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By Tim Schigel, Refinery Ventures The mid-1990s through the early 2000s were an exciting time for entrepreneurs and investors as prices for internet startups soared. Then the bottom fell out of internet stocks and the dot-com bust reverberated through the nation’s economy. In retrospect, it was probably a terrible time to start up a company […]

By Alejandro Ortiz, SharesPost Postmates is entering the final leg of its journey to an IPO. The company, which operates at the crossroads of last mile delivery and the sharing economy, recently disclosed that it confidentially filed for a public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Founded in 2011 by Sam Street, Sean Plaice […]

By Rohit Kulkarni, SharesPost Slack recently announced that it has filed confidential documents for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission. While the company’s prospects look strong, several big questions loom for the messaging and collaboration platform. When will the 10-year-old company reach profitability? Can Slack continue to innovate and thus remain the market […]

By Lu Zhang, Fusion Fund To say artificial intelligence is old news would be an exaggeration, as we’ve only just started to see its implications: It’s transforming industries across the business landscape, and PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts AI will grow the global economy by $15.7 trillion over the next 12 years. Needless to say, venture capitalists should be investing […]

By Kevin O’Neill, Acertitude While “greed…is good” was the manifesto of Gordon Gekko, the iconic corporate raider from “Wall Street,” “transformation is king” is the proclamation of today’s private equity leaders when driving portfolio company value. Gone are the days when a sponsor buys a company, makes little or no change in the business strategy […]

Paul Asel, NGP Capital On Oct. 9, when Brex announced its $125 million Series C financing, Business Insider proclaimed breathlessly, “credit card startup joins unicorn club months after launching.” Since the term “unicorn” was first applied to technology companies exceeding $1 billion valuations in 2013, a cottage industry has emerged tracking the rise of these […]

By Rohit Kulkarni, SharesPost After a two-month delay, Tencent Music Entertainment’s IPO is back on track. This much-anticipated public offering is likely to re-ignite the battle with Spotify for global supremacy of streaming music. Tencent (TME), the Chinese leader in music streaming, initially filed to go public in October. But TME, a subsidiary of Chinese […]

By Mike Geldart, Excellere Partners The declaration was radical and to the point:  “Eighty percent of what doctors do should be and will be done by machines using AI.” As legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla uttered those words at a recent healthcare conference, I looked around the room full of doctors, healthcare executives, […]

By Jeff Howard and Michael Gruber, Salveo Capital As the cannabis industry takes shape, the market’s momentum has been punctuated every few weeks by news of celebrity enlistments, ranging from the obvious, such as Willie Nelson, to the unexpected, John Boehner. While it may not capture the public’s imagination, the steady march of Silicon Valley […]

By Craig Lawson, MHT Partners The special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, is back. This unique, at times misunderstood, hybrid investment vehicle has enjoyed a strong resurgence in recent years. SPACs, known on Wall Street as blank-check companies, enable investors to acquire equity in a company formed for the sole purpose of finding an appropriate firm […]