April 2020 – VentureCrapital

Thematic next-wave portfolio constructor Motif goes bust

Posted on April 19, 2020April 19, 2020 by Elon Theranos Esq.

Motif trading platform, which claimed to use data driven methodologies to enable the creation of thematic and “next-wave” portfolios (translation: they grep 10Q’s for keywords) has rather abruptly shut down. Their own advisors heard about it via Twitter. Yes, it did come with %FIRSTNANE%, who cares I guess… pic.twitter.com/3IuwpuBJQG — Hylland Capital (@HyllandCapital) April 18, 2020 They also had developed some “next generation thematic ETFs” like “human evolution reimagined” (SPTX), which were launched by Goldman…

Siri: What is a “Unicorn circle jerk”?

Posted on April 16, 2020April 17, 2020 by Elon Theranos Esq.

Carta, a unicorn that makes dashboards for managing equity investments in other unicorns is laying off staff and sniffing out a cash injection from existing backers. Bloomberg reports that the company is seekng a $200 million investment from existing investors at a $3 billion valuation, up from 1.8B last year. Somewhat incongruent with the “growth story” picture that normally garners such a sharply higher round, Carta is laying off employees. They just axed 161 people…

AirBnB Pivots to “Virtual Experiences”, Lands $1 Billion Down Round

Posted on April 12, 2020April 12, 2020 by Elon Theranos Esq.

AirBnB, the tech unicorn that monetizes your spare room has been hit hard by the Coronavirus academic. As the company and the phenomenon grew, more and more “investors” levered up to buy more properties to rent out short term. Some becoming so-called “super-hosts”, running dozens or even hundreds of rental units. There even emerged a phenomenon, of “STR arbitrage“, which is Short Term Rental Arbitrage: taking out long term leases on properties you don’t own,…

Tesla to lay off up to half of sales and delivery staff

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Elon Theranos Esq.

CNBC reported Friday that Tesla will be laying off up to half of it’s sales and delivery staff, this comes on the heels of other layoffs reported earlier in the week. Salaried employees are looking at pay cuts of 10% to 30%. In other news, Elon’s brother Kimball appears to have pulled a switcheroo on his employees “emergency fund” for his Nextdoor Restaurant chain, pulling the plug on the fund right before he laid off…