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Welcome to the °µÍø³Ô¹Ï News Weekend Update. An email form of this post went out Saturday morning. Happy reading!

It’s hard to say no, but we should all do it more. No one will stay mad at you for wanting a life outside of work.

That was a lesson Erin Bury, the CEO of Willful, told me this week while we chatted for Proust Goes Tech. The idea struck a chord with me, and I’m guessing might with many of you, too. Bury’s found success in creating a list of different ways to say no that she can use to get out of certain events. I find comfort in deleting the Twitter application. Often.

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With that bit of keep-yourself-sane advice out of the way, let’s get into some of the news that the team published this week, from tech’s trust gap to a plant-powered new venture capital fund.

Starting with some trends in startupland, Alex wrote about why companies are pursuing IPOs sooner rather than later just days after Cloudflare shared its plans to go public in September. I tackled how VCs offer more services than ever but miss an important focus, and Jason told us how despite global shifts, within the United States, venture capital dollars are mainly going to the same cities that they have forever.

Now let’s learn about the startups within these big ideas. DoorDash scooped up Square-owned Caviar for $410 million, showing its appetite for other food delivery services. WeWork snapped up yet another software company, making it worth our time to examine its acquisition strategy. Finally, Microsoft bought BlueTalon, its fourth known startup purchase of 2019.

Moving to startups that want to grow through funding, not acquisitions, Monday.com raised $150 million as its revenue more than doubled last year. Wish, an ecommerce startup, raised $300 million itself, and Clearbanc, a firm focused on investing in ecommerce startups while taking no equity, raised a $50 million Series B and a $250 million fund. Also, DataGrail raised some cash ahead of, and inspired by, the California Consumer Privacy Act.

Finally, to leave you with a quirky funding round (more in Last Week in Venture), I wrote about MyScoot which offers users to pay to attend parties and social gatherings in cities around India. Would you pay for friends?

For what it’s worth, no judgement here.

Until next time,