EI. 'Ecosystem' #44
A weekly guide on tech news and early stage fundraising. Aiming to open access to the venture industry for less networked founders and junior VCs.
For access to all monthly events, archive or if you would like to support the project, become an annual subscriber⭐ New to ‘Ecosystem’? Find out what it is here.
Hello and welcome back to ‘Ecosystem’, issue 44!
In this newsletter, you will learn:
Which social media tech giant had to pull an AI algorithm after discovering it held gender/race biases?
Which alternative milk company went public last week (take a wild guess!) - and is its IPO really worth $10BN?
10 top lessons to remember from world’s greatest commencement speeches
What are the qualities that make a great founder; and how to become one? - According to Reid Hoffman
EI. Emotional intelligence. Certain concepts and words that are so overused in everyday life, yet their meaning remains quite foreign to most of us. What does emotional intelligence truly stand for? In very simple terms, it is the ability to understand and manage your emotions; and be aware of the impact they can have on those around. And Emotional Quotient is well, the measurement of EI. According to Daniel Goleman, the psychologist who helped to popularize EI, there are five key components to it:
Self-awareness - A state of mind that lets you understand your own motivations and emotions; and how they affect others.
Self-regulation - An ability to control your impulses and respond calmly to a harsh situation.
Motivation - The burning urge to grow : self-development to maintain or improve your status quo.
Empathy - The ability to comprehend other people’s emotional reactions. To put yourself in someone’s shoes before responding. Understand what someone may be feeling prior to expressing your own emotions.
Social skills - The ability to listen before responding. To manage conflict.
This summary barely scratches the surface on EI, a truly fascinating topic. If you do read the book mentioned above or have further recommendations for resources, do reach out. The very simple yet so under implemented piece of advice to help you improve your own EI and communication with others? Develop the ability to listen to understand, not to listen to reply.
Thank you for choosing ‘Ecosystem’ for yet another week as your read on tech news and early-stage fundraising! If you want to see the project grow, you may support it further here. See you next time! ☀️
#EcosystemGiants
The next ‘EcosystemGiants’ guest is no other than Nikolas Samios, Managing Partner at PropTech1 Ventures, one of Europe’s leading PropTech VC funds at 6pm CEST (5pm BST) on Tuesday, 25 May 2021! Nikolas has over twenty years of experience in the start-up scene and has accompanied more than 100 transactions (companies from seed stage all the way to IPO) throughout his career. His expertise in venture capital methodology is continuously shared in renowned online publications and his book DEALTERMS.VC (co-authored with Anja Arnold) has become a must-read resource for founders and investors in the DACH region and beyond, who are looking to better understand how venture capital financing and negotiation work.
A conversation about :
How to innovate and raise venture capital in an industry, resistant to change?
Starting and managing a dedicated PropTech fund in Europe
Structuring the perfect VC deal - lessons learned from over two decades of experience as a founder and investor
Tune in at 18:00 CEST (17:00 BST) on Tuesday 25 May 2021
Supported by community partners:
Kaiku, LMRE, MentorshipHub, ParlayMe, Startups Magazine
Have you missed out on the previous #EcosystemGiants sessions? Read the highlights from the chats with Meagan Loyst (VC, Lerer Hippeau), Soraya Darabi (Co-Founder and GP, TMV), Elmar Broscheit (Managing Director, Macquarie Capital and angel investor), Laura Thompson (Partner, Sapphire Partners, the LP arm of Sapphire Ventures) and Atin Batra (Founder and GP, Twenty Seven Ventures)
Stay tuned for a super exciting announcement on the day :)
Innovation Ecosystem Updates
Trending. Snapchat made headlines following its second annual Partner Summit - from reaching 500M monthly users to its latest AR Glasses, blending the real world and the digital world together (Social Media Today). The company CEO Evan Spiegel also chimed in on the controversy around Apple’s in-app 30% charges (started by business mogul Barry Diller) in support of the tech giant; adding Snapchat owes much of its existence to the iPhone and “the amazing platform that Apple has created” via CNBC. More Apple news, as ‘cars become computers with wheels’, the company firmly sets sight on the $5TR auto market (WSJ). Speaking of consumer apps 👇
TikTok’s CEO (and founder of ByteDance!) Zhang Yiming steps down (The Verge). What makes a unicorn founder? 30K+ data points prove it’s not what Silicon Valley’s conventional wisdom says (Forbes). Elon Musk tweets, China warnings - Bitcoin’s wild ride explained (Bloomberg) and the psychology behind holding onto plunging stock a.k.a. how anticipated regret shapes our decisions (Quartz). An NFT that may feel closer to home - iconic Youtube video ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ to be removed from the platform and auctioned as digital art (NPR). Can AI be completely bias-free? Twitter scraps image-cropping algorithm found to hold racial and gender biases (BBC). The tool favoured white individuals over black people, and women over men. Vegan food company Oatly Group IPO’d with a $1.4BN raise at a $10BN+ valuation last week (CNBC). Is the company really ‘worth’ over 10x the entire oat-based milk products industry (6 year projection!) - a deep dive on its $10BN valuation (Freetrade).
Plus: After solo capitalists, successful founders go after the opportunity to come in early in hot start-up deals. Real-life example - world’s Fast(est) CEO, Domm Holland took it to Twitter to run a fundraising thread for founders - where one of the respondents would get funded, mentored and intro’d to VCs by him. They run weekly. Check out the latest one here.
Massive rounds. British used-car marketplace (and Cazoo rival!) Cinch secures £1BN of new equity funding to fuel international expansion (Sky News). Berlin’s neobroker Trade Republic raises $900M in a Series C round, led by Sequoia Capital (one of the firm’s largest initial investments ever in Europe!) via Silicon Canals. French refurbished electronics marketplace Back Market bags $335M in a Series D round led by General Atlantic (Tech.EU). Luxembourg-based start-up factory14 comes out of stealth with $200M in funding, as it joins the Amazon marketplace roll-up race (snapping up smaller businesses and helping them grow through better economies of scale!) via Techcrunch. Across the Atlantic (but in a similar space), only 10 months after launch (and following a $175M Series A raise), California-based start-up Heyday bags $70M in series B to acquire and scale Amazon third-party sellers (Crunchbase).
Acquisitions. Digital elective care and telemedicine provider Ro (last valued at $5BN) buys reproductive health start-up Modern Fertility (a barely four-year-old company) for $225M (Techcrunch). $3.9BN Sydney-based consumer finance fintech Zip snaps up two overseas buy now, pay later companies Twisto Payments and Spotii (in which it already owned minority stakes!) for a total of $160M to expand its global presence in the sector (The Australian Financial Review).
Scoop: German media conglomerate Axel Springer in talks to acquire Axios, a digital-news outlet (WSJ).
Sustainability. A year into Covid-19, online plant protein sales continue to rise (Food Business News). How did Beyond Meat become the first plant based food company to go public? A Twitter story. Lawn mowing, the next electric ($53BN market) frontier (Bloomberg). One of the leading independent VC funds for PropTech and ConTech in Europe, PropTech1 Ventures is hosting its first Office Hours on Thursday, 3 June at 10AM CET. Founders, apply for a chance to meet members of the investment team by 30 May 2021. The Cabinet Office and GovTech accelerator PUBLIC launch a challenge programme looking for tech start-ups developing solutions to address the climate crisis. Applications close 25 June 2021. Plus, the UK Government just announced a £166M cash injection to create 60,000 jobs in green tech (BusinessCloud).
Wins for women. While the percentage of female decision-makers in VC continues to be shockingly low (13% in the UK🙄), more women are climbing up the power ranks. A great initiative to put together a list of female VC partners in Europe (incl Reshma Sohoni, Seedcamp; Judith Dada and Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, La Famiglia; Marie-Helene Ametsreiter, Speedinvest; Sophia Bendz, Cherry Ventures); by Amy Lewin at Sifted. 👏 Entrepreneur turned investor Janine Sickmeyer (and co-founder Brandon Brooks) is raising a $50M new VC fund to back underestimated, ‘overlooked’ founders (Columbus Business First). 👏 Four impressive high net-worth ladies (inc Deepali Nangia, Speedinvest and Sarah Turner, Angel Academe) investing in women entrepreneurs (Daily Mail). 👏 Speaking up matters! Well done to Lindsey Taylor Wood (Founder, CEO, GP; The Helm) for raising the question why women don’t invest (when studies have shown they are better at it than men!) and what can be done to change this (Fortune). 👏
“The more women invest their money, the more power they will have—an affront to patriarchal societal structure.” - Lindsey Taylor Wood (Founder, CEO & GP; The Helm)
Plus: Venture Studio Founders Factory and MentorshipHub are hosting Office Hours for Diverse (future) Founders on Friday, 28 May. Details and how to apply here.
Funder
‘As the saying goes, “When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” and many founders will be tempted to email large numbers of potential investors that they’ve found on a list, thinking that it might increase their chances of finding the right match. But that approach is likely a waste of time, just as applying for a job without a targeted cover letter can be a waste of effort.’
Eze Vidra (Managing Partner, Remagine Ventures) on how to identify and approach the most relevant VCs for your start-up
Founder/Operator
Philipp Haas (VP Expansion, TIER) shares tips for founders looking to scale abroad (insights from taking a billion-dollar start-up across over 100 cities in two continents!)
Twitter Highlight
Sahil Bloom, VP, Altamont Capital Partners
Start-up of the week
Flexible furniture rental - simplified
If you could rent furniture, just as you would an office space or a flat, would you? Monty Space is a platform that enables users to get access to high quality rental furniture at a monthly price with the option to add, swap, buy, or return on-demand (or when circumstances/tastes change!). Contracts start from a 3 month period; and in addition to the cost savings, not having to outright fully purchase new furniture with every move, the start-up supports the transition to a more circular economy, reducing the amount of furniture waste going to landfill. An Allia Impact Accelerator company (applications for the next East London cohort close 31 May 2021 - more info here)
Tweet @montyspace to share they were featured in ‘Ecosystem’!
Do reach out to me if working on a product advancing one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Start-up Go-to Resources
Valuations - or negotiating the economic terms of a VC deal by Fred Wilson (Founder and Partner, Union Square Ventures)
What are the qualities of a great founder - and how to become one? - tips from Reid Hoffman (video lecture and transcript)
How to raise money from a VC? - a must-read article by A16Z's Scott Kupor on whether to raise venture capital; and if so how much?
Navigating the PMF journey - a mental framework as described by Bessemer Venture Partners' Adam Fisher
How investors use growth ideas to evaluate startups? A must-read resource by A16Z's Andrew Chen (that helped him land the role at the firm!)
The MVP framework - measuring and proving user retention
Fundraising 101 : what do early stage investors look for, what makes a business VC-backable and how to approach fundraising - tips from Reshma Sohoni (Co-Founder and Partner, Seedcamp)
The difference between a good and a great retentionCreating effective slide headlines for your deck - a guide by Hustle Fund Co-Founder, Eric Bahn
What is a pre-seed round and how to raise one? Thank you for reading another ‘Ecosystem’ newsletter! What feedback do you have for me (likes/dislikes)? I would greatly appreciate if you share this with contacts (founders, tech operators & investors) who may find the content helpful🖤 Connect with me on Twitter