Q1 2018: Crunchbase News In Review

What an odd quarter.

Heading into 2018, I wouldn’t have bet you that bitcoin would fall off a cliff or that the public markets would set new highs—only to hit turbulence right as the year’s first three-month period comes to a close. Or that Dropbox’s IPO would best expectations. Or that Spotify’s direct listing would be a real thing. Or that Telegram would raise over $1 billion in an ICO.

Follow Crunchbase News on Twitter & Facebook

But that’s why I don’t run a hedge fund. Anyway, in honor of the wild and slightly weird quarter, we’re taking a look back at our most popular stuff from a pretty packed quarter. It was also a key quarter for Crunchbase News itself, which turned one a few weeks ago.

So, in honor of the now-fading quarter, and with a salute to the impending quarterly report cycle, here are the top 10 articles we shipped in the last 90 days or so. (As a programming note, we excluded anything from December that went bonkers—looking at you, crypto predictions—after the new year kicked off.)

10. Why Does Wag Need $300M From SoftBank To Walk Dogs?

Wag, a popular dog-walking startup, raised $300 million from SoftBank this quarter. It was a check size so large that it ground our internal thinking to halt. What the hell was going on? Well, we decided to try and figure out just that. And, as it turned out, a bunch of you came along for the ride.

9. Here’s Who Made Money On Ring’s $1B+ Purchase

Amazon’s mega-purchase of Ring for over $1 billion made a huge splash in the first quarter for two reasons. First, the connected-home company had raised over $200 million in its life, making it a hefty bite. Second, the awful television show Shark Tank had passed on the company.

8. Ripple Tests New Heights As Doubters Circle

Here’s one case when the doubters were right: the hype was ephemeral and the paper losses titanic. Yes, Ripple’s XRP token was worth somewhere between $142 billion and $380 billion at the time we wrote the piece. But after shooting to $3.50 per token in early 2018, you can now pick up an XRP for under $0.60. The whole thing is now worth under $23 billion.

7. A Peek Inside Alphabet’s Investing Universe

This is our first (but not last) Jason special in our top 10. This time, Jason took a crack at Alphabet’s efforts to fund the next itself. As it turns out, Google’s synthetic parent company is an active investor through a number of outlets, and it also likes to buy its own deals. Call it an expensive option play.

6. In Running Like A Startup, Nonprofits Find Success

Our brilliant Mary Ann Azevedo took on non-profit companies for us in February, digging into Y Combinator-backed non-profit startups. We wanted to know how that worked and what the firms got out of the experience. (Note: we tend to cover a lot of non-profiting companies that operate on a for-profit basis, but those don’t fit here. Second note: the preceding note was a joke.)

5. Rising Legality Aside, The Budding Cannabis Industry Isn’t Drawing As Much VC Interest As You’d Expect

Savannah took on cannabis for us. The data is stark: before 2014, cannabis companies raised essentially nothing from VCs. Since then, it’s been a few hundred million a year, give or take. Not, if we may say, much to smoke home about.

4. YC Alumni Go Big: The 15 Most Valuable Y Combinator-Backed Startups

Back on the Y Combinator beat, which startups from the incubator investing group have managed to generate the highest valuations? We did the legwork and kicked out this piece. It’s a fun reminder that you, the reader, are poor.

3. Understanding Why Uber Loses Money

Something that surprises folks is that Uber loses money. How, some people ask, can it lose money if it doesn’t drive the cars and takes a hefty cut of the revenue? Well, it’s not that hard to understand with some numbers. Therefore, we did a short post detailing where all that revenue goes.

2. Q4 2017 Global Report: VC Sets Annual Records On Back Of Strong Late-Stage Results

To be frank, our quarterly report stuff usually isn’t the most popular material that we publish. However, this time around, it did well as a group. Perhaps because we wrote about the full year as well as the quarter? Regardless, Jason’s mega-entry on the Q4’17 global venture market did super well and we’re stoked about that fact.

1. Where Did Venture Capitalists Go To College?

That this is the most popular piece we wrote this quarter is notable. Why it was so popular I suspect is some combination of envy, FOMO, and pride. Everyone wants to see where their school stacks up, and, of course, where schools that they don’t like land. Humans: we’re petty little buggers!

Right outside of our list top ten list was great stuff like Joanna’s hilarious post on odd startup names, and Holdens’ piece digging into the Chinese VC market. Follow us on Twitter so that you don’t miss what’s coming next!