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We spend a lot of time praising tech investors and entrepreneurs for their risk appetite. But why don’t we put startup workers on the same pedestal?

Who’s taking on more risk: A Stanford grad who leveraged their network to raise a seed round or an immigrant worker who relocates to an expensive city for a startup job?

In its latest yearly report, Secfi, which helps workers manage equity, found that 24% of the companies on its platform reduced their valuations last year.

“For people working at those startups, that means some (in some cases, all) of their employee stock options spent 2022 underwater,” writes Secfi CEO Frederik Mijnhardt.

Considering how central equity is to attracting tech talent, “underwater stock options have the potential to negatively impact hiring and retention across the startup ecosystem,” he writes.

Investors won’t stop pushing for down rounds anytime soon and more layoffs are coming. Here’s some candid advice for late-stage startup workers:

Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members.
Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription.

Hoping for the best is not a strategy, and your employers will say whatever they need to keep you focused and productive. If or when you get laid off, there’s a chance that a TechCrunch reporter will find out before you do.

If you’ve been nurturing an idea for a company, put together a pitch deck and start reaching out now to investors. They will be more receptive than you think.

That’s no hot take.

Yesterday, Monique Woodard tweeted that she’s launched Cake Ventures Fund I, “a $17M seed and pre-seed fund.” Similarly, Axios reports that Social Capital is shifting the focus of its new fund to early-stage deals.

Expect other VC firms to follow suit; despite the maverick myth of the tech investor, herd mentality dominates.

Raising enough funds to build your MVP and strive for product-market fit might sound risky, but is it any more precarious than working at a late-stage startup in Q1 2023?

Thanks for reading,

Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist

You’re not going to grow into your 2021 valuation

Many, if not most, founders who are attached to their 2021 valuations are living in a fantasy, according to Jeremy Abelson and Jacob Sonnenberg of Irving Investors.

For this TC+ post, they worked out “the simple math behind how long it will take companies to price their IPO at a flat round to their previous 2021 valuations.”

Companies with 75% YoY growth “can entertain the discussion,” but “if you are growing sub-30%, there is a strong chance that growing into your 2021 valuation is impossible.”

Why Africa had no unicorns last year despite record fundraising haul

Unicorns are becoming an endangered species in Africa’s startup ecosystem, reports Tage Kene-Okafor.

Although funding in the region increased slightly in 2022, “no unicorns popped up throughout the year, compared to five in 2021,” he writes.

“So what happened in Africa in 2022 that made it so … weird?”

Predictions for the longevity industry in 2023

A silver tsunami is approaching.

“By 2030, the 50-plus market is projected to swell to 132 million people, who are projected to spend an average of $108 billion every year on tech products,” according to Abby Miller Levy, managing partner and founding president of Primetime Partners.

Services like telemedicine and preventative care are just two aspects of the market: Longevity tech also encompasses retirement planning and other services targeted at older adults.

“We see incredible founder momentum, untapped areas to build new businesses and a window to an increasingly tech-accessible, rapidly growing consumer market.”

Some investors are (cautiously) implementing ChatGPT in their workflows

Can AI turn out polite pitch rejection letters, automate aspects of due diligence or draft accurate market maps?

Some investors are already evaluating ways to fold ChatGPT “into their workflows to do their jobs better, smarter and maybe even cheaper,” report Natasha Mascarenhas, Christine Hall and Kyle Wiggers.

They interviewed several VCs to learn more about potential use cases, some early experiments and the tech’s limitations when it comes to nuance and tone.

“It’s not automating the important conversations we have with journalists,” said Brianne Kimmel, founder of Worklife Ventures, “but I think it’s sufficient for things that are pretty straightforward.”

How we pivoted our deep tech startup to become a SaaS company

Soon after launching iOS location app Burbn, its developers realized that users were mostly interested in its photo-sharing features.

After making a data-driven pivot, they retooled and rebranded their app, which we now know as Instagram.

ECM PCB Stator Technology was formed to build next-generation electric motors, but after studying the market more closely, CEO Brian Casey determined that a SaaS model offered clear advantages.

“The market forces, customer needs and opportunities that existed for your venture at first raise and launch will almost certainly change down the road,” says Casey.

6 crypto investors talk about DeFi and the road ahead for adoption in 2023

Jacquelyn Melinek surveyed several crypto investors to learn more about what they’re looking for and how they’re advising their portfolio companies in Q1 2023:

Michael Anderson, co-founder, Framework Ventures
Alex Marinier, founder and general partner, New Form Capital
Samantha Lewis, principal, Mercury
Paul Veradittakit, general partner, Pantera Capital
David Gan, founder and general partner, OP Crypto
Mike Giampapa, general partner, Galaxy Ventures

Dear Sophie: Any tips for presenting a strong H-1B case? What if I’m not selected?

Dear Sophie,

I’m currently on regular OPT. My employer will sponsor me in the H-1B lottery in March.

Can you share any tips for presenting a strong H-1B case if I’m selected? If I’m not selected, then what?

— Proficient and Pragmatic

TechCrunch+ roundup: 2022 stock options report, pivot to SaaS, crypto investor survey by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

The facts are clear: Startups are finding funding increasingly difficult to secure, and even unicorns appear cornered, with many lacking both capital and a clear exit.

But equity rounds aren’t the only way for a company to raise money — alternative and other non-dilutive financing options are often overlooked. Taking on debt might be the right solution when you’re focused on growth and can see clear ROI from the capital you deploy.

Not all capital providers are equal, so seeking financing isn’t just about securing capital. It’s a matter of finding the right source of funding that matches both your business and your roadmap.

Here are four things you should consider:

Does this match my needs?

It’s easy to take for granted, but securing financing begins with a business plan. Don’t seek funding until you have a clear plan for how you’ll use it. For example, do you need capital to fund growth or for your day-to-day operations? The answer should influence not only the amount of capital you seek, but the type of funding partner you look for as well.

Start with a concrete plan and make sure it aligns with the structure of your financing:

Match repayment terms to your expected use of the debt.
Balance working capital needs with growth capital needs.

Your term of repayment must be long enough so you can deploy the capital and see the returns. If it’s not, you may end up making loan payments with the principal.

Say, for example, you secure funding to enter a new market. You plan to expand your sales team to support the move and develop the cash flow necessary to pay back the loan. The problem here is, the new hire will take months to ramp up.

If there’s not enough delta between when you start ramping up and when you begin repayments, you’ll be paying back the loan before your new salesperson can bring in revenue to allow you to see ROI on the amount you borrowed.

Another issue to keep in mind: If you’re financing operations instead of growth, working capital requirements may reduce the amount you can deploy.

Let’s say you finance your ad spending and plan to deploy $200,000 over the next four months. But payments on the MCA loan you secured to fund that spending will eat into your revenue, and the loan will be further limited by a minimum cash covenant of $100,000. The result? You secured $200,000 in financing but can only deploy half of it.

With $100,000 of your financing kept in a cash account, only half the loan will be used to drive operations, which means you’re not likely to meet your growth target. What’s worse, as you’re only able to deploy half of the loan, your cost of capital is effectively double what you’d planned for.

Is this the right amount for me at this time?

The second consideration is balancing how much capital you need to act on your near-term goals against what you can reasonably expect to secure. If the funding amount you can get is not enough to move the needle, it might not be worth the effort required.

4 tips to find the funding that fits your business by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

We often hear companies claim: “We will grow into our valuation from 2021.”

That statement is in reference to their expectations of when they’ll price their IPO, or with regards to a future private round. They are implying that they will wait to go public until they can price an IPO higher than or at least at the same valuation as their last funding round. This further implies that the company is opposed to down rounds or publicizing a decrease in their valuation.

Interestingly, these companies claim they can do that — as if growing into one’s 2021 valuation is easy and can happen in the near term.

We always attempt to do the math every time we hear a company make this statement (again, we hear it frequently). In most cases, pricing an IPO at a company’s 2021 valuation is more than a few years away (assuming perfect execution), and in some cases, we don’t think it will ever happen.

Our chart of the quarter depicts the math behind how long it will take companies to price their IPO so they can match their previous valuations:

Using the chart

The layout of the chart is meant to give every company the ability to map itself to the grid using a few metrics. The data will then tell you how long it will take a company to achieve the valuation necessary to price an IPO and match their valuation from 2021. The data ranges are generalized, but they are wide enough to be applicable to nearly every company.

Companies need three inputs to use the chart:

Their own public company comparables group (guidance given below);
How much that comparable group has sold off this year / CY2022 (guidance given below);
Projection of your growth rate.

Step 1

Start with your last round valuation (we mark it at “$100.00”);
Select the comparable group stock performance discount that is closest to your comparable group’s 2022 sell-off:

You’re not going to grow into your 2021 valuation by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

Venture capital funding continued its slump through the end of 2022, and there aren’t any real signs things are going to pick back up for a while. That means more doom and gloom ahead for startups looking to fundraise.

Many startups that tried to avoid raising a regular round in 2022 — or turned to an alternative to hold them over — will find themselves in a tough cash position this year and will have to try to raise.

In the process of securing the funds they need, they may have to raise a down round — which consists of raising at a lower valuation than their last — or take on a deal riddled with legal terms and structure meant to provide downside protection to investors.

A lot of startup founders won’t have a choice as to which deal they’d rather take, but some will, and there are some things to keep in mind when deciding which one might be the better fit.

Multiple investors have recently taken to Twitter and news outlets to express that companies are better off taking a down round and seeing their valuation cut than adding a bunch of structure and investor preferences to a deal. Although founders only get so much choice here.

While, of course, we aren’t looking to provide any actual legal advice here, this recent focus on down rounds did get me thinking: Is that better than a structured round every time? Also, even if investors are touting down rounds, is there any downside? I asked some lawyers to get a better idea.

Does it ever make more sense to raise a structured round over taking a valuation cut? by Rebecca Szkutak originally published on TechCrunch

Tesla has once again lowered prices of its EVs — this time for U.S. buyers — as the automaker scrambles to shore up demand.

This is at least the fourth time the automaker has discounted its vehicles, or offered credits, in the past several months. The price reduction trend kicked off in October when Tesla announced price cuts in China up to 9% on the Model 3 and Model Y. Earlier this month, Tesla reduced prices for Chinese buyers again, this time by nearly 14%.

The company has also tried to woo U.S. and Canadian buyers with price reductions. Tesla offered in early December U.S. buyers a $3,750 credit towards a Model Y or Model 3 if they had their vehicle delivered in December 2022. In the last week of the year, the automaker upped that discount to $7,500, according to the company’s website.

Tesla has turned its attention once again to the U.S. market. The company updated its website last Thursday with new prices for U.S. buyers. The long range Model Y crossover now starts at $52,990 (not including fees), a nearly 20% drop in price.

This new, lower base price is important because it allows buyers to qualify for the $7,500 federal tax incentive. Only EVs priced below $55,000 qualify for the tax credit under new terms established in the Inflation Reduction Act that as signed into law last August.

Tesla also reduced the price of its high-performance Model 3 sedan by 14% to $53,990. Tesla’s oldest and most expensive vehicles, the Model S sedan and Model X, are also cheaper. Although the two vehicles are still far above the $55,000 cap.

The price reductions come as Tesla faces more competition from legacy automakers, startups and, in China, giants like BYD.

Tesla keeps slashing prices, this time by as much as 20% by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

World View, a startup developing stratospheric balloons for Earth observation and tourism, is heading to the public markets. The company announced Friday that it would merge with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Leo Holdings Corp. II in a deal worth $350 million, as the startup seeks to build out what it calls “the stratospheric economy.”

The deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, will provide the combined company with up to $121 million in gross proceeds, plus an option to enter into additional equity financing agreements for up to $75 million. The $121 million figure is assuming no shareholder redemptions, however, and as we’ve seen with some space SPACs in the past – notably Virgin Orbit, which we covered earlier this week – an unexpected number of redemptions can sometimes drastically eat into that figure.

Tucson, Arizona-based World View says its stratospheric remote sensing balloons offer specific benefits over traditional satellites. The company’s remote sensing balloon systems – which it calls Stratollites – can fly at altitudes up to 29 kilometes (95,000 feet), and World View says they could eventually serve verticals from defense to agriculture.

That isn’t the only use case for the balloons, as World View sees it. In 2021, the company also announced its intention to launch a tourism business using the balloons. World View says more than 1,200 people have reserved their place in line for a stratospheric balloon flight; the $500 deposit forms just a fraction of the $50,000 ticket price. Each trip will last between 6-8 hours.

World View has raised $48.9 million to date, according to Crunchbase, with its most recent funding round closing in 2018. Last November, the company announced a partnership with Sierra Nevada Corp. to jointly operate balloons for defense intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The same month, World View announced a separate agreement with atmospheric monitoring company Scepter Inc. to measure methane levels in Texas’ Permian Basin.

SPACs have become a popular vehicle for private companies looking to enter public markets outside the traditional IPO process, and get a large injection of cash in the process. Major space players including Rocket Lab and Planet Labs have all completed SPAC transactions over the past two years. While some companies – like the two I just mentioned – have been fairing pretty well on the public markets, space SPACs in general have badly underperformed, particularly relative to legacy aerospace companies, with a handful of companies seeing a dire drop in stock price.

Stratospheric balloon company World View to go public in $350M SPAC deal by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

Google warned on Friday that if the Indian antitrust watchdog’s ruling is allowed to progress it would result in devices getting expensive in the South Asian market and lead to proliferation of unchecked apps that will pose threats for individual and national security, escalating its concerns over the future of Android in the key overseas region.

“Predatory apps that expose users to financial fraud, data theft and a number of other dangers abound on the internet, both from India and other countries. While Google holds itself accountable for the apps on Play Store and scans for malware as well compliance with local laws, the same checks may not be in place for apps sideloaded from other sources,” the company wrote in a blog post, titled “Heart of the Matter.”

The Competition Commission of India has slapped two fines against Google, alleging the Android-maker abused the Play Store’s dominant position in the country and required Android device makers to pre-install its entire Google Mobile Suite.

The Indian watchdog has ordered Google to make a series of changes to its business practices that analysts say could topple the company’s financial viability in the market. Google has appealed against the directions in Indian courts.

“Google has partnered deeply with India in the last several years of its exciting digital transformation. However, at a time when only half of India’s population is connected, the directions in the CCI’s order strikes a blow at the ecosystem-wide efforts to accelerate digital adoption in the country,” the company wrote in the blog post.

Google also warned that if the Indian antitrust watchdog’s orders were to be followed, app developers will have to pay higher cost.

“In a forked Android environment, small developers will be forced to prioritize which of the various incompatible Android ‘forks’ they write and maintain apps for, as their costs will increase with each additional version they support,” the company wrote.

“They will no longer have the level playing field they have today with Android, and larger developers, who can support a wider range of incompatible forks, will be able to dominate the market based on their scale, rather than the quality of their product.”

India is Google’s largest market by users. Google’s mobile operating system powers 97% of the country’s 600 million smartphones, according to research firm Counterpoint.

Google in 2020pledged to invest $10 billion in the South Asian marketover the coming years. It has already financed up to $5.5 billion in thelocal telecom giants Jio PlatformsandAirtel.

Google says India antitrust order poses threat to national security by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Hello and welcome back toEquity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This week, Natasha was joined by Mary Ann Azevedo and Rebecca Szkutak to talk about the latest and greatest in tech. Before we get into what we got up to, can we just say how great it is to be back? It feels therapeutic to be back on the mic to digest the news in terms of trends and startup happenings; and we hope you feel right about the same.

Without further ado, our show touched on a lot this week:

Deals of the week include Inflow, which has developed a self-help app designed to help people manage their ADHD, Cartograph Ventures, a new venture fund run by an ex-Juul operator, and the latest lawsuit and layoffs happening over at Carta
The plethora of fintech M&A that took place this week, including Fidelity’s acquisition of a startup called Shoobx (we couldn’t pronounce its name either) and Deel’s buyout of Capbase.
Microsoft’s deal with ChatGPT OpenAI which, we’ll admit, has a structure that stumps even us. Plus, we talk about how Pittsburgh’s expertise in AI may help give its startup scene a boost.

We’ll end with a reminder that the TechCrunch podcast network is now a machine that produces content, daily, from the most diverse slate of hosts in the tech pod world. Proud of our fellow co-hosts, and for those of you who may be starting a resolution or habit-stacking to start 2023, consider giving our other shows a try.

Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyandall the casts. TechCrunch also has agreat show on crypto, ashow that interviews founders, one thatdetails how our stories come together, and more!

Frank-ly, the Kardashian method won’t work for SBF by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

What is going to happen to the 15,000 colorful electric scooters that currently spill across the streets of Paris? On March 23rd, their fate could drastically change as the French capital weighs up whether or not to renew licenses for the three scooter companies currently operating in the city.

And this isn’t just going to impact Dott, Tier and Uber-affiliated Lime — the three companies that have held those licenses since 2020. The decision will set a precedent for the many cities around the world that have also let scooters on to their streets. If things don’t go their way, a negative decision in Paris could have a chilling effect on micromobility startups globally.

Paris has been a pacemaker in the electric scooter race. As one of the first cities to approve their use in open city environments, city’s residents (and visitors) took to them as a convenient way to navigate around halting traffic and congested public transport scooters in Paris provided a counterpoint to the claims that they were overhyped, over-capitalised by unimaginative VCs and a flash in the pan.

“This is important for everyone. In terms of business size, Paris is very important — it’s the biggest city in the world from a business point of view,” Dott’s director of marketing and communications Matthieu Faure told me. “And even from a symbolic point of view, Paris is important.”

Things started to look shaky starting in September 2022, when the city’s Deputy Mayors David Belliard and Emmanuel Grégoire requested a meeting with the three mobility operators. They said that Dott, Lime and Tier weren’t doing enough when it came to safety and urban clutter. But this wasn’t the first time that the city of Paris had said that they weren’t satisfied with these services.

From the word go, there was no proper regulation in place and initially that led to a dozen different scooter startups rolling out their fleets in Paris — Bird, Bolt, Bolt by Usain Bolt (oui, deux Bolts), Circ, Dott, Hive, Jump, Lime, Tier, Voi, Ufo and Wind.

That eventually led to the tender process and a new set of rules — a maximum speed limit of 20 km/h and some dedicated parking spaces.

Then in 2021, tragedy struck, when a pedestrian was killed in a scooter accident. That led to more restrictions on scooter services. Scooter companies agreed to implement hundreds of slow zones with a 10 km/h speed restriction in specific areas — pedestrian streets, public squares and car-free areas. At one point, the city of Paris even considered turning the entire city into a slow zone but ditched the plan.

There’s also the climate change question — and whether that’s really enough of a selling point. Scooter promoters like to say they are a green option for getting around. But as TechCrunch’s Rebecca Bellan has pointed out, scooters aren’t necessarily helping when it comes to environmental goals in certain urban areas. Such is the case in Paris.

An extremely dense city with an efficient subway network and a subsidized bike-sharing service with more than 400,000 subscribers, when people living in Paris need to go from A to B, they have a ton of options. Some people riding on electric scooters would have used their moped or requested an Uber, but many use scooters instead of the metro, which is arguably a greener mode of transportation compared to electric scooters.

And yet, both tourists and Parisians have embraced electric scooters in a massive way.

In October 2022, Dott, Lime and Tier registered more than 2 million rides. Out of the 400,000 users spread across the three services in Paris, 85% of them live in the city.

Operators each have a hard cap at 5,000 scooters, meaning that there are roughly 15,000 scooters in the streets of Paris. According to Fluctuo, there are close to 300,000 shared scooters in 33 European cities.

But each scooter is used quite extensively in Paris — several times per day. Here’s a chart of the total number of scooter rides per month in Paris:

The promise of metrics like these has led to massive valuations and funding rounds. According to Crunchbase, to date, Lime, one of the companies that popularized the concept of free-floating scooters, raised $1.5 billion. Dott managed to secure $210 million while Tier grabbed nearly $650 million.

To be sure, it’s been mostly quiet on the funding front for these companies for much of the last year. Partly this is because the most publicly visible of these companies, Bird, which pointedly is not in Paris but is traded on the NYSE, has totally run out of charge. (With its market cap now at less than $86 million — compared to over $2 billion when it went public in March 2021 — last week Bird announced a $32 million cash injection by way of convertible notes and personal investments from founder and chairman Travis VanderZanden and CEO Shane Torchiana. The money came at the same time that Bird acquired the previously spun out Bird Canada and made other moves to try to shore up its finances.)

Turning back to Paris, following the September 2022 meeting, the three active scooter companies Lime, Dott and Tier got the civic message: they shouldn’t take for granted that scooter licenses would be renewed in 2023. With the wider market climate definitely not in their favor, proving that they are respectful companies in their marquee city became priority number one.

In October 2022, the three operators put together a list of 11 proposals that would improve safety and public space integration, ranging from banning users who do not respect the road traffic regulation to using camera-based sidewalk detection systems.

Dott, Lime and Tier even started implementing some of those items. They added an age verification system and asked its users to take a photo of their ID. Similarly, there is now a registration plate on every scooter. This way, if there are two people riding a scooter at the same time, the police can write down the registration plate and the current time. Scooter companies can then find out who was using a specific scooter at that specific time.

“We’ve decided in December to proactively roll out two of these, notably on ID verification and license plates. After 30 days, we now have 100% of shared e-scooters in Paris that have a license plate, and over 160.000 IDs have been verified and checked,” Erwann Le Page, director of public policy for Western Europe at Tier, told me.

And then what happened? Nothing happened.

The negotiation tactic of silence

The city of Paris is divided on scooter regulation. Deputy Mayor David Belliard has been one of the most vocal opponents. He regularly claims that scooters should be banned, and his words carry weight: among other things, he’s in charge of transportation.

But the fact that he’s using media interviews to say that scooters should be banned proves that not everyone in the city council agrees with him.

“It’s a personal opinion, he’s against shared scooters,” Dott’s Matthieu Faure said. “We don’t really understand why. He doesn’t give any rational explanation.”

In particular, what does Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of Paris, think about scooters? Nobody knows for sure.

“The City Council has not communicated any decision yet. To date, the City has not responded to any of the meeting requests and letters sent by Lime or the two other operators,” a Lime spokesperson told me.

“We have not heard back from Paris just yet. Our contract ends on March 23rd,” Tier’s Erwann Le Page added.

We have asked the city of Paris for a comment, and we will update the story if we hear back.

If I read correctly between the lines, Anne Hidalgo will ultimately have to decide whether scooter licenses should be renewed. Everything else you hear on this topic is just noise.

And there is no reason to communicate with scooter companies just yet. Scooter companies are already improving the safety of their services because the Mayor of Paris is remaining silent.

In other words, saying nothing is the best strategy to get improvements from operators right now.

Reducing dependence on scooters in Paris

In contrast to the early days of shared scooters, micromobility companies have mostly switched to full-time employees to repair, replace, move vehicles and swap batteries.

There are currently 800 people working for Dott, Lime and Tier in Paris. There are another 200 people working indirectly with the three operators. In particular, a subcontractor company patrols the streets of Paris and works with all three companies.

And this model has been working well. Dott says that it is currently profitable in Paris when you take into account all fixed and variable costs associated with its Paris operations, including vehicle depreciation and amortization (EBIT profitable).

While Dott, Lime and Tier are currently live in dozens of cities, Paris still represents a good chunk of these companies’ revenue. That’s probably why they have decided to launch bike-sharing services with free-floating electric bikes.

“We are currently operating 7,000 [bikes] in Paris and we plan to continue doing so,” a Lime spokesperson told me. Similarly, Dott has a fleet of 3,500 bikes while Tier manages 2,500 electric bikes.

This time, there was no tender process for free-floating bikes but operators still had to sign an agreement with the city of Paris. They also pay a license fee.

Adding electric bikes is a smart move as there are some synergies between scooters and bikes. For instance, Lime uses the same batteries for its scooters and bikes, meaning that the operations team can swap batteries for all vehicles when roaming the streets of Paris.

But it’s clear that Dott, Lime and Tier still want to offer scooters after March 23rd. On Wednesday, a group of employees working for Dott, Lime and Tier protested in front of the city hall. They were asking for a meeting with city officials to get some clarity.

Once again, their demands were met with silence. Even if the city of Paris doesn’t seem to care about media coverage on the license renewal, the impending deadline means that the Mayor of Paris will have to make a decision sooner rather than later. And many micromobility companies and local governments are turning their attention to what that answer will be.

Scooters in Paris are at a crossroads by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

While some crypto-focused venture capitalists are bullish for 2023, others see it as a hazardous time.

“I think it’s going to be a fairly choppy year,” David Nage, venture capital portfolio manager at Arca, said to TechCrunch. “You’re going to have a pretty strong stomach for this over the next few years here. We’re trying to be healthy, mindful and have grounding out there and not let emotions affect us.”

Many investors are trying to put last year’s chaotic market behind them and look forward to the future in a still investor-centric environment. But the competition in the market will heat up as investors write fewer checks and become more selective.

Internal sentiment among VCs is a “wait and see” game, Nage said. “We’ll wait and see how things roll out for the beginning of the year.”

The first quarter of 2023 may be slower than 2022. “I’d probably put money on that if I had to,” Nage said. “Rounds will also be fewer too; probably up to 50% less if I were to predict.”

Crypto in for a ‘choppy year’ of slow capital deployment, investors say by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch