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Happy V Day! What happens when you question crypto traders whether liking crypto was an “attractive trait”? Well, 4 out of 5 think that’s really sexy, and 70% said they’d be more likely to date them if they liked the old “chains.” We’d bet there’s a confirmation bias in there, because if you waved your Ledger wallet at Christine or Haje on a first date, that would also be the last date. Still, JaquelynThe well-timed Valentine’s report based on a Binance poll is good news for those of you who like to keep things unchanging.
Want a free Disrupt pass? That can be arranged for people who choose to volunteer at our Early Stage event!
Today we bring you a great book recommendation from our very own Dominic-Midori: Long out of print since its original publication in the 1980s, Black writers at work is an essential contribution to black literature in the 20th century, and it is extremely good news that it is available again. The book features candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux and many more, highlighting the practices and critical connections between the work and the lived experiences of Black women writers whose work has laid the foundations for many. that came after. .
Table of Contents
The businessroundups.org Top 3
- Goodbye, Yammer: There wasn’t much whining here, but Microsoft confirmed it’s doing away with Yammer to go all-in on Viva Engage, Paul writes. Viva and Yammer chief vice president Murali Sitaram explains, “Over the past few months, we have heard your feedback that having two apps with similar experiences and the same services and content has created confusion and made it challenging to drive adoption and provide clarity. create for the end users.”
- Take a deposit, leave a deposit: Andreessen Horowitz led a $4.5 million seed round in ModernFi, which is developing a marketplace that helps banks that need deposits to make loans find what they’re looking for, while banks with too many deposits can offload them. Christine has more.
- Hello, it’s more funding calling: In PhonePe’s quest to raise $1 billion, an investor group including Tiger Global and Ribbit Capital invested another $100 million in “India’s most valuable fintech startup” which is valued at $12 billion, Manic writes.
Startups and VC
It’s always nice to have a lot of capital to invest, but managing a large new fund can be even more beneficial right now, as many later stage companies that postponed fundraising last year are likely to enter the market when the storm or high water comes 2023, Connie reports. Buyout firm Bain Capital just closed its second Tech Opportunities fund with $2.4 billion, up from the $1.3 billion the company put to work in 2019 through the first vehicle of its kind.
Turning a great idea into a viable startup takes patience, perseverance and more than a bit of luck. But when an idea originates in a lab — be it AI, biotech, robotics, or any other deep tech research project — it quickly becomes more difficult and much more expensive. Pae Wu, General Partner at SOSV and CTO at IndieBio, will take the stage at businessroundups.org Early Stage on April 20 in Boston. Don’t miss out – buy your tickets today!
And we have five more for you:
10 years of fintech failures: 5 innovations that didn’t live up to the hype
Image Credits: Jeffrey Coolidge (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images
The tech industry (and the media that reports on it) thrives on hype cycles.
Sometimes relentless cheerleading can pay off: clunky personal digital assistants of the 1990s evolved into sleek smartphones a decade later.
And other times, what seemed like a revolutionary idea turns out to be someone trying to start a fad. (Remember the Google barge, Juicero, and iSmell?)
Looking back over the past decade, TC+ contributor Grant Easterbrook summarizes five trends that flopped and the underlying factors that held them back from changing fintech “the way the founders originally intended”.
Three more from the TC+ team, complete with some retro tunes to keep you going:
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Big Tech Inc.
It’s easy to get away from a meeting if you haven’t caught all of what’s been discussed. That’s where Otter.ai comes in with OtterPilot, the new AI meeting assistant. Aisha reports that this feature automatically sends an AI-generated summary of meeting topics to attendees with hyperlinks to key moments. It will also capture slideshows and insert them into the summary as well. You can now safely get up and use the bathroom during your next virtual meeting and not miss a thing.
And we have five more for you:
