Startups Weekly: This year in startups
Reported today on TechCrunch
For the full article visit: https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/14/startups-weekly-this-year-in-startups/
Startups Weekly: This year in startups
Welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week's noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today's topic, let's catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about U.S. VC activity in Europe. Before that, I noted Chinese investor activity in Africa.
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Hello from Berlin, where we've just wrapped our annual conference, TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin. Top investors shared insight into European venture capital, well-known individuals and firms made announcements (large and small), and entrepreneurs pontificated about the future of startups in their respective regions.
As I spoke with various early-stage startup founders presenting at the event, chatted with U.S. and European venture capitalists and brain-stormed with my colleagues, I reflected on my last 12 months inside the tech bubble. Soon, I'll be publishing an extended look at what I see as the 10 biggest themes in startups and VC in 2019. But for now, here's a sneak peek at my top picks.
SoftBank screw ups. From WeWork to Wag to Fair.com, SoftBank made headlines over and over again this year -for all the wrong reasons.
WeWork woes. SoftBank's star portfolio company struggled the most. This was the biggest story of the year and its complete with drugs, private jets, burned cash and upset employees.
CEO exodus. From Away co-founder Steph Korey to WeWork's Adam Neumann, a whole lot of executives exited their posts this year.
Unicorn IPO struggles. Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, Zoom and more unicorns went public this year. Some fared better than ot