PIN'd

A newsletter for communities, investors, angels, and founders

Author

Power in Numbers
April 12, 2024

Welcome to PIN’d - our weekly newsletter where we pin (lol, bear with us) the most important tech/startup news of the week for aspiring angels, vc’s, startup investors, founders, etc. Expect a new weekly roundup from us every Friday morning!

If you’re receiving this, it’s because you’ve signed up for our waitlist and/or for newsletter updates.

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📰 This week’s best news

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has been considering a possible acquisition of HubSpot, an online marketing software company with a market value of $35 billion. The potential acquisition would be Alphabet's largest ever.

Monad Labs rises to unicorn status with $225M raise in largest crypto round of 2024

Monad Labs, a developer of Ethereum blockchain, has recently secured a $225 million Series A funding round. This is the largest deal that the cryptocurrency sector has seen in more than seven months, and it reflects the growing confidence of investors in the rise of cryptocurrencies.

Sam Altman, the 38-year-old CEO of the company that created ChatGPT, has a net worth of at least $1 billion, according to Forbes. This puts him at No. 2,747 on the magazine's list of the world's richest people. Although Altman doesn't have any equity in OpenAI, which is valued at $80 billion, his investments in other startups such as Reddit, Y Combinator, Stripe, Retro Biosciences, and Helion have contributed to his wealth crossing the billion-dollar mark.

Guesty, a platform that lets accommodation managers manage their business online, including on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo, has raised $130 million. The company says its revenue has increased 5x in the past three years, and it expects to turn profitable this year. 

Some of the largest tech investors in the world are advising companies considering going public to take a step back. Although the initial public offering market is showing signs of revival, smaller companies that were able to go public during the last boom cycle may not be able to do so now.

Kidron Capital unveils new VC fund dedicated to women’s health

Kidron Capital, headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, has announced the first close of its venture capital fund dedicated to women’s health. The fund has already made investments in several U.S.-based companies.


💰 Funding announcement highlights

Kiki World, an LA-based startup that uses web3 tech to involve customers in creating new beauty products, raised $7 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, The Estée Lauder Companies’ New Incubation Ventures, OrangeDao, and 2Punks Capital.

Summer, a startup helping employers offer personalized support to employees on repaying student loans, raised $9 million in a funding round co-led by Rebalance Capital and SemperVirens. Other investors included General Catalyst, QED, Flourish Ventures, Partnership Fund for NYC, Fenway Summer, and Gaingels.

Symbolica, an AI startup that uses symbolic models to reduce the time and energy required for producing results, raised $33 million in a funding round led by Khosla Ventures. Other participants included Day One Ventures, General Catalyst, Abstract Ventures, and Buckley Ventures.

Reshape has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round to automate lab experiments requiring visual inspections. Astanor Ventures led the funding. Y Combinator, R7, ACME, 21stBio and Unity co-founder Nicholas Francis also joined.

Sprinto, a startup that automates security and compliance management for tech companies, raised $20 million. Accel led the round. 

📚 Interesting reads of the week

A new app called Buffet instantly matches users with people and places to tackle loneliness. It removes the hassle of finding a place to meet, allowing users to find like-minded individuals for friendship, romance, or gym buddies.

What makes for successful consumer founders?

This article analyzes over 100 unicorns to understand the key traits of successful consumer founders. The results are quite surprising!

Trae Stephens: The most competitive deals are the worst

In this episode of 20VC, Trae Stephens from Founders Fund shares his insights on why the most competitive deals are often the worst, why no company can solely attribute its success to its VC, and why loss ratio is not a valuable metric while upside maximization is everything.

Join this X thread about the leading investors in artificial intelligence based in NYC.

Forget about 2021, VC deals in 2024 are the most expensive ever

Venture capital investments are coming back in 2024 but with a twist. While funding is flowing into AI and exceptional SaaS companies, other sectors are experiencing a slowdown. The strange part is that valuations for these high-flying companies are just as high, or even higher in the case of AI, compared to the peak of 2021. 

Finding product-market fit is the central quest of every early-stage startup.  Rather than diagnosing whether you have product-market fit, the Arc framework, developed by Sequoia, outlines three distinct archetypes of PMF that can help you understand your product’s place in the market and determine how your company operates.

Operation manual with 50+ of the biggest lessons learned by David Politis, founder of BetterCloud, over the past two decades. It’s filled with personal anecdotes, actionable tips, and advice to help other founders avoid the same mistakes he made.

🚀 PIN product launches

We are excited to announce new features on PIN:

PIN Public Bounties (coming soon) 

Introducing Public Bounties: PIN's marketplace connecting founders who have hiring needs with our communities of top operators. Building on our existing Bounty feature, Public Bounties is open to all (club members will automatically have access) who want to help founders crowdsource top talent & be rewarded for it. Sign up for the waitlist! 

💪 Tech mafia of the week

Highlights:

💰 Most money raised: Coinbase

🤑 Total money raised by the Deloitte Mafia: $14.5 billion

Weekly tech mafia leaderboard

The Deloitte alumni network has built some amazing companies, so we took a look at the top companies.

The Deloitte Mafia takes the 16th spot, with 761 companies founded in total and $14.5 billion in total raised.

PS: Are you a Deloitte employee/alum interested in getting your community together to invest in the community (and earn carry/other benefits along the way)? Or are you a member of another community that you think would make for an amazing startup investment community? 😉

Learn more about us and sign up for the waitlist here.

📌 PIN tweet of the week

💼 Who’s hiring in VC?

Looking to get into VC? Below are this week’s curated VC job openings.

Helmsley is looking for a VC Associate.

1848 Ventures is looking for a VC Lead.

Memorial Sloan is looking for a VC Analyst.

Dragonfly is looking for a VC Investor.

Okta Ventures is looking for a VC Manager.

📠 Fun fact of the week

Steve Anderson of Baseline Ventures invested $250,000 in Instagram when it was still known as Burbn, making his decision in under an hour. This seed funding was crucial for Instagram's early development, leading to its rapid growth. In 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for about $1 billion, marking one of the tech industry's most successful investments.

Want to learn more about investing in startups with your community through PIN’s platform? Simply reply to this email.

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