors, a service that should come in handy at a time where it’s increasingly difficult to fill full time job openings.

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How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics

Just by embedding analytics, app owners can charge 24% more for their product. How much value could you add? This framework from Software Pricing Partners explains how application enhancements can extend your product offerings. You’ll learn: How to take a disciplined approach to pricing The three elements of the Packaging Decision Framework Ways to structure your new embedded analytics offering Download the White Paper to learn about How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics.

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[D-ID in The Times of Israel] Israeli startups prepare to play major role in building metaverse

OurCrowd

‘Creative reality’ startup D-ID, and VR/AR company Glimpse Group partner to bring ‘life’ into a futuristic virtual world. Read more here. The post [D-ID in The Times of Israel] Israeli startups prepare to play major role in building metaverse appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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Cross-selling startup Carro secures $20M to connect brands with each other, influencers

TechCrunch

Brands are always looking for new ways to get in front of potential customers, but though influencer marketing has grown, it’s still not so easy for brands to find the right person. That’s where Carro comes in. David Perry and Jason Goldberg co-founded the company in 2015 and built a cross-store selling and influencer commerce platform that is used by more than 7 million influencers and 30,000 brands, like Blendjet, Arizona Iced Tea and Chubbies Shorts.

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Samsara S-1: How 7 Key Benchmarks Stack Up

Tomasz Tunguz

Founded by Sanjit Biswas, former CEO at Meraki and John Bicket former CTO at Meraki[link] Samsara builds software to manage physical operations: truck fleets, mining, food & beverage, oil & gas. If a business has to manage physical assets with drivers, there’s a Samsara product for it. Incidentally, the name Samsara is the cycle of life and death in Sanskrit.

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Kandji pulls in $100M Series C on $800M valuation, up 10x since last year

TechCrunch

Kandji , the startup building an Apple device management business, has been doing pretty well for itself with rapdily growing revenue, a fat valuation and lots of investment capital rolling in. Today, the company announced a $100 million Series C on an $800 million valuation, up 10x in the last year when the company did its $21 million Series A. It quickly followed with a $60 million Series B last April.

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ABM Evolution: How Top Marketers Are Using Account-Based Strategies

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.