“I've mortally offended #Putin by surviving”: why Alexei #Navalny keeps fighting

"Violence quickly grows old," Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote. "After only a few years it loses confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face it summons falsehood as its ally – since violence can conceal itself with nothing except lies, and the lies can be maintained only by violence."

It's an idea that still resonates. Putin's regime continues to rest on the twin pillars of fear and lies. Navalny has staked his life on pulling down that edifice.

“In Russia, speaking the truth has always been a political act.”

Excellent piece from the Economist's Russia correspondent on Navalny.

Q1 2021 saw all-time global high for early-stage #VC funding with $39 BILLION invested in #startups

Q1 saw a marked increase in early-stage funding, with $39 billion invested in nascent startups, up from $25 billion in the fourth quarter and $22 billion in the first quarter of 2020. The Q1 figure marks an all-time global high for early-stage funding, per Crunchbase data.

Is Early-Stage Venture Becoming A Growth Investor's Game?

Global venture funding hit an all-time high in the first quarter of 2021, per Crunchbase data. That sort of increase in venture funding is typically attributable to growth in late-stage funding. 

But, along with a surge in late-stage funding, we also saw a marked increase in early-stage funding last quarter, with $39 billion invested in nascent startups, up from $25 billion in the fourth quarter and $22 billion in the first quarter of 2021. 

The Q1 figure marks an all-time global high for early-stage funding.

Growth equity leads early stage

The most active investor leading at the Series A and B stages was, surprisingly enough, a growth-stage investor: Insight Partners, which led six Series A fundings. 

#Navalny Is Showing #Russia What Courage Is—while #Putin Tries to Show Courage is Useless

"Putin's overt attempt to destroy a political opponent has a logic: If Navalny is showing his countrymen how to be courageous, Putin wants to show them that courage is useless."

Navalny Has a Lesson for the World

The Russian opposition leader is showing what courage means.

Anne ApplebaumApril 22, 2021

Staff writer at The Atlantic

When Alexei Navalny boarded a plane to Moscow on January 17, he turned his life into a metaphor. He knew it, his wife knew it, and everybody else on the plane knew it. So did the millions of people who had watched his documentary videos, who had seen the witty interviews he did on the plane, who have since joined demonstrations in his name. So did the leaders of Russia, including the country's dictator and president, Vladimir Putin. This, Navalny was telling all of them, is what courage looks like.