Tue.Feb 23, 2021

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How This EdTech Founder Makes 9-Figure Revenues Without Selling Education

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Lessons from EdTech founder David Rogier. Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ยป.

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Codecademy eyes the enterprise with $40 million in new capital

TechCrunch

After going over four years without raising any capital, coding class platform Codecademy has raised a new tranche of money: a $40 million Series D round led by Owl Ventures, with participation from Prosus and Union Square Ventures. The startup is the latest edtech business to bring on capital after years without it, a list that includes ClassDojo , CourseHero , Quizlet and Udacity.

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Squire Co-Founder and CEO Songe LaRon: Powering Barbershops of the Future

Y Combinator

Songe LaRon didnโ€™t have experience working in the barbershop world when he first had the idea for Squire , a business management and point-of-sales software focusing on barbershop owners. He did, however, have firsthand knowledge of the customer experience. Beginning at the age of six or seven, LaRon started frequenting the barber with his dad. Twenty years later, he realized the industry hadnโ€™t evolved much.

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Lucid Motors strikes SPAC deal to go public with $24 billion valuation

TechCrunch

Lucid Motors reached an agreement to become a publicly traded company through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Churchill Capital IV Corp., in the largest deal yet between a blank-check company and an electric vehicle startup. . The combined company, in which Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund will continue to be the largest shareholder, will have a transaction equity value of $11.75 billion.

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics wonโ€™t cut it in todayโ€™s data-driven applications โ€“ not for your end users, your development team, or your business. Thatโ€™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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5 Essential Traits Of Startup Leaders

Feedough

You not only have to be an innovator but also a leader if you want to succeed in the startup ecosystem. For a startup to exist, you should have a disruptive idea, the right investor, and unique positioning. But more than that, you need to be an exceptional leader to lead the startup and make it stay in the market for long. Startup leadership is a unique art that not everyone possesses.

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More Trending

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WJR Business Beat with Jeff Sloan: StartupNation, Dell Technologies and Microsoft Offer Free Webinar to Help Small Business (Episode 179)

StartupNation

Business has forever been changed by the COVID pandemic, and business owners are now challenged to learn about best practices and tools to help us conduct our businesses in what is now a digital-first world. To help us get up to speed, our friends at Dell have partnered with Microsoft to host a free webinar this Wednesday, February 24 at 4 p.m. ET. Tune in to this morning’s WJR Business Beat to hear from Dell’s Megan Shadle on what attendees can expect from the upcoming webinar: R

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South African digital bank TymeBank lands $109M from UK and Philippines investors

TechCrunch

The onset of the pandemic has led to increased demand for digital banking options across customer income groups around the world. We’ve seen how digital banks like Zolve and Nubank have raised money in recent months to fill this need. This time, a startup from Africa has joined the party. TymeBank , a South African digital bank, announced today that it has secured an R1.6 billion (~$109 million) investment from new investors in the U.K. and Philippines.

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Principles Will Always Provide More Runway Than Policies

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Empowering people with context is superior to imposing limits Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ยป.

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Contra wants to be the community that independent workers are missing

TechCrunch

Whether youโ€™re working on something new according to your Twitter bio, or self-employed, according to your LinkedIn bio, founder Ben Huffman thinks his platform, Contra, will be the best way for independent workers to explain and monetize what they are working on. Contra is a platform that wants professionals to create profiles that show project-based identities, versus a role-based identity that one would show on LinkedIn.

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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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This is the 3rd Time Iโ€™ve Quit a 6-Figure Job with No Real Plan

Entrepreneur's Handbook

Here’s how I’m building a business from zero (it might not work) Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ยป.

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The current narrative explaining why tech stocks are getting hammered

TechCrunch

This morning the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index is off 2.34% after falling yesterday. Shares of Tesla are off more than 6% today, now mired in a bear-market correction after reaching new all-time highs earlier this year. Apple stock is worth $122.02 per share, down from over its recent highs of more than $145. After a long period of time when it felt like tech stocks only went up, the recent correction is starting to feel material.

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[OurCrowd in Forbes] Regardless Of Covid-19, Startups Continue To Hire

OurCrowd

Jerusalem-based venture investing platform OurCrowd today released the first installment of the quarterly OurCrowd Jobs Index showing that the number of open positions listed by OurCrowdโ€™s portfolio companies rose from 350 in June 2020 to 912 in December 2020. The startups surveyed by OurCrowd predict that job growth would continue through 2021 and they expect to maintain a mix of in-person and remote working.

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Shippo raises $45M more at $495M valuation as ecommerce booms

TechCrunch

This morning Shippo , a software company that provides shipping-related services to ecommerce companies, announced a new $45 million investment. The new capital values the startup at $495 million. TechCrunch is calling the new funding a Series D as it is a priced round that followed its Series C; the company did not award the round a moniker. Shippo’s 2020 Series C, a $30 million transaction that was announced last April, valued the company at around $220 million.

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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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[Dandelion Energy in Wall Street Journal] VC Daily: Bill Gatesโ€™s Breakthrough Energy Ventures Looks for Co-Investors

OurCrowd

Bill Gates is in the news lately with his new book โ€œHow to Avoid a Climate Disaster.โ€ One of the tools heโ€™s using to address the climate problem is investing in the venture fund he spearheaded called Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Read more here. The post [Dandelion Energy in Wall Street Journal] VC Daily: Bill Gatesโ€™s Breakthrough Energy Ventures Looks for Co-Investors appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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ErudiFi raises $5 million Series A to give students in Southeast Asia more education financing options

TechCrunch

Based in Singapore, ErudiFi wants to help more students in Southeast Asia stay in school by giving them affordable financing options. The startup announced today it has raised a $5 million Series A, co-led by Monkโ€™s Hill Ventures and Qualgro. ErudiFi currently works with more than 50 universities and vocational schools in Indonesia and the Philippines.

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Top Detroit Startups and Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

StartupNation

It’s a myth that only the top startups and the best startup jobs are in Silicon Valley or New York City. As a Midwest company built for Midwest startups, we know thatโ€™s just not true. In 2020, Glassdoor came out with a list of the top 25 U.S. Cities for jobs. And guess whatโ€”most of the cities on the list were in the Midwest. Detroit ranked number 10.

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IronSource acquires video and playable ad platform Luna Labs

TechCrunch

Mobile advertising company ironSource is announcing its second acquisition of the year โ€” Luna Labs , a startup that that’s built a platform allowing app developers to create and manage video and playable ads. When I first wrote about the startup in 2019 , its main selling point was the ability to create those ads directly from from the Unity game engine used by many developers.

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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 โ€” and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, theyโ€™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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Three ways to get your sales pumping at the start of each year

NZ Entrepreneur

Itโ€™s a fresh new year but youโ€™ll need to take decisive action to grow your revenue. Here are three key things you can do at the beginning of each year to get your sales rolling. One – Analyse your sales data. The easiest way to get your 2021 sales rolling more quickly is spotting the opportunities that are within your reach. Usually, careful analysis of your last 12 months of sales data will show you exactly where these opportunities are hiding. 2021 is a little different though as COVID-1

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Katana raises $11M Series A to be the SaaS powering โ€˜manufacturing entrepreneursโ€™

TechCrunch

Katana , an Estonian startup that has built manufacturing-specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for SMBs, has raised $11 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is European venture capital firm Atomico, with participation from angel investors Ott Kaukver (Checkout.com CTO), Sten Tamkivi (CPO Topia, formerly Skype), Sergei Anikin (CTO, Pipedrive) and Kairi Pauskar (former TransferWise HR Architect).

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The Four Types of Startup COOs

Tomasz Tunguz

If you asked 5 people in Startupland to define the role of a COO, you would receive 10 different explanations. I have three myself. What does a modern COO do? The role of a COO has evolved over the past decade or so because of broader changes within the ecosystem which has created some confusion what what precisely should a COO do. Recently, Redpoint Office Hours welcomed Allison Pickens to clarify the COO role and when startups should consider recruiting one.

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3D model provider CGTrader raises $9.5M Series B led by Evli Growth Partners

TechCrunch

3D model provider CGTrader has raised $9.5 million in a Series B funding led by Finnish VC fund Evli Growth Partners, alongside previous investors Karma Ventures and LVV Group. Ex-Rovio CEO Mikael Hed also invested and joins as board chairman. We first covered the Vilnius-based company when it raised โ‚ฌ200,000 from Practica Capital. Founded in 2011 by 3D designer Marius Kalytis (now COO), CGTrader has become a significant 3D content provider — it even claims to be the worldโ€™s largest.

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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. Youโ€™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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Ready to Launch Your Inner Entrepreneur? Itโ€™s Time to Shift Your Mindset

StartupNation

The following is excerpted from “Launch Your Inner Entrepreneur: 10 Mindset Shifts for Women to Take Action, Unleash Creativity, and Achieve Financial Success” by Charlene Walters (McGraw Hill, February 2021). One day, you will be happily working for someone else: exceeding monthly goals and growing their profits. And then, another day, youโ€™ll realize that youโ€™re not getting the recognition or opportunities that you deserve.

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Electric raises $40M Series C to put small-business IT in the cloud

TechCrunch

It would be an understatement to say that enterprise-focused startups have fared well during the pandemic. As organizations look to go remote, and the way we work has been flipped on its head, quickly-growing tech companies that simplify this transition are in high demand. One such startup has, in fact, raised $61.5 million in the last 12 months alone.

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[OurCrowd in CTech] Amid a 400% recruitment boom, only 14% of OurCrowd companies are expecting to return to the office full-time

OurCrowd

Companies and employees were surely expecting a shock to the system with Covid-19 upended the way millions of people work each day. Now almost a year later, reports are suggesting that a majority of workers are settling into โ€˜the new normalโ€™ more comfortably than they thought. Read more here. The post [OurCrowd in CTech] Amid a 400% recruitment boom, only 14% of OurCrowd companies are expecting to return to the office full-time appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

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Registration for TC Disrupt 2021 is now open

TechCrunch

Mark your calendar for TechCrunchโ€™s annual celebration of the startup community — TC Disrupt 2021 returns this September 21-23! At Disrupt , youโ€™ll rub virtual elbows with the thousands of startup founders, investors and innovators building cutting-edge products and companies. Disrupt will be all-virtual, allowing more builders from around the world to share in the learning, growth, connection and excitement that you can only experience with TechCrunch. .

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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.