This 12 months in startups – TechCrunch

Welcome again to Startups Weekly, a weekend publication that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and enterprise capital information. Before I bounce into immediately’s matter, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about U.S. VC exercise in Europe. Before that, I famous Chinese investor exercise in Africa.

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Hello from Berlin, the place we’ve simply wrapped our annual convention, TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. Top traders shared perception into European enterprise capital, well-known people and corporations made bulletins (massive and small), and entrepreneurs pontificated about the way forward for startups of their respective areas.

As I spoke with varied early-stage startup founders presenting on the occasion, chatted with U.S. and European enterprise capitalists and brain-stormed with my colleagues, I mirrored on my final 12 months contained in the tech bubble. Soon, I’ll be publishing an prolonged have a look at what I see because the 10 greatest themes in startups and VC in 2019. But for now, right here’s a sneak peek at my high picks.

1. SoftBank disasters. From WeWork to Wag to Fair.com, SoftBank made headlines again and again this 12 months—for all of the unsuitable causes.
2. WeWork woes. SoftBank’s star portfolio firm struggled probably the most. This was the largest story of the 12 months and its full with medication, non-public jets, burned money and upset workers.
3. CEO exodus. From Away co-founder Steph Korey to WeWork’s Adam Neumann, a complete lot of executives exited their posts this 12 months.
4. Unicorn IPO struggles. Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, Zoom and extra unicorns went public this 12 months. Some fared higher than others.
5. The combat for seed. There was extra competitors than ever on the earliest stage of enterprise capital. As a outcome, traders acquired inventive, employed contemporary faces, raised new funds and even gave founders lavish items.
6. Y Combinator progress. Everyone’s favourite accelerator acquired a complete lot larger this 12 months. Not solely did its cohorts swell, however its president, Sam Altman, stepped down and the agency cemented modifications to its funding course of.
7. VCs + direct listings = <3. When enterprise capitalist weren’t busy gossiping about WeWork and SoftBank, they had been debating a brand new and progressive path to the general public markets: direct listings.
8. Every startup is a financial institution. Brex raised tons of of hundreds of thousands, Stripe launched a company card, bank card startup Deserve nabbed $50 million. 2019 was the 12 months that shopper banking upstarts turned the brand new e-scooter companies.
9. VC isn’t the one choice. While VCs had been going loopy for shopper monetary providers, corporations like Clearbanc and Capital expanded to provide founders options to enterprise capital, like revenue-based financing and enterprise debt.
10.   The range catastrophe persists. Women nonetheless solely increase 2.8% of enterprise capital within the U.S., up from 2.2%. Enough stated.

If you want this article, you’ll positively get pleasure from Equity, which brings the content material of this article to life — in podcast type! Join myself and Equity co-host Alex Wilhelm each Friday for a fast breakdown of the week’s greatest information in enterprise capital and startups.

This week, I sat down with Chris Mayo, head of major markets on the London Stock Exchange, to debate the rise of direct listings.