I scream, you scream, we all scream for exit liquidity!
Also: All this to help Russia?
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Ramp ramps up
There’s a book to be written about Ramp that I look forward to reading some day. I got to know Ramp and co-founder CEO Eric Glyman back when the corporate expense startup was a wee lad. TechCrunch covered its launch, and I covered its next funding round worth $30 million later that year:
The startup raised its latest round in August of 2020, with conversations about the deal kicking off in June. The new capital is Ramp’s second priced raise after its August, 2019 seed round worth $8 million and the first after its February, 2020-era $15 million raise. D1 and Coatue were new investors in this new investment, which included some prior backers.
Those days are long gone. Today, after sorting out a $150 million tender offer for employees, Ramp is worth $13 billion. Even more, per the FT, the company’s growth is incredibly impressive:
According to a person with knowledge of the company’s finances, Ramp’s annualised revenue — a metric often used by fast-growing start-ups which multiplies the current month’s revenue by 12 — is $700mn. That figure is up from $300mn in August 2023.
Ramp’s secondary transaction implies that it’s IPO is still far off. Which makes sense if you are Ramp — it can raise as much primary capital as it wants while private and cash out some of its early backers all without a public debut. Shoutout Ramp for launching as what some dismissed as a Brex clone. And double points to Ramp for capitalizing on Brex’s period in the wilderness with relentless shipping. It worked.
Sidebar: Breakout startups are growing faster than ever. Will that lead to more IPOs, more quickly? I wonder if the opposite will prove true. Given that faster-growing startups accrete value more quickly than their slower-growing peers, why would venture investors become more willing to share upside with retail investors?
The National Crypto Grift Strategic Reserve
I scream, you scream, we all scream for exit liquidity!
Something like that. Here’s the news:
I would bet you my soul against a dollar that Trump has no idea the difference between Solana and Cardano, nor why they are considered shitcoins by bitcoinmaxis. So, who is he listening to?
Even Brian Armstrong was confused by the asset selection.
Coin prices pumped, of course, before giving back a chunk of the gains. One trader made a wager that paid off handsomely and looked a bit interesting given its structure and timing.
The sad part is the move to build the Reserve appears to contain olfactory strains similar to that of the fragrance of self-dealing. Why? David Sacks, the Trump admin’s Crypto Czar, runs Craft Ventures, which has backed a number of crypto companies including BitGo, Bitwise, Dune, and Lightning Labs. (CO freakin’ loves Dune. TWiST had the CEO on the pod the other month.)
Crypto activity and interest rise with prices, so anything that amps prices makes the larger crypto world healthier and thus more salubrious for Sacks’ own venture returns. Seeing Trump declare that our nation — putatively on the cusp of default and failure, per technology Twitter — will put some of its wealth into crypto token is, as they say, whiffy.
To his credit, Sacks and his firm sold all of their “direct” crypto holdings, which is about as good a job as they could do. Points there. But the larger Trump 2.0 crypto policy slate still feels like a carte blanche for the crypto wealthy more than a system that will unleash financial inclusion for the underbanked and precariously capitalized:
After shipping two memecoins and pumping them, the SEC ran cleanup for the President to ensure that his precise actions were considered Just Fine.
After piling capital and humans into the new government, the crypto industry’s beef with regulators went from 60 to 0 in record time.
The CFPB has been gutted, shuttered, or half-killed. It was a popular place to go to for redress regarding crypto complaints. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was pretty stoked about its end. You can view the more than 2,500 complaints that the CFPB received about Coinbase here.
If I was a crypto dev or investor, I’d be warming up fresh checks. But while a good chunk of the venture world is in favor of Trump and his administration’s actions full stop, there is dissent bubbling up in increasingly public fashion. The national crypto trust concept seemed to unleash new levels of carping.
It is worth noting that Conrad and Sacks greatly dislike one another, but still. Not a good look inside a business community that has been pretty Trump friendly. (Not that other business areas are throwing roses at present.)
Apple AI is so far behind I wonder if the company is ok
A brutal Bloomberg piece indicates that Apple’s time in the woods on the AI front is set to continue for years. For a company that spent years on a car it didn’t build, is dealing with setbacks on its new computing platform, and has tapped out its historical revenue driver, ouch.
I doubt that folks are about to swap their iPhones for Samsung devices due to today’s AI features that the latter include and the former lack. But in time, the gap will grow and begin to hurt. What’s wrong over in Cupertino?
All this to help Russia?
The Oval Office meltdown happened after CO was written Friday, so we haven’t yet touched on it. My view is that you support allies, not attack them; that people who have offered profuse thanks are not required to bow to foreign governments; that the obstacle to peace is the aggressor and not the defender; that supporting democracy over autocracy is prime to the American interest; and that helping nations under attack is not a time to bust out a price tag.
Meanwhile, American foreign policy has:
Reduced aid to Ukrainian armed forces.
Reduced aid to Ukrainian civilian capacity.
Improved Russian cybersecurity after the Secretary of Defense ordered “Cyber Command to stand down on Russia planning.”
Worked in the background to help restart Nord Stream 2, a Russian pipeline to Europe. The German Government, however, says no.
Demanded that the United States leave NATO.
Demanded that the United States leave the UN.
All told, that’s a pretty package if you believe that Russia is an ally and Ukraine an enemy. If you do not believe that, it’s a mess.
I have been joking on Twitter that I hope the tax cuts are worth it. But really, being sardonic is not enough. Why is the United States working to join the China-Russia axis instead of supporting the democratic world?