WeWork is one of the greatest Icarus stories of modern business history and it ties in everything from bubbles to capital to startup culture, according to Randall Lane, editor of Forbes.

“It’s got it all,” Lane said.

WeWork, a real estate company, skyrocketed to a $47 billion valuation and then nosedived to near bankruptcy within a span of a few months.

Lane, who is also one of the narrators in the documentary, spoke on a panel discussion at South By Southwest on Wednesday night after “WeWork:  Or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn” debuted at the SXSW Film Festival.

Forbes Entertainment partnered with Ross Dinerstein’s Campfire, and Olive Hills Media in making the feature-length documentary, which will begin airing on April 2^nd on Hulu. Lane led an online discussion about the film with Dinerstein and the film’s director Jed Rothstein.

The movie starts out with Adam Neumann farting while repeatedly trying to give an investor pitch about the company. That kind of sets up the audience for the unconventional and weird tale about to unfold.

“The next revolution is going to be the We revolution,” said Neumann, co-founder of WeWork, quoted early on in the movie. “And it will restore in each one of us a sense of dignity and community without which greatness cannot be achieved.”

The movie centers around Neumann, a tall gangly fellow who served as the hippie-messianic leader of the WeWork empire which consisted of brands WeWork, coworking, WeLive, co-living and Rise by We, a gym. Neumann, an immigrant from Israel, teamed up with Miguel McKelvey to co-found WeWork in New York in 2010. McKelvey is rarely mentioned in the film although he does appear on stage in some shots with Neumann. McKelvey oversaw the company’s culture and operations. He also spoke at SXSW 2018. Both men grew up in communes.

At its height, WeWork had more than 600,000 members worldwide in 850 locations in 60 countries and 120 cities including Austin, which has seven locations including its latest location, the SXSW Center.

Neumann did not grant the filmmakers an interview for the documentary. It relies heavily on footage shot of Neumann taken during the company’s heyday with Forbes and other journalists and at company events. The documentary makers do interview key employees, journalists, experts, and others to get insight into the WeWork culture, its community, and the business behind it all.

“The movie is very serious, but it is also super fun,” Lane said.

WeWork also had a cult-like culture, said Dinerstein, who also was the executive producer of HBO’s docu-series Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults.

“People want to be inspired. People want to be motivated. They want to be a part of something bigger than the whole,” Dinerstein said. “A lot of what Adam preached resonated with people. Heaven’s Gate is the same kind of thing.”

But Neumann also made a lot of promises to employees that did not pan out. Most people agreed to salaries lower than what they could make somewhere else and they worked long hours because they were given stock options, said Don Lewis, a former attorney for WeWork, quoted in the movie. Those stock options have not panned out as the company withdrew its Initial Public Offering in September of 2019.

Neumann is such a great salesman, and he is really charismatic, said Lane.

Neumann got carried away, said Rothstein, the film’s director.

“He got out over his skis,” Rothstein said. “He drank too much of his own Kool-Aid and believed the hype and got greedy frankly.”

Neumann’s story is an immigrant story too, he said.

“Adam didn’t come here with a trust fund and a Harvard education,” he said.

 There’s a very American component to this process of faking it till you make it, Rothstein said. There’s a fine line between aspirationally talking about things that don’t exist and making them happen and lying to people. If you cross that line, that’s when you get in trouble, he said.

“You saw that with Elizabeth Holmes,” Rothstein said.

The 2019 documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley,” debuted at the SXSW Film Festival also. It tells the story of Holmes, an attractive and charismatic entrepreneur who faked test results and lied to commit fraud on a massive scale in promotion of her medical device company.

Once an entrepreneur crosses that line, it’s no longer selling, it’s lying,”  Rothstein said. “But at least in his heart, Adam was trying to do something that was worthy of being done. And I think it just spiraled.”

Dinerstein went into making the documentary thinking Neumann was a white-collar criminal and he’s not, he said. At the end of the day, he played by the rules, he said. He asked for money and people said yes, he said.

“He had the opportunity and he took it and that’s very much the American dream,” he said.

It was not fraud if he was playing within crazy rules, and that speaks to a much bigger story, Lane said.

Speculative valuations encourage companies to hemorrhage money to grow, and that’s what Neumann was doing, Lane said.  Neumann convinced SoftBank Founder and CEO Masayoshi Son to invest $9 billion into WeWork from his $100 Billion Vision Fund. And in the movie, Son reportedly told Neumann that he wasn’t being crazy enough and needed to think bigger with WeWork.

“You can’t achieve outsize gain with timid business strategies,” Rothstein said. “You need to shoot for the stars. Obviously, it spun out of control and it didn’t work out and it got extravagant and crazy in ways that were unnecessary.”

The IPO revealed Neumann’s self-dealing acts like registering the trademark to the company and selling it back to the company and buying buildings and leasing them back to the company. Those things got a lot of attention from investors, Rothstein said.

The movie also underscores the idea of community and connection and how important it is especially highlighted by the Pandemic, Lane said.

“It became a really central question even from the first interviews we did that we were hungry for being together,” Rothstein said. The grand experiment of WeWork bringing everyone together became central to the story as we talked to more and more people, Rothstein said.

In the end, even ex-employees of WeWork, quoted in the movie, said they missed the community and the idea of changing the world for the better.

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How do you lose $47 billion in six weeks? Let us count the ways. See the #SXSW Official Selection, WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn, premiering April 2 on Hulu.

AlertMedia announced last week that it has signed an agreement to receive a significant growth investment from Vista Equity Partners.

The amount of the investment was not disclosed. An article in Fortune estimated the investment by Austin-based Vista Equity Partners at $400 million.

AlertMedia, which has 200 employees, plans to use the infusion of capital to accelerate its long-term growth strategy, according to a spokeswoman. It also plans to continue to hire employees and to expand into new markets, according to a news release.

AlertMedia has raised $60 million since its founding in 2013, according to Fortune. And its major existing investors including JMI Equity, Next Coast Ventures, Silverton, and Brian Cruver, the founder and CEO will retain a significant ownership stake in the company. In addition, Cruver will remain as CEO and on the company’s board.

AlertMedia provides emergency communications software to more than 2,000 companies in more than 130 countries. Its customers include Walmart, JetBlue, Coca-Cola, Bottling, DHL, and Volvo. AlertMedia’s technology identifies risks to company locations or people and communicates that information instantly. The company says it minimizes response times during emergencies and other business-critical events.

“We help organizations communicate more effectively during emergencies, which has never been more relevant given the volume and severity of crises around the world,” Cruver said in a news release. “Vista shares our belief that every business should ensure its employees are safe, informed, and connected—and that emergency communication software has the power to improve outcomes. We are thrilled to have the experience of the Vista team on our side, providing guidance and support as we continue to build AlertMedia into a best-in-class global enterprise.”

The investment in AlertMedia comes from Vista’s Foundation Fund, which invests in middle-market enterprise software, data, and technology-enabled companies.

“For years, organizations slowly increased focus on employee safety and emergency preparedness. With the COVID-19 pandemic, protecting the health and safety of employees while maintaining the ability to serve customers in a crisis has become an organizational imperative and competitive advantage,” Ryan Atlas, Managing Director at Vista Equity Partners said in a news release. “At Vista, we invest in category-leading companies to help accelerate innovation and maximize growth. We are excited to partner with Brian and the AlertMedia team to help companies protect their people and maintain business continuity.”

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of this year.

Austin-based TurnKey Vacation Rentals is being bought by Portland, Oregon-based Vacasa, a competing vacation rental management platform.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Turnkey, founded in 2012, had raised $120 million in venture capital. Vacasa has raised $639.5 million to date, including a $108 million Series D round last June, according to Reuters.

TurnKey provides vacation rental management for approximately 6,000 premium homes in more than 80 destinations nationwide.

Vacasa plans to keep TurnKey’s Austin office and its employees, according to a news release. Vacasa has more than 4,000 employees and offices in Portland and Boise, Idaho

The deal is expected to close in a month.

“This is an incredibly exciting day as we plan to welcome TurnKey employees, homeowners and guests into the Vacasa family upon closing of the transaction. Our companies have a similar focus on delivering exceptional service to our homeowners and guests, and we are excited to do that together at a key juncture for the highly competitive vacation rental industry,” Vacasa CEO Matt Roberts said in a news release. “The vacation rental sector continues to see significant gains in market share for accommodations and, with our expert teams and innovative technology, we’ll have the opportunity to lead the industry forward.”

By acquiring TurnKey, Vacasa expands its market reach to include Los Angeles and Napa, California; Asheville, Black Mountain, and Holden Beach, North Carolina; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“Innovation has been at the core of our business from the start. Our goal is to make vacation rental home ownership more efficient and more profitable for owners through the use of technology,” TurnKey CEO John Banczak said in a news release. “Moving forward together, we expect to deliver on our shared vision of developing innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of our homeowners, and offer a consistent, reliable hospitality experience to our guests.”

Vacasa and TurnKey offer full-service vacation rental management to homeowners by providing customer support as well as cleaning and maintaining their properties.

Dosh, an Austin-based cashback offers platform, has been acquired by Atlanta-based Cardlytics for $275 million in cash and stock.

Dosh, founded in 2016, had raised $96 million in funding from investors including PayPal, Goodwater Capital, Next Coast Ventures, Chetrit Ventures, and Extol Capital.

Dosh created an app that allowed consumers to get cashback on all kinds of purchases from clothes to food to hotel rooms.

In the last year, Dosh struck up partnerships with financial institutions, neo-banks, and fintech companies like Venmo, Betterment, and Ellevest to offer its platform in their digital channels.

“Dosh’s technology is extremely complementary to the long-term financial institution integrations and substantial scale we’ve built over the past 13 years. With the addition of Dosh, Cardlytics will accelerate its ongoing efforts to improve the advertising industry through our brand-safe alternative, which provides superior returns based on actual purchases. This creates real value for consumers, advertisers and our bank partners,” Lynne Laube, CEO and co-founder of Cardlytics, said in a news release.

Dosh will join Cardlytics’ advertising platform which has more than 163 million monthly active users.

“Combining our technology with Cardlytics’ scale, we have an opportunity to drive significant revenue for our advertisers while putting money back in the wallets of consumers,” Ryan Wuerch, CEO and co-founder of Dos, said in a news release. “We are excited to join the Cardlytics team and are looking forward to positively impacting consumers and merchants.”

To date, Cardlytics has provided more than $500 million in cashback to consumers, while also driving positive, measurable results for its advertisers across a variety of industries including retail, restaurant, telecommunications, direct to consumer, grocery, and travel.

Starlink, a division of SpaceX, is building a new manufacturing plant in Austin, according to a job posting by the company.

Starlink is developing a broadband Internet system enabled by a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites providing service to those in rural communities and places where existing services are too expensive or unreliable, according to the company.

On February 15, SpaceX confirmed the deployment of 60 Starlink satellites.

Starlink has been testing its satellite Internet service with beta customers in the Texas Hill Country. It plans to roll out the service to more customers in mid-2021, according to a posting on Starlink’s website. It is taking orders on a first-come, first-served basis with deposits of $99 on the service. The hardware will cost $499, and the service will cost $99 a month

“To keep up with global demand, SpaceX is breaking ground on a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Austin, TX,” according to the job post. “Up to 25% travel to SpaceX Headquarters in Los Angeles, until Austin facility is fully established.”

SpaceX and Starlink could not be reached for comment.

In addition, Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, posted a tweet on Tuesday about creating the city of Starbase, Texas. He didn’t provide any details. SpaceX is building rocket ships in Boca Chica, in the Southern Texas county of Cameron.

Elon Musk on Twitter: “Creating the city of Starbase, Texas / Twitter”

Creating the city of Starbase, Texas

Musk recently announced he had moved from California to Texas as he has steadily increased the footprint of his companies in the state.

Musk’s other venture, Tesla, is building a Gigafactory on the outskirts of Austin with plans to manufacture Cybertrucks.

And the Boring Company, which specializes in digging underground tunnels for highspeed commuter transportation, recently relocated its headquarters to Austin.

Bumble, the Austin-based dating and networking app, raised $2.2 billion on Thursday when its stock debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange at $43 a share.

The stock, traded under the symbol BMBL, soared nearly 64 percent on its first day of trading to close at $70.31.

Bumble’s Initial Public Offering also made its founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, 31, the youngest female self-made billionaire founder, according to Forbes.

“Today Bumble becomes a public company,” Wolfe herd wrote in a tweet on Twitter. “This is only possible thanks to more than 1.7 billion first moves made by brave women on our app – and the pioneering women who paved the way for us in the business world. To everyone who made today possible: Thank you.”

The Nasdaq stock market’s opening bell podium was decked out with yellow and white balloons and streamers to represent Bumble’s colors and to honor the company’s first day of trading.

Bumble, founded in 2014, operates two apps, Bumble and Badoo, and reports more than 40 million users on a monthly basis.

Bumble plans to use the proceeds from the stock sale to repay part of a loan and for general corporate purposes and to pay the expenses of going public. It also plans up to 48.5 million shares of stock to purchase or redeem stock from certain entities affiliated with Blackstone, a New York-based private equity firm that owns a majority interest in Bumble.

Bumble currently employs over 600 people in offices in Austin, Barcelona, London, and Moscow.

Techstars Austin has selected ten startups to participate in its 2021 accelerator program which kicked off this month.

The companies include BallBox, Enlightapp, Fêtefully, hampr, Kousso, Livo, Mowies, Nutritional Freedom, SocialMama and Talk Howdy.

The program began on Jan. 11^th and will end on Demo Day scheduled for March 24^th as a virtual event.

“As with most things in 2020, AsTechstars’ selection process wasn’t exactly the same as in years past or as expected. That being said, the virtual nature of, well everything, wasn’t new to us,” Amos Schwartzfarb, Techstars Austin Managing Director said in a news release. “If there was any exception to this year, it was the sheer quantity of applications we received from very high-quality founders and businesses, which made it harder than previous years to select our final 10. I am beyond thrilled with the 10 incoming companies we’ll be working with over the next three months and believe this will be one of the strongest classes we’ve seen in Techstars Austin to date.”

Techstars Austin also announced Caroline Tosbath as its new Program Manager. Previously, Tosbath worked at Capital Factory, an accelerator and co-working space focused on Texas startups.

“Working on the mentor program at Capital Factory taught me the importance of building meaningful relationships and the impact those relationships can have on founders’ lives and business,” Tosbath said in a news release. “I’m so excited to continue making meaningful connections for founders in my new role at Techstars, in addition to running the day to day of our program.”

The following startups are participating in the Techstars Austin 2021 program:

BallBox from Chicago – a network of kiosks enabling sport, tech, and leisure equipment rental at parks, beaches, hotels, and apartments.

Enlightapp from Fargo, ND – it helps teachers become experts on their students by allowing students to share their uniqueness through self-created student profiles.

Fêtefully from Dallas – a wedding and event planning platform that leverages personality algorithms and automated workflows to streamline the event planning process to make a luxury service accessible to an underserved market while also giving professional planners a way to earn money in their spare time.

hampr from Lafayette, LA – an on-demand, laundry service that will pick up your laundry and return it fresh and folded, right to your front door, within 24 hours.

Kousso from Charlotte, NC – a platform that delivers data-rich home profiles to simplify homeownership.

Livo from Coral Gables, FL – it works with residential rental property managers to enhance the “first-come-first-served” process by increasing flexibility for both the renter and property manager.

Mowies from Medellin, Colombia – a Content Market Network to create, share, sell.

Nutritional Freedom from Austin –  a platform helping women to ditch diets and get healthy for good.

SocialMama from Houston – a network to connect women to the mom friends that they need, and experts they trust.

Talk Howdy from Austin – it is building communities through peer-led, small group virtual chats.

 SKU, an Austin-based consumer packaged goods accelerator, announced it has picked seven companies to participate in its ninth cohort.

SKU selected the companies based on their innovative products, market traction, and founders’ passion.

The Track 9 companies are Agua Bonita,  American Provenance, BeeFree Gluten Free, Green Girl Bakeshop, Macro Snacks, Shaz & Kiks, and Waka Coffee.

“We had one of the most competitive applicant pools ever with brands from around the country, and these seven companies and their founders really stood out,” SKU Managing Director Kirstin Ross said in a news release. “It continues to amaze me the level of creativity and commitment these founders have. They draw on their own personal experiences to create products that bring something really new and special to the market.”

The latest accelerator program begins on Jan. 29th and runs through mid-May. The 12-week program includes a special curriculum with mentoring. SKU’s mentors include entrepreneurs from successful consumer-product companies including Deep Eddy Vodka, Amplify Snack Brands (Skinny Pop, Pirate’s Booty), and Vital Farms.

The accelerator culminates with a showcase virtual pitch event which will take place on May 18^th.

Vital Farms founder and longtime SKU mentor Matt O’Hayer will give the keynote address to kick off the latest program. He founded Vital Farms, an egg company, in 2007, and built the company, along with his wife, Catherine, into the number one pasture-raised egg and butter brand in the U.S. The company went public last summer.

Lawyer Shari Wynne Ressler and serial entrepreneur Clayton Christopher, founder of Sweet Leaf Tea and Deep Eddy Vodka, founded SKU in 2012. Since then more 70 companies have completed the SKU program including Siete Foods, Seaweed Bath Co., Austin Eastciders, and EPIC Provisions.

Over the past year, SKU has expanded nationally with a partnership with BeyondBrands to launch New York-based BeyondSKU. In addition, SKU launched The ImpactSKU program for purpose-driven CPG startups in the Twin Cities, a partnership with FINNOVATION Lab. Last fall, SKU and DFW CPG joined forces to bring to launch SKU DFW in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.  The six companies that participated in SKU DFW were All Y’alls Foods, Highwave, Meli’s Monster Cookies, mmmpanadas, Re:THINK Ice Cream, and Sienna Sauce.

Austin-based Bumble, the networking and dating app founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, has filed to go public.

The company filed its initial public offering documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. It did not provide details on the price of its stock, which will be traded under the symbol BMBL on the Nasdaq stock market. In the filing, the company reported it was seeking to raise $100 million.

New York-based private equity firm Blackstone owns a majority interest in Bumble, according to The Street.com.

“Throughout the journey of building Bumble, we were told that it was impossible to create a successful women-first brand and platform,” Wolfe Herd, Bumble’s founder, and CEO wrote in a letter included in the filing. “That women don’t, won’t, and shouldn’t speak first. That it would never work. Those objections have only fueled us. Six years and countless Bumble weddings, babies, friendships, business partnerships, and meaningful relationships later, we have a diverse and fast-growing community spread across six continents. We’ve celebrated 1.7 billion first moves made by women.”

The stock filing provided some details on Bumble’s finances. The company reported revenue of $416.6 million for 2020 through Sept. 30^th and a net loss of $116.7 million. That compares to $488.9 million in revenue for 2019 and net earnings of $68.6 million and $360.1 million in revenue and a net loss of $23.6 million for 2018.

Bumble operates two apps, Bumble and Badoo, and reports more than 40 million users on a monthly basis.

Bumble also plans to use the proceeds of the sale of its stock to pay down its debt, according to the filing. The company entered into a loan in January of 2020 for $625 million. 

Bumble has more than 650 full-time employees with half working in engineering and product development. It leases approximately 10,000 square feet of space in Austin for its corporate headquarters. Bumble also has offices in London and Moscow and a data center in Prague.

Before founding Bumble in 2014, Wolfe Herd worked at Tinder, a competing dating app, where she served as vice president of marketing from May 2012 to April 2014. After leaving the company, Wolfe Herd filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Tinder, which she later settled for more than $1 million, according to Forbes. In 2018, Match Group, which owns Tinder, filed a lawsuit against Bumble alleging patent and trademark infringement, as well as trade secret misappropriation. Bumble countersued. In June of 2020, Bumble reached an agreement with Match Group to settle the lawsuit.

The Financial Times also reported Wolfe Herd received a $125 million payout following a reorganization of the company and a $119 million loan, which she has since paid back.

The IPO filing also details Bumble’s employment contract with Wolfe Herd providing a base salary of $650,000 annually with a target bonus of $450,000. It also includes a leased vehicle, childcare services when Wolfe Herd travels with her children, and full-time security benefits at the office and when traveling.

Digital Realty, a company that operates data centers worldwide, announced plans Thursday to relocate its corporate headquarters from San Francisco to Austin.

It is the latest company to pull up stakes and move operations from California to Texas. Among them, Oracle announced last month that it plans to move its headquarters to Austin. And Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced plans to move its headquarters to Houston.

Digital Realty, founded in 2002, has 1,550 employees and revenues of more than $3 billion in 2019.  The company plans to keep a “significant presence” in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Digital Realty already has operations in Texas, which date back to “2002 when its predecessor acquired 2323 Bryan Street, a major regional connectivity hub in downtown Dallas.”

Today, Digital Realty has more than 30 data centers in Texas, encompassing more than four million square feet and more than 100 megawatts of customer capacity. It also has nearly 20 percent of its North American workforce based in the state. It also has a data center in Austin.

Overall, Digital Realty has more than 280 data center facilities in 49 metros across 24 countries on six continents.  

“The central location, affordable cost of living, highly educated workforce and supportive business climate have helped make Texas an epicenter for business activity and technology growth,” Digital Realty Chief Executive Officer A. William Stein said in a news release.  “As we continue to make strategic investments to best position Digital Realty for long-term growth, we are confident our expansion in Texas will help us meet the needs of our more than 4,000 global customers while continuing to deliver value for our stakeholders, employees, and the communities we serve around the world.” 

Digital Realty also plans to use wind energy and solar energy to power 70 percent of its data center projects in Texas by mid-year.

“We are excited that Digital Realty has chosen Texas as the new home for their corporate headquarters, and I thank them for their expanded investment in the Lone Star State,” Governor Greg Abbott said in a news release.  “Digital Realty joins other global technology leaders and more than 50 Fortune 500 companies now headquartered in Texas.  We are seeing increasing investments from innovative businesses thanks to our young, growing, and educated workforce, and our pro-growth economic policies that help job-creating businesses to thrive.”