Thu.Aug 11, 2022

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The Trillion Dollar Empire that Started with a Coupon

Tomasz Tunguz

This is a paper bond from the US Treasury dated 1976. This piece of paper guarantees its holder $5000 on August 15, 1986. At the bottom, four coupons entitle the holder to $200 at the maturity date on the top right. The coupons represent the interest on the bond. Those four little coupons would lead to the creation of a $2 trillion bond behemoth. Prior to the early 70s, investors bought bonds & held them until maturity.

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SaaS startup Stimulus closes oversubscribed $2.5 million seed round

TechCrunch

SaaS startup Stimulus announced today the closing of an oversubscribed $2.5 million seed round led by Black Ops Ventures. Tiffanie Stanard launched the company in 2017 with a focus on the supply chain, creating a product that provided establishments with the tools and data to choose, compare and form relationships with product suppliers and vendors.

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5 Lies Naysayers Told Me (And Some Still Do) About Being a Full-Time Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur's Handbook

And why I didn’t have to sacrifice my biggest priorities, even throughout my early startup failures and subsequent successes. Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ».

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Medical simulation platform FundamentalVR raises $20M to help surgeons learn through VR

TechCrunch

FundamentalVR , an immersive simulation platform for medical and health care professions, has raised $20 million in a round of funding to “accelerate skill-transfer and surgical proficiency” through virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) applications. Despite its decades-long promise, VR hasn’t traveled too far beyond gaming circles or niche industrial use-cases, though this is something that Meta and its Big Tech ilk are pushing aggressively to change.

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From Curiosity to Competitive Edge: How Mid-Market CEOs Are Using AI to Scale Smarter

Speaker: Lee Andrews, Founder at LJA New Media & Tony Karrer, Founder and CTO at Aggregage

This session will walk you through how one CEO used generative AI, workflow automation, and sales personalization to transform an entire security company—then built the Zero to Strategy framework that other mid-market leaders are now using to unlock 3.5x ROI. As a business executive, you’ll learn how to assess AI opportunities in your business, drive adoption across teams, and overcome internal resource constraints—without hiring a single data scientist.

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Seed Stage Founders Undervalue Angels With Marketing & Comms Expertise

Hunter Walk

Why Bringing These Two Skillsets Onto Your Cap Table Early Is Worth It. In 10 years of venture investing I don’t think I’ve ever participated in a seed round which had less demand than supply. From a macro sense, you can thank the bull run our industry was in for the last decade. And then specifically there’s surely some social proof dynamics as well — I’ve always believed that if Homebrew commits to your seed round the risk of not raising the amount you want basically goes to zero (equally so,

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#41. India’s Biggest Crypto Exchange and The Future of Web3 Gaming w/ Siddharth Menon

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Learn from the founder of Tegro Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Welcome to the Entrepreneur’s Handbook Podcast, where we share inspiring startup stories and practical takeaways for you, the listener. Today’s guest is Sid Menon, who’s the founder and CEO of Tegro. It’s a company that’s aiming to fix economics, market quants, and liquidity in Web3 gaming.

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Urban Innovation Fund, VMG Catalyst among female-led firms raising new funds

TechCrunch

Venture capital firms continue to raise new funds, at what seems like lightning speed. Two firms stuck out in recent days, including Urban Innovation Fund , which closed with commitments of $101 million for its Fund III and $20 million Opportunity Fund, and VMG Catalyst ‘s $400 million Fund II. Both firms are led by women, Clara Brenner and Julie Lein at Urban Innovation Fund, and Brooke Kiley over at VMG.

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HIRE for talent. RENT for experience.

Berkonomics

Want the best way to create your core competency quickly and inexpensively? . Think like a startup, with little resources, a limited window of time, and few dollars to spend on expensive experts. Divide the hiring decision into two boxes. This insight comes from a fellow CEO who explains that he leverages his financial resources for growth by dividing his hiring decision into these two boxes.

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Pitch Deck Teardown: Five Flute’s $1.2M pre-seed deck

TechCrunch

What if hardware product managers had tools as good as those available for software PMs? Well, that’s the world Five Flute wants to live in. The company raised a $1.2 million round I covered earlier this week. Today, we’re taking a closer look at the pitch deck it used to raise its pre-seed round. Five Flute shared its excellent deck with us with only minimal edits, and I’m psyched to share it with you — along with my usual teardown shenanigans.

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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How Headless Commerce Will Change How and Where We Buy

Andreessen Horowitz

Dirk Hoerig is the co-founder and CEO of Commercetools, and a veteran of the ecommerce space spanning two decades. In this interview, he explains “headless commerce” and why this API-centric architecture (often built atop cloud infrastructure and microservices) is especially important in the world of online retail and digital transactions, overall.

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Daily Crunch: Facebook avoids European blackout as regulators squabble over EU-US data transfers 

TechCrunch

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello, and “happy Friday junior,” as someone put in their email to me today. I hope it has been a productive Thursday for you. Haje is hanging with a bunch of robotics technology, so it’s just me and my trusty Lakeland Terrier companion delivering the juicy morsels of news goodness today.

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Measuring SNARK performance: Frontends, backends, and the future

Andreessen Horowitz

… The post Measuring SNARK performance: Frontends, backends, and the future appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

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Edtech isn’t special anymore, and that’s a good thing

TechCrunch

Edtech’s day in the sun wasn’t too long ago. As the pandemic struck, consumers became hungry for new virtual-first tools, Zoom school turned into a reality for millions, and it felt like every late-stage company was getting a chance to become a unicorn. Fast-forward to today, and while the sector is still enjoying a boom in venture capital — I’m subtweeting Owl Ventures for closing a $1 billion fund at the beginning of the year — the sentiment has certainly changed.

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15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

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SME&E Festival Podcast: Rachel Taulelei and Tabitha Harris, How to develop a brand and business strategy for your business

NZ Entrepreneur

Got your tickets to the 2022 NZ SME&E Festival this 8th and 9th of November? Each week we’ll be sharing a podcast from some of the many great business speakers and mentors you can catch at the festival. How to develop a brand and business strategy for your business. In this episode of the SME&E Festival Podcast, festival organiser Craig Murray speaks to special guests Rachel Taulelei and Tabitha Harris.

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Superblocks secures $37M to help companies build and maintain internal apps

TechCrunch

The economic downturn prompted a hiring slowdown across the tech industry, forcing CTOs — and the teams that they manage — to do more with less. It’s particularly put the microscope on developers where it concerns efficiency. Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said that productivity is “not where it needs to be,” while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg upped performance goals to weed out employees he believes “shouldn’t be [there].” A decent chunk of develop

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Conversational intelligence company Jiminny nabs $16.5M to unlock sales team insights

TechCrunch

Jiminny , a U.K.-based conversational intelligence platform that companies use to record, transcribe, and analyze communications from across sales and other customer-facing teams, today announced it has raised $16.5 million in a series A round of funding. Founded out of London in 2016, Jiminny offers companies the technology to gain insights into how well their sales or customer support teams are engaging with their clients across voice, video, email, and messaging.

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Farther, a wealth tech firm, banks $15M Series A as valuation hits $50M

TechCrunch

Building wealth is a long process and can be complex, but Farther is bringing both technology and advisors to the table to make these kinds of services more accessible. The wealth technology company was co-founded in 2019 by Taylor Matthews and Brad Genser, who say Farther is “a new kind of financial institution” catering to high-net-worth professionals building generational wealth but want the freedom of both an automated system and a professional.

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The GTM Intelligence Era: ZoomInfo 2025 Customer Impact Report

ZoomInfo customers aren’t just selling — they’re winning. Revenue teams using our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform grew pipeline by 32%, increased deal sizes by 40%, and booked 55% more meetings. Download this report to see what 11,000+ customers say about our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform and how it impacts their bottom line. The data speaks for itself!

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FTX Ventures’ Amy Wu is bringing her blockchain investing expertise to TC Sessions: Crypto

TechCrunch

The world of crypto venture has had a whirlwind few years, with powerful new players inspiring furious catch-up among traditional VC firms aiming to make a name for themselves in the sector. All the while, the corporate venture fund has been reshaped by plenty of the top crypto startups, now capitalizing on historic revenues to bankroll their versions of a web3 future.

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SunGreenH2’s nano-scale engineering could double green hydrogen production

TechCrunch

If there is ever going to be a national hydrogen economy, we’re going to need to change a few things. One of them is how we produce hydrogen itself, the vast majority of which comes from fossil fuels. SunGreenH2 brings a nanotech-level advance to green hydrogen production, supercharging electrolysis so orders of magnitude more hydrogen can be cleanly made directly from water.

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LPs are abandoning the US Midwest this year (and it doesn’t make sense)

TechCrunch

Venture funds based in the U.S. saw record fundraising in the first half of this year, but some regions saw little to none of that LP capital. The Midwest took a huge fundraising hit in H1 2022, no matter which states you choose to include in the region. According to PitchBook data — we are combining the Great Lakes and Midwest regions for a broader view — $3.4 billion was raised across 20 funds.

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Massive iron batteries could be key to displacing natural gas from the grid

TechCrunch

With the impending passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, renewables are about to get a fresh jolt in the U.S. They’re already some of the cheapest sources of electricity to build and run, but they haven’t taken over because they’re often dependent on the weather. The simple solution is to store any excess power produced, but that raises the overall cost of renewable power.

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How Top Tech CFOs Solve Annual Planning’s Biggest Challenges

Gearing up for 2025 annual planning? Our latest eBook from the Operators Guild is your ultimate guide. Discover real-world solutions and best practices shared by top CFOs, drawn directly from discussions within OG’s vibrant online community. Learn from senior executives at high-growth tech startups as they outline financial planning strategies, align CEO and board goals, and coordinate budgets across departments.

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Rivian delivers on Q2 revenue, expects loss to widen another $700M

TechCrunch

Rivian is holding on tight to its goal of delivering 25,000 electric vehicles by year’s end, but to get there it now anticipates to burn an extra $700 million. The automaker tucked the revised guidance within its second-quarter earnings report, telling investors that it expects to lose a whopping $5.45 billion in 2022, up from the $4.75 billion estimate it shared three months earlier.

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Digital health unicorn Truepill conducts third round of layoffs in 2022

TechCrunch

Truepill , a platform that helps other companies offer diagnostics, telehealth services and prescriptions, has conducted its third mass layoff in a string of workforce reductions, sources tell TechCrunch. The layoff impacted about third of the company, or 175 people. One source says that Truepill’s entire U.K. team was laid off, as well as a meaningful portion of the virtual pharmacy platform’s product team.

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Arrival slashes production targets to just 20 EV vans as part of restructuring

TechCrunch

Arrival, the U.K.-based commercial EV startup turned publicly traded company, has lowered its delivery plans from 400 vehicles to 20 as it postpones development of its battery-electric buses and shifts gears to focus on vans. The company, which reported Thursday widening losses for the second quarter, said it no longer expects to generate revenue in 2022.

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Parsing Coinbase’s regulatory risk

TechCrunch

Coinbase earnings reports carry weight because the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange commands material market share in a budding portion of the digital economy. Additionally, it’s an active startup investor and a key data point in determining the current health of the crypto market. Naturally, TechCrunch was all over its recently released financial data , pulling out a few key takeaways from the mix.

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5 Ways You Can Win Faster with Gen AI in Sales

Incorporating generative AI (gen AI) into your sales process can speed up your wins through improved efficiency, personalized customer interactions, and better informed decision- making. Gen AI is a game changer for busy salespeople and can reduce time-consuming tasks, such as customer research, note-taking, and writing emails, and provide insightful data analysis and recommendations.