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| | | Last November, we surveyed several investors to find out where they were seeking opportunities in fintech. But that was a very different time. Now that the global economy is seeing widespread disruptions with no end in sight, we revisited the sector by reaching out to eight top VCs: - Matt Harris, Bain Capital Ventures
- Charles Birnbaum, Bessemer Venture Partners
- Jackson Gates, Manresa Ventures
- Rob Moffat, Balderton Capital
- Hope Cochran, Madrona Ventures
- Brendan Dickinson, Canaan
- Yann Ranchere, Anthemis
- Cherry Miao, Accel
Next week, we’ll publish the rest of their commentary, which looks forward to what the fintech landscape might resemble after this crisis is over. Also this week: highlights from our conference call with Bradley Tusk, a look at a surprising IPO that came across our radar, and information on how you can join our Thursday Extra Crunch Live event with Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures, plus much more. Stay safe, and have a great week. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Andrey Suslov / Getty Images | | In today’s column, Alex Wilhelm studies recent data from Crunchbase and wealth management firm Stifel to get a handle on April’s venture capital market for software companies, and finds that “it’s not bad news!” Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch / | | Dear Sophie: We've decided to wind down our existing startup to move on to a new biotech opportunity. A co-founder is on H-1B and we sponsored an employee for a TN. How can we support both of them to stay in the U.S.? — Winding Down in Woodside Read more | | | |
| |  | | Berlin-based Delivery Hero operates delivery brands in more than 300 cities and directly employs 22,000 people, so we spoke to CEO Niklas Östberg to find out what he’s learned in recent weeks. Although food delivery is still primary, the company has branched out into bringing customers groceries and prescriptions. “And now we've seen recovery happening and in some markets we are even above earlier levels,” says Östberg. Read more | | | |
| |  | | He lives in Spain and helps manage more than 70 people distributed across 30 countries, so Doist co-founder Amir Salihefendic is a strong believer in asynchronous communication. Every conversation doesn’t have to happen in real time if you have the right tools, so Greg Kumparak spoke to Salihefendic about finding the right mix for managing remote teams. Read more | | | |
| |  | | Looking at recent gains for trading app Robinhood and M1 Finance, a savings and investment service based in Chicago, Senior Editor Alex Wilhelm reports that “non-traditional fintech savings and investing apps are doing real numbers.” Is the economic crunch already encouraging consumers to save cash and search for stock market bargains? Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Lance Anderson / Unsplash (Image has been modified) | | The Q1 fundraising numbers for Boston-area startups are in, and “the financing market has frozen up as solid as the Charles River in February,” says Jeff Bussgang, an investor with Flybridge Capital Partners. Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm interviewed four top VCs in the area to get their sense of how the pandemic has impacted local startups and what might lie ahead. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Steve Jennings / Stringer / Getty Images | | Unlike many investors, Bradley Tusk is known for backing startups that seek to disrupt highly-regulated industries like ride-hailing, cannabis and sports betting. We spoke to Tusk about opportunities in a COVID-19 world, risk-taking in regulated industries and whether Tusk Ventures is still open for business during the pandemic. Watch a video of our complete conversation or read an excerpt on Extra Crunch. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Treedeo / Getty Images | | In his weekly recap of security-related news, Zack Whittaker reports on recent efforts to bring voting by mail to the fall U.S. elections, a major security lapse that exposed source code for Clearview AI, the latest cyberattacks coming out of North Korea and a look at how “Auth0 escaped what could've been a pretty nasty security incident.” Read more | | | |
| |  | | If you live in a U.S. Territory — or know someone who does — you can now purchase an Extra Crunch subscription for yourself or as a gift. Read more | | | |
| |  | | For Salman Ullah, co-founder and managing director of Merus Capital, countries that have a more cohesive response to the current crisis are better places to invest than the United States. "Your dollar goes much further in Europe, rents are lower, everyone gets free healthcare, essentially," he says. "And the level of education and expertise in computer science in particular is no better or worse than in the U.S. And I think the pandemic has just kind of reinforced that." Read more | | | |
| |  | | Despite a surge in usage, the COVID-19 pandemic is boosting some app companies and hobbling others. VSCO laid off approximately 30% of its staff last week to extend its runway in a less-friendly funding environment, while video chat app Houseparty saw 50 million new signups in the last month. Read more | | | |
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