A dip for digital currencies, Spotify's evolving podcast strategy, and CloudKitchens feels a lot like early Uber, say insiders

April 23, 2021

And it is Friday!

Hope you have a terrific weekend, everyone.

Before you head out on your various adventures, we leave you with the newest episode of StrictlyVC Download, featuring this week's guest: Bobby Goodlatte, a former Facebook product designer turned angel investor turned venture capitalist who saw his biggest exit to date last week when Coinbase went public. (Goodlatte had invested in the company's A, C and E rounds.) We talked about that deal, of course. Given Goodlatte's background in social media and design, we also talked about breaking up big tech; how Clubhouse could better take on rivals like Twitter Spaces (and why he thinks Reddit Talk is a bigger threat); and where to get the best returns right now, in his opinion. We really enjoyed talking with him; hope you'll enjoy it, too.

Giant thanks to episode sponsor Anduin, whose granular data allows fund managers to closely track how investors engage with their subscription forms -- and helps them focus on the right people to follow up with (and when). More on Anduin below.

More Monday.:)

Top News

Speaking of podcasts: unlike Apple’s podcast subscription, which rolls out next month to users, Spotify plans to announce its own offering next week and it won't charge podcasters or take a cut from their subscriptions or in any way determine their pricing, according to the WSJ. More here.

Speaking of Coinbase: Bitcoin and other digital currencies plunged today as a proposed capital gains tax hike from President Joe Biden led to a wave of selling.

Sponsored By ...

The Fed has committed to printing $120 billion every month and over $2.9 trillion in the next two years. Add in $1.9 trillion of fiscal stimulus and a $2 trillion infrastructure program, and it's easy to see why many investors are looking to protect their portfolio from inflation by investing in real, tangible assets, like art. Masterworks is an exclusive community of art investors who are looking to take advantage of a historically inefficient market. From 1995 to 2020 contemporary art prices rose 13.6%, had a lower loss rate than gold, and only a 0.01 correlation factor to equities. StrictlyVC subscribers can skip the 12,500 person waitlist to start investing in artists like Basquiat and Banksy today. (See important information).

Bobby Goodlatte Has Designs on How to Succeed in Venture (and So Far, So Good)

Bobby Goodlatte has only been an investor for about a decade, but he appears to have already made tens of millions of dollars, contrary to the expectations of some traditional VCs who have privately, and publicly, griped that too many novice investors have flooded into the industry.

“I remember a very prominent investor saying at the time, ‘All these new angel investors, they’re all going to lose all their money; they’re fools for doing this,” recalls Goodlatte, who was recruited out of college to become a product designer at Facebook and left four years later, when the company went public. “I’m glad that I didn’t get shaken off of it.”

More here.

Massive Fundings

AfterShip, a 10-year-old, Hong Kong-based e-commerce shipment tracking app, has raised $66 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Hillhouse Capital. (The company's last round of funding was a $1 million Series A back in 2014, says its cofounder.) TechCrunch has more here.

Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big Fundings

Current Health, a six-year-old, Scotland- and Boston-based enterprise remote care management platform, has raised $43 million in Series B funding led by Northpond Ventures, with participation from LRVHealth, OSF HealthCare, Section 32, Elements Health Ventures and earlier investors. FierceBiotech has more here.

Halter, a five-year-old, New Zealand-based maker of dairy herd management software, has raised $23 million in Series B funding. Blackbird Ventures led the round, joined by earlier backers DCVC, Promus Ventures, Ubiquity Ventures and Peter Beck. Moo here.

Monopteros Therapeutics, a two-year-old, Boston-based biotech at work on a treatment to reprogram T cells in the tumor microenvironment to jump-start an immune attack in cancer patients, has raised $20 million in Series A funding from Medicxi. FierceBiotech has more here.

Smaller Fundings

Applied XL, a 14-month-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that's developing real-time information systems powered by experts to track the health of people, places and the planet, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Tuesday Capital, with participation from Frog Ventures, Correlation Ventures and Team Europe. TechCrunch has more here.

GoalBased Investors, a two-year-old, New York-based financial planning startup that matches users and advisers through a free gamified app experience, has raised $2.75 million in seed funding led by True Ventures, with participation from The Venture Collective. Crunchbase News has more here.

Holoride, a two-year-old, Munich, Germany-based Audi spinoff that’s developing a mixed reality in-vehicle media platform, has raised €10 million in Series A funding led by the Swedish software development company Terranet. TechCrunch has more here.

Introvoke, a two-year-old, Bay Area-based live engagement technology platform that allows organizations to integrate virtual sessions, live streams and networking hubs into their own websites, has raised $2.7 million in funding. Struck Capital led the round, joined by Comcast, Social Leverage, Great Oaks, V1vc, Time CTO Bharat Krish and Resy co-founder Mike Montero. TechCrunch has more here.

PowerX, a year-old, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup that's developing a suite of environmental and energy cost-saving products for the home, has raised $4 million led by SpringTide Ventures, which was joined by earlier backers Antler, senior executives from Tesla and SpaceX, and Y Combinator. Crunchbase News has more here.

People

The latest reminder that it pays to be a Google exec.

Higher taxes, a new high school basketball league, and can nothing kill the Croc?

Friday, April 23, 2021

The news you need to know April 22, 2021 Hello! It was busy today in our world, but relatedly we have a solid podcast and story for you tomorrow.:) Top News President Joe Biden will propose almost

Signal snaps back, Apple gets whacked, and Foxconn scales down (by a lot)

Thursday, April 22, 2021

The news you need to know April 21, 2021 Top News In today's antitrust hearing in the US Senate, Apple and Google representatives were asked whether they have a “strict firewall” or other internal

Apple has some new things to sell you, Discord and MSFT break off talks, and Netflix reveals softening subscriber numbers

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

The news you need to know April 20, 2021 Hello! Also, quick correction: we reported yesterday that India's Razorpay has hit a post-money valuation of $42 billion with its newest funding round,

A dip for digital currencies, Spotify's evolving podcast strategy, and CloudKitchens feels a lot like early Uber, say insiders

Older messages

Higher taxes, a new high school basketball league, and can nothing kill the Croc?

Signal snaps back, Apple gets whacked, and Foxconn scales down (by a lot)

Apple has some new things to sell you, Discord and MSFT break off talks, and Netflix reveals softening subscriber numbers

Facebook shares its social audio plans, UiPath bumps up its pricing, and a16z appoints yet another GP

Coinbase roars, Gary Gensler is finally confirmed, and a power grab by Grab's CEO

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