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BarbAIrians at the Gate: The Financial Opportunity of AI

Andreessen Horowitz

Popularized by Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert, the invention wasn’t all that complicated: issue bonds with very high interest rates and correspondingly high risk, and use that capital to finance the wholesale acquisition of mismanaged, inefficient, and sclerotic companies. billion, against almost $2.8

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Israeli fintech Personetics raises $85M for tools to help incumbents personalize banking services to compete with neobanks

TechCrunch

Today a startup that is building tools to help incumbent address this challenge is announcing a round of funding on the back of a lot of demand for its services. “T hey are seeing the impact of the alternatives,” he said, with the migration away from the incumbents happening gradually. That’s a common thing.”

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Citi backs Crowdz, a Pipe competitor that just raised $10M for its blockchain-powered invoice financing marketplace

TechCrunch

That player, Crowdz , recently secured $10 million in financing co-led by Citi and Dutch growth equity firm Global Cleantech Capital, with participation from Bold Capital Partners, TFX Ventures and Augment Ventures. Put simply, Crowdz started out by giving small and medium-sized businesses a way to sell invoices for financing to funders.

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Opportunity Amid Volatility

Haystack

TechCrunch’s Kate Clark has done a round-up of the largest “private VC” rounds of 2018, and there’s a whole other list for just $100M+ financings led by Softbank’s Vision Fund. Speaking of acquisitions — many leaders of larger VC funds have privately given up on the incumbents buying their companies.

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Open finance startup Ayoconnect’s APIs enable financial inclusion in Southeast Asia

TechCrunch

The open finance startup announced today it has closed a $13 million Series B extension round led by SIG Venture Capital, with participation from CE Innovation Capital and returning investor PayU, the payments and fintech business of Prosus. Ayoconnect says it is the only open finance player in Indonesia to be licensed by the central bank.

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Proptech in Review: 3 investors explain how finance-focused proptech startups can survive the downturn

TechCrunch

Companies that sell software that enables cost-cutting or additional lead-generation opportunities are seeing accelerating adoption as incumbent mortgage companies realize they need an edge to drive demand,” Zach Aarons, co-founder and general partner of MetaProp, pointed out. “If

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Understanding How The Innovator’s Dilemma Affects You

Both Sides of the Table

The thesis of the book is that incumbents in markets – especially large and well entrenched markets – seldom survive fundamental technology changes in their industries. It should affect how you think if you are an incumbent but also if you’re a startup. Let’s start with the incumbents position in a market.