Alexi is now known as a tech tycoon.. let's see where BetterUp got their funding from
https://techtycoons.com/alexi-robichaux/
Funding rounds
In January 2016, BetterUp raised $2.9 million in a seed round of funding from Afore Capita, Allison Bhusri, Julia Popowitz, and Ulu Ventures. In November 2016, BetterUp raised $12.9 million in a Series A round of funding, from its lead investor Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), and other investors include Vista Venture Partners, Social Capital, SV Angel, Freestyle Capital, and Crosslink Capital.
In March 2018, BetterUp raised $26 million in a Series B round of funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with existing investors include Freestyle Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Crosslink Capital. BetterUp plans to manage the funds to employ developers and salespeople, as well as continue to increase operations globally.
In June 2019, BetterUp raised $103 million in a Series C round of funding, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Threshold Ventures (formerly DFJ Venture), Freestyle Capital, Tenaya Capital, Crosslink Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank.
The latest funding round considered to be the largest ever in the burgeoning field of behavior change, tech-enabled employee coaching, and wellness underscores faith in BetterUp, which was first to run in this space and which is now quickly being deployed by leading multinational, global organizations, including Symantec, Airbnb, Logitech, Mars, Equinix, Instacart, and Workday. BetterUp has more than 100 enterprise customers and tripled growth in 2018 for the second consecutive year.
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draper_Fisher_Jurvetson
DFJ was founded in 1985 by Tim Draper. John Fisher became a partner in 1991 and Steve Jurvetson joined in 1994
Voat post re Tim Draper:
Welcome to Silicon Valley's version of "Bucks's Restaurant". Many tall tales inside...
https://searchvoat.co/v/pizzagate/2104446
Broken link.. however wayback
https://web.archive.org/web/20200615150 ... niversity/
Ungrounded – SolarImpulse – Draper University
So I was sitting innocently at Buck’s one morning and these stylish folks from British Airways came in and invited me to come with them to England for a brainstorming session in the sky around the subject of STEM. Science Technology Engineering Mathematics. This is the touchstone today. 130 Important Silicon Valley Innovators, and me, met up at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco where Gavin Newsome addressed us and begged off the trip claiming that his wife was about to go into labor. Flimsy excuse if you ask me.
We broke into teams at the hotel and went into conference to come up with schemes to promote education, create products and foster more participation in STEM. Then together with the facilitators from IDEO and a support staff from British Airways we took busses to the VIP lounge at SFO where we boarded a new 747 that had been rigged for a 10 hour conference in the sky. We had 16 teams each charged with developing a plan to present to the United Nations on our arrival in London.
An example of the folks on board was Duncan Logan, founder of RocketSpace. Rocketspace is a collaborative workspace in San Francisco where startups rent space to be part of a frothy atmosphere conducive to emerging ideas. This plan is to break down the traditional walls isolating small firms and providing both physical space and a social atmosphere to make working more fun and increase connectivity. British Airways has some people in this space.
The event was called Ungrounded and is part of a larger initiative by British Airways to open the door to collaboration with the start-up community in Silicon Valley.
We were spread throughout the aircraft and as we developed our ideas we posted charts and slogans all over the walls and overhead bins. We roamed the aisles and eventually voted on the most popular ideas. Our group hatched the notion of creating mini maker-shops in places like Home Depot where kids could come and learn to use tools and discover techniques to actually build physical things. It was no coincidence that the founder of the Tech Shop, Jim Newton, was in our group. There are a half dozen of these Tech Shops across the country and one is in Menlo Park. There you can join like a gym membership and come in and use a wide range of tools from saws and lathes to 3d printers and plasma cutters....
..Langham Hotel
Having finished our project we arrived in London where we were whisked off to the Langham Hotel, a 19th century first class hotel. In the last 20 years they have put 250 million pounds into renovations and it looks it. The Langham is right across the street from the BBC’s Broadcasting House and is the only corner in all of London about which I know some history as I was once taken on a tour of the BBC...
House of Parliament
That night we were invited to the Houses of Parliament where Baroness Scotland told us about how the place functions and asked if we might like a tour of the digs. We then proceeded to crawl all about the joint including a visit to the Houses of Common and that of the Lords. Down one random hallway I spied the Magna Carta in a flimsy glass case just begging to be lifted for display at Buck’s. Alas it turned out to be locked up pretty securely and besides it looked like a fakeWe convened for breakfast and were treated with the 5-star elegance this place is renowned for. A crumb can’t fall to the floor without a tuxedoed waiter slipping a tiny silver tray under it (just like at Buck’s).
..The agenda for the day following our in-air confab was a bit of mystery. Most of us had not looked up the name of the next conference as we just went where and when we were told to. A nice way to travel. Turned out we took a bus to the Olympic Village and joined up with other entrepreneurs and tech folks making us now about 250 people. On entering the auditorium we were treated to a talk by Richard Branson. And he wasn’t even the headliner. This was the G8 Innovation Summit.
..Now keep in mind most of us had no idea what was coming next so imagine our surprise when the Prime Minister of England came in and spoke.. David Cameron...
..One of the organizers of Ungrounded was also a member of a discussion panel, Celestine Johnson. She is a partner at Eric Schmidt’s new venture firm Innovation Endeavors and her area of concern is human rights in the supply chain, a topic both very new and quite pressing. Her panel consisted of women in the forefront of media, tech and venture.
....After the conferences we were taken off once more, this time for a reception at the Royal Academy of Art. This was yet another mix of people and I ran into a rather lot of folks who were Buck’s customers. I teamed up with some Stanford medical researchers and people from Singularity University in Mt. View. We went to one of those tony restaurants you see in the movies called Downtown Mayfair right between Savile Row and Regent Street.
...So why on earth would an airline go to all this effort and expense in a field they are not in business in? Well in England British Airways is big. The way we look to Google here Londoners look to BA so they feel that by creating strong ties to Silicon Valley they will continue to be thought leaders.
DRAPER UNIVERSITY
Professor Draper
When I first heard that a new university had been founded I was immediately struck by the inevitability of this being the brainchild of long time venture capitalist Tim Draper. Tim has had an abiding interest in education for quite some time. A few years ago he spearheaded an educational initiative on the California state ballot and he is also the founder of the successful Biz World program, which teaches basic business ideas to elementary school children.
So it is a natural extension of his egalitarian ideals to found a university. He bought the Ben Franklin Hotel in San Mateo and remodeled it into a campus with facilities for about 50 students to live there for the two-month sessions.The students come from all over the world and what they all have in common is that they want to be “in business”. This is not an MBA; it has a very different twist. Basically it’s about teambuilding, public speaking and a great environment to build confidence. Tim uses a superhero theme as the hook and he has the students break into teams for the duration. They work on individual and group projects culminating in final presentations.
That article by Jamis MacNiven :
Buck's owner Jamis MacNiven, right, chats with patron William Draper who was having a business breakfast in his restaurant in Woodside. This is one of postcard recall features from around state taking pulse of citizenry. Buck s is a Silicon Valley diner famous for its high tech clientel and the many high tech venture capital deals concluded there. https://files.catbox.moe/54ywxi.jpg
Buck's of Woodside
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck%27s_of_Woodside
Buck's of Woodside is a restaurant in Woodside, California, that has gained fame as a meeting place for venture capitalists and tech entrepreneurs. Like nearby Sand Hill Road, Buck's has become a fixture of Silicon Valley...
The restaurant is close to both Sand Hill Road—home to the majority of Silicon Valley's venture capitalists—and Stanford University.[3] Netscape, PayPal, Hotmail and Tesla Motors are among the companies whose entrepreneurs held early meetings at Buck's..
"Breakfast at Buck's" is the title of the introduction of the book, The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs, by venture capitalist Bill Draper.
..According to MacNiven, Steve Jobs is one of the few Silicon Valley icons who never set foot in his restaurant; MacNiven and the Apple co-founder had a falling out in the 1980s after Jobs hired him to remodel his house.
William (Bill) Henry Draper III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Draper_III
Draper was born on January 1, 1928 in White Plains, New York, the son of Katherine Louise (née Baum) and banker, general, and diplomat William Henry Draper Jr.[2] His father founded Draper, Gaither and Anderson. He attended Yale University with president George H. W. Bush, graduated in 1950, the year after George H. W. Bush, and is a member of the secret society Skull and Bones. After graduating from college, Draper served as a second lieutenant in the Korean War. Upon returning to the United States, he attended Harvard Business School and studied under professor Georges Doriot, who is often credited with starting the venture capital industry.
During his twenty years as the senior partner of Sutter Hill, Draper helped to organize and finance several hundred high technology manufacturing companies. In 1986, he became the head of the world's largest source of multilateral development grant assistance, the United Nations Development Programme, and was instrumental in leadership of several global initiatives, such as the international Education for All movement (beginning formally with the 1990 Conference in Jomtien, Thailand), the 1995 Beijing Women's' Conference, and the 1995 Social Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.
He served from 1981 to 1986 as president and Chairman of the Export–Import Bank of the United States[4] and was appointed to this position by President Ronald Reagan...In 1986, he became the head of the world's largest source of multilateral development grant assistance, the United Nations Development Programme.[4][5] As the second highest ranking individual in the United Nations, Draper oversaw nearly 10,000 international aid projects. During his time at the UN and the Export-Import Bank..
In 2002, along with Robin Richards Donohoe, Draper co-founded the Draper Richards Foundation. Robert Steven Kaplan, formerly vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs and currently the thirteenth president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, joined as co-chair in 2010.
As a civic leader, Draper has been involved in many community service programs. He is currently on the boards of The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies at Stanford University, World Affairs Council of Northern California, and the Harvard Business School California Research Center Advisory Board. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the President's Council on International Activities at Yale University.
Draper formerly served as the Chairman of the World Affairs Council of Northern California, Chairman of the Institute of International Education, as a Trustee of Yale University and as Chairman of the Board of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; he was a former Board member of Population Action International, the United Nations Association of the United States of America, Hoover Institution, Atlantic Council, George Bush Library Foundation, the Advisory Council of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the World Rehabilitation Fund in New York.
Draper's late father, William Henry Draper, Jr., was a general and served as the first ambassador for NATO. He is married to Phyllis Culbertson Draper, who passed away after a 34-year battle with Parkinson's disease, and are the parents of Becky Draper, actress/filmmaker Polly Draper, who is known for her starring role in the ABC television drama Thirtysomething, and Timothy C. Draper, a venture capitalist
