 |  | | Wednesday, January 29, 2020 • By Walter Thompson | |
| | | In addition to our reporting and analysis, Extra Crunch interviews offer insights and intelligence from founders and investors. This week, Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert and incoming CEO Rob Playter discussed what the future holds for the robotics pioneer and we sat down with Ophelia Brown, “the most ambitious female VC in Europe,” who just raised a new $185 million fund for London-based Blossom Capital. Also this week: Nutanix execs explained how they built their 2016 IPO roadshow deck, we tracked corporate venture capital's rise over the past decade and one of our reporters visited Las Vegas’ Planet 13 to find out how the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions — a topic of growing interest for many vicetech companies. Read more | | | |
| |  | | Blossom Capital, the firm co-founded by ex-Index Ventures and LocalGlobe VC Ophelia Brown, just raised a new $185 million fund. Blossom backs fewer companies by writing larger cheques and claims to have close ties to U.S. top-tier investors ready to back portfolio companies at the next stage. We spoke to Brown about her investment thesis, why Europe is at an “inflection point,” diversity in the investor community and the increasing money coming into Europe from American VCs. Read more | | | |
| |  | | Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others. Instead, it encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monitored, but individual users have a lot more wiggle room. Read more | | | |
| |  | | U.S.-based Bird consumed one of its European rivals and raised $75 million in the process. Circ, the formerly independent scooter shop, was struggling to have enough cash on hand and had undergone layoffs, despite having raised €55 million a year ago. The subsumption of Circ comes after other scooter companies underwent layoffs themselves, and in some cases, struggled to raise fresh capital. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images | | With new information from Casper and its fellow unicorn One Medical — not to mention some historical data from flops like Blue Apron, WeWork and others — we can begin to piece together an understanding of what counts as tech, what doesn't and the value delta between them. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Nutanix / | | Bringing a startup from idea to IPO isn't an easy task, but if you can build something successful, one major milestone is to go public. Before your Nasdaq debut, however, there's a major step — building a deck and taking it on the road for investors. Cloud computing company Nutanix went public in 2016, so we spoke to CEO Dheeraj Pandey and CFO Duston Williams to learn about how a company should define itself for investors. Read more | | | |
| |  | | Jeff Bezos' phone was hacked. And if the richest person in the world is vulnerable, chances are good that your startup could get hacked, too. The good news is that, as a tiny company, you're not a big target. But as soon as you hire your first employee, it's time to think about adopting basic security practices to ensure that you're less vulnerable. Nothing is perfectly secure on the internet, but you can mitigate risk. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Kathryn Donohew Photography / Getty Images | | With experience building the company and a clear focus for moving forward, Pantheon is now starting to think about becoming a public company within the next few years — but it's not in a rush to do so. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: SOPA Images / Getty Images | | After more than a quarter century, Boston Dynamics has a new CEO. The transition (which quietly occurred late last year), saw founder Marc Raibert step aside to become chairman as longtime employee Rob Playter took the reins. Raibert and Playter sat down with TechCrunch to discuss their new roles and what the future may hold for Boston Dynamics. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Juj Winn / Getty Images | | Demand Curve has aggregated many of the world's best growth marketers into one community. Twice a month, it shares its most effective growth tactics and we compile them into this growth report. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Robert Benson / Getty Images | | It's been a busy decade in venture capital. Ten years ago, there were fewer than 20 known unicorns in the U.S., but that figure has risen to more than 200 in the intervening period. Back in 2010, global venture capital was estimated at around $50 billion, but by the end of last year, that figure reached approximately $295 billion. Read more | | | |
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