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Tech investing isn’t what it used to be — even compared to six months ago.
Investors are applying greater scrutiny to deals. Many wonder if the days of the mega round that produced the likes of Snapchat, Uber and Magic Leap are fading quickly. Founders are realizing they can’t favor growth over profitability, or vice-versa — both are crucial to success. | Startups |
There’s a reason VCs are calling for “a return to fundamentals” — they don’t want to see newly minted unicorns shrivel into unicorpses.
Companies need to spend their capital carefully, with an eye on steady, sustainable growth. As the pendulum continues to swing more toward smart growth, startups are naturally forced to rethink their approach to operations. | Startups |
Based on my experience advising portfolio companies and consulting, I believe that data-driven operations is the new table stakes for survival today. | Startups |
Here are a few fundamentals of data-driven ops I’d share with any company straddling that line between high-growth and sustainability.
One of the most important decisions is choosing a set of benchmarks and metrics that will actually help you measure progress toward specific goals — whether it’s profitability or growth. | Startups |
Don’t reinvent the wheel — look at how other companies measured up at similar stages. If you’re an enterprise SaaS company, for example, compare yourself to other SaaS startups rather than any type of company. Another best practice is to look at the data in aggregate — don’t rely on one company’s experience. | Startups |
I advise portfolio companies to use cumulative data (not just anecdotal evidence), whenever possible, to inform operational decisions.
Many VCs keep detailed data on key metrics, like employee compensation, sales & marketing spend, rent and other big expenditures. | Startups |
For example, Scale developed the SaaS Index, which tracks the performance of 58 companies, to benchmark the metrics key to the success of subscription-based software businesses. AngelList, PitchBook, Mattermark and CB Insights are examples of other resources that index startup metrics.
Sales efficiency is a key indicator of sustainable growth. | Startups |
You need to know the levers that drive sales efficiency — whether it’s lead costs, conversion rates or sales productivity — in order to thrive and make smart decisions. Think about sales efficiency as an ecosystem that you must constantly nurture. | Startups |
While it’s difficult to boost your sales efficiency with any single decision or policy, it’s easy to see it slip if you’re not keeping your eye on the ball.
In gauging sales efficiency, I recommend our portfolio companies use our Magic Number, which measures the efficiency of your go-to-market model. | Startups |
The Magic Number is a relatively straightforward calculation: (Revenue change x 4)/Last Quarter’s Sales and Marketing Spend. A high magic number (x>0.7) might mean it’s time to step on the growth pedal, while a low magic number (x<0.7) could indicate trouble down the road. | Startups |
Regardless of which situation you find yourself in, it’s important to understand your company’s financial health.
While sales efficiency is important, there are plenty of other meaningful benchmarks and KPIs that are important for businesses to monitor. You might study customer churn, sales rep productivity or net promoter score (NPS) to gauge how your company is tracking toward its goals. | Startups |
It’s important that everyone on your team or company is aligned on the definitions for the KPIs you choose. Once you’ve done this, you can make sure you’re improving on those KPIs against your historical performance, as well as the benchmark universe you’ve decided on.
Whether you think we’re headed for a downturn or not, there will always be ups and downs in the market. | Startups |
Right now, there is more of an emphasis on sustainability, given current uncertainty over the economy, criticism over companies that are running out of money and an uncertain IPO market.
No matter the economic climate, you should think about incorporating data-driven benchmarking into your approach to scaling your business. | Startups |
Keeping a close eye on how you’re tracking against your metrics enables you to have a clear understanding of your performance, and provides you with early indicators that you are doing well or that you need to course-correct.. | Startups |
The IPO market is poised to make an almost complete 180° turnaround after a bleak Q1 and a very quiet summer. JPMorgan alone said they were launching 20 global IPOs, and has successfully launched nine in the U.S. to strong demand. | Fundings & Exits |
The broad market (S&P 500) has largely recovered, as well, from a low point of 1,810 earlier this year to a current (near) record level of 2,193 (as of September), a 21 percent move.
In contrast, venture capital investments, which had recalibrated alongside the IPO market in the second half of last year, have remained sedate with a clear flight to quality; fewer rounds, for higher-quality companies, with larger check sizes.
Private funding activity cannot recover as fast as the public markets. | Fundings & Exits |
While the music seems to be back on at the IPO party, aspects of the private market re-calibration may be permanent. Eighteen months ago a SAAS company with $1 million of revenue in their first year of operation would have had a solid shot at a Tier 1 Series A. | Fundings & Exits |
Today, those companies go wanting, resorting to “second seeds” and “inside rounds.”
The IPO window quickly cooled in August of 2015, marked by the BETR and RUN IPOs. | Fundings & Exits |
Both were significantly oversubscribed deals that opened and traded poorly, as they weren’t able to attract real buyers/holders.
The buyer fatigue was palpable. IPO volume dried up and a buyer’s market set in.
A few IPOs dribbled out over the remaining months of 2015, with only two notable tech deals: SQ and TEAM. | Fundings & Exits |
This was followed by an almost complete freeze at the beginning of 2016.
This closure was very well publicized, with pundits claiming it was because of market volatility caused by any number of factors, including the election, oil prices, the Fed raising rates, Brexit, China/Brazil economies, etc. | Fundings & Exits |
There’s been little resolution to many of these factors, yet investors have still regained an appetite for IPOs.
Insiders claimed there was a complete shift in investor sentiment from growth to value, or more specifically to growth with value in the form of profitability or an obvious path to it. Investors were also concerned about debt-laden companies. | Fundings & Exits |
This message reverberated across Silicon Valley, where companies were advised to decrease burn and show sustainability by demonstrating an ability to make money.
Tech multiples, which compressed significantly at the beginning of the year, have recovered, but not to levels as lofty as early 2015:
Two months ago, the general consensus was that the IPO market would shut down until at least 2017 — essentially 17 months with almost no IPO deal flow.
June 22, 2016, Twilio (TWLO) priced at $15 (a healthy premium to the last private round) and traded up 92 percent day 1. | Fundings & Exits |
Since then, TWLO has traded up 278 percent and the IPO window has opened wide.
Just like that, IPOs are back in favor… all fear evaporated, all hesitation erased without any resolution to the supposed issues that precipitated the pullback originally. | Fundings & Exits |
Perhaps all anyone needed was a breather in the shape of the most severe IPO drought since the recession.
Private company fundings followed the IPO market’s lead dropping from 1,333 in Q3 2015 to 1,137 in Q4. | Fundings & Exits |
Deal volume stayed suppressed through Q2 2016, and this year is on pace to be slower than 2012.
Dollars raised in 2016 versus 2015, but not as significantly as deals quantity; fewer deals for larger dollars were done for the biggest and best private companies.
As the IPO market cooled, private funding showed an even more severe and immediate flight to quality. | Fundings & Exits |
Uber and Snap alone account for $4.5 billion of the $31.8 billion in U.S. VC-backed financing in 2016. High-flyers like Slack, Airbnb and Spotify also commanded sizable rounds at, often, sizable prices.
Select innovative sub-sectors, such as artificial intelligence, insurance tech, autonomous driving and virtual reality also saw demand and excitement in line with early 2015 levels. | Fundings & Exits |
Otherwise, venture investors have returned to more cautious, diligence-focused investing, as they had before unicorn euphoria hit, and with the complete retreat of crossover investors, venture remains largely a buyer’s market.
The bias toward proven stories has led to a significant decrease in the number of unicorns created in 2016. | Fundings & Exits |
Twelve unicorns were created in the first two quarters of the year, compared to 49 in Q2 and Q3 of 2015.
With stocks touching all-time highs, and IPOs once again coming to market (and performing), the public market recovery is clear. Banks have said the IPO market will remain extremely active through the end of the year and into 2017.
The cracks in venture can’t be repaired that quickly. | Fundings & Exits |
Renewed VC prudence hasn’t slowed down innovation, but it has slowed getting that innovation through the funding machine.
There has been a meaningful shift in VC interest in a company’s technology to the company itself. VC investors want to see infrastructure, track record and reliability, not just the next big idea. | Fundings & Exits |
The rhetoric of “tell me how you are going to become the next billion-dollar business” has turned into “tell me how you are going to make this a sustainable business.”
So the large, clear winners still attract a buying frenzy, but it has become much harder for most companies, especially smaller companies, to raise. | Fundings & Exits |
However, opportunity is knocking for VCs willing to go against the grain that have now been given more time and pricing power to selectively uncover the next unicorn.. | Fundings & Exits |
Under pressure from shoppers complaining about losing the ability to receive tips last month as the company looked to smooth out the earnings curve, Instacart said it is re-introducing customer tipping.
“After announcing this change, we heard a lot of feedback from our shopper community,” the company said in a blog post. | Apps |
“While our shoppers liked most of the changes, they did not like the fact that we were removing tips from our online platform. | Apps |
Taking that feedback into account, we have decided to continue to accept tips as part of this change.”
CEO Apoorva Mehta stressed that the decision came from customers looking to continue tipping, rather than complaints from shoppers, which he called a small group that was “very vocal” about the change. | Apps |
However, following removing tips, Instacart received some backlash from shoppers who said they were losing significant portions of their earnings. The backlash went so far as to inspire a boycott among some shoppers, though again Mehta said that this was not the primary cause for returning tipping.
“We have tens of thousands of shoppers,” Mehta said. | Apps |
“I think that a lot of times it’s the most vocal ones you hear from. A lot of times what ends up happening is that frankly we were over-communicative, we communicated for weeks before the chain before it happened. Genuinely, I think there’s always going to be the case that we can always do better, this is one of those cases where we can definitely do better. | Apps |
I hope the next time changes we carry out, we hope that we’re better at it now than we were before.”
Despite all this, Mehta said the company was clearly communicating with the shopper base what the change would be. | Apps |
But he also said that Instacart, with the change, was “getting in the way” of customers tipping their shoppers, which would have to then rely on cash in order to give a tip for a good customer experience. | Apps |
One original argument for the change was that 20% of customers didn’t tip, but that other 80% comprised a significant portion of its shopper base’s income.
Instacart has to remain competitive among other on-demand services that are looking to scoop up the same potential shopper base. | Apps |
In that sense, Instacart has to ensure that it provides a positive shopper experience as well as a customer experience, and changing a long-accustomed to model can incite a lot of backlash. | Apps |
In this case, it appears that the shopper base was content with the old model, and it certainly seems like the model was working well for shoppers despite more chaotic income rates.
And as Instacart continues to expand, it’s going to have to not only rely on a good shopper experience and marketing, but also positive word of mouth from shoppers. | Apps |
If even a “vocal minority” ends up fighting back against changes, that’s going to cause a potential optics issue for the company’s attempts to attract new shoppers.
“What we look at, from the shopper’s perspective, there is a market-clearing wage that we have for shoppers,” Mehta said. “What we benchmark is with other on-demand services and other jobs that are similar. | Apps |
We need to make sure we are paying competitive to those. That’s better than anyone else, this is a competitive market, if shoppers are not able to earn a competitive wage on Instacart they will defect to other platforms.”
Customers will still pay a service fee at checkout. “This payment will be used to guarantee a higher commission to all shoppers,” the company said in a blog post. | Apps |
“Shoppers will no longer need to depend on tips for the majority of their compensation. This also means that customers no longer need to feel obligated to tip. | Apps |
However, if a customer wishes to recognize exceptional service, they will have the ability to tip their shopper directly on the Instacart platform.”
This update launches on October 17 in Washington D.C., and the change comes to San Francisco and Instacart’s other markets on October 24.. | Apps |
PayPal, the giant digital payments company that was spun off from eBay last year, has had an up-and-down relationship with the business of crowdfunding over the years, but there are some indications that this could change. | Fundings & Exits |
We’ve been hearing that PayPal was interested in buying GoFundMe — the crowdfunding site that lets people raise money for both serious causes and lighter life events — potentially for a price above $1 billion.
It’s not clear how far conversations proceeded between the two, or if they are still active.
Both GoFundMe and PayPal said their companies do not comment on rumor or speculation; several investors and others we contacted also declined to comment. | Fundings & Exits |
We believe conversations took place among a limited group of senior people.
Co-founded by Andrew Ballester and Brad Damphousse in 2008 in San Diego, GoFundMe has been on a growth tear. | Fundings & Exits |
In 2015, the startup — which sits alongside others like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Tilt, all covering different kinds of crowdfunding — raised what appears to be its only significant external funding: an undisclosed amount of money from a group of investors led by Accel and Technology Crossover Ventures (also including Iconiq Capital, Greylock and Meritech). | Fundings & Exits |
A month later, it was revealed that Stripes invested in it, too.
As part of that transaction, the investors took a majority stake in the business, buying out the two founders in the process; installing an Accel venture partner, Rob Solomon, as CEO; and valuing the business at around $600 million. | Fundings & Exits |
At the time, GoFundMe was estimated to be processing $100 million per month in funding for the different campaigns using its platform, growing 300 percent year-over-year.
For PayPal, a closer relationship or acquisition of a crowdfunding site would be an interesting — if surprising — turn of events.
Earlier this year, PayPal stopped offering Purchase Protection for payments made on crowdfunding platforms. | Fundings & Exits |
The company has had a rocky relationship with the crowdfunding community, with some notable cases of freezing accounts. | Fundings & Exits |
One of the problems for PayPal is risk management, and specifically whether it would be liable for chargebacks — that is, if a person contributing money decided that he/she wanted a refund.
At GoFundMe, PayPal was removed as a payment option altogether some time ago, replaced by a combination of Stripe and WePay. | Fundings & Exits |
The reason given by GoFundMe was that these two allowed people to pay directly with debit or credit cards on a campaign page, and gave GoFundMe more control over the payment experience.
Earlier this month, GoFundMe took the issue of purchase protection into its own hands: it launched its own form of limited guarantee for donors and fundraisers, who respectively can claim up to $1,000 and $25,000 in the event of a campaign gone wrong. | Fundings & Exits |
The guarantee for now is only applicable in the U.S. | Fundings & Exits |
and Canada.
However, there are reasons why PayPal might be interested in giving crowdfunding another chance, and perhaps getting involved in it in a deeper and more serious way.
GoFundMe, which focuses on funding causes and events, may have had its share of controversy, but it’s also been a strong platform for bringing out generosity and goodwill. | Fundings & Exits |
It’s also been very popular: one source described it as “printing money”.
A potential buyer could continue to operate GoFundMe as a separate entity. | Fundings & Exits |
Or more strategically, the company would be a strong complement to PayPal’s existing business, which includes its ongoing relationship providing payments services to eBay, physical world point of sale, payments in third party apps through Braintree and P2P payments.
You probably have already seen plenty of campaigns for GoFundMe in your Facebook News Feed, some inspiring, maybe a few bizarre and in bad taste. Altogether, the company said in May that it has seen 25 million donors and has raised around $2 billion total.
GoFundMe, like other commerce platforms, takes a 5% share of the total transaction volume, in addition to a small additional fee through the commerce platforms it uses. | Fundings & Exits |
Because the site basically operates on the principles of an online social network and (today) relies on outside payment providers, it has little overhead — meaning the gross margin for an operation like this is likely very high.
And integrated with PayPal, GoFundMe could become even more valuable.
Additional reporting Katie Roof. | Fundings & Exits |
Uber, the ridesharing behemoth that recently began operating driverless cars and exploring self-flying drone taxis, can’t seem to catch a break these days in the legal arena. | Startups |
The New York State Department of Labor has ruled that two Uber drivers, Jakir Hossain and Levon Alesanian, are indeed employees — not contractors — and therefore eligible to receive unemployment benefits, the New York Times reports. Now, Hossain and Alesanian are eligible for weekly unemployment payments of up to $425 each.
Back in July, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance sued the state on behalf of the two drivers for refusing to “investigate or adjudicate complaints for unemployment insurance benefits.” Hossain and Alesanian had filed for unemployment after getting deactivated from Uber’s platform, but their applications were not being reviewed for months. This ruling only applies to the two drivers, but now the NYTWA is seeking a “comprehensive audit” of Uber.
“I think this is a game-changer,” NYTWA Executive Director Bhairavi Desai said at a press conference today. | Startups |
“Uber has depended on the political structure turning a blind eye. What these decisions do is force a microscopic review.”
The hopes is that Uber would be forced to make all of its drivers employees. If that happens, Uber would suffer a hit on its bottom line. | Startups |
Some of the differences between independent contractors and W-2 employees are that employees are eligible for minimum wage, workers’ compensation insurance and other protections, while contractors are not. | Startups |
Employers also have to “withhold income taxes, withhold and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, and pay unemployment tax on wages paid to an employee,” according to the Internal Revenue Service. For employees, W-2 status gives them access to training programs and, more importantly, benefits like overtime, or reimbursement for gas and other car expenses. | Startups |
In short, that means it would be more costly to Uber if it had to offer W-2 employment to its drivers.
“Nearly 90 percent of drivers say the main reason they use Uber is because they love being their own boss,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement. | Startups |
“Drivers use Uber on their own terms; they control their use of the app along with where and when they drive. As employees, drivers would lose the personal flexibility they value most — they would have set shifts, earn a fixed hourly wage, and be unable to use other ridesharing apps. | Startups |
While the Department of Labor has ruled that several drivers are independent contractors, we have appealed the other determinations.”
But this is just the latest in a series of legal woes the company has been facing. Uber’s battling a nationwide class-action lawsuit that aims to achieve employee status for drivers. | Startups |
Meanwhile, back in August, a San Francisco judge rejected a $100 million settlement Uber had reached over their employment categorizations for drivers in California and Massachusetts.. | Startups |
Despite what some politicians say, no country is an island in today’s rapidly changing world. In the same way, no company can survive as an island, either.
Most won’t have noticed a recent $6.5 million Series A for a company called Mobilize, but it’s indicative of a major change occurring in businesses today. | Startups |
Companies’ growing reliance on a distributed workforce have been occupying headlines and podcasts for the past couple of years. | Startups |
However, these conversations must now turn to how companies increasingly depend on partnerships as their force multiplier.
The most successful companies today live or die based upon their business partners, whether they be channel partners, technology partners, suppliers or outsourced operations partners. | Startups |
Some of the wisest business leaders realize that the only way to scale and remain competitive is to stick to their core competency — then, work collaboratively with other groups whose complementary core competencies can make a business process more efficient than by trying (and largely failing) to create such disparate capabilities themselves.
The result? A business that is more nimble, while remaining focused on building greater value for shareholders, employees and customers. | Startups |
When each party does what it is expert at, everyone can add value efficiently up and down the value chain.
Furthermore, by working with a broad demographic of partners externally, companies are able to be far more responsive to market and perception changes. | Startups |
Integrated partners are able to relay changes back to the core company more quickly, and, when there is a response the partners are involved in developing or supportive of, they provide a sizable ambassadorship that would’ve otherwise taken huge investments of time and effort to rally organically.
It’s no wonder, then, that the largest hotel company in the world, Airbnb, does not own any hotels, relying instead on a network of accommodation provider partners. | Startups |
Fun fact: This network includes more than 1,400 castles, which I doubt they would have had access to otherwise. And the largest “taxi” company in the world, Uber, doesn’t own any cabs. Instead, they rely on an expansive network of driving partners.
For companies like Airbnb, Uber, ClassPass, Thumbtack and countless others, partners are mission-critical to their operation and value proposition. | Startups |
They would not exist without these partnerships working seamlessly to help them execute their core competency and vision.
And the partnership trend isn’t limited to just consumer companies. | Startups |
Significant open-source software companies, starting with Red Hat years ago and Docker more recently, would cease to exist without the partner communities on which they were built.
The networks of partnerships that all kinds of companies are acknowledging as essential to their businesses are growing and becoming more diverse in terms of their purpose, size, type and geographies. | Startups |
In the same fashion, in light of recent changes in the economy, traditional companies are rethinking and re-investing more in their partner programs, too — relying even more on affiliates, resellers, franchisers and any external network that can broaden their reach and impact.
Naturally, as with any business development, this new paradigm is creating other business opportunities. | Startups |
There’s come a growing need for companies to quickly and coherently communicate with and manage fluid relationships with these partner communities. Good-old emails no longer need apply. | Startups |
Just raise your hand if you think that would be the best way to send a mission critical message to a Lyft driver about surge pricing in New Orleans at 6pm tonight!
Furthermore, the tracking and engagement of ever-growing groups of partners across their actions and milestones can result in significant internal team demands. | Startups |
Some companies have long offered group communication tools that go beyond emailing to more dynamic communication, but they’ve largely been left for people to adopt to their own needs. | Startups |
Google Groups, Facebook Messenger and others weren’t built around the specific needs of managing sizable groups of people like on-demand workers or a city’s-worth of dinner hosts.
Slack and HipChat provide a good hub for informal conversation and the sharing of materials, though targeted toward internal teams. | Startups |
Mobilize provides a more developed platform for communicating, scheduling and driving impact with regard for diverse partner contexts.
Companies large and small — from MasterCard to Maker Faire — are already migrating to Mobilize’s platform from other solutions so they can better manage their growing external partnerships without having to grow internal teams. | Startups |
There are already internal job titles and consultants lining up to help manage these groups, so the need for platforms focused on managing these networks of partner groups is only growing.
As these partnerships grow and the platforms that support them develop, rhythms for partner relationship management will evolve. Today, these rhythms are more a tap on the drum set. | Startups |
Someday they’ll become fluid jam sessions. This will require focused attention and understanding of how different groups live, behave and what they want from these partnerships, as well. | Startups |
But the companies that engage in the partnered economy will be rewarded with the strongest ties with these groups, through to their customers, and become the most adept at working through market and other changes beyond their control. This in turn will allow them continued growth and tenure at the top of their industries.. | Startups |
null | Mobile |
Today, Pinterest said it hit 150 million monthly active users, up from the 100 million it announced in September 2015.
However, as TechCrunch previously reported, Pinterest in 2015 was targeting that it would hit 151 million monthly active users by the end of 2015. We reported the story in October last year, and the information was used by Andreessen Horowitz to solicit limited partners to invest in a special investment fund for Pinterest earlier in the year.
With Pinterest growing by half this year, it looks like it may miss on its 2016 projections that it set earlier last year as well. | Mobile |
Leaked documents reviewed by TechCrunch at the time also projected that Pinterest would end 2016 at 218 million monthly active users. The Wall Street Journal today also reported the company is expected to triple last year’s revenue to $300 million in 2016. | Mobile |
That, too, falls below projected estimates of $663 million for 2016 from those leaked documents.
Again, these projections came in early 2015, and companies are constantly revising them as the years progress. | Mobile |
Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann, in response to those projections, told The Wall Street Journal that “there were some early projections when we were just a couple months into building the business, but we’ve learned more about it.”
“Start up life is dynamic, and years old projections aren’t particularly relevant to where companies are today,” Andreessen-Horowitz partner Jeff Jordan, who is on Pinterest’s board, told TechCrunch. | Mobile |
“We’re thrilled with Pinterest’s performance — strong continued user growth, best-in-class user engagement, and an increasingly robust platform for advertisers that’s leading to rapidly expanding revenue. We’re very excited about what’s to come.”
Revenue of $100 million for 2015, and potentially $300 million for 2016, are enviable numbers for a consumer ad-driven startup that’s only 7 years old. | Mobile |
This isn’t really a reflection of poor performance for Pinterest, it would seem — just that the expectations may have been set a little high. Many startups are sometimes valued, to some extent, at a multiple of next year’s revenue. | Mobile |
While Pinterest’s valuation is likely also relative to the latent pent-up marketing and user demand, as well as its growth and overhead, it would still seem the company needed to reset its expectations.
Last week, the company announced that it had brought on its first chief financial officer, former Twitter executive Todd Morgenfeld. | Mobile |
But at that time, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company had generated $100 million in 2015, which fell below its projections of $169 million. | Mobile |
To be sure, 50% growth year-over-year would be an enviable clip for any service with more than 100 million users (as in, Twitter), but there has always been a question as to what the upper bound of Pinterest would be beyond really powerful use cases like wedding planning or recipes.
There are a lot of potential reasons for this. | Mobile |
With Facebook still immensely growing, scooping up new communications platforms and offering a wider array of advertising products, advertisers may be more inclined to simply stick to what they know. And the experimental budgets that these firms have, which previously may have gone to Pinterest, may be shifting to other emerging platforms like Snapchat, which has 150 million daily active users. | Mobile |
Snapchat, a 5-year-old company, is already projecting revenue as high as between $500 million and $1 billion for 2017.
The souring on alternative platforms to Facebook and traditional advertising has been made increasingly apparent as Twitter’s valuation has dropped off a cliff. In recent weeks, reports came out that suitors have emerged (and slinked back, and emerged, and so on) to buy Twitter. | Mobile |
That sent Twitter’s shares rocketing up, but it’s since cratered back to a market cap of around $12.5 billion. That’s not too far off from Pinterest’s valuation of $11 billion in its previous financing round.
Pinterest has increasingly offered an advertising tool that serves a larger funnel than other services. | Mobile |
While Facebook — and likely Snapchat — are very effective at awareness and brand advertising, Pinterest has billed itself as a way for marketers to push users further and further toward conversion. It can get their attention at the awareness phase, their intention to purchase with search, and finally a conversion when they are pinning products or even purchasing them. | Mobile |
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