Thu.Mar 11, 2021

article thumbnail

4 Simple Questions That Could Save Your Startup From Failing

Entrepreneur's Handbook

How to turn poor bets into good ones. Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ยป.

startup 66
article thumbnail

BlockFi lands a $350M Series D at a $3B valuation for its fast-growing crypto-lending platform

TechCrunch

If there were any doubt about a cryptocurrency boom, we need look no further than at the explosion of growth of certain companies in the space. One such company is BlockFi , which today announced it has closed on a massive $350 million Series D funding that values it at $3 billion. While this news in and of itself is certainly attention-getting, itโ€™s even more impressive when you consider the startup just raised a $50 million Series C last August at a $450 million valuation.

financing 144
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

The Case for Testing Your Companyโ€™s Potential New Hires

StartupNation

The following is adapted from โ€œFireproofโ€ by Mike Morse. Not many people enjoy taking tests when applying for a new job. They arenโ€™t used to it, and assessments, whether for IQ, behavioral tendencies, cognitive skills, or more, are time consuming and stressful. On the other side, many firms avoid giving tests to potential new hires for fear of discrimination accusations, cost or doubts about usefulness.

article thumbnail

Does your VC have an investment thesis or a hypothesis?

TechCrunch

David Teten. Contributor. Share on Twitter. David Teten is founder of Versatile VC and writes periodically at teten.com and @dteten. More posts by this contributor. Broaden your view of โ€˜bestโ€™ to make smarter, more inclusive investments. 15 steps to fundraising a new VC or private equity fund. Stรฉphane Nasser. Contributor. Stรฉphane Nasser is co-founder of OpenVC , an open-source initiative to collect and analyze all VC theses.

VC 136
article thumbnail

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Outdated or absent analytics wonโ€™t cut it in todayโ€™s data-driven applications โ€“ not for your end users, your development team, or your business.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

article thumbnail

What Will Smith Said to Charlie Rose Will Change the Way You Think About Success

Entrepreneur's Handbook

It breaks success down into two daily questions Continue reading on Entrepreneur's Handbook ยป.

More Trending

article thumbnail

Entrepreneurs: Define Your Mission and Vision for Success; a Mentor Can Help

Angel Capital Association

By: Bridget Weston, CEO of SCORE If you are an entrepreneur building a small business, you know that it takes more than spreadsheets, financial projections, and a big marketing push to reach business success; it also takes passion, dedication, and attention to detail. In order to provide your company with a solid foundation, you must define a clear mission and a well-articulated vision.

article thumbnail

Bessemerโ€™s 2021 cloud report provides context for soaring software startup valuations

TechCrunch

Some well-known VC firms have spent the last few months crunching data while working to chart, graph, and map the world of venture investing. Happily for you and I, they’ve been pretty free with their time and data, helping us better understand today’s market for high-growth, software startups. Last week The Exchange dug into data from Battery Ventures , which worked to explain some of the gains software companies have made in recent years in terms of their valuation multiples.

article thumbnail

[Varo Money in WFMZ] Roy Swan Joins Varo Board of Directors

OurCrowd

SAN FRANCISCO, March 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Varo Bank, the first all-digital nationally chartered bank in the US, today announced that it has named Roy Swan to its Board of Directors. Mr. Swan brings over 30 years of expertise in philanthropy, community development, banking, and impact investing across a number of leading institutions and organizations.

board 36
article thumbnail

Hugging Face raises $40 million for its natural language processing library

TechCrunch

Hugging Face has raised a $40 million Series B funding round โ€” Addition is leading the round. The company has been building an open source library for natural language processing (NLP) technologies. You can find the Transformers library on GitHub โ€” it has 42,000 stars and 10,000 forks. Existing investors Lux Capital, A.Capital and Betaworks also participated in todayโ€™s funding round.

support 115
article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

[Beyond Meat in Business Insider] Taco Bell potatoes return to menus after months of protests from fans

OurCrowd

Taco Bell also announced that it is teaming up with Beyond Meat to develop a new plant-based protein, the chain’s first foray into plant-based “meat.” The Taco Bell-Beyond Meat collaboration will be tested in the next year. . Read more here. The post [Beyond Meat in Business Insider] Taco Bell potatoes return to menus after months of protests from fans appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

article thumbnail

Coupang follows Roblox to a strong first day of trading

TechCrunch

Another day brings another pubic debut of a multibillion dollar company that performed well out of the gate. This time it’s Coupang, whose shares are currently up just over 46% to more than $51 after pricing at $35 , $1 above the South Korean e-commerce giant’s IPO price range. Raising one’s range and then pricing above it only to see the public markets take the new equity higher is somewhat par for the course when it comes to the most successful recent debuts , to which we can

capital 109
article thumbnail

Your โ€œdrop deadโ€ question for a customer survey

Berkonomics

Hereโ€™s the question: Sean Ellis, the marketing guru behind DropBox and other successes, advises clients that โ€œThe most important question on a survey is , โ€˜How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?โ€™โ€ He goes on to quantify the response. If more than forty percent of the respondents say they would be โ€œvery disappointed,โ€ then the product should go viral and be a great success.

87
article thumbnail

The Secret To Making Customer Relationships A Superpower

OnStartups

Every company wants great relationships with its customers. The question what does it take to truly turn your connection with customers into a superpower? Let's start very simply. The most obvious (and most common) way to deepen a customer relationship is to ask for customer feedback so that you can improve your product. You do NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys.

support 80
article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

Hi Marley raises $25M to fund its AI-powered communication platform for the insurance industry

TechCrunch

If youโ€™ve ever had to file a claim with your insurance company, you know that it’s not exactly fun. Often, youโ€™re on hold indefinitely waiting to speak to a live person. And if youโ€™ve ever had to file an auto or home insurance claim, you know that all the back and forth with your carrier and the various vendors can take up so much time. Hi Marley is a Boston startup that has set out to modernize communications in the insurance space by giving carriers a way to โ€œseamlesslyโ€ communicate with

capital 79
article thumbnail

[Morphisec in PR Web] Morphisec is the Cyber Threat Allianceโ€™s Newest Affiliate Member

OurCrowd

Morphisec, a leader in cloud-delivered endpoint and server security solutions, today announced it has joined the Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) as an affiliate member, bringing CTAโ€™s membership to 32 companies from across the cybersecurity industry. Read more here. The post [Morphisec in PR Web] Morphisec is the Cyber Threat Allianceโ€™s Newest Affiliate Member appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

68
article thumbnail

Letโ€™s talk IP and M&A with Perkins Coie, Merus Capital & Brainbase at TC Early Stage in April

TechCrunch

Weโ€™re just a few weeks out from the first TC Early Stage 2021 event on April 1-2. This two-day bootcamp helps early-inning founders develop core entrepreneurial skills for startup success. Weโ€™re talking essential topics led by experts in their field. Case in point. Intellectual property is your bread and butter โ€” you need to safeguard it and understand its value from a VCโ€™s perspective.

capital 70
article thumbnail

What Is Customer Value? (& Why Is It Important?)

Feedough

Every time a customer purchases a product, they compare the benefit received with the money paid for it. They call it the actual โ€˜worthโ€™ of the product, relative to the price they paid. This worth of the product makes them stay, repeat purchase, refer the product to others, or do the opposite. Technically itโ€™s not actually the worth of the product they bought; itโ€™s the value they got from it that they translated into monetary terms.

energy 64
article thumbnail

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

article thumbnail

WJR Business Beat with Jeff Sloan: Study Shows Americans Overall are Feeling More Hopeful During Pandemic (Episode 191)

StartupNation

On this morning’s WJR Business Beat, Jeff discusses Mindshareโ€™s COVID-19 tracking study , which indicates the sentiment of American consumers, providing interesting and valuable insights. Tune in to the WJR Business Beat segment, below, to learn more about the study’s findings: “So much of consumer sentiment is driven by perspective, and that perspective for many will begin to normalize and stabilize as our lives get back on track throughout the rest of 2021.” – Jef

media 52
article thumbnail

Regenerative agriculture is the next great ally in fight against climate change

TechCrunch

Nancy Pfund. Contributor. Share on Twitter. Nancy Pfund is founder and managing partner of DBL Partners , a venture capital firm whose goal is to combine top-tier financial returns with meaningful social, environmental and economic returns in the regions and sectors in which it invests. It seems that every week a new agribusiness, consumer packaged goods company, bank, technology corporation, celebrity or Facebook friend announces support for regenerative agriculture.

article thumbnail

[BrainQ in PR Newswire] BrainQ announces encouraging study results for new therapy to reduce disability after stroke

OurCrowd

JERUSALEM, March 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — BrainQ, the Israeli start-up with an AI-powered therapeutic platform, today revealed the encouraging results of their Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) which supported a recently granted request for FDA Breakthrough Device Designation. The pilot trial data will be presented as part of the International Stroke Conference between March 17-19.

support 41
article thumbnail

Forward Health raises $225M from investors including The Weeknd as it looks to expand nationwide

TechCrunch

Primary care startup Forward Health is looking to expand its tech-powered, personalized healthcare model across the U.S., and will use a new $225 million Series D raise to help make it happen. The new capital comes from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, SoftBank, Mark Benioff โ€“ and recording artist The Weeknd โ€“ among others. I spoke to Forward Health co-founder and CEO Adrian Aoun about his company’s plans for this fresh capital, and we also chatted briefly about how The Weeknd got involved.

health 141
article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

[Superpedestrian in Brooklyn News12] New DOT pilot program set to bring nearly 3,000 scooters to the Bronx

OurCrowd

A pilot program by the New York City Department of Transportation is set to bring nearly 3,000 scooters to the East Bronx with safety as the top priority. According to DOT, phase one of the program will bring the scooters to Eastchester, Wakefield, Pelham Parkway and Co-Op City. Read more here. The post [Superpedestrian in Brooklyn News12] New DOT pilot program set to bring nearly 3,000 scooters to the Bronx appeared first on OurCrowd Blog.

article thumbnail

South Africaโ€™s FlexClub adds $5M to seed round to scale its car subscription marketplace

TechCrunch

The traditional process of buying, insuring and financing cars across emerging markets can be challenging, and it defeats the purpose of building an all-around car shopping experience. Today, FlexClub , a South African company, has been provided with $5 million to improve drivers’ experience in these markets. FlexClub was founded in 2019 by Marlon Gallardo , Rudolf Vavruch and Tinashe Ruzane.

article thumbnail

[BrainQ in The Marker] ???? BrainQ ????? ????? ?? 77% ?????? ???? ??? ????

OurCrowd

???? BrainQ ???????? ?????? ???? (?’) ?? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????? ?-25 ??????? ???? ??? ????. ?????? ??????, ?????? ???? ???? ????????? ?????? ?-19-17 ?????, ??? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ???????? ????????? (FDA) ?????? ????? ???? ?? ????? ????? ???? ???. Read more here. The post [BrainQ in The Marker] ???? BrainQ ????? ????? ?? 77% ?????? ????

36
article thumbnail

[Sight Diagnostics in CTech] Israelโ€™s Sight Diagnosticsโ€™ Sight OLO deployed at Oxford Universityโ€™s John Radcliffe Hospital

OurCrowd

Sight Diagnostics, an Israeli company that delivers lab-grade Full Blood Count (FBC) results in just a few minutes, has deployed its Sight OLO solution at the John Radcliffe Hospital, part of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation. The deployment means that patients who attend the emergency departments have access to quick FBC testing as part of a rapid AI triage system for Covid-19.

article thumbnail

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.