It’s not news – cash flow problems kill off startups right and left. They almost killed off ours. Back in 2014, just before co-founding Publicize with my partner Eddie Arrieta, I completed an application for a pre-Stripe era payment processor, estimating that we’d need to process up to $1000/day. One TechCrunch feature later and our small team was welcoming more and more new clients, relishing the taste of success and congrats from friends, and looking to more than double in size. Hard Fork? Hard Fork. HARD FORK There was just one problem. A call from said payment processor informed us that we’d surpassed our $1000/day limit. And given they were liable for refunds during the initial 6-month period, they couldn’t disburse to us the funds processed until after these 6 months passed. In short, our burgeoning business couldn’t make payroll. From the outside it looked like we were a success story, however internally it wouldn’t be long until … [Read more...] about Surviving a cash flow crisis: An entrepreneur’s guide to keeping your startup financed
I capital business finance
You’ve closed your financing round. Congratulations. Now what?
The check is in the mail. Or more likely, a wire transfer dropped a chunk of capital into your bank account. You’ve finally closed a financing round, and you’re flush with cash — or at least you’re no longer scrambling to keep the lights on. It’s tempting to take the money and run back to your office. But before you settle back into your day-to-day tasks, make time for these four critical post-financing actions: Send out a press release If you don’t control the news about your financing round, someone else will. Here’s why: The amount and date of your financing round must be filed with the Securities Exchange Commission if your startup uses the typical exemption from the securities laws for the sale of shares. The SEC requires startups relying on this exemption to provide this data on its Form D within 15 days of closing a financing. This becomes public information that anyone — reporters, your competitors, … [Read more...] about You’ve closed your financing round. Congratulations. Now what?
Tech’s Ethical Crisis Over Venture Capital Goes Beyond Saudi Arabia
The brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia's Istanbul consulate this month, which Turkish officials say was carried out by Saudi agents, has sparked a reckoning in Silicon Valley. The kingdom has poured billions of dollars into the tech industry, and a number of prominent startups, including darlings like Uber, WeWork, and Slack, may now need to grapple with the consequences of enriching a brutal regime. More broadly, some founders, venture capitalists, and other investors are beginning to ask a simple but often neglected question: Where is our money coming from? Saudi Arabia’s massive investments in American tech companies have been hard to ignore. The kingdom contributed $45 billion to the SoftBank Vision Fund, which has invested in American tech companies like Doordash, Wag, WeWork, Slack, and Uber. Saudi investors have also directly joined fundraising rounds totaling $6.2 billion over the last five years, according to data gathered by Quartz, though their … [Read more...] about Tech’s Ethical Crisis Over Venture Capital Goes Beyond Saudi Arabia
Some MoviePass investors are cheering on a new government investigation into the company’s finances (HMNY)
Nathan McAlone, provided by Published 3:33 pm PDT, Thursday, October 18, 2018 Vertical Entertainment/MoviePass Ventures MoviePass parent company Helios and Matheson is being investigated by the New York Attorney General, who is probing whether the firm misled investors. Helios and Matheson denied any wrongdoing to Business Insider. A half dozen Helios and Matheson investors expressed positive sentiments about the investigation to Business Insider, with several saying they felt misled about the company's financial situation. On Wednesday, news broke that the New York Attorney General had launched an investigation into whether Helios and Matheson Analytics, the owner of movie-ticket subscription service MoviePass, had misled investors. Many investors weren’t surprised, they told Business Insider. In fact, some wondered why it had taken so long. One retail investor, who asked not to be identified discussing his personal financial information, said he’d been … [Read more...] about Some MoviePass investors are cheering on a new government investigation into the company’s finances (HMNY)
Chicago’s G2 Crowd, a Yelp for business software, raises $100 million
G2 Crowd, a peer-to-peer reviews site for business apps and software, announced today that it has raised a $100 million round of financing led by IVP Capital. Existing investors Accel and Pritzker Venture Capital Group also joined the round, as well as new investor Emergence Capital. This brings the total amount of money raised by the Chicago-based company to nearly $150 million. Launched in 2012, G2 Crowd’s current CEO and cofounder is Godard Abel, a two-time enterprise software entrepreneur. His first company, a cloud-based price-quoting provider called Big Machines, was acquired by Oracle in 2013 for about $400 million. His other company, a price-quoting software provider for sales reps called SteelBrick, was acquired by Salesforce for $360 million in 2015. He stepped down temporarily as G2Crowd’s CEO to help integrate SteelBrick into Salesforce, and became CEO again this June. Though Abel describes G2 Crowd as a Yelp for enterprise software, he says that G2 Crowd … [Read more...] about Chicago’s G2 Crowd, a Yelp for business software, raises $100 million