Fundraising, UK Fintech week and Coinbase
A weekly newsletter that profiles women in venture and technology
Welcome to Heroa, a weekly newsletter that aims to raise women's profile in venturing and technology. If you enjoy what you read, please do share this newsletter with friends - Alexandra.
Round-up of the news this week
It’s London Fintech week. Check out Innovate Finance’s program of events.
Coinbase becomes the first major cryptocurrency company to go public in the US and becomes the 7th biggest new listing of all time. Dogecoin (the cyrpotcurrency that was started as a joke) went up by 400% this week. At the same time the price of Bitcoin has gone down.
Katrina Lake, the founder of Stichfix, has stepped down as CEO. Kim Kardashian has raised $154M in series A funding for her shapewear brand SKIMS. The round was led by Thrive Capital and values the company at $1.6BN post-money.
Finally, this is an interesting piece of analysis on the hedge fund Tiger Global and how it is disrupting the VC business through playing by a entirely different set of rules as illustrated through Game of Thrones clips.
From the investors
“As a founder, convincing your current investors to reinvest through secondary fundraising could be make or break.” Jeevan Sunner of Playfair Capital
Convincing your seed investors to invest in your series A. With only 19% of seed companies going on to raise Series A, Jeevan Sunner of Playfair Capital shares her advice for taking your startup to the next level of fundraising. Read more here.
What does it take to raise capital, in B2B marketplaces, in 2021? Julia Morrongiello of Point Nine Capital gives a useful cheat sheet for entrepreneurs going out to fundraise for their B2B marketplaces. Read more here.
The Coinbase Direct Listing: A Crypto Signal. Kyla Scanlon of OnDeck argues that Coinbase is a market indicator for crypto acceptance (although that doesn’t mean you should rush to buy the stock!). Read more here.
From the operators
“Last month we announced my company’s acquisition. M&A announcements like ours sound amazing and serendipitous: A large company met a small startup, it was a match made in heaven, and now they are living happily ever after like Cinderella and her unnamed Prince. But that’s not how merger and acquisition (M&A) processes actually go.” Kendall Tucker of Knoq
A Guide to Getting Acquired During A Pandemic. Kendall Tucker of Knoq has 12 steps to successfully selling your company. Like raising venture, selling your company is a combination of sales pipeline and multi-player negotiation..Read more.
How to give and recive feedback by Dr Therese Huston, a cognitive scientist at Seattle University. As an acclaimed author, her books include How Women Decide, which was hailed by the New York Times as “required reading on Wall Street” and named a summer reading title by Oprah. My biggest takeaway from this was in order to keep employees motivated and on the right track, appreciation is most important, and should be given immediately as required, and ideally, at least once a week. Read more.
How I disrupted an Industry with Anne Boden CEO of Starling Bank. Anne speaks to Linda Yueh on the Intelligence squared business podcast about how she broke through bureaucracy to realise her vision for the future of consumer banking. Listen here.
Events
As mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter its worth checking out UK Fintech week which runs from Monday the 19th to Friday the 23rd of April.
Founders you should know. Angela Santurbano in conversation with Mac Reddin of Commsor. This is on Tuesday the 20th of April at 11PM GMT.
TERN Investor Showcase is on Wednesday the 28th of April at 18:30 GMT. Backed by Atomico, this event will allow attendees to invest in or support refugee-led businesses.
Opportunities
The British Business Bank are looking for an Investment Manager focused on either Deeptech or Life Science investments within the Future Fund (they are also hiring for a wide variety of other roles)
DN Capital are looking for an Investment Team Associate and an Intern
GetHarley are looking for a Chief of Staff in London or New York. They are a series A telehealth company
SEE YOU NEXT MONDAY!
If you have any comments, questions, or want to chat about start-ups and venturing, then do drop me a comment.
Written by Alexandra Wyatt, based in London but a global traveller. You can also reach me on Twitter and Instagram.