💰 Top 4 Curated VC Picks + Must-Read Top 3 Books for 13Dec2023
🗒️ Some of the most powerful women in finance gather to discuss how women can increase their power on Wall Street
Fortune: Good morning. What would it take for women to increase their ranks in senior investment roles and executive committee positions?
That was the question on the table at yesterday’s 100 Women in Finance Global FundWomen Week conference in New York City, which aimed to connect female fund managers with institutional allocators.
Gains for women in alternatives, which includes hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital, have inched along. Female employment in alternatives rose marginally last year to 21.3%, up from 20.9% in 2021, according to Preqin’s Women in Alternatives 2023 report. Women accounted for 32.5% of junior level positions in alternatives but only held 13.6% of senior level positions, Preqin said. Women accounted for 10.3% of board membership among fund managers and 14.2% of investors.
🗒️ $27 billion up in smoke – that's how much cash the 3,200 startups that failed this year had raised, says PitchBook
Yahoo Finance:
- Just over $27 billion in venture funding was raised by startups that failed this year, per NY Times.
- That figure is close to the amount raised by startups in the third quarter of 2023, according to EY.
- The cash burn figure excludes public companies and acquisitions.
Startups are having a pretty grim year.
Just over $27 billion in venture funding was raised by the 3,200 startups that failed in 2023, The New York Times reported, citing figures from startup tracker PitchBook.
That's close to the amount raised by startups from venture capital in the third quarter of 2023 ($29.8 billion), according to accounting firm EY.
🗒️ Where could VC funding be going into in 2024?
Yahoo Finance: Crunchbase data reveals that early-stage startup funding plunged 34% year-over-year in November. Lux Capital General Partner Bilal Zuberi joined Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith at the Barclays Global Technology Conference to discuss implications for venture capital funding
Zuberi stated the last year has been a “downer” for VCs amid scarce liquidity events like IPOs. This forced startups to take on cost-saving strategies through layoffs and operational changes to achieve profitability. However, he sees areas like defense tech, AI, and human productivity enhancement as needed areas of investment, calling them “important for society” and venture returns.
Though strategies have shifted from purely top-line growth toward “building real, profitable businesses,” Zuberi argues sectors enriching lives and pushing boundaries still command capital
🗒️ The Impact Of Emerging Technologies On The Venture Capital Ecosystem
Forbes: What is the impact of emerging technologies on the venture capital ecosystem? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Trina Van Pelt, VP and Senior Managing Director at Intel Capital, on Quora:
Two key areas stand out in regard to the impact of emerging technologies on the venture capital ecosystem – robotics and autonomy.
Robotics is experiencing a surge in interest and investment within venture capital. The confluence of various technologies, such as high performance compute, AI, next gen sensors, new battery technology, advanced materials, 3D printing and manufacturing techniques, has enabled viable business models for today’s use cases.
Top 3 book summaries this week 📚
Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
Keith Ferrazzi believes real networking is about finding ways to make other people more successful. His book Never Eat Alone is a full course banquet of advice on the subject.
Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath
Why is it that we can like or dislike people long before we know much about them? Why is it we distrust strangers without knowing why? Why on the other hand do we give too much weight to the information that’s right in front of us, while failing to consider the information that’s just offstage? These are the problems that Chip and Dan Heath have set out to address in their book Decisive. How can we do better?
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
The description "Machiavellian" conjures up unscrupulous, opportunistic, amoral characteristics. But can we apply any of Niccolo Machiavelli's lessons in today's business world? If we replace competitive city states with competitive businesses, ambitious growth plans for territory with ambitious growth plans for market share and attainment of assets though conflict with attainment of assets through mergers and acquisition... then the parallels are there for all to see.