Startup

The company, which announced a $4.71 million round of funding on October 20, aims to help the insurance industry grapple with the increasing disasters caused by climate change. Cofounder Nathaniel Manning, a software engineer who worked in the Obama-era White House on open data for humanitarian response and later ran Ushahidi, a software platform for crisis response, had seen, firsthand, how critical insurance was to recovery. “I just had this realization that insurance was really this very beautiful and elegant solution to protecting people from crises,” he says. “I got obsessed, but I hadn’t worked in insurance, I worked in tech.” He partnered with Andrew Engler, who had worked in the reinsurance industry, to begin to work on the challenge: How can insurance companies survive and continue to offer homeowners coverage as disasters like wildfires come with larger and larger costs? … [Read more...] about This startup can predict where the next California fire will start

According to MarketWatch, 2020 has been a record year for SPAC mergers, with more than 80 announced as of September. While they’ve become a popular pared-down alternative to the traditional IPO process, a recent report from Renaissance Capital found they often result in lower returns, and critics claim they could allow companies to skirt regulatory safeguards. Jay Clayton, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, recently vowed more scrutiny of the process. … [Read more...] about ‘Last-mile’ space delivery startup Momentus is going public: Here’s what to know

Airbnb: home sharing SpaceX: private spaceflight Robinhood: investment platform Stripe: payments processing Impossible Foods: plant-based foods Carta: capitalization table management Instacart: grocery delivery Coinbase: digital currency exchange Databricks: software Houzz: interior design Some of these companies, notably Airbnb, are already known to be planning an exit this year. Others have been the subject of recent IPO speculation, including Robinhood and Coinbase. … [Read more...] about What’s the next hot IPO? Maybe one of these 10 startups, if investors get their way

You’ll need to manage investor expectations and deliver consistently As a private company, we had a small group of investors we communicated with at periodic board meetings. Post-IPO, we suddenly had a broad, distributed public shareholder base that could constantly deliver feedback through the stock price. For better or worse, quarterly earnings performance relative to market expectations is a key driver of the stock’s performance. A paramount lesson that all public company CEOs must learn: the foundation of a stable, predictable business is staying consistent with your messaging, setting reasonable goals, and exceeding them. For us, that meant focusing and excelling in two key areas: recurring subscription and satisfied customers.  … [Read more...] about Best advice for tech companies going public: Keep the startup energy alive

commit $1 million to help support nascent carbon-removal technology, and unveiled the first projects it’s backing last May: A company that sucks carbon directly from the air, another that creates “bio-oil” that can be injected underground, a company that sequesters carbon in concrete, and a startup that plans to spread a mineral called olivine on beaches, where it will interact with waves to capture carbon. Stripe’s customers can now help fund the same work with a few clicks. … [Read more...] about Stripe now lets businesses put money directly into carbon removal