Europe/Israel Enterprise/Tech Weekly

The Angle Issue #32: July 23, 2018

Good morning from a balmy London! (Seriously, its supposed to hit 29C here today....) Last week, I released the bi-annual Angular Ventures data deck on European & Israeli Venture Investment. Check it out. 

   
Speaking of data, this week's must-read was a piece by Connie Loizos in Techcrunch where she cites a study by Wing suggesting that the VC pullback has already happened - in 2016. I think they are right. The smart money in the US slowed down a while ago.
  
The most important in the EU+IL enterprise space recently was last week's $850M acquisition of Datorama by Salesforce. My friend Amit Karp at Bessemer has a great analysis of just why this acquisition is so important:  "...Datorama is a different story. There are many other fast-growing SaaS companies in Israel such as JFrog, SiSense, Zerto, Monday, Appsflyer, Yotpo, and Cloudinary. Datorama’s $800M clearing price sets a new standard for these companies. I am sure many Israeli SaaS startup founders read the news this week and thought to themselves “I can do better”. The same goes for local investors who are going to push their portfolio companies even further, now that there is a clear role model for a large SaaS exit."
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Please feel free to email me with comments (or startups) and if you like this - please forward to friends. Thanks!

From the blog

1Q18 & 2Q18 EU+IL VC Data. $12.7B of VC investment summarized in 70 slides. 

Europe/Israel Enterprise/Tech

• Norway/Browsing. Opera, a Norway-based internet browser, has filed for a $106 million IPO in the US.

• Romania/RPA. Within the enterprise world, UIPath has emerged seemingly out of nowhere as the "it startup" of the moment, announcing $100M in revenue this week. 

• Israel/Image Recognition. AnyVision raised $28M for body and facial recognition, in a round led by Bosch. 

• Israel/Security. Toka, led by former prime minister Ehud Barak, raised $12.5M to sell security services to governments. "Toka will provide services to government, law enforcement, and security agencies, which include planning and managing tailor-made cybersecurity ecosystems, composed of existing and custom-made products. Toka does not plan to address the private sector and intends to only work with government entities, Kantor said in a phone interview with Calcalist Monday."

• UK/Banking. TrueLayer raised $7.5M to make it easier for fintechs and retailers to access banking APIs.

• Europe/Android. While the EU slapped another massive (and probably pointless) fine on Google for "abusing" its market power (by preventing Samsung from abusing theirs....), Google was rumored to be working on the successor to Android.

• Israel/Security. CyberReason, which recently raised $100M from Softbank, is apparently leaking employees. "Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Boston with a research and development center in Tel Aviv and additional offices in London and Tokyo, Cybereason has around 400 employees. According to an April report on The Information, at least 60 people left the company during 2017—over 25% of Cybereason’s total staff at the beginning of that year."

• Israel/VC Digs. The Four Seasons is opening a Tel Aviv branch. I guess now US VCs will finally be able to visit. 

Worth reading

• It's all your fault. Eric Paley has a thorough analysis of dilution in Techcrunch, and what it really means for founders. It's a tough love. "You’re not being diluted because a VC decrees it; you’re being diluted because you spent money building features that your customers didn’t want, instead of the ones that they need. You’re being diluted because you kept scaling up an ineffective sales process because you didn’t want growth to slow."

• Tunguz on product management. I loved the framework he presents here. "There are three types of product features, a seasoned head of product told me recently. MMRs, neutralizers, and differentiators. MMRs are minimum market requirements; basic features that every customer expects and demands. Neutralizers mitigate competitive threat. Differentiators are your startup’s competitive advantage."

• Tunguz on sales compensation cash flow. What can I say? The guy is a blogging machine. If you are running a company with a sales force, read this.

• Python. The Economist had a brief history of Python.

• An alternative take on Amazon. Felix Salmon argues in Wired that Amazon is not the "industry-conquering juggernaut" that people typically think it is. "I can’t think of a single industry, other than bookselling, that Amazon has entered with significant negative repercussions for the incumbents in that industry."

• Don't worry. Why I'll never be replaced by a robot.

• Droning on. McKinsey on the future of unmanned aerial vehicles. "As with any new industry, the UAS market could take some unexpected turns. Investment is soaring, but many companies are directing their funds to untested applications. Take air taxis, which are drawing much press attention. These technologies are still in early development, and public acceptance is uncertain. Other hurdles involve regulatory approval and infrastructure. Government officials will not rubber-stamp a proposal for unpiloted flights, nor will cities automatically invest in infrastructure for drone takeoffs, landings, and storage. The situation with air taxis may be extreme, but similar issues could arise with any UAS application."

• See that blinking light in the sky? That's Facebook. Yup. They are launching a satellite. 

• Slack acquisitions. Slack acquired its third startup as it seeks to broaden its offering.

• Scooters. If you are tired of enterprise stuff, this piece on why Uber will ultimately win the Scooter Wars is pretty good.

Portfolio News & Jobs

Datos is hiring a BD lead in the US.

Moltin is hiring for multiple roles in the US and UK.

Resin is hiring globally. 

Rollout announced the preview release of Rollout Visibility, a new solution designed to help organizations control the status of feature deployment in real-time.

Snyk's Guy Podjarny has a pretty cool podcast on development/security. Check it out.