Stripe's new and lower internal valuation, explained

Stripe has been in the news this past week for lowering its own valuation to around $74 billion from $95 billion, a 28% decline that  made waves in startup-land. Given the company’s size and its status as one of the most richly valued startups in history, the payments giant carries significa

WTF is a 409A?

In the past few months, both Stripe and Instacart have seen their internal valuations updated in a 409A appraisal process. The startups saw their valuations being slashed by 28% and 38%, respectively, as a result of the appraisals. What do these re-pricings signal to other late-stage, pandemic-spur

Daily Crunch: Russia fines Google $374M for ‘illegal content’ over its Ukraine invasion

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Crypto asset manager Valkyrie looks to raise $30M for its new VC arm

Crypto asset manager Valkyrie, best known for launching one of the only U.S. SEC-approved bitcoin futures ETFs, is moving into a new asset class — venture capital. The firm hired investor Lluís Pedragosa in April and has been quietly preparing him to helm Valkyrie Ventures, its new VC arm an

Push Security launches to make SaaS sprawl and shadow IT safer

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has emerged as a pan-industry force by just about every estimation. SaaS has been bucking many of the venture slowdown trends, while data from Gartner indicates that SaaS constituted the lion’s share ($123 billion) of cloud end-user spending ($332 billion) last y

Digital health unicorns need a checkup

Some of digital health's best-capitalized startups are struggling. A string of healthcare unicorns have announced layoffs over the past few weeks, including Ro, Cerebral, Forward and Calibrate. While these companies are all targeting different corners of the healthcare world — from direct-to-

The Station: Restructuring ripples and the next investor darling of the EV era

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every weekend in your inbox. Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point

Real estate investing giant Fundrise breaks into venture capital

Investing in private markets has long been reserved for the ultra-rich. Thanks to tech startups, though, the process is becoming much more accessible for those who aren’t members of the “one percent” of wealthiest Americans. Fundrise, a company that allows anyone to invest in real

Startups race to build a crypto-native, consumer-friendly messaging platform for web3

There’s no shortage of headlines about the onset of “crypto winter.” Amid a growing pile of bankruptcies, one of the buzziest startups in the business, the NFT marketplace OpenSea, announced a major layoff just today. Behind the scenes, however, plenty of founders and VCs are doub

Pivoting your startup in a bear market: Become undeniably fundable

As a founder, it's easy to say, “Of course, we'll pivot!” But actually pulling a pivot off is no easy feat. How do you set yourself up for success in this new world? Which levers should you pull first? How do you ensure you can secure capital when needed or that your company is undeniab

What can Black VCs and founders expect in H2 2022?

Black founders raised 1.3% of last year’s $330 billion worth of U.S. venture investment, totaling just over $4.3 billion. So far this year, Black founders have raised a smaller 1.2% of the $125 billion invested. The past few months have seen private market investors reduce their investment p

Conscience VC raises oversubscribed fund for consumer companies rooted in science

Ariana Thacker likes to say that science was her first love and startups were her second. Now, she gets to combine the two into a thesis for her new venture firm, Conscience VC. Thacker’s passion for science started back when she was taking college-level chemistry courses in middle school. He

C2 Ventures raises new fund to invest in the ‘dull, dirty and dangerous’

C2 Ventures doesn't invest in crypto, web3 or consumer companies, and it stays away from Silicon Valley startups. Instead, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based venture firm focuses on disruption in legacy industries. For example, one of its portfolio companies is a robotics startup that cleans comm

Wefox grabs $400M at $4.5B valuation to buck the insurtech downturn trend

European insurance tech startup Wefox has raised $400 million in a series D round of funding, giving the German company a post-money valuation of $4.5 billion. This represents a 50% increase on last year’s $3 billion valuation at its Series C round. Founded out of Berlin in 2015, Wefox sells