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Apple today won a U.S. appeals court reprieve in rolling out changes to the App Store ordered by a federal judge as part of the big tech company’s antitrust battle with Epic Games. The WSJ has more here.
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This white-hot investing app returned 31% in 2021. While the markets were down last week, Masterworks.io sold a painting that got their investors a 31% net IRR. This is their second exit resulting in a 30%+ IRR. Results like this shouldn’t be surprising: Masterworks leverages over 60,000 data points to identify the best works for their investors. It’s no wonder over 280,000 members have signed up for the white-hot app. StrictlyVC subscribers can get priority access today*. (*See important disclosures.)
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| Andrew Chen of a16z on How Startups Get Past a "Cold Start" to Survive, Then Thrive |
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Andrew Chen has long been a student, and teacher, of how startups engage their users while managing to amass a slew of new ones.
Today, he espouses his learnings — as a founder and a former Uber exec who led the company’s “rider growth” product teams for several years — to his portfolio companies as a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Among these is All Day Kitchens, Clubhouse, Substack and Snackpass.
But to share those lessons more broadly, Chen, who has always been a prolific writer, has also published a brand-new book by HarperCollins titled The Cold Start: How to Start and Scale Network Effects, in which he walks readers through interviews with 30 world-class teams and founders, including from Twitch, Airbnb, and Slack, to paint a picture of what it takes to turn a startup into a massive brand — then keep people coming back for
more.
We talked with Chen earlier today to talk about the book, including how web3 projects fit, or don’t, into the mold of earlier startups. Excerpts from our chat follow, edited lightly for length.
You surface a lot of anecdotes about overcoming so-called cold starts, including during the earliest days of Tinder. I wasn’t aware of that story beforehand. Can you walk us through what happened?
The [first version] of the app was very good. It had swiping, it had profile photos, it had all the features that you’d want. But [after] [Tinder’s founders] invited a bunch of their friends just manually, these friends were just not sticking. There just weren’t enough profiles. So how do you get hundreds of people that are all desirable to want to use the app at the same time?
The way they did it was they went to the USC campus, which was nearby, they decided that they were going to sponsor a birthday party for one of the folks in the
sorority system there. [The idea was to] throw this big party, invite hundreds of people. And they had bouncers in front of the party, so that you had to download Tinder in order to [gain entry]. And people went and it was a cool party, and the next day, they opened up the app, and they were like, ‘Wow, these are all these people that I did not get a chance to talk to.’
More here.
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* Odyssey Therapeutics, a new, Cambridge, Ma.-based biotech founded by serial entrepreneur Gary Glick that is setting out with programs already in development in cancer and immunology, has secured $218 million in Series A funding co-led by OrbiMed Advisors and SR One Capital Management. MedCity News has more here.
* Pleo, a nearly seven-year-old, Copenhagen, Denmark-based developer of expense management tools aimed at SMBs, has raised $200 million in new funding just ix months after raising a $150 million round. Coatue Management is leading this funding, with participation from Alkeon Capital and earlier backers Bain Capital Ventures, Thrive Capital, Creandum, Kinnevik, Founders, Stripes and Seedcamp. TechCrunch has more here.
* Tipalti, an 11-year-old, San Mateo, Ca.-based accounts payable automation company, has raised $270 million in Series F funding. G Squared led the round, with participation from new backers Marshall Wace and funds and accounts managed by Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley). Tipalti has now raised $550 million altogether and is valued at $8.3 billion (which is way up from $2 billion, where it was valued last year at this time). TechCrunch has more here.
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| Big-But-Not-Crazy-Big-Fundings |
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* Flip, a six-year-old Indonesia-based fintech startup focused on making money transfers easier, has raised $48 million in Series B funding co-led by Sequoia Capital India, Insight Partners and Insignia Ventures Partners. Flip is Insight Partners’ first investment in Indonesia, says TechCrunch. The company has now raised $65 million altogether. More here.
* Opontia, six-month-old, Dubai-based e-commerce roll-up play that's focused on brands in the Middle East and Africa, has raised $42 million in Series A funding led by STV, with participation from Raed Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Upper90 and VentureSouq. TechCrunch has more here.
* Passbase, a three-year-old, Berlin-based crypto compliance firm has raised $13.5 million in funding led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Lakestar, Eniac Ventures, and Cowboy Ventures. More here.
* Quinio, a year-old, Mexico-based e-commerce aggregator focused on acquiring and scaling high-performing Latin American brands that sell on Mercado Libre, Shopify or Amazon, has secured $20 million in debt and equity (it isn't breaking out how much of each). The seed round was led by Cometa, which was joined by AlleyCorp, DILA Capital, Western Technology Investment, GBM Ventures, Bridge Partners and a group of entrepreneurs. TechCrunch has more here.
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* The Desire Company, a five-year-old, Atlanta-based startup offering video recommendations and product reviews from experts including NFL athletes, celebrity fitness trainers and licensed wellness experts, raised $8 million in Series A funding, including from Valor Equity Partners and Cleveland Avenue. To date, the company has raised $14 million. Hypepotamus has more here.
* Jupe, a year-old, San Francisco-based housing tech startup that says it enables an entire village of units to be deployed and broken down on remote terrain in a single day, has raised $9.5 million in seed funding led by Initialized Capital, with participation from Y Combinator. TechCrunch has more here.
* Kwara, a two-year-old, Nairobi, Kenya-based startup whose software aims to help credit unions shift to digital platforms, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Breega VC, with participation of SoftBank Vision Fund Emerge, Finca Ventures, and numerous others. TechCrunch has more here.
* Mnemonic, a six-month-old, San Francisco-based NFT platform powering blockchain applications, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Kenetic. Other participants in the round include Monochrome Capital, Sound Ventures, Tribe Capital, and individual investors. The company's cofounder and CEO, Andrii Yasinetsky, previously spent five years at Uber as a senior software engineer. More here.
PetsApp, a three-year-old, London-based, maker of client communication and digital payments software (and app) for veterinary clinics, has raised $4.4 million in seed funding led by Point Nine Capital. Tech.eu has more here.
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* Black Ops Ventures, a year-old, Miami-based venture firm that is focused on investing in Black founders, has held a first close on its debut fund with $13 million in capital commitments TechCrunch has more here.
* Carmen Alfonso Rico, until recently a partner at London-based fund Blossom Capital, and Anthony Danon, a former partner at European early-stage fund Speedinvest, are set to create new firm called Cocoa, reports Business Insider, saying the pair has been talking with angel investors and startup execs about a $15 million debut fund.
* Twilio, the publicly traded communications API company, today announced the launch of Twilio Ventures, a $50 million fund created to invest in companies using Twilio or those who are working on innovative adjacent ideas. TechCrunch has more here.
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* HashiCorp, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based cloud software vendor, today sold shares in its IPO above its target range to raise $1.2 billion, a source tells Reuters. HashiCorp priced 15 million shares at $80 per share, according to this person, up from plans to sell the shares at $68 to $72 apiece. The IPO values the company at $14 billion. Investors in HashiCorp include affiliates of Mayfield, GGV Capital, and Redpoint and True Ventures, according to the filings. And earlier (smaller) backer includes Haystack.
* OpenSea's new CFO, Brian Roberts, jumped on Twitter yesterday to assuage disgruntled OpenSea users that that the company isn't planning a traditional IPO imminently. Roberts clarified the plans, saying: “There was inaccurate reporting about @OpenSea’s plans. Let me set the record straight: there is a big gap between thinking about what an IPO might eventually look like & actively planning one. We are not planning an IPO, and if we ever did, we would look to involve the community.”
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* Katia Ameri has joined Andreessen Horowitz as a partner on its consumer investment team, she announced on Twitter earlier today. Ameri previously backed a skincare company backed by Pear VC.
* Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes finished testifying today in her criminal wire fraud trial. Closing arguments in the case are expected to begin next week, Dec. 16.
* Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri testified before Congress for the first time today, defending the app’s impacts on teens and its aspirations to bring younger children formally into the fold.
* In a blog post titled “No Dollar Signs This Time,” billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott said she won’t reveal how much she has given to charity since her last round of donations earlier this year, in an effort to reduce the attention she draws.
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A new report co-produced by Revolution and PitchBook observes that thus far in 2021, just 27% of U.S. VC dollars have gone to Bay Area startups. Meanwhile, though Austin and Miami rank in the top 10 of cities attracting the most venture dollars, the city that tops them all is, surprise, L.A. TechCrunch has much more here.
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* Crypto CEOs went to Congress today, and received a warm welcome.
* Kickstarter goes crypto.
* Apple’s self-driving car project has lost three key engineers in recent weeks, adding to a rash of departures from a tumultuous business.
* Andreessen Horowitz will more than quadruple its New York office space after snagging 33,560 square feet at 200 Lafayette Street in SoHo. The firm took all of the third and fourth floors of the building between Broome and Spring streets, The Real Deal reported. Asking rent was $95 per square foot in the 10-year deal. More here.
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Private jets, luxury hotels and butlers — for dogs.
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