On Thursday night, at a StrictlyVC event at SurveyMonkey in Palo Alto, this editor sat down with CEO Zander Lurie to learn more about the direction of the 17-year-old company, known for the roughly 90 million surveys that the outfit and its customers create for their various constituents each month (and whose average order volume is $300, says Lurie). I was particularly interested in Lurie, […]
Investment Opportunities
Guild Education Lands $8.5 Million in Series A Funding Led by Redpoint
According to a 2014 report from Complete College America, a nonprofit group based in Indianapolis, just 19 percent of full-time students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years at public universities. The stats are even worse at community colleges, where five percent of full-time students earn an associate degree within two years, and just 15.9 […]
At Pear Demo Day in Palo Alto, 13 Companies to Watch
As dozens of Teslas baked in the sprawling Palo Alto parking lot of a local law firm yesterday, 100 top investors packed into a high-ceilinged meeting room. There, they listened as 13 startups deliver four-minute presentations about why they’re worth watching. The companies — all of them roughly six months old or younger, and all led by current college students […]
Naval Ravikant on China Money into Silicon Valley: This Trickle Could Become a Tsunami
AngelList, the online platform that matches startups with early-stage investors, has grown by leaps and bounds since its 2010 founding — and so have its ambitions. In fact, the company, which already bills itself as both the biggest seed-stage firm in the world, and the world’s largest hiring platform for startups, also aims to become the biggest venture fund in […]
TCV on the Market, the Competition, and Taking Bankers’ Advice with a Grain of Salt
Technology Crossover Ventures has become a major investing powerhouse over its 22-year-old history by funding relatively undiscovered but mature companies; buying sizable stakes in later-stage, venture backed companies; and acquiring positions in publicly traded tech companies that TCV sees as undervalued. The firm, which is headquartered in Palo Alto, has done so well that it just […]
Jeremy Liew on What He Will, And Won’t, Invest in Right Now
By Semil Shah Jeremy Liew joined Lightspeed Venture Partners in 2006 from AOL, where he’d worked in corporate development, and his star has been on the rise since, including thanks to an early check to messaging giant Snapchat. We caught up with him last week to chat about where he’s shopping next, among other things. […]
Why That Google Capital Deal Could Mean More PIPEs
Last Wednesday, Google Capital ventured into the world of investing in publicly traded companies, announcing it has backed Care.com, a platform that connects people with caregivers which went public in early 2014. With Google Capital investing $46.35 million, it became Care.com’s single largest shareholder, according to The New York Times. The deal also sent nine-year-old Care.com’s […]
Talking Kleiner 3.0 with Its New Consumer Investing Partner
Kleiner Perkins has been through the wringer since the go-go dot-com days of the late 1990s. After making a bundle on Google, the storied venture firm raised too much money from investors and grew too ambitious in scope before dramatically retrenching a few years ago — but not before being hit with one of the highest-profile lawsuits in venture industry. (It won the case, which […]
Expect More M&A This Year and Next, Says Marc Andreessen
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen spoke at the Bloomberg Technology conference yesterday afternoon, and he said he expects far more M&A than the tech industry has seen in recent years. The conversation stemmed in large part from questions about LinkedIn’s announced acquisition by Microsoft, which disclosed Monday that it is paying$26.2 billion in cash for the […]
Olly Has Built a Breakout Brand in a Crowded Market: Here’s How
Vitamins and venture capital might not seem like the most natural fit, but a number of related companies have attracted capital from tech investors in recent years, including SmartyPants, which makes a gummy vitamin, and Elysium Health, a supplements company that counts a former venture capitalist as a co-founder. Still, competitors may have trouble catching up […]