
Cyan Banister, Arielle Zuckerberg Firm Raises $181.8 Million to Back ‘Magical Weirdos'
Long Journey is co-led by Cyan Banister, a venture world fixture known for more than a decade of seed investing, and a later role at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. She's joined by Arielle Zuckerberg, previously a Coatue Management investor (and sister of Mark Zuckerberg), and former AngelList partner Lee Jacobs, who serves as managing partner. For the last five years, the firm has been operating quietly, despite its famous investors.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Tom Lee's BitMine Builds $3 Billion Ethereum Stash, Now Third Largest Public Crypto Treasury
Bitcoin miner BitMine Immersion now has over $3 billion in Ethereum as the company races to stack the second biggest digital coin. The Peter Thiel-backed company now holds 833,137 ETH it bought at an average price of $3,491.86 per coin—making it the largest corporate ETH treasury, it said in a Monday statement. It added that it now ranks as the third largest public crypto treasury in the world, behind only software company Strategy and miner Mara Blockchain, which both hold Bitcoin. Twenty One's $4 billion Bitcoin stash would be good for third on the list of largest public treasuries, but the company's shares do yet trade publicly. BitMine did not respond to Decrypt's request for comment. The Nasdaq-listed firm said in a press release that it has reached its current ETH holdings in just 35 days. "We have separated ourselves among crypto treasury peers by both the velocity of raising crypto NAV per share and by the high liquidity of our stock," BitMine's Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement. Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors is the brains behind BitMine's ETH stacking strategy. The Wall Street bigwig has long been bullish on Bitcoin but in June said that Ethereum was making a comeback and could be the "next Bitcoin" as institutional investors express interest in the digital coin and its network. Ethereum was recently trading at nearly $3,679 per coin, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko, after jumping 5% over a 24-hour period. The coin is still 24% below its all-time high of $4,878 that it hit in 2021. Still, the coin has rallied by over 46% over a 30-day period as American investors have quickly piled into ETH exchange-traded funds. The vehicles have generated more than $9.5 billion in net inflows since their debut last year. Ethereum treasuries like BitMine are following a model pioneered by Strategy—formerly MicroStrategy—which shifted from software development to buying Bitcoin in 2020. Strategy now holds 628,791 BTC worth over $72 billion. Other Nasdaq-listed companies have followed suit—albeit mostly smaller, lesser-known entities—by buying not only Bitcoin and Ethereum but also altcoins like Solana, XRP, and Toncoin. These companies have achieved at least short-term stock price gains, sometimes with massive spikes. New York Stock Exchange-listed BitMine's (BMNR) stock has rallied over 650% since the end of June. It was recently trading at nearly $32 per share, up by nearly 1% on Monday. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Peter Thiel-Backed Crypto Firm Bullish Aims to Raise $629M in IPO
Key Takeaways Cryptocurrency exchange Bullish plans an initial public offering, targeting a valuation of more than $4 billion. The company backed by billionaire Peter Thiel expects to sell 2.3 million shares at $28 to $31 each. BlackRock and Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management have already agreed to invest in the cryptocurrency exchange backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, said it would be seeking a valuation of more than $4 billion in an initial public offering (IPO). In a regulatory filing Monday, the company said it would be offering for sale 20.3 million shares at a price range of $28 to $31 each, or as much as $629.3 million. In addition, the underwriters have 30 days from the publication of the prospectus to purchase another 3.045 million shares. Bullish added that it planned to initiate the IPO "as soon as practicable after this Registration Statement becomes effective." It noted that BlackRock (BLK) and Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management have already agreed to purchase a total of $200 million worth of shares. Bullish said it has applied to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "BLSH." In its prospectus, the company reported its first-quarter trading volume grew 78% from 2024, and it had an average daily volume of $2.55 billion. Bullish also owns the CoinDesk crypto media site. CEO Tom Farley said that "the digital assets industry is at the inflection point of institutional adoption and Bullish is uniquely positioned at the center of this market." Read the original article on Investopedia Sign in to access your portfolio

Business Insider
3 hours ago
- Business Insider
I raised $25 million at 23. Here's my advice to other Gen Z entrepreneurs.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, the 23-year-old CEO of Artisan. It's been edited for length and clarity. When I was 7, I had a candy shop in my bedroom. It wasn't really a company, but we technically made revenue. When I was 13, I started buying and reselling domains. I didn't even apply to any universities. I knew in high school I wasn't going to go. I started an app for booking cleaners after finishing high school in London. It turned out to be a terrible, tarpit idea, but I learned a lot about how to build a company and how not to build a company. I founded Artisan when I was 21 At the beginning of 2023, I came up with Artisan. In January 2023, I spent a couple of months trying to find a cofounder and building the company. It was like a failed engine. I interviewed 100 cofounders, and didn't find anyone particularly good. In August 2023, I got another wave of motivation. It moved pretty fast then, and I got very lucky early on. Within the first month, we had a very basic prototype. We managed to raise $1.75 million just from a LinkedIn message. People are always like, "How did you raise money so early on?" That's complete luck. We got into Y Combinator a week after that. We launched V0 of Artisan in 2024, but the product barely worked. In June of last year, we launched V0.1, and that's when we started to see some growth. Our $12 million seed round was wrapped up in August, when I was 22. We raised a Series A that we closed in Q1 of this year at $25 million, which has enabled us to build out the team and hire a lot of really great talent and to double down on product again. We now have $6 million in annual recurring revenue. My advice for Gen Z tech entrepreneurs There's a relatively built-out playbook you can follow. First of all, educate yourself on the space and understand the type of company that you're building, how to build it, but then more broadly, what the startup ecosystem looks like. Do everything you can to be in the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem, rather than whatever town or city you're from. If I tried to raise that first round of funding in London, I probably would've gotten $100,000 or $200,000, a terrible valuation. We were able to raise a $15 million valuation with no products and just an idea because we went down the SF route, rather than the European route. You really need to have a strong founding team. I don't have a degree, and I've never had a job. Finding someone who can help with whatever you're weak at is super important. Reading high-quality books and watching Y Combinator videos helped me early on. "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel — he has some questionable opinions beyond the book, but that's a really good one. "Principles" by Ray Dalio and "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries are really strong. People also don't go all in. They'll dip their toe in. Especially when you're early on, you need to make the company your life. You should be working 80+ hours a week and moving to San Francisco. That's what I didn't do in January 2023, and it's the reason I had the false start. I was doing it for 30-40 hours a week, and it never got the momentum it needed. I did it differently in August. Raising funding is really difficult if you don't have experience. You have to put yourself in positions to get lucky. Meet the right people, network. Build a credible story and look like you're going to succeed. The most important thing is building a product that people want. If you do that, you don't even need to fundraise or have a great team. Here's how Gen Z founders are different from their predecessors There's more of an approach of doing whatever you need to do to get attention with younger founders. We were part of it with our controversial billboard campaign. Times Square billboard for AI company sparks backlash for calling for human workers to be replaced by AI. 'Stop Hiring Humans. AI employees are here.' — Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 22, 2025 Young people are just more willing to do what they need to get eyeballs. The biggest AI companies now are foundation models. You couldn't really do that well as a Gen Zer, because you don't have the experience. I think we're going to see that shift pretty dramatically over the years, as product layer becomes more relevant and the foundation models mature. You've already seen it with Cursor. They're above $500 million ARR now. There's a bunch of other stories like that emerging. This is where younger founders will start to shine more, when the app layer pushes through.