Tag: venrock

Extra Crunch roundup: Corp dev handbook, Chicago startups, Brazil’s e-commerce landscape

If you’re a founder who finds yourself in a meeting with a VC, try to remember two things: You’re the smartest person in the room. Investors are looking for a reason to say “yes.” Even so, many entrepreneurs squander this opportunity, often because they direct questions or fail to understand…

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Disease-related risk management is now a thing, and this young startup is at the forefront

Charity Dean has been in the national spotlight lately because she was among a group of doctors, scientists and tech entrepreneurs who sounded the pandemic alarm early last year and who are featured in a new book by Michael Lewis about the U.S. response, called The Premonition. It’s no wonder…

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Astranis raises $250M at a $1.4B valuation for smaller, cheaper geostationary communications satellites

Space startup Astranis has raised a $250 million Series C round to provide it with a capital injection to help scale manufacturing of its unique MicroGEO satellites — geostationary communications satellites that are much smaller than the typical massive, expensive spacecraft used in that orbital band to provide communications and…

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What the NFT? VC David Pakman dumbs down the intensifying digital collectibles frenzy

Non-fungible tokens have been around for two years, but these NFTs, one-of-one digital items on the Ethereum and other blockchains, are suddenly becoming a more popular way to collect visual art primarily, whether it’s an animated cat or an NBA clip or virtual furniture. “Suddenly” is hardly an overstatement. According…

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Venrock’s Bryan Roberts on the firm’s new $450 million fund, and where it’s shopping in 2021

Venrock, the 51-year-old firm that started as the venture arm of the Rockefeller family, has closed its ninth fund with $450 million, the same amount it raised for its last two funds. The outfit, with offices in Palo Alto, New York, and Cambridge, clearly feels comfortable with the fund size,…

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Veteran healthcare VC Camille Samuels explains why trying to cure infectious disease is a lousy business

Camille Samuels has spent the last five years as a partner with the healthcare venture firm Venrock and a dozen years before that with Versant Ventures, where she was a managing director. This self-described “grizzled veteran” of the industry has participated in companies that have collectively taken half a dozen…

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