I'm Kiani from Inside.com, and this week, we asked our Inside Startups community, "What was your ‘I’m doing this’ moment for your startup?" and received dozens of responses from founders worldwide, telling their incredible stories of the moment they decided to start their journey. ⭐️ Here are some highlighted responses we received: - Laura Kania had her moment launching PodSnacks after moving to the U.S. to pursue her childhood dream of being granted a U.S. work visa, only to realize nobody was hiring. While quarantining in a hotel room, she intended to solve her problem of “too many podcasts, too little time” and began creating a media company instead of curating podcast content for herself. Thus PodSnacks was born! :)
- Sinakhone Keodara has his moment launching BodiGuard, after seeing a video of an elderly Filipina woman named Vilma Kari getting attacked and left alone on the streets of New York. After being horrified that nobody helped her, Sinakhone decided to do something about it if it was the last thing he did. He created BodiGuard to provide people with a walking or traveling buddy who accompanies them as they run errands, go to work, church, etc. Thank you for sharing the background of BodiGuard, Sinakhone. It’s truly inspirational.
- Steve Au, Founder of Scribble, shared a photo with the community and moments during quarantine when his two kids (4 and 6 years old) would ritually pull up their art cart to the table and keep themselves busy with paper, glue, scissors, and crayons. This inspired Scribble a service that lets you turn your child’s artwork into a custom photo book.
This is one of those moments I wish I could include everyone; however, we’re looking for active members in the community to be featured in our newsletters. We may shout out your name and business or reach out for more about you! ⭐️
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Venture capital investment into metaverse-related startups, including augmented and virtual realities (AR/VR), has been dropping quarterly since 2021. Overall, 2022 has seen the fewest funding rounds for metaverse startups. More: - In Q4 2021, metaverse startups raised $2.1B, well above Q3 2022, where these groups raised $760M.
- While the drop in VC funding is stark, venture investments are falling across industries.
- Some companies raised over $100M this year despite the fall in metaverse funding.
- For example, LootMogul raised $200M to build a professional sports metaverse, and Scandit reached unicorn status after raising $150M Series D to scan barcodes with AR overlays.
- Avatar startups also faired well.
- Genies raised $150M Series C in April, Ready Player Me raised $56M, and South Machines raised $70.
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An increasing number of technology startups are taking on venture debt as global equity venture financing recedes. Many venture capital firms are advising their portfolio startups to take on venture debt to avoid valuation markdowns that come with raising down or flat equity rounds. More: - “We want to limit the markdowns in our portfolios, so we’re also the first to encourage our own portfolio companies to consider debt as a valid option, much more than we used to,” said Reaction’s founding partner Cynthia Nadal.
- Kreos Capital informed Bloomberg that startups are securing debt financing at a coupon rate ranging from 9% to 10%.
- Besides conventional debt financing, an increasing number of startups are opting for convertible debts, which come with a zero coupon rate but convert to equity at a later date.
- Silicon Valley Bank, the market leader in venture debt financings, is in the process of raising a new $2B venture debt fund.
- Institutional private equity firms like Blackstone and KKR are also eyeing venture debt and are reportedly launching their respective funds.
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Online payments startup Stripe let go of 14% (1,100 employees). CEO Patrick Collison said the company "overhired" and "grew operating costs too quickly" in the past two years. Collison says the company has to cut costs amid a shift as macroeconomic conditions worsen due to higher interest rates, inflation, and "energy shocks." More: - Stripe was previously valued at $95B following a $600M funding round in March 2021.
- In July, Stripe lowered its internal valuation by 28% to $74B.
- Collison noted that despite the layoffs, Stripe's new customer count increased by 75% YoY in Q3 to an undisclosed number.
- Stripe has raised $2.3B since its inception in 2010, according to Crunchbase.
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The data annotation startup Dataloop announced it raised $33M Series B. The group has automated the labor-intensive process of labeling datasets for artificial intelligence. More: - Nokia Growth Partners Capital and Alpha Wave Global led the funding round.
- The company has raised $50M to date.
- Dataloop's platform can annotate different kinds of data, including unstructured data. That is, data that has not been organized according to some standard model.
- The startup boasts hundreds of clients across diverse industries, from agriculture to robotics.
- The 60-person company will use the funds to grow its team by ~20 people.
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The Spanish Parliament approved the startup law, called Ley de Startups, on Thursday. The law is expected to go into effect in January 2023. The corporate tax for startups and investors is lowered from 25% to 15% for the first four years since its establishment. More: - The new startup law grants one-year visas to remote workers or digital nomads.
- After the initial year, remote workers can apply for a two-year residence authorization, which can later be extended to five years.
- Remote workers will also be able to pay non-resident tax.
- 177 MPs voted in favor of the law, and 88 voted against it.
- 271 amendments have been made to the initial bill over the last 16 months.
- Another law passed recently reduced the minimum share capital required to start a business from €3,000 to €1.
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Vesto launched its treasury management automation platform, which helps startups invest their cash reserves, to the public today. The firm also nabbed $2.8M in seed funding. More: - The platform is specifically catered for startups that face hurdles like minimum account balance requirements when opening a corporate treasury account with banks.
- Vesto is currently targeting Series A to Series D stages startups, with plans to open up the platform for pre-seed startups, nonprofits, and SMEs.
- The firm is a registered investment advisor with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Vesta expects the platform’s assets under management to total $100M by year-end.
- Some customers have reportedly committed between $10M to $20M on the platform during pilot testing.
- The seed funding was led by Contrary Capital, with backing from Susa Ventures, SV Angel, Coalition, and others.
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- Electric scooter startup Ather Energy has hired Manuj Kharana, Tesla's former policy chief for India, as its vice president. Hero MotoCorp, the National Investment & Infrastructure Fund of India, and others have invested $150M in the startup so far.
- 8i Ventures held the first close of its new fund at $25M, half its final target of $50M. The firm expects to hold a final close for the fund by Mar. 2023. The fund will invest in seed and growth-stage fintech and commerce startups.
- Pitchbook ranked UC Berkeley as the number one public university for startup founders. Between 2012 and 2022, 1,406 startup founders emerged from the university, collectively raising $45.7B to date.
- Waves’ ecosystem incubator, Waves Camp, partnered with DeFi platform WX.Network to launch fundraising platform WX launchpad. The platform will bootstrap projects within the Waves ecosystem and help projects get crowdfunding.
- MicroEnsure Pakistan has been acquired by Waada, a venture-backed Pakistani online insurance startup that raised $1.3M in seed funding from venture capital firms and angel investors.
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 |  | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot.
Jigney Pathak is a Business Researcher at Inside who loves technology, finance & sports. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration with a finance specialization & has previously worked at Salesforce.
Courtney Rawlings is an Inside Research Analyst living in Los Angeles, California. She has returned to her hometown of LA after spending several years working at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she is completing a Ph.D. in Art and Architectural History.
| | | | Editor | Vibha Chapparike is a Freelance Writer & Editor at Inside.com. With her post-graduation in Management and Finance completed, Vibha is expanding her knowledge in venture capital, business, startups, and technology. She has had a career in public relations and communications. An ardent reader and writer currently residing in Singapore, you can follow Vibha on Twitter @VChapparike. | |
