Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced tackle this week’s startup information and tendencies by Senior Reporter and Fairness co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe right here.
One of many quieter conversations in enterprise capital has solely grown louder, in my DMs and interviews, over the previous few months: The recognized bias in enterprise capital has been a branding problem for a few of the rising, numerous fund managers simply now splashing onto the scene.
Everybody has a narrative, however all of them sound a bit comparable: A feminine VC is launching a fund, and he or she’s both in comparison with each different feminine VC with a fund, anticipated to solely put money into feminine founders or have a range, fairness and inclusion angle as a core thesis. The othering that occurs, from an ever-homogenous group of LPs and even founders who see feminine VCs as monolithic, has led to some feminine VCs rebranding their corporations altogether so they’re seen as past their gender.
Learn my full tackle this subject with Rebecca Szkutak on TC+: “For feminine VCs, bias is a branding problem.”
In the remainder of this article, we’ll speak about Upfront Summit 2023 and a stunning Higher deal. As at all times, you possibly can observe me on Twitter or Instagram to proceed the dialog.
VC confab brings surprises and AI
All of your favourite enterprise journalists have been busy this week at Upfront Summit 2023, a two-day, invite-only occasion that brings collectively trade insiders — and celebrities — to speak about the way forward for capital. I interviewed the previous and current guard over at Kapor Capital. I shook fingers with Jamie Lee Curtis and stole interview ideas from Kara Swisher. And Al Gore tried to recruit the complete viewers to be extra critical on combating local weather change.
All in all, the convention mainly fueled my story plans for the subsequent month, so keep tuned for plenty of follow-up angles. And a few scoops too. I’ll begin with a recap on the AI conversations throughout stage.
Right here’s why it’s vital: In the event you ask me, AI was the omnipresent movie star at Upfront. It’s not stunning: Hyped-up applied sciences typically get outsized curiosity. However the ambiance is completely different from what it was in 2021 when traders have been throwing billions of {dollars} at 15-minute grocery supply corporations and web3. Enterprise dry powder is locked up, offers are getting carried out slower and a few traders are nonetheless licking their wounds from the downturn to this point.
Picture Credit: Clark Studio
The follow-up
My colleagues took the mic this week on Fairness to speak by means of the most recent and biggest headlines. The entire present was a hoot. Unexpectedly, for all, was the return of Higher.com. Information broke earlier this week that Amazon is letting staff use their inventory to finance house purchases and even second houses.
Right here’s why it’s vital: It’s a artistic, but additionally stunning, partnership. Higher has been an Amazon Internet Companies buyer since 2015 and its mortgage origination system is powered completely by the software program, in response to an announcement. Nonetheless, Higher has been by means of its fair proportion of struggles which have forged doubt on its future. Should we run by means of all of the filings?
Picture Credit: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
And so forth., and many others.
Seen on TechCrunch
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Avid gamers are fixing a online game ‘taken over’ by hackers
Seen on TechCrunch+
Maybe Substack can develop simply effective with out enterprise {dollars}
Pitch Deck Teardown: Gable’s $12M Collection A deck
Does web3 want a enterprise bailout now that AI has all of the hype?
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