Even though news of potential interest rate cuts has led to optimism that the IPO window might reopen and things might improve in Startup Land, it appears the global venture capital market has yet to level-out: Early data from PitchBook indicates global VC investment in startups continued to slide in the fourth quarter of 2023.
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While things are down sharply in the United States compared to the heady days of 2021, investment trends seem to have largely reached a new normal — U.S. startups raised $37.5 billion in Q4 2023, which wasn’t much less than the $37.6 billion they raised in Q2 2023 and $39.8 billion in Q4 2022.
In contrast, here’s what’s happening globally:We are still going down, folks!
Happy New Year, and welcome to the 78th installment of Pitch Deck Teardown!
This week, we are taking a closer look at Pepper Bio‘s seed pitch deck that landed the company $6.5 million.
Unlike CancerVax (which I ripped apart in a previous teardown for being completely unbelievable), Pepper Bio has a strong team and a lot of promise.
In a world that’s often laden with deeply technical language, Pepper Bio sets itself apart for a moment.
In the rest of this teardown, we’ll look at three things Pepper Bio could have improved or done differently, along with its full pitch deck!
The FTC has proposed tightening up the rules protecting kids from the surveillance economy.
The updated rules would require companies to get the OK from parents before sharing data with advertisers and prohibit holding onto data for nebulous “internal operations,” among other things.
“After the FTC announced it was considering revisions to the COPPA Rule, we received more than 175,000 comments,” the agency noted in a news release.
Better justification for “nudges,” like push notifications to get kids to open an app or stay online.
The FTC rules will have to stand for a while to come.
Even without Adobe, things don’t look too bad for Figma CB Insights estimates that Figma is still worth between $8.3 billion and $9 billionA failed acquisition often spells doom for the target company.
But despite its $20 billion takeover by Adobe not going through, there are reasons to think that Figma will be just fine.
That the online design company will get a $1 billion termination fee from Adobe will help soften the blow.
So, “no, startups, you’re not getting a breakup fee unless it’s a sizable enough deal where there is antitrust risk,” VC Ed Sim wrote on X.
But in the Adobe-Figma deal, where both companies knew that this risk was front and center, even a $1 billion fee seems only fair compared to the uncertainty ahead.
Even though the economy is signaling a bit of a bounce-back, 2024 might not be much better than 2023 when it comes to startups sharing a piece of the budget pie.
If startups want a chance of making it through yet another bumpy year, they need to prove their worth now more than ever.
Investors told TechCrunch’s Ron Miller and Rebecca Szkutak that they’re still expecting some pockets of growth.
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For example, 70% of respondents said they plan to hire next year and none are looking to downsize.
Lingrove is taking on laminates — thin layers of wood and other materials — with a carbon-negative option that they claim performs better while looking as good.
Lingrove has developed a wood veneer alternative out of flax fiber and plant-based resins that’s carbon-negative yet results in a material they say is “very high stiffness, durable, and resistant,” i.e.
They call it “ekoa” — yes, in lowercase — and hope to make inroads in cars and other interior surfaces with a new $10 million funding round.
The Series B round was led by Lewis & Clark Agrifood and Diamond Edge Ventures, with participation from Bunge Ventures and SOSV.
You may wonder, as I did, why not use actual wood — things like sawdust and wood chips already coming out of industrial wood-handling processes?
