FundersClub Weekly Newsletter - September 22, 2016
FundersClub Portfolio News
GitLab, the code collaboration platform for developers based on the open source Git tool, announces a $20 million Series B round led by August Capital with participation from Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator, bringing the company’s total raised to date to over $25 million in "GitLab secures $20 million Series B."
Thalmic Labs raises $120M Series B from Fidelity, Spark Capital, Intel Capital, the Amazon Alexa Fund and others in "Thalmic Labs Raises $120M To Help Humans Interact With Machines."
Aircall, a web application that provides desktop phone service to marketing teams, raises $8M in Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital in "Aircall, a cloud-based phone system raises $8M in Series A funding round from Balderton Capital."
The Flex Company stands out at Y Combinator’s most recent Demo Day, as CEO Lauren Schulte introduces a new feminine hygiene accessories that "has contributed to the collective rebranding of the menstrual market, aimed at young, smartphone-fluent millennial women" in "Silicon Valley’s Quest to Make Periods Cool."
Coinbase has finally integrated support for Ethereum, so now Coinbase users can buy Ethereum with the support payment methods, or exchange it against Bitcoin directly in "Coinbase Finally Completed Their Ethereum integration."
Sourcery Technologies Inc. has raised $5 million in venture funding for software that helps restaurateurs and corporate kitchens order from vendors, keep track of their inventory and costs, and figure out the appropriate prices for different ingredients in "Sourcery raised $5 million to help restaurants and food vendors deal with each other, and not lost receipts or invoices."
Investor Thoughts
Ken Norton of Google Ventures talks to Christine Deakers of Mixpanel about his rubric for effective communication in "Ken Norton's Discipline of No."
Suranga Chandratillake of Techstars highlights the steps CEOs and founders need to take before firing someone for the first time in order to help with potential difficulties in "Firing Someone for the First Time – Five Critical Steps."
Josh Elman of Greylock Partners discusses the five main types of ways a product can go through viral inception in "The Five Types of Virality."
Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures looks at valuation metrics to see if there’s any systematic bias in the investor community for SMB, Mid-Market and Enterprise SaaS companies in "Are SMB SaaS Companies Valued Differently Than Mid-Market SaaS Businesses?"
CB Insights analyzes data on the top 100 US VC-backed exits in each of two different time periods to understand how the most successful tech exits have changed across a number of different metrics, including financings, valuations, and geography in "Exit Trends: Tech Startups Are Raising More Money, Exiting At Higher Valuations."
Rodrigo Martinez of Point Nine Capital offers a personal view on the +800 results of a tech due diligence survey to early stage startups in "12 Observations from a Tech Due Diligence Survey."
John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners explains why he does not evaluate the veracity of a product by a demo in "VC Confessions: I Don’t Care About Your Product Demo."
Founder and Operator Thoughts
Dustin Moskovitz of Asana and Facebook explains how work-life balance and open communication inform the culture of his new company in "Nurture these Two Things to Craft a Great Work Culture."
Ben Rattray of Change.org discusses building his company and why "simplicity sells" in "When Serving 130 Million Users, Simplicity is a Feature, Not a Bug."
Jory MacKay of Crew Labs asseses why we’re reaching the tipping point of startups in the virtual space (and why not enough people are paying attention) in "Here’s why you’re overlooking how much VR actually matters."
Rohan Ayyar of E2M Solutions looks at the six most burgeoning startup ecosystems worldwide in "Beyond Silicon Valley: 6 Booming Startup Hubs Around the World."
Darius Foroux of Procrastinate Zero makes a list of his top 10 career mistakes in "10 Career Mistakes I Wish I Had Never Made."
Andy Raskin shares the 5 elements of a brilliant sales narrative in "The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen."
In Other News
Google launches Google Trips, the app aimed at helping you better plan your vacations and other travels by using a combination of data from Google Maps and crowdsourced contributions from other travelers, in order to offer a personalized travel guide that helps you keep track of your day trips, reservations, points of interest, tourist attractions, restaurants and more in "Google launches a personalized travel planner, Google Trips."
The United Nations discusses antimicrobial resistance at The General Assembly in New York, and world leaders have committed to taking a broad, coordinated approach to tackling the root causes of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in "At UN, global leaders commit to act on antimicrobial resistance."
Did You Know?
Did you know that it is physically impossible for pigs to look straight up into the sky while standing?