Q: Will VCs who invested in my startup be happy to exit with a 4-5x return after 4.5 years?

So why isn’t 4x-5x good enough on any individual investment?

If you put all the fund into 1 investment, then a 4x-5x return would be plenty.

So you also have to do “better” to make up for the deals your VCs lose money on.

Combine the two, and it really does take a unicorn typically to “return the fund”, or make 1x the amount the fund has invested. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577253608.1255445/Will-VCs-who-invested-in-my-startup-be-happy-to-exit-with-a-4-5x-return-after-4.5-years??ref=audio_experience

Q: Was the firing of Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg the right decision?

It’s easy to say in a crisis situation the CEO should be fired.

But Boards of Directors have to ask an important question in a crisis — Could Someone Else Do Better?

Many times, the company would be far worse off firing a CEO who already knows the business, the team, the market, the customers, etc.

Firing the CEO isn’t the answer in many challenging situations. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577251808.5230534/Was-the-firing-of-Boeing-CEO-Dennis-Muilenberg-the-right-decision??ref=audio_experience

The company told Inc42 that it has a pan-India strength of 3,000, which means around 900 employees were let go in the recent downsizing.

In addition, the company has also confirmed that AtHomeDiva services have been discontinued.

A Quikr spokesperson told Inc42 that the layoffs have been made through multiple verticals, keeping in mind the customer demands.

Quikr told us it conducted studies of the unit economics of its various verticals and figured out which of these were not functioning as per expectations.

Founded in 2008 by Pranay Chulet, Quikr is a classifieds website, which also has its presence in various verticals like cars and bikes, jobs, Quikr Realty and Quikr homes. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577250272.8339424/Quikr-Clear-The-Air-Around-Layoffs,-AtHomeDiva-Shutdown?ref=audio_experience

Tweet MCLEAN, VA, RunSafe Security announced the closing of a $6.3 million series A funding round led by Alsop Louie Partners.

To export RunSafe Security funding data to PDF and Excel, clickClick here for more funding data on RunSafe SecurityTo export RunSafe Security funding data to PDF and Excel, click here RunSafe Security, the pioneer of a patented process to immunize software without developer friction from cyber attacks, today announced the closing of a $6.3 million series A funding round led by Alsop Louie Partners, an early-stage, risk-oriented technology venture capital firm in San Francisco.

RunSafe Security was a graduate of Virginia Center for Innovative Technology's Mach37 Cyber Accelerator Fall '17 cohort.

This top weakness and many other memory based vulnerabilities is exactly the weakness in software code RunSafe Security addresses.

Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, with an office in Huntsville, Alabama, RunSafe Security's customers span the enterprise, suppliers and manufacturers, and national security industries. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577248467.8534396/RunSafe-Security-Raises-$6.3M-Series-A?ref=audio_experience

“From our own portfolio, MamaEarth, BoAt, Vahdam Teas, among many others, have either already hit that mark or (are) very close.”MamaEarth is in talks to raise $10 million led by Sequoia Capital, sources said.Matrix Partners, a venture capital firm most associated with investments in technology startups such as Ola, Practo and Quikr, has racked up almost ten investments in earlystage consumer brands in the past 12 months.The firm says this is the right time to invest in the sector, which could add $1trillion in market capitalisation over the next decade.Its latest bet in the space, Mosaic Wellness, has been its most aggressive.

The fund, along with Sequoia Capital and SAIF Partners, has backed two prominent venture capitalists operating in stealth mode and building a slew of digital-first consumer brands in a $10 million maiden funding round earlier this year.“India’s favourable demographics will act as a key tailwind for consumer businesses.

India has a large portion of the young working segment with rapidly increasing purchasing power and an increased taste for premium products,” said Revant Bhate, cofounder and CEO of Mosaic Wellness.Fireside has evaluated over 1,500 investment opportunities in the space over the past two years.

This indicates that entrepreneurs, too, have realized that there is space in the market and have begun building ventures to fill the gap, leveraging not just online selling but also marketing online.“The growth of the new-age brands in the past few years has been largely fueled by the rapid growth of the digital universe, both as a medium of brand engagement as well as for consumer access.

The millennial consumers are very digitally connected, they are highly aware of global trends and very experimentative,” Singh said. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577246408.942527/Digital-first-brands-took-just-three-years-to-hit-Rs-100-crore?ref=audio_experience

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

If you are in a hurry, the gist of our point is that the recovery in value of SaaS stocks probably made a number of 2019 IPOs possible.

Last yearWe’re depending on Bessemer’s cloud index today, renamed the “BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index” when it was rebuilt in October.

The Cloud Index is a collection of SaaS and cloud companies that are trackable as a unit, helping provide good data on the value of modern software and tooling concerns.

*Ultimately, startups want public companies that look like them (comps) to have sky-high revenue multiples (price/sales multiples, basically). | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577244863.8387887/Public-investors-loved-SaaS-stocks-in-2019,-and-startups-should-be-thankful-–-TechCrunch?ref=audio_experience

Over the years, Susheela has covered travel, food, lifestyle, and culture for magazines, travel guides, and coffee-table books on Kerala and Karnataka.

She has curated the International Photo Exhibition on UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India and abroad, in 2015 and 2017.

‘Festivals and Fairs of India’ is Susheela’s seventh exhibition, featuring the works of travel enthusiasts, professional and amateur photographers, and culture buffs.

“In these troubled times of polarisation and conflict, this exhibition shows the power of unity and diversity,” Susheela evocatively explains.

Now, what have you done today to pause in your busy schedule and work towards cultural unity and harmony? | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577242810.961497/Unity-in-troubled-times-of-conflict:-Esen-Communications-hosts-photo-exhibition-on-cultural-diversity?ref=audio_experience

To address this problem, many fashion companies’ websites have in recent years integrated technologies such as AI, computer vision, and data analytics that enable a simulated shopping experience for customers.

It creates an algorithm for styling fashion outfits and for ecommerce cataloguing, using AI and computer vision.

poshaQ offers services such as automated cataloguing, fashion insights, and a styling recommendation system to fashion companies to help them serve their customers better.

Our visual recommendation system creates look-based recommendations for fashion products.

“We are among the very few startups in India fusing computer vision and data analytics to solve problems at scale. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577241010.9690642/[Startup-Bharat]-How-this-Ahmedabad-based-startup-is-using-AI-to-innovate-fashion-design?ref=audio_experience

“We saw a lot of hardships growing up, and I was convinced that agriculture was not a viable career,” says Srinidhi.

By staying in constant touch with his consumers, Srinidhi was able to understand their preferences and provide the quantities they needed.

So, I decided to produce jaggery instead.”Here again, Srinidhi leveraged WhatsApp to sell 1,200 kg of jaggery directly to consumers across Karnataka.

It’s also about ensuring customer satisfaction, which entails educating consumers through WhatsApp so they receive authentic, pesticide-free and chemical-free produce at the right price.

“That is why, as a community, we have been working towards educating consumers.”Today, Srinidhi is active in over 50 groups on WhatsApp. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577239212.7274423/How-this-engineer-turned-farmer-is-using-WhatsApp-to-fine-tune-his-career-one-harvest-at-a-time?ref=audio_experience

Founded in 2015 by Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor, Zilingo is an online B2B platform for small fashion merchants operating primarily in Southeast Asia.

Small merchants have to rely on agents or distributors for their resources due to the small quantities they require.

AB: The core business is to connect small merchants and brands and allow them to trade with each other.

We offer 36 kinds of services, including financial services, marketing services, packaging services, and some higher value-added services like data analytics.

It's challenging for small merchants to get funds from the bank without a credit score and traceable records of their sourcing and selling. | To read full story, visit https://startuparound.com/read/1577237411.3491883/The-other-side-of-fashion-ecommerce:-empowering-small-merchants-the-Zilingo-way?ref=audio_experience