🟢Fewer Small and Midsize Venture Funds Raise Capital in 2024
In 2024, the number of new small and midsized U.S. startup funds has dropped significantly, with only 118 raising capital, the lowest in years, reflecting a challenging fundraising environment amid a slow exit market and cautious investor sentiment. However, sector-focused funds in areas like cleantech, life sciences, and cybersecurity are still finding success despite the downturn.
🟢Fewer Small and Midsize Venture Funds Raise Capital in 2024
In 2024, the number of new small and midsized U.S. startup funds has dropped significantly, with only 118 raising capital, the lowest in years, reflecting a challenging fundraising environment amid a slow exit market and cautious investor sentiment. However, sector-focused funds in areas like cleantech, life sciences, and cybersecurity are still finding success despite the downturn.
But the Ukraine Crisis Media Center's Tsekhanovska points out that communications are often down in zones most affected by the war, making this sort of cross-referencing a luxury many cannot afford. But Kliuchnikov, the Ukranian now in France, said he will use Signal or WhatsApp for sensitive conversations, but questions around privacy on Telegram do not give him pause when it comes to sharing information about the war. The War on Fakes channel has repeatedly attempted to push conspiracies that footage from Ukraine is somehow being falsified. One post on the channel from February 24 claimed without evidence that a widely viewed photo of a Ukrainian woman injured in an airstrike in the city of Chuhuiv was doctored and that the woman was seen in a different photo days later without injuries. The post, which has over 600,000 views, also baselessly claimed that the woman's blood was actually makeup or grape juice. Telegram has become more interventionist over time, and has steadily increased its efforts to shut down these accounts. But this has also meant that the company has also engaged with lawmakers more generally, although it maintains that it doesn’t do so willingly. For instance, in September 2021, Telegram reportedly blocked a chat bot in support of (Putin critic) Alexei Navalny during Russia’s most recent parliamentary elections. Pavel Durov was quoted at the time saying that the company was obliged to follow a “legitimate” law of the land. He added that as Apple and Google both follow the law, to violate it would give both platforms a reason to boot the messenger from its stores. So, uh, whenever I hear about Telegram, it’s always in relation to something bad. What gives?
from tw
