Honest Company files for IPO, $COIN, and Wall Street banks record quarter
Welcome to Nº 20 of In The Money, your weekly newsletter on keeping up with all things finance, tech, and startups. As always, this week’s newsletter is filled with all the financy things. This week, Honest Company, the consumer goods company founded by Jessica Alba filed for going public. Speaking of public listings, Coinbase made its debut as a public company through a direct listing on Nasdaq. In London, Darktrace filed to go public defying the disappointing IPO of Deliveroo. The list of the world’s best venture capital investors, the Midas List, was revealed featuring twelve women. Katrina Lake, founder, and CEO of Stitch Fix is stepping down. Wall Street banks reported some record first-quarter results. This and much more. I hope you enjoy this edition.
European VC at ATH 💸
Last week we learned that venture capital funding hit an all-time high in the first quarter of 2021. The year is shaping up to be a stellar year for startups in Europe. According to Crunchbase, investment in European startups tracked at $21.4 billion in the first quarter, more than double funding amounts year over year (YOY), and close to double over the last quarter of 2020. Funding at every stage was up with late-stage funding growing the most. The number of new unicorns in Europe grew as well, with unprecedented 16 new unicorns in a single quarter. In the whole of 2020, there were 15 new European unicorns. Currently, there are 86 private companies valued at or above $1 billion in Europe, corresponding to around 11% of all unicorns globally.
Early-stage funding was at $5.8 billion, also an all-time high for European startups, up 62% year over year and 49% quarter over quarter. Late-stage and technology-growth funding came in at $14.3 billion, up a whopping 202% year over year and 126% quarter over quarter. This is the largest amount ever recorded for European headquartered startups. Billion-dollar funding rounds were raised by Stockholm-based e-commerce payments platform Klarna and London-based online used car marketplace Cazoo. Also, the number of funding rounds at or above $100 million reached the highest recorded in a quarter at 54 rounds, the majority of which are at the late stage. US-based venture and alternative investors led a higher proportion of deals than their European counterparts.
Let’s be honest 🔔
Honest Company, the consumer goods company founded by actress Jessica Alba, filed for IPO last Friday. The IPO filing follows a strong year that was driven by a pandemic-driven surge in demand for baby products, lotions, and sanitizers. The company plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker “HNST”. In its S-1 filing (you can read the definition of S-1 in a previous edition of ITM), Honest reports its revenue jumped 27.6% to $300.5 million in 2020, with diapers and wipes accounting for about two-thirds of its sales. Net loss for the period also narrowed to $14.5 million from $31.1 million the previous year. With the IPO proceeds, Honest plans to strengthen its online business, while bolstering its presence at third-party sellers and in international markets, including the Asian region. The plan is to fund marketing and direct-to-consumer advertising, as well as launch new products and buy complementary businesses. Morgan Stanley, Jefferies, and J.P. Morgan are among the underwriters (IPO underwriters determine the initial offering price of the securities, buy the securities from the issuer, and sell the securities to investors). In January, Bloomberg reported that Honest could seek a valuation of about $2 billion in an IPO. In the S-1, Honest also reports that people of color represented nearly half its workforce and women represent 68% and 53% of its workforce and leadership respectively. You can deep dive into the S-1 filing here.
The world’s best VCs 🏆
This week, Forbes released their 20th annual Midas List, the list of the worlds’ 100 best venture capital investors. To qualify for the list investors are ranked by their portfolio companies that have gone public or been acquired for at least $200 million over the past five years, or that have at least doubled their private valuation since initial investment to $400 million or more over the same period. At number one for the first time is Sequoia partner Alfred Lin, the former Zappos executive jumped 31 spots thanks to his firm's investments in two of 2020’s biggest IPOs, Airbnb and DoorDash.
This year’s list includes twelve women, up from 11 last year. Just 4.9% of all US venture partners are women, and just 5.6% of US venture funds are women-led, according to a recent report from Women in VC. Furthermore, exactly half of the women on this year’s Midas List are leading VCs in China, a testament to their individual investing acumen, the country’s blossoming startup ecosystem, and the central role women now play in the Chinese tech industry. Indeed, women have risen to the top of the VC gauntlet in China over the past decade, outpacing the US in terms of the percentage of female investing partners, the percentage of venture firms that have at least one woman, and the percentage of female-founded internet startups. The women on this year’s Midas List are Mary Meeker (21), Anna Fang, (26), Mar Hershenson (29), Jenny Lee (33), Jing Hong (39), Kathy Xu (71), Nisa Leung (73), Kirsten Green (74), Sonali De Rycker (83), Ann Miura-Ko (89), Luciana Lixandru (99), and Ruby Lu (100). You can read more about Anna Fang as the Woman of the week below.
A female CEO taking over from a female CEO 🧵
Katrina Lake, the founder of the personal styling service Stitch Fix, will step down as CEO of the company, the company announced on Tuesday. Lake, (who was featured as the woman of the week in one of the first editions of ITM) who founded the business a decade ago, will become the company's executive chairperson and remain on staff as an employee handling social impact work. Stitch Fix president Elizabeth Spaulding, who joined the company in January 2020, will take over as its second-ever CEO starting August 1. Following the announcement, Stitch Fix stock fell 5% in after-hours trading. "This succession has been in the works for some time, and while change can be hard, I also believe in its transformational power. I am deeply confident in the future ahead for us. I can’t imagine anyone else taking our company forward with such energy, passion, and optimism," Lake wrote in a message to Stitch Fix's about 8,000 employees and stylists.
Lake founded Stitch Fix as a personal styling service that sent customers a box of clothes to try on and let them decide what to keep and what to send back. In recent years, the $1.7 billion business has leaned into its technology and data analytics operation to predict what customers with different preferences and body types are likely to buy or return. Lake's legacy at Stitch Fix includes taking the company public in 2017, which made her the youngest woman to do so until the recent IPO of dating app Bumble, led by founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd. This leadership transition is a rare example of a female CEO taking over from a female CEO at a public company.
Warned ✋
Last Saturday, Chinese regulators hit Alibaba with an 18.23 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) fine in its anti-monopoly investigation of the tech giant, saying it abused its market dominance. The Chinese regulators opened a probe into Alibaba’s monopolistic practices in December. The investigation’s main focus was a practice that forces merchants to choose one of two platforms, rather than being able to work with both. Alibaba’s CEO Daniel Zhang said he does not expect a material impact on the company from the change of this exclusivity arrangement. Perhaps surprisingly, Alibaba shares rose 6% in premarket trading in the US after the company was fined. Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares closed 6.5% higher on Monday. Beijing is becoming increasingly concerned by the power of China’s technology companies that have grown, largely unencumbered, into giants. Regulatory scrutiny has focused on Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s empire after the billionaire made some comments in October that appeared critical of China’s financial regulator (read more about it in a previous edition of ITM). Not long after, the regulators pulled the plug on what would have been a record initial public offering of Ant Group, the financial technology giant Ma founded.
Only two days after the news on Alibaba, China imposed a restructuring on Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba. In November, Jack Ma’s Ant Group, record $37 billion IPO was derailed by the Chinese regulators (you can read more about this in a previous edition of ITM). Then, on Monday, announced, overhaul includes turning Ant into a financial holding firm, a move that is expected to curb Ant’s profitability and valuation. The measures do not, however, call for the breakup of Ant, whose business span payments, wealth management, and consumer lending. The Alipay app has more than 730 million monthly users in China and handles more transactions a year than Mastercard and Visa.
NYSE launches NFTs 🖼
On Monday The New York Stock Exchange announced it would launch “First Trade” NFTs, to memorialize the true first trade of six stocks on the public markets. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a type of digital asset created to track ownership of a virtual item using blockchain technology (you can read more about NFTs in a previous edition of ITM). NYSE President Stacey Cunningham wrote in a LinkedIn post that during a company’s IPO, the exchange processes over 350 billion order, quote and trade messages across its markets. Each of these messages is recorded on the exchange’s digital ledger. “Only one of those messages marks the NYSE First Trade: the exact moment a company became public, creating an opportunity for others to share in their success. The NYSE First Trade NFT memorializes that unique moment in a company’s history,” Cunningham wrote.
NYSE’s first class of NFTs represents the first trade of Spotify, which executed the inaugural direct listing on the exchange. In a direct listing, a company makes its public market debut by selling existing shares directly to the public instead of bringing in intermediaries, such as investment banks, and offer new shares (like Coinbase did this week, which you can read more about below). The exchange’s NFT offerings also include Snowflake, the biggest software IPO ever, as well as Unity, DoorDash, Roblox, and Coupang, the largest initial public offering of 2021 so far.
$COIN goes public 💹
In ITM we have covered Coinbase’s plans to list directly. On Tuesday Nasdaq provided a reference price of $250. On Wednesday, on the day of the listing, Coinbase shares opened at $381 on the Nasdaq, giving the cryptocurrency exchange an initial market cap of $99.6 billion on a fully diluted basis. Shares quickly shot up as high as $429, (market cap of $112 billion on a fully diluted basis). The market cap is simply the stock price times the numbers of fully-diluted shares outstanding. The shares then dropped back below the debut price and reaching a low of $310. The price was still well above the reference price of $250, though no shares changed hands at that price. Coinbase shares closed at $328.28 in their Nasdaq debut on Wednesday, giving the cryptocurrency exchange an initial market cap of $85.8 billion on a fully diluted basis. Including options and RSUs (options and restricted stock options are forms of stock-based compensation for employees), it’s already one of the 85 most valuable US companies.
Bypassing the traditional IPO process, Coinbase listed its stock directly, allowing employees and existing shareholders to sell shares immediately at a market-based price. Coinbase followed tech companies like Spotify, Slack, Palantir, and Roblox, in listing directly. Founded in 2012 as a way to simplify the purchase of Bitcoin, Coinbase has emerged as the most popular crypto exchange (having 56 million users) and soared in value alongside cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum. In its last private financing round in 2018, investors valued Coinbase at $8 billion. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s co-founder, and CEO owns 39.6 million shares. In August, Armstrong was granted a multibillion-dollar performance award tied to the company’s stock price, potentially letting him purchase up to 9.29 million options at $23.46 over 10 years.
I also highly recommend reading a very interesting and insightful Fortune interview with Emilie Choi, Coinbase’s President and COO, you can read it here.
Bitcoin 💎
Bitcoin surged to a new record high of more than $63,000 on Tuesday, as investors awaited the highly-anticipated stock market debut of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (see above). Bitcoin reached as high as $64,829 before easing back to $63,554 on Tuesday. The gains weren’t reserved only for Bitcoin, as Ether, gained around 10% over 24 hours, reaching a fresh record at nearly $2,399.
New leak 👀
Last week ITM reported leaks from social media platforms including Facebook and LinkedIn. Clubhouse is the newest social media company to join the fray. The news comes only days after scraped data from more than a billion Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, which collectively were put for sale online (update on last week’s leak from Facebook: Facebook is to be sued in Europe over the major leak of user data). An SQL database containing 1.3 million scraped Clubhouse user records was leaked for free on a popular hacker forum. Clubhouse issued a statement about the incident on social media, saying they have not experienced a breach of their systems. The company said that the data was already publicly available and that it can be accessed by “anyone” via their API. Nevertheless, this raises some questions about the privacy stance of the company and the fact that they allow anyone to gather and download information on a mass scale, which can have severe negative consequences for user privacy.
Apple’s week of announcements 🍏
According to a Bloomberg report, Apple is working on a combined Apple TV. Reportedly it is a connected television set that has a HomePod speaker and a camera for video calls. In addition to this, the device will have other capabilities such as the standard Apple TV box functions like watching video and gaming plus smart speaker uses such as playing music and using Apple's Siri digital assistant. Earlier this year Apple discontinued its original high-end HomePod in March, following disappointing sales. The HomePod mini, which launched last year, has been much more popular thanks to its lower price. However, according to Bloomberg’s report, the product's development is still in the early stages, and Apple could choose not to launch the product or change key features. The report also mentions that Apple is working on a concept for a future HomePod that has an iPad connected via a robotic arm, which could follow users around a room during video calls.
Also, this week, Siri prematurely revealed that Apple plans to hold an event on Tuesday, April 20, where the company is expected to reveal brand new iPad Pro models and possibly its long-awaited AirTags trackers. Upon being asked "When is the next Apple Event," Siri responded with, "The special event is on Tuesday, April 20, at Apple Park in Cupertino, CA. You can get all the details on Apple dot com." Apple later confirmed the date of the event.
This week Apple also announced as part of its environmental commitments, a new $200 million ‘Restore Fund’ that will develop new financially viable initiatives to restore forest woodland areas, which removes carbon from the atmosphere. The fund aims to generate meaningful financial returns on investments. Apple hopes that it will convince other companies to follow its lead. Apple has set a goal for the entire business to be 100% carbon neutral by 2030. Apple says it will remove 75% of carbon emissions from its supply chain by 2030. The forestry fund will contribute to the remaining 25%.
The raison d'être for In The Money – to increase the percentage of women (and men also of course) investing
Google Earth 🌍
Google Earth got a new 3D time-lapse feature that lets you observe how Earth has changed from 1984 to 2020. The feature allows you to see just how much the devastating effects of climate change have already shaped the planet. “It’s best for a landscape view of our world. It’s not about zooming in. It’s about zooming out. It’s about taking the big step back. We need to see how our only home is doing,” Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, Google Earth Engine, and Google Earth Outreach, said in a call with reporters this week. The feature (which Google calls “Timelapse,” one word) started to be available on Google Earth on Thursday. To access it, launch Google Earth and then click/tap on the Voyager tab (an icon that looks like a ship’s wheel). You can search for a place or check out one of Google’s five “guided tours” about forest change, urban growth, warming temperatures, mining and renewable energy sources, and “the Earth’s fragile beauty.”
Microsoft’s acquisition streak 🛍
On Monday, Microsoft announced that it will acquire speech recognition company Nuance Communications for $56 per share, about 23% above its closing price Friday. The deal is worth about $16 billion and about $19 billion including debt. Nuance would be aligned with the part of Microsoft’s business that serves businesses and governments. Nuance sells tools for recognizing and transcribing speech in doctor office visits, customer service calls, and voicemails. Microsoft said Nuance’s technology will be used to augment Microsoft’s cloud products for health care, which were launched last year. The Nuance acquisition is the latest sign that Microsoft hunting for more growth through acquisitions. It was earlier reported that the company is also in talks to buy the chat app Discord for about $10 billion. Last year Microsoft made an effort to buy TikTok’s US business for about $30 billion before the deal was derailed. Last month, Microsoft acquired Zenimax, the gaming company for $7.6 billion. The Nuance acquisition is Microsoft’s largest acquisition since it bought LinkedIn for more than $26 billion in 2016. Shares of Nuance were up 18% Monday morning, while Microsoft shares were slightly positive.
Darktrace to go public in London… 🇬🇧
On Monday, British cybersecurity start-up Darktrace announced its plans to go public in London, a move that is defying fears that Deliveroo’s disappointing IPO could put other tech firms off listing in the city (read more about Deliveroo’s flop IPO in the last edition of ITM). Darktrace’s platform uses artificial intelligence technology to detect and respond to cyber threats in a business’s IT systems. Its self-learning AI can monitor threats in real-time and come up with ways to strike back. Darktrace was founded in 2013 by a group of former intelligence experts and mathematicians. The company said it intends to float at least 20% of issued share capital in the initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) premium market. This would make it eligible for inclusion in benchmark indexes like the FTSE 100. “Our intention to list on the London Stock Exchange marks a major milestone in Darktrace’s history of rapid growth and a historic day for the UK’s thriving technology sector,” said Poppy Gustafsson, Darktrace’s CEO, and co-founder. Watch Poppy’s TED Talk on cybersecurity here. You can also read Darktrace’s intention to float on the LSE announcement here.
… and Trustly in Stockholm 🇸🇪
Swedish payments company Trustly is the latest fintech start-up to announce its intention to list on the stock market. On Monday the company announced that it was seeking a valuation of about $9 billion. Trustly is seeking to list on Nasdaq in Stockholm in the coming weeks. It aims to raise about 8 billion SEK ($930 million) in new capital while its majority shareholder, the Swedish private equity company Nordic Capital will sell down its stake. The announcement comes as investor interest in payments groups is surging. Stripe and Klarna, both unlisted, tripling their valuations in recent weeks. Unlike Klarna and Stripe that rely on card networks, Trustly has built its own platform allowing consumers to pay directly from their bank accounts. The company says that by cutting out intermediaries such as card issuers and banks, it can reduce costs for merchants by up to a half. Trustly is among Europe’s fastest-growing companies in terms of revenues and a start-up with solid profitability. It was founded in 2008 and Nordic Capital bought a majority stake in 2018 at a €700 million valuation.
That’s Epic 👾
On Tuesday, Epic Games, developer of the popular video game Fortnite, announced it raised $1 billion in a new round of funding that lifts the company’s valuation to $28.7 billion. The new valuation represents a 66% increase from what it was worth in a $1.8 billion deal last year. $200 million of the funding was raised from Sony, which initially invested in the company last year. Other investors in the round included Appaloosa, Baillie Gifford, and Fidelity. It’s been busy several months for the game-maker. The company has been waging an ongoing war with both Apple and Google over in-game payment revenues. Epic tried to avoid Apple’s 30% App Store fee through a software update that bypassed Apple’s own payments system. Apple responded by removing Fortnite from its App Store. An antitrust trial expected to feature some tech’s biggest names is expected to kick off early next month. Epic has also recently been acquiring game developers and publishing studios, including the acquisition of Fall Guys-maker Mediatonic in March. It’s clear that Epic is amassing a large portfolio of titles through acquisitions, a trend that is almost certain to continue with this latest massive round.
NVIDIA’s chips 💾
On Monday, Nvidia announced plans to make a server processor chip based on technology from the UK’s Arm, putting it in the most direct competition yet with rival Intel. The move adds a layer of complexity to the antitrust review of Nvidia’s $40 billion deal to buy Arm. Intel is the world’s biggest maker of central processors for data center servers but has seen increasing competition from Arm-based chips. With its “Grace” server processor, Nvidia will be the largest chip company so far to challenge Intel in its key market. Nvidia shares rose 2.6%, while Intel shares dropped 4% in midday trading after the news. Arm’s technology powers the chips in most smartphones, but for the last years has been making its way into data centers. Companies such as Amazon and Ampere Computing designing chips for servers with it. Nvidia’s entry into the market could accelerate Arm’s inroads into data centers. Traditionally, Nvidia’s chips have been used as “accelerators” alongside existing central processors from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). By making its own central processor, Nvidia is taking on Intel and AMD directly for the first time. Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia said the Grace server processor, which will be released in 2023, is designed to manage tasks like training artificial intelligence algorithms. Once known for its graphics chips to improve the play of video games, Nvidia has in recent years heavily focused on artificial intelligence computing, helping its market capitalization exceed Intel’s to become the largest US semiconductor firm.
“If people have a whole life, it makes them far better leaders and far better professionals. You have to have the courage to say, ‘This is my path’ - and the organizations have to support it” - Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup
Banking on it 🏦
This week the biggest banks in the US were reporting earnings against the backdrop of an improving US economy and with investors already having chased their shares higher in anticipation of strong results. Overall, bank stocks are trading at about twice their pandemic lows and are up 26% year to date, outpacing the 11% gain in the S&P 500.
On Wednesday, JPMorgan, with the world’s biggest Wall Street bank reported profit and revenue that exceeded analysts’ expectations. The bank posted a first-quarter profit of $14.3 billion. The companywide revenue of $33.12 billion benefitted from robust investment banking fees driven by record issuance of SPACs, which saw more activity in the first quarter than all of 2020, itself a record year. Revenue was also driven by the firm’s trading operations, which produced about $1.8 billion more revenue than expected.
Earnings: $4.50 per share, vs. $3.10 per share expected by analysts
Revenue: $33.12 billion, vs. $30.52 billion expected
Investment banking revenue surged 222%, or a full $2 billion, to $2.9 billion, exceeding the estimate of $2.65 billion
JPMorgan’s release of $5.2 billion in reserves is the biggest sign so far that the US. the banking industry is now expected fewer loan losses than it had last year when it set aside tens of billions for defaults anticipated from the coronavirus pandemic. A year ago, the firm had added $6.8 billion to credit reserves.
Also, on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs blew past analysts’ expectations with record first-quarter net profits and revenues on strong performance from the firm’s investment banking and trading businesses. The bank posted per-share earnings of $18.60, representing a growth of 498% from the same period one year ago. $17.7 billion revenue easily topped expectations of $12.6 billion. Goldman’s investment banking fees were up 73% year-on-year to $3.77bn, beating the 57% rise reported by JPMorgan earlier in the day. Trading revenues at Goldman were up 47% to $7.58 billion compared to JPMorgan’s 25% increase. Shares of Goldman Sachs rose 1.5% following the release.
Earnings: $18.60 per share, vs. $10.22 per share expected by analysts
Revenue: $17.7 billion, vs. $12.6 billion expected
Trading Revenue: Fixed Income: $3.89 billion, Equities: $3.69 billion
Investment Banking: $3.77 billion
On Thursday also, Citigroup and Bank of America reported record first quarters. Jane Fraser who became CEO of Citigroup in February and the first woman to lead a Wall Street bank presented her first shake-up at the bank. Citigroup will sell its consumer businesses in 13 countries. Fraser said that the bank is going to double down on its wealth management business. Overall, Citigroup posted strong investment banking revenue and a bigger-than-expected release of loan-loss reserves. The bank posted a profit of $7.94 billion, or $3.62 a share, and revenue of $19.3 billion.
European stocks at ATH 📈
Earlier in this edition, we learned that venture investing in Europe hit an all-time high. Well, so did European stocks. On Thursday, the pan-European Stoxx 600 index hit a high of 438.29, surpassing levels seen in late February 2020, just before the region’s stocks sold off as the coronavirus pandemic hit its nations hard. Thursday’s move marks a more-than 55% jump from a pandemic low seen on March 18, 2020. For example, LVMH stock rose to a record high on Wednesday, as the luxury-goods conglomerate returned to growth in the first quarter thanks to surging sales in the US and Asia after the luxury goods sector was one of the first hit by the pandemic. The French luxury conglomerate posted revenue of €14 billion in the first three months of 2021, a growth of 30% year-on-year. The stock rose 2.7% in early trading and is now close to 20% up year-to-date. European companies are expected to do better in the coming months. Goldman Sachs analysts are forecasting 40% earnings-per-share growth in Europe this year. Across the Atlantic, the Dow crossed the 34,000 threshold for the first time on Thursday. Investor sentiment was boosted by economic data that pointed to a rebound in consumer spending and the jobs market.
Woman of the Week
Anna Fang (方爱之)
I have to admit, I did not know much about Anna before I saw this year’s Midas List (mentioned above). I got so inspired by her, so inevitably I had to feature her as the Woman of the Week.
Anna Fang (方爱之) is the Founding Partner and the CEO of ZhenFund (真格基金), an early-stage venture capital firm in China. She is also one of the most influential angel investors in China.
Anna received an undergraduate degree from Columbia University in Economics and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. She is still involved with her alma maters. She is currently an advisory board member of Columbia College and Columbia’s Global Centers. She also leads the Beijing chapter of Stanford Graduate School of Business.
After graduating, Anna started her career as an investment banker at JPMorgan in the Consumer Healthcare Retail Group. She later joined GE China’s Corporate Business Development team helping to expand the company’s M&A and BD efforts in China before joining ZhenFund in 2011. In her role as CEO, Anna oversees Zhenfund’s investments, portfolio management, and operations. Anna’s areas of investment expertise include consumer-related companies such as RED (XiaoHongShu), Perfect Diary, Club Factory, Yitu, Mobvoi, Horizon Robotics, Mia, and VIPKID. I highly recommend checking ZhenFund’s webpage. As a woman in VC, it is very refreshing to see the fund’s team page. As an ally to women in business, Anna has built a nine-member investment team that includes four women, and the firm has invested in over 30 start-ups that have been founded or co-founded by women. She is in charge of managing a $950 million fund and has previously invested in RED (Xiaohongshu), Mobvoi, Deep Glint, and VIPKID, among many other successful companies. She is also the only female judge on the show “I’m a Unicorn,” China’s version of “Shark Tank.” ZhenFund’s network includes over 600 companies, as well as several Chinese unicorn startups.
In 2016 Anna joined the class of Young Global Leaders. In 2018, Anna was listed as one of the Top 10 Early-Stage Investors of the Year 2018 by Zero2IPO Group. Anna joined Forbes’ Midas List of the World’s Top Tech Investors in 2019 at the age of 36. In this year’s Midas List she was ranked number 26 (read more about the list above). She is well recognized as a top early-stage tech investor in China, having consistently been selected as one of China’s Top 10 Early-stage Investors by Zero2IPO and one of China’s 40 under 40 venture capital investors.
If you want to learn more about Anna, I highly recommend this Analyse Asia podcast episode with her.
Thank you so much for reading this week’s newsletter. I would love to hear your feedback and please share this with a few friends you think would find this interesting. Have a lovely weekend 💜
I’m Marianne, an early-stage VC based in Stockholm. You can reach me by replying to this email, or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn.