Startups Weekly: One Medical IPO raises unicorn hopes

Maybe ‘tech-enabled’ is good enough for public markets? Everybody’s talking about revenues after WeWork, but maybe you still don’t need to have all the right numbers in place to achieve a strong IPO? That’s the initial takeaway Alex Wilhelm has after One Medical’s successful debut this week. One might think it looks like a tech-enabled unicorn, that doesn’t generate the recurring revenue and margins of a true tech-powered business. But, the doctor-services provider closed up almost 40% on a somewhat ambitious price of $14 per share. It had raised...

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Justin Kan opens up (Part 1)

Greg Epstein Contributor Share on Twitter Greg M. Epstein is the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and the author of The New York Times bestselling book "Good Without God." Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts to build inclusive, inspiring and ethical communities for the nonreligious and allies, Greg was also named “one of the top faith and moral leaders in the United States” by Faithful Internet, a project of the United Church of Christ and the Stanford Law...

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What Nutanix got right (and wrong) in its IPO roadshow

Back in 2016, Nutanix decided to take the big step of going public. Part of that process was creating a pitch deck and presenting it during its roadshow, a coming-out party when a company goes on tour prior to its IPO and pitches itself to investors of all stripes. It’s a huge moment in the life of any company, and after talking to CEO Dheeraj Pandey and CFO Duston Williams, one we better understood. They spoke about how every detail helped define their company and demonstrate its long-term investment value to investors who might not have been...

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Legacy, a sperm testing and freezing service, just raised $3.5 million to send the message to men: get checked

Legacy, a male fertility startup, has just raised a fresh, $3.5 million in funding from Bill Maris’s San Diego-based venture firm, Section 32, along with Y Combinator and Bain Capital Ventures, which led a $1.5 million seed round for the Boston startup last year. We talked earlier today with Legacy’s founder and CEO Khaled Kteily about his now two-year-old, five-person startup and its big ambitions to become the world’s preeminent male fertility center. Our biggest question was how Legacy and similar startups convince men — who are generally less...

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Customer feedback is a development opportunity

Kyle Lomeli Contributor Share on Twitter Kyle Lomeli is the CTO and a founding engineer at CarGurus.com. Online commerce accounted for nearly $518 billion in revenue in the United States alone last year. The growing number of online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay will command 40% of the global retail market in 2020. As the number of digital offerings — not only marketplaces but also online storefronts and company websites — available to consumers continues to grow, the primary challenge for any online platform lies in setting itself...

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You need a minimum viable company, not a minimum viable product

Ann Miura-Ko Contributor Share on Twitter Ann Miura-Ko is a co-founding partner at Floodgate, a seed-stage VC firm. A repeat member of the Forbes Midas List and the New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists Worldwide, she earned a PhD in math modeling of cybersecurity at Stanford University. Hi, I’m Ann. I was one of the first investors in Lyft, Refinery29 and Xamarin. I’ve been on the Midas List for the past three years and was recently named on The New York Times’ list of The Top 20 Venture Capitalists. In 2008, I co-founded Floodgate,...

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You need a minimum viable company, not a minimum viable product

Ann Miura-Ko Contributor Share on Twitter Ann Miura-Ko is a co-founding partner at Floodgate, a seed-stage VC firm. A repeat member of the Forbes Midas List and the New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists Worldwide, she earned a PhD in math modeling of cybersecurity at Stanford University. Hi, I’m Ann. I was one of the first investors in Lyft, Refinery29 and Xamarin. I’ve been on the Midas List for the past three years and was recently named on The New York Times’ list of The Top 20 Venture Capitalists. In 2008, I co-founded Floodgate,...

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Carriers ‘violated federal law’ by selling your location data, FCC tells Congress

{rss:content:encoded} Carriers ‘violated federal law’ by selling your location data, FCC tells Congress https://ift.tt/2GJBgrw https://ift.tt/37MpiJB January 31, 2020 at 09:03PM More than a year and a half after wireless carriers were caught red-handed selling the real-time location data of their customers to anyone willing to pay for it, the FCC has determined that they committed a crime. An official documentation of exactly how these companies violated the law is forthcoming. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai shared his finding in a letter to Congressman...

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Unicorn fever as One Medical’s IPO pops 40% after conservative pricing

Shares of One Medical are worth $19.50 this morning after the venture-backed unicorn priced its IPO at $14 per share last night. The company opened at $18 before rising further, according to Yahoo Finance data. At its current price, One Medical is worth about 40% more than its IPO price, a strong debut for the company. The result is a boon for One Medical, which raised $532.1 million during its time as a private company. At $14 per share, the company was worth $1.71 billion. At 19.50, One Medical is worth $2.38 billion, a winning result for a company...

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Last day for early-bird tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020

Today’s your last day to score early-bird pricing on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020, which takes place on March 3. If you want to keep $150 in your wallet, beat the deadline and buy your ticket here before the clock strikes 11:59 p.m. (PT) tonight! Our one-day conference dedicated to robotics and AI — the good, the bad and the challenging — features interviews, panel discussions, Q&As, workshops and demos. Join roughly 1,500 experts, visionaries, creators, founders, investors, researchers and engineers. Rub elbows, network and engage...

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How Dubsmash revived itself as #2 to TikTok

{rss:content:encoded} How Dubsmash revived itself as #2 to TikTok https://ift.tt/2RL0j44 https://ift.tt/2RLC7OX January 31, 2020 at 05:03PM Lip-syncing app Dubsmash was on the brink of death. After a brief moment of virality in 2015 alongside Vine (R.I.P), Dubsmash was bleeding users faster than it could recruit them. The app let you choose an audio track like a rap song or movie quote and shoot a video of you pretending to say the words. But there was nowhere in the app to post the videos. It was a creation tool like Hipstamatic, not a network...

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How Dubsmash revived itself as #2 to TikTok

Lip-syncing app Dubsmash was on the brink of death. After a brief moment of virality in 2015 alongside Vine (R.I.P), Dubsmash was bleeding users faster than it could recruit them. The app let you choose an audio track like a rap song or movie quote and shoot a video of you pretending to say the words. But there was nowhere in the app to post the videos. It was a creation tool like Hipstamatic, not a network like Instagram. There’s a reason we’re only using one of those today. So in 2017 Dubsmash‘s three executives burned down the 30-person company...

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Moda Operandi, an online marketplace for high-end fashion, raises $100M led by NEA and Apax

Moda Operandi, an online marketplace that specialises in right-off-the-runway luxury fashion, accessories and home decor, is today announcing a high-priced event of its own: it’s raised $100 million, a mix of equity and debt that it will use to invest in its platform and technology as well as to continue growing business overall, which was founded in 2010 and today offers products from some 1,000 brands and designers and ships to 125 countries. “For the past eight years, Moda has disrupted the way people shop for luxury fashion,” said Moda Operandi...

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