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Friday, August 20, 2021

India’s path to SaaS leadership is clear, but challenges remain

Software as a service is one of the most important sectors in tech today. While its transformative potential was quite clear before the pandemic, the sudden pivot to distributed workforces caused interest in SaaS products to skyrocket as medium and large enterprises embraced digital and remote sales processes, significantly expanding their utility.

This phenomenon is global, but India in particular has the opportunity to take its SaaS momentum to the next level. The Indian SaaS industry is projected to generate revenue of $50 billion to $70 billion and win 4%-6% of the global SaaS market by 2030, creating as much as $1 trillion in value, according to a report by SaaSBOOMi and McKinsey.

The Indian SaaS industry is projected to generate revenue of $50 billion to $70 billion and win 4%-6% of the global SaaS market by 2030.

There are certain important long-term trends that are fueling this expansion.

The rise of Indian SaaS unicorns

The Indian SaaS community has seen a flurry of innovation and success. Entrepreneurs in India have founded about a thousand funded SaaS companies in the last few years, doubling the rate from five years ago and creating several unicorns in the process. Together, these companies generate $2 billion to $3 billion in total revenues and represent approximately 1% of the global SaaS market, according to SaaSBOOMi and McKinsey.

These firms are diverse in terms of the clients they serve and the problems they solve, but several garnered global attention during the pandemic by enabling flexibility for newly remote workers. Zoho helped streamline this pivot by providing sales teams with apps for collateral, videos and demos; Freshworks offered businesses a seamless customer experience platform, and Eka extended its cloud platform to unify workflows from procurement to payments for the CFO office.

Other SaaS firms stayed busy in other ways. Over the course of the pandemic, 10 new unicorns emerged: Postman, Zenoti, Innovacer, Highradius, Chargebee and Browserstack, Mindtickle, Byju, UpGrad and Unacademy. There were also several instances of substantial venture funding, including a $150 million deal for Postman, bringing the total amount raised by the Indian SaaS community in 2020 to around $1.5 billion, four times the investment in 2018.

India’s path to leadership

While the Indian SaaS community has made admirable progress in recent years, there are several key growth drivers that could lead to as much as $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. They include:

The global pivot to digital go-to-market

The number of enterprises that are comfortable with assessing products and making business decisions via Zoom is increasing rapidly. This embrace of digital go-to-market fundamentally levels the playing field for Indian companies in terms of access to customers and end markets.



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Get your pitch-off on with our Disrupt Startup Alley companies on upcoming episodes of Extra Crunch Live

Disrupt is right around the corner, and this year the show is packed to the brim with incredible panels and conversations, an absolutely stacked Startup Battlefield cohort of companies launching on our stage, investor insights and a virtual expo hall full of exciting new products and services in the Startup Alley.

We can’t wait! Literally. So we’re giving you guys a sneak peek at some of the startups you might see at Disrupt in upcoming episodes of Extra Crunch Live.

Usually, the Extra Crunch Live crew sits down with founders and the investors who finance them to learn how they decided to partner with one another and, ultimately, how startups can get to”yes” when fundraising. In the latter half of the episode, those same guests give live feedback to folks in the audience who come on our virtual stage and pitch their products.

Truth be told, everyone loves a good pitch-off. So in these upcoming Startup Alley Edition episodes of Extra Crunch Live, we’re turning the entire episode into a pitch-off. SUA companies will come on stage, one at a time, and have exactly 60 seconds to get us excited about their startup. But it wouldn’t be a true pitch-off without some expert feedback.

I’m excited to announce the investors joining us on these episodes to share their insights and wisdom with both the startups and the audience.

On September 1, we’ll be joined by Neil Sequeira, co-founder and partner at defy.vc, as well as Stacey Bishop, partner at Scale Venture Partners.

Image Credits: Elena Zhukova / Scale Venture Partners

Sequeira was managing director at General Catalyst before venturing out to start Defy. Before GC, he was at TimeWarner Investments and was a founding member of AOLTW Ventures. Defy has a portfolio that includes Dropcam, Nest, Bustle and more. Sequeira has served on more than 40 company boards, so it should go without saying that he’ll have plenty of insightful feedback for our founders.

Bishop brings more than 20 years of investment experience to our little pitch-off. She currently serves on the boards of Abstract, Airspace, Demandbase, Extole, Lever and more. Bishop has also served on several boards where the company has seen a successful exit, including HubSpot, Bizible and Vitrue. Bishop specializes in business applications and will have lots to share with our pitch-off startups.  Register here for Extra Crunch Live with defy.vc and Scale Venture Partners.

On September 8, we’ll be joined by Next47 CEO & Managing Partner Lak Ananth and Moxxie Ventures founder and General Partner Katie Stanton.

Image Credits: Next47 / Amanda Aude

Ananth serves as founding CEO at Next47, which is backed by Siemens AG. He’s sat on several boards where he has helped the companies grow beyond $1 billion valuations. Ananth specializes in emerging areas of deep tech, including AI/ML, vertical SaaS, robotics, mobility, etc. Some of Ananth’s current investments include Verkada, rideOS and Markforged.

Katie Stanton has been an executive and an operator for much of her career, holding roles at Twitter, Google, Yahoo and Color across a wide variety of departments, including marketing, comms, recruiting, product and media. Stanton also served in the Obama White House and State Department after getting her career started as a banker at JP Morgan. She currently sits on the board of Vivendi, and has invested in dozens of early-stage companies, including Airtable, Cameo, Carta, Coinbase, Literati, Modern Fertility, Shape Security and Threads. Register here for Extra Crunch Live with Next47 and Moxxie Ventures. 

You don’t want to miss these episodes of Extra Crunch Live. Register (for free) to come hang out with us!



https://ift.tt/3kc9OWP Get your pitch-off on with our Disrupt Startup Alley companies on upcoming episodes of Extra Crunch Live https://ift.tt/3j0ryoK

Social platforms wrestle with what to do about the Taliban

With the hasty U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan underway after two decades occupying the country, social media platforms have a complex new set of policy decisions to make.

The Taliban has been social media-savvy for years, but those companies will face new questions as the notoriously brutal, repressive group seeks to present itself as Afghanistan’s legitimate governing body to the rest of the world. Given its ubiquity among political leaders and governments, social media will likely play an even more central role for the Taliban as it seeks to cement control and move toward governing.

Facebook has taken some early precautions to protect its users from potential reprisals as the Taliban seizes power. Through Twitter, Facebook’s Nathaniel Gleicher announced a set of new measures the platform rolled out over the last week. The company added a “one-click” way for people in Afghanistan to instantly lock their accounts, hiding posts on their timeline and preventing anyone they aren’t friends with from downloading or sharing their profile picture.

Facebook also removed the ability for users to view and search anyone’s friends list for people located in Afghanistan. On Instagram, pop-up alerts will provide Afghanistan-based users with information on how to quickly lock down their accounts.

The Taliban has long been banned on Facebook under the company’s rules against dangerous organizations. “The Taliban is sanctioned as a terrorist organization under US law… This means we remove accounts maintained by or on behalf of the Taliban and prohibit praise, support, and representation of them,” a Facebook spokesperson told the BBC.

The Afghan Taliban is actually not designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, but the Taliban operating out of Pakistan has held that designation since 2010. While it doesn’t appear on the list of foreign terrorist organizations, the Afghanistan-based Taliban is defined as a terror group according to economic sanctions that the U.S. put in place after 9/11.

While the Taliban is also banned from Facebook-owned WhatsApp, the platform’s end-to-end encryption makes enforcing those rules on WhatsApp more complex. WhatsApp is ubiquitous in Afghanistan and both the Afghan military and the Taliban have relied on the chat app to communicate in recent years. Though Facebook doesn’t allow the Taliban on its platforms, the group turned to WhatsApp to communicate its plans to seize control to the Afghan people and discourage resistance in what was a shockingly swift and frictionless sprint to power. The Taliban even set up WhatsApp number as a sort of help line for Afghans to report violence or crime, but Facebook quickly shut down the account.

Earlier this week, Facebook’s VP of content policy Monika Bickert noted that even if the U.S. does ultimately remove the Taliban from its lists of sanctioned terror groups, the platform would reevaluate and make its own decision. “… We would have to do a policy analysis on whether or not they nevertheless violate our dangerous organizations policy,” Bickert said.

Like Facebook, YouTube maintains that the Taliban is banned from its platform. YouTube’s own decision also appears to align with sanctions and could be subject to change if the U.S. approach to the Taliban shifts.

“YouTube complies with all applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws, including relevant U.S. sanctions,” a YouTube spokesperson told TechCrunch. “As such, if we find an account believed to be owned and operated by the Afghan Taliban, we terminate it. Further, our policies prohibit content that incites violence.”

On Twitter, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has continued to share regular updates about the group’s activities in Kabul. Another Taliban representative, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, also freely posts on the platform. Unlike Facebook and YouTube, Twitter doesn’t have a blanket ban on the group but will enforce its policies on a post-by-post basis.

If the Taliban expands its social media footprint, other platforms might be facing the same set of decisions. TikTok did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment, but previously told NBC that it considers the Taliban a terrorist organization and does not allow content that promotes the group.

The Taliban doesn’t appear to have a foothold beyond the most mainstream social networks, but it’s not hard to imagine the former insurgency turning to alternative platforms to remake its image as the world looks on.

While Twitch declined to comment on what it might do if the group were to use the platform, it does have a relevant policy that takes “off-service conduct” into account when banning users. That policy was designed to address reports of abusive behavior and sexual harassment among Twitch streamers.

The new rules also apply to accounts linked to violent extremism, terrorism, or other serious threats, whether those actions take place on or off Twitch. That definition would likely preclude the Taliban from establishing a presence on the platform, even if the U.S. lifts sanctions or changes its terrorist designations in the future.



from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Social platforms wrestle with what to do about the Taliban Taylor Hatmaker https://ift.tt/3gjB0BZ
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Extra Crunch roundup: Corp dev handbook, Chicago startups, Brazil’s e-commerce landscape

If you’re a founder who finds yourself in a meeting with a VC, try to remember two things:

  1. You’re the smartest person in the room.
  2. Investors are looking for a reason to say “yes.”

Even so, many entrepreneurs squander this opportunity, often because they direct questions or fail to understand their BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement).

“As the venture landscape becomes more a meritocratic environment where resumes and institutional affiliations matter less, these strategies can make the difference between a successful fundraise and a fruitless meeting,” says Agya Ventures co-founder Kunal Lunawat.

Whether you’re already in the fundraising process or plan to be in the future, be sure to read “A crash course on corporate development” that Venrock VP Todd Graham shared with us this week.

“If you’re going to get acquired, chances are you’re going to spend a lot of time with corporate development teams,” says Graham. “With a hot stock market, mountains of cash and cheap debt floating around, the environment for acquisitions is extremely rich.”


Full Extra Crunch articles are only available to members.
Use discount code ECFriday to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription.


The cover of "After Cooling On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort"

On Wednesday, August 24 at 3 p.m. PDT/6 p.m. EDT/11 p.m GMT, Managing Editor Danny Crichton will host a conversation on Twitter Spaces with Eric Dean Wilson, author of “After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort.”

Wilson’s book explores the history of freon, a common refrigerant that was later banned due to its devastating impact on the ozone layer. After their discussion, they’ll take questions from the audience.

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

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist

Apple is changing Mail Privacy Protection and email marketers must prepare

Image of a yellow envelope with a red notification dot.

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

Apple iPhone, Apple Mail and Apple iPad account for nearly half of all email opens, but the privacy features included with iOS 15 will allow consumers to block marketers from seeing their physical location, IP address and tracking data like invisible pixels.

Email marketers rely heavily on these and other metrics, which means they should prepare now for the changes to come, advises Litmus CMO Melissa Sargeant.

In a detailed post, she shares several action items that will help marketing teams leverage their email analytics so they can “continue delivering personalized experiences consumers crave.”

Let’s make a deal: A crash course on corporate development

Meeting room with a big polished table and arm-chairsOther photos from this business series:

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

Venrock Vice President Todd Graham has some frank advice for founders at venture-backed startups: “It would be wise to generate a return at some point.”

With that in mind, he authored a primer on corporate development that lays out the three most common categories of acquisitions, tips for dealing with bankers, and explains why striking a partnership with a big company isn’t always the best way forward.

Regardless of the path you choose, “you need to take the meeting,” advises Graham.

“In the worst-case scenario, you’ll get a few new LinkedIn connections and you’re now a known quantity. The best-case scenario will be a second meeting.”

When VCs turned to Zoom, Chicago startups were ready for their close-up

The pandemic failed to slow the momentum of venture capitalists pouring money into startups, but Chicago stands out as an “outlying benefactor of accelerating venture capital activity and the rise of remote investing,” Alex Wilhelm and Anna Heim write for The Exchange.

When the world shut down and it didn’t matter if you were in NYC or SF (because everyone was on Zoom), the Windy City was ready to present itself as the venture champion of the Midwest.

What does Brazil’s new receivables regulation mean for fintechs?

Female hand holding brazilian money (Real/Reais)

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

The Brazilian Central Bank made a major reform to the way payments are processed that may throw the doors open for e-commerce in South America’s largest market.

Historically, merchants who accepted credit card payments had two options: Receive the full payment distributed over two to 12 installments, or offer a deep discount to receive a smaller sum up front.

But in June 2021, the BCB created new “registration entities” that permit “any interested receivables buyer/acquirer to make an offer for those receivables, forcing buyers to become more competitive in their discount offers,” says Leonardo Lanna, head of payment products at Monkey Exchange.

The new framework benefits consumers and sellers, but for the region’s startups, “it opens the door to a plethora of opportunities and new business models, from payments to credit.”

As its startup market accelerates, Brazil could be in for an IPO bonanza

An inflow of VC dollars, notable acquisitions and rising unicorn counts are all features of the Brazilian tech startup market, Anna Heim and Alex Wilhelm note in The Exchange.

“The IPO market in Brazil is changing,” they write. “TechCrunch noted last year that in the decade leading up to 2020, just two of the 56 IPOs in Brazil were technology companies. More recently, the number of technology companies listed in the country has swelled to at least 16, up from just four in 2019.”

Insider hacks to streamline your SOC 3 certification application

Digital encrypted Lock with data multilayers. Internet Security

Image Credits: Andriy Onufriyenko / Getty Images

“For good reason, security certifications like the SOC 3 really put you through the wringer,” Waydev CEO Alex Cercei writes in a guest column.

Waydev, a Git analytics tool that helps engineering leaders measure team performance automatically, just attained the SOC 3 certification.

“We learned so much from the process, we felt it was right to share our experience with others that might be daunted by the prospect,” Cercei writes.

“So here’s our advice on how teams can smoothly reach an SOC 3 while simultaneously balancing workloads and minimizing disruption to users.”

Dear Sophie: Tips on EB-1A and EB-2 NIW?

lone figure at entrance to maze hedge that has an American flag at the center

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

Dear Sophie,

I’m on an H-1B living and working in the U.S. I want to apply for a green card on my own. I’m concerned about only relying on my current employer and I want to be able to easily change jobs or create a startup. I’ve been looking at the EB-1A and EB-2 NIW.

I’m not sure if I would qualify for an EB-1A, but since I was born in India, I face a much longer wait for an EB-2 NIW.

Any tips on how to proceed?

— Inventive from India

How to establish a health tech startup advisory board

Most startups could use an advisory board, but in health tech, it’s a core requirement.

Founders seeking to innovate in this area have a unique need for mentors who have experience navigating regulations, raising capital and managing R&D, to name just a few areas.

Based on his own experience, Patrick Frank, co-founder and COO of PatientPartner, shared some very specific ideas about who to recruit, where to find them and how to fit them into your cap table.

“You want to leverage these individuals so you are able to focus on the full view of the company to ensure it is something that both the market and investors want at scale,” says Frank.

Crypto world shows signs of being rather bullish

There’s no shortage of tech news to analyze, Alex Wilhelm notes, but this week, he took a fresh look at crypto.

How come?

“Because there are some rather bullish trends that indicate the world of blockchain is maturing and creating a raft of winning players,” he writes.

4 common mistakes startups make when setting pay for hybrid workers

Organization Chart or Organizational Graph for Human Resources

Image Credits: kentoh (opens in a new window) / Getty Images (Image has been modified)

In one recent survey, 58% of workers said they plan to quit if they’re not allowed to work remotely.

Startups that don’t offer employees work-from-home flexibility are at a competitive disadvantage, but figuring out how to pay hybrid workers raises a complex set of questions:

  • Should you localize salaries for workers in different areas?
  • How should you pay workers who have the same job when one is WFH and the other is at their desk?
  • Are you being transparent with your staff about how their compensation is set?


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SiriusXM launches ‘TikTok Radio,’ a music channel featuring viral hits hosted by TikTok stars

{rss:content:encoded} SiriusXM launches ‘TikTok Radio,’ a music channel featuring viral hits hosted by TikTok stars https://ift.tt/3B45iRb https://ift.tt/3z5KPuy August 20, 2021 at 07:15PM

If viral TikTok songs like Dr. Dog’s “Where’d All the Time Go?” or Bo Burnham’s “Bezos I” weren’t already stuck in your head on loop, now they could be. Today SiriusXM launched a TikTok Radio channel, which features TikTok creators as channel hosts. The station is designed to sound like a “radio version of the platform’s ‘For You’ feed,” Sirius XM said.

SiriusXM, parent company to Pandora, announced this music channel in May, teasing the launch with curated Pandora playlists from influencers like Bella Poarch, whose lipsync video of Millie B’s “Soph Aspin Send [M to the B]” is the most liked video on TikTok.

With its TikTok partnership, SiriusXM is looking to capture a younger audience — on the TikTok app itself, DJ Habibeats (@djhabibeats) and DJ CONST (@erinconstantineofficial) will each go live on TikTok each week while DJing on TikTok Radio. Other creator hosts on TikTok Radio — like Billy (@8illy), Cat Haley (@itscathaley), HINDZ (@hindzsight), Lamar Dawson (@dirrtykingofpop) and Taylor Cassidy (@taylorcassidyj) — will deliver “The TikTok Radio Trending Ten,” a weekly countdown of songs trending on TikTok. To promote the station during its first week, artists like Ed Sheeran, Lil Nas X and Normani will appear on air.

Music has such a strong footing in TikTok culture that it regularly influences the Billboard charts — Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” originally released in 1978, appeared in the top 10 Billboard albums again in 2020 after it was featured in a viral TikTok. Even a Fortnite-themed parody of Estelle’s “American Boy” — originally uploaded in 2018 to YouTube — had a beautiful moment on TikTok. 

“We’re so excited to launch TikTok Radio on SiriusXM, which opens up artists and creators like this amazing group of hosts to new audiences,” said Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of Music, in a statement. “Now SiriusXM subscribers will have a new road to discover the latest trends in music and get a first listen to tomorrow’s musical superstars. The channel captures song-breaking music culture that creates so much joy and entertainment on TikTok through video in an all-audio format.”

Though SiriusXM’s subscriber base continues to expand — it saw a 34% year-over-year growth from last year to now — it still dwarfs in comparison to streaming giants like Spotify, which has 165 million paid users. SiriusXM reported a total of 34.5 million subscribers as of Q2 this year, the most it’s ever had, but even Apple Music and Amazon Music have reported nearly double the subscribers. Pandora has 6.5 million paid subscribers. Over the last few years, SiriusXM and Pandora have struck deals with companies like SoundCloud, Simplecast and Stitcher to become more competitive in both music and podcast streaming. 

Still, other streaming companies have also shown interest in the market of Gen Z-ers on TikTok who want to listen to full versions of the catchy songs they hear in short videos. Apple Music and Spotify both host curated “viral hits” playlists. But a full-time satellite music channel is taking the trend a step further.

 

São Paulo’s QuintoAndar real estate platform raises $120M, now valued at $5.1B

Less than three months after announcing a $300 million Series E, Brazilian proptech QuintoAndar has raised an additional $120 million.

New investors Greenoaks Capital and China’s Tencent co-led the round, which included participation from some existing backers as well. São Paulo-based QuintoAndar is now valued at $5.1 billion, up from $4 billion at the time of its last raise in late May. With the extension, the startup has now raised more than $700 million since its 2013 inception. Ribbit Capital led the first tranche of its Series E.

QuintoAndar describes itself as an “end-to-end solution for long-term rentals” that, among other things, connects potential tenants to landlords and vice versa. Last year, it also expanded into connecting home buyers to sellers. Its long-term plan is to ​​evolve into a one-stop real estate shop that also offers mortgage, title insurance and escrow services.

To that end, earlier this month, the startup acquired Atta Franchising, a 7-year-old São Paulo-based independent real estate mortgage broker. Specifically, acquiring Atta is designed to speed up its ability to offer mortgage services to its users. QuintoAndar also plans to explore the possibility of offering a product to perform standalone transactions outside of its marketplace in partnership with other brokers, according to CEO and co-founder Gabriel Braga.

This year, QuintoAndar expanded operations into 14 new cities in Brazil. Eventually, QuintoAndar plans to enter the Mexican market as its first expansion outside of its home country, but it has not yet set a date for that step. Today, the company has more than 120,000 rentals under management and about 10,000 new rentals per month. Its rental platform is live in 40 cities across Brazil, while its home-buying marketplace is live in four (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre) and seeing more than 10,000 sales in annualized terms.

QuintoAndar, he said, is open to acquiring more companies that it believes can either help it accelerate in a particular way or add something it had not yet thought about.

“We’re receptive to the idea but our core strategy is to focus on organic growth and our own innovation and accelerate that,” Braga said.

Why raise more money so soon?

The Series E was oversubscribed with investors who got in and “some who could not join,” according to Braga.

Greenoaks and Tencent, he said, couldn’t participate because of “timing issues.”

“We kept talking and they came back to us after the round, and wanted to be involved so we found a way to have them on board,” Braga said. “We did not need the money. But we have been constantly overachieving on the forecast that we shared with our investors. And that’s part of the reason why we had this extension.”

Greenoaks’ long-term time horizon was appealing because the firm’s investment was designed to be “perpetual capital with no predefined time frame,” Braga said.

“We’re doing our best to build an enduring company that will be around for many, many years, so it’s good to have investors who share that vision and are technically aligned,” he added.

Greenoaks partner Neil Shah said his firm believes that what QuintoAndar is building will “fundamentally reshape real estate transactions, enhancing transparency, expanding options for Brazilians seeking housing, dramatically simplifying the experience for landlords and driving increased investment into real estate across the country.” He also believes there is big potential for the company to take its offering to other parts of Latin America.

“We look forward to being partners for decades to come,” he added. 

Tencent’s experience in China is something QuintoAndar also finds valuable.

“We believe we can learn a lot from them and other Chinese companies doing interesting stuff there,” Braga said.

QuintoAndar isn’t the only Brazilian proptech firm raising big money: In March, São Paulo digital real estate platform Loft announced it had closed on $425 million in Series D funding led by New York-based D1 Capital Partners. Then, about one month later, it revealed a $100 million extension that valued the company at $2.9 billion.

 



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Microsoft backs India’s Oyo ahead of IPO

Microsoft has invested $5 million in Indian budget hotel chain Oyo, according to a regulatory filing this week. The investment confirms a TechCrunch scoop from last month.

The new investment values Oyo at $9.6 billion, only slightly below the $10 billion implied valuation from the Indian startup’s previous financing round in 2019. The startup, which lost significant business to the pandemic, was valued at just $3 billion in recent quarters by SoftBank, one of its largest investors.

TechCrunch reported earlier that this strategic investment may also involve Oyo shifting to use Microsoft’s cloud services. The company is planning to file for an IPO later this year, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Oyo, which is one of India’s most valuable startups, has aggressively expanded to many markets, including Southeast Asia, Europe and the U.S. in recent years. But some of its missteps — “toxic culture,” lapse in governance and relationship with many hotel owners — have scarred its growth.

Just as the startup was pledging to improve its relationship with hotel owners, the pandemic arrived. In response, Oyo slowed its growth and laid off thousands of employees globally earlier this year as nations across the world enforced lockdowns.

The pandemic hit the seven-year-old startup like a “cyclone,” CEO Ritesh Agarwal told Bloomberg TV last month. “We built something for so many years and it took just 30 days for it drop by over 60%,” he said, adding that the firm had not made any decision on exploring the public markets.

Airbnb-backed Oyo had between $780 million to $800 million in its bank, Agarwal said at a virtual conference recently, and had pared its “monthly burn” across all businesses to $4 million to $5 million. (The startup had about $1 billion in the bank in December 2020.)

Last month — after Agarwal’s remarks at the aforementioned conference — Oyo said it had raised $660 million in debt. That debt was used to pay off the previous debt, according to a person familiar with the matter.

If the deal between the two firms materializes, it will be Microsoft’s latest investment in an Indian startup. The firm has backed a handful of startups in the South Asian market, including news aggregator and short-video platform DailyHunt, e-commerce giant Flipkart, and logistics SaaS firm FarEye.



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Cardiomatics bags $3.2M for its ECG-reading AI

Poland-based health tech AI startup Cardiomatics has announced a $3.2 million seed raise to expand use of its electrocardiogram (ECG) reading automation technology.

The round is led by Central and Eastern European VC Kaya, with Nina Capital, Nova Capital and Innovation Nest also participating.

The seed raise also includes a $1 million non-equity grant from the Polish National Centre of Research and Development.

The 2017-founded startup sells a cloud tool to speed up diagnosis and drive efficiency for cardiologists, clinicians and other healthcare professionals to interpret ECGs — automating the detection and analysis of some 20 heart abnormalities and disorders with the software generating reports on scans in minutes, faster than a trained human specialist would be able to work.

Cardiomatics touts its tech as helping to democratize access to healthcare — saying the tool enables cardiologists to optimise their workflow so they can see and treat more patients. It also says it allows GPs and smaller practices to offer ECG analysis to patients without needing to refer them to specialist hospitals.

The AI tool has analyzed more than 3 million hours of ECG signals commercially to date, per the startup, which says its software is being used by more than 700 customers in 10+ countries, including Switzerland, Denmark, Germany and Poland.

The software is able to integrate with more than 25 ECG monitoring devices at this stage, and it touts offering a modern cloud software interface as a differentiator versus legacy medical software.

Asked how the accuracy of its AI’s ECG readings has been validated, the startup told us: “The data set that we use to develop algorithms contains more than 10 billion heartbeats from approximately 100,000 patients and is systematically growing. The majority of the data-sets we have built ourselves, the rest are publicly available databases.

“Ninety percent of the data is used as a training set, and 10% for algorithm validation and testing. According to the data-centric AI we attach great importance to the test sets to be sure that they contain the best possible representation of signals from our clients. We check the accuracy of the algorithms in experimental work during the continuous development of both algorithms and data with a frequency of once a month. Our clients check it everyday in clinical practice.”

Cardiomatics said it will use the seed funding to invest in product development, expand its business activities in existing markets and gear up to launch into new markets.

“Proceeds from the round will be used to support fast-paced expansion plans across Europe, including scaling up our market-leading AI technology and ensuring physicians have the best experience. We prepare the product to launch into new markets too. Our future plans include obtaining FDA certification and entering the US market,” it added.

The AI tool received European medical device certification in 2018 — although it’s worth noting that the European Union’s regulatory regime for medical devices and AI is continuing to evolve, with an update to the bloc’s Medical Devices Directive (now known as the EU Medical Device Regulation) coming into application earlier this year (May).

A new risk-based framework for applications of AI — aka the Artificial Intelligence Act — is also incoming and will likely expand compliance demands on AI health tech tools like Cardiomatics, introducing requirements such as demonstrating safety, reliability and a lack of bias in automated results.

Asked about the regulatory landscape it said: “When we launched in 2018 we were one of the first AI-based solutions approved as medical device in Europe. To stay in front of the pace we carefully observe the situation in Europe and the process of legislating a risk-based framework for regulating applications of AI. We also monitor draft regulations and requirements that may be introduced soon. In case of introducing new standards and requirements for artificial intelligence, we will immediately undertake their implementation in the company’s and product operations, as well as extending the documentation and algorithms validation with the necessary evidence for the reliability and safety of our product.”

However it also conceded that objectively measuring efficacy of ECG reading algorithms is a challenge.

“An objective assessment of the effectiveness of algorithms can be very challenging,” it told TechCrunch. “Most often it is performed on a narrow set of data from a specific group of patients, registered with only one device. We receive signals from various groups of patients, coming from different recorders. We are working on this method of assessing effectiveness. Our algorithms, which would allow them to reliably evaluate their performance regardless of various factors accompanying the study, including the recording device or the social group on which it would be tested.”

“When analysis is performed by a physician, ECG interpretation is a function of experience, rules and art. When a human interprets an ECG, they see a curve. It works on a visual layer. An algorithm sees a stream of numbers instead of a picture, so the task becomes a mathematical problem. But, ultimately, you cannot build effective algorithms without knowledge of the domain,” it added. “This knowledge and the experience of our medical team are a piece of art in Cardiomatics. We shouldn’t forget that algorithms are also trained on the data generated by cardiologists. There is a strong correlation between the experience of medical professionals and machine learning.”



https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Cardiomatics bags $3.2M for its ECG-reading AI https://ift.tt/3ASvw8Q

Bird shows improving scooter economics, long march to profitability

Newly reported financial data from Bird, an American scooter sharing service, shows a company with an improving economic model, and a multi-year path to profitability. However, that path is fraught unless a number of scenarios all work out, in concert and without a glitch.

Bird, well-known for its early battles with domestic rival Lime, is pursuing a SPAC-led deal that will see it go public and raise fresh capital. The former startup is merging with Switchback II Corporation in a deal that values it at around $2.3 billion, including a $160 million PIPE (private investment in public equity) component. (Note: The group purchasing TechCrunch’s parent company from its own parent company, is part of the Bird PIPE.)


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COVID-19 hasn’t been kind to Bird and similar companies around the world. As many around the world stayed home, usage of shared-asset services and ride-hail applications fell sharply. Bird saw rides decline. Airbnb took a temporary hit. Uber and Lyft saw ride demand fall.

Responses to the crisis were varied. Airbnb cut costs, and raised external capital. Lyft cut expenses and focused on its core model, while Uber grew its food delivery business, which saw transaction volume soar as demand fell for its traditional business.

Meanwhile, Bird flipped its entire business model. That decision has helped the scooter outfit improve its economics markedly, giving it a shot at generating profit in the future — provided its forecasts prove achievable.

This morning, let’s talk about how Bird has changed its business, their impacts on its operating results, and how long the company thinks its climb to profitability is.

Fleet management → Fleet managers

In their initial forms, Bird and Lime bought and deployed large fleets of electric scooters. Not only was this capital intensive, the companies also wound up with costs that were more than sticky — charging wasn’t simple or cheap, moving scooters around to balance demand took both human capital and vehicles, and the list went on.

Throw in vehicle depreciation — the pace at which scooters in the wild degraded from use or abuse — and the businesses proved excellent vehicles for raising capital and throwing that money at more scooters, costs, and, as it turned out, losses.

Results improved somewhat over time, though. As scooter-share companies increasingly built their own hardware, their economics improved. Sturdier scooters meant lower depreciation, and better battery tech could allow for more rides per charge. That sort of thing.

But the model wasn’t incredibly lucrative even before COVID-19 hit. Costs were high, and the model did not break even even on a gross margin basis, let alone when considering all corporate expenses. You can see the financial mess from that period of operations in historical Bird results.



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Men are a niche demographic

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

Danny was back, joining Natasha and Alex and Grace and Chris to chat through the week’s coming and goings. But, before we get to the official news, here’s some personal news: Danny is stepping back from his role as co-host of the Friday show! Yes, Mr. Crichton will still take part in our mid-week, deep dive episodes, but this is the conclusion of his run as part of the news roundup. We will miss him, glad that his transitions and wit will continue to be part of the Equity universe.

Who will take the third chair? Well, stay tuned. We have some neat things planned.

Now, the rundown:

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 PodcastsOvercastSpotify and all the casts.


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Greycroft leads $3.5M into Breef, an online marketplace for ad agencies

Breef raised $3.5 million in funding to continue developing what it boasts as “the world’s first online marketplace” for transactions between brands and agencies.

Greycroft led the round and was joined by Rackhouse Ventures, The House Fund, John and Helen McBain, Lance Armstrong and 640 Oxford Ventures. Including the new round, the New York and Colorado-based company has brought in total funding of $4.5 million since its inception in 2019 by husband-and-wife co-founders George Raptis and Emily Bibb.

Bibb’s background is in digital marketing and brand building at companies like PopSugar, VSCO and S’well, while Raptis was on the founding team at fintech company Credible.com.

Both said they experienced challenges in finding agencies, which traditionally involved asking for referrals and then making a bunch of calls. There were also times when their companies would be in high demand for talent, but didn’t necessarily need a full-time employee to achieve the goal or project milestone.

While the concept of outsourcing is not new, Breef’s differentiator is its ability to manage complex projects: a traditional individual freelance project is less than $1,000 and takes a week or less. Instead, the company is working with team-based projects that average $25,000 with a length of engagement of about six months, Raptis said.

Breef’s platform is democratizing how brands and boutique agencies connect with each other in the process of planning, scoping, pitching and paying for projects, Raptis told TechCrunch.

“At the core, we are taking the agency online,” Bibb added. “We are building a platform to streamline a complicated process for outsourcing high-value work and allow users to find, pay for and work with agencies in days rather than months.”

Brands can draft their own brief to articulate what they need, and Breef will connect them to a short list of agencies that match those requirements. Rather than a one- or two-month search, the company is able to bring that down to five days.

Bibb and Raptis decided to seek venture capital after experiencing demand — millions of dollars in projects are being created on the platform each month — and some tailwinds from the shift to remote work. They saw many brands that may have originally utilized in-house teams or agencies of record turn to distributed or smaller teams.

Due to the nature of agency work being expensive, Breef is processing large amounts of money over the internet, and the founders want to continue developing the technology and hiring talent so that it is a secure and trustworthy system.

It also launched its buy now, pay later project funding service, Breef(pay), to streamline payments to agencies and reduce cash flow challenges. Users can construct their own payment terms, mix up the way they are paid and utilize a credit line or defer payments to control external spend.

To date, Breef has more than 5,000 vetted boutique agencies in 20 countries on its platform and is able to save its users an average of 32% in product costs compared with a traditional agency model. It boasts a customer list that includes Spotify, Brex, Shutterstock, Bluestone Lane and Kinrgy.

Kevin Novak, founder of Rackhouse Ventures, said he met Raptis through the Australian tech community. He recently launched his first fund targeting startups in novel applications of data.

“When they were talking to me about what they wanted to do, I got intrigued,” Novak said. “I like finding marketplaces where the idea is well understood by the people involved. Looking at the matching problem, Emily and George have found a unique way to find ad agencies that hasn’t existed before.”

 



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Rutter comes out of stealth with $1.5M in funding for its e-commerce API

Rutter, a remote-first company, is developing a unified e-commerce API that enables companies to connect with data across any platform.

On Friday the company announced it was emerging from stealth with $1.5 million in funding from a group of investors including Haystack, Liquid 2 and Basis Set Ventures.

Founders Eric Yu and Peter Zhou met in school and started working on Rutter, which Zhou called “Plaid for commerce,” in 2017 before going through the summer 2019 Y Combinator cohort.

They stumbled upon the e-commerce API idea while working in education technology last year. The pair were creating subscription kits and learning materials for parents concerned about how their children would be learning during the global pandemic. Then their vendor customers had problems listing their storefronts on Amazon, so they wrote scripts to help them, but found that they had to write separate scripts for each platform.

With Rutter, customers only need one script to connect anywhere. Its APIs connect to e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Walmart and Amazon so that tech customers can build functions like customer support and chatbots, Yu told TechCrunch.

Lan Xuezhao, founding and managing partner of Basis Set Ventures, said via email that she was “super excited” about Rutter first because of the founders’ passion, grit and speed of iteration to a product. She added it reminded her of another team that successfully built a business from zero to over $7 billion.

“After watching them (Rutter) for a few years, it’s clear what they built is powerful: it’s the central nervous system of online commerce,” Xuezhao added.

As the founders see it, there are two big explosions going on in e-commerce: the platform side with the adoption of headless commerce — the separating of front end and back end functions of an e-commerce site, and new companies coming in to support merchants.

The new funding will enable Yu and Zhou to build up their team, including hiring more engineers.

Due to the company officially launching at the beginning of the year, Yu did not disclose revenue metrics, but did say that Rutter’s API volume was doubling and tripling in the last few months. It is also supporting merchants that connect with over 5,000 stores.

Some of Rutter’s competitors are building one aspect of commerce, like returns, warranties and checkouts, but Yu said that since Shopify represents just 10% of e-commerce, the company’s goal is to take merchants beyond the marketplace by being “that unified app store for merchants to find products.”

“We think that in the future, the e-commerce stack of a merchant will look like the SaaS stack of a software company,” Zhou added. “We want to be the glue that holds that stack together for merchants.”

 



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