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See you Monday! — Christine
The TechCrunch Top 3
Startups and VC
More layoffs this week as Ingrid reports on Primer, an e-commerce infrastructure startup based in the U.K. that announced it would lay off one-third of its staff amid some restructuring to manage current and proposed commerce market conditions.
Meanwhile, Haje believes you need the perfect summary slide for your pitch deck and has found some for you (requires a TechCrunch+ subscription).
And we have three more for you:
How to respond when a VC asks about your startup’s valuation
Image Credits: boschettophotography (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
When a VC inevitably asks about your valuation expectations, it is a trick question: If your response is too high, it’s a red flag, whereas a lowball figure undervalues the company.
“We’re letting the market price this round” is an appropriate reply, but only if you’ve already gathered substantial data points from other investors — and can fire back with a few questions of your own, says Evan Fisher, founder of Unicorn Capital.
“If that’s all you say, you’re in trouble because it can also be interpreted as ‘we don’t have a clue’ or ‘we’ll take what we’re given,’” said Fisher.
Instead of going in cold, he advises founders to pre-pitch investors from their next round and use takeaways from those conversations to shape current valuations.
In the article, Fisher includes sample questions “you will want to ask every VC you speak with,” along with other tips that will help “when they pop the valuation question.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
We are over here with our mouths open upon learning that crypto news publication The Block received some significant — and undisclosed — loans from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s company Alameda Research. As a result, CEO Michael McCaffrey is out and Bobby Moran, the company’s chief revenue officer, takes the role but as Jacquelyn and Alex write, the now conflict of interest will take some time to repair, if it can even be done.
As we wait for the Federal Trade Commission to send news of Microsoft’s fate with Activision, Kyle writes that the cloud services giant acquired a different company, this time Lumenisity, a startup developing high-speed cables for transmitting data.
And three more for you:
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