Alex Wilhelm

Morning Markets: WeWork’s layoffs may help the company’s operating profit, but its free cash flow is a different story. As expected, WeWork announced layoffs this week. Some 2,400 positions are impacted thus far, a smaller number than many…

Yesterday Automation Anywhere announced a $290 million Series B. According to a release, the new capital values the robotic process automation (RPA) the company at $6.8 billion, post-money. Salesforce Ventures led the round, which saw participation…

Morning Markets: A ray of light in the somewhat crepuscular world of on-demand goods. You can make money on delivery, it turns out. This morning Meituan Dianping announced its third-quarter results, including 44.1 percent revenue growth to 27.5…

This afternoon, China-based chip company Canaan Creative priced its US-listed IPO at $9 per share, raising $90 million, according to Bloomberg. The company had targeted a $9 to $11 per share. As a company Canaan is best known for its ASIC business or…

Morning Markets: Patreon is a neat company that’s growing. But how much, and how quickly? There’s no point in pretending that the idea of Patreon isn’t neat. By collecting supporters for an artist, or publication, or group in one place, Patreon is…

Venture capitalists tend to be a sunny bunch. Ask about how their portfolio is doing, and they’ll tell you it’s doing well. Ask about a vertical, and they’ll say it’s interesting. Ask about a competitor, and if they are on the record they’ll say…

SmartNews, a news aggregation service, raised $92 million this week at a $1.2 billion valuation. The dollar amount subsumes a smaller round from August when the startup announced that it had raised $28 million at a slightly lower valuation. That…

Morning Markets: Peloton is back above its IPO price after a trip to the doldrums. Perhaps the public market is already over its flight-to-quality and focus on profits. When Peloton filed to go public, the consumer-exercise phenom received…

In a year that’s seen a number of large rounds and success stories (and some drama too – WeWork, we’re looking at you), there’s inevitably going to be some stories that fall in the not-so-successful category. Today, we’ll look at two companies that…

Morning Markets: Kicking off this nigh-holiday week, let’s take a look at what we’re seeing around the startup market. It’s hard to get a single feel for the pulse as both bullish and bearish sentiments abound. Read the front page of influential…

On the heels of Angular Capital’s new fund, another Europe-based investment pool has been announced. Northzone, most famous for an early bet on Spotify, has put together a $500 million vehicle that will add more fuel to the global startup boom, even…

It’s now common knowledge that competitive gaming, better known as esports, is a real industry. Recent numbers underscore the fact. A short time ago, the 2019 League of Legends world finals wrapped up in a Paris arena that had previously hosted…

Morning Markets: Yesterday news broke that Accel put $200 million into 1Password. The deal, however, wasn’t all primary. News that Accel had invested $200 million into the erstwhile-bootstrapped 1Password landed this week with a bang. The story was…

Here is a statement of fact, followed by a cliche: The health insurance industry in America isn’t very consumer-friendly, and software is eating the world. And where those two ideas meet, there is a company hoping to use software to improve how…

Morning Markets: WeWork’s financials didn’t radically change in Q3. That’s a problem. How fast can WeWork turn its business around? Unsurprisingly given the timing of its pulled IPO (Sept. 30), the company wasn’t able to materially change the outline…

A few weeks ago, Crunchbase News explored startups diving into the world of banking. A horde of young tech companies in related spaces—like student loans or low-income savings—are adding checking accounts and debit cards to their arsenals. The result…

Yesterday, Hive announced a $10.6 million Series A round of capital, led by Comcast Ventures. The new round was larger than all the capital that Hive, a startup focused on a unified productivity service, had raised prior, including a $4 million…

Morning Markets: DoorDash may pick up more cash as the company’s growth draws fans, worry. Despite a series of setbacks amongst other Vision Fund-backed bets, one particular wager is chugging along as if the market was unchanged from earlier in the…

Morning Markets is already out, which would normally mean that I’d stop writing from the hip and get back to more regular journalism, but I wanted to highlight something interesting that probably matters. So hear me out if you can. Here at Crunchbase…