Spotify Agrees to Pay Bill Simmons Up to $196 Million to Buy The Ringer
Spotify will pay Bill Simmons as much as $196 million to acquire The Ringer in a deal that will instantly boost the streaming service's sports and pop culture company, and bring a high-powered name to its roster of podcasting content.
The Stockholm-based company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that it will pay Simmons between 130 million euros and 180 million euros ($141 million to $195 million), according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The final purchase price will depend on preferred payouts contingent on performance, and that Simmons and other key executives remain with Spotify.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020, when the final price will be determined.
Spotify announced the deal last week amid speculation that it could be valued as much as $250 million. The Los Angeles-based sports and pop culture website's slate of 30 podcasts — including The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Rewatchables, and The Ryan Russillo Podcast — will now be streamed on Spotify. The Luxembourg-based company, which also has a huge presence in L.A., hopes to build out the franchise's content.
"Spotify has the unique ability to truly supercharge both content and creator talent across genres," Simmons said in a statement when the deal was struck. "We spent the last few years building a world-class sports and pop culture multimedia digital company and believe Spotify can take us to another level. We couldn't be more excited to unlock Spotify's power of scale and discovery, introduce The Ringer to a new global audience and build the world's flagship sports audio network."
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The dot.LA Summit Kicks Off Tomorrow, Focused on Los Angeles' Growing Tech and Startup Scene
Oct 26 2020
dot.LA is kicking off its inaugural summit Tuesday with a line-up of the players, investors and executives shaping tech and media in Los Angeles, including the head of Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine media company, Silicon Valley's top dealmaker Bill Gurley and GoodRx CEO Doug Hirsch.
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The pandemic, investing in Los Angeles tech and gender inequity will be among the topics explored during the two-day summit. dot.LA will also announced the winners of its first Startup Awards celebrating the region's most innovative people and companies.<br/>
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Watch all the panels at the <a href="http://dotlasummit.com/schedule/" target="_blank">dot.LA Summit website</a>. There's still time to sign up for the conference <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2020-dotla-summit-tickets-120431061547" target="_blank">here</a>.
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The event will showcase the people, technology and ideas that shape how we live and have defined dot.LA's coverage since it launched in January. The organization was founded by former Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff and dot.LA's CEO Sam Adams with the goal of shining a light on Los Angeles' burgeoning and diverse tech scene.<br/>
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Kevin Mayer, the former head of TikTok had been scheduled for the event's keynote speaker, but cancelled on the advice of his lawyers shortly before the summit. TikTok, owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance, is embroiled in a battle with the Trump administration that seeks to shut it down.<br/>
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Sarah Harden, CEO of Hello Sunshine and Liz Jenkins, CFO will open up the summit on Tuesday with a discussion about how small celebrity-driven production companies are transforming the traditional Hollywood machine and adding diversity.
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Other speakers include the electronic music duo The Chainsmokers who founded venture fund Mantis, Headspace CEO Rich Pierson. Blavity founder and CEO Morgan DeBaun, Sweetgreen co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman, Suma Wealth co-founder and CEO Beatriz Acevedo and Jesse Jacobs, co-founder and partner of The Chernin Group.
</p><p>
dot.LA will hold its <a href="http://dotlasummit.com/sessions/dot-la-startup-pitch-competition-finals/" target="_blank">pitch competition finale</a> for early-stage startups at the end of the first day of the Summit. More than 100 companies with a product and less than $1 million in hand competed to get in the final stage. The pitches will be judged by Anna Barber, Managing Director of Techstars Los Angeles, and Rascoff, who most recently helped establish <a href="https://dot.la/supernova-spac-2648465322.html" target="_blank">Supernova Partners Acquisition Company</a>. The winner will receive special access to Amazon Web Services, Fenwick, Full Stack Finance and Carta.
</p><p>
The full summit schedule can be found at <a href="http://dotlasummit.com/schedule/" target="_blank">dot.LA</a>.
</p>
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I have long been a proponent of going public because I believe it creates stronger, more disciplined companies that deliver greater shareholder value. It's great to see the pendulum in the founder and venture capital community swinging away from the "stay private longer" attitude that dominated tech over the last decade.
That said, the traditional IPO listing path has many shortcomings. I experienced this firsthand in 2011 when we took Zillow public. The cover price on the original S-1 was $12-$14 a share, but we upped it to $14-$16 due to strong demand on the IPO roadshow. We priced it at $20 a share, only to watch the first trade open at $60 that day. (Note: Zillow has since done a 3-for-1 stock split, so divide these numbers by three if you're trying to compare it with today's ~ $100 stock price.)
<p>So on what should have been a day of high-fives and champagne, I couldn't help but feel disappointment that we left a huge amount of money on the table by underpricing our IPO. 🤦 Facepalm. </p><p>Our employees and our venture capital owners were penalized by this broken system. And it's not just the Zillow IPO — this problem is systemic; the typical tech IPO trades up by 43% one day later. That's a massive amount of money to leave on the table for an issuer.</p><p>Direct listings provide a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/06/bill-gurleys-plan-to-move-from-tech-ipos-to-direct-listings.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">second path</a> to a public listing, and they typically avoid the underpricing issue of a traditional listing. But they have their own set of shortcomings, including the inability of the company to raise primary capital in the offering.</p><p>SPACs — Special Purpose Acquisition Companies — offer <a href="http://abovethecrowd.com/2020/08/23/going-public-circa-2020-door-3-the-spac/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a third way</a>, and remedy many of the problems with IPOs, while offering some new benefits, including the ability for a company to provide financial projections at the time of the SPAC IPO, when the private company merges with the public SPAC. In addition, the SPAC model offers a quicker, more certain path to going public. With the launch of <a href="https://www.supernovaspac.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Supernova Partners Acquisition Company</a> (yes, our acronym is "SPAC"), my partners and I are creating that path for a company in the broader tech sector. </p><p>But going public by merging with a SPAC is just an express route to basecamp. Being a fast-scaling, successful public company is the summit. I know this because I've been up that mountain. </p><p>From the point we went public at Zillow, we navigated 16 acquisitions — including that of another public company who was our biggest competitor. We grew our employee base 10-fold in six years. We pulled off a complex business pivot. And most critically, we protected our culture from the volatility of the stock market and kept our people focused on our mission. The internal name for the Zillow IPO in 2011 was "Project Step," because it was just a step along the way. I've seen firsthand that going public is the beginning, not the end. </p><p>The transition from being privately held to being publicly traded is like graduating from college and entering the real world and the job market. Welcome to the big time. And for a newly public company, it's a scary world out there, full of potential facepalm moments. The right mentors, directors, and advisors can make a huge difference during those first few years as a public company. And that is yet another benefit of going public through a SPAC: you get the benefit of the experience which the sponsor group provides. In Supernova's case, we have assembled a world-class team with diverse skills available to help whichever company we take public. We are player-coaches who have all excelled on the field before, and are now excited to help shepherd a company and help them avoid facepalm moments of their own.</p><p>There are many SPACs (and more every day), but not all are created equal. Some teams are Wall Street-heavy and exist only to take a company public, exploiting a private-to-public valuation arbitrage opportunity; some are led by Silicon Valley founders who will act as advisors for a longer period of time. Very few combine both. With Supernova, <a href="https://www.supernovaspac.com/corporate-governance/management-team" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">my partners and I</a>, along with our <a href="https://www.supernovaspac.com/corporate-governance/board-of-directors" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">board</a>, together create a Swiss Army knife of experience in company building, culture building, marketing, finance, deal-making, product design, tech, capital markets and operations. </p><p>We know the journey to IPO and beyond is filled with facepalm crevasses that can be avoided with an expert guide at your side. Our operations and managerial experience, combined with our mentoring and coaching of founders and executives over two decades, will help chart a path toward long-term value. Personally, this is the beginning of a very exciting journey in my career as it combines all of my passions — investing, mentoring and coaching — with my experience as a seasoned CEO, all together with an unparalleled team I'm proud to call partners.</p><p><em>Spencer Rascoff is the co-Chair of Supernova Partners Acquisition Company and the co-founder of dot.LA.</em></p>
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'All the Progress We've Seen Could Be Erased': Data Shows the Pandemic Has Hit Women Harder
Oct 26 2020
If the rule is to follow the money, then VC deal flow shows how singularly bad this pandemic has been for female entrepreneurs compared to their male peers.
By and large, anytime a woman was involved in the founding of a company, venture capital investment dollars dropped significantly and there were fewer dollars per deal overall, according to a dot.LA analysis of year-over-year Q3 PitchBook data for Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Seattle.
<p>Notably, PitchBook does not have data that accounts for <a href="https://dot.la/pledgelas-2nd-annual-survey-finds-women-non-whites-still-lack-equity-representation-2646415502.html" target="_self">the race of founders in their analysis</a> and it has not previously been formally tracked. A spokesperson said the company is working on it.</p><p>Much has been <a href="https://dot.la/women-in-tech-los-angeles-2645374356.html" target="_self">written on this issue</a>, <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">year</a> after <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/06/male-and-female-entrepreneurs-get-asked-different-questions-by-vcs-and-it-affects-how-much-funding-they-get" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">year</a>, and in <a href="https://www.cloverpop.com/hacking-diversity-with-inclusive-decision-making-white-paper" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">study</a> <a href="https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us-news/en/articles/media-releases/42035-201207.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">after</a> <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">study</a>, including around the idea that women <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-20/covid-19-explodes-the-myth-that-women-opt-out-of-the-workforce?sref=4Kf8RwDw" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">allegedly simply opt-out of the workplace</a>. But the pandemic has laid bare systemic inequities that have led women to be disproportionately impacted by the conflation of work and home life. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly job report showed that women, especially Black and Latina women, were four times more likely than men to drop out of the labor force in September, according to <a href="https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/september-jobs-fs1.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">an analysis by the National Women's Law Center</a>. Of the 865,000 workers who left the labor force, 80% were women. </p><p>Among those inequities has been a large gender gap in VC funding. The data shows that the pandemic has made that far worse.</p><p>In the L.A. metropolitan region, VC investment dollars for all-female-founded companies dropped by 70% — from $83.2 million to $23.4 million — in a year-over-year comparison during the third quarter.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU4NzgwOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzgwNzY1NH0.PDv4ja6xDLAAgLfv4ahG6lX3uwLK1drXkRMbTgm5vqA/image.png?width=980" id="b1f23" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="63799da591d7093131d2755a9c9d3b60" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Data from Pitchbook</small></p><p>Interestingly, VCs invested much less money in more deals — with deal count rising from nine to 12 deals.<br/></p><p>The story is very different for companies that have male co-founders, and at least one female. In Q3, investment actually rose year-over-year, from $183.8 million to $390.4 million, or 16 to 50 deals, respectively. In this case, VCs again spent less per deal in the third quarter, but overall investment dollars rose.</p><p>For all-male founders, the pandemic appears to have been a boon, at least in terms of raising funds. VC investment rose by 385%, from $742.8 million to $3.6 billion year-over-year in Q3. Those numbers equated to a rise in deal count, from 47 to 118, which showed that VCs in fact spent more money per deal on average than for any company with any female founder.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU4NzgxMC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjY5MzI5OH0.W4Eorv1YTX0x5U3aZy-jLREY98idi8g5YhOK01PpHD0/image.png?width=980" id="df650" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="cbcd9cd20f4e54e4b478c5b1fe9bba15" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Data from Pitchbook</small></p><p>In an unsparing <a href="https://medium.com/@jessecdraper/investing-in-women-isnt-a-fucking-charity-ceabe8918b9c" target="_blank">column entitled "Investing in Women isn't a Fucking Charity,"</a> Jesse Draper, founding partner of female-focused Halogen Ventures, wrote last month about some of the sad and painful realities of being a woman in a male-dominated field and how "boneheaded," financially, it is to not invest in women.<br/></p><p>"On a macro level, the lack of diversity in the industry is a problem because it means most of the money flows to types of founders VCs understand — businesses with white men of a certain socioeconomic background as their target customer," Draper wrote. "It means fewer great businesses have the opportunity to thrive. It means we put fewer products out into the world that improve the lives of women, BIPOC, and marginalized communities."</p><p>dot.LA found the trend in PitchBook data was similar for Q3 in the Bay Area and Seattle. In both those regions, all-male founders saw a significant increase in investment dollars and money spent per deal in the third quarter versus the same period a year earlier. They also received more money per deal than if they had a female co-founder.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU4Nzg2OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MDU3NDc0MH0.rOiJ9rCEVKoIMIFJSxAISTiT12arypX0auUgwflxsKk/image.png?width=980" id="f5b50" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3f880822a083661892a536d71dd3d662" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Data from Pitchbook</small></p><p>In the Bay Area, that looked like a jump from $2.8 billion for 161 deals in Q3 2019 to $11.93 billion for 385 deals in this last quarter — for all male founders. For all female founders, the deal flow increase was a pale comparison, up from $98.6 million for 14 deals last Q3 to $141.6 million for 20 deals.<br/></p><p>Seattle VCs invested $1.5 billion for 79 deals with all-male founders, up significantly from $700,000 for 23 deals in Q3. All-female founders received a boost in Seattle because the single Q3 2019 deal involved an unknown amount of money, per PitchBook's data. In Q3 2020, all-women founders received $13.5 million spread over eight deals.</p><p>A PitchBook spokesperson said the company is working on a larger report examining such pandemic-related investment trends and their impact on women in an upcoming December report.</p><p>Of course, the drop in VC investment in women founders may be symptomatic of a broader societal shift.</p><p>The<a href="https://wiw-report.s3.amazonaws.com/Women_in_the_Workplace_2020.pdf" target="_blank"> annual "Women in the Workplace" study by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org</a> noted that "Covid-19 has disrupted the workplace in ways we've never seen before" as women end up juggling more housework and caregiving burdens amid school closures. The report found that for the first time in the annual study's years researchers saw signs that women are leaving the workforce at rates higher than men.</p><p>"If these women feel forced to leave the workforce, we'll end up with far fewer women in leadership—and far fewer women on track to be future leaders," the report, released September 30, warned. "All the progress we've seen over the past five years would be erased."</p><p>__</p><p><em>Join dot.LA on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020 for an exclusive panel around these issues at our <a href="http://dotlasummit.com/" target="_blank">inaugural summit</a>.</em></p><p><em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Twitter @latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em><br/></p>
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