Here are some news articles and tweets I have been reading the last week. I hope you find some relevant stories! If not, send me your links and ideas.

Stay in the loop and get daily Angel Investor News at @entrahouse and don't forget to sign up for Techstars Startup Digest Angel Investor.

How to Leverage Micro VC Funds to Build an Angel Portfolio — This is going to be BIG

Fund investing, like adulting, is boring. That’s the first thing anyone trying to raise a fund needs to understand, as well as anyone thinking about investing in one. The partner at the fund, the VC, gets to do the fun part — the meeting with founders, vetting deals, negotiating, helping, etc.

www.thisisgoingtobebig.com

Five Reasons Startup Boards Fail To Add Value

Done right, a start-up board should help with decision-making, hands-on business development, and act as a driver for growth. Yet, there are a number of common mistakes that founders and directors make, which mean that boards often fail to add the value that they’re capable of.

www.forbes.com

7 surprising ways startups can take advantage of a city’s resources

Any city that calls itself a “startup city” should provide a range of resources for startups to utilize. In metropolises around the world, local ecosystems are dedicating their resources to helping new businesses thrive, from small businesses to scale ups.

thenextweb.com

Deal of the week; 24SevenOffice

24SevenOffice issues a 30+30 MUSD bond — 24SevenOffice US

24SevenOffice has today resolved to propose that an extra general meeting resolves to issue convertibles of around 30 MUSD directed to Lugard Road Capital (“Lugard”).

24sevenofficeus-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Carousell CEO Latest To Join The List Of S’pore Startup Founders Who Turned Angel Investors

Quek had previously cashed out around US$465,000 from Carousell and could have used the money to invest in Intellect.

vulcanpost.com

Black women don’t get much startup business funding. These founders are trying to change that — CNN

The number of Black women who have raised over $1 million in funding has more than doubled since 2018, according to ProjectDiane — an impressive upswing that could signal a shift in a startup landscape dominated by White men.

edition.cnn.com

Founder Market Fit & what it means for early stage planning | Angel Investment Network Blog

In his second guest post for Angel Investment Network, Dan Simmons, CEO of Propelia, explains ‘How understanding the shift from Product Market Fit to Founder Market Fit in the pre-seed space can now help influence your early stage thinking and planning’:

www.angelinvestmentnetwork.net • Share

This week’s tweets

Berlin’s Wonder raises $11M for a new approach to video chat where you wander and join groups https://t.co/O9dm9taqBU #AngelInvestor#Entrepreneur #VentureCapital #entrepreneurslife
#2020Wrappe

Join me today at noon on nationally syndicated @LeslieMarshall show talking about empowering and funding women and how that will save the planet! #fundwomen #Lesliemarshallshow #sheangels #AngelInvestor#femalefounders, https://t.co/UX9GcFWigG

@SamsungNEXT has partnered with Techstars to grow its Diverse Founders Initiative. Learn more about why we’re both investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs in this interview with @BrandonDHoffman, Investor & Innovation Research Lead at Samsung Next. https://t.co/14FGzRusZ

Milestone; Love in the age of Corona

I am getting married in January, but there will not be a proper party before next summer because of the current Covid-19 situation in Europe. Are you ready to come to Serbia, Belgrade and Novi Sad? You can check out the startup scene at the same time :)

Me and Brana in Bergen, Norway in September, 2020. Foto: Private

As a curator, there is nothing more helpful than feedback on what you think should be the focus of this newsletter. If you want to be a more active contributor, let’s have a chat.

I promise your voice is important and suggestions regularly incorporated into the digest. Please send me your ideas, exciting news, deals, tools and connect on LinkedIn and follow my blog at bergmoe.com :-)

See you, and don’t forget to sign up for Techstars Startup Digest Angel Investor.

On this very morning, you are all set to decide how the day will play out.

You can feel sorry for yourselves, regret yesterday’s mistakes, or maybe define yourself as a victim of this global epidemic or you lift yourself to take another approach with a simple morning ritual;

• List up at least ten things you are grateful for in life
• Don’t rush to read the news, but use 10 minutes meditating or praying
• Take a 30-minute fast walk or run. If you are in quarantine at home, find other ways to make your heart pump
• Take your vitamins and drink water
• Have a nice breakfast and a smile

The routine described here is my approach, but define your own one.

“All of life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Essayist

Finding the right routine for the early hours will change your day for the better, so why don’t you just start today?

How was your morning today?

Originally published at https://bergmoe.com on April 19, 2020.

Here are some of the news articles and tweets I have been reading this week — I hope you find some relevant stories and sign up for Techstars Startup Digest Angel Investor — The state of the art on startup investing.

Stay in the loop, and get daily news and angel investor stories at @entrahouse.

The Slack Public Listing’s Surprise Winners: Other Startup CEOs — www.forbes.com
Slack is the latest in a string of tech unicorns to enrich a select group of founders who personally invested and stand to make millions

Money FM podcast: The Hot Seat — Angel investing: How risky is it for an investor?, Garage — THE BUSINESS TIMES — www.businesstimes.com.sg
 : THE BUSINESS TIMES Garage — A huge number of startups and unicorns have been popping up in South-east Asia and that has fuelled a wave of angel investing clubs in Singapore. . Read more at The Business Times.

Dublin salon software firm scoops major European investment award — www.siliconrepublic.com
Phorest, a salon software developer in Dublin backed by HBAN, has been named a winner at the European Business Angels Network congress.

Procurify raises $20 million to help companies manage spending | VentureBeat

venturebeat.com
Procurify, a Vancouver, Canada-based procurement software developer, announced that it’s raised $20 million in venture capital.

VC Lior Susan has a big idea that seems to be working: building next-generation industrial companies — TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
Many investors in Silicon Valley are waiting for the next big platform. That’s fine with Lior Susan, a former Flex exec who in 2015 co-founded Eclipse Ventures with the legendary venture capitalist Pierre Lamond, long of Sequoia Capital. The duo, along with a team that has now grown to 13 people — happen to think […]

pi Ventures Leads $2 Mn Funding Round In Mental Health Startup Wysa — inc42.com
Bengaluru-based AI mental health startup Wysa plans to use the funds to further strengthen their technology and for expansion.

Deal of the week; WorkHound

WorkHound secures new financing — Silicon Prairie News — siliconprairienews.com

• a startup that allows frontline workers to speak their minds anonymously about workplace problems.

As a curator, there is nothing more helpful than feedback on what you think should be the focus of this newsletter.

I promise your voice will be heard and suggestions regularly incorporated into the digest. Please send me your ideas, exciting news, deals, tools, and feel free to connect on LinkedIn… :-)

Sign up for Techstars Startup Digest Angel Investor — The state of the art on startup investing.

First, I would like to invite you to sign up for my Newsletter “New Venture Insights” I will send you my ebook “12 Reasons Why I Love Estonia” as a small intro gift :).

Let me take a minute to give you a short introduction to what I do;

My LinkedIn profile sums it all up; I have more than 30 years of experience with funding, coaching, and growing companies and great ideas to the next level. Have an extended global network of people in both the seed funding and venture capital world. I consider myself as an entrepreneur by heart and is always looking for win-win scenarios.

Currently, we have invested in a few startups and are now engaged, aking them to the next level. Feel free to follow my journey at my blog, Berg Moe Inc.

I am also the owner of Gründerklubben (The Norwegian Entrepreneurs Club) and Bangkok Entrepreneurs, the largest entrepreneurs networks in both Bangkok, Thailand, and Norway.

Our goal is to build the world’s biggest global entrepreneurs club and support forum. We now have 147 502 people in our network and are planning to grow fast.

I am also curating Techstart Angel Investor Startup Digest — The state of the art on startup investing.

Feel free to send me an email to berg@entrahouse.com if you have any questions regarding my networks, new ventures, and business opportunities.

Best regards,
Berg Moe
+47 970 25 340
+66 9486701027

Follow the Startup Digest blog for curated news, resources, and stories from the global network. Gather tips from fellow entrepreneurs, meet our curators and keep up to date on the latest Startup Weekend and Startup Week events happening around the world. You will find everything you need on the Startup Digest blog.

Are you an angel investor? Do you want to invest smarter? Do you want a weekly update with great relevant stories? Sign up for our newsletter.

When $8 billion is yours to lose

Ari Levy — CNBC

- How Uber’s top investor suffered through the wildest tech drama of the year.

Expect fewer great startups if the FCC kills net neutrality

Kyle Grillot — Wired.com

- FCC voted Thursday to dismantle its net neutrality regulations. But that won’t end the fight over rules that prohibit internet service providers from creating fast lanes for some content, while blocking or throttling others.

21 Incredible Facts About HubSpot CEO & Founder Brian Halligan

Larry Kim — Medium.com

- His inbound marketing and sales software company has raised more than $100 million in funding, gone public, and brought in $82.3 million in total revenue in Q1 of this year.

With Norrsken House, ex-Klarna executive envisions a global network of co-working spaces focused on impact

Jonathan Shieber — Techcrunch.com

- In 2016, Niklas Adalberth stepped away from day-to-day operations at the financial services startup Klarna, the billion-dollar company he helped create, to begin working on a new kind of impact investment fund.

Techstars and Rakuten Team up to Expand Accelerator Footprint With New Program in Singapore

David Brown — Techstars.com

- Together with Rakuten, a global leader in internet services, Techstars will work with early-stage entrepreneurs who are advancing social messaging technologies, with a focus on the Viber application.

Deal of the week: FreightHub

John Kennedy — Siliconrepublic.com

- This is the biggest Series A financing round for a logistics start-up in Europe to date.

Watch these guys — here are the SA startups to look out for in 2018

Stephen Timm — Ventureburn.com

• Tech startups that focus on solving problems using data analysis top Ventureburn’s list for the 12 South African tech firms to watch in 2018 — be they transport, agriculture, transport, or finance.

Startup Digest Angel Investor is curated by Berg Moe, Partner & CEO at EntraHouse, a boutique consulting firm specializing in growth facilitation, digital turnaround and market entry for startups and SME’s across the Nordics.

Berg Moe; Partner & CEO at EntraHouse, Serial Entrepreneur, Business Angel Facilitator, and TEDx speaker. Owner & manager at Gründerklubben (The Entrepreneurs Club — the largest entrepreneurs network in Norway), GEN member (Global Entrepreneur Network) and GEW Oslo organizer (Global Entrepreneurship Week).

I have more than 30 years of experience with funding, coaching and growing companies and great ideas to the next level. Have an extensive global network of people in both the seed funding and venture capital world.

I consider myself as an entrepreneur by heart and is always looking for win-win scenarios. Currently, I have invested in a few startups and are now engaged taking them to the next level.

Sign up for the newsletter at https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/angel-investor curatede by me. You will have it in your inbox every Friday, that is a promise.

Nasscom Announces Emerge 50 Winners: The Top 50 Most Innovative Indian Startups

Shweta Modgil — Inc42

- The year-long search for India’s Most Innovative Top 50 Emerging Software Product Companies culminated with the announcement of Nasscom Emerge 50 Awards 2017 yesterday.

Silicon Valley Bank’s Claire Lee: ‘Failure is often a necessity’

John Kennedy — Siliconrepublic.com

- Wicklow native Claire Lee is one of the most influential Irish people in the Silicon Valley investment scene. She tells John Kennedy how investing in people, not strictly in product, is an enduring trend in San Francisco.

Here are eight facts you should know about venture capital in South Africa

Ventureburn.com

- The value of venture capital (VC) investments rose by a whopping 134% to R872-million in 2016 over 2015, while ICT makes up 17% of the value of deals.

How to Build a Startup Ecosystem

George Deeb — Entrepreneur.com

- If you’re the only startup in town, it’s going to be tougher than if you’re launching in a healthy startup ecosystem.

10 Investors Who Are Authentically Committed To Funding Female Founders, Part 1

Lisa Wang — Forbes

- Half-hearted decency pledges, unkept promises to implement gender bias training, vague commitments to become more accessible, with so much noise and so little action, it’s hard to stay optimistic about the state of venture capital.

Deal of the week: Hevo Data

Catherine Shu — TechCrunch

- Hevo Data gets $1M in seed funding to streamline data integration.

From $16K in the bank to a new life

John Cook — GeekWire

• Startup’s ‘wild ride’ is a riveting tale of near failure and survival.

Sign up for the newsletter at https://www.startupdigest.com/digests/angel-investor

The state of the art on startup investing. This digest is sent to subscribers weekly and this is the edition sent out Friday July 28. Sign up today.

The Somers Record Co-owner Writes Book on Venture Capital

Jeremy Brown — Tapinto.net

- In this era of startups and new businesses popping up almost daily, there’s never been a better time to learn the language of venture capital.

HR Space is Ripe for Innovation: Shao-Ning Huang, Angel Investor & LP

Shiwen Yap — Dealstreetasia.com

- Shao-Ning Leigh Huang, a veteran of the Singapore venture ecosystem and co-founder of JobsCentral Group, has seen the growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the region become more vibrant and innovative.

21 Incredible Facts About HubSpot CEO & Founder Brian Halligan

Larry Kim — Inc.com

- How much do you know about the successful entrepreneur, angel investor, and author Brian Halligan?

7 Ways Silicon Valley Could Transform Its Toxic Culture

Katheline Jean-Pierre Coleman — Entrepreneur.com

- Alternatives to Silicon Valley’s male-dominated VC firms.

5 Groups Push to Increase Diversity Among Texas Startups

Mary Ann Azevedo — VentureBeat

- Entrepreneurs and investors often lament the lack of diversity in tech in Texas. But a few organizations, and people, are going beyond just talk and are actively working to better even the playing field for underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Deal of the Week: Grabr

Mike Butcher — TechCrunch

- SF-based Grabr grabs $2.7M to scale its traveler-driven shopping community.

MGC Incubates 5 MSMEs in Metro Manila, to Tap More Nationwide

Roderick Abad — Businessmirror.com

- ANGEL investment hub “Mr. Group of Companies” (MGC) said the five startups from Metro Manila it has been incubating since last year are on track to become medium enterprises by 2019.

It has been a fascinating week for Amazon and I have to say I admire this company and management. There is also a frustration related to the fact that I think it will take a while until we will see this company rolling out in Norway. That’s why I decided to collect some of latest news just so give a sense of all the stuff that are boiling right now.

Jeff Bezos Is the Richest Person Alive! No, Wait, He’s Not. Well, He Will Be, Anyway

Wall Street giveth and Wall Street taketh, but Amazon’s founder is playing the long game. Hours before Amazon’s second-quarter earnings call came word that Jeff Bezos had surpassed Bill Gates as the richest person in the world. On Thursday Amazon’s stock slipped, in response to the company’s second-quarter earnings miss, and Bezos lost his top spot.

Amazon wants to continue testing grocery stores without human cashiers when it owns Whole Foods

Just because Amazon will own Whole Foods, don’t expect it to stop experimenting with its own cashier-less grocery stores and other grocery sales and delivery offerings.

Amazon’s race to make Alexa smarter

Amazon’s range of smart speakers and their artificial intelligence assistant Alexa have proved to be a huge sales hit. But the product is still a shadow of what the man in charge — Dave Limp — and indeed their owners, hope it will become.

Amazon’s Singapore quick delivery stalls as demand overwhelms at launch

Amazon.com Inc’s Prime Now quick delivery service in Singapore, which launched on Thursday and kicked off its push into Southeast Asia, has been overwhelmed by demand, preventing it from taking on fresh orders.

Amazon launches The Hub locker delivery system for apartment buildings

Amazon has revealed a new delivery locker designed for apartment blocks and other housing complexes that may not have mailroom services to securely process packages.

Amazon earnings miss sends ripples though world markets

An earnings miss by Amazon that hit U.S. technology stocks overnight rippled through into other markets on Friday, with Asian stocks retreating from recent highs and European tech shares opening sharply lower.

Have a great weekend guys, and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletters “New Venture Insights” and “Angel Investor Startup Digest”.

I love Estonia. Having been there 27 times since 2003, I could sing the little nation’s praises for days. Below are a few of my experiences, and some fantastic reasons why you too should take a trip to Tallinn and explore what Estonia has to offer the world.

Last summer over 1000 foreign guests and I arrived in Tallinn for the Estonian ICT Week (27 May -3 June) with “Latitude59”, “Industry 4.0 in Practice” conference and “Green IT” seminar and several other great events.

The ICT sector has been one of the most important industries in Estonia. Beginning with governmental e-services, ICT is now most visible in the Estonian startups that are applying their ambitions globally.

Estonia is a tech advanced and agile society where the ‘make fast’ mantra hits home. The results of large scale digital-industrial collaborations are beginning to bear fruit at home and abroad, to great expectations.

Recently, Malwarebytes, an internet security firm founded in the US expanded their offices in Tallinn, citing the city’s vibe and awesome IT talent for the switch. People from different corners of the world are traveling to work in Tallinn, and Malwarebytes expects to have 60 people in the office soon.

If you want more information about moving your company to the heart of Europe or of investments in this opportunity-dense region, contact
the Estonian Investment Agency (EIA) of Enterprise Estonia. The EIA is a government agency promoting foreign investments and international relocation in Estonia.

IT cooperation has grown primarily with Estonia, who has focused on Norway Grants in green IT — IT for energy, transport and logistics, production and trade, and e-health. These IT subsectors are critical for solving local challenges, as well have global growth potential according to an Ernst & Young study.

Today, Estonia is regarded as one of the most advanced e-governments in the world. The use of technology and digital services is widespread in both the public and private sectors.

Estonia is the first country to offer e-Residency (a digital identity) to anyone interested in administering business online. e-Residents can digitally sign documents and contracts, verify the authenticity of signed documents, conduct e- banking and execute remote money transfers.

Estonia’s tax system is unique and the most competitive tax code in the OECD. First, it has a 20 percent tax rate on corporate income that is only applied to distributed profits. Second, it has a flat 20 percent tax on individual income that does not apply to personal dividend income. Third, its property tax applies only to the value of land rather than taxing the value of real estate or capital.

Finally, it has a territorial tax system that exempts 100 percent of the foreign profits earned by domestic corporations from local taxation, with few restrictions.

There are several events in 2017 relevant for investors and entrepreneurs including “Latitude59” and “Startup Nations”.

Feel free to sign up for my newsletter “New Venture Insights” and I send you this article as an ebook.

Author: Berg Moe, Oslo, Norway.

Sometimes I just get fed up writing and would rather have been miles away from a computer on a snowy mountain top with no Internet access.

But when you have two personal blogs, writing 20–100 business email a day, curating two weekly newsletters, writing trade proposals and producing text for three websites launching the next weeks, there are no escape routes. I just have to stick with it, and to throw my computer out the window just feel like a bad idea. I have just bought it.

The good thing is that I love to write. I even like writing better that reading, and “oops” there we have another problem. So to try to get out of this messed up position, I decided to enroll in an MOOC course in “Academic and Business Writing” at edX. I had a weak hope that to be forced to write something different would give me some inspiration. And did it work?

Too early to say, but I am writing this, so that’s a good start, I suppose. I want to develop “a clear voice” to be heard on my blogs and to develop my English writing skills, especially concerning vocabulary, tone, and diction.