Investors double down on tech stocks in massive DoorDash, Airbnb, C3.ai IPOs

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Maybe it is a stock market bubble, or a tech-stock bubble at least. And maybe DoorDash, Airbnb and C3.ai and their bankers should have priced higher regardless to take advantage of all of the enthusiasm. It’s hard to avoid reactions like that, after DoorDash, for example, doubled its final private share price to $102 for its public debut on Wednesday — only to see the price climb to $175 at the end of the week.

Or maybe none of this will matter, because the future is way bigger and the companies are going to get there regardless. That’s what Saar Gur tells Connie Loizos this week about DoorDash, which he had invested in many years ago:

I actually started my career at Lehman Brothers on the investment banking team, and so having seen the IPO process, while I can appreciate [frustration that a] company left some money on the table based on the pricing, the tactical challenge [is that] it’s very hard to predict. You know what the market will bear once it moves to retail investors.

What’s exciting to me is [that] DoorDash is raising money because they are just getting started. I do think this could be a $500 billion-plus company. There’s so much to be excited about. As for the capital-raising event, I think it’s hard for the bankers to know where it will land with the broader market, so I’m not as negative as maybe some others.

Here’s the blow-by-blow coverage of the craziest tech IPO week in the craziest (IPO) year in decades, resuming from where I left off last Friday:

DoorDash amps its IPO range ahead of blockbuster IPO (EC)

The IPO market looks hot as Airbnb and C3.ai raise price targets (EC)

Wish wants to be the Amazon for the rest of us; will retail investors buy it?

DoorDash said to price at $102 per share, doubling its final private price

Airbnb said to price IPO between $67 and $68

While several marketplace unicorns prepare IPOs, a VC digs into the data (EC)

DoorDash, C3.ai skyrocket in public market debuts

How DoorDash and C3.ai can defend their red-hot IPO valuations (EC)

Airbnb’s first-day pop caps off a stellar week for tech IPOs (EC)

In public and private markets, cloud earnings and valuations heat up (EC)

Photo via Natasha Mascarenhas

Meet Natasha Mascarenhas, your future Startups Weekly newsletter author

The year is coming to a close for my time writing this newsletter, too. I’m going to be returning full-time to my regular job editing Extra Crunch and stuff in the back offices here at TechCrunch virtual HQ. My colleague Natasha Mascarenhas will be taking over starting next week.

You’re in good hands. In fact you may have noticed many of her articles and her weekly contributions to Equity showing up here already. Since joining us from Crunchbase News earlier this year, she’s been covering early-stage startups and the San Francisco tech scene in general, with a big focus on edtech. We have a lot more planned across Equity, Extra Crunch and more, and she’ll be able to tie it all together around her daily coverage. Stay tuned for an action-packed 2021 (and follow her on Twitter in the meantime).

How to bootstrap to $200m+ in revenue

Alex Wilhelm hears from one startup founder who has taken a bit of an alternative approach to building a SaaS company. Here’s more:

Now north of $200 million in revenue, [Nextiva] is a quiet giant and, notably, has not taken venture capital funding along its path to scale. Chatting with CEO and co-founder Tomas Gorny, I got to dig a little under the skin of the company’s history. It goes a little something like this: After moving to California in 1996 at the age of 20, Gorny eventually founded a web hosting company in 2001 after working for tech companies during the dot-com boom. The web hosting company wound up selling to another company called Endurance International in 2007, which sold as a combined entity for around a billion dollars in 2011, later going public before being taken private last month for $3 billion — you can read this TechCrunch piece that mentions Endurance from 2010 for a bit of the historical record.

Gorny founded Nextiva in 2008, focused on what it describes today as “UcaaS,” or unified communications as a service. The startup grew to about $40 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), at which point it ran into issues with a third-party system that would integrate hardware, and support and services software, which sparked a shift in its thinking. The company set out to build a platform.

Nextiva expanded horizontally, adding CRM software, analytics and other functionality to its broader suite as it scaled. And it grew efficiently; starting with money from its founding team, Gorny told TechCrunch that even if he had used someone else’s money, he would have built the company in the same manner.

So why does TechCrunch cover so many early-stage funding rounds, anyway?

Here’s Natasha’s take, from a little explainer we did this week following some Twitter conversations:

The reason I love writing about tech and do the sometimes formulaic funding-round story is because I meet people who are crazy enough to bet their entire legacy on a napkin-stage idea. That’s the story, and the surprise and the tension. The dollar sign is just the first way in.

Having raised fundings that got covered in TechCrunch, and having written many many funding round articles over the year, I agree. The funding round is often the only way to prove that you have traction, if you are trying to get more attention.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

The Klarna founding story

Swedish fintech decacorn Klarna pioneered new ways for users to buy online without credit cards over the decade, and is now battling rivals large and small across the world. How did it all happen? Steve O’Hear sits down with founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski for an exclusive in-depth interview that Extra Crunch subscribers have been eating up this week. Here’s his description:

In a wide-ranging interview, Siemiatkowski confronts criticisms head on, including that Klarna makes it too easy to get into debt, and that buy now, pay later needs to be regulated. We also discuss Klarna’s business model and the balancing act required to win over consumers and keep merchants onside.

We also learn how, under his watch and as the company began to scale, Klarna missed the next big opportunity in fintech, instead being usurped by Adyen and Stripe. Siemiatkowski also shares what’s next for the company as it ventures further into the world of retail banking after gaining a bank license in 2017.

Here’s a painfully fascinating excerpt from Siemiatkowski:

One of the drawbacks that we had at the company was that none of the three co-founders had any engineering background; we couldn’t code. We were connected to five engineers that by themselves were amazing engineers, but we had a slight misunderstanding. Their idea was that they were going to come in, build a prototype, ship it, and then leave for 37% of the equity. Our understanding was that they were going to come in, ship it, and if it started scaling they would stay with us and work for a longer period of time. This is the classic mistake that you do as a startup.

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Those Facebook antitrust lawsuits

It seems that the US government has finally had enough of Facebook’s aggressive expansion and acquisition practices. After years of light regulation, the Federal Trade Commission and, separately, 49 state attorneys general are suing to break up social networking company. You can find lots of commentary about the details on TechCrunch and elsewhere.

But here’s my take for you to remember, as you watch headlines about this continue into next year: Facebook was always ready. I covered the company closely during its early years, and even back then it was talking about being the operating system for the internet, like Microsoft Windows was for desktop. The implied and whispered goal was to get as big as possible before regulations inevitably hit, like what Microsoft did. Here we are, with Facebook in a leading market position, with a massive army of lawyers who have been preparing for years. Without getting further into the lawsuits or political landscape where it’s all happening… I don’t expect a breakup. But maybe new restrictions on acquisitions or something could limit growth potential? Its big wins this decade have been from acquisitions.

One boring scenario I don’t see discussed much is simply that its products remain the phone book of the era for much of the world. Somewhat regulated this way or that way in various jurisdictions and banned outright in some — and very big and successful still.

Around TechCrunch

TC Sessions: Space 2020 launches next week

Announcing the final agenda for TC Sessions: Space 2020

Don’t miss the university research showcase at TC Sessions: Space 2020

Hear the latest from Kayhan Space and Firehawk Aerospace at TC Sessions: Space

Give the gift of Extra Crunch for 25% off

Extra Crunch Partner Perk: Find peace of mind with ‘Spotify for Mindfulness & Sleep’ app Aura

Across the week

TechCrunch

Survey: Americans think Big Tech isn’t so bad after all

Despite the pandemic, small business optimism persists

Mixtape podcast: Making technology accessible for everyone

Macron promotes European tech ecosystem in an interview with Zennström

Equity Monday: Airbnb pricing, Sequoia makes money and early-stage rounds

Extra Crunch

What to expect while fundraising in 2021

3 ways the pandemic is transforming tech spending

Why Sapphire’s Jai Das thinks the Salesforce-Slack deal could succeed

China watches and learns from the US in AR/VR competition

Is 2020 bringing more edtech rounds than ever, or does it simply feel that way?

#EquityPod

From Alex:

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

What a week, yeah? Instead of the news cycle slowing as the year races to a close, things are still as hot as ever. We have funding rounds big and small, IPOs, first-day extravaganza and more.

Luckily we had the whole crew around — Chris and Danny and Natasha and me. Here’s the rundown:

• Career Karma raised $10 million, and we have thoughts and concerns.
• Skyflow raised $17.5 million in an effort to try to get the Equity team to understand the nuances of different encryption types.
• Calm raised $75 million, which felt pretty reasonable given reports and its fundraising history.
• Squire tripled its valuation in a new round that included $45 million in equity capital along with some debt.
• We also talked about the DoorDash and C3.ai IPO pops, where Airbnb priced, and who is coming next.
• We rounded off with what’s up with TikTok stars investing in tech startups. Danny was not a fan.

And that’s that! If you aren’t tired, have you even been paying attention?

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

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General Catalyst’s Katherine Boyle and Peter Boyce are looking for ‘obsessive’ founders

General Catalyst has made early bets on some of the biggest companies in tech today, including Airbnb, Lemonade and Warby Parker.

We sat down with Katherine Boyle and Peter Boyce, who co-lead the firm’s seed-stage investments, to discuss what they look for in founders, which sectors they’re most excited about and how business has changed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This conversation is part of our broader Extra Crunch Live series, where we sit down with VCs and founders to discuss startup core competencies and get advice. We’ve spoken to folks like Aileen Lee, Mark Cuban, Roelof Botha, Charles Hudson and many, others. You can browse the full library of episodes here.

Check out our full conversation with Boyce and Boyle in the YouTube video below, or skim the text for the highlights.

Which personality traits are most important in founders

Katherine Boyle: I look for what I would call this obsessive trait, where they are learning more about the regulatory complications, where they are constantly trying to figure out how to solve a problem.

I’d say that the common theme among the founders that I support are that they have this sort of obsessive gene or personality, where they will go deeper and deeper and deeper. When we invest in these companies, it becomes very clear that they often have sort of a contrarian view of the industry. Maybe they are not industry-native. They come at it from a different perspective of problem solving. They’ve had to defend that thesis for a very, very long time in front of a variety of different customers and different people. In some ways, that makes them much stronger in terms of the way they approach problems.

Peter Boyce: I think the first would be being magnetic for talent. It ends up influencing the speed of learning and development. Really incredible founding teams that can be magnetic for talent and learning just kind of spirals out of control in really good ways over time. I really look for the speed and the sources of learning. And can folks be really intentional? Can they get the right set of advisors and teammates around them?

The second would be the personal connection to the problem space. It’s like there’s this kind of deep-seated source of energy and fuel that actually isn’t going to run out. Catherine and I’ve been lucky to work across a number of different particular thematic areas, but the thing they have in common is just this personal connection to how and why their business needs to exist. Because I just think that that fuel doesn’t run out, you know what I mean? Like, that’s renewable.

On fundraising and building trust remotely

Boyle: If you’re someone who’s comfortable presenting on Zoom, making connections on Zoom, or using Signal and using Twitter and being very online, then I 100% think that you can make investments, build community and build connections through digital worlds and digital platforms. If you really like that in-person connectivity, then you might consider staying in a tech hub, or you might consider sort of these distanced walks until things go back to normal.

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What to expect while fundraising in 2021

Russ Heddleston Contributor

Russ is the co-founder and CEO of DocSend. He was previously a product manager at Facebook, where he arrived via the acquisition of his startup Pursuit.com, and has held roles at Dropbox, Greystripe and Trulia. Follow him here: @rheddleston and @docsend

More posts by this contributor

• What Q2 fundraising data tells us about the rest of 2020
• Q3 2020 is primed to be an intense shopping season for VCs

At the end of 2019, no one would have predicted what an unpredictable and difficult year it has been for both startups and VCs in the fundraising world. Now we are staring down the end of 2020 and looking toward what we all hope is a better, safer 2021. What will this new year bring? With an end-of-year sprint to close deals, the anticipation of a new presidential administration and the hope of a COVID-19 vaccine on the horizon, startups and VCs know that change is on the horizon — but how much of that change will be positive?

As 2020 proved, no one can say for sure what 2021 will bring, but I’d like to put a few predictions on the table based on DocSend’s data and research, including the DocSend Startup Index, as well as some trends I’ve seen and my own experiences. These predictions center around how we’ll fundraise post-pandemic, how the funding divide may widen for some, what fundraising activity could look like into 2021, a few sectors we think will fare well and will incorporate some tips on how to succeed in the new year, no matter what comes our way.

We’ll interact through a mix of the old and the new

The pandemic forced all of us to drastically change how we work and interact with colleagues and clients. When the pandemic subsides and vaccines are widely available, in-person meetings and gathering back at the office will definitely resume, but it’s safe to say the old ways of networking and fundraising won’t shift back 100%. Founders and VCs alike have navigated the ups and downs of remote networking and fundraising interactions and will stick to what works and what doesn’t.

Is traveling to a conference the best way for a founder to have a chance at meeting the VC who is right to support their business? Will a VC want to drive an hour through Bay Area traffic for an in-person status update meeting on their latest investment? Zoom fatigue aside, video conference calls do have some benefits — efficiency, no travel time — although not all meetings are best conducted virtually.

No matter what 2021 has in store, founders can still take proactive steps to help them succeed in their fundraising efforts.

The extent to which businesses go in-person or stick to virtual meetings could depend directly on what round of fundraising they are working toward or have completed. Businesses in the pre-seed round might stick with more Zoom meetings in order to conserve resources.

Founders in the seed round will likely split between video and in-person meetings as they are under pressure to show traction in this round, as we found in our report on seed fundraising, yet will also need to conserve resources and time. For Series A, they might have to meet less in person because they have established relationships with their investors. Series B might see more in-person meetings as their business has reached a level of complexity that is difficult to communicate via a deck or video conference.

The funding divide may widen for those outside Silicon Valley

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Twitter acquires screen-sharing social app Squad

Today, Twitter announced that it is acquiring Squad and that the team from the screen-sharing social app will be joining Twitter’s ranks. Squad’s co-founders, CEO Esther Crawford and CTO Ethan Sutin, and the rest of the team will be coming aboard inside Twitter’s design, engineering and product departments, Twitter tells us. Crawford specifically notes that she will be leading a product in the conversations space.

What isn’t coming aboard is the actual Squad app, which allowed users to share their screens on mobile or desktop and simultaneously video chat, a feature that aimed to find the friend use case in screen-sharing beyond the enterprise use case of presenting. The app will be shutting down tomorrow, Twitter confirms, an unwelcome surprise for its user base largely made up of teen girls.

Twitter declined to share further terms of the deal.

Image via Twitter

The app’s functionality seems like a natural fit for the service, though the company did not confirm whether any tech was coming aboard as part of the deal. Twitter hasn’t been keen to keep separate apps functioning outside of the core Twitter app. Vine was infamously shut down, upsetting users who likely later rallied behind TikTok, a massive success story and perhaps one of the biggest missed opportunities for American social media companies. Meanwhile, Periscope which has largely bumbled along over the years, is in a particularly fragile place with app code emerging just today that indicates an impending shutdown for the app.

Squad was notably partnered closely with Snap and was an early adopter of many of the company’s Snap Kit developer tools. Building so much of the app using Snap’s developer tools could have made porting the tech to Twitter’s infrastructure a more complicated task, especially when considering how often Snap Kit apps are tied quite closely to the Snapchat user graph.

Squad, the ‘anti-bro startup,’ is creating a safe space for teenage girls online

Squad raised $7.2 million in venture capital from First Round, Y Combinator, betaworks, Halogen Ventures, ex-TechCrunch editor Alexia Bonatsos’s Dream Machine and a host of other investors. Squad was in the right place at the right time in early 2020. When the pandemic first struck, CEO Esther Crawford told TechCrunch that usage of her app spiked 1,100%.

Crawford spoke at length about the challenges of scaling a modern social app while avoiding the pitfalls of toxicity that so often seem to come with reaching new heights. In an interview with TechCrunch last year, she told us her team was “trying to learn from the best in what they did but get rid of the shit.”

In a Medium post, Crawford also took the opportunity of her startup’s exit to lobby investors to start backing more diverse founders.

“I hope that our exit will tip the scale a bit more toward convincing investors to put money into diverse teams because each success is another proof point that we, the historically under-capitalized and underestimated founders, are a good bet,” Crawford wrote in a Medium post. “Invest in women and people of color because we will make you money.”

Squad is the new screensharing chat app everyone will copy

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/37Tgh2S Twitter acquires screen-sharing social app Squad Lucas Matney https://ift.tt/3gCtQrj
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Don’t miss these breakout sessions at TC Sessions: Space 2020

Ready to blast off and join thousands of attendees around the world at TC Sessions: Space 2020 on December 16-17? The event, focused on space technology and dedicated to helping early-stage startups succeed in this exciting yet daunting industry, features panel discussions and interviews with the top leaders, visionaries and makers on the planet.

Want to save $50? Buy your pass before Tuesday, December 15 at 11:59 p.m. (PT) to lock in the Late Registration price before they increase.

While you’ll find many of these brilliant experts speaking from the Main Stage, don’t miss the focused programming we have lined up for the Breakout Sessions. That’s where you’ll find our partners sharing their in-depth expertise on a range of topics. Check out these breakouts waiting to drop a galaxy’s worth of knowledge on you.

Wednesday, December 16

(all times in PST)

9:00 – 10:00 a.m.

Fast Money- SMC Space Ventures, AFWERX and Space Force Accelerators

Learn how SMC Space Ventures, AFWERX and Space Force Accelerators work together to connect startups to government organizations and resources in the space industry.

10:00 – 11:00 a.m.

Sponsored by SP8CEVC

Introducing the launch of the World’s First Space Technology and Human Longevity focused Rolling Fund in partnership with AngelList

Fireside chat with the General Partners and team from SP8CEVC covering the verticals of Space Technology and Human Longevity.

11:00 – 11:30 a.m.

Fast Money – Working with the Army to Operationalize Science for Transformational Overmatch

Learn about DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory and the xTech Program of prize competitions that accelerate innovative solutions that can help solve Army challenges.

11:30 – 12:30 p.m.

Pitch Feedback Session

Join us for a pitch feedback session open to all startups exhibiting at TC Sessions: Space 2020 moderated by TechCrunch staff.

1:00 – 1:50 p.m.

Sponsored by The Aerospace Corporation

University Showcase – Boldly Innovating in Space, for Space (Part One)

Technologies to Go Boldly in Space – For the past half century, space exploration and technology has been earth-centric. We’ve studied the earth, orbited the earth and sent images of distant places back to earth. In the coming decade, we’ll embark on a new commitment: We’re going to space to stay. We’re committing to space commerce, space habitation and space exploration in order to not just stay in space, but to extend our human footprint into this solar system. To be successful, we need bold people and new technology to build and deploy the next generation of space capabilities. We need to capture these space opportunities, avoid potential threats and deliver on the promise of a multi-planet human race. This session showcases our partners USC and MIT, as they provide insight into their space programs. They are joined by university partners UCLA, ASU and Caltech, showcasing a range of emerging space technologies. Working with the Aerospace Corporation, these emerging capabilities can be evaluated and integrated into government space-faring missions for communicating, navigating, and exploring in space with NASA, NOAA and the Air Force.

 

Thursday, December 17

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.

Cislunar Space: Building a Self-Sustaining Lunar Economy

We are standing on the threshold of a post-scarcity human future. Cislunar space, the area between the Earth and the Moon, holds the keys to a tremendous wealth of opportunities.

9:30 – 10:00 a.m.

Fast Money – Advancing Space Technology with NASA SBIR

Learn about the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs powered by NASA.

10:00 – 10:30 a.m.

Fast Money — NAVWAR SBIR/STTR Primer: The SBIR/STTR is a robust program designed to help small businesses address government needs while promoting commercialization. This session is dedicated to providing a primer on the program with tips on getting involved and getting engaged with the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR).

10:30 – 11:00 a.m.

Fast Money — Introduction to In-Q-Tel’s investing activities in the commercial space sector: In-Q-Tel is a strategic investment firm that works with the national security community of the United States. For 20 years, In-Q-Tel has served one mission: to deliver the most sophisticated strategic technical knowledge and capabilities to the U.S. government and its allies through its unique investment model. Over the past decade, In-Q-Tel has been one of the most active investors in the commercial space sector, with a broad investment thesis that touches many aspects of the sector. This session will provide an overview of In-Q-Tel as a whole, as well as a discussion of the firm’s activities in the commercial space sector.

11:00 – 11:30 a.m.

Fast Money – Enabling a dual-use business model with Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)

Learn how you can take a part of DIU’s development of on-demand access to space, persistent satellite capabilities and broadband space data transfer

11:30 – 12:30 p.m.

Starburst x TechCrunch — Pitch Me to the Moon: Starburst Aerospace and TechCrunch are teaming up to launch a pitch competition like no other – Pitch Me to the Moon. Think the Startup Battlefield, but for space. Ten promising early-stage space startups (selected by Starburst) will have an opportunity to present their innovations live to a panel of high-profile judges from across the industry.

1:00 – 1:50 p.m.

Sponsored by The Aerospace Corporation

University Showcase – Boldly Innovating in Space, for Space (Part Two)

Bold Missions  – For the past half century, space exploration and technology has been earth-centric. We’ve studied the earth, orbited the earth and sent images of distant places back to earth. In the coming decade, we’ll embark on a new commitment: We’re going to space to stay. We’re committing to space commerce, space habitation and space exploration in order to not just stay in space, but to extend our human footprint into this solar system. To be successful, we need bold people and new technology to build and deploy the next generation of space capabilities. We need to capture these space opportunities, avoid potential threats and deliver on the promise of a multi-planet human race. This session showcases our partners USC and MIT, as they provide insight into their space programs. They are joined by university partners UCLA, ASU and Caltech, showcasing a range of emerging space technologies. Working with the Aerospace Corporation, these emerging capabilities can be evaluated and integrated into government space-faring missions for communicating, navigating, and exploring in space with NASA, NOAA and the Air Force.

Whew, talk about a great lineup. You might say it’s out-of-this-world — which raises the question: Can you hear a rimshot in space? Don’t forget to peruse the rest of our programming in the event agenda and start planning your schedule now.

Pro Tip: Say goodbye to FOMO. Our virtual platform makes it easy to toggle between the Main Stage and Breakout Sessions. Plus, you’ll have access to video on demand, so you won’t miss a beat (excluding the Expo Ticket).

Remember, late registration savings end on Tuesday, December 15 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). We also offer discount passes for groups, students, and government, military and non-profit employees. Buy the pass that’s right for you today!

Is your company interested in sponsoring TC Sessions: Space 2020? Click here to talk with us about available opportunities.

 

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Sweden’s Tink raises $103M as its open banking platform grows to 3,400 banks and 250M customers

Open banking platforms, where services that might not have previously lived next to each other are now joined up by way of APIs, has been one of the emerging trends of the last couple of years, and today one of the leaders in the space out of Europe has closed a round of funding to expand its business.

Tink, a startup out of Stockholm, Sweden that aggregates a number of banks and financial services by way of an API so that those can in turn be accessed via new channels, has raised €85 million (or $103 million at current rates), at a post-money valuation of €680 million (or around $825 million). It plans to use the capital to double down on expanding its network of banks and payment services in Europe. Tink already links up 3,400 banks, covering some 250 million people, with partners including PayPal, NatWest, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas, Nordea and SEB, some of which are also strategic investors. On the other side, it has some 8,000 developers using its APIs.

This latest tranche of funding is being co-led by new investor Eurazeo Growth and Dawn Capital, with PayPal Ventures, HMI Capital, Heartcore, ABN AMRO Ventures, Poste Italiane and BNP Paribas’ venture arm, Opera Tech Ventures, also participating.

The funding comes less than a year after it announced a round of €90 million ($105 million) in January 2020, and is more specifically an extension of that round. For context, that previous round was at a €415 million ($503 million) valuation, and the company has definitely grown since then: in January it said it had 2,500 banking partners in its network. It has now raised €175 million in total.

The last year — shaped by a global health pandemic — has been all about bringing more services online and into the cloud, so people and businesses that can no longer do things like banking or selling/shopping in person can still get things done. That has most definitely played out strongly in the world of financial services, with banks, bank competitors and their tech partners seeing a surge in demand for more flexible, digital channels.

“Despite the difficulties of 2020, it was a year of great growth for Tink,” said Daniel Kjellén, co-founder and CEO of Tink, in a statement. “2020 has seen payments powered by open banking take-off, and in 2021 we expect to see this scale – most prominently in the UK, followed by Europe. This funding extension will further facilitate the development of our payment initiation services across Europe, while continuing to deliver new data-products built on open banking technology to our customers.”

Tink is not the only company that is looking to capitalize on this. Just earlier this week, another startup, Unit, came out of stealth with $18.6 million in funding. It also has ambitions to provide a way to integrate banking features, and banks, into environments where they might have not previously existed. Others also linking up financial services and helping them integrate into other platforms and apps include Plaid and Rapyd.

Plaid is in the process of getting acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion, although that deal is currently under antitrust scrutiny. Rapyd remains VC-backed and was last valued at $1.3 billion. The proliferation and growth of these might prove to be a strong argument in favor of the market not being sewn up by Plaid (no pun intended), although having one owned by a single payments giant would definitely shift how the market is evolving.

DOJ files antitrust lawsuit challenging Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid

“The open banking movement continues to pick up pace, with 2021 showing every sign that it will bring increased collaboration between fintechs and large enterprises, who want to take digitally enabled services to their customers with a tried and trusted partner,” said Zoé Fabian, MD of Eurazeo Growth, in a statement. “Since its inception eight years ago, Tink has proven itself to be the leading open banking platform in Europe, and our investment underlines the confidence we and the industry have in Tink and open banking. We look forward to supporting them on their continued journey.”

Tink’s business is based around payment initiation technology, providing easy integrations into existing banking services, and then making a commission on transactions that subsequently take place. The company said that it currently processes around 1 million payment transactions per month in five markets.

Although it doesn’t specify the value of those transactions, or how much it makes itself, it notes that current customers include Kivra, a digital mailbox provider with 4 million adults in Sweden; and, as of earlier this year, payment fintech Lydia, with over 5 million customers. It is live in Sweden, U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands and the plan is to expand to 10 markets in 2021.

Lydia partners with Tink to improve open banking features

While the company will be using the funding to expand partnerships and its footprint, it’s also not shying away from inorganic growth. This year it made no less than three acquisitions to expand its business — a sign also of how there is likely more consolidation to come as not every company can find the scale and funding to grow in the current market. Tink’s acquisitions included Swedish credit decisioning firm Instantor, to expand in credit risk products; Spanish account aggregation provider Eurobits; and U.K. aggregation platform OpenWrks.

“Tink has truly emerged as Europe’s leading open banking platform and is quickly becoming a key strategic piece of financial technology infrastructure,” said Josh Bell, general partner of Dawn, in a statement. “We have seen activity across Tink’s network rapidly accelerate this year, with increasing adoption and implementation of open banking products and services across their platform. We are delighted to support Tink’s latest funding round, and look forward to working with the team across 2021 to expand the breadth and depth of its already considerable network of banks, accelerate the rollout of its account-to-account payments initiation solutions, and continue to deliver exceptional value to its fast-growing customer base.”

Unit raises $18.6M to offer banking features as a service

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Sweden’s Tink raises $103M as its open banking platform grows to 3,400 banks and 250M customers https://ift.tt/3gFcEl8

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Cosmos Video — a ‘Club Penguin for adults’ to socialise and work — raises $2.6M from LocalGlobe

All over the world startups are piling into the space marked “virtual interaction and collaboration”. What if a startup created a sort of “Club Penguin for adults”?

Step forward Cosmos Video, which has a virtual venues platform that allows people to work, hang out and socialize together. It has now raised $2.6 million in seed funding from LocalGlobe, with participation from Entrepreneur First, Andy Chung and Philipp Moehring (AngelList), and Omid Ashtari (former president of Citymapper).

Founders Rahul Goyal and Karan Baweja previously led product teams at Citymapper and TransferWise, respectively.

Cosmos allows users to create virtual venues by combining game mechanics with video chat. The idea is to bring back the kinds of serendipitous interactions we used to have in the real world. You choose an avatar, then meet up with their colleagues or friends inside a browser-based game. As you move your avatars closer to another person you can video chat with them, as you might in real life.

The competition is the incumbent video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, but calls on these platforms have a set agenda, and are timeboxed — they’re rigid and repetitive. On Cosmos you sit on the screen and consume one video call after another as you move around the space, so it is mimicking serendipity, after a fashion.

As well as having a social application, office colleagues can work collaboratively on tools such as whiteboards, Google documents and Figma, play virtual board games or gather around a table to chat.

Cosmos is currently being used in private beta by a select group of companies to host their offices and for social events such as Christmas parties. Others are using it to host events, meetup groups and family gatherings.

Co-founder Rahul Goyal said in a statement: “Once the pandemic hit, we both saw productivity surge in our respective teams but at the same time, people were missing the in-office culture. Video conferencing platforms provide a great service when it comes to meetings, but they lack spontaneity. Cosmos is a way to bring back that human connection we lack when we spend all day online, by providing a virtual world where you can play a game of trivia or pong after work with colleagues or gather round a table to celebrate a friend’s birthday.”

George Henry, partner at LocalGlobe, said: “We were really impressed with the vision and potential of Cosmos. Scaling live experiences online is one of the big internet frontiers where there are still so many opportunities. Now that the video infrastructure is in place, we believe products like Cosmos will enable new forms of live online experiences.”

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Cosmos Video — a ‘Club Penguin for adults’ to socialise and work — raises $2.6M from LocalGlobe https://ift.tt/3gyEu2m

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In public and private markets, cloud earnings and valuations heat up

This quarter, strong earnings results from public cloud companies were overshadowed by a seemingly endless IPO cycle. Another moment we somewhat missed over the last few weeks was the stock market pushing the value of public cloud companies to all-time highs.

These events are connected. And they bode well for startups working on SaaS and API-delivered software, which are keeping the climate for cloud venture investment warm and valuations stretched by historical norms.

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The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

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The earnings results that have made Wall Street content include a growing number of cloud companies that are seeing revenue growth accelerate from Q2 2020 to Q3 2020, according to a recent analysis by Redpoint’s Jamin Ball.

Astute readers will recall that The Exchange chatted with Ball after the Q2 earnings cycle, a conversation that included puzzling over how to square a nearly-uniform deceleration in revenue growth from Q1 to Q2 in the software sector, which, at the very same time, was supposedly undergoing a boom in demand thanks to the pandemic and a suddenly remote workforce.

One hypothesis Ball offered was that deals signed in Q2 by SaaS companies would not show up much until Q3 if they were signed in the back-half of the quarter. Regardless of the reason, Q3 featured a far-stronger crop of cloud results that imply a strengthening sector.

For us startup watchers on the hunt for a hint of what is going on in opaque private markets, this is a useful datapoint. If you’ve been slightly befuddled as to why the venture capital space has seen deals accelerate with time-to-conviction falling from weeks to minutes — and pre-emption the new normal — this is part of the why.

As the future has been pulled forward when it comes to digitizing the American and global economies, it’s a good time to be a software company. This was visible in SaaS company Smartsheet’s earnings this quarter. The Exchange chatted with CEO Mark Mader about his company’s recent earnings results that beat expectations and led to the company’s shares rising. Analyst upgrades have followed.

This morning, let’s examine the data regarding how many cloud companies are seeing revenue growth accelerate, dig into Smartsheet’s results to see what we can learn (hint: SMBs matter), and then apply all our findings to the startup market itself so that we can go into the weekend as informed as possible.

Public acceleration

At the risk of being cheeky, I’ve embedded Ball’s chart concerning Q3 revenue acceleration from cloud companies below. (If you are into similar datasets, he’s worth following on Twitter.) Here’s the data:

This chart shows Q2’s cloud year-over-year growth rates subtracted from Q3’s own; a result greater than one shows that a company’s year-over-year growth accelerated from the second quarter to the third. The higher the number of cloud companies that wind up with a result of 1% or greater in the above chart, the faster the cloud market as a whole is accelerating.

https://ift.tt/2YAJc8v In public and private markets, cloud earnings and valuations heat up https://ift.tt/33ZSVr2

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In&motion raises $12 million for its wearable airbag systems

French startup In&motion has raised a $12 million (€10 million) funding round led by Upfront Ventures with 360 Capital also participating. The company has been working on wearable airbag systems for motorbikes.

Integrated in a vest, the airbag is completely autonomous and can detect crashes in 60 milliseconds. The company has worked on a device called the In&box that analyzes movements in real time. Thanks to different sensors, the device can determine when it’s time to activate the airbag.

In&motion has worked on different profiles for different types of activities. For instance, if you’re riding a motorcycle on a MotoGP track, chances are you’re going to move faster and change your trajectory quite often. You can choose between traditional motorcycle riding, track and off-road.

Professional racers are also increasingly using airbag systems. In addition to MotoGP racers, participants in the 2021 Dakar Rallye will have to use airbags.

The go-to-market strategy is interesting as the startup isn’t selling its system directly to end users. In&motion has partnered with existing motorcycle brands so that they can integrate the system in some vests. This way, In&motion doesn’t have to build out a network of resellers from scratch. So far, the company has sold tens of thousands of systems.

There’s also a subscription component with unlimited warranty and the ability to replace the In&box device with a new model after three years.

With today’s funding round, the company wants to expand beyond its home country with a focus on Germany and the U.S. The company plans to double the size of its team.

Image Credits: In&motion

https://ift.tt/3qPUAZU In&motion raises $12 million for its wearable airbag systems https://ift.tt/2Kbo83w

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Gorillas, the on-demand grocery delivery startup taking Berlin by storm, has raised $44M Series A

Gorillas, a grocery delivery startup that operates its own hyper local fulfillment centers and has already been a hit in Berlin, has raised $44 million in Series A funding.

Probably one of European tech’s worst kept secrets this year, the round is led by hedge fund Coatue, with participation from other unnamed European investors. Coatue’s Daniel Senft and Bennett Siegel will join Gorillas‘ board.

Noteworthy, Accel and Index were reportedly in the running, but ultimately didn’t invest. Atlantic Food Labs previously backed Gorillas in a seed round thought to be around €1.2 million.

Founded by Kağan Sümer and Jörg Kattner in May this year and operating in Berlin and Cologne, Gorillas delivers groceries within an average of ten minutes. Unlike gig economy models, it employs riders directly and is emphasising its ability to get fresh groceries, along with other household items, to shoppers at very short notice and at “retail prices”. The idea is that the startup can address a large part of the groceries market that falls outside of a weekly bulk shop.

Some have dubbed the model that Gorillas is attempting to make work, “dark” convenience stores, in reference to the dark kitchens that run on top of Deliveroo and UberEats and operate as delivery only restaurants. In this instance, Gorillas and other European competitors, such as Dija (which we reported is closing its own large funding round) and Weezy, are building out local delivery only grocery/convenience stores. These startups are also often compared to goPuff in the U.S.

Gorillas CEO Kağan Sümer says that mass supermarkets, including their delivery models, are designed so that the consumer organises their grocery shopping around the needs of the supermarket and supply chain, rather than the supermarket being designed around the needs of the consumer.

This sees an emphasis on long shelf life products, where even fresh goods are treated for longer expiry dates, and a model that serves the weekly bulk shop well, but at the detriment of two other use-cases: “emergency” shopping, such as when you’re missing a key ingredient, or quickly replenishing your fridge based on what you fancy consuming right now.

“The biggest problem is that bulk purchases are super served. What I mean by that is this: all of the supermarket infrastructure is shaped around bulk purchases,” Sümer tells me, arguing that this leaves one third of the market underserved.

“You have penne but no Arrabiata; how do you get that sauce that you need now? [There is] no way.

“So we asked ourselves, what would happen if a company pops up and serves people with what they need when they need it? Our hypothesis was that people would appreciate it and shift their interaction with groceries to more on demand purchases”.

With a slogan that reads: “Faster than you,” and a delivery fee of just €1.80, one question mark over Gorillas (and others in the space) is if the unit economics can ever stack up, especially at scale and if the company really isn’t marking up prices significantly. “Through our procurement relationships, we have healthy margins which allow us to sell at retail prices,” says Sümer, pushing back. “Taking into account the solid basket sizes and procurement margins we are able to build a long-term sustainable business”.

He says the average delivery time is 10 minutes. “Through our network of centrally located fulfillment centers we are able to service customers in a small delivery radius. Ultimately we strive to deliver an efficient and fast service with full transparency on delivery times,” adds the Gorillas CEO.

Meanwhile, Gorillas says the new funding will be used for expansion across Germany and will accelerate its rollout across more of Europe — first stop, Amsterdam. Additionally, the company will use the capital to build out its team in Berlin. More ambitious, by the end of Q2 next year, Gorillas says it plans to be available in over 15 cities in Germany and across Europe, operating over 60 fulfillment centers.

Dija, a new delivery startup from former Deliveroo employees, is closing in on a $20M round led by Blossom

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Gorillas, the on-demand grocery delivery startup taking Berlin by storm, has raised $44M Series A https://ift.tt/3gzwG0g

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Twitter app code indicates that live video broadcasting app Periscope may get shut down

Twitter has been doubling down on video services within its app, building out Twitter Live and recently launching Fleets so that users can share more moving media alongside their pithy 180-word observations, links and still photos. But in the process, it appears that it may also be streamlining its bigger stable of services. Code in the Twitter app indicates that Periscope — the live video broadcasting app that launched a thousand fluttering hearts — may be headed into retirement.

Date and other details are still unknown, but super-sleuth developer Jane Machun Wong found a line in Twitter’s app code that indicated a link to a shutdown notice for Periscope (which currently does not go to a live link).

This text found inside Twitter’s app indicates the shutdown notice might be shown in future versions of the Periscope app, directing users to a FAQ page about the app pic.twitter.com/gGrNNxRLL7

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) December 11, 2020

There are no shutdown references in any of the code in the currently obtainable version of the Persicope app, Wong told us, but she also pointed out that the two apps do share some code — indeed there are integrations between the two Twitter-owned apps — and “I guess [that] is how the text in the screenshot got slipped into Twitter,” she said.

We are reaching out to Twitter for a response to her discovery and will update as we learn more.

If this does play out with Periscope getting retired, it would be the end of a five-year run for the app.

Twitter acquired Periscope before it had even launched (we broke the news of the acquisition before that), as part of a bold move to double down on video, and specifically live video. At the time, the move was coming as Twitter was really coming into its own as a platform for media companies, “citizen journalists” and simply people who wanted to get the word out more widely on whatever they were thinking about or doing.

At the time, Twitter was also eyeing up and apparently trying to stem the viral growth of Meerkat, “the” app of 2015. That was not going to be an issue for the long run, though. Eventually Meerkat, either because of Periscope or because of the cyclical nature of hype, did fizzle out, only to relaunch as interactive video chat app Houseparty, which eventually got noticed by Fortnite maker Epic, who then bought it.

Periscope, meanwhile, took a different route as part of Twitter from the very start of its launched life.

It remained a standalone app, but its team and specifically founder Kayvon Beykpour became a close and critical part of all of Twitter’s product development.

And the central feature of Periscope the app became a native part of the Twitter app, Twitter Live “powered by Periscope” which has been expanded with API access and other features. Twitter itself promotes Twitter Live content, not Periscope’s: you can follow @TwitterLive to get highlights of some of the people and organizations using the live feature in the app. (Other leading social apps like Instagram and Facebook have taken a similar route, offering live video features but more as embedded parts of the main platforms, rather than standalone apps where live is front and center.)

Periscope, you might say, has in the meantime been dying a slow death as a standalone brand and app. But it’s not a new story: my former (missed!) colleague Josh pointed out it was sinking at the end of 2016.

Still, it’s just about been bobbing along. AppAnnie’s rankings indicate that it’s essentially among the top 100 social networking apps in most markets — maybe not a bad figure considering how big app stores are now — although when looking at overall rankings, Periscope is generally too low to register in any major markets.

Indeed, it’s definitely not an app that has much buzz, not least because of its owner being popular, but also because video fads have taken a different, TikTok-style turn of late.

The TikTok effect is an interesting one to consider here. Earlier this year it was reported that Twitter was among those interested in potentially acquiring TikTok when the popular app, owned by China’s ByteDance, found itself in some regulatory hot water over national security interests (that is a different story, still playing out and seemingly in limbo right now). Some of the apparent reasoning for Twitter’s interest? It never really got past its regret over killing off Vine.

Vine, if you recall, was the popular short-form video app that Twitter acquired, grew really well for a while as it saw it gain some entertaining virality, but then shut down to focus more attention on — yep — Periscope.

Many in retrospect have wondered “what could have been” had Twitter held on to Vine, and put the effort and investment into building it out. (Or indeed, what could have happened if it never sold to Twitter in the first place, but that is also a different story.)

If Periscope sinking away is on the cards, it’s a question that probably still bears asking — what could have been? Even with live video within Twitter’s app, it’s not the star of the show. One can’t help but wonder if live video might next appear front and center elsewhere, made by a different company, much like short-form video finally had its day in a ByteDance way.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Twitter app code indicates that live video broadcasting app Periscope may get shut down Ingrid Lunden https://ift.tt/3a1TDIb
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With another $2.5 million in funding, Julia Collins’ Planet FWD launches climate-friendly snack brand

Planet FWD, the climate-friendly food startup founded by Zume co-founder Julia Collins, is today launching its first product, Moonshot Snacks. The climate-friendly snack is carbon neutral, organic, kosher, plant-based, non-GMO and has no sugar added.

The crackers come in three flavors: sourdough sea salt, rosemary garlic and tomato basil. A box of crackers costs $5.99.

Planet FWD is also announcing an additional $2.5 million in funding led by Emerson Collective, Concrete Rose, MCJ Collective and Arlan Hamilton, as well as existing investors, including BBG Ventures, January Ventures and Kapor Capital, among others. This is on top of the $2.7 million the startup announced earlier this year.

What’s unique about Planet FWD’s Moonshot Snacks is that it uses ingredients from farmers that use regenerative agriculture practices. Regenerative agriculture is a farming technique that aims to reverse the effects of climate change by capturing carbon in soil and aboveground biomass, which ultimately increases biodiversity, enriches soils and improves watersheds.

“We want to engage customers and show them they have the power to address climate change just with the way they eat,” Collins told TechCrunch. “We can use our food choices as a way to promote better farm management practices and company practices that can help decarbonize the environment.”

Ideally, Planet FWD will be able to show there’s consumer demand for climate-friendly products, Collins said. From there, she hopes that would encourage more farmers to implement these regenerative agriculture practices.

Unlike organic foods, where those specific farms are relatively well-known and identified, that can’t be said for regenerative agriculture. This is where the software element of Planet FWD comes in.

Additionally, Planet FWD is alpha testing a carbon impact assessment. So, if a brand wanted to determine what its current greenhouse gas impact is for its products, the tool could break down where it comes from — whether that’s the packaging, the ingredients, the distribution, etc. From there, the tool would recommend how to reduce the product’s greenhouse gas impact.

“Frankly, I think it’s a privilege to be alive and aware during this time where this is this window of opportunity to address climate change,” Collins said. “We can’t stop it. We can’t reverse it. But we can address it so it’s still possible for people to live on this planet. But the window is closing.”

Moonshot Snacks begins shipping today via its website. On December 16, it will be available via plastic-free grocery store Zero and will have a more traditional retail launch next year.

Planet FWD will create other products down the line, like cookies and chips. But first and foremost, the company’s road map is driven by the supply chain and understanding where there are opportunities to convert farms to regenerative practices.

“Through its sustainable and climate-friendly ingredient platform, Planet FWD is building a movement of more climate-conscious farmers and producers who can lead us toward a better, more sustainable future,” Fern Mandelbaum, managing director at Emerson Collective, said in a statement. “Through Julia’s inclusive leadership and passion, Planet FWD is helping create a new standard for the food industry and its role in being part of climate solutions.”

Zume co-founder goes from pizza to climate-friendly food with $2.7 million in funding

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J With another $2.5 million in funding, Julia Collins’ Planet FWD launches climate-friendly snack brand https://ift.tt/342tcyl

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LeafLink raises $40M from Founders Fund, others to cultivate its cannabis wholesale market

LeafLink is today announcing it raised a $40 million Series C financing round, led by Founders Fund with participation from Thrive Capital, Nosara Capital and Lerer Hippeau. This round of financing brings the total amount raised by the company to more than $90 million.

This financing round is Founder Fund’s largest technology investment in the cannabis space.

Since its founding in 2015 LeafLink has become a significant player in legal cannabis. With a 130 employees and operating in 27 markets, the company says it has 32% of the U.S. wholesale cannabis market, resulting in an annualized gross merchandise value of over $3 billion. LeafLink sees the Series C in helping grow the business through new processes and services.

“This fundraising round is monumental for a technology company like LeafLink as we continue to define a space that shows no signs of slowing down,” Ryan G. Smith, co-founder and CEO of LeafLink, said in a released statement. “We’re honored to partner with Founders Fund as we scale our marketplace technology across the growing cannabis industry. Our eyes are set on bringing efficiency and innovation to the supply chain, and we’re excited for cannabis to serve as a model for more legacy industries in the future.”

Right now, LeafLink serves as a critical service for the cannabis market by connecting retailers with suppliers and providing supply chain liquidity through its e-commerce marketplace. With the additional $40 million, the company expects to expand its offering with new brands and retailers and expand into the new markets opened up by the 2020 election.

“The U.S. appears to be on a path to full federal legalization over the next few years,” said Founders Fund partner Napoleon Ta. “We believe we’ll start to see some massive success stories in the cannabis space as regulations change and that LeafLink will be one of the winners.”

In a statement to TechCrunch, Ta says LeafLink is a tech-enabled wholesale marketplace connecting thousands of wholesalers and retail buyers. He sees the investment as a great opportunity to work with a company he and Founders Fund see has the potential to bring an entire industry onto one platform.

“We invested in LeafLink because the team is merging best practices from e-commerce marketplaces with B2B technology to streamline an entire industry’s supply chain and operations,” said Ta. “We’re excited to make our largest investment in the cannabis space to date in LeafLink.”

Weed stocks are hitting new highs after Biden win

Cannabis legalization measures set to pass in 5 states

Curio Wellness launches $30M fund to help women and minorities own a cannabis dispensary

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J LeafLink raises $40M from Founders Fund, others to cultivate its cannabis wholesale market https://ift.tt/3a05VR9

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