Daily Archives: July 22, 2021

News: Sophos acquires Braintrace to supercharge its threat detection capabilities

• July 22, 2021
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Thoma Bravo-owned Sophos has announced it’s acquiring Braintrace, a cybersecurity startup that provides organizations visibility into suspicious network traffic patterns. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Braintrace, which was founded in 2016 and has raised $10 million in funding, has developed a network detection and response (NDR) solution that helps organizations to easily inspect

Thoma Bravo-owned Sophos has announced it’s acquiring Braintrace, a cybersecurity startup that provides organizations visibility into suspicious network traffic patterns. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Braintrace, which was founded in 2016 and has raised $10 million in funding, has developed a network detection and response (NDR) solution that helps organizations to easily inspect network traffic to identify and filter out suspicious activity. It does this using remote network packet capture (RNCAP) technology, which provides visibility into network traffic patterns, including encrypted traffic, without the need for man-in-the-middle decryption. It also provides visibility into cloud network traffic, a task that typically needs to be carried out on-site, and supports all of the major cloud providers including AWS and Microsoft Azure.

The deal will see Sophos integrate Braintrace’s NDR technology into its own adaptive cybersecurity ecosystem, which underpins all of its security products and services. The technology will also help Sophos collect data from firewalls, proxies and VPNs, allowing it to look for network traffic that contains instructions for malware like TrickBot, and attackers that misuse Cobalt Strike, as well as pre-empting other malicious traffic that might lead to ransomware attacks

Braintrace’s developers, data scientists and security analysts have joined its global Sophos’ managed threat response (MTR) and rapid response teams as part of the deal.

Commenting on the deal, which Sophos claims will make it one of the largest and fastest-growing managed detection and response (MDR) providers, the company’s CEO Joe Levy said: “We’re excited that Braintrace built this technology specifically to provide better security outcomes to their MDR customers. It’s hard to beat the effectiveness of solutions built by teams of skilled practitioners and developers to solve real-world cybersecurity problems.”

Bret Laughlin, co-founder and CEO of Braintrace, added: “We built Braintrace’s NDR technology from the ground up for detection and now, with Sophos, it will fit into a complete system to provide cross-product detection and response across a multi-vendor ecosystem.”

The deal comes a little over a year after Thoma Bravo completed its $3.9 billion takeover of Sophos, and sees the private equity firm further increasing its reach in the cybersecurity space. It acquired security vendor Proofpoint for $12.3 billion back in April, and recently led a $225 million funding round in zero trust unicorn Illumio.

News: Spotify partners with GIPHY to connect users with artists’ music via GIFs

• July 22, 2021
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Spotify announced this morning a new partnership with online GIF database GIPHY to enable discovery of new music through GIFs. No, the GIFs themselves won’t play song clips, if that’s what you’re thinking. Instead, through a series of new Spotify-linked GIFs, there will be an option to click a button to be taken to Spotify

Spotify announced this morning a new partnership with online GIF database GIPHY to enable discovery of new music through GIFs. No, the GIFs themselves won’t play song clips, if that’s what you’re thinking. Instead, through a series of new Spotify-linked GIFs, there will be an option to click a button to be taken to Spotify directly to hear the artist’s music. At launch, artists including Doja Cat, The Weeknd, Post Malone, Nicki Minaj, The Kid LAROI, Conan Gray, and others will have Spotify-linked GIFs available on their official GIPHY profile page. More artists will be added over time.

The idea behind the new integration is to help connect users with Spotify music from their everyday communications, like texts, group chats, and other places where GIFs are used. This is similar to Spotify’s existing integrations with social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram, where users can share music through the Stories and messages they post. Essentially, it’s a user acquisition strategy that leverages online social activities — in this case, sharing GIFs — while also benefiting the artists through the exposure they receive.

You can find the new Spotify-linked GIFs on the artist’s page on GIPHY.com or through GIPHY’s mobile app. The supported GIFs will include a new “Listen on Spotify” button at the bottom which will appear alongside the GIF when it’s shared. When clicked, users are redirected from the GIF to the artist’s page on Spotify where they can stream their music or browse to discover more songs they want to hear.

Image Credits: Spotify/GIPHY

Spotify says the feature is part of a broader partnership it has with GIPHY, which will later focus on bringing a more interactive listening experience to users.

The move to partner with GIPHY follows a recent expansion of the existing partnership between Spotify and GIPHY’s parent company, Facebook. The social networking giant bought the popular GIF platform in a deal worth a reported $400 million back in 2020, a couple years after Google snatched up GIPHY rival, Tenor. Since then, Facebook has worked to better integrate GIPHY with its apps, like Facebook and Instagram.

Earlier this year, Facebook and Spotify had also teamed up on a new “Boombox” project that allows Facebook users to listen to music hosted on Spotify while browsing through the Facebook app. This is powered by a “miniplayer” that allows anyone who comes across the shared music to click to play the content while they scroll their feed.

Spotify says the new feature will be available to users globally from verified GIPHY artists’ pages.

News: All Raise launches virtual bootcamp for women and nonbinary founders

• July 22, 2021
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More doesn’t necessarily mean better — and that’s a lesson for life and for tech. To focus on the latter, the startup ecosystem is experiencing a boggling influx of capital right now. However, the increase in dollars isn’t being evenly distributed to all founders. For the vast majority of people, especially women and nonbinary entrepreneurs,

More doesn’t necessarily mean better — and that’s a lesson for life and for tech. To focus on the latter, the startup ecosystem is experiencing a boggling influx of capital right now. However, the increase in dollars isn’t being evenly distributed to all founders. For the vast majority of people, especially women and nonbinary entrepreneurs, it’s still hard to raise money — and perhaps even harder than before the pandemic.

All Raise, a nonprofit that has for years worked to advance women and nonbinary folks within tech, has been watching closely the dip in funding for female and nonbinary founders. Per VP of Marketing Caroline Caswell, while pockets of progress do exist, funding for female founders is still “lukewarm.” She noted how in the first half of this year, 1.6% of venture capital went to female founders, down 30% from 2.3% in 2020, which was already a dip from the year prior, per PitchBook.

“The narrative that ‘VC is back?’ ” Caswell said. “It is back for the same people as it was before.”

The misconception that the hot-deal summer is benefitting everyone has given All Raise some urgency to launch a new product for women and nonbinary founders, which it’s announcing today.

The nonprofit is releasing a series of master classes meant to give an inside glimpse at raising first institutional rounds and scaling companies. The material, which includes pre-recorded sessions from All Raise’s in-person Founder Bootcamp, will be free to access for anyone interested.

Instructors include checkwriters such as Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee and Benchmark Capital’s Sarah Tavel, as well as seasoned executives like Figma’s VP of Communications Nairi Hourdajian and Solv Health co-founder and CEO Heather Fernandez. All Raise said that it did not track ethnicity or racial data of its instructors, however it did offer a breakdown of the 400 beta users who tested the master class series.

There’s constantly a disconnect between tactical content on how to fundraise and true access to capital; tips don’t necessarily lead to a closed check, which leaves some founders skeptical of yet another launch of resources.

That said, Caswell says that the master classes are trying to move beyond the “typical Sandhill Road Medium post” or Twitter threads, and thinks that the explicitness and real-world examples could serve as an empowering tool to founders.

Topics range from basics like how to prepare for your Series A to more nuanced thoughts like the emotions of fundraising, and how to say goodbye to a team. The programming is meant to be a more intimate look at early-stage tech, beyond what you’d find on a Twitter thread, Caswell explains.

Image Credits: All Raise

“When it comes to resources and insight for typically underrepresented founders, more is more is more,” she added. Lessons range between three to 60 minutes, and amount to some 15 hours of content.

The structure of All Raise’s master classes looks similar in format to what Y Combinator offers in its free series Startup School, which includes some light content specifically targeted toward female founders. Long-term, it’d be interesting to see how All Raise refreshes material to work more for online learning, as it already has an engaged community that it could easily turn into a living, breathing class that filters through the nonprofit’s other tools.

News: Tune in today to watch Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) Global Finals

• July 22, 2021
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It’s not too late to enjoy an epic pitch-off of global proportion. The Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) Global Finals start today, July 22 at 9:00 am (PT). Register here for free, get instant access and tune in to see seven phenomenal startups — each one tackling some of the world’s most daunting social and environmental

It’s not too late to enjoy an epic pitch-off of global proportion. The Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) Global Finals start today, July 22 at 9:00 am (PT). Register here for free, get instant access and tune in to see seven phenomenal startups — each one tackling some of the world’s most daunting social and environmental challenges.

The day also includes a keynote address from Beth Bechdol, the deputy director-general, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, and five panel discussions ranging from powering clean energy startups to going green. Here are just two examples, and be sure to check out the event agenda so you don’t miss a minute.

Powering the Future Through Transformative Tech: XTC’s co-founders Young Sohn, Chairman of the Board at HARMAN International, and founding Managing Partner at Walden Catalyst, and Bill Tai, Partner Emeritus at Charles River Ventures jump into the breakthrough tech innovations that are transforming industries to build a radically better world. How can business, government, philanthropy, and the startup community come together to create a better tomorrow? Hear from these industry veterans and thought leaders about how technology can not only shape the future, but also where the biggest opportunities lie, including some exciting news about XTC and the FAO of the United Nations.

Cutting Out Carbon Emitters with Bioengineering: Bioengineering may soon provide compelling, low-carbon alternatives in industries where even the best methods produce significant emissions. By utilizing natural and engineered biological processes, we may soon have low-carbon textiles from Algiknit, lab-grown premium meats from Orbillion and fuels captured from waste emissions via LanzaTech. Leaders from these companies will join our panel to talk about how bioengineering can do its part in the fight against climate change.

The main event is, of course, the pitch competition. More than 3,700 startups applied, and these are the seven finalists who will compete one last time for the title of XTC 2021 champion.

• AgTech & FoodTech: Wasteless
• CleanTech & Energy: Mining and Process Solutions
• EdTech: Testmaster
• Enabling Tech: Dot Inc.
• FinTech: Hillridge Technology
• HealthTech: Genetika+
• Mobility & Smart Cities: Fotokite

In addition to choosing the winner of XTC 2021, the esteemed judges will announce the winners of the COVID-19 Innovation award, the Female Founder award, the Ethical AI award and the People’s Choice award.

The Extreme Tech Challenge Global Finals start today at 9:00 am (PT). Register for free and gain instant access to this global pitch competition focused on saving the globe.

News: Microsoft’s cyber startup spending spree continues with CloudKnox acquisition

• July 22, 2021
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Microsoft has acquired identity and access management (IAM) startup CloudKnox Security, the tech giant’s fourth cybersecurity acquisition this year. The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, is the latest cybersecurity acquisition by Microsoft, which just last week announced that it’s buying threat intelligence startup RiskIQ. The firm also recently acquired IoT security startups

Microsoft has acquired identity and access management (IAM) startup CloudKnox Security, the tech giant’s fourth cybersecurity acquisition this year.

The deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, is the latest cybersecurity acquisition by Microsoft, which just last week announced that it’s buying threat intelligence startup RiskIQ. The firm also recently acquired IoT security startups CyberX and Refirm Labs as it moved to beef up its security portfolio. Security is big business for Microsoft, which made more than $10 billion in security-related revenue in 2020 — a 40% increase from the year prior.

CloudKnox, which was founded in 2015 and emerged from stealth two years later, helps organizations to enforce least-privilege principles to reduce risk and help prevent security breaches. The startup had raised $22.8 million prior to the acquisition, with backing from ClearSky, Sorenson Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, and Foundation Capital. 

The company’s activity-based authorization service will equip Azure Active Directory customers with “granular visibility, continuous monitoring and automated remediation for hybrid and multi-cloud permissions,” according to a blog post by Joy Chik, corporate vice president of identity at Microsoft. 

Chik said that while organizations were reaping the benefits of cloud adoption, particularly as they embrace flexible working models, they often struggled to assess, prevent and enforce privileged access across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

“CloudKnox offers complete visibility into privileged access,” Chik said. “It helps organizations right-size permissions and consistently enforce least-privilege principles to reduce risk, and it employs continuous analytics to help prevent security breaches and ensure compliance. This strengthens our comprehensive approach to cloud security.”

In addition to Azure Active Directory, Microsoft also plans to integrate CloudKnox with its other cloud security services including 365 Defender, Azure Defender, and Azure Sentinel.

Commenting on the deal, Balaji Parimi, CloudKnox founder and CEO, said: “By joining Microsoft, we can unlock new synergies and make it easier for our mutual customers to protect their multi-cloud and hybrid environments and strengthen their security posture.”

News: Uber Freight acquires Transpace for $2.25B

• July 22, 2021
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Uber Freight, the logistics business spun out of Uber in 2018, has acquired Transplace for about $2.25 billion from private equity group TPG Capital. The deal announced Thursday will involve $750 million in Uber stock with the remainder in cash. The acquisition of Transplace marks a ramping up of Uber Freight’s business as it aims

Uber Freight, the logistics business spun out of Uber in 2018, has acquired Transplace for about $2.25 billion from private equity group TPG Capital. The deal announced Thursday will involve $750 million in Uber stock with the remainder in cash.

The acquisition of Transplace marks a ramping up of Uber Freight’s business as it aims to carve out market share in its existing markets and an expansion in Mexico. Uber Freight also sees the acquisition as a means to accelerate the company’s path to profitability and help the segment to break even on an Adjusted EBITDA basis by the end of 2022, according to the company.

The union will fold one of the largest managed transportation and logistics networks into Uber Freight’s platform, which connects truck drivers with shippers that need cargo delivered. Uber Freight’s brokerage will continue to operate independently from Transplace’s services, the company said.

“This is a significant step forward, not just for Uber Freight but for the entire logistics ecosystem,” Lior Ron, head of Uber Freight, said in a statement. “This is an opportunity to bring together complementary best-in-class technology solutions and operational excellence from two premier companies to create an industry-first shipper-to-carrier platform that will transform shippers’ entire supply chains, delivering operational resilience and reducing costs at a time when it matters most.”

Transplace CEO Frank McGuigan said as a result, the combined company expects shippers will see greater efficiency and transparency. “All in all, we expect to significantly reduce shipper and carrier empty miles to the benefit of highway and road infrastructures and the environment,” he said.

Uber Freight launched in 2017. In August 2018, it was spun off into a separate business unit, a move that simultaneously allowed it to gain momentum and burn more cash. After spinning off of Uber, the freight company underwent an expansion. Uber Freight redesigned its app, an improvement that included adding new navigation features to make searching for and filtering loads easier to customize.

The company expanded to Canada and Europe. Uber Freight also established a headquarters in Chicago as part of its parent company’s broader plan to invest more than $200 million annually in the region, including hiring hundreds of workers. Uber said in September 2019 it would hire 2,000 new employees in the region over the next three years; most would be dedicated to Uber Freight.

Uber sold a stake in the freight business last year when investor group led by New York-based investment firm Greenbriar Equity Group committed to invest $500 million in a Series A preferred stock financing for the business. The deal valued the unit at $3.3 billion on a post-money basis.

Uber maintained majority ownership in Uber Freight and used the funds gained from Greenbriar to continue to scale its logistics platform, which helps truck drivers connect with shipping companies.

News: Fi’s smart collar adds sleep tracking for dogs

• July 22, 2021
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Conventional wisdom holds that one ought let sleeping does lie. But no one says you’re barred from tracking them while they do. New York-based smart collar maker Fi announced today that it’s adding sleep to the list of the device’s tracking. The added feature uses the collar’s on-board motion sensing to monitor your best friend’s

Conventional wisdom holds that one ought let sleeping does lie. But no one says you’re barred from tracking them while they do. New York-based smart collar maker Fi announced today that it’s adding sleep to the list of the device’s tracking.

The added feature uses the collar’s on-board motion sensing to monitor your best friend’s sleep during the day and night (and almost certainly leave you jealous about how much shut-eye they’re getting).

The information is presented on a timeline that should look familiar to anyone who has used the human equivalent. It also offers a live check-in to see what the dog is up to during the day while you’re at work (assuming you ever go back to the office).

Image Credits: Fi

The goal here is to offer up some sharable metrics about your pet that might point to underlying health problems, be it too much sleep, not enough or frequent trips to the water bowl in the middle of the night. Sudden changes also present potential red flags for the dog’s health.

“We are excited to move into holistic health tracking that empowers dog parents to take the best possible care of their pets,” founder and CEO Jonathan Bensamoun said in a release. “If your dog is tired, it can’t tell you, so Fi will. Fi can answer critical questions like, ‘Is my pet sleeping the right way?’ or ‘Did its activity levels decrease lately?’ long before more serious issues have time to develop.”

Fi raised $30 million back in February and is working to grow its reach in the U.S., including a recent distribution deal with mega-online pet supply seller, Chewy.

News: Facebook Messenger is stepping up its emoji game

• July 22, 2021
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If you can’t say it with words, say it with an emoji. Facebook is announcing a few minor updates today to its Messenger platform, which make it easier than ever to find the exact emoji you’re looking for when reacting to a friend’s message (let’s be real, there’s a big difference between the “crying laughing”

If you can’t say it with words, say it with an emoji. Facebook is announcing a few minor updates today to its Messenger platform, which make it easier than ever to find the exact emoji you’re looking for when reacting to a friend’s message (let’s be real, there’s a big difference between the “crying laughing” and “crying” emoji). This includes a search bar for emoji reactions, and a recently used emojis section. And, if you weren’t let down by the long-awaited “Space Jam” sequel, you can sport your love for hoopster Bugs Bunny with a “Space Jam 2” chat theme, available both on Messenger and in Instagram DMs. Don’t get too excited though — even though this theme sets a basketball as the chat’s emoji, the long lost, beloved basketball mini game has not yet made its triumphant return to the Messenger app.

Image Credits: Facebook Messenger

It may not feel like there’s room for innovation in, um, the emoji space, but even Twitter has explored the option of allowing people to emoji-react to tweets. And as live audio has become ever present — from Clubhouse, to Twitter Spaces, to Spotify’s Greenroom — why not add audio to emojis?

Last week, Messenger debuted Soundmojis, which are what they sound like — emojis with sounds. On the Messenger app, you can use Soundmojis by clicking the smiley face icon in the chat box, which opens up the expressions menu. When you select the loudspeaker icon, you can select from just under 30 standard emojis, but when you click on them, they play sounds including “Brooklyn 99” quotes, Olivia Rodrigo clips, and lines from “Bridgerton.” The “X” emoji plays “Oh No” by Capone, a song that went viral on TikTok.

According to Facebook Messenger, people send more than 2.4 billion messages with emojis on the platform each day. That’s great and all, but if we can tap the car emoji to hear sounds from “Fast & Furious,” when will we be able to tap the soccer emoji to play “keepie uppie” again?

News: Magic lands $27M Series A for its ‘plug and play’ passwordless tech

• July 22, 2021
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Magic, a San Francisco-based startup that builds “plug and play” passwordless authentication technology, has raised $27 million in Series A funding. The round, led by Northzone and with participation from Tiger Global, Volt Capital, Digital Currency Group and CoinFund, comes just over a year after Magic launched from stealth, rebranding from its previous name Formatic. 

Magic, a San Francisco-based startup that builds “plug and play” passwordless authentication technology, has raised $27 million in Series A funding.

The round, led by Northzone and with participation from Tiger Global, Volt Capital, Digital Currency Group and CoinFund, comes just over a year after Magic launched from stealth, rebranding from its previous name Formatic. 

The company, like many others, is on a mission to end traditional password-based authentication. Magic’s flagship SDK, which launched in April 2020, enables developers to implement a variety of passwordless authentication methods with just a few lines of code and integrates with a number of modern frameworks and infrastructures.

Not only does the SDK make it easier for companies and developers to implement passwordless auth methods in their applications, but it could also help to mitigate the expensive fallout that many have to deal with as a result of data breaches.

“This is why the password is so dangerous,” Sean Li, Magic co-founder and CEO tells TechCrunch. “It’s like a Jenga tower right now — a hacker breaching your system can download an entire database of encrypted passwords, and then easily crack them. It’s a huge central point of failure.”

The company recently built out its SDK to add support for WebAuthn, which means it can support hardware-based authentication keys like Yubico, as well as biometric-based Face ID and fingerprint logins on mobile devices. 

“It’s less mainstream right now, but we’re making it super simple for developers,” says Li. “This way we can help promote new technologies, and that’s really good for user security and privacy.” 

It’s a bet that seems to be working: Magic has recorded a 13% month-over-month increase in developer signups, and the number of identities secured is growing at a rate of 6% weekly, according to Magic. It’s also secured a number of big-name customers, from crypto news publisher Decrypt to fundraising platform Fairmint.

Wendy Xiao Schadeck, a partner at Northzone said: “We couldn’t be more excited to support Sean and the Magic team as they redefine authentication for the internet from the bottom up, solving a core pain point for developers, users, and companies. 

“It was clear to us that they’re absolutely loved by their customers because the team is so obsessed with serving every single part of the developer journey across several communities. What’s potentially even more exciting is what they will be able to do to empower users and decentralize the identity layer of the web.”

The company now plans to continue to scale its platform and expand its team to meet what Magic describes as “soaring” demand. The startup, which currently has 30 employees that work remotely on a full-time basis, expects to at least double its headcount across all core functions, including product, engineering, design, marketing, finance, people, and operations.

It’s also planning to hope to build out the SDK even further; Li says he wants to be able to plug into more kinds of technology, from low-code applications to workflow automations. 

“The vision is much bigger than that. We want to be the passport of the internet,” Li adds. 

• Read more:
  How startups can go passwordless, thanks to zero trust
• Ex-Plaid employees raise $30M for Stytch, an API-first passwordless authentication platform
• Transmit Security raises $543M Series A to kill off the password
• Want in on the next $100B in cybersecurity?

News: Index Ventures’ trio of new funds leads to $3 billion, and more TikTok

• July 22, 2021
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Index Ventures has closed a trio of new funds: a $900 million early-stage fund, a $2 billion growth-stage fund and a previously announced $200 million seed-stage fund. The close gives Index $3 billion in new capital, its largest tranche yet, to deploy into emerging startups and existing portfolio companies, which include the likes of Plaid,

Index Ventures has closed a trio of new funds: a $900 million early-stage fund, a $2 billion growth-stage fund and a previously announced $200 million seed-stage fund. The close gives Index $3 billion in new capital, its largest tranche yet, to deploy into emerging startups and existing portfolio companies, which include the likes of Plaid, Deliveroo and Revolut, which was just valued at $33 billion.

Index’s new capital comes a little over a year since it closed its last funds, which were a duet of $1.2 billion for growth-stage investments and $800 million for early-stage investments. It also is announced while venture dollars more broadly seem to be growing at an unprecedented rate — In recent weeks, Accel announced that it has closed $3 billion across three funds, too, and Andreessen Horowitz landed a $2.2 billion fund dedicated entirely to crypto startups.

The influx of money means that check sizes and valuations are growing across the entire ecosystem. Index, for example, said that it has grown its Series A check size from $10 million to $15 million, while it increased its growth check from $35 million to $50 million. Its check size in the United States is about 20% higher compared to its check size in Europe, meaning that the former represents between 55% to 60% of the firm’s total investing dollars.

While Index’s check size is growing slightly bigger to keep up with competition, partner Mark Goldberg said that the firm is staying disciplined so it doesn’t fall prey to FOMO rounds or buzzy valuations.

“There have been situations where two years ago, I would have engaged,” in a competition for a late-stage round, he said. “And now I say that we probably are not going to compete … because at the heart of the matter, I think capital is a commodity.” The partner didn’t point to Accel’s $3 billion close, but instead noted how “Tiger Global and other crossover funds” have created a new capital product, which means that Index’s ability to compete must look different than just offering a ton of money.

“If you’re just looking for capital, we’re probably not going to be the best product for you,” Goldberg added.

Index Partner Martin Mignot thinks that a “bifurcation is really happening” in the fundraising market, where some founders are able to raise easily, but many continue to struggle if they’re not “at the right sector in the right place at the right time.” Mignot has been spending time looking at Africa as a potential investment area that continues to be underresourced. He hinted that an official initiative focused on Africa startups may be underway.

The firm said it has “several initiatives in place related to diversity including increasing the number of individuals on our investment from underrepresented groups and diversifying our investment funnel” but said that it does not track diversity statistics at a portfolio company level “yet.” Index said that its investment team is composed of 38% of individuals who identify as female and 14% of individuals who come from underrepresented groups, although its unclear whether they have check-writing power.

Index appears to be going through a period of experimentation when it comes to the services offered to portfolio companies. While the firm declined to give too many specifics on upcoming initiatives around diversity or more generally, it did note its growing TikTok presence as part of its strategy.

The Index Ventures TikTok has over 28,000 followers. Its most viewed video is about Costco’s business model, with 4.8 million views followed by an interview clip from Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, with 315,000 views.

“It’s not something where I think the next deal comes from the TikTok account, but it’s one of those initiatives where … I think it will pay dividends” in helping Index reach a younger audience that isn’t active on tech Twitter or Clubhouse. Index’s TikTok, led by Rex Woodbury, is reminiscent of how some emerging fund managers are approaching creative deal flow.

The firm is also experimenting with incubating startups in-house, which has historically never been a major focus. A tweet suggests that Index is actively recruiting entrepreneurs to join the incubator, which could be divided thematically. Goldberg declined to give more specifics around how incubation programs are structured and what the terms are, saying that the Index Incubator is not an official product yet.

That said, one can only imagine that a firm freshly capitalized with billions of dollars probably has some money to spare — from incubated projects to those growth-stage companies in need of active investors.