Author Archives: Danny Crichton

Kleiner spots Spot Meetings $5M to modernize walk-and-talks for the Zoom generation

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Trees, those deciduous entities you can occasionally see outdoors when not locked down or strapped down at a desktop ruminating on a video call, have long been the inspiration for fresh new ideas. Stories abound of how founders built companies while walking the foothills in Silicon Valley or around parks in San Francisco, and yet, […] Continue reading Kleiner spots Spot Meetings $5M to modernize walk-and-talks for the Zoom generation→

Spokn slurps out the BS in corporate internal comms and replaces it with audio storytelling

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The podcasting world remains one of the most vibrant formats in media (and I am not just saying that since the Equity crew won a Webby yesterday for our not-that-humble podcast). Its openness, diversity, freedom, and ease-of-authoring has broadened the medium to all sorts of hosts on every subject imaginable. We experience that dynamism and […] Continue reading Spokn slurps out the BS in corporate internal comms and replaces it with audio storytelling→

Father and son duo take on global logistics with Optimal Dynamics’ sequential decision AI platform

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Like “innovation,” machine learning and artificial intelligence are commonplace terms that provide very little context for what they actually signify. AI/ML spans dozens of different fields of research, covering all kinds of different problems and alternative and often incompatible ways to solve them. One robust area of research here that has antecedents going back to […] Continue reading Father and son duo take on global logistics with Optimal Dynamics’ sequential decision AI platform→

Klaviyo’s next-gen email marketing platform engorges on $320M at a $9.5B valuation

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Email marketing is decades old, but it’s a category that has surprising life in it. Multiple generations of email marketing companies have come through and sustained success, from Constant Contact to Mailchimp. These brands often become household names — after all, you probably have hundreds of emails with their logos attached to the email footer. […] Continue reading Klaviyo’s next-gen email marketing platform engorges on $320M at a $9.5B valuation→

Blind raises $37M to double down on workplace gossip and career advice

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Blind has carved out a unique niche in the social-networking world. It’s an app of verified, pseudonymous employees talking to each other about what’s going on at their employers, trading notes on everything from layoffs, to promotions, to policies. Part LinkedIn, part Reddit, part Slack — it’s become widely popular among tech workers at Silicon […] Continue reading Blind raises $37M to double down on workplace gossip and career advice→

The human-focused startups of the hellfire

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Disasters may not always be man-made, but they are always responded to by humans. There’s a whole panoply of skills and professions required today to respond to even the tiniest emergency, and that doesn’t even include the needs during pre-disaster planning and post-disaster recovery. It’s not a very remunerative industry for most and the mental […] Continue reading The human-focused startups of the hellfire→

When the Earth is gone, at least the internet will still be working

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The internet is now our nervous system. We are constantly streaming and buying and watching and liking, our brains locked into the global information matrix as one universal and coruscating emanation of thought and emotion. What happens when the machine stops though? It’s a question that E.M. Forster was intensely focused on more than a […] Continue reading When the Earth is gone, at least the internet will still be working→

RapidSOS and Axon ink deal to give better real-time information to emergency responders

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Every time an emergency responder or police officer responds to a 911 dispatch, they enter an unknown terrain. What’s the incident? Who’s involved? Is anyone dangerous or holding a weapon? Is someone injured and perhaps has an underlying health condition that the responders need to know about? As prominent news stories this week and over […] Continue reading RapidSOS and Axon ink deal to give better real-time information to emergency responders→

The Klaviyo EC-1

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E-commerce is booming as retailers race to transform their brick-and-mortar footprints into online storefronts. By some counts, the market grew an astonishing 42% in 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and estimates show that online spending in the U.S. will surpass $1 trillion by 2022. It’s a bonanza, and everyone is figuring out […] Continue reading The Klaviyo EC-1→

How Klaviyo transformed from a lifestyle business into a $4.15B email titan

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Startups are stories of feverish dreams and obsessive fears. Short of hearing it from the source, a glimpse into the inbox of a founder would be the best way to experience the travails they endure on the way to building a business. A customer finally makes a purchase, a VC invests or walks away, an […] Continue reading How Klaviyo transformed from a lifestyle business into a $4.15B email titan→