FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - April 7, 2016
FundersClub Portfolio News
Video ad startup Virool has raised $12 million in Series A funding in "Virool raises $12M for native video ads".
Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam chats about the adoption of Bitcoin in the United States and international markets in "Coinbase Co-Founder Fred Ehrsam on Two Key Roadblocks to Bitcoin’s Mainstream Moment".
Regalii announces record quarterly growth as end-customers are now paying more than 153,000 bills monthly, representing 14x growth over the same period in 2015 in "Regalii Announces Record Growth as Demand for Global Bill Pay Surges".
Instacart expands its grocery delivery service to Baltimore in "Instacart will start making grocery deliveries Thursday in Baltimore".
Second Measure takes billions of anonymized credit card transactions and analyzes them so investors can see where consumers are voting with their dollars before a company’s quarterly earnings come out in "This startup is the new secret weapon investors are using to outsmart each other".
Goldbely is an online marketplace for the most craved menu items from food-focused cities around the country in "Goldbely Satisfies Cravings Across the Country".
Bitcoin payments startup BitPagos is now giving its wallet users access to credit through its Ripio wallet offering in "Bitcoin Wallet Startup Now Extending Credit to Users".
drchrono announces that it has launched four new medical API partners adding new capabilities to its platform in "drchrono Announces New Medical API Partners; Innovative Apps Enhance Industry Leading EHR Platform".
Investor Thoughts
Alex Mittal of FundersClub encourages founders raising their seed round to think about their subsequent fundraises when settling on seed round investment terms like valuation and cap in "Raising Your Seed Round? Be Long-Term Greedy".
Steven Sinofsky of Andreessen Horowitz shares a list of “toys” (that eventually became "the next big thing") starting from when he got into computing in "[…] is a toy”.
Alex Danco of Social Capital looks at the interplay between two kinds of customer pain – being overserved and being underserved – and how their combination creates demand at the level of the individual user in "Emergent Layers, Chapter 2: Overserved and Underserved Customers".
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures analyzes seed round size in relation to Series A raises and finds that the amount of money to raise to maximize the odds of success hasn’t changed in the last five years, nor has the timing in "The Optimal Seed Round Strategy - Timing And Size".
PitchBook says that overall U.S. VC activity slowed further in the first quarter of 2016, even as capital invested remained at a historically high level in "The bubble hasn't burst, VC is just taking a pause".
Mattermark reports that venture capitalists, angels and corporations deployed just over $160 million in bitcoin investment in the first quarter in "Bitcoin Investment Roars Back To Life In The First Quarter".
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Jeremy Stanley of Instacart and Daniel Tunkelang of LinkedIn explain why data science is so important for many startups, when companies should begin investing in it, where to put data science in their organization and how to build a culture where data science thrives in "Doing Data Science Right — Your Most Common Questions Answered".
Brandon Chu of Shopify defines a set of skills or knowledge that are useful to be an effective generalist product manager in "MVPM: Minimum Viable Product Manager".
Sean Falconer of Proven asks hundreds of technology startups one question to know if the questions they are asking in interviews are actually helping them figure out whether to hire the candidate or not in "Top Interview Questions - 150+ Technology Startups Share their Most Important Interview Question".
Brandon Redlinger of PersistIQ shares his favorite sales podcasts in "Top 10 Podcasts Every Salesperson Needs to be Listening To".
Inc notes how getting money from customers in advance of delivery isn't a new business model, but it's a strategic move that many entrepreneurs don't think of employing in "A Lesson Every Entrepreneur Should Learn From Elon Musk and Tesla".
Jon Westenberg says if you’re looking to start a business, there are really only three concerns that you have to think about in "You don’t have to build a scalable startup".
In Other News
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk reported today that Tesla saw 325,000 pre-orders of its entry level Model 3 vehicle over the first week of accepting pre-orders, which the company says equates to $14B sales in "Tesla says Model 3 reservations hit 325,000".
Journalists from 76 countries published stories exposing the hidden wealth of politicians, celebrities and others, based on 11.5m documents leaked from a Panama-based firm’s database in "A torrential leak".
Did You Know?
Did you know that it took Thomas Jefferson just seventeen days, in between meetings and other government affairs, to pen the Declaration of Independence?