Feel bombarded by an insane amount of funding news in 2021? The data backs you up! According to Crunchbase, global VC funding totaled $643B last year, nearly 2x growth over 2020. A few interesting stats on the record year:

• The # of unicorns (private co’s valued at $1B+) crossed 1,000 for the first time. An average of 10 new unicorns were minted each week.

• This is particularly impressive given we “lost” many unicorns via IPO - 238 VC-backed companies went public last year, a nearly 4x increase over 2020.

• While later stage rounds dominated by $ raised, early stage (Series A and B) saw the greatest increase - 100% YoY growth.

news 📣

⚽ The Athletic gets acquired. Big news in the media world! The New York Times is buying The Athletic, a VC-backed sports publication, for $550M. The company had raised $140M in funding from investors like Bedrock and Founders Fund, with its last round (two years ago) at a $530M valuation. The Athletic reportedly had 1M+ paying subscribers but struggled to achieve profitability.

⚖️ Elizabeth Holmes found guilty. After a four month trial, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of fraud this week. Interestingly, she was found guilty on four of the 11 counts - Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors, but acquitted of the charges related to defrauding patients. The date has not been set for her sentencing hearing, and COO Sunny Balwani’s criminal trial is yet to come.

💰 OpenSea and Cloud Kitchens raise mega-$. 2022 kicked off with some massive fundraises. NFT marketplace OpenSea raised a $300M Series C at a $13.3B valuation - the company facilitated $14B in transactions last year, up from just ~$22M in 2020. Meanwhile, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick raised $1.3B at a $15B valuation for his ghost kitchen business CloudKitchens.

📱 Twitter tests dynamic reactions. The Twitter product team continues to crank out new features! They’re now testing a feature that allows users to post video or photo reactions to a tweet instead of the traditional quote tweet (here’s an example). The feature is limited to a small number of iOS users now, but may roll out more broadly depending on user feedback and engagement.

In other feature news, Tinder is developing something called “Swipe Party.” Users have long been hacking ways to swipe with friends - this just makes it official!

According to tech analysts who reviewed the code, users can invite friends to watch their swiping sessions, hear their audio, and view their video. Think of it like FaceTime + screen recording. No word yet on when it might roll out…

what i’m following 👀

Taco Bell and Sweetgreen are both launching subscriptions.

Meme stock GameStop is reportedly getting into NFTs and crypto.

The Bessemer team on the consumerization of private market investing.

It was a big week for Web3 content. Here’s a recap:

• Lerer Hippeau’s Meagan Loyst published a primer on the metaverse

• Canvas Ventures’ Grace Isford shared a deck on the Web3 world

• Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike posted a more critical take on Web3

• Modern Retail on why D2C Twitter pivoted to Web3

I’m really excited to unveil my latest project: a comprehensive guide to VC recruiting. Over the past few years, I’ve gotten hundreds of messages from people who want to break into venture but aren’t sure how to start. I decided it was time to share what I’ve learned after going through recruiting on both sides!

This guide will help you navigate every stage of the process, from identifying firms to finding open roles and prepping for interviews. The first week of 2022 has brought a deluge of open VC roles (see Jobs below ⬇️), and I’m hoping this will be a valuable resource for those of you applying.

My favorite section might be the breakdown of how to nail the written work (e.g. investment theses, memos) that will likely pop up during the interview process. I think this is an important topic that hasn’t gotten enough coverage - if you haven’t worked in venture before, these assignments can seem pretty intimidating.

This is a live document that I’ll be updating over time, so I’d love any feedback or suggestions! Feel free to email me or message me on Twitter.

jobs 🎓

Expa - Associate (Remote)

Variant - Director of Community Ownership (Remote)

neo.tax - Senior Full-Stack Software Engineer* (Remote)

Launch House - BD & Partnerships Associate, Metaverse Program Associate (Remote)

Point72 Ventures - Associate, Growth Investments (Seattle)

Renegade Partners - Associate (SF)

Chicago Ventures - Analyst (Chicago, Austin)

Interplay Ventures - Associate (NYC)

Primary Venture Partners - Chief of Staff (NYC)

Two Sigma Ventures - Associate (NYC)

*Requires 3+ years of experience.

internships 📝

Precursor Ventures - MBA Interns (Remote)

Zoom - PM Intern (Remote)

Shopify - Backend Developer Intern (Remote)

Mailchimp - Brand Marketing Intern (Remote)

Glynn Capital - Summer Analyst Intern (SF Bay Area)

WhatsApp - Product Design Intern (SF)

Roblox - PM Intern (San Mateo)

VamosVentures - MBA Summer Associates (LA)

Spotify - Business Strategy, MBA Growth Interns (NYC)

puppy of the week 🐶

Meet Bernard Raymond a three-year-old basset hound who lives in SF. He goes by Bernie.

Bernie enjoys taking naps, running away from his humans when they try to put a harness on him, and climbing around in the dishwasher.

Follow him on Instagram at bernie_sf_basset!

Hi! 👋 I’m Justine Moore, an early stage consumer & SMB investor. I’m currently Head of GTM at Canal. Thanks for reading Accelerated. I’d love your feedback - feel free to tweet me @venturetwins.