Slack’s Stewart Butterfield: Collaboration Means Leadership From Everywhere

Spencer Rascoff

Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

Slack’s Stewart Butterfield: Collaboration Means Leadership From Everywhere

Stewart Butterfield is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Slack, a collaboration hub beloved by more than eight million daily active users. In this episode, Spencer joins Stewart at Slack's San Francisco headquarters to discuss their recent partnership with Atlassian, Slack's unique origin story, managing through growth and adversity, and how Slack is fundamentally changing communication at work.


Press Play to hear the full conversation or check out the transcript below. You can also subscribe to Office Hours on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.

Spencer Rascoff: Today I'm in San Francisco in the offices of Slack, and I'm with Butterfield. Stewart, thanks a lot for having me. It's great to have you here.

Stewart Butterfield:My pleasure.

Rascoff:So, congratulations, first of all. The timing of this worked out great. There was some huge news that came out about Slack and HipChat. Why don't you just share the news, and we can talk about it.

Butterfield: Sure.

Rascoff: What did you announce?

Butterfield:We've been working with Atlassian for a couple of years now on general partnerships. So, we make Slack the hub for collaboration or messaging for work or however you want to characterize it, and they make Jira, which is a really popular bug and issue tracker ticketing system used for all kinds of things. They make Confluence, which is like a Wiki/knowledge management tool, Bitbucket, source code control kind of like GitHub, and a whole bunch of other products.
And they also had a product called HipChat traditionally, and then about a year ago they introduced a new product called Stride which was their replacement for HipChat, and both HipChat and Stride were competitive with Slack. We still worked with them really well because we collectively had, at this point, hundreds of thousands of organizations who were using Slack with at least one Atlassian tool, like — I forgot to mention — Trello, task management application.
And we had no problem competing with them and cooperating, and they didn't either, but I think they came to the realization that the resources that they were investing in those products was probably better invested in their core products, which are, you know — in terms of market share, in terms of revenue — are much, much larger and go deeper on the partnership. And I think that was a really smart move, you know, very well-rewarded by the market and analysts. I got a lot of congratulatory emails saying that was brilliant, and I said, “We executed well, but I've got to give them credit for the idea." And I think it was a really unusual move for someone to make.

Rascoff: Yeah. I've never seen — so, what they basically did was they said they were gonna wind down HipChat and sell you the customer list and the IP —

Butterfield: Mm-hmm. Not even the customer list.

Rascoff:OK.

Butterfield: We're working together with them. So, we built a whole migration tool. They're messaging all of their customers, and definitely no one is being forced to migrate, but we wanted to extend the same pricing that they had to all those customers and just make it as easy as possible for people to move over.

I think there's a long history — if you go back to, like, what Microsoft looked like to IBM in 1982, or what Google looked like to Microsoft in 2001, or what Facebook looked like to Google in 2006-2007 — of a smaller, focused start-up with traction versus a larger incumbent that has multiple lines of business, and there's just a real advantage, I think, that you get in terms of the experience you can provide to customers and the kinda clarity and focus. So, I think there's — that's not always true, sometimes the big company squashes the smaller one, and in fact maybe that's more often true — but there's definitely a handful that make it out. So, I mean it feels good, but it doesn't feel good because that came at the expense of someone else, you know.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield: That feels good because we have thousands — tens of thousands of customers tweeting stuff, like, every day, posting to Facebook, telling their friends, insisting at their new employer that they evaluate Slack 'cause they used it at their old employer because they really like it.

Rascoff:I get the sense that the culture is not a competitor-focused culture, it's more of a persona-focused culture, customer-focused.

Butterfield: Yeah.

Rascoff:Employees come here every day trying to do the right thing by your users, and sort of whatever happens in the competitive landscape happens. Is that fair to say?

Butterfield:Yeah. No one will ever get fired because they were too good to a customer.

Rascoff: Right.

Butterfield: Including “good" in the sense of lost revenue opportunities or deferred revenue for us. We really believe in the long run — and I want to be doing this for the next 20 or 30 years, and, you know, it'd be great if the company existed for a couple hundred thousand years, couple hundred million years, who knows. In the long run, the measure of our success will be how much value we created for our customers. 'Cause you can always be the exploiter, you know, you can always be extracting more value than you can create but not for long. That just doesn't work for the universe for very long.

Customers are not gonna consistently choose Slack every year, every year, no matter what happens in the marketplace, no matter what other products arise, what other systems, if we're just trying to suck more money out of them and not make it actually something that's worth their while. I mean, the ideal case is for every dollar they spend with us they're getting back $10 or $100 or who knows in value. So yeah, we're definitely not focused on what competitors are doing, we're aware — we actually have a saying inside, “Competitor aware, customer obsessed."

Rascoff: I like that.

Butterfield:Yeah.

Rascoff: So, my first start-up, Hotwire, was very competitor focused. We were really focused on Priceline, and Zillow, my next start-up, is not so competitor focused. We're really consumer focused and persona focused. And it's a much more inspiring place to work when you're persona focused and not competitor focused. It's a little bit — I don't know, it's a little bit hollow, almost, to be overly competitor focused.

Butterfield: Yeah. I think it's easier for us to take that position than many other companies. If you're one of, I don't even know, let's say 1,200 restaurants in SoHo, in New York.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield:People have a lot of choice, and they're also not gonna go to your restaurant every time. And for Hotwire and most other travel sites, it's like it's a purchase-by-purchase decision, and people might have three tabs open —

Rascoff: It's much more zero-sum, yeah.

Butterfield:Yeah, and they're looking all over the place. Whereas — and certainly people can evaluate all kinds of software that they might use in the enterprise, but the commitment to actually make a purchase or invest is, like, something that happens over the course of months, you know.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield: And it's a much bigger just in terms of, like, literally the calories, like the glucose burned in their frontal cortex of the human beings who are doing this — is, like, a million times greater 'cause you have to shift the behavior of, you know, depending on the size of the company, dozens of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people, against habits they had formed over, like, the last decade or two.

Rascoff: So today, Slack is incredibly successful, of course, riding high from this recent announcement, but that's just a proof point. You know, so we don't need to dwell on it. It wasn't always that way. So, Slack rose from another company that was not as successful, so can you describe the founding story and sort of the early days of how Slack got started?

Butterfield: Sure. Here is the fastest possible version. Back in 2002, in, like, the really dark days — post-9/11, post-WorldCom and Enron, post-dot-com crash, NASDAQ down 80 percent, S&P 500 down 65 percent — we started a web-based massively multiplayer game company, which was not very well-timed. That ended up turning into Flickr through other means. Flickr got bought by Yahoo. A group of us went to go work for Yahoo.

Nine years — or sorry, seven years — later, 2009, we decided to try it again. We started another web-based massively multiplayer game company, which also failed. After about three and a half years, we had 45 people working on it and a pretty eclectic group because there's, like, some really serious, hardcore back-end engineering challenges, but there's also writers and artists and animators and musicians, and there is, of course, a business operations team and customer support.

And over the course of those three and a half years, we had started using a pretty ancient Internet technology called Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, which predates the web by a couple of years. And over the course of that three and a half years, just, like, one at a time and a pretty jury-rigged, hacky fashion, fixed the things that we thought were really annoying, like the kind of — the most irritating problems and challenges we had around internal communication or, conversely, the opportunities for improvements that seemed most obvious.

And then over the course of these years, we had this system for internal communications where it was a real virtuous circle; the more people paid attention to it, the more information we would route into it.

Rascoff: What did you call it internally?

Butterfield: It didn't even have a name. I think this is one of the reasons it had such incredible product market fit is there was, like, no ego involved in this. There was no speculation about what a user might want or like. This was just, like, how can we spend the minimum number of minutes to fix or improve this and then go back to what we were supposed to be doing and —

Rascoff:And it was just used for employees, the 45 employees that were working on this game that was not finding traction in the marketplace.

Butterfield:Yeah. Like, I don't even know if you — or if I did an interview at that time and someone said, like, “How do you all work?" I probably would have mentioned it, but it wouldn't have seemed very significant. At the end of the process, though, when we decided to shut down the game, we realized, “Hey, we would never work without something like this again, and probably other people would like it."

So, we had this blueprint which we executed against, and as soon as we put it in the hands — I mean not as soon as, 'cause the first couple customers are almost impossible to get. We had to beg our friends to please try it, please try it. 'Cause one of the challenges for Slack and things like it is you can't unilaterally decide — I mean, you maybe can 'cause you're the CEO — but one can't typically unilaterally decide that they're gonna use Slack to communicate with their team; everyone has to agree. Whereas somebody like, say, Dropbox — I've been paying for Dropbox for seven years or something like that. I'm a very, very happy customer — I didn't want to have to back anything up. I have multiple computers, seemed like a great solution. I just did it, but you can't do that with Slack, right? You need to get at least two people —

Rascoff:Right, you need buy-in from the rest of your —

Butterfield: Yeah, yeah.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield: And that needs to happen not, like, sequentially over the course of a year but more or less around the same time, and it's disruptive 'cause it's a change to how you communicate internally. So, I don't want to underplay that as a challenge. But once we did get groups using it, we found they just kept on using it, and the usage inside those companies grew, and people were very happy. And the same thing happened for them as happened for us: the more information you routed into it the more attention people paid, and the more attention people paid the more information you added into it, until, like, finally there was one kind of focal point for where work happens across the whole organization.

Rascoff: So, when you pivoted this gaming start-up to an office collaboration technology start-up, were there some people that either said, “Hey, I'm not in on that next mission," or people that weren't a good fit for what you needed?

Butterfield: Oh no, I mean — the actual shutdown — I'm glossing over the trauma.

Rascoff: OK.

Butterfield: It's pretty brutal. I mean, there was 45 people, we laid off 37 of them.

Rascoff:OK.

Butterfield:And, you know, for entrepreneurs in the audience who have been doing it for a while I'm sure they'll recognize the ups and downs. But I mean, first of all, it's humiliating personally 'cause, you know, I put a lot of my own credibility on the line, and I talked to press and investors and saying we're gonna do this and that, and then it doesn't work. And that feels bad for me individually. But much worse is the fact that I convinced most of these people to come work at the company and to give up some other opportunity that they had.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield: In some cases, to move to a different city. I mean there was a moment when I was announcing it internally where I kinda was just looking around the room while I was talking. First of all, I started crying almost immediately, before I got the first sentence out, but then I, like, locked eyes with one guy who, just a couple months ago had moved from a different city, away from his in-laws who were helping take care of his at that point, I think 18-month-old daughter and buy a house in this new city. And then I was telling him, “Sorry, you don't have a job anymore."

So, happy ending on that one because we hired him back about six or nine months later and he was a very early Slack employee and happy. But yeah, I mean, we don't have a big need for musicians at Slack or animators or level designers or a lot of the disciplines. So, that was, like, a — it was a pretty dark time for a while and took us a few months to — because we had money left, we were able to do it in a relatively elegant way, so a couple months to kinda clean it up.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield:So, offer our customers their money back, or we could donate it to a charity on their behalf, or we could keep it, to put a lot of effort into making sure that people got other jobs. We built, like, this whole website with everyone's resume and portfolio, and we did some interview coaching and wrote reference letters and got everyone else a job.

Rascoff:This was in Vancouver mostly.

Butterfield: This was, yeah, Vancouver and San Francisco, but Vancouver was the larger office at that time, and then — so, that's the end of 2012, beginning of 2013, and we start making Slack middle of 2013. We had started using it ourselves and we tried to get some friends to use it. August of 2013, we did private beta, which we called a “preview release" 'cause we didn't want people to think it was flaky. February of 2014, so four and a half years ago, we officially launched it and started charging and stuff like that. So, it was really fast, like 14 months.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield: And by the time we launched it, there was about 15,000 daily active users, and the teams were really sticking and there was just — like I said, this incredible product market fit out of the gate, which, to be honest, I think has propelled us to where we are today, four and a half years later.

Rascoff:I mean, managing through adversity for a leader but also for the whole company frequently makes the company all that much stronger and better. Probably somewhere in the Slack DNA, and definitely in your management DNA, are lessons learned from that period.

Butterfield: Yeah.

Rascoff:As the company has scaled to today — to 1,000 employees, eight offices — what are some lessons that you've learned as a leader through that growth period? How have you changed as a leader and as a manager? You know, what are some things that other listeners can learn from having managed through that growth?

Butterfield: It's more like what hasn't changed? I mean, I have been making software for about 25 years, like professionally, and I'm 45 now, and I'm good at product design, good at software development. I'm probably not gonna get any better at this point, not because I'm so great at it but just because, like, now I'm relatively old, and I've been doing it for so long that if I was gonna get better it would have happened in the last 25 years. And I'm sure I have other significant skills as well, but I feel like that was the strength in my career that got me to where I am, and now that's largely irrelevant. How good — I mean, I'm sure —

Rascoff:Because you have a team that's doing the —

Butterfield:Yeah, 'cause there's 1,200 employees.

Rascoff: Right.

Butterfield:And I'm not gonna make any — you know, like, I could make 10 basis points and, like, one-tenth of a percent worth of the significant decisions on the product development side, and hopefully I make a contribution on strategy, but my job is just completely different, and it took me a long time to figure it out. And I'm sure I wouldn't have said this to you at the time, but if you asked me two years ago what my job was, I would have thought inside my head, very secretly, only to myself, that my job is to be smarter than everyone else and to make all of the really important decisions.

And I didn't mean that, like, coming from an egotistical place, I just felt the pressure of, like, I need to be able to approve anything that's happening. I need to be able to, like — when there was an irreversible, very significant decision for the company, I had to be the one to make it, which, you know, I think actually is still a little bit true today. But when there was irreversible-but-unimportant decisions or reversible-but-important decisions, I didn't need to be the one making those.

So, it took me a long time to figure out what the job actually was, and to me there's three components. So, one, set the strategy and vision for the company, which sounds very lofty, but it isn't super time consuming. We had a great vision out of the gate. We had a great strategy out of the gate. Like, we haven't changed our pricing. In fact, we have set the — the pricing was proposed before we even started developing Slack, and we haven't changed it, and maybe there's better pricing, but it must have been pretty close 'cause it's working.

And the kind of — the positioning we put ourselves in, which is we want to build up to the edges of other software but not necessarily compete with them. We don't want to make document-editing tools, we're not gonna make calendaring tools, we're not gonna make, like, a bug or issue tracker, but we want to make your experience at each of those tools which you already use better because you use Slack.

The second thing is kind of a basket of governance, administrative, supervisory duties, and we have a great GC, we have a great CFO, so that actually doesn't take that much of my time either.

Which leaves a third bucket, which should be almost all of my time, which is ensuring that the performance of the organization, as a whole, is as high as possible. And I didn't think about that as my job, and because I didn't I also didn't delegate that. So, I think we were in a position a year ago, and I think we're still working out of this, where most of the executive team was making most of the decisions, you know. We would spend time, collectively, looking at spreadsheets where each row was a thing that someone was working on and saying, “Is this thing higher or lower priority than that thing? Is it the right team working on it?" And that actually would be fine at 100 or 200 people — it doesn't work at the scale that we're at now, and it's certainly not gonna work at the scale that we're gonna be at at a year and a half or two years from now.

Rascoff:So, setting the vision, but most importantly up-leveling the organization. A lot of that is around motivation, communication, employee comms.

Butterfield:Yeah.

Rascoff: So, the culture at Slack is — it seems very similar to ours. I mean, you have this phrase, “Work hard and go home." What does that mean, and how would you describe the culture here?

Butterfield: So, yesterday I did a new hire welcomes — I do, like, every two weeks — it's like the batch of people who started, and I tell them about that. I don't really actually know if we have it up at our new office, but we will at some point — we definitely had it up at our old office. And I say we had this thing up on the wall that says, “Work hard, go home." Pause, beat, beat. Everyone understood the “go home" part, and everyone laughs.

The work hard part — the point of the whole thing was we want to be able to hire all kinds of people.

Rascoff:Yes.

Butterfield: And some people got kids, and they can't stay till 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. Some people have other stuff. They're active volunteers in their community. Their church is important to them. They have hobbies that are significant. And if we can be disciplined, professional focused while we're at the office and really take the best advantage of those, I don't know, four to maybe six hours of really creative, kind of focused intelligent work, then we could all just go home earlier and do other things and rest up and kind of be prepared to do this for years and years — as opposed to play foosball for 45 minutes in the middle and then have a two-hour lunch and spend a lot of time talking about TV shows or going to karaoke that night or whatever it is. That was really important to us.

It took me awhile, until really recently, to think, “You know, we have mission and vision, strategy — we have values," but the thing that became most significant for me in thinking about what kind of culture we wanted to build were these four attributes that someone else mentioned to me, a guy named Suresh Khanna, who last I heard was the CRO at AdRoll, a retargeting company. And I was going for a walk with him once, and he mentioned just in an offhand way that he looks to hire people who are smart, humble, hard-working and collaborative. And for some reason that combination, that phrase really stuck with me.

So, like, a year or maybe two years later, I'm not even — I guess probably two years later, I realized, “Wow, that's, like, a really magical combination." And it's not that those are four important attributes and hopefully you have at least one of them as a strength but those in combination. So, you have probably worked with people who are smart and hard-working but neither humble nor collaborative, and there's certainly an archetype that comes to mind when I say that. Conversely, people who are collaborative and humble but neither smart nor hard-working — another different archetype that comes to mind.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield:And that's the thing that we want to cultivate. So, smart in the sense of being not high IQ, although that's a bonus if you have it, but oriented towards learning.

Rascoff:Growth mindset.

Butterfield:Yeah, and realizing that your intelligence and creativity are relatively precious things, and if you're going to be spending mental energy on something it shouldn't be something that is routine, that could be made into a checklist, that is kind of — like, there's no point trying to remember that stuff. Computers are relative to humans, perfect at remembering things. And humans are relative to computers; basically, we don't remember anything. Like, we don't — literally nothing. I don't know who I am, where I am, why we're in this room, like, just no memory. Computers can do arithmetic 100 trillion times faster than human beings — and by the way, with perfect accuracy — whereas no matter how good you are at doing math in your head, you're gonna get things wrong once in a while. So, I mean, those are kind of obvious ones. But how quickly can you improve the way that you work, and how steadily can you improve the efficacies? That's smart.

Humble is pretty obvious. Hard-working is pretty obvious. Although I have to point out that humility is kind of a fundamental one in the sense that being smart like that — understanding when you make a mistake and figuring out how to improve it — requires an element of humility. But the one that I think is gonna be least well understood is collaborative 'cause it's a pretty open word. It has a lot of connotations. It's kind of — it's difficult to know what someone means when they say that this person is collaborative, and here we mean something really specific.

Rascoff:That's very hard to evaluate in an interview as well.

Butterfield: Yeah, yeah, it is. So here, we don't mean like meek or submissive or deferential. We don't mean like you have a tendency to go along with what other people want, which I think is what comes to mind when people say “collaborative," at least sometimes. It's kinda the opposite.

But the difference between the best and the worst performing teams, I think, is much, much wider. Like 100 times wider than the difference between the best and the worst performing individuals. So, as long as you're hiring people who are basically competent, you're not hiring, like, completely incompetent people or, like, a bunch of thieves or something like that. You're gonna have better and worse employees, and better typically means not so much they have more talent at fulfilling the tasks — like their role-specific function, like they're better at Excel than the other people in finance — but that they elevate the people around them.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield:That they're an important contributor. They're kind of glue for the team. They drive more clarity and alignment. They give good feedback, and they're receptive to feedback and a bunch of other stuff. You think about, like, people that you've had to fire over the course of your career, or people you know of got fired — people do get fired for incompetence sometimes. The overwhelming majority is they didn't work well with other people.

Rascoff:Right, personal issues, yep.

Butterfield: Yeah.

Rascoff: In their relationships.

Butterfield: So, going back, the collaborative sense here is the opposite of those meek, deferential, submissive — it's leadership from everywhere. It's that you take individual responsibility for the health and performance of this team. So, when there are problems you help clear them up. When there is, like, low trust you help drive up trust. When there is a lack of accountability, when there's a lack of clarity around goals or objectives, you take responsibility for driving those up, regardless of who you are. So, I don't even mean just, like, the manager — I mean everyone.

And if there's a real, deep commitment across the organization to improve the performance of the team, everyone as an individual is better off, 'cause would you rather work on a high performing team or a low performing team? And obviously the whole company is much more successful as well.

Rascoff:I feel like I am a much better CEO today in my mid-40s than I was 15 or 20 years ago, because I agree with everything you just said, and I think it's super important, and when I was in my mid-20s I did not.

Butterfield: Yeah.

Rascoff: I didn't understand any of that.

Butterfield: Yeah. Well, I'm — good news, I'm mid-40s as well and would say exactly the same thing. Yeah, 'cause there's a real tendency to believe that it is, like, the heroic contributions of one genius software engineer or, like, one amazing marketer or something like that, and obviously individual contribution matters a lot, but —

Rascoff:Well, you know, it's nice. I mean, your product also speaks to this, right? Your product is about team collaboration, so it's obviously embedded in the culture of the DNA. As is sort of, like, you know, LinkedIn takes really seriously all these issues because the product is about that — it's about working well with others and collaboration and kind of being your best self at work, and Slack likewise has, you know, the product is that vision. But that's your philosophy background coming through, huh?

Butterfield: Yeah, it definitely is. There's actually one more kind of higher level thing that's going on, and that's over the last 30 years the tools for people to get their individual work done have improved dramatically. So, you imagine, like, how a recruiter gets stuff done in 2018 with LinkedIn, with an applicant-tracking system, you know, with tools to check their — well, resume scoring but also job description, language checkers and all this kind of stuff. Compared to walking into an office building and, like, with a pad of paper and writing down the names of all the companies and then going back to your desk and start making phone calls. Or a salesperson who has a CRM and has marketing automation tools and has lead scoring and has LinkedIn sales navigator, software engineer, you just go through the whole list.

Rascoff: And so, because they have more software to help them be more effective at work, what? Collaboration is more important?

Butterfield:Yeah. I think collaboration becomes the limiting factor.

Rascoff:Why? Oh, I see.

Butterfield: So, you think about it from your perspective, as CEO, if you could hire a magic consultant who would come in and through, like, GTD, time management, life hacks, whatever, would make everyone 10 percent more effective at the completion of their individual tasks, which is a significant component of their work, obviously. But people spend at the low end 30 percent of their time and at the high end 100 percent of their time on communication.

So, if you could have that 10 percent improvement in individual worker productivity, or the same magic consultant would drive a 10 percent increase in shared consciousness, like, knowledge of what people across the organization are doing, or 10 percent better understanding of goals, 10 percent more alignment. I mean, those things are harder to measure perhaps, but obviously more significant 'cause more incremental improvements in individual worker productivity are probably not gonna result in as much of a net change because nothing has happened over the last 50 years, with one exception: to improve the way that we communicate and the way we collaborate and the way that we share knowledge and the way that we get to that point where the team is working really well, and that's email.

And mail was a very, very significant step compared to, you know, mimeograph machines and taking paper and rolling it up into a little tube and sticking it into a cubby or interoffice mail or any of those kinds of things. But I think there is a second really significant change that we're part of — and by the way, if this was the industrial revolution, it's like 1870 —

Rascoff:And that change is improving communications in the office.

Butterfield: Yeah.

Rascoff:Email is — you think email is pretty outdated and not interactive, but messaging communication has —

Butterfield: It's a layer of communication that will be around for tens of thousands of years, probably. Like, it'll outlive most of us. And I mean this in a complimentary way, as the lowest common denominator form of communication.

Rascoff:Right.

Butterfield:Like, you can more or less guarantee that every other human being has an email address. But for internal communication, I think it's a pretty terrible choice, and the Outlook window for most people at most companies is that window they have into the workflows across the organization. It's, like, how budgets get approved, how job offers get made, how contracts go back and forth between legal teams, how decisions are communicated and memorialized. Like, it's just — it's almost everything. Your awareness of what's going on happens through that email window, and email is an individual-first mode of communication.

Rascoff:Stewart, thank you so much for the discussion, I really appreciate it. Congratulations on all Slack's success, and I am a happy user, and I look forward to continuing to be for many decades to come.

Butterfield: Yeah, thank you so much.

The post Slack's Stewart Butterfield: Collaboration Means Leadership From Everywhere appeared first on Office Hours.

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🛡️Meet the Defense Unicorn That Just Raised $250M to Stop Drone Swarms

🔦 Spotlight

Hello, Happy Friday!

For this week's spotlight story, we're turning our attention to a monumental leap in defense technology achieved by Epirus, a dynamic startup based in Torrance that specializes in groundbreaking anti-drone systems. Recently, Epirus successfully secured a whopping $250 million in Series D funding, raising its total capital to over $550 million and solidifying its status as a unicorn in the defense tech sector.

Image Source: Epirus

At the heart of Epirus’s arsenal is Leonidas, a solid-state, directed energy system named after the fierce Spartan king. As formidable as its namesake suggests, Leonidas stands out by neutralizing unmanned systems and other electronic threats with unmatched precision—a vital capability in today’s digital battlefield where drones are increasingly common. Offering a high-tech shield against potential threats, Leonidas has established Epirus as a key player in modern warfare technology, underscored by significant contracts such as a notable $66 million deal with the U.S. Army in 2023.

Founded in 2018 by a visionary team including Joe Lonsdale, Bo Marr, Max Mednik, Nathan Mintz, Grant Verstandig, and John Tenet, Epirus combines expertise across technology, strategy, and security to push the boundaries of defense innovation. The collective experience and strategic foresight of its founders have propelled the company's rapid growth and technological advancements.

Looking to the future, Epirus plans to utilize this influx of capital to broaden its reach into international and commercial markets, enhance its team, fortify its supply chain, and establish a new training center in Oklahoma to further military preparedness.

This latest round of funding was led by 8VC and Washington Harbour Partners LP, accompanied by a diverse group of new and returning investors, including strategic defense partner General Dynamics Land Systems and seasoned investors like StepStone Group and T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Inc. New stakeholders such as Oppenheimer's Private Market Opportunities Vista VI Fund, NightDragon, Manhattan Venture Partners, Centaurus Capital LP, and Center15 Capital also joined, reflecting robust market confidence in Epirus’s innovative approach and future potential.

Keep an eye on Epirus as it navigates this exciting phase of growth and innovation. With its advanced technologies and strategic expansions, Epirus is not just responding to the challenges of today’s digital battlefield but is also setting the pace for tomorrow’s defense landscape.

🤝 Venture Deals

LA Companies

  • Zeitview, a Los Angeles-based leader in AI-powered infrastructure inspections, has raised a $60M funding round led by Climate Investment, with participation from Upfront Ventures and others. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of its Visual AI technology and enhance its Insights software platform, supporting infrastructure sectors such as solar, wind, utilities, properties, and telecom throughout the asset lifecycle. - learn more
  • Nervonik, a medical device company specializing in peripheral nerve stimulation for chronic pain relief, has raised a $13M Series A funding round led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP). The funds will be used to advance the development of its next-generation nerve stimulation technology, aiming to provide effective, non-opioid pain management solutions. - learn more
  • Mote, a company specializing in carbon-negative energy production, has secured $7M in the initial close of its Series A funding round. The investment was co-led by Nella Next and Preston-Werner Ventures. Mote converts agricultural and forestry waste into clean hydrogen through its Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage (BiCRS) technology, which also sequesters carbon dioxide. The funds will be used to advance its first commercial-scale facility, expand engineering capabilities, and accelerate strategic partnerships in the hydrogen and energy sectors. - learn more
  • FastLane Labs, a developer of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) infrastructure, has raised a $6M funding round led by Figment Capital and DBA. The funds will be used to develop a comprehensive liquid staking token on the Monad blockchain, aiming to build a sustainable MEV ecosystem that benefits users, decentralized applications (dApps), and stakers. - learn more
  • Supergut, a company specializing in gut health products like powders, bars, and shakes containing resistant starches and prebiotic fibers, has secured a significant growth equity investment led by Full Frame Growth Partners, with participation from Alpha Edison, Rocana Venture Partners, Strand Equity Partners, and others. The funds will support new product innovation, retail expansion, and new hires. Additionally, Supergut has appointed Tracey Warner Halama, former CEO of Vital Proteins, as its new CEO to lead this next phase of growth. The company has experienced a 172% sales increase in 2024, driven by its 'GLP-1 booster' product. - learn more
  • FairPlay, a Fairness-as-a-Service company, has raised a $10M funding round from Infinity Ventures, JPMorgan Chase, and Nyca Partners. FairPlay specializes in developing tools that help organizations identify and correct biases in their AI-driven decision-making processes, aiming to promote fairness and compliance in sectors like financial services and insurance. The company plans to use the funds to expand its operations and enhance its product offerings, furthering its mission to build fairness infrastructure for the internet and ensure safer AI adoption. - learn more
  • ACID Labs, a leader in instant social gaming on messaging platforms, has raised $8M in funding led by a16z GAMES Speedrun and NFX, with participation from Fusion. The funds will be used to accelerate its mission of building viral instant games where people already connect, focusing on creating seamless, social-first gaming experiences. - learn more
  • MelodAI, a company specializing in AI-generated content (AIGC) and multimodal AI agent services, has secured a new round of funding led by LF Labs. The funds will be used to advance product development and expand market presence in the Web3 and AI entertainment sectors, enhancing MelodAI's competitiveness in the global AIGC and AI agent service industries. - learn more
    LA Venture Funds
      • Fika Ventures led a $4.7M Seed funding round for Outmarket AI, a San Francisco-based intelligence platform designed to transform commercial insurance through AI-powered insights and automation. The funds will be used to accelerate platform innovation, expand the team, and establish strategic partnerships with leading brokers and carriers. - learn more
      • FirstLook Partners participated in a $25M equity funding round for Flex, a Miami-based fintech company that provides an all-in-one finance platform for business owners. Flex offers services such as business banking, expense management, credit cards, and accounts payable automation. The company plans to use the funds to enhance its AI-driven accounts payable automation and expand its personal finance management services for business owners. - learn more
      • B Capital led a $96M equity investment in Odeko, a New York-based all-in-one operations and technology partner for local coffee shops, cafes, and other food and beverage businesses. Including a $30M credit facility from Banc of California, the total funding amounts to $126M. Odeko plans to use the funds to fuel growth through new services and cost savings for customers, acquire businesses to extend its market reach and product offerings, and build out its leadership team. - learn more
      • Presight Capital participated in a $2.2M Seed funding round for Needle, an AI-powered search and agent development platform based in San Francisco and Berlin. Needle enables organizations to access and manage data across various internal systems, integrating with tools like Confluence, Slack, Gmail, and Dropbox. The funds will be used to expand the engineering team, enhance core technology, and accelerate go-to-market initiatives. - learn more
      • Village Global participated in a $2.8M Pre-seed funding round for Orpheus Ocean, a New Bedford, Massachusetts-based company specializing in deep-sea robotics. Orpheus Ocean develops autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) designed to enhance deep ocean and seafloor data collection. The funds will be used to conduct the first commercial demonstrations of their AUV technology, expand their technical team, and grow their fleet to support increased deployments in the coming year. - learn more

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            The AI Arms Race Heats Up — Who’s Really Winning?

            🔦 Spotlight

            Hello, LA!

            In the ever-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, tech giants are racing to outdo each other, unveiling innovations that promise to redefine our interaction with technology. This week, the spotlight shines on three major developments: Amazon's introduction of Alexa+, OpenAI's release of GPT-4.5, and Meta's announcement of a standalone AI app.

            Amazon's Alexa+: Your New AI Companion

            Image Source: Amazon

            Amazon has unveiled Alexa+, a next-generation AI assistant powered by generative AI.According to Amazon, Alexa+ is designed to be more conversational, smarter, and highly personalized. It can manage tasks ranging from controlling smart home devices to making reservations and providing personalized recommendations. With the ability to understand colloquial expressions and complex queries, Alexa+ aims to make interactions feel less like commands to a machine and more like conversations with a trusted friend.

            Alexa+ will be free for Amazon Prime members and available for $19.99 per month for non-members, adding a new premium tier to Amazon’s ecosystem. For more details,Amazon's official release covers the top features.

            OpenAI's GPT-4.5: A Leap Towards Emotional Intelligence

            Image Source: OpenAI

            Meanwhile, OpenAI has launched GPT-4.5, its largest and most advanced AI language model to date.In OpenAI’s announcement, the company highlights how this upgrade enhances pattern recognition, connection drawing, and creative insight generation. Early testing indicates that interactions with GPT-4.5 feel more natural and intuitive, thanks to its broader knowledge base and refined personality.

            This model is particularly adept at writing, programming, and practical problem-solving. However, OpenAI has clarified that GPT-4.5 is not a "frontier model", meaning it may not outperform highly specialized AI in certain areas. Still, it marks a significant step forward in AI’s capabilities.

            Meta's Standalone AI App: Expanding the AI Ecosystem

            Not to be left behind, Meta is set to launch a standalone AI app in the second quarter of 2025.As reported by CNBC, this move aligns with Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to position Meta as a leader in AI by the end of the year. The app aims to complement existing platforms like Facebook and Instagram, offering users a dedicated space to interact with Meta’s AI technologies.

            This initiative is part of Meta’s broader strategy to enhance user engagement and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. With rivals like Amazon and OpenAI pushing forward, Meta is making its move to claim a seat at the AI table.

            The Bigger Picture

            These developments underscore a significant trend: AI is becoming increasingly integrated into our daily lives, with major tech companies striving to create more intuitive, personalized, and human-like interactions. As AI continues to evolve, users can anticipate more seamless and natural engagements with technology, blurring the lines between human and machine interactions.

            In this high-stakes race, the real winners will be those who deliver AI that doesn’t just talk back—but truly understands.


            🤝 Venture Deals

            LA Companies

            • Mitico, a Pasadena-based carbon capture technology company, has raised a $4.3M Seed funding round led by Exergon with participation from Freeflow Ventures, Alliance for Southern California Innovation, and others. The funds will be used to accelerate pilot testing and scale its technology, which captures over 95% of CO₂ emissions from industrial sources like gas-fired power plants and waste-to-energy facilities. - learn more
              LA Venture Funds
              • Alexandria Venture Investments participated in Eikon Therapeutics' $351M Series D funding round to support the company's advancements in live-cell imaging and protein movement analysis for drug discovery. Based in Hayward, California, Eikon is leveraging its proprietary technology to develop new treatments, with a focus on melanoma and other cancers. The funds will be used to accelerate drug discovery programs and expand clinical research efforts. - learn more
              • MTech Capital participated in a €14.4M Series B funding round for Napo, a London-based InsurTech startup specializing in comprehensive pet insurance solutions. The funds will be used to enhance Napo's AI and automation capabilities, aiming to provide more efficient and customer-focused services to pet owners. - learn more
              • Mantis VC participated in a $15M Series A funding round for Edera, a Seattle-based company specializing in workload isolation technology. Edera's solutions enhance cloud and AI infrastructure security by providing strong workload isolation, enabling developers to build rapidly without compromising security. The funds will be used to expand Edera's product offerings, including support for AI infrastructure, and to accelerate the adoption of their technology in securing cloud-native environments. - learn more
              • B Capital participated in a $13.4M Seed funding round for Goose, a Chicago-based technology company developing a next-generation operating system for pet care providers. Goose's platform integrates services such as boarding, day care, grooming, training, and retail, aiming to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions for pet care businesses. The newly raised funds will be used to accelerate product development, expand partnerships, and meet the growing demand for their enterprise-ready platform. - learn more
              • 75 & Sunny Ventures participated in a $6.7M Seed funding round for HouseWhisper, a Seattle-based company developing an AI-powered assistant designed to enhance real estate agents' productivity by automating administrative tasks. The funds will be used to advance product development, expand the team, and enhance AI capabilities, aiming to transform agent workflows and improve client engagement. - learn more
              • Dangerous Ventures participated in an $18.5M Series A funding round for Cambium, a Baltimore-based supply chain technology company specializing in sustainable wood products. Cambium leverages AI to transform salvaged wood into Carbon Smart™ Wood and mass timber products, aiming to modernize the $788 billion wood products industry. The funds will be used to deploy AI technology, strengthen their wood supply network, expand into mass timber offerings, and scale operations to meet the growing demand for sustainable building materials. - learn more
              • Nomad Ventures led a $1.7M Pre-seed funding round for WilsonAI, a London-based company developing the world's first AI-powered paralegal designed to integrate directly into in-house legal teams. Founded in August 2024 by Gus Neate and Alex Wang, WilsonAI aims to automate repetitive legal tasks, such as handling routine requests and reviewing contracts, thereby streamlining workflows. The funds will be used to enhance WilsonAI's AI capabilities, expand integrations with existing legal tech systems, and accelerate customer onboarding across various industries. - learn more
              • Bill Silva Ventures participated in an €800,000 funding round for Solid IO, a Helsinki-based medtech company specializing in patient-specific organ-on-chip technology. Solid IO's platform replicates individual tumor microenvironments to provide real-time, accurate data on cancer responses to immunotherapies and combination treatments. The funds will be used to advance their tumor-on-chip platform, aiming to enhance personalized cancer treatment and improve patient outcomes. - learn more

                    LA Exits

                    • Loki Solutions, a company specializing in advanced cyber operations and intelligence analysis, has been acquired by VTG to expand its capabilities within the intelligence community. The acquisition strengthens VTG’s offerings in national security and cyber defense, integrating Loki Solutions’ expertise to support critical missions. - learn more
                    • Dave's Hot Chicken, a Pasadena, California-based chain renowned for its Nashville-style hot chicken, has been acquired by private equity firm Roark Capital in a deal valued at approximately $1 billion. Founded in 2017, Dave's Hot Chicken has rapidly expanded to over 250 locations worldwide, generating around $1 billion in annual sales. The company is majority-owned by its founders—Dave Kopushyan, Arman Oganesyan, Tommy Rubenyan, and Gary Rubenyan—and counts rapper Drake among its investors. Roark Capital, based in Atlanta, manages $38 billion in assets and owns a portfolio of major restaurant brands, including Arby's, Culver's, and Subway. - learn more
                    • Mob Scene, a premier Hollywood marketing agency specializing in film studios, television networks, and streaming services, has been acquired by Connekkt Media, one of Asia's largest media and entertainment-technology companies. This strategic acquisition aims to combine Mob Scene's creative marketing expertise with Connekkt Media's technological capabilities, enhancing their global reach and service offerings. Under the new agreement, Mob Scene's co-founder and CEO, Tom Grane, will continue to lead the company. - learn more
                    • Curious Refuge, a platform dedicated to supporting generative AI storytellers, has been acquired by Promise, a pioneering film and media company. This acquisition aims to empower and discover AI-driven storytellers worldwide, fostering a vibrant creative community that connects artists, filmmakers, and technologists. By integrating Curious Refuge's resources and community with Promise's innovative approach, the collaboration seeks to revolutionize the landscape of AI-generated storytelling. - learn more

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                        🛰️LA Is Emerging as a Space Powerhouse—And Investors Are Lining Up

                        🔦 Spotlight

                        Hello, Happy Friday!

                        This week, Los Angeles proved once again why it's at the center of space, tech, and innovation. From a major satellite funding round to a big push for wildfire relief, the city is making moves across multiple industries.

                        K2 Space Lands $110M to Build High-Power Satellites

                        Image Source: K2 Space

                        Torrance-based K2 Space just raised $110 million in Series B funding, co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Altimeter Capital. The company, which has now secured $180 million since its launch in 2022, is working on high-power, multi-orbit satellites designed to make space operations more efficient and affordable.

                        With a new 180,000-square-foot facility in Torrance, K2 is scaling up production—and a successful in-space demo proves they’re on the right track. As demand grows for more powerful satellites, this funding puts them in a strong position to compete.

                        True Anomaly Expands into Long Beach

                        LA's space industry is scaling fast, andTrue Anomaly is the latest company to plant roots in Long Beach. The defense tech startup is opening a 90,000-square-foot facility to develop next-gen space security and reconnaissance systems.

                        Of that, 70,000 square feet will be dedicated to engineering and production, while the remaining space will house office and R&D teams. With more satellites playing key roles in national security and commercial operations, True Anomaly’s expansion positions it right where it needs to be—close to top aerospace talent and major government clients.

                        Apple Unveils iPhone 16e

                        Image Source: Apple

                        Apple has added a new model to its lineup with the iPhone 16e, a budget-friendly but powerful option. Priced at $599, it includes:

                        • A18 chip with Apple Intelligence
                        • 48MP 2-in-1 camera system
                        • 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display
                        • Face ID, replacing the classic home button

                        Pre-orders start February 21, with availability beginning February 28. Apple is positioning the 16e as a mid-tier option that brings AI-driven capabilities to a wider audience without the premium price tag.

                        TikTok Returns to U.S. App Stores

                        After a brief removal,TikTok is back on Apple and Google app stores following a delay in enforcement of a potential national ban. The White House assured tech platforms they won’t face penalties for keeping the app available, at least for now.

                        For creators, brands, and businesses that depend on TikTok, it’s a relief—but the platform’s long-term future in the U.S. is still up in the air.

                        FireAid Distributes $50M for Wildfire Relief

                        Image Source: Fire Aid

                        While LA’s tech industry looks ahead, major efforts this week focused on immediate recovery.FireAid announced $50 million in wildfire relief grants to support Los Angeles communities impacted by the recent devastating wildfires.

                        The first round of grants will help local nonprofits and organizations providing housing, financial assistance, essential goods, and emergency support to those affected. Some of the initial recipients include:

                        • United Way of Greater Los Angeles – Providing direct financial aid and community-based recovery efforts.
                        • Baby2Baby – Supplying essential goods to families and children impacted by the fires.
                        • CA Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund – Supporting emergency relief and long-term recovery.
                        • LA Fire Department Foundation – Assisting first responders with wildfire-related resources.
                        • Meet Each Need with Dignity (MEND) – Providing emergency food, housing, and job resources for displaced individuals.

                        FireAid’s benefit concert, which drew millions of viewers worldwide, has continued to raise funds, with additional grants expected to roll out in the coming months to further aid recovery and rebuilding efforts.

                        LA Isn't Just Keeping Up With the Future—It's Defining It.

                        From major investments in space and national security to new consumer tech and philanthropic efforts, LA is proving its influence across industries. The question isn’t what’s happening here—it’s what’s happening next.


                        🤝 Venture Deals

                        LA Companies

                        • CREE8, a company offering a centralized virtual workspace with on-demand, high-performance workstations, secure storage solutions, and real-time collaboration tools for creatives, has received an investment from Moneta Ventures. The funding will be used to enhance its platform capabilities and expand its market presence, providing seamless workflows for creators and professionals in need of cloud-based creative solutions. - learn more
                        • Breakthrough, an AI-driven startup founded by former Google executive Adit Abhyankar, has secured a $600,000 Pre-seed funding led by Senvest Capital. The company specializes in enhancing B2B sales messaging by optimizing content in real-time through its self-learning AI platform. The funds will be used to expand Breakthrough's enterprise client base, explore applications beyond traditional sales outreach, and refine the product to better align with market needs. - learn more
                        • UVIONIX, a robotics and automation startup specializing in AI-powered autonomous flying robots for warehouse inventory management, has secured a $3.5M Seed funding led by LAUNCHub Ventures. The investment will accelerate UVIONIX's product release, expand its presence in the U.S. and Europe, and support the growth of its AI and engineering teams in Bulgaria and the U.S. - learn more
                        LA Venture Funds
                        • March Capital participated in a $305M Series B funding round for Together AI, a San Francisco-based company specializing in providing a cloud platform for developers and researchers to train and deploy generative AI models. The funds will be used to expand Together AI's cloud infrastructure, including the large-scale deployment of Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, to support over 200 open-source models and serve its growing user base of more than 450,000 AI developers worldwide. - learn more
                        • Amboy Street Ventures participated in a $12M Series A funding round for Millie, a San Francisco-based tech-enabled maternity clinic. Millie offers comprehensive, patient-centered maternity care, integrating clinical best practices with digital tools to support individuals from conception through postpartum. The funds will be used to expand Millie's technology platform, enhance service offerings, and open new clinics, starting with a collaboration in California in 2025. - learn more
                        • StoryHouse Ventures participated in a $4.3M Seed funding round for Henry AI, a company specializing in automating commercial real estate transactions. Based in New York, Henry AI uses AI-powered technology to streamline real estate deal execution. The funds will be used to enhance its platform and expand its capabilities, making commercial real estate transactions more efficient and scalable. - learn more
                        • Amplify.LA participated in a $6.2M Seed funding round for Mavvrik, an Austin-based FinOps platform formerly known as DigitalEx. Mavvrik helps organizations manage and optimize IT expenditures through advanced financial operations solutions. The funds will be used to enhance its platform capabilities, addressing rising IT costs and improving financial efficiency for its clients. - learn more
                        • Generational Partners participated in a $4M Pre-seed funding round for Everstar, a company specializing in AI-driven solutions for nuclear compliance. The funds will be used to develop Everstar's platform, aiming to enhance safety and efficiency in the nuclear energy sector. - learn more
                        • Watertower Ventures participated in a $1.2M pre-seed funding round for Glassbox, a Toronto-based fintech startup developing an AI-compatible financial analysis platform. The funds will be used to expand Glassbox's team and bring its platform to market, aiming to transform traditional spreadsheet-based workflows into more efficient, transparent, and AI-driven processes. - learn more
                        • March Capital participated in a $75M Series C funding round for Luminance, a Cambridge, UK-based legal technology company specializing in AI-powered contract generation, negotiation, and analysis. The funds will be used to accelerate Luminance's global expansion, particularly in the U.S., and to enhance its AI platform, extending its applications to adjacent areas such as procurement and compliance. - learn more
                        • Rebel Fund participated in a €17.2M Series A funding round for Capi Money, a London-based FinTech startup specializing in streamlining international payments for SMEs in emerging markets. The funds will be used to scale Capi Money's platform, enabling small and medium-sized importers in regions like Africa, Latin America, and China to pay international suppliers more efficiently. - learn more
                        • Group 11 participated in a $100M Series B funding round for Dream, an AI company based in Tel Aviv, Israel, specializing in cyber resilience solutions for nations and critical infrastructure. The investment, led by Bain Capital Ventures, will be used to enhance Dream's product capabilities and expand its global market reach, aiming to bolster national cybersecurity defenses against sophisticated threats. - learn more
                        • B Capital participated in a $320M Series C funding round for Lambda, a San Jose, California-based company specializing in GPU cloud services for AI applications. The funds will be used to expand Lambda's AI cloud business, including their on-demand and reserved cloud offerings, to meet the growing demand for AI infrastructure. - learn more
                        • B Capital co-led a $350M Series A funding round for Apptronik, an Austin, Texas-based company specializing in AI-powered humanoid robots. The investment will be used to scale the production of their humanoid robot, Apollo, designed for tasks in logistics and manufacturing sectors. Apptronik plans to expand Apollo's capabilities to other industries, including elder care and healthcare. - learn more
                        • Upfront Ventures led a $7.5M Seed funding round for Keragon, a New York City-based company providing an AI-powered, HIPAA-compliant automation platform for healthcare. The funds will be used to expand operations and development efforts, enabling healthcare professionals to integrate over 300 software tools—including electronic health records, scheduling platforms, and AI medical scribes—without requiring engineering expertise. This integration aims to streamline data exchange, reduce administrative burdens, and safeguard patient information. - learn more
                        • Blue Bear Capital participated in a $16M Series B funding round for ACCURE Battery Intelligence, an Aachen, Germany-based company specializing in AI-based battery safety and performance solutions. The funds will be used to expand ACCURE's predictive analytics software offerings across Europe, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific regions, addressing the growing demand for enhanced battery safety and reliability in energy storage systems and electric vehicle fleets. - learn more
                        • Clocktower Ventures participated in a $6.2M Seed funding round for Era Finance, a company specializing in AI-powered personal wealth management solutions. The funds will be used to expand Era's 'wealth-care' platform, aiming to make advanced financial intelligence accessible to a broader audience. - learn more
                        • Climate Avengers participated in a $25M Series B funding round for Mast, a company specializing in restorative carbon removal projects. The funds will be used to launch a first-of-its-kind biomass burial and reforestation project, aiming to enhance carbon sequestration and combat climate change. - learn more
                        • Clocktower Ventures participated in a $5M Seed funding round for Vigil, a New York-based insurtech startup specializing in annuities. The funds will be used to expand Vigil's platform and enhance its services in the annuities market. - learn more
                        • Finality Capital Partners co-led a $7M Seed funding round for Fragmetric, a company specializing in native liquid restaking protocols on the Solana blockchain. The funds will be used to enhance Fragmetric's platform, focusing on efficient distribution of Node Consensus Network rewards and determining appropriate slashing ratios for Liquid Staking Tokens, thereby strengthening the security and economic potential of the Solana ecosystem. - learn more

                            LA Exits

                            • Guidance, a leading digital commerce services provider, has been acquired by OneMagnify, a global marketing and technology solutions company backed by Crestview Partners. This strategic acquisition aims to enhance OneMagnify's digital experience and eCommerce capabilities, enabling the combined entity to offer comprehensive, data-driven digital solutions to their clients. - learn more
                            • Maple Media, a leader in mobile app publishing with a diverse portfolio of "Top 10" apps across productivity, entertainment, and lifestyle categories, has been acquired by Skybound Entertainment. This acquisition aims to enhance Skybound's reach by integrating Maple Media's stable revenue, proprietary app management technology, and direct consumer relationships, thereby expanding Skybound's audience and engagement. - learn more
                            • Prima, a science-backed wellness brand specializing in clean and clinical CBD skincare and body care, has been acquired by Sky Marketing Corporation, a Texas-based house of hemp brands. The acquisition will allow Prima to expand its reach and continue its mission of delivering high-quality, plant-based wellness solutions under Sky Marketing's portfolio. - learn more

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