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Image Credits: Floresco Productions / Getty Images
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We reached out to a number of active enterprise investors to find out how — or if — the pandemic has shaped their thinking.
What we found: these VCs tend to take a long view, which means the current uncertainty hasn’t substantially changed how many of them operate.
To get a sense of how COVID-19 has impacted their strategy, we spoke to:
- Theresia Gouw, Acrew Capital
- Diane Fraiman, Voyager Capital
- Casey Aylward, Costanoa Ventures
- Hope Cochran, Madrona Venture Group
- Leyla Seka, Operator Collective
- Max Gazor, CRV
- Navin Chaddha, Mayfield
- Matt Murphy, Menlo Venture Capital
- Soma Somasegar, Madrona Ventures
- Jon Lehr, Work-Bench
- Steve Herrod, General Catalyst
- Jai Das, Sapphire Ventures
- Ed Sim, Boldstart Ventures
- Martin Casado, Andreessen Horowitz
- Vas Natarajan, Accel
- Dharmesh Thakker, Battery Ventures
Our prior enterprise survey failed to include any responses from female VCs and did not meet TechCrunch’s standards for diversity and inclusion. We regret the error.
Thanks very much for reading,
Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist
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Image Credits: Catherine Falls Commercial / Getty Images
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Alex Wilhelm and Jonathan Shieber watched video pitches from Techstars’ April batch of virtual demo days to identify which startups were best in class.
After reviewing all entrants, they selected two startups from each of the following categories:
- Social impact
- Lisbon
- Seattle
- Music
- Air Force
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Image Credits: Spencer Platt / Getty Images
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Alex Wilhelm examined recent IPOs for Kingsoft Cloud and Vroom to better understand why digital used car retailer Vroom is seeing such strong demand.
“With markets at all-time highs — and thus comparable valuations contentedly stretched — it’s probably a great time to take low-margin, growth-y companies public,” he concluded.
“But that doesn’t mean the situation makes perfect financial sense.”
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Image Credits: Ina FASSBENDER / AFP / Getty Images
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When unprofitable Vroom boosted its IPO price on Friday, it pushed the unicorn’s maximum gross raise to $431.3 million.
Despite Vroom’s falling gross margins, rising net losses and growing deficits, the move could swell the company’s value by $300 million, which “means that growth is once again hot as hell,” concludes Alex Wilhelm.
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Image Credits: Maskot / Getty Images
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Demand for front-end and back-end engineers has grown steadily in recent years, but conventional wisdom holds that only plumbers and hair stylists have recession-proof jobs.
Many software developers have never had to search for work during a downturn, but this guide offers some basic principles for coping with uncertainty.
Step one: “cultivate your professional network.”
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Image Credits: Kimberly White / Getty Images
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Managing Editor Danny Crichton cracked open the S-1 for insuretech startup Lemonade to better study the company’s capital structure.
Even though the company has taken very little dilution, its valuation growth is exemplary.
“As a success story for founders to minimize dilution, it’s a really strong contender,” he says.
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Dear Sophie:
I work in people ops at a biotech startup. We received an application from a very promising candidate from Mexico for a job opening we’ve had listed for quite some time. Our company has never sponsored anyone for a visa. Which type of visa should we pursue, how much will it cost, how long will it take, and what should we keep in mind while working through the process?
— Puzzled in Petaluma
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Image Credits: catchlights_sg / Getty Images
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SaaS startups have seen growth accelerate as the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged companies to migrate to the cloud, but last week’s earnings results from Slack and Smartsheet were below expectations.
“This is the uneven customer reality of today’s digital makeover,” Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm suggested. “Not all industries can afford it right now, whether they need the new tech or not.”
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Nationwide protests surrounding the death of George Floyd have impacting the app stores: downloads of police scanner apps have surged, along with usage of messaging app Signal and Citizen, which sends out police alerts.
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