Apple Voted Best Dressed Monopoly

Apple faces ‘strong action’ if App Store changes fall short, EU’s Breton says

“However, critics have said the changes do not go far enough, arguing Apple’s fee structure remains unfair, and that the changes may be in violation of the DMA.'“

The battle against Apple and their app store is starting to heat up as Spotify’s CEO (Daniel Ek) seems to be the main figurehead going up against the goliath. I could talk about how frustrated people are, but we’d rather just show you Dan’s tweet.

Full article from CNBC

Elon Musk says his AI startup xAI not raising capital

"xAI is not raising capital and I have had no conversations with anyone in this regard," Musk said in a post on X.”

CALLED IT! (kind of). Was definitely weary of that Financial Times article given the blunder last time. Despite reports coming out early Friday that xAI was in talks to raise $6b, Elon Musk has stated these rumors are not true. With OpenAI and Anthropic blazing toward being the kings of AI, xAI feels to be falling behind. No doubt that Elon could raise money whenever he needs it, but it seems he is waiting for the right time.

Full article from Reuters

Reddit Advised to Target at Least $5 Billion Value in IPO

“Private trades value social media company below $5 billion”

After reporting the plan to IPO in March, Reddit has been talking with investors and underwriters about what valuation to price shares at. Despite raising it’s most recent funding round at a $10b valuation, investors are recommending that the social media company price shares around $5 billion (this is around the price shares are trading at on secondary markets).

Full article from Bloomberg

Hot Links

Investing Platform Public Launches Options Trading—And Pays Customers for Their Orders

Meta Welcomes Headset War With Apple

Digs raises $7M for its collaboration platform for home builders

Big tech is thriving despite the layoffs

AI & B2B SaaS

Join us live next week on Tuesday, February 6th at 3pm EST to learn more about the role of AI in B2B SaaS from three world class operators:

• ​Wade Foster: Co-founder and CEO of Zapier.

• ​Des Traynor: Co-founder and CSO of Intercom.

• Benjamin Gammell: CFO at Brex.

Another shoutout to Walter Chen from Sacra for helping put this together and for helping me prepare some smart questions 🤓 

Click here to learn more and RSVP!

[Clips on Clips] Demo Day Was A Hit!

Here’s a quick reminder of what each company does with links to clips for each in the order they presented:

Sam Rattner / Showroom: A verticalized ai-powered search engine focused on shopping. Pitch + Q/A clip on Twitter here.

Eric Menees / Fynn: Sofi + Handshake for Trade Students. Pitch + Q/A clip on Twitter here.

Ben Rollert / Composer: Build trading algorithms with AI, backtest them, then execute—all in one platform. No coding skills required. Pitch + Q/A clip on Twitter here.

Dylan Abruscato / Crypto The Game: A crypto survival game launching on January 29th (TODAY). Many will play. One will win. Pitch + Q/A clip on Twitter here.

You can also heck out the full recordings on Twitter and LinkedIn.

I had made a typeform for intro requests, but it’s actually much more efficient to just reach out to them via LinkedIn if it’s of interest (links on names above).

See you at the next one! Subscribe to our events calendar here 🙂 

NYC’s Definitive Demo Day

Really excited to put this event together alongside our friends at Verci. Our goal is to make this a monthly window into the best of what the NYC startup scene has to offer. Great founders building exciting solutions with smart questions from active investors.

Sign up for updates right here right now.

Letters From The Editor

Misc. (short for miscellaneous)

[Poll Results] Who should be panelists for Demo Days?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 VCs (18)

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Angels (14)

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Founders (17)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Misc. Venture Nerd (operator, commentator, etc.) (10)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I don't actually think it really matters (5)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Other (9)

Main takeaway here (I think) is to have more founders join panels alongside investors. People don’t dislike investor panelists necessarily, but the best groups are balanced. Oftentimes, more experienced founders are also very aware of the investor mindset/relevant questions so this should be good!

Message received and implementation coming soon 🙂 

Talk soon,
Adam

PS - Do you want to sponsor this newsletter or an upcoming live event? Reply to this email and/or shoot a note to [email protected] to learn more.