Startup Stash - Shifting Sailors, Beehomes & Beings 🐝

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What Slowdown? 

Amidst all this, there’s the popular narrative in the market that startup funding is cooling down. That’s because analysts are only comparing funding activity to 2021. So sure, VC funding is way below last year levels, but still way higher that any of the years before that (See graph below). In fact, 2022 is shaping up to be the second most active year of VC funding, right behind 2021.

Despite all the slowdown panic, venture capitalists are continuing to spend money like drunken sailors.

And there’s a clear indication that this activity will continue to rise.

Dry Powder

According to Pitchbook analysis VCs have something called “dry powder,” or money that VCs have raised but not yet spent. And there is a lot of dry powder lying around. At the end of 2021, the most active year for startup investing, VCs had $230 billion of dry power on hand, according to Pitchbook. And they’ve already raised another $106 billion this year. 

If VCs don’t invest this money in the current cycle, they will struggle to raise their next funds. So they’re obviously still interested in shelling out to startups.

But the pattern has changed. 

Major, late-stage investments — like Stripe’s $600 million round last year — are effectively drying up. So they’re out of the investment plan for now. Instead, seed funding, which comes at the earliest stages and could take around seven years before delivering a return, is booming.

All in all, the startup market isn’t seeing a widespread valuation pullback. In fact, only 5% of deals in the first quarter this year were down rounds. Tiger Global, for one, has still done 74 funding deals this year, per Pitchbook, despite being down 52% through May.

What’s changed is the stage at which VCs are pouring in funds, that’s all.



The Happy Life

How much money would you need to live your ideal life?

A recent study surveyed nearly 8,000 people across 33 countries to test their answer to this question, offering a range from $10,000 to $100 billion. 

The results: Comfortable but not extravagant. 

Turns out, people are not as desirous for extravagant wealth as might be assumed, with most opting for a moderate amount ($1 million or $10 million) amongst the options. To put things in perspective: For a 38-year-old with a life expectancy of age 78, the study points out, $1 million works out to just $25,000 per year.

That would be a humble living, with the current prices.

What does this mean? 

This finding has important implications when it comes to how cultures view excessive consumerism. Realising that most people’s ideal lives are actually quite moderate could make it socially easier for everyone to do what makes them genuinely happy and to make living more sustainable.



The Tech for Bee-ing

The bee population has been dwindling for years due to climate change, pesticides, over-consumption and disease. According to the USDA, the number of honeybee hives has declined from around 6 million in the 1940s to just ~2.5 million today.

Startups are trying to address this issue using technology.
Example: California-based startup Beewise. 

How it works: 

Beewise’s Beehome is a modern update on the man-made beehive, which has been mostly unchanged since its invention in the mid-1800s. The Beehome can monitor and maintain up to 24 colonies and is overseen by a robot, making it as if every bee had their own beekeeper 24/7.

Automated Beehome

The solar-powered robot uses cameras, AI, and neural networks to monitor bees and address needs like food, water, temperature, humidity, and pests, and administer medicine to sick bees.

The company has raised over $118.7 million in funding since its founding in 2018, including an $80 million funding round in March of this year.

US beekeepers lost 45.5% of their managed honeybee colonies from April 2020 to April 2021, per the Bee Informed Partnership. The startup claims its tech-powered “Beehome” decreases the number of failed colonies to just 8%.



Confirming the 'Flexibility' Love

A recent McKinsey American Opportunity Survey of inclusive and representative workers provides us with data on how flexible work fits into the lives of people in the United States. 

A remarkable 58% of respondents— equivalent to 92 million people in the U.S. —report having the option to work from home for all or part of the week. This can be seen as a confirmation that there has been a major shift in the working world and in society itself.

35% of respondents say they can work from home full-time. Another 23% can work from home from one to four days a week.

Unsurprisingly, the most common rationale for a job hunt was a desire for greater pay or more hours, followed by a search for better career opportunities. 

The third most popular reason was flexible work, making it a more important factor in job hunt than benefits, healthcare and work culture.



Shorts ⏳
CoTweet, But Why? - Twitter starts testing new CoTweets feature that lets two accounts co-author a tweet. Probably because writing 280 characters is too much work for one person.

Fast Relief from Anxiety - An online class, it seems, has proved effective in helping teenagers deal with their mental issues within just 30-minutes
 
Music with light - Scientists have invented a “quantum flute” that can make light particles move together creating “notes” from different wavelengths.

IG Insurances - Notch is selling Instagram account insurance starting at $8 a month that will pay customers for every day that they are locked out of their accounts after a hack.

No Interest in a Chevy - Chevy's Corvette NFT attracted zero bids in both auctions last month. 

Uber Escape - A recent Uber files leak details the company's political lobbying for success and its kill switch tech to escape accountability.


Stash Recommends: Tools to Explore
👥 eToroThe market-leading social investing platform that lets you automatically replicate portfolios and investment strategies of successful investors.

👀 MessageWatcherIt tracks the duplicates of your site in addition to offering devices for fringe administration like email, virtual entertainment content, and text.

🔌 NiceHashNiceHash is like a global power broker. It brings crypto miners and investors together to directly buy and sell tokens. 

🕸 UK Web Archive: It is one of the most incredible Web Archive Sites that throws light on the subject, occasion, or areas of interest, and virtual entertainmen.


 
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