by Nate Bek on January 3, 2023 at 7:38 am Venture capitalists are in the business of bets, writing checks to the people and ideas they believe are going to impact the world. As part of an annual GeekWire tradition, we asked six investors to come up with predictions for 2023. Of course, the startup […]
Investors are spending 24% less time looking at pitch decks in 2022, compared to 2021. On average, you have just under three minutes to convince them to take a meeting with you. In fact, for decks that fail to raise funding, investors give up in just 2 minutes and 13 seconds. That’s not a lot of time to make a first impression, so you’ve got to make it count.
Founders spin a vision to attract investment dollars, then race to turn that vision into reality.
But what if the tide goes out faster than you expected? That’s happening right now for a lot of startups because of the capital markets. Inflation is up, valuations are down and the VCs are about to see you’re behind.
Ten years ago, in a small hotel room in Helsinki, Finland, a young tech entrepreneur sat down with a pen and paper and calculated that one of his inventions was responsible for wasting the equivalent of more than a million human lifetimes every day. The realization made him feel sick. That entrepreneur’s name is Aza Raskin, and he’s the inventor of the “infinite scroll,” the feature on our phone that keeps us endlessly scrolling through content with the simple swipe of a finger.
It’s been a remarkable few years for biotech, in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The optimism that emerged with the successful development of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments continued to propel investment and advances through 2021.
This isn’t about hating on apps like Clubhouse – they’ve earned their chops – but innovation should come from true needs. Think sustainability, food security, prolonging life, and promoting diversity. This idea has been on my mind for a while now, especially during the pandemic, but Steve Case’s latest piece in the Wall Street Journal underscored my passion.
August 16, 2021
The Carta Team
Joe Beninato has co-founded four different startups over his career. Each time the inevitable question of how to arrange an equity split came up, the conversation—and the outcome—was different.
