Roundup of news and ideas from the world of startups – Week ending 3rd June 2018
News you can use
Trump Moves to Dump the U.S.’s Startup Visa – The Trump Administration issued its formal proposal to rescind the International Entrepreneur Rule, a regulation designed to allow entrepreneurs to grow and scale their businesses in the U.S. This rule allowed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to use clear and careful criteria to identify, on a case-by-case basis, entrepreneurs who would provide significant benefits to the U.S.
How Canada’s Tech ‘Superclusters’ Could Change The Global Startup Game – Big, brash and bold — Canada’s latest move to turbo-charge its technology sector seems almost un-Canadian. Justin Trudeau’s government recently moved – unapologetically – to grab a bigger slice of global tech markets with a plan to create five innovation “superclusters” across the country. An almost $1 billion investment is being made to turn up the heat in Canada’s existing hotbeds of innovation with cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, which are already popular destinations for tech talent, in the driver’s seat. The supercluster approach is designed to be collaborative. The advanced manufacturing supercluster in Ontario contains more than 130 organizations, including MaRS Discovery District, the University of Waterloo and auto parts manufacturer Linamar. The digital technology supercluster in Vancouver is planning 100 collaborative projects, such as a new platform for health and genomic data. For entrepreneurs, that means there are more opportunities to grow their networks and engage with the best research in academia.
Scaling Startups Are Setting Up Secondary Hubs In These Cities – A recent article in Crunchbase (link) examines how mayors in cities across the U.S. are trying to curry favor with startups.
Corporate M&A
PayPal acquires AI predictive retail startup Jetlore – Payments provider PayPal today announced plans to acquire Jetlore, a San Mateo-based startup that specializes in artificial intelligent retail systems, for an undisclosed sum. Jetlore, which was founded in January 2011 by students from Stanford University’s computer science program, leverages machine learning to deliver “personalized” experiences from retail chains like Uniqlo and Nordstrom Rack. The startup’s predictive technology analyzes “billions” of customer data points and product data, including apparel attributes like sizes, color, fit, and style preferences, as well as brands and preferred materials, which inform its customer targeting products.
Electric scooter startup Bird reportedly raises $150 million, making it the first $1 billion scooter startup – Electric scooter startup Bird could be the newest unicorn startup. The company is raising $150 million led by Sequoia Capital, which values the startup at $1 billion, reports Bloomberg.
Startup shut and failed last week
Northwestern Mutual shutting down LearnVest – After paying $250 million for the startup three years ago, the insurance company is shutting it down June 5. In a statement posted to the Northwestern Mutual website, the company announced that it is discontinuing LearnVest’s financial planning offering for consumers and the LearnVest@Work program for businesses. Northwestern Mutual will relaunch LearnVest later this year as a digital resource portal focused on financial education for consumers. In an email sent to LearnVest clients, founder Alexa Von Tobel said the financial planning service will shut down June 5.
Klout, the $200 million website that measured how important you are on social media with one number, is shutting down – Klout, a startup that measured how important you are on social media, is shutting down by the end of the month. It was bought for $200 million in 2014. Klout was founded in 2009 by Joe Fernandez, partially as a way to get a job at Twitter, according to Business Insider. But ranking people by importance or influence turned out to be a strong enough idea to raise four rounds of venture funding from top-tier firms totaling $40 million. Eventually, it was sold in 2014 for $200 million to Lithium Technologies, which is the company that is shutting down the service later this month. Lithium is a private company that makes digital marketing tools. Klout enabled users to share their Facebook and Twitter data, and parsed that data through a vague algorithm to give users a simple popularity metric between 10 and 100, called the “Klout score.”