venture capital

3 founders discuss how to navigate the nuances of early-stage fundraising • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 30, 2022Posted in Alloy Automation, EC TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, EC venture capital, fiveable, fundraising, Parthean, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Fundraising isn’t a monolithic event but rather a series of meetings and pleasantries, each with their own vibe and nuance. Yet many pieces of fundraising advice to founders paint the process with a broad brush. We heard from three founders at ZebethMedia Disrupt last week: Amanda DoAmaral, co-founder and CEO of Fiveable; Arman Hezarkhani, founder of Parthean; and Sarah Du, co-founder of Alloy Automation, each of whom has raised in the extreme highs and lows of last 18 months. They spoke about navigating the process, what worked (and what didn’t) and how to customize your pitch to navigate the many subtleties of fundraising. For DoAmaral, it was important to spend time researching which investors may actually back her company. She said she’s had investors take meetings with her due to a warm intro despite having no actual intention to invest. “My co-founder and I got in a car and drove down to Tennessee thinking we’re gonna get this check. And this guy didn’t even trust me to like, be an attendee at this event. They’re not writing the check,” DoAmaral recalled. “People are not going to take me seriously if they’re not going to see me as someone that is their equal at all.” Du added that performing due diligence on potential backers beforehand is helpful, not only to find out whether they might actually invest in the company, but also if they will be good to work with. This is especially true for founders raising at the early stages who are looking at a long relationship ahead.

With Musk’s purchase completed, NYSE will delist Twitter stock on Election Day • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 28, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Happy Friday! Haje is enjoying some down time on the East Coast, so I am running solo. As you can see from the not-so-surprising move by Elon Musk last night and the sheer number of Twitter stories from our fabulous consumer tech team today, it has been all Twitter, all day. We promise to give you a little bit of that, of course, and a little of what else we’ve been working on. Let’s dive in, shall we? — Christine The ZebethMedia Top 3 Flying the public coop: Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter, its days are numbered as a public company. In fact, Ivan writes, Twitter will be delisted on November 8 — voting day for the U.S. midterm elections. Caging the bird: Over to Europe, where just a few hours into actually owning Twitter, Musk already found himself on the wrong end of European Union officials, who corrected him after he tweeted about how free he thinks Twitter is now. Natasha L has more. Big Tweet Chief: Reports now say that Musk will take the CEO role for himself, Ivan writes, after he ousted Twitter’s four top executives, as reported by Amanda. For more news on the blue bird, head down to the Big Tech Inc. section, where we have you covered. Startups and VC Unfortunately, the hits keep coming for 54gene, an African genomics startup focused on providing more African genetic material to pharmaceutical research — there is just 3% now, Tage reports. After some months of layoffs and a CEO exit, the company confirmed that it not only made yet another round of layoffs — this time of 100 people — but it also slashed its valuation by over $100 million. And we have three more for you: Robot riot: Galen Robotics has a new robot that will assist with ear, nose and throat surgeries. Oh, and it secured $15 million in new funding, Andrew reports. Follow the yellow brick road: Game studio Hidden Door is using narrative AI to turn fiction into immersive role-playing experiences, and Rebecca writes it is testing out “The Wizard of Oz.” Does anyone else use this word?: I was delighted to see that there is a company named Skidattl. The company is using augmented reality to show users what people are doing around them, in what Rebecca writes is “like a Bat-Signal for fun.” 5 ways biotech startups can mitigate risk to grow sustainably in the long run Image Credits: jayk7 (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Thanks to R&D and clinical trials, life science startups have long lead times before they can bring their capital-intensive products to market. “But,” asks Omar Khalil, a partner at Santé Ventures, “what happens when the funding suddenly dries up?” In a guest post for TC+, he shares five strategies for biotech startups that are trying to stay warm through the winter ahead. “It’s still too early to know whether this is a short-term correction, or if it’s a new normal that will be maintained for the foreseeable future.” Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. As promised, we have even more Twitter news for you to enjoy. As I write this, several of my colleagues hopped on Twitter Spaces to talk about all this. One of the latest bits of news from Taylor was that Elon Musk was forming a content moderation “council” to make certain decisions — for example, about account reinstatements for, cough, Donald Trump. Here’s two more: Catching you up on more earnings reports: And we have four more for you:

Mason raises $7.5M seed round to scale its no-code commerce engine • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello! And it’s Thursday! We are all waiting with bated breath for the latest installment of “Will Elon Actually Buy Twitter or Will He Squirrel Out of It” — the miniseries of indeterminate length and too many twists and turns to enumerate. Supposedly we’ll learn more tomorrow, but who knows. Also, what is time? And if we all leave Twitter in droves, where will we discuss all of this drama? Our fave little story today was Romain’s, covering these adorable houseplants that can be used as air purifiers. Haje is out tomorrow, so a very happy weekend from him, and Christine will look after all your crunchy needs tomorrow. Adios! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Ixnay on the self-drivay: Darrell has had it with all the speculation and calls it: “Truly autonomous vehicles just aren’t going to happen. The evidence pointing to this has been mounting for years now, if not decades, but it’s now tipped the balance to where it’s hard to ignore for a reasoned observer — even one like myself who has previously been very optimistic about self-driving prospects,” he writes. Darrell, we love you, and we hope you’ve never been more wrong. Closing the barn after the horse has bolted: We also have the latest on Elon Musk after his now-famous Twitter office sink video: Amanda reports on his open letter to Twitter advertisers that people have it all wrong about why he is buying the social media giant, but also that Twitter cannot become “a free-for-all hellscape.” Rebecca writes that Musk now says he won’t fire 75% of Twitter’s staff. Avoiding that seller’s tax: Jagmeet writes that sellers on Amazon have to meet certain requirements to sell on the platform, but a startup called Mason is out to change that. The India- and California-based startup secured $7.5 million in fresh funding, led by Accel and Ideaspring Capital, to offer an Amazon-like selling experience but without requiring that “Amazon tax.” Startups and VC There’s a ton of new funds happening all at once, seemingly. Christine reports that Streamlined Ventures, led by Ullas Naik, secured $140 million in new capital commitments for its two newest funds. Haje reports that Human Impact Capital is a new $50 million fund investing in social impact startups, and Mike notes that Paris-based VC Satgana completes the first close of its €30 million fund to back climate tech startups. Meanwhile, there were a bunch of mega-rounds that put the actual investment funds to shame; it’s a weird world when you can’t skim the headline numbers to figure out whether it’s a company raising a round or a new fund closing. We’re collecting a handful of ’em below. 5 tips for launching in a crowded web3 gaming market Image Credits: Chelsea Sampson (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Every online product requires some network effect, but gaming is unique: Without large, loyal and enthusiastic customers, there’s no way to build products that can be monetized. Play-to-earn games (P2E) are particularly susceptible to this problem, which is why “building a game that succeeds in the long term means developing monetization strategies that can weather market ebbs and flows,” says Corey Wilton, co-founder and CEO of Mirai Labs, the gaming studio behind Pegaxy. In this primer for P2E founders, Wilton shares suggestions for how to approach investors, explains why tokens are not a reliable fundraising vehicle and discusses the recent “shift toward Web 2.0 monetization.” Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. The New York Post had to do some deleting today after it was discovered that someone hacked into both the newspaper’s website and its Twitter account, Zack reports. The article headlines in question were racist and sexually violent in nature, and the newspaper told ZebethMedia that an employee was to blame for the incident but did not go into further details on how it came to that conclusion. Also, our team paid attention to earnings so you didn’t have to. Rebecca has a look into Ford’s third-quarter earnings, which she reports took a $2.7 billion hit related to Argo AI, which we reported yesterday was being shut down. Meanwhile, over at Meta, Amanda writes that Meta had yet another decline in its third-quarter revenue. And now we have three more for you: Googling: Google Cloud has entered web3 territory with a managed blockchain node service by taking on the heavy lifting there so that developers can do their thing, Ron reports. Meanwhile, Manish has details on a $100 million acquisition the search engine giant made in Alter, an AI avatar startup. On an acquisition roll: Ron also reported on yet another Thoma Bravo acquisition. This time, it and Sunstone Partners announced the proposed acquisition of UserTesting for $1.3 billion. The company plans to combine it with its UserZoom, another company Thoma Bravo acquired in 2021. Get your health advice here: YouTube says it will begin certifying channels for licensed health professionals, like doctors, nurses or therapists, who produce health-related content, Ivan writes.

Human Impact Capital is a new $50M fund investing in social impact startups • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in EnjoyVenture, Germany, Redstone, social impact, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Redstone and EnjoyVenture have combined forces to create Human Impact Capital (HIC), Germany’s first dedicated scial impact VC fund. The fund will deploy cash into digital business models focusing on health, education and “living,” and explicitly invests to have an impact along sustainable development goals. To HIC, this means “No Poverty, Good Health and Wellbeing, Quality Education, Gender Equality and Reduced Inequalities.” I spoke with the fund’s manager, Lucas Paul, to find out what drove the creation of the fund and its investment thesis. “We are convinced that innovation is key to overcoming the biggest social challenges of our time, and we are dedicated to contributing to a better future and supporting innovation through investments in social impact startups,” said Paul in an interview with ZebethMedia. “Entrepreneurs providing solutions to these social problems will advance our society and lay the foundation for the generations to come. While impact VC investments are on the rise, 75% of those flow into environmental topics.” For the initial closing, the fund decided to partner with strategic anchor investors having strong ties to the social sector. Among others, the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, Germany’s leading bank for the social sector, committed substantially to HIC, fund reps told me. The fund aims to invest in digital business models that tackle society’s biggest challenges, typically investing between €500,000 and €1.5 million. The firm focuses on early-stage startups in Europe, and reserves more than 60% of its commitments to follow-on investments. “We firmly believe that economic profit and positive impact mutually reinforce each other and will accelerate at scale. We’d like to prove this fundamental belief and show that we’re able to generate above-average returns for our investors while maximizing the social impact of our investments,” Paul said. “Ideally, this concept is proven and widely accepted 10 years from now, which would make the world a better place.” One of the areas where the firm believes it can have an impact, and where it is actively seeking to invest, is in technologies that make aging smoother. “One element that is a common characteristic of all Western society is an aging population. Access to this growing target group is crucial today and will become even more important in the future. The challenge needs to be faced now. We currently do not see a lot of models that have solved the problem of accessing this group and of including them in an ever-changing jungle of digital solutions,” said Paul. “Most digital startups simply ignore people older than 50 within their target group and are missing out on enormous revenue potential while the quality of life of the elderly stagnates. We’d like to see more ambitious founding teams working on solutions for the elderly to ensure health care, to protect the aging population while limiting loneliness.”

After buying Twitter, will Musk bite back at Apple’s in-app purchase fees? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Wednesday, and we’re excited to bring you another round of our esteemed Daily Crunch newsletter. There’s a wide variety of morsels, nuggets, and other bite-sized delights, so let’s go! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Startups and VC Asset management firm Stone Ridge has launched a startup accelerator, Wolf, that will be dedicated to growing Bitcoin-focused applications. The program will bring four cohorts per year, each consisting of about eight to 12 teams, or about 30 to 50 founders, to New York City from around the world for eight weeks at a time to focus on building on the Bitcoin-centric Lightning Network and Taro protocol, Kelly Brewster, CEO of Wolf, told Jacquelyn. Today, for a series of climate-related conversations organized by the global venture firm SOSV, Connie interviewed famed investor Chris Sacca. In their chat, Sacca dismissed questions around whether efforts like carbon capture can work at scale. (“The naysayers kind of fuel me, actually.”) He also said — naturally — that he has “no doubt we will have multiple companies worth trillions of dollars that emerge from our portfolio.” It wound up being a fairly wide-ranging conversation. Moar? Moar! Investors are sitting on mountains of cash: Where will it be deployed? Image Credits: H-Gall (opens in a new window) / Getty Images No matter what’s happening in the public markets, bees make honey and venture capitalists raise money: It’s just what they do. But since the “extreme valuation recalibration” in the public markets, VCs are amassing more and more dry powder, write Jeremy Abelson and Jacob Sonnenberg of Irving Investors. More frustrating news for founders: Investor fundraising “is on pace to finish the year at $172 billion,” but capital deployment is way down. “Dollars are flowing and will continue to flow, but it will be more capital to fewer companies,” they write. Now that “traditional SaaS has become too expensive and secondarily saturated,” sectors like web3, life sciences and agtech will attract more investors, they predict. Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. Kirsten has some late-breaking news that Ford’s and VW’s autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI will be shut down and parts of it will be absorbed by the two companies. This story is still developing, so keep going back to it for more, particularly a comment from the companies in question. Who doesn’t like a good fraction yelled at them? Duolingo certainly does not. Natasha M writes that Duolingo’s owl will now shout all the fractions you want at you as part of its new math app that is now public after spending some months in beta. And we have five more for you:

New Paris-based VC Satgana completes the first close of its €30M fund to back ClimateTech startups • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Climate, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

While ClimateTech may be all the rage right now – and for good reasons – new VC Paris-based firm Satgana (which means “a good company” in Sanskrit) is hoping its take on the subject will gain traction. It’s now completed the first closing of a target €30m fund to back startups in areas such as food and agriculture, energy, mobility, buildings/industry, plus, more generally, carbon removal and circular economies. The fund will invest up to €500,000 at the pre-seed and seed stages across Europe and Africa, bringing to bear its team which comprises operational and strategic experience. It also plans to apply a ‘diversity and inclusion’ lens pre and post-investment.   So far, the fund has already invested in three ClimateTech startups, with two others to be announced soon, it says. These are:  ● Orbio Earth, a German startup building a platform to for energy providers to monitor and reduce methane emissions using satellite data ● Mazi Mobility, a Kenyan startup building a network of electric motorbikes and a battery swapping infrastructure in East Africa; ● Yeasty, a French startup building an alternative protein leveraging beer yeast with a circular model. Satgana says it has counts 30+ LPs in its first closing, including Thibaud Hug de Larauze (Co-Founder & CEO of impact unicorn Back Market), Josef Bovet (CEO of Tiller Systems), Fabrice de Gaudemar (CEO of Qotto and ex-Executive Board of Eurazeo), Elsa Hermal (Co-Founder of Epicery) and the Family Office Cullom Capital. Romain Diaz, General Partner, said in a statement: “The climate and ecological crisis is the defining issue of our time. As a gigantic challenge ahead of us, it is also a massive business opportunity as we need to reinvent all the sectors of our economies to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement.” Satgana’s Venture partner will be Patrícia Silva (based out of Lisbon), who is also Co-Founder and Non-Executive Director of the Carbon Removal Centre. Investment analyst will be Anil Maguru. Advisors include Lubomila J. (Plan A & Co-Founder Greentech Alliance) and James Crowley (Former Co-founder & CTO of FundApps).

Square Peg Capital closes $550M fund for Southeast Asia, Australia and Israel • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Asia, Australia, Israel, Southeast Asia, square peg capital, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

It’s a tough market for venture capital, but Square Peg Capital is plowing ahead with its focus on Australia (where it is based), Southeast Asia and Israel. The firm announced today that it has closed its fifth fund totaling $550 million. This brings its total raised across all funds to about $1.6 billion. Square Peg has invested in more than 60 companies, and returned over $580 million to its investors across 11 exits at an IRR of 42%. Its counts Australian superannuation funds like Hostplus and AustralianSuper among its backers, and other LPs include new and returning investors from family offices, institutions and endowments. Part of Square Peg’s new capital will be used for its core venture fund, which invests in seed to Series B startups. It will also invest in the later stages of its best-performing portfolio companies through its Opportunities Fund. Square Peg Capital partners Tushar Roy and Piruze Sanbuncu Square Peg has a growing footprint in Southeast Asia, where partners Tushar Roy and Piruze Sabuncu are based. Roy told ZebethMedia in April that Southeast Asia is the firm’s fastest-growing geographical footprint. Half of its last $275 million fund, Fund 3, was invested in Southeast Asia. The firm is focused on five key areas in the region: consumer internet, fintech, edtech and the future of work, healthtech and SaaS. Some of Square Peg’s investments so far from Southeast Asian include LottieFiles, Doctor Anywhere and FinAccel. It’s new fund has also invested in recruitment automation platform Kula and open source Firebase alternative Supabase. Portfolio companies from other regions include Canva, Airwallex and ROKT in Australia, and Fiverr and AIDoc from Israel. In a statement, Sabuncu said, “We already know the potential Southeast Asia presents when we look at the basic macro numbers, but the last few years have proven that you can build global businesses from this region, or create new business models that can disrupt the way people access various services—whether it be lending, education or healthcare.”

After glitch causes a two-hour global outage, WhatsApp restores service • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 25, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Overheard at a VC/startup conference recently: Product market fit is like a product going around from weirdly shaped customer group to weirdly shaped customer group, like that old kid’s book “Are you my mommy?” Startups can be a little bit like that; sometimes the users can surprise you, and the product needs to ask a few different potential customer groups whether it is a good fit. Oh, and Dominic-Madori wants to hear Black founders’ stories of VC fundraising — If you are a Black founder with war stories (or if you know someone who does), get involved! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Startups and VC Bilt Rewards, which works with some of the country’s largest multifamily owners and operators to create loyalty programs and a co-branded credit card for property renters, entered unicorn status after securing $150 million in a growth round at a $1.5 billion valuation led by Left Lane Capital, Christine reports. Emergency response services have had a big boost of data thanks to advances in connected technology, with watches that can detect when their wearers are falling down and are experiencing trauma, cars that can pinpoint where their drivers are located and home systems that can transmit important data about fires when you cannot. These are just a few of the innovations we’ve seen in recent years, and today, a startup called RapidSOS is announcing some funding as it continues to connect the dots for emergency first responders, Ingrid reports. And we have five more for you: 8 questions to answer before your startup faces technical due diligence Image Credits: kutaytanir (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Outsiders study multiple facets of a startup to determine its value and quality, and codebase health is one of them. A pitch deck is just part of the story, writes Matt Van Itallie, founder and CEO of codebase analytics company Sema. After technical due diligence (TDD) begins, no amount of storytelling can cover the secrets buried in GitHub and Jira. To help companies prepare for TDD, Van Itallie has written a primer with eight questions founding teams must be able to answer confidently. Tomorrow, we’ll run his detailed TDD checklist. Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. In the midst of trying out the new Google Pixel 7 Pro’s camera, Haje found “a really dumb, totally avoidable flaw” that detracts from what is otherwise “the best camera phone out there,”and he is telling the world. Speaking of product reviews, Brian has a closer look at macOS Ventura. Also, it’s probably not wise to have your law firm on the opposing side of the same issue. Natasha M brought this to Launch House’s attention when news of a harassment investigation surfaced and now reports that the venture-backed founder’s club split with its law firm. And we have five more for you:

Mobile gaming review — Playing on the Logitech G Cloud with Shadow • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 24, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Good afternoon, and welcome to the final week of October! We’re confused how that happened. Haje is considering dressing up as “supply chain disruptions” for Halloween, whereas Christine is contemplating dressing up as a down round. What’s your spookiest startup-themed costume? Let us know on The Twitters! — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 On cloud 9: Romain chronicles how pairing up the Logitech G Cloud with cloud computing service Shadow not only made for a better gaming experience, but was also “a match made in cloud gaming heaven.” If you like your locks virtual…: Then Level has something you will want to see. Its new Level Lock+ with Apple Home Key support replaces your current lock and enables you to unlock your door and provides you with some exclusivity for now, Darrell writes. Helping hand: Pre-seed startups just got another investor friend in Africa. Annie reports that venture capital firm Flourish launched Madica, an investment program providing “funding, technology support and mentorship to underrepresented founders across the continent.” Startups and VC Haje was mildly surprised and pretty excited after reading Paul’s story about his favorite podcasting app Pocket Casts going open source. Paul points out that it shouldn’t have been that big of a surprise — WordPress makers Automattic bought the platform a while back, and Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg is a huge proponent of open source. To wit: WordPress is among the top open source projects on the planet. While the overall crypto markets have been in a rough spot lately, web3 venture capitalists have never had more conviction — or more funding at their disposal — to back startups and teams building in the space, Anita writes. She’s stoked that Chris Ahn, partner at Haun Ventures; Michelle Bailhe, partner at Sequoia; and Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly will join us onstage at TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17 in Miami. And we have five more for you: To better thwart ransomware attacks, startups must get cybersecurity basics right Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / ZebethMedia Creating systems that are resilient against ransomware isn’t top of mind for early-stage startups, but many companies don’t even follow basic best practices, much to their detriment. “Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) on everything you have,” said Katie Moussouris, founder of Luta Security. “Enable it on every account that you have.” Last week at ZebethMedia Disrupt, Moussouris and Brett Callow, threat analyst at Emsisoft, spoke about the need to invest early in locking down their systems, starting with MFA. “It’s a matter of stacking security layer upon security layer,” said Callow. “MFA in conjunction with staff training — in conjunction with other things — all serve to reduce risk.” Two more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. Make like a lobster and get your pinchers ready — YouTube rolls out a new design that features pinch-to-zoom on iOS and Android. Premium users got first dibs on this, and now all users will start to see it, Lauren writes. There’s also some new things, including “ambient mode” and new buttons under videos, so head on over there and see for yourself. And we have five more for you:

ZebethMedia wants to hear Black founders’ stories of VC fundraising • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 24, 2022Posted in black founders, diversity and inclusion, fundraising, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

On Friday, ZebethMedia reported the latest Crunchbase venture capital data, and the news isn’t very good from a diversity point of view: Black founders raised a paltry $187 million out of the $150.9 billion in venture capital allocated in Q3 this year. To put that into perspective, that’s only 0.12% of the total investment made in the quarter. The story launched a conversation on Twitter about the current state of venture funds for Black founders. It unearthed pain and heartbreak, but it also brought to light the resilience of founders and investors who still have their hearts set on change. It also surfaced the reality that the powers that be — most, if not all, of the rich, white men, LPs and institutions with outsized power — are sticking to their old habits instead of doing much to truly bring about change in how venture capital is invested. One way to hold folks accountable is to keep openly talking about inequities. This is one reason why ZebethMedia has decided to create a forum for Black founders to — anonymously or not — submit their open, honest experiences of what it is like to fundraise for their startups today. We want to hear what investors still say to you behind closed doors. We want to know how often you’ve had to codeswitch, and what the anxiety levels are still like when walking into certain rooms. We want to know the good parts, like who are the allies, but also the bad parts, like who are the bullies. We acknowledge that this is not a new conversation, and there is much fatigue in constantly having the same conversations. But, it’s important to hold on, as there is much work to be done. The questions are below (click the form and scroll). Answer what you wish, as you wish; you can name names, or not. Please try to answer with a paragraph or 2-3 sentences and provide explicit examples where you can. We will publish many of the responses by the end of this year. Thank you for your help!