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Welcome to the weekend! We have a a lot of soil to cover today, so pour some coffee, settle and roll with me.
Big sell-off?
Remember when Amplitude listed directlystart trading, and then run into a wall when it reports fourth quarter 2021 earnings? It’s hardly the public tech companies alone to make the cut in early 2022, but the scale of its re-valuation still stands. Now, Instacart is going through something similarthough on the private market.
Should we expect more private companies to also change the way they measure their stock prices to better attract new entrants and better stay current employees? Probably. GGV’s Jeff Richards had some food for friday thoughts:
Yes. Nothing escapes the market. You can bypass reality by raising venture capital and not see a re-pricing until you raise capital again. Sure. But if you’re a late-stage unicorn with plenty of cash, how do you determine your market value if you don’t raise new capital?
If Instacart is where a trend started, the apartment could really – once again – new point when it comes to startup pricing.
Technori looking for a new home
A little fact about me is that I went to school in Chicago, and thus I got into and around the city’s tech scene as a young journalist. This meant I went to community events, working to better understand what was going on. i met Justyn Howard when Sprout Social was a startup (it’s now public) and I had to go to Uber’s launch dinner in the city when it was just black cars. (That’s where I met my first TechCrunch reporter, who later helped me get hired at the publisher, for the first time.)
Back then, there was a community effort that was successful called Technori, which hosts events that showcase local tech endeavors. It was good fun.
Since then, Technori develop become a media game, with podcasts and pitch events, helping startups raise capital through equity crowdfunding. I was back in sync with the company when its CEO, Scott Kitunlet me in podcasts. And now Technori is back in our lenses because it’s sold to KingsCrowd, a service that tests and ranks startups raising capital on online platforms. Given that Technori has evolved into a platform to help people get a raise, this tie-in seems logical.
Kitun says that the transaction is an entire stock. KingsCrowd also has a communications strategy, so the two companies have a lot of overlap.
Kitun told The Exchange in an interview that he’s excited about the Technori-KingsCrowd deal because it will make startups examine crowdfunding more data-driven, rather than data-driven. because it’s based on his instincts. We’ll have to wait and see if in time the pair of companies can drive more total capital into the startup market through fundraising and how much of it reaches Chicago.
Expanding our lens a little, remember that The public recently bought Otis, looking to add more types of investments to its platform. We could somewhat put the Technori and KingsCrowd deal under a similar umbrella, in that the duo wanted to make a deal to put a newer investment in the hands of the average person.
This may not be the last we hear about Kitun, as he is a co-founder at SongFincha separate company.
Changes to the specialist program
This week, I changed roles at TechCrunch, swapping my full-time reporter hat for an editor-in-chief gig at TechCrunch+. Longtime reader of The Exchange’s posts and newsletters on the website will know that much of my work over the past few years has been on the paid web. I don’t stop writing altogether, but we’re actively expanding the TechCrunch+ team. So, inner strap if you are not a member yet. (For those living in the US, apply discount code EICEXCHANGE at checkout for 25% off.) This is going to be a bad year.
We’re making some changes, including shortening the Expert program that’s been running for a few years. Attempts to create a database of activity-based startups – SEO, say – is part of our shared vibe of helping founders build. But from here on, we’re going to grow our efforts into sections targeted more at gathering insights from the different operators in the market than creating a list of vendors. there may be.
This does mean, however, that we’re leaving some fruit on the vine, so a final note from the Experts on a participant. Growthcurve was the last company that we included in the old format. Under that old structure, people wrote to endorse the group. Mariam Danielova’s ANNA Money say they are reliable, results-oriented, [and] data-driven” is all you can hope for from the growth marketing team.
One thing I’ve learned from deleting TechCrunch+ decks of earlier efforts, and thus spending time reading through older interview files and the like, is the lingering importance of SEO. It appeared in the founder of Growthcurve Mulenga Agley’s notes that I’ve been parsing and I wonder if in the new iOS 14 world we live in will become more important? If so, I consider it bullying Google.
Regardless, The Exchange own Anna Heim will still undertake some instruction with outside operating specialists. It will just look a little different this year. Thanks to everyone who participated in the past and Growthcurve for being the final participant in the ledger.
Go ahead!
