U.S. stocks jumped Monday after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stoked hopes that a first phase trade agreement with China would get done. The comments helped investors shrug off some unfavorable news from companies including McDonald’s and Under Armour.

All three major stock indices sailed to fresh record intraday highs. The Dow hit a fresh intraday high for the first time since July 16, and closed at a record high of 27,462.72.

Here’s where the markets settled Monday at the end of regular equity trading:

• S&P 500 (): +0.37%, or 11.37 points
• Dow (): +0.42%, or 114.89 points
• Nasdaq (): +0.56%, or 46.8 points
• 10-year Treasury yield (): +4.9 bps to 1.777%
• Gold (): -0.07% to $1,510.40 per ounce

On Sunday,  that he was confident the U.S. would reach the first part of a trade agreement with China this month, sticking to the timeline previously touted by the administration. Ross also said U.S. firms would receive licenses “very shortly” to begin selling parts to China’s Huawei. Shares of U.S.-based semiconductors including Qualcomm () and Intel (), which count Huawei as a customer, outperformed in early trading.

These comments came after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in a statement Friday that Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had a “constructive call” with China’s Vice Premier Liu He to discuss the phase one agreement. China’s Ministry of Commerce corroborated this with a statement of its own saying the sides had reached a “consensus on principles.”

More positive rhetoric emerging out of recent U.S.-China trade talks has also led at least one firm to pare back its expectations for further tariff escalation. “tariffs on imports from China have likely peaked,” and that levies would likely remain at current levels through 2020. Assuming the first-phase trade agreement gets signed, Phillips expects the White House will cancel tariffs set to take effect December 15.

Recent upbeat U.S.-China trade remarks, as well as some and a , have combined to push risk assets higher, breaking them free of the weight of uncertainty from earlier this year.

“A confluence of better-than-expected economic data, Q3 earnings results and a third 25-basis point rate cut by the Federal Reserve Board along with some encouraging missives surrounding trade talk progress helped push stocks higher stateside and worldwide last week,” John Stoltzfus, Oppenheimer equity strategist, wrote in a note.

For now, the current economic landscape “persists strong enough for positive data points to continue to offset negative data points when they cross the transom and overwhelm bearish projection pointing instead to an underlying resilience of an economy that is predominantly dependent on the consumer rather than on manufacturing in midst of a global trade war,” he added.

STOCKS: McDonald’s CEO ousted, Under Armour under investigation

McDonald’s () board of directors voted to oust CEO Steve Easterbrook over “poor judgment involving a recent consensus relationship with an employee,” Chris Kempczinski, previously president of McDonald’s USA business, was named CEO, effective immediately.

Easterbrook is credited with having spearheaded the fast food company’s push into digital ordering and delivery, as well as boosting value menu offerings to appeal to customers. The stock has risen 96% since March 2015 when Easterbrook took over as CEO, more than double the return of the S&P 500 during the same period. Shares of McDonald’s, a Dow component, fell 2.5% Monday morning.

Under Armour () shares sank 15% around market open after the workout apparel company  by the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission for the past two years.

The announcement outweighed better-than-expected third-quarter results, with earnings of 23 cents per share on revenue of $1.43 billion each topping estimates. However, Under Armour also reduced its full-year sales guidance, and now sees revenue growth of just 2% for the year, down from its previous guidance for between 3-4%.

Saudi Aramco, the world’s most profitable company,  to publicly float shares on the Tadawul stock exchange in Riyadh, at least temporarily putting aside previously reported plans for a foreign listing for the Saudi company. The company, which brought in $111 billion in net income last year, is reportedly being valued north of $1 trillion by banks, even as the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seeks a valuation of around twice that.

After market close Monday, companies including Uber (), Shake Shack () and Marriott International ()��

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Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.

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Stocks fluctuated between gains and losses Monday as investors continued to mull prospects of an at least temporary trade agreement.

Earlier, stock futures had been lower after a report that Beijing was seeking more talks before signing a preliminary trade deal trounced optimism over slackening tensions between the U.S. and China.

However, a  editor in chief of the Chinese state-run Global Times media outlet, asserting that the U.S. and China made a “breakthrough last week” and “have the strong will to reach a final deal” helped lift risk assets off their lows of the session.

Here were the main moves in the market, as of 1:26 p.m. ET:

• S&P 500 (): -0.11%, or 3.19 points
• Dow (): -0.01%, or 2.85 points
• Nasdaq (): -0.08%, or 6.33 points
• Crude oil (): -2.27% to $53.46 per barrel
• Gold (): +0.55% to $1,496.90 per ounce

China is looking to meet to work out more details of the “phase one” trade deal President Donald Trump presented late last week, , citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. China reportedly wants the Trump administration to do away with a planned tariff hike in December, on top of its existing plan to scrap a tariff increase previously scheduled to take place Tuesday.

 that he expects the tariff increase will take effect in December if no deal materializes between the two countries.

“But I expect we’ll have a deal,” Mnuchin said on CNBC.

The Bloomberg report undermines investors’ hopes that Trump’s “substantial phase one deal” would be codified in writing soon. Trump said previously that the deal would take between three to five weeks to write and could be signed before November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Chile.

Many economists, however, had doubted the credibility of the partial trade deal to begin with, noting both sides’ history of flip-flopping whenever new headway appeared to have been made. Plus, deeper structural sticking points remain between the U.S. and China, which won’t be easily resolved with temporary solutions.

“The fact that the talks shifted towards a ‘first phase’ covering narrow issues around trade only reveals how difficult the deeper issues around intellectual property, technology transfer and industrial strategy will be to resolve,” Neil Shearing, chief economist for Capital Economics, wrote in a note. “As things stand there is no obvious path to a ‘phase two’ deal covering these broader concerns.’”

China’s economy – the second largest in the world – has . China’s imports fell 8.5% in September, marking a ninth decline over the past 10 readings and reflecting weakening import demand trends for the country. Exports also declined, falling 3.2% in September from the year prior. Both imports and exports fell more-than-expected for the month.

Taken together, China’s trade surplus grew 14% over last year to $39.65 billion for September.

The country’s trade surplus with the U.S., however, narrowed slightly on a monthly basis to $25.88 billion in September, from $26.96 billion in August. But imports from the U.S. fell 16% over last year in September, and exports to the U.S. declined nearly 22%.

The U.S. economic release calendar remains light Monday, and the credit market is closed in observance of Columbus Day. Third-quarter corporate earnings results are set to pick up Tuesday,  including Citi (), Goldman Sachs (), JPMorgan Chase () and Wells Fargo ().

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Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.

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Stocks were mixed Monday ahead of the high-level trade negotiations between the U.S. and China set for later this week. After opening the trading session lower, the Nasdaq swung into positive territory midday.

Here were the main market moves, as of 11:20 a.m. ET:

• S&P 500 (): -0.05%, or 1.61 points
• Dow (): -0.07%, or 19.90 points
• Nasdaq (): +0.12%, or 9.57 points
• Crude oil (): +1.95% to $53.84 per barrel
• Gold (): -0.42% to $1,506.60 per ounce

Trade delegations from both the U.S. and China are scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday. However, senior Chinese officials have recently signaled reluctance to work toward President Donald Trump’s broad trade deal, . Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is expected to lead the Chinese trade delegation in Washington this week, and he is reportedly planning to take one of Trump’s key demands off of the table. According to reports, Liu plans to bring a trade offer to the U.S. that excludes commitments on reforming Chinese industrial policy or government subsidies.

Though the Trump administration has vehemently denied claims that the impeachment inquiry into the president has affected the trade negotiations, many speculate that the drama in Washington has given the Chinese an upper hand in the trade war.

As recent economic data pointed to a weakening economy, investors will be paying close attention to the trade developments and the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) September meeting minutes. Market participants will be looking for further clues on the Fed’s monetary policy path. Fed Chair Jay Powell is scheduled to speak on two separate occasions this week. On Tuesday, Powell will be in Denver, Colorado at the The 61st National Association for Business Economics (NABE) Annual Meeting. He will be discussing “Data Dependence in an Evolving Economy.” Wednesday, Powell will be at the Fed Listens: A Community Listening Session in Kansas City, Missouri.

Following the worrisome manufacturing data and weaker-than-expected jobs report last week, many economists are anticipating that the Fed will cut rates at its meeting at the end of this month and possibly one more time in December.�� that he thinks the Fed is pretty close to fulfilling its dual mandate on inflation and unemployment, and thus does not necessarily see a case for a rate cut at this time. Rosengren previously dissented both of the Fed’s decision to cut rates earlier this year.

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STOCKS: General Electric freezes pension plan for employees; General Motors strike enters fourth week

General Electric () shares rose Monday after the  for about 20,000 employees in a cost-cutting measure. GE has been sitting on a massive debt pile, and the move to freeze pensions will reduce the company’s pension deficit by about $5 billion to $8 billion. The embattled company also plans to freeze supplementary pension benefits for about 700 U.S. employees. The freeze will go into effect January 1, 2021. GE shares have been struggling over the past several years. The stock has fallen 29% in the past year and 62% in the past two years.

Talks between General Motors () and the United Auto Worker’s Union (UAW)��, according to Terry Dittes, UAW Vice President in charge of the GM department. The UAW made an offer to GM on Saturday that covered wages, signing bonuses, job security and profit sharing. GM provided a counteroffer, which the UAW turned down. Since the strike began on September 16, analysts estimate that it has cost GM about $1 billion. The two sides have been meeting daily to reach an agreement. Though the strike did not affect September’s payroll figures, economists have noted that the strike most likely negatively affected the manufacturing data released last week.

—

Heidi Chung is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: .

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Silverton Partners

filed paperwork signaling its intent to raise not just one, but a pair of new venture capital funds. The firm is one of the most active venture firms in Texas with an emphasis on backing Austin-based startups.

The first filing to cross the wires was , for which the firm aims to raise $120 million. If fully closed out, it would be the largest flagship venture capital fund raised by the firm since its inception in 2003.

The filing lists Michael Dodd, , and as its general partners. , who was listed on the filing for Silverton’s , is not included on the listing for Fund VI.

In May 2018, we reported on the firm closing on its fifth fund, in which it raised $108 million in an oversubscribed round of funding. Previous funds raised $75 million in 2006 and .

Some of the firm’s most recent investments include participating in Austin-based last-mile delivery startup  $10.5 million (announced just today) and cybersecurity company $21 million Series B raise (which was led by , Microsoft’s venture arm)

In addition to its sixth flagship fund, Silverton Partners also filed paperwork , a $20 million investment vehicle. If the firm is following VC industry naming conventions, its first “opportunity fund” will likely be earmarked for later-stage investments with the firm’s existing portfolio companies.

The filings state that, so far, no money has been closed for either of its new funds. However, it should be noted that venture investors frequently submit Form D’s immediately prior to securing their first capital commitments.

Capital Factory

Described by Crunchbase News as the “the lone star state’s best-kept startup secret,” signaled that it is looking to raise $20 million for its venture fund. If Capital Factory successfully raises the $20 million, it will be the sixth and largest fund to be deployed into, presumably, seed and early-stage startups by Capital Factory, .

Per prior reporting by Crunchbase News, in 2018, Capital Factory claimed “2,416 members and 1,480 startups called Capital Factory home.”

Executive director and co-founder of Capital Factory is listed on the filing as a fund manager.

Although based in Austin, Capital Factory has a presence all over Texas with satellite locations in both and . An active investor, Capital Factory also backed the afore-mentioned Fetch Package. It also participated in Dallas-based recent $11 million Series A raise, which we reported on here.

Here too, Capital Factory states that it has not closed any outside capital for its sixth investment fund. The same caveats about investors filing paperwork right before calling down capital apply.

Crunchbase News reached out to Silverton Partner’s Flager and Capital Factory’s Baer for comment. Both declined at this time.

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, the founder and CEO of the Santa Monica digital lending company, claims there are 3 billion adults around the globe who “do not have access to basic financial services, like the ability to borrow, save, or grow their money.”

The company currently has 500 employees across locations in Southern California, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, and India. The new money will be used to expand its India presence, as well offer new services. To date, Tala has raised $219.4 million in funding from investors like Revolution, Institutional Venture Partners, and PayPal Ventures.

On it’s website, Tala claims that “anyone with an Android smartphone can apply for a loan and receive an instant decision, regardless of their credit history.” Loans range from $10 to $500 dollars.

But that loan size, in some cases, turns into notable difference. For example, it helped a father in Kenya pay for his son’s university fees. Or an entrepreneur in the same region start a car washing business.

If all works well, individuals who are deserving of loans but don’t have the infrastructure to sell anyone on their story will get the loan.

We’ve been tracking the heat up of the broader digital lending space. Yesterday, for example, Better.com raised $160 million Series C for digital mortgages. Better has funded more than $4 billion in loans since its product went live in 2016.�� And the elephant in the room, SoFi, which provides loans and wealth management, has raised a whopping $2.5 billion, making it one of the most well-funded startups in the fintech and lending sector.

And for Tala, the future looks bright, at least in terms of investor interest. Billions have been deployed into similar startups, and there’s a plentiful pipeline for late-stage deals: from January 1, 2014 to today, over 50 percent of venture investments into lending and investment startups were in the Seed stage.

However, venture capital dollars don’t tell the whole story. Lending is a difficult space to operate in. SoFi, for instance, has struggled to keep staff from doling out improper loans in an effort to boost their own bonuses. And aside from high-profile executive turnovers, SoFi has also struggled to meet growth goals, leading to layoffs.

Regardless, Tala raising a supergiant round puts it in a new cohort of competitors. And for those looking for accessible and quick loans, there likely has never been so many options on the table.

Methodology

Funding analysis for investment and lending startups was based off of Crunchbase’s category group “lending and investments.” The startups included in this category group are determined by automation and manual curation, leaving some room for error in classification. Therefore, investment totals should be taken directionally. Additionally, only funding rounds that were labeled as seed, early-stage, or late-stage were included in yearly funding totals. Notably, Ant Financial significantly skews funding totals. In 2016, Ant Financial’s accounted for over half of total venture funding in the lending and investments category. Ant Financial similarly impacts known funding totals in 2018 with its raise. For the numbers behind the chart, visit this .

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In a , VMware said the buy should “strengthen its capabilities in the pervasive network monitoring, troubleshooting, and verification space.” Veriflow’s product aims to help predict outages before they happen as well as “vulnerabilities before they are exploited.” Per VMware, Veriflow’s technology “provides problem detection for critical network issues (physical and virtual).”

Founded in 2013, San Jose-based Veriflow had raised $11.1 million in funding over its lifetime, according to Crunchbase data. Its last raise was a July 2016 $8.2 million Series A that was led by and also included participation from ).

As you can see in the chart below, VMware has stepped up the pace of its acquisitions over the past two years. Its recent pattern seems to be buying smaller companies with little or no venture backing. Besides Veriflow, it has also , (which had raised $8.3 million), , , and (which had raised $6 million).

It’s worth noting that products working on or adjacent to cyber security have had massive funding commitments from investors. So far this year, nearly $29 billion as been put into startups in the cyber security sector, . And as hacks become more prevalent, especially for larger brands like Capital One, founders with startups in the space likely have a number of lucrative exit opportunities.

Editor’s note: Original headline claimed Verisign, not Veriflow, was acquired by VMware. We regret the error.

Fintech startups in Latin America are attracting huge sums of capital, and NuBank is the latest recipient.��

As reported , Brazil-based Nu Pagamentos SA, , is aiming to raise $400 million at a valuation of $10 billion from , a California-based growth fund with 340 reported investments under its belt, . VCs in the Latin America region, in general, seemed to be attracted to fintech startups:

If Nubank closes the round with TCV, the firm’s total funding would come to $1.1 billion, putting it just behind , an ecommerce shop, as the most funded Latin American startup to date.��

Notably, SoftBank did not participate in the deal, even though the telecom giant is on track to raise a second Vision Fund worth $108 billion, and has announced plans . In June, SoftBank invested in two other Brazilian startups: Loggi and Creditas. In fact, Brazil captures a large portion of funding in the region, as the chart below shows:

If more deals like Nubank’s $400 million round continue, Latin America is going to be a hard region for anyone involved in the tech community to ignore. As Mary Ann Azevedo reported in April, Latin America has “arrived” among global VCs. , director of venture capital for LAVCA, told Crunchbase News that “the presence of global investors” has driven increased interest in the region.��

For founders, hopefully that interest converts to more term sheets.

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Capital was hungry to get into the company, pushing its venture rounds together and piling money onto the company’s desks.

Airtable isn’t alone in taking on lots of cash, quickly. famously because it could. And recently raised an just to more highly. Brex, of course, isn’t a SaaS company like our other examples, but it fits our financing narrative well.

In 2019, it seems that there’s very little upper bound for capital and resulting valuations bestowed upon the hottest of tech startups. This means that companies that venture capitalists all want to put money into aren’t valued on fundamentals (always a risky concept in the venture world), but instead on an expectation of outsized returns despite paying sky-high dollars for every user, paying customer, or current ARR base.

We can see this play out in the history of Airtable. Airtable’s valuation shot to between its Series B and its Series C. That’s a bonkers pace of value creation, at least on paper. What Airtable gets out of the deal is lots of capital at a low dilution cost; investors get a long-term wager on a company that they expect to exit for billions, if not tens of billions.

Your metrics have to be pretty amazing to engender that amount of confidence in private investors. Or you’re good at scaring them into thinking that they are about to miss out on the future and a lifetime of bragging rights.

But perhaps most notable of all is the . The firm raised a tiny $10 million against an $800 million . A sum of money so small compared to its valuation that the firm effectively suffered from zero dilution. (Notion could have secured a higher valuation, but as to avoid hype; the move failed.)

So what exactly is all that appealing about ? For one, work trends are changing.

Notion, with its merging of to-dos, calendars, notes, and team collaboration, reduces the need to switch between multiple apps throughout the day. For remote workforces, or even for office-based teams spread out across the country, reducing switching costs is a likely boon to productivity while also reducing administrative management (think password sharing, getting licenses for various products, bill keeping, training, etc.).

Notion isn’t the only startup focusing on this problem, even if it is gathering the most attention among some of Silicon Valley’s venture class (dare we call them influencers?). , for instance, raised a to essentially merge Slack, Airtable, and under one application. (The joke that all of tech is just bundling, and unbundling, continues to hold.)

But is it a bet that will scale beyond freelancers and small teams to the enterprise, like Slack and Zoom have managed? Notion, after all, exists in a bit of a bubble. Remote and distributed work is not as popular as it may seem—even most of the management in the Valley tends to eschew remote work in favor of centralized offices.

Furthermore, workflow foundations are hard to change. What a company chooses to start out with—whether that be Slack, Skype, Office 365, Zoom—is usually what they continue (or end) with. To convince businesses already entrenched in their workflows usually takes a sales person or two. Word of mouth, when valuations get this large, will only carry you so far. There is also little evidence that this merging of apps actually works.

Slack and Zoom took existing, known wins (chat and video chat) and turned them into high-growth businesses despite existing market competition. But Slack, for instance, has struggled to contain all business activity to its one app, even with a robust app ecosystem and goodwill from the third-party developers. In short: It’s a tall order to contain all business activity to one app, even for public SaaS companies with the cash to attempt it.

Yet in the case of Notion, those concerns may be overwrought given the stakes.

A Good Bet?

Well-known venture capitalist threw in his two cents concerning the matter on Twitter this morning, that while he doesn’t know Notion’s revenue base, the investment is a “bet” that “can only lose $10 [million],” while he views the upside as high as $200 million.

From that perspective, congrats to the VCs who managed to get their capital into Notion. You won! Now the company has to grow into that valuation. Let’s see how long it takes.

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“The future is men investing in women,” said , the CEO of , which focuses on in-vitro fertilization. She would know. Her company raised $10 million in October.

But a shift toward diversifying won’t happen without explicit intention, founders told us. VCs have to be committed to a dedicated strategy of investing in diverse founders to truly move the needle.

Unfortunately, it’s a future the investment class, which is made up of mostly men, is struggling to build — though there are bright spots from a macro point-of-view.

Bold statements about the future are one thing (and we certainly aren’t afraid to make those), but here at , we’re going to use data as the foundation for our analysis.

Let’s get to it.

Balcony-level View: Pretty Dim

In the past three quarters, the percent of money raised by female-only founded startups has not broken past 3 percent. While Q2 2018 did break that mold, we take that data with a grain of salt. As is possible when correlating data, an outsized round warped the numbers a bit. In this case it was a $14 billion Series C round from , founded by .

Street-level View: Progress Being Made

Efforts are being made to advance the ball in terms of supporting diverse founders.

, ’ first and currently only female partner, said only 20 percent of its portfolio companies from its first fund are companies with at least one female founder. Its second fund, when DeNardo joined the team, invested 28 percent.

To help build “the next generation of tech companies,” DeNardo said she specifically offices out of a female-focused coworking space and social club. One recent Friday afternoon she realized all her calls or meetings were with female founders or investors.

“I took a deep breath and breathed in the glory that was that moment,” she said.

’s said the San Francisco firm is 50 percent women, which has helped to “ensure that we invest in a diverse group of entrepreneurs.” About 38 percent of its investments have a founder who identifies as a woman.

of said his only strategy to invest in more women is having a diverse team. Two people in his three-people funding team are black females.

Of Precursor’s 176 investments, 43 percent of those companies have at least one woman on the founding team. He hasn’t seen any obstacles in building a gender and racially balanced portfolio because his firm puts its mission at the forefront.

“I think most of what we try to do is to signal to the market that we are interested in building a diverse portfolio,” he said.

has no female partners, although half of its investments this year have been in female-founded companies.

According to the firm’s founding partner , Eniac has helped female-founded funds get off the ground—by connecting its own limited partners with new funds.

However, navigated funds specifically earmarked for women or other minority groups can be tricky.

While all money is good, one founder we spoke to is concerned that “it’s creating the potential scenario where we don’t need to invest in women, non-binary people and men of color from main funds because we’re doing this from our diversity funds,” said , founder of .

For example, Female Founders Fund . That same year, in two days, three VC firms announced $4 billion for six new funds. None of those funds explicitly focused on diversity.

The Seeds Of Growth

It’s not all doom and gloom however for female-only and gender diverse teams—there has been moderate growth for this efforts.

In 2014, global dollar volume for startups with a solo female founder or at least one female founder was 10 percent. So far this year (despite more deals and available dollars than ever before) the share of cash going to those same groups is at 14 percent. Similarly moderate progress can also be seen in global deal counts.

“That data we’re seeing [is] the results of seeds sown years ago,” said Suuchi Ramesh, founder of Suuchi, a startup focused on modernizing supply chains for fashion brands and retailers.

“And now, we’re seeing new seeds being sown, and I’m confident we’ll see an exponential impact to that,” she said.

If Ramesh is correct, we could see an even further uptick in investment to female-founded startups across all stages in the long run. And despite discouraging statistics concerning gender-derived fundraising gaps, Ramesh recently raised a $8 million Series A from Edison Venture Partners. Her experience may be contrary to the norm, however.

“Companies headed by women or under-represented founders of color find it much more difficult to raise follow-on rounds of funding with revenue and growth metrics that are as good or better than their white male counterparts,” said Kapor Capital’s .

, founder of tries to intentionally work with business partners that aren’t “older white men.” She advises other companies to do the same.

Her company was the first female-founded unicorn of 2019, according to Crunchbase data. When it comes to applying that same perspective to investors in her company, Kitchen has fewer options since VCs still skew male.

“On the one hand, it’s really important to brands to just find the best fit of [someone] who understands the company, no matter what the gender is,” she told Crunchbase News in June. “But naturally, there’s a little bit of tension here because there are [fewer] female VCs than male VCs.”

As the venture class becomes more diverse, the signals they look for in investments may also change.

entered venture capital after working as a director at , which helps startups manage equity for employees. As such, she looks for red flags in potential investment opportunities, especially when evaluating at a team holistically.

“I ask why is she just the head of marketing, and not the CMO? Or, why did this company lose a female co-founder early on?” Walne said.

If those questions cause executives to stumble, Walne views it as a red flag and a potential deal breaker.

Looking Ahead

As another quarter closes, we’re reminded that the world of venture capital, and how it flows into female-founded companies is nuanced. Where there’s an unprecedented growth of female-founded unicorns, there are younger female-founded startups struggling to feel that same momentum. And where there are new female venture capitalists in the mix, males still own a majority of stakes in the decision-making process.

The female venture report is a collaborative effort between multiple team members: Data analysis by ; reporting and interviews by ; editorial support: , , and ; and featured image by 

Methodology

The charts and information in this report are based on reported data in Crunchbase. In other words, it’s based on publicly disclosed rounds included in Crunchbase dataset.

Crunchbase’s dataset is constantly expanding, but there are gaps. A company may not have founders listed on its Crunchbase profile. Or Crunchbase might not have a gender listed for founders that are attached to the person’s Crunchbase profile. (Note: In addition to “male” and “female,” Crunchbase has over two dozen other gender tags.) Based on an analysis of current data for this report, 84 percent of dollars raised, and 79 percent of deal count in the last five and a half years are connected to companies with founders.

Crunchbase, like all databases of private-market transactions, has a documented pattern of reporting delays. It can sometimes take between weeks to months for some rounds to be announced publicly and subsequently get added to Crunchbase. This is especially the case for seed and early-stage deals, which are often raised by companies before the company launches a product, or otherwise gets much outside media coverage which surfaces information about the company’s funding history. As data is added to Crunchbase over time, some of the numbers in this report may shift slightly.

Seed includes angel, pre-seed, seed, equity crowdfunding, and venture series unknown below $1 million. Venture rounds includes early and late stage venture, and corporate venture. We exclude private equity rounds from this report.

Even if a creator has a large following already, turning that into a sustainable cash source is often difficult from a technical perspective: building your own website, handling payments, creating a membership forum, and sending out promotional materials is a full-time job on top of building an audience and continually creating the content the audience wants.

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Thankfully for those creators, two popular startups that handle all the annoying, fiddly bits of making money from an audience have raised piles of fresh cash.

Patreon

Patreon, a platform that offers a paid membership program for creators, announced today a $60 million Series D. Founded in 2013, we could consider Patreon’s Series D modest compared to other startups of similar stage and age. After all, it’s not terribly uncommon for late-stage startups to raise $100 million or more. Still, Patreon, inclusive of this latest round, has racked up $165.9 million in announced venture funding, according to Crunchbase. Its last round, announced in 2017, was a $60 million Series C.

The money, according to a company blog post, will continue to expand to new product offerings, such as ensuring that those who pay for exclusive content are the only ones getting it. Furthermore, TechCrunch reports that Patreon will offer creators the ability to brand their pages, as well as a focus on international expansion by opening offices “in Dublin (Ireland), Porto (Portugal), and other locations yet to be finalized.”

According to a company blog post, Patreon has paid out over $1 billion to creators on its platform. But it’s not the only game in town for creators to mint some coin off audiences, especially if you’re a fan of emails.

Substack

Blogging platform and easy-to-use email newsletter platform Substack announced that it has raised new funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The new capital, a $15.3 million round, includes money from Y Combinator, a previous backer of the firm.

That’s a lot of money for a small team that has, per the company’s own announcement, “spent the last year working out of [a] living room in San Francisco.”

Substack claims to have 50,000 paid subscribers to the various email newsletters on its platform. Presuming a $5 per subscription average price point (we made it up), Substack is sending $3 million annually to email newsletter curators before fees and the rest. That’s modest, but I suspect growing quickly.

And given that Substack has become the defacto home of a whole crop of journalists and other writers (Twitter built a similar moat), it finds itself freshly into the middle of the conversation perhaps in a way that we haven’t seen in a publishing platform since the early days of Medium. If Medium will work out is still an unclear wager, but Substack, with its heart set on helping people make money from their writing, has a commercial theme running through its work that could help it keep monetizing as it grows.

Make that money, Substack, we dig your service. Evidence? Certainly. Here’s  for example, and .�������Ի��� are holdouts on other services, , the market could be tilting.

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