Nasdaq has launched a new venture investment program to find the creme de la crème in the FinTech space. Nasdaq Ventures, will aim to find innovative financial technology firms with which they can collaborate and invest between $1 million and $10 million. This is the latest development in Nasdaq’s transformation from a US equities exchange to a diversified financial technology company ~> A stock market behemoth is looking to invest millions in new startups

The Blackstone Group is working to launch both venture capital and infrastructure investing programs, according to comments made during Thursday’s Q1 earnings call ~> Blackstone is expanding into VC and infrastructure

Joanne Wilson started with founders, but now she’s funding movements too. Joanne focuses on very early stage seed financing, with more than 100 investments so far, more than half of which are run by female founders. Recently dismayed by the shift in national politics, the Wilsons have spearheaded a new approach to philanthropy as well, working to fund organisations fighting what they consider to be misguided policy from inside Washington~> The Independent Consigliere To Founders

Calpers Is Sick of Paying Too Much for Private Equity ~> Pension fund’s private-equity returns were 12.3% over 20 years, but they would have been 19.3% without fees and costs, could VC offer an alternative, ‘cheaper’ opportunity?

After a decade of buzz that brought bold headlines but few profits, Kenya’s “Silicon Savannah” technology hub is retooling to put income before activism ~> Kenya’s Tech Hub Gets a Makeover

SparkLabs operates a network of accelerators in Asia, including one in South Korea. The company has now signed a partnership in China with Guoan Academy, a subsidiary of Citic Guoan Group ~> SparkLabs launches tech accelerator in Beijing

The ability of blockchain technologies to create many currencies could create a ‘long tail’ of new commerce opportunities ~> 'User-Generated Currency’: Bitcoin and the YouTube of Money

In a similar vein: Portfolio managers seek investments that promise high returns and low correlations with their other positions. For the past few years, crypto currencies have demonstrated these qualities better than other major asset classes ~> What Drives the Value of Crypto Currencies?

“This will be as profitable as any other tech industry out there,” Babitz told Digital Trends. “This is the future. Everybody is going to be a cyborg.” ~> A look inside the budding battle between cyborg supply startups 

No intro needed ~> Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future

Greylock invested $3 million in AppDynamics’ Series A round funding, returning $300 million, or 100x after it exited. They subsequently invested another $20 million in Series B through Series F rounds, for a 14.5x return. The disparity between the two accounts highlights the huge difference in returns between investing early in startups and in later rounds ~> Questioning the conventional wisdom of the reserve fund

Albert Wenger argues that the funds that will do best are the ones that remain disciplined in size and also are looking actively for the next wave of innovation. He believes that the most promising candidates in terms of innovation are blockchains and hard sciences (especially in medicine, but also materials, energy and possibly space) ~> Venture Capital is a Capacity Industry with Boom and Bust Cycles

Alex Taussig of Lightspeed Venture Partners argues: Instead of disqualifying entrepreneurs by their choice of a career path, we should affirm that there is no “one path” to building a company ~> Let’s put this myth about MBAs to bed

TrueBridge published the Brink List – a shortlist of investors who have been making a name for themselves in VC and are poised to break into the Midas ranks in the near future ~> The 2017 Midas Brink List (Quite literally, the future of VC…) 

Lakschmi Balachandra spent almost 10 years capturing what happens in pitch meetings and quantifying the results ~> How Venture Capitalists Really Assess a Pitch

Be passionate about your company and loyal to your team, but remember markets and product lines shift ~> Blessed are the “Boring,” for They Create the Billion Dollar Startups

Thus, while the common story is that active fund managers struggle to beat the S&P 500, or perhaps the U.S. stock market overall (the tale that the Journal told), the victory for indexing extends far more widely than that. Across the board, in every category that the SPIVA paper examined, the benchmark triumphed for the 15-year period. There were no exceptions. ~> One Very Big Strike Against Active Management

Another stake in the heart for crowdfunding ~> Plastc swiped $9 million from backers and just completely vanished

How to use brand and thought leadership to break into VC ~> Lessons learned from #BreakIntoVC, my book on how to break into venture capital

Venture capital is an odd duck in the portfolios of limited partners ~> Limited Partners, not Limited Opportunity

Excellent read ~> Beating the Odds When You Launch a New Venture

Fascinating ~> Josh Kushner’s Complex World: How Jared’s Liberal Brother Runs A Billion Dollar Fund In Trump Era

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