Data scientists: don’t be afraid to explore new avenues

Ilyes Kacher Contributor

Ilyes Kacher is a data scientist at autoRetouch, an AI-powered platform for bulk-editing product images online.

I’m a native French data scientist who cut his teeth as a research engineer in computer vision in Japan and later in my home country. Yet I’m writing from an unlikely computer vision hub: Stuttgart, Germany.

But I’m not working on German car technology, as one would expect. Instead, I found an incredible opportunity mid-pandemic in one of the most unexpected places: An ecommerce-focused, AI-driven, image-editing startup in Stuttgart focused on automating the digital imaging process across all retail products.

My experience in Japan taught me the difficulty of moving to a foreign country for work. In Japan, having a point of entry with a professional network can often be necessary. However, Europe has an advantage here thanks to its many accessible cities. Cities like Paris, London, and Berlin often offer diverse job opportunities while being known as hubs for some specialties.

While there has been an uptick in fully remote jobs thanks to the pandemic, extending the scope of your job search will provide more opportunities that match your interest.

Search for value in unlikely places, like retail

I’m working at the technology spin-off of a luxury retailer, applying my expertise to product images. Approaching it from a data scientist’s point of view, I immediately recognized the value of a novel application for a very large and established industry like retail.

Europe has some of the most storied retail brands in the world — especially for apparel and footwear. That rich experience provides an opportunity to work with billions of products and trillions of dollars in revenue that imaging technology can be applied to. The advantage of retail companies is a constant flow of images to process that provides a playing ground to generate revenue and possibly make an AI company profitable.

Another potential avenue to explore are independent divisions typically within an R&D department. I found a significant number of AI startups working on a segment that isn’t profitable, simply due to the cost of research and the resulting revenue from very niche clients.

Companies with data are companies with revenue potential

I was particularly attracted to this startup because of the potential access to data. Data by itself is quite expensive and a number of companies end up working with a finite set. Look for companies that directly engage at the B2B or B2C level, especially retail or digital platforms that affect front-end user interface.

Leveraging such customer engagement data benefits everyone. You can apply it towards further research and development on other solutions within the category, and your company can then work with other verticals on solving their pain points.

It also means there’s massive potential for revenue gains the more cross-segments of an audience the brand affects. My advice is to look for companies with data already stored in a manageable system for easy access. Such a system will be beneficial for research and development.

The challenge is that many companies haven’t yet introduced such a system, or they don’t have someone with the skills to properly utilize it. If you finding a company isn’t willing to share deep insights during the courtship process or they haven’t implemented it, look at the opportunity to introduce such data-focused offerings.

In Europe, the best bets involve creating automation processes

I have a sweet spot for early-stage companies that give you the opportunity to create processes and core systems. The company I work for was still in its early days when I started, and it was working towards creating scalable technology for a specific industry. The questions that the team was tasked with solving were already being solved, but there were numerous processes that still had to be put into place to solve a myriad of other issues.

Our year-long efforts to automate bulk image editing taught me that as long as the AI you’re building learns to run independently across multiple variables simultaneously (multiple images and workflows), you’re developing a technology that does what established brands haven’t been able to do. In Europe, there are very few companies doing this and they are hungry for talent who can.

So don’t be afraid of a little culture shock and take the leap.

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Extra Crunch roundup: Pre-pitch tactics, Warby Parker S-1, Israel’s fintech ecosystem

Forget what you’ve heard: There are many shortcuts to success.

Tapping into someone else’s experience is a tried-and-true method, which is why two-time Y Combinator participant Chris Morton wrote a guest post for Extra Crunch with advice for founders hoping to be accepted by the famed accelerator.

Morton, who has also reviewed thousands of YC applications, shares his thoughts on when to submit an application, what to do if you miss the deadline and whether you’ll need to relocate if accepted.

“Remember that your application should be good enough to get an interview, not win a prize,” says Morton. “Go back to work instead of spending more time perfecting an application.”

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Image Credits: Robert Katai under a license.

In an interview with reporter Anna Heim, Romania-based marketer Robert Katai discussed some of the methods he uses to help clients refine their content and branding strategies.

“Today, content creation is free — everybody can do it. The hard part is how you distribute and amplify that.”

Katai also shared his impressions of Romania’s startup ecosystem, suggestions for maintaining top-of-mind status with customers, and reinforced the often-overlooked need to continually repurpose content to grab mindshare.

Like our other growth marketing interviews, there’s no paywall.

Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch this week! I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist

You can’t hack your YC application, but here’s what to avoid

Why global investors are flocking to back Latin American startups

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

Latin America’s increasingly dynamic venture capital scene has been making headlines of late. To learn more about why investors are so enthusiastic, senior reporter Mary Ann Azevedo spoke to several who are actively engaged with the region:

• Shu Nyatta, managing partner, SoftBank
• Ethan Choi, partner, Accel
• Julie Ruvolo, director of venture capital, LAVCA
• Bill Cilluffo, partner, QED Investors
• Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria, principal, QED Investors
• Ross Darwin, principal, Owl Ventures

“I am not surprised by all the activity,” Mary Ann writes. “However, I am a bit taken aback by the sheer number of rounds, the caliber of firms leading them and the sky-high valuations.

“It seems that the region is finally, and deservedly, being taken seriously. This is likely just the beginning.”

Why global investors are flocking to back Latin American startups

Corporate venture capital follows the same trend as other VC markets: Up

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

Corporations are not remaining on the sidelines of the fiery 2021 venture capital game, Alex Wilhelm and Anna Heim note in The Exchange.

After parsing data from CB Insights and Stryber and chatting with a handful of investors, Alex and Anna concluded that the corporate venture capital market looks a lot like other VC markets.

“Perhaps this should not be a surprise,” they write. “We’ve seen non-venture funds flow into the later stages of startup land, pushing VCs toward earlier-stage and more venture-y deals. Why would CVCs be immune to the same trend?”

Corporate venture capital follows the same trend as other VC markets: Up

Ramp and Brex draw diverging market plans with M&A strategies

Image Credits: Bryan Mullennix (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Corporate spending management startup Brex raised a $300 million Series C and acquired Buyer just a week after rival Brex announced it had acquired Israeli fintech Weav.

Ryan Lawler and Alex Wilhelm dug into the Ramp-Brex rivalry, and what those acquisitions say about their diverging strategies.

“From a high level, all of the recent deal-making in corporate cards and spend management shows that it’s not enough to just help companies track what employees are expensing these days,” they write.

“As the market matures and feature sets begin to converge, the players are seeking to differentiate themselves from the competition.”

Ramp and Brex draw diverging market plans with M&A strategies

Boston’s startup market is more than setting records in scorching start to year

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

Alex Wilhelm and Anna Heim interviewed VCs and corralled data to present a detailed picture of Boston’s startup funding scene.

“Boston is benefiting from larger structural changes to at least the U.S. venture capital market, helping close historical gaps in its startup funding market and access funds that previously might have skipped the region,” they write.

“And local university density isn’t hurting the city’s cause, either, boosting its ability to form new companies during a period of rich investment access.”

Boston’s startup market is more than setting records in scorching start to year

Europe’s quick-commerce startups are overhyped: Lessons from China

Image Credits: Andrew Holt (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Half of the companies offering instant grocery delivery in Europe were founded last year as the pandemic reshaped most aspects of our existence.

To date, they’ve raised about $2 billion, but Picus Capital’s Alexander Kremer says startup lessons from China suggest that “instant delivery is not the magic bullet to crack the dominance” of old-school grocery players.

“If the performance of online grocery platforms in China (a market five to seven years ahead of Europe in terms of online retail) is anything to go by, a range of B2C business models would be more likely to displace the traditional grocery retailers.”

Europe’s quick-commerce startups are overhyped: Lessons from China

D2C specs purveyor Warby Parker files to go public

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

For The Exchange, Alex Wilhelm examines the S-1 filing from Warby Parker, “a consumer hardware company with two main sales channels, largely attractive economics, falling losses and rising adjusted profitability. You could even argue that it handled the pandemic well, despite COVID-19’s negative impact on its operations.”

But how are its growth prospects?

D2C specs purveyor Warby Parker files to go public

Dear Sophie: Can I still get a green card through marriage if I’m divorcing?

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

Dear Sophie,

I received a conditional green card after my wife and I got married in 2019. Recently, we have made the difficult decision to end our marriage. I want to continue living and working in the United States.

Is it still possible for me to complete my green card based on my marriage through the I-751 process or do I need to do something else, like ask my employer to sponsor me for a work visa?

— Better to Have Loved and Lost

Dear Sophie: Can I still get a green card through marriage if I’m divorcing?

Using AI to reboot brand-client relationships

Image Credits: Getty Images under an alashi (opens in a new window)license.

Marketing automation can help boost key metrics, but it can also be a disservice to brands by perpetually devaluing goods and services, ShareThis’ Michael Gorman writes in a guest column.

Companies with a narrow focus on driving conversions are missing the bigger picture: AI can help create richer experiences that identify consumer actions and intent while also improving customer experiences.

“We live in a world rich with data, and insights are growing more vibrant every day,” he writes.

Using AI to reboot brand-client relationships

Israel’s maturing fintech ecosystem may soon create global disruptors

Image Credits: Thitima Thongkham (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Fintech startups based in Israel raised more than $1.8 billion in 2019, but in Q1 2021, companies in the category raised $1.1 billion.

Facilitating a wide range of services, more than a dozen fintech unicorns have already emerged in a country that has a population slightly smaller than Los Angeles County, many of them started by entrepreneurs who lacked financial backgrounds.

“So what is it about Israeli-founded fintech startups that stand out from their scaling neighbors across the pond?” asks Flint Capital’s Tel Aviv-based investor, Adi Levanon.

Israel’s maturing fintech ecosystem may soon create global disruptors

Forbes jumps into hot media liquidity summer with a SPAC combo

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

For The Exchange, Alex Wilhelm takes stock of Forbes’ SPAC combination during a week when POLITICO was snatched up for more than $1 billion by Axel Springer and just a few months after BuzzFeed went public via a blank-check company.

“Is it the most exciting debut? No,” he writes.

“But it does highlight that with enough sheer gumption, one can take a magazine business into the digital age and keep aggregate revenue growing. That’s worth something.”

Forbes jumps into hot media liquidity summer with a SPAC combo

Are B2B SaaS marketers getting it wrong?

Image Credits: mevans (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Technical jargon is one of the most annoying aspects of technology marketing.

Sadly, it tends to perpetuate itself: Marketers are terrified of making a wrong move, so they tend to copy what everyone else is doing.

If you want to attract customers and drive higher conversions, cut the jargon.

“Do everything you can to be immediately understood and you’ll have a much better chance of cutting through the noise and pushing clear and persuasive benefits in a way no prospect can resist,” advises Konrad Sanders, CEO of The Creative Copywriter.

Are B2B SaaS marketers getting it wrong?

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The pre-pitch: 7 ways to build relationships with VCs

Evan Fisher Contributor

Founder of Unicorn Capital and Minimal Capital, Evan Fisher's pitching and investor strategy has helped startups raise more than $2.5 billion.

More posts by this contributor

• Don’t send VC a cold deck ever again: Start sending video pitches

Most founders fall into an extremely common trap: Just because you produced outstanding results for the last round of investors doesn’t mean new investors will believe you. This new cohort hasn’t seen that performance firsthand, and they have no reason to trust you yet.

As a founder approaching your next round, it’s common to wonder, “How do I get this new group of investors to trust that I will perform?”

In our experience, founders who fundraise successfully are great at building relationships, and they usually deliver what we call “the pre-pitch.” This is the “we actually aren’t looking for money; we just want to be friends for now” pitch that gets you on an investor’s radar so that when it’s time to raise your next round, they’ll be far more likely to answer the phone because they actually know who you are.

But the concept of the pre-pitch goes deeper than just having potential investors be aware of your existence. Building relationships with potential future investors requires you to think less like a founder and more like a marketer — much of the relationship heavy lifting comes long before it’s time to ask for a capital commitment.

If an investor has made a deal in your space, there’s a good chance they know an earlier-round investor who could potentially be a good fit for you today.

There’s a host of advantages to the pre-pitch approach:

• Good practice: You’re not asking for money. Instead, you’re offering a sneak peek. Since your relationship-builder pre-pitch doesn’t have millions on the line, you’ll invariably be less anxious, which leads to better relationships. Remember: If it’s not a good fit, who cares?
• Candid feedback: When you’re not asking for money, you’re more likely to receive honest feedback that you might not get in a high-stakes environment.
• Set the baseline: You should go over where you’re currently at, why it’s actually not time to raise capital quite yet (the inverse of “Why Now”), and what you still have to accomplish until the time is right.
• Performance-based trust: Put your performance where your mouth is by showing your potential investor where you are today and what you expect to do in the short term. Later on, you can prove to them that you achieved what you said you would.

7 ways to build relationships with VCs

Now you’re probably wondering, “What the heck do I say to build a good relationship with that next-round investor?” Here are a few notes on how to approach the pre-pitch:

Seek the relationship, not the money

Acknowledge you’re early, but mention that you think it could potentially be a good fit later on. State it up front that you’re seeking a relationship and want to find out if you could eventually be a good fit for one another. Don’t sneak in an ask; let the relationship blossom organically.

Here’s an example: “We’re actually not raising yet, and we’re probably too early for you. But I think this is something you might be very interested in, and thought it made sense to reach out, open up a relationship and see if there might be a fit.”

Don’t waste time

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Stipop offers developers and creators instant access to a huge global sticker library

With more than 270,000 stickers, Stipop’s library of colorful, character-driven expressions has a little something for everyone.

The company offers keyboard and social app stickers through ad-supported mobile apps on iOS and Android, but it’s recently focused more on providing stickers to developers, creators and other online businesses.

“We were able to gather so many artists because we actually began as our own app that provided stickers,” Stipop co-founder Tony Park told TechCrunch. The team took what they learned from running their own consumer-facing app — namely that collecting and licensing hundreds of thousands of stickers from artists around the world is hard work — and adapted their business to help solve that problem for others.

Stipop was the first Korean company to go through Yellow, Snapchat’s exclusive accelerator. The company is also part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 cohort.

Stipop’s sticker library is accessible through an SDK and an API, letting developers slot the searchable sticker library into their existing software. The company already has more than 200 companies that tap into its huge sticker trove, which offers a “single-day solution” for a process that would otherwise necessitate a lot more legwork. Stipop launched a website recently that helps developers integrate its SDK and API through quick installs.

“They can just add a single line of code inside their product and will have a fully customized sticker feature [so] users will be able to spice up their chats,” Park said.

Park points out that stickers encourage engagement — and for social software, engagement means growth. Stickers are a playful way to send characters back and forth in chat, but they also pop up in a number of other less obvious spots, from dating apps to e-commerce and ridesharing apps. Stipop even drives the sticker search in work collaboration software Microsoft Teams.

The company has already partnered with Google, which uses Stipop’s sticker library in Gboard, Android Messages and Tenor, a GIF keyboard platform that Google bought in 2018. That partnership drove 600 million sticker views within the first month. A new partnership between Stipop and Coca-Cola on the near horizon will add Coke-branded stickers to its sticker library and the company is opening its doors to more brands that understand the unique appeal of stickers in messaging apps.

Park says that people tend to compare stickers and gifs, two ways of wordlessly expressing emotion and social nuance, but stickers are a world unto themselves. Stickers exist in their own creative universe, with star artists, regional themes and original casts of characters that take on a life of their own among fans. “Sticker creators have their own profession,” Park said.

Visual artists can also find a lot of traction releasing stickers, even without sophisticated illustrations. And since they’re all about meaning rather than refinement, non-designers and less skilled artists can craft hit stickers too.

“Stickers are great for them because it [is] so easy to go viral,” Park said. The company has partnered with 8,000 sticker creators across 25 languages, helping those artists monetize their creations and generate income based on how many times a sticker is shared.

Stickers command their own visual language around the world, and Park has observed interesting cultural differences in how people use them to communicate. In the West, stickers are often used in place of text, but in Asia, where they’re used much more frequently, people usually send stickers to enhance rather than replace the meaning of text.

In East Asia, users tend to prefer simple black and white stickers, but in India and Saudi Arabia, bright, golden stickers top the trends. In South America, popular stickers take on a more pixelated, unique quality that resonates culturally there.

“With stickers, you fall in love with [the] characters you send… that becomes you,” Park said.

Google is acquiring GIF platform Tenor

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Stipop offers developers and creators instant access to a huge global sticker library https://ift.tt/3sSdwsw

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Stipop offers developers and creators instant access to a huge global sticker library

With more than 270,000 stickers, Stipop’s library of colorful, character-driven expressions has a little something for everyone.

The company offers keyboard and social app stickers through ad-supported mobile apps on iOS and Android, but it’s recently focused more on providing stickers to developers, creators and other online businesses.

“We were able to gather so many artists because we actually began as our own app that provided stickers,” Stipop co-founder Tony Park told TechCrunch. The team took what they learned from running their own consumer-facing app — namely that collecting and licensing hundreds of thousands of stickers from artists around the world is hard work — and adapted their business to help solve that problem for others.

Stipop was the first Korean company to go through Yellow, Snapchat’s exclusive accelerator. The company is also part of Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 cohort.

Stipop’s sticker library is accessible through an SDK and an API, letting developers slot the searchable sticker library into their existing software. The company already has more than 200 companies that tap into its huge sticker trove, which offers a “single-day solution” for a process that would otherwise necessitate a lot more legwork. Stipop launched a website recently that helps developers integrate its SDK and API through quick installs.

“They can just add a single line of code inside their product and will have a fully customized sticker feature [so] users will be able to spice up their chats,” Park said.

Park points out that stickers encourage engagement — and for social software, engagement means growth. Stickers are a playful way to send characters back and forth in chat, but they also pop up in a number of other less obvious spots, from dating apps to ecommerce and ridesharing apps. Stipop even drives the sticker search in work collaboration software Microsoft Teams.

The company has already partnered with Google, which uses Stipop’s sticker library in Gboard, Android Messages and Tenor, a GIF keyboard platform that Google bought in 2018. That partnership drove 600 million sticker views within the first month. A new partnership between Stipop and Coca-Cola on the near horizon will add Coke-branded stickers to its sticker library and the company is opening its doors to more brands that understand the unique appeal of stickers in messaging apps.

Park says that people tend to compare stickers and gifs, two ways of wordlessly expressing emotion and social nuance, but stickers are a world unto themselves. Stickers exist in their own creative universe, with star artists, regional themes and original casts of characters that take on a life of their own among fans. “Sticker creators have their own profession,” Park said.

Visual artists can also find a lot of traction releasing stickers, even without sophisticated illustrations. And since they’re all about meaning rather than refinement, non-designers and less skilled artists can craft hit stickers too.

“Stickers are great for them because it [is] so easy to go viral,” Park said. The company has partnered with 8,000 sticker creators across 25 languages, helping those artists monetize their creations and generate income based on how many times a sticker is shared.

Stickers command their own visual language around the world, and Park has observed interesting cultural differences in how people use them to communicate. In the West, stickers are often used in place of text, but in Asia, where they’re used much more frequently, people usually send stickers to enhance rather than replace the meaning of text.

In East Asia, users tend to prefer simple black and white stickers, but in India and Saudi Arabia, bright, golden stickers top the trends. In South America, popular stickers take on a more pixelated, unique quality that resonates culturally there.

“With stickers, you fall in love with [the] characters you send… that becomes you,” Park said.

Google is acquiring GIF platform Tenor

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Stipop offers developers and creators instant access to a huge global sticker library Taylor Hatmaker https://ift.tt/3sSdwsw
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New Zealand-based Imagr thinks camera-based AI is the future of shopping trolleys

When it comes to contactless, automated supermarket shopping, Imagr is backing a vision-based approach. But unlike Amazon Go stores, which use cameras and sensors to monitor the shopper as they walk in and out without scanning or paying at checkout, this New Zealand-based company thinks the only images that should be captured and analyzed are those of products going into a shopping cart.

The early-stage startup has invented tech that attaches to the trolley and uses cameras to detect and label products, adding them to a virtual cart where shoppers can checkout without ever interacting with a human or waiting in a line. 

The contactless shopping space has been growing slowly for years, but more recently it has seen a boost in the pandemic era, where the less we share air with another human, the better. The value of transactions processed by frictionless checkout technology is estimated to reach $387 billion by 2025, according to a 2020 study from Juniper Research.

“With COVID, I think what you probably saw was a huge rush on supermarkets that really exposed a number of things retailers weren’t prepared for,” Will Chomley, CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch. “It also really highlighted the fact that the end user wanted a solution that was completely frictionless, and it demonstrated that their infrastructure was not capable of handling that sort of thing. But it also showed that as staff started to refuse to turn up to work because they didn’t want to catch it, retailers needed solutions to be able to run these stores on less staff.”

Amazon Go’s automated convenience stores are expanding internationally, which Chomley says scares retailers who fear competition from the tech giant. At the same time, countries around the world are looking at going cashless, making this a ripe moment to focus on the frictionless checkout space. 

Imagr, which recently had a pop-up shop in London to demonstrate its tech, is currently raising its Series A after it raised $9.5 million in seed funding at the end of November 2019 in a round led by Toshiba Tec. Chomley says Imagr has raised a total of $12.5 million to date, and as it raises its next round, is in the market for strategic partners rather than just VC money. The company says the tech is there, it just needs to scale. 

The startup’s original smart shopping carts, complete with a halo on top that houses cameras and lights to detect products going in and out of the cart, can be seen in Japan’s 150 H2O Retailing stores, and the company says it has one contract due to go live this year in the U.K., as well as another two in the works and some other plans in Europe that can’t yet be confirmed publicly. 

The haloed version of the shopping cart is not, however, the end product for Imagr. The plan is to roll out a more modular version by Q4, where instead of an entire cart, you get three pieces of hardware that attach to a standard cart. Each module will have its own set of lights and cameras, as well as a microprocessor where data is analyzed, then sent up into the cloud and back to the shopper’s app and virtual cart with less than one second latency. Chloe Lamb, brand and communications lead, says Imagr has built a prototype that’s currently for sale. 

Lamb also said the modular method just makes more sense when scaling. Smart carts can cost retailers between $5,000 and $10,000 per unit and require a lot of maintenance compared to simple shopping carts, which tend to cost retailers less than $100 and will get beat up for years before being replaced. Amazon’s walk-out tech is expected to cost retailers upwards of $1 million for installation and hardware, and that doesn’t include maintenance over time. Currently, the full system that it’s piloting is about $75,000 and includes 10 carts, an imaging station, a server station to run the system, full integration into a customer-facing store and Imagr support over the duration of the pilot. Imagr didn’t share how much its current model of trolleys cost versus its modular system, but says it’ll be a cheaper endeavor.

Shopic, an Israeli smart trolley company, also has a smaller piece of hardware that attaches to a cart, but the difference is it relies on a barcode scanner rather than computer vision.

“They have the hardware, but we have the software,” said Lamb. “Our vision/AI is better. Like, we’ve cracked the hardest part of it and it’s the AI, and for us it’s been figuring out how we put that in a smaller vessel.” 

Shopic and Amazon aren’t the only other hopefuls in this space. Standard Cognition has copied Amazon’s style of walk-out tech to distribute to stores. Earlier this year, the San Francisco-based company, which is now valued at $1 billion, raised $150 million in a Series C and announced a partnership with Circle K, the convenience store chain owned by Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.

Aside from being kind of creepy — the all-seeing cameras may be trained on what you are buying but also are scanning the store, and you, at large — Lamb says the walk-out tech that Standard is offering is incredibly expensive and not at all scalable in the short term. 

“You couldn’t overhead that,” said Lamb. “The maintenance alone, having to have AI engineers on site, plus the storage capacity needed for all the data you collect. The server room you would need would be intense.” 

Running the Imagr system in one store uses the same amount of data as streaming HD Netflix for a day, the company said. 

“Shopping carts just made sense to me because everyone already used carts or baskets, they were what retailers were comfortable buying and what users were comfortable using,” said Chomley. “It didn’t require a huge overhaul of the systems. It’s the method of least disruption, faster payback period, better customer experience and no privacy concerns.”

And while it’s within the realm of possibility that the approach of above-head tech gets cheaper over time, it’s not as quick or clear of a path to market, claimed Chomley. 

“Amazon proved the market; it proved that the end user wants something frictionless, and I think that’s really healthy for our business,” said Chomley. “But what Amazon did is they built a supermarket for the technology, whereas we have built technology for a supermarket. And that’s where retailers will say we can’t process 1.6 terabytes of information every second. We need something that fits into our store and our operations.”

As items go into Imagr’s shopping cart, they appear in the app’s virtual cart. Image Credits: Rebecca Bellan

Lamb says many retailers look at Imagr as an elevation from the scan-and-shop because it’s not too far off in terms of pricing, but the difference is retailers get to see what’s in the cart. It’s a lot harder to shoplift by pretending to scan an item when the cart is watching and making a record of what goes in and out.

Imagr offers a white-label solution for retailers that they can own, operate and scale themselves. This means the retailer would own all the hardware, software and the white-labeled app. Imagr has a shared licensing agreement for data with retailers because it needs to get smarter and keep training its models. Lamb said that Imagr hopes to offer inventory analytics in the future to help retailers avoid inventory distortion. 

“Our intention would be to essentially provide them the ability to track everything that comes in and out,” said Lamb. “In a perfect world, like, I don’t know all the Coke sells out, and it pings one of the retail workers in the store and she’s got to restock shelf 7A. That’s what we’re working towards. We don’t have a hard solution for it but there’s definitely demand for that.”

https://ift.tt/3BholY5 New Zealand-based Imagr thinks camera-based AI is the future of shopping trolleys https://ift.tt/3sRcInO

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Canva CEO Melanie Perkins will tell us about the journey to a $15B valuation at Disrupt

The design space has undergone major changes in the last decade. What once was dominated by a single player in Adobe has now become a burgeoning software landscape, with a handful of major players answering the needs of designers across every industry.

One such player is Canva, the startup valued at over $15 billion. The company started out with a consumer-facing product, making design accessible to non-designers. But on the back of launching an enterprise-centric suite of tools, the growth of Sydney-based Canva has been staggering.

So it should come as no surprise that we’re absolutely thrilled to have Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins join us at Disrupt (Sept 21-23) for a fireside chat.

Since launching the company in 2013, Perkins has led its growth to now see more than 55 million users each month, ranging from individual creators to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies.

We’ll talk to Perkins about how she shifted the company from individual creators to a B2B platform, what it’s like to run an industry-specific startup in the midst of a fundamental evolution — see: Design may be the next entrepreneurial gold rush — and how she’s handled this period of monumental growth for the company.

Design may be the next entrepreneurial gold rush

Perkins joins a stellar lineup of speakers at Disrupt, including Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Calendly’s Tope Awotona, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, Houseplant’s Seth Rogen and investor Chamath Palihapitiya, among many others. Check out a full list of speakers here. Disrupt is less than a month away and you can still get your pass to access it all for less than $100! Register today.

 

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Canva CEO Melanie Perkins will tell us about the journey to a $15B valuation at Disrupt https://ift.tt/3sRRW7u

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Twitter experiencing widespread outages

Twitter users in Canada and parts of the U.S. appear to be having trouble accessing the social media platform on Friday morning. Reports from third-party web monitoring service Downdetector indicate the issue is impacting users across Canada and mainly the eastern parts of the U.S. near the Canadian border, though users from more states continue to report outages as well.

The outage began at around 8:30 AM ET according to most reports, lasting for upwards of an hour for some users. As of just before 10 AM ET, it appears that service is restored for most, if not all based on information from users.

Some of you may have experienced an issue loading Twitter just now. This has been fixed. Thanks for sticking with us!

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) August 27, 2021

In a tweet from its support account, Twitter acknowledged some users may have experienced problems loading the service and stated that the issue has been fixed.

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Electric vehicle company Rivian has confidentially filed for an IPO

Rivian, the electric vehicle startup backed by a host of institutional and strategic investors, including Ford and Amazon, has confidentially filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to go public.

The size and price range for the proposed offering have yet to be determined. The initial public offering is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions, the brief statement said.

The confidential filing comes less than two months since Rivian announced it had closed a $2.5 billion private funding round led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Partners, Ford Motor and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Third Point, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Dragoneer Investment Group and Coatue also participated in that round.

The debut of electric pickups signals a new EV era

The company did not share a post-money valuation at the time of the July 2021 announcement.

The electric automaker, which now employs 7,000 people, is preparing to deliver its R1T pickup truck in September. The road to produce the R1T and an accompanying SUV requires capital, which Rivian has had little trouble raising.

Rivian has raised roughly $10.5 billion to date. In January, the company brought in $2.65 billion from existing investors T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., Fidelity Management and Research Company, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Coatue and D1 Capital Partners. New investors also participated in that round, which pushed Rivian’s valuation to $27.6 billion, a source familiar with the investment round told TechCrunch at the time.

Developing….

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Sastrify snags $7M to help SMEs manage SaaS buying

With so much startup activity in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) space it can be a challenge for businesses to figure out which of these SaaS (SaaSes?) are actually useful and worth continuing to shell out for. Well, Cologne-based startup Sastrify is here to help — offering what it describes as a “highly automated” platform (covering some 20,000+ SaaS solutions) to help other businesses with procurement and management of third-party services.

It may not sound the sexist startup business to be in, but despite only launching earlier this year, Sastrify is already cash-flow positive — and can tout “a high six-digit recurring revenue” just a few months post-launch. Not bad for a startup that was only founded last summer.

Today it’s announcing closing a $7 million seed round from HV Capital and the founders of FlixMobility, Personio and SumUp. That follows a $1.3 million pre-seed raised back in late 2020, ahead of its launch.

Sastrify tells us it has around 50 customers at this stage — including “unicorn startups like Gorillas”. It says its approach works best for growing companies with 100+ employees, and is perhaps especially suited to European tech scale-ups.

On the competitive front the startup points to U.S.-based Vendr and Tropic, which may further explain the regional focus (although it’s not only selling in Europe).

Vendr raises huge $60M Series A as its SaaS-purchasing service scales

Sastrify’s sales pitch to SMEs includes that current customers have seen an average 6.5x return on their investment — in addition to what it bills as “thousands of working hours” saved from “wasted” activities related to SaaS procurement.

Cost savings are another carrot — which the startup is claiming its customers are “typically” saving around 20-30% of their SaaS cost.

So how does it actually make it easier for businesses to navigate the pros & cons of the smorgasbord of SaaS(es) now out there?

“Our main mantra is: ‘Effective procurement asks the right questions at the right time’,” says co-founder Sven Lackinger, who previously co-founded a SaaS startup himself of course (evopark), exiting that company back in 2018.

“To ensure that we’ve defined and implemented a five-step process into our platform, covering the whole life-cycle of SaaS applications within enterprises. Our clients can search for the suitable SaaS solutions while we guide them through the right evaluation process per use case and tool (e.g. what are similar companies using?).

“We then take over the whole buying process, aka automatically reaching out to different vendors, AI-/OCR-based comparing and benchmarking for offers. Once the tool is implemented, we make sure to track usage frequently (via regular, automated surveys to tool owners) and re-evaluate over time so there is no ongoing waste of licenses.”

“We have a more automated platform [than Vendr and Tropic] and can also resell licenses to our customers directly (e.g. for Google, Microsoft and others) to ensure best prices and fast delivery,” he also tells us. “This allows us to offer a faster and cheaper solution which is more suited to the European market (where the average SaaS expense per company is still smaller than in the US).” 

If you’re outsourcing all this other stuff to SaaS providers, why not get a specialist service to stay on top of how you do that too, is the basic idea.

The 30-strong Sastrify team will be using the seed funding to accelerate sales, marketing and product dev so it can expand its SaaS management service to more companies in Europe and beyond.

Commenting on the funding in a statement, Jasper Masemann, partner at HV Capital, added: “Cloud software adoption is massively accelerating and almost every company nowadays uses SaaS products but does not buy and manage them efficiently. Sastrify’s astonishing growth underlines the broad customer value the team has already created. It is early days but Sastrify could create an SAP Arriba with a payment solution for SMB – a massive market just in Europe.”

Tropic picks up $25M to streamline software procurement experiences

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Find trends, advice and value at these special breakout sessions during TC Disrupt 2021

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place September 21-23, and we’re here to call out just some of the awesome content we have scheduled over three very busy days. The Disrupt agenda so far features more than 80 interviews, panel discussions, events and breakout sessions that span the startup tech spectrum… with more to come!

You gotta pay to play: Buy your pass to Disrupt 2021 here and open a door to opportunity.

Let’s talk about the special breakout sessions, which are hosted by our partners. These smaller sessions deliver real value and, according to attendee feedback, that holds true across all TechCrunch events.

I enjoyed the big marquee speakers from companies like Uber, but it was the individual breakout presentations where you really started to get into the meat of the conversation and see how these mobile partnerships come to life. — Karin Maake, senior director of communications at FlashParking

There was always something interesting going on in one of the breakout sessions, and I was impressed by the quality of the people participating. Partners in well-known VC firms spoke, they were accessible, and they shared smart, insightful nuggets. You will not find this level of people accessible and in one place anywhere else. — Michael McCarthy, CEO of Repositax

Now’s the time to start planning your Disrupt 2021 schedule, and you don’t want to miss out on these informative presentations.

The Missing Block to Bring Crypto to the Masses

With the emergence of concepts such as NFT and GameFi, socialization prosperities are bringing new energy to the crypto world. Known as the People’s Exchange, KuCoin is committed to exploring disruptive technologies and genius ideas to bring crypto closer to the masses. In this session, you will hear from KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu on what is the outlook of the evolving crypto market and how to achieve better trading experience for cryptocurrency investors. Brought to you by KuCoin.

Humanizing AI: How Brands Are Revolutionizing Customer Experience in an increasingly Digital World

Empathy deficit is the largest imminent threat to a businesses’ growth, but there’s hope. Humanized AI is allowing brands to create empathetic customer experiences by offering uniquely personal interactions with digital people. But what is empathy, really? And how can it help brands and storytellers better connect with their audiences in a cookie-less world? Soul Machines’ co-founder and CBO Greg Cross explains how embracing AI could be just the competitive advantage your brand needs. Brought to you by Soul Machines.

Revolutionizing the Global Metaverse Economy

Together Labs is leveraging the power of blockchain technology to create the new metaverse economy where users can buy, sell, invest and shape its future. Earlier this year, Together Labs launched VCOIN, the first global, digital currency that can be used in and out of the metaverse. VCOIN makes it possible for users to play to earn real value and then convert that value to cash. Soon, Together Labs will introduce additional blockchain offerings to accelerate the transition to a complete blockchain economy, setting the economic model for other metaverses to follow. Brought to you by VCOIN.

Securing Your journey to IPO from the start

Without the right governance tools in place at a company’s inception, a business becomes susceptible to risks as it scales. Adopting governance practices early in a business’s growth process sets them up for long-term growth and a successful IPO. Hear leadership perspectives for securing your business growth in a time of rapid change. Brought to you by Diligent Corporation.

You’ve Raised Your Seed Round — Now What? Preparing for Your Series A

The first hurdle has been cleared: initial funding is in the bank. You’re hiring more talent, seeing the beginnings of a finished product with clear evidence of traction and experiencing the coveted growth that previously felt just out of reach. Before you know it, the decision to raise for what is arguably the most competitive round is staring you in the face. In this panel, join Samsung Next’s David Lee alongside founders Kadie Okwudili (Agapé), Andy Hoang (Aviron), and Jim Bugwadia (Nirmata) as they discuss the learnings and nuances of bridging seed to Series A. Brought to you by Samsung Next.

Korea Pavilion Pitch Session – Hosted by KOTRA

We present the 13 pioneering Korean companies that will enrich our lives with their innovative edge. The companies specialize in various technologies, including Green Tech, AR/VR, 3D Display, AI & Big Data and Cybersecurity. Don’t miss your chance to catch a glimpse of ingenuity from the technology powerhouse. Brought to you by KOTRA.

Eliminating Styrofoam Protective Packaging

Over 380 million tons of plastic are produced every year and 50% of that is for single-use purposes such as product packaging. Until now, companies have been hard-pressed to find a replacement for Styrofoam for protecting fragile items like electronics and appliances. John Felts of Cruz Foam will discuss the development of bio-benign, compostable alternative materials. Tom Chi of At One Ventures will talk about the importance of investing in environmental and climate entrepreneurs. Moderator Scott Cassel of PSI will lead the discussion on how the packaging value chain can create a truly circular economy. Brought to you by Cruz Foam.

Powering What’s Next: Insights from the Enterprise Software Market

Spurred by digital transformation and the recent shift to remote work, the enterprise software industry has gone from strength-to-strength and competition for deals and valuations are at all-time highs. While investor appetite for enterprise software may be strong, it doesn’t mean that all tech businesses make worthy investments. In this panel, hear from Michael Fosnaugh and Monti Saroya, co-heads of Vista’s Flagship investment strategy, and a selection of Vista CEOs on the hallmarks of best-in-class software companies and trends driving the industry. Brought to you by Vista Equity Partners.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place September 21-23. Don’t have your pass yet? Buy one here and check out the breakout sessions for trends, advice and opportunities to help grow your business.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

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The pure hell of managing your JPEGs

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris were joined by none other than TechCrunch’s own Mary Ann Azevedo, in her first-ever appearance on the show. She’s pretty much the best person and we’re stoked to have her on the pod.

And it was good that Mary Ann was on the show this week as she wrote about half the dang site. Which meant that we got to include all sorts of her work in the rundown. Here’s the agenda:

• Funding rounds from: Ramp, which raised $300 million at a $3.9 billion valuation; NoRedInk which put together an impressive $50 million Series B; and Playbook, which is building a sort of Dropbox for designers. Each company gave us something different to noodle on, be it the diverging strategies at Ramp and Brex, how NoRedInk is different from Grammarly, and why Dropbox is not the Dropbox for designers.
• Then we spun the globe to narrow our focus to Latin America, a booming startup scene that Mary Ann recently profiled for Extra Crunch. In a nutshell, venture capital is helping drive an enormous wave of startup activity in the region — or perhaps a wave of startup activity is driving a boom in venture investment? — leading to huge companies, and perhaps some tech-powered inclusion of more folks into the modern banking, and digital economy. (For more, here are notes on the Brazilian market’s rising exit tally! And Flink raised, which was worth chewing on as well.)
• We quickly pivoted to the hot button issue of the moment for every startup (and business): hiring. Natasha noted how startups used to focus on runway, and now they are looking to fill empty seats amid the great resignation. 
• Finally, we nattered about huge venture results from Boston, big numbers from Austin, and what increasingly feels like an everything bubble. Chicago is doing well, too. Pick a city, it’s putting up big numbers.

And that’s a wrap, for, well, at least the next 5 seconds.

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J The pure hell of managing your JPEGs https://ift.tt/3yl84zx

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