According to research published by CB Insights, era of billion-dollar startup unicorns is slowing down. Overall, venture capital funding fell by 30% between the third and fourth quarters of 2015. Read More>>

The home-sharing startup, ‘Airbnb’ had raised a huge $1.5 billion financing round back in June which one of the largest private funding rounds ever. According to Wall Street Journal, Airbnb generated $340 million in revenue in the third quarter on bookings of $2.2 billion. It’s also headed for $900 million in revenue for 2015. Read More>>

As organizations of all sizes try to protect themselves against a seemingly endless onslaught of adversaries and online threats, IT security is one of the hottest markets in technology today. Venky Ganesan, managing director at Menlo Ventures says that, “Cyber-security is not a trend; it’s a permanent long-term unfortunate issue that we all have to deal with as a cost of modern-day technology use”. In his view, one of the next major waves of innovation and growth for the cyber-security industry will come from breach-detection vendors. Breach-detection technologies help organizations identify breaches as well as provide guidance on how to patch and fix the breach. Read More>>

Tech investments and VC activities have climbed to their highest levels since 2000 last year, however there’s a growing sentiment that we’ve reached a precipice. The combination of various factors is leading to some prognostication about the possibility of another tech bubble, but the author thinks that we’re not heading toward 2001 or 2008 again. Instead, what we’re experiencing now is more indicative of the market’s tolerance for higher-risk investments. In the financial world, this phenomenon is often referred to as risk-on, risk-off investing, and it tends to create herd-like behavior. Read More>>

Venture capitalists are stepping in with billions of dollars focused on agriculture and food ventures that reduce waste and use of chemicals, conserve resources, accelerate distribution and—at least theoretically—improve our health and the health of the planet. $2.06 billion has already been invested in the first half of 2015. That’s nearly as much as the $2.36 billion total for 2014. Because of the Start-up revolution, big food companies lost $4 billion in market share last year. Read More>>

Having spent more than two decades in the industry, Joe Dwyer has seen changes to the funding life cycle. A new trend has emerged in the industry, where venture capitalists are waiting until later in the risk curve to make larger investments in the companies that are showing the most promise. This trend has opened up a hole in the market, which has largely been filled by angel investors. Joe suggests that every company should also have a plan in case funding dries up or never arrives. Read More>>