Highlights of the Week (June 4th, 2021)

Happy Friday. Here’s our wrap-up of the week.

This week marked a pivotal moment in the pandemic, as 50% of the American population has received at least one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine and President Biden set a goal set of 70% by the July 4th holiday. Meanwhile, negotiations on Biden’s $1.7TN infrastructure deal continue to stall, as Senate Republicans push back with their own $928BN plan. Meanwhile, recent data show new businesses are popping up at the fastest pace on record while the rate for workers quitting their jobs is the highest since 2000.

Here’s a look at this week’s top stories from PrivCo:

• Tuesday’s Investor Spotlight was on the Menlo Park-based VC firm GGV Capital. The 20-year old firm raised an additional $2.52BN in January, bringing their total managed funds to a massive $9.2BN across 17 funds. Most known as the first institutional investor in Alibaba, the firm has since made meaningful investments in OpenDoor, Poshmark, Wish, Affirm, Slack & Square. 

• The two richest men in the world are duking it out for deals in space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX recently won a bid to complete the first spacewalk on the moon in nearly 50 years. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has Washington State US senator Maria Cantwell proposing an amendment to the plan that would add $10BN to the deal and bring Bezos onboard. Bernie Sanders is not having it.

• Content creators born out of social media are taking their acts off-platform. A slew of startups is there to help creators bring their fans along for a transactional journey outside of TikTok, Instagram, YouTube & Twitter.