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Venture Capital News
Medium
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Shine’s Trends and Principles
- Lateralists are interested in multidimensional trends that shape our world.
- Great Expectations: There is a growing demand for deeper service delivery and rejection of mediocrity.
- Merging the Digital and Physical: Distributed computing power allows dynamic interaction with the world.
- Reestablishing Meaning: Seeking new connections that confer meaning and well-being in a world of lost trust.
- Principles: Creative Reconstruction, Ultimate Alignment, and Humanity Elevated.
- Investing in thematic applications of technology to create exponential value.
- Expansive multidisciplinary approach remains consistent.
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VC Cafe
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The Booming Voice AI Landscape: A VC Perspective
- Voice AI applications are expected to unlock $10B of new software TAM over the next five years.
- The VC community is seeing a perfect storm brewing: massive investment, breakthrough technologies, and untapped markets ripe for disruption.
- Real-time AI Audio Agents gives the ability to have a real-time voice conversation with a chatbot, and even get it to sing.
- In 2024, about a third of all venture capital funding has been going into AI companies.
- AI-driven content, including voice, will dominate by 2030 according to Bessemer, creating opportunities for startups building applications that leverage voice and other modalities.
- Voice AI applications are expected to drive $10B in new software TAM over the next five years.
- Voice AI presents notable challenges, such as competition from AI giants and technical hurdles, ensuring accuracy of speech recognition and language understanding is also a challenge.
- Agentic Automation for Enterprise Functions: Generative AI agents are being deployed to automate complex business processes across various functions. ... sales and marketing, IT helpdesk, meeting management etc.
- Voice cloning is making malicious purposes much more likely, placing extra responsibilities on startups developing such technologies.
- The VC community is seeing massive investment, breakthrough technologies and untapped markets ripe for disruption in the voice AI space.
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Medium
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307
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Introducing Pixelmatters Ventures: a new way to build with Founders
- Pixelmatters Ventures is a new way to build with Founders.
- Founders are becoming investors and new investing models are emerging.
- Pixelmatters Ventures partners with founders by investing expertise in designing and building digital products.
- They offer an alternative to traditional VC funding and welcome investors to join.
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Medium
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395
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The Rapid Growth of Saudi Arabia’s Fintech Sector: Insights from the Annual Fintech Report 2023
- Saudi Arabia's fintech sector is experiencing rapid growth, driven by the Fintech Strategy and Vision 2030 goals.
- There are 216 active fintech companies in 2023, surpassing the target of 150 by 44%.
- The payments sector dominates the fintech landscape, with non-cash transactions reaching 70% in 2023.
- Fintech funding in Saudi Arabia increased by 830% to SAR 6.9 billion in 2023, driving innovation and scaling businesses.
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Guardian
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US group Advent International ‘preparing bid for Tate & Lyle’
- US private equity firm Advent International is reportedly preparing a bid for UK company Tate & Lyle.
- Shares in Tate & Lyle surged by 13% following reports of Advent's interest.
- If a bid comes, it would value Tate & Lyle above its current market value of £2.8bn.
- Advent has previously made UK acquisitions, including the purchase of Cobham in 2020.
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TechCrunch
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How Paladin’s drones helped Asheville during Hurricane Helene
- When Hurricane Helene hit Asheville, North Carolina in September, the city’s police department reached out to public safety drone startup Paladin for help.
- Paladin was launched as first responder technology meant to help to reduce the time between a 911 call and help being on the way.
- Paladin’s software is designed to work with any drone, and to be easy to use.
- The motive behind Paladin is a personal one.
- Paladin recently raised a $5.2 million seed round led by Gradient, Google’s early-stage AI fund, with participation from Khosla Ventures, 1517, and Toyota Ventures, among others.
- In addition to the funding, the company also announced a host of new capabilities for its drone software.
- He added that clearing unnecessary calls makes a huge difference because many police departments are short on officers and resources.
- Using technology to make public safety work better is an area seeing more interest from entrepreneurs as of late.
- Shrivastava said that demand is there from public safety departments and that the startup is now getting multiple inbound requests for the tech a week.
- “We are still early in terms of the entire market,” Shrivastava said. “We are in dozens of cities right now and have scaled pretty quickly, but that is less than 0.1% of the market.”
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Saastr
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48
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5 Interesting Learnings from RingCentral at $2.43 Billion in ARR
- RingCentral has reached $2.43 billion in ARR with a growth rate of 9%-10% and operating margins of 20.9%.
- Despite focusing on the enterprise, 60% of RingCentral's revenue still comes from mid-market and SMB customers.
- The company is working to add $100 million ARR from new products, emphasizing proper sequencing in multi-product expansion.
- RingCentral's biggest AI play is in quality management, using AI to assess contact center agent performance.
- RingCentral has significantly reduced stock-based compensation, with new share grants down by 60%.
- The company leverages its 16,000 channel partners for a large portion of its revenue, highlighting the importance of diversifying sales channels.
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Siliconangle
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DeNexus expands cyber risk management platform with $17.5M investment
- Cyber risk management startup DeNexus Inc. has raised $17.5 million in new funding to expand its product offerings.
- DeNexus specializes in industrial cyber risk management and provides security services to operation technology environments.
- The company's platform leverages AI and machine learning to assess vulnerabilities, forecast incident probabilities, and quantify financial risks.
- DeNexus' flagship platform, DeRISK, offers simulation-driven risk assessments to help organizations predict potential cyber incidents and shape cybersecurity programs.
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Saastr
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Image Credit: Saastr
Dear SaaStr: Should I Fire a Sales Rep That Lied To Several Customers?
- Most sales executives tend to lie, at least to some extent, in order to close deals.
- To address this issue, it is important to implement control measures and processes such as joining calls and reading emails.
- A recent survey by SaaStr revealed that 97% of software sales executives admit to lying occasionally.
- While it may be necessary to reprimand or even terminate the employment of a sales rep who consistently lies to customers, it's important to remember that some level of stretching the truth is common in sales.
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Medium
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Image Credit: Medium
Investing in autone
- London-based startup autone is building an AI-driven platform to tackle inventory management challenges in the retail industry.
- autone's platform uses advanced AI to automate tasks such as demand forecasting, stock level optimization, and data aggregation.
- The platform integrates seamlessly into existing retail workflows, freeing up professionals to focus on strategic tasks.
- The founding team's experience in retail and data management uniquely positions autone to address operational efficiency in the industry.
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Medium
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0
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Investing in Desia
- London-based startup Desia is developing an AI-driven platform to address information overload and streamline investment workflows.
- Desia's platform automates repetitive tasks like data extraction and analysis, freeing up analysts to focus on strategic activities.
- The founding team of Desia, with experience in finance and AI, aims to redefine how investment decisions are made.
- By centralizing data, streamlining workflows, and making actionable insights accessible in real-time, Desia aims to transform collaboration and execution in investment teams.
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Medium
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4
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Plaid CEO Zach Perret: Plaid’s Next Chapter in the AI Era, Fintech Spring and Keys to Fintech…
- Plaid CEO Zach Perret discusses Plaid's new chapter in the AI era and keys to fintech.
- Plaid has become ubiquitous in the fintech industry, building the connective tissue for modern fintech.
- Plaid introduces new products like Plaid Check, Plaid Beacon, and Plaid Layer.
- Zach shares insights on Plaid's hiring philosophy, growth as a founder, and advice to GenAI founders.
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VentureBeat
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Node.vc raises $77.3M for new fund backed by 70 Nordic entrepreneurs
- Node.vc has raised $77.3 million for a new fund backed by 70 Nordic entrepreneurs.
- The founder-first VC fund, node.vc, is based in Stockholm and has a sector-agnostic focus.
- The fund aims to build an ecosystem for entrepreneurs and has already made three investments in Sweden.
- Investors include Stockholm-based Saminvest and leading Nordic institutional investors.
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Medium
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333
Image Credit: Medium
double jump.tokyo makes LP investment in Neoclassic Capital
- double jump.tokyo has made a LP investment in Neoclassic Capital.
- double jump.tokyo is a pioneer in blockchain game development and Web3 technologies.
- The investment is a joint partnership with Arriba Studio, one of double jump.tokyo’s investors.
- The purpose of the partnership is to advance the mass adoption of Web3 and support Web3 startups from Asia.
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Teten
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4 Ways to Make America Functional Again
- The author, an 'accidental moderate', endorses Kamala Harris/Tim Walz for President, citing Trump's incompetence, character flaws, and signs of cognitive decline.
- Many close confidantes and employees of Trump, including former VP Dick Cheney, have endorsed his opponent.
- The author urges readers to take four actions: register to vote, join Innovators for Democracy, share endorsements on social media, and contribute to the Harris/Walz campaign.
- The author addresses responses from Republican friends and provides counterarguments to points such as Trump's business success, Harris being unprepared, and the impact on Israel.
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