As Coinbase looks to list, Robinhood rides the crypto boom

The impending Coinbase direct listing is a fintech debut to watch. The cryptocurrency-focused consumer trading concern is set to become a public company on the back of a strong 2020, and a particularly strong final quarter.

And it appears that the company is also having a strong kickoff in 2021. What Coinbase is worth is therefore hard to guess, though some are trying, as we’ve noticed.

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

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But Coinbase is hardly the only company enjoying a crypto bounce: Robinhood, another American consumer fintech we’ve spent too much time discussing in recent weeks, is also riding a wave in its users’ cryptocurrency activity.

Between both companies, we’re seeing signs of the sort of growing consumer interest and trading volume that has historically come with sustained periods of bitcoin price expansion. But Coinbase charges fees for trading, while Robinhood doesn’t. And transaction fee-based incomes are the vast majority of Coinbase’s revenues — 96% in calendar 2020, for example.

The situation sets up an interesting contrast.

This morning, let’s see what we can learn about Coinbase’s recent trading volume before looking into Robinhood’s. And finally, we’ll remind ourselves of how Coinbase talked about Robinhood in its S-1 filing. Is Robinhood crypto a possible threat to Coinbase’s consumer trading volumes? Let’s tinker.

An argument called forever

Kicking off with Coinbase, The Block’s Frank Chaparro got us thinking this morning by tweeting the following chart:

You can see why the chart caught our eye. Now, we can’t reproduce the same chart on CryptoCompare, as the tool required sits behind a locked door. But we can, however, leverage other services to confirm the gist of the image.

Other data agrees: historical trading information via Nomics shows a steep rise in 2021 bitcoin trading on Coinbase Pro, a piece of the larger Coinbase empire. And Bitcoinity shows similar gains for Coinbase trading volumes over the same time period.

Chaparro is correct that the data paints a compelling Q1 2021 revenue story for Coinbase. But it’s not the only company that is seeing crypto demand spike.

https://ift.tt/37CXSXp As Coinbase looks to list, Robinhood rides the crypto boom https://ift.tt/3q6nEuA

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Tonal triples its physical stores with Nordstrom partnership

Tonal, maker of the smart home fitness trainer, announced it is more than tripling the number of physical locations it sells devices in through a new partnership with Nordstrom.

Starting this month, Tonal will have 50-square-foot stations in the women’s activewear departments of at least 40 Nordstrom locations across the U.S., bringing the total number of Tonal physical locations to 60 by the end of 2021. Shoppers will be able to walk in or book appointments to try Tonal devices and purchase them through employees on-hand.

“As we looked to expand our retail footprint and strategy, we looked to the retail landscape, and we really feel like Nordstrom says ‘best-in-class’ — the department store is well-suited to succeed in a COVID and post-COVID world,” explained Christopher Stadler, Tonal’s CMO.

Tonal, which manufactures a wall-mounted device with a digital weight system that emulates various traditional gym stations, already operates 16 locations across the country with devices shoppers can try and work out to, with plans to open four additional showrooms later this year. But the partnership with Nordstrom, which expects overall sales growth of 25% in 2021, marks a first-of-its-kind for at-home fitness makers. Peloton, for instance, operates a larger network of dedicated showrooms in the U.S., Canada, Germany and the UK, but it has yet to partner with an outside retailer to display and demo its bikes and treadmills.

Tonal’s physical expansion arrives amid a boom in demand for at-home equipment during the pandemic. According to Stadler, sales of Tonal equipment surged 800% from December 2019 to December 2020, causing 10-12 week wait times for deliveries. Those delays are somewhat comparable to Peloton, which has also faced significant delivery wait times in recent months and currently reports 6-10 week delays — an issue Peloton CEO John Foley acknowledged and apologized for in a note to users.

Tonal, for its part, is working to address shipment delays. According to Stadler, the startup has significantly ramped up production of devices, increased employee headcount, and in some cases, now air-ships equipment from Taiwan to the U.S. to meet demand.

“We have seen extraordinary demand for Tonal, and we’re working aggressively around the clock to produce, deliver and install Tonals faster and faster,” says Stadler. “We’ve absolutely ramped up production, and all facets of the organization are rallying to deliver our customer orders as quickly as we can.”

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Early Stage is the premiere ‘how-to’ event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. You’ll hear first-hand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. We’ll cover every aspect of company-building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, legal, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built-in – there’s ample time included in each for audience questions and discussion.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Tonal triples its physical stores with Nordstrom partnership https://ift.tt/3sGPFdU

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Get live feedback on your pitch deck from tech leaders on Extra Crunch Live

Extra Crunch Live, the members only event series that features tech leaders waxing poetic on how to perfect the pitch deck (and more!) has gotten off to a strong start in 2021. Thus far, we’ve seen the most beautifully simple deck in existence with the help of Justworks’ Isaac Oates and Bain’s Matt Harris, learned how to nail the narrative with Lightspeed’s Gaurav Gupta and Grafana’s Raj Dutt, heard about the perils of pricing with Accel’s Steve Loughlin and Ironclad’s Jason Boehmig, and learned the value of simple pitch decks with Felicis’ Aydin Senkut and Guideline’s Kevin Busque.

And that’s only the beginning. We’ve got a packed slate coming your way in March, featuring Cleo Capital’s Sarah Kunst, PlanetFWD’s Julia Collins, Flourish Ventures’ Emmalyn Shaw, Steady’s Adam Roseman, Mayfield’s Navin Chaddha, and Poshmark’s Manish Chandra.

One of the beautiful things about Extra Crunch Live is the Pitch Deck Teardown. Our esteemed speakers take a look at pitch decks submitted by the audience and give their live feedback. It’s an invaluable way to understand how VCs and founders alike think about what makes a great deck.

The importance of the pitch deck can’t be underestimated. It is often the first point of contact between a company and venture investors, but how investors consume a pitch deck (and what they really think) is also a bit of a black box.

Are they speed-flipping through the slides or taking their time? Do they prefer more information on the team or context on the industry? More numbers or more words? How many slides is the right number of slides?

There are too many questions to count, and often very few answers. But we’re popping the lid off of that black box with the Pitch Deck Teardown.

If this seems like a good fit for you, you can submit your pitch deck to be featured on Extra Crunch Live right here. (We prioritize decks submitted by Extra Crunch members, but anyone can send us a deck and we’ll take a look at as many as possible!)

See you on the next episode of Extra Crunch Live!

Check out the incredible speakers joining us on Extra Crunch Live in March

Early Stage is the premiere ‘how-to’ event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. You’ll hear first-hand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. We’ll cover every aspect of company-building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, legal, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built-in – there’s ample time included in each for audience questions and discussion.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Get live feedback on your pitch deck from tech leaders on Extra Crunch Live https://ift.tt/3sv8Vv4

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Equity Monday: More venture money for Europe, and public companies blast off

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

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest private market news, talks about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and be sure to check out our most recent Friday episode, which featured news on Finix and Coinbase and Reddit, among others.

(Also don’t forget that Equity is growing! And TechCrunch events are about to kick off and kick some butt.)

Here’s what we got into this fine Monday morning:

• • Skydio raises $170 million, a huge sum for the drone company. Will its market prove large enough, quickly enough for the company to stay VC-ready?
  • The UK government is putting together a venture fund of sorts? That’s mostly cool.
  • Klarna raises lots of money at a new, bigger valuation. More here on its industry.
  • Space SPAC one, space SPAC two
  • And then on the funding round side of things, here’s Axonius’ very interesting round, and this fun pre-seed deal from Europe!
  • And finally we chat Oscar Health, a company whose IPO is all sorts of confusing.

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 AM PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts!

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Early Stage is the premiere ‘how-to’ event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. You’ll hear first-hand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. We’ll cover every aspect of company-building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, legal, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built-in – there’s ample time included in each for audience questions and discussion.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Equity Monday: More venture money for Europe, and public companies blast off https://ift.tt/37WqWui

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Twilio to become minority owner in Syniverse Technologies with $750M investment

{rss:content:encoded} Twilio to become minority owner in Syniverse Technologies with $750M investment https://ift.tt/3b9kW3D https://ift.tt/3uGNQ2H March 01, 2021 at 03:42PM

Syniverse Technologies, a company that helps mobile providers move communications across public and private networks, announced an extensive partnership with Twilio this morning. Under the agreement, Twilio is investing up to $750 million to become a minority owner in the company.

The idea behind the partnership is to combine Twilio’s API communications expertise with Syniverse’s mobile carrier contacts to create this end-to-end communications system. Twilio’s strength has always been its ability to deliver communications like texts without having a carrier relationship. This deal gives them access to that side of the equation.

James Attwood, executive chairman at Syniverse certainly saw the value of the two companies working together. “The partnership will provide Syniverse access to Twilio’s extensive enterprise and API services expertise, creating opportunities to continue to build on Syniverse’s highly innovative product portfolio that helps mobile network operators and enterprises make communications better for their customers,” Atwood said in a statement.

Twilio’s $3.2B Segment acquisition is about helping developers build data-fueled apps

Today’s deal comes on the heels of the company’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Segment at the end of last year as it continues to look for ways to expand its markets. Will Townsend, an analyst at Moor Insight & Strategy who covers the network and carrier markets, sees this deal giving Twilio access to a broader set of technologies.

“Twilio [gets] access to Syniverse’s significant capabilities in massive industrial IoT and private 4G LTE and 5G cellular networking. Both are poised to ramp significantly given new found enterprise access to licensed spectrum via recent C-Band and CBRS auctions,” Townsend told me. He believes this will help Twilio reach parts of the enterprise not connected by WiFI or where the customers are dealing with “a mishmash of solutions that don’t scale or propagate well.”

As it turns out, it’s not a coincidence the two companies are coming together like this. In fact, Twilio has been a Syniverse customer for some time, according to Chee Chew, chief product officer at Twilio.

It’s a case of an old school company like Syniverse, which was founded in 1987 combining forces with a more modern approach to communications like Twilio, which provides developers with APIs to deliver communications services inside applications with just a couple of lines of code.

The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news of this deal, is also reporting the company could go public via SPAC at a value of between $2 and $3 billion some time later this year. That would suggest that it has not gained much value since the 2010 deal.

Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, says the SPAC provides an interesting additional component to the deal. “The high flying stock market creates all kind of new chickens, one of the, being a SPAC, and that’s the financial opportunity that Twilio is likely pursuing with the investment into Syniverse. The more immediate benefit is for Twilio to use the messaging vendor for its services. Call it a partnership with investment upside,” Mueller said.

According to Syniverse, “the company is one of the largest private IP Packet Exchange (IPX) providers in the world and offers a range of networking solutions, excelling in scenarios where seamless connections must cross over networks – either across multiple private networks or between public and private networks.”

The company is currently owned by the Carlyle Group private equity firm, which bought it in 2010 for $2.6 billion. Twilio launched in 2008 and raised over $236 million before going public in 2016 at $15 per share. The stock was up 3.82% in early trading, suggesting that Wall Street approves of the deal.

Twilio 2010 board deck gives peek at now-public company’s early days

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Australia-based Employment Hero raises $45M AUD for its global expansion

Ben Thompson, co-founder and chief executive officer of human resources platform Employment Hero

Businesses, and the tech platforms that support their operations, had to adapt quickly to the pandemic. Ben Thompson, co-founder and chief executive officer of human resources platform Employment Hero told TechCrunch that “COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of employment management software by roughly five years,” as teams adjusted to remote work.

The Sydney, Australia-based company announced today it has raised a $45 million AUD (about $34.8 million) Series D, bringing its valuation to more than $250 million AUD ($193.4 million USD). The capital will be used for expansion and growth in markets including New Zealand, Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom.

The round was led by SEEK, which runs job platforms around the world, with participation from OneVentures and AirTreeVentures, all returning investors. Employment Hero also added Salesforce Ventures as a new investor.

Employment Hero is designed for small-to-medium sized businesses, and combines human resources, payroll and benefits features. It currently serves about 6,000 SMEs with a combined total of more than 250,000 employees. Employment Hero doubled the number of its full-time employees to 200 last year, and launched versions in New Zealand, the UK, Malaysia and Singapore. Its Series D will be used to support growth in those markets, and enter new Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Localized versions of Employment Hero include pre-built employment contracts and policies that comply with local laws. In Malaysia and Singapore, the platform provided research on recruitment and employment trends, Thompson said, and in Singapore, it gathered COVID-related government support materials into one factsheet.

Employment Hero also renewed its partnership with SEEK, which means the platform includes SEEK job ads in Southeast Asia.

During the pandemic, the company launched a new service called Global Teams for remote work. It serves as a professional employer organization (PEO), enabling companies to recruit new remote employees around the world and automating regional compliance paperwork. Global Teams is integrated into the main Employment Hero platform, so remote employees have access to the same resources as their colleagues.

6 VCs share their bets on the future of work

 

About 75% of Employment Hero’s customer base upgraded their subscriptions to include tools for remote work management, compliance and employee wellness services.

For example, during the first week of Australia’s nationwide lockdown, Employment Hero launched a COVID-19 resource hub, including tools for the government’s JobKeeper payment scheme and employee wellness surveys. It also ran biweekly webinars with industry experts about employees’ rights to leave and pay, mental health and employee assistance programs, cashflow management, employer duty of care for remote work arrangements and live employment law.

As remote work continued, Employment Hero also introduced engagement and productivity features, like one-on-one coaching and other tools to improve communication and feedback.

“As a company, we knew we had to do whatever it took to help our clients and the wider small and medium-sized business community through COVID-19,” said Thompson.

Virtual HQs race to win over a remote-work-fatigued market

https://ift.tt/37W4nWC Australia-based Employment Hero raises $45M AUD for its global expansion https://ift.tt/3kKIBKV

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Rocket Lab debuts plans for a new, larger, reusable rocket for launching satellite constellations

Because news of its SPAC-fueled public market debut wasn’t enough, Rocket Lab also unveiled a new class of rocket it has in development on Monday. The launch vehicle, called Neutron, will be able to carry 8 metric tons (around 18,000 lbs) to orbit, far exceeding the cargo capacity of Rocket Lab’s current Electron vehicle, which can host only around 660 lbs. Neutron will also have a fully reusable first-stage, designed to launch on an ocean landing platform, not unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster.

Rocket Lab says that Neutron will be designed to service increased demand from customers launching large multi-satellite constellations. The heavier lift will mean that it can take more small satellites up at one time to get those constellations in orbit more quickly. Its cargo rating also means it should be able to deliver up to 98% of all currently-forecasted spacecraft launching through 2029, according to Rocket Lab, and provide resupply services to the International Space Station. Rocket Lab also says it’ll be capable of human spaceflight missions, indicating an ambition to make it the company’s first human-rated spacecraft.

Introducing Neutron – our new 8-ton class reusable rocket tailored for mega constellations, deep space missions and human spaceflight. Learn more: https://t.co/dews8XwdAM pic.twitter.com/R9NqltSHTF

— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) March 1, 2021

Neutron could significantly expand Rocket Lab’s customer base, and it’ll also improve costs and economics vs. what Electron can do now, thanks to a design focus don efficiency and reusability. The rocket will launch from Rocket Lab’s Wallops, Virginia facility, and since there’s already a launch pad in place for it, the company expects it’ll be able to fly Neutron for the first time by 2024. In addition to its LA-based HQ and the Wallops launch site, Rocket Lab anticipates it’ll be building a new Neutron production facility somewhere in the U.S. to build the new rocket at scale.

While it won’t have the launch capacity of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, it’s still intended to be a rocket that can also carry smaller payloads to the Moon and even deep space beyond. The medium-lift category in general is generating a lot of interest right now, given the projections in the amount and variety of constellations that both private and public organization are expected to put into orbit over the next decade. Constellations are offering advantages in terms of cost and coverage for everything from communications to Earth observation. Another rocket startup, Relativity Space, just unveiled similar plans for a larger launch vehicle to complement its first small rocket.

Relativity Space unveils plans for a new, much larger and fully reusable rocket

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Rocket Lab debuts plans for a new, larger, reusable rocket for launching satellite constellations https://ift.tt/3sFf3B8

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Klarna confirms new $31B valuation

Klarna, the Swedish buy now, pay later behemoth and upstart bank, has raised $1 billion in new funding at a post-money valuation of $31 billion. That sees the company retain the crown as the highest valued private fintech in Europe.

Backers of this round are said to be combination of new and existing investors, while Klarna claims it was 4 times oversubscribed. That’s likely prompted by reports the company is eyeing up a direct public listing and the current appetite for public tech stocks in general.

As a reference point, Affirm, which is viewed in the U.S. as one of Klarna’s most direct competitors, recently IPO’d. If you want further data points, read Alex’s Extra Crunch analysis of Klarna, Affirm and AfterPay’s most recent earnings.

As BNPL startups raise, a look at Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay earnings

In addition to confirming the new fund raise — which had been widely leaked given that there dozens of frenzied investors involved — Klarna is also announcing that the company will pledge 1% of the capital raised to a newly created initiative that focuses on “key sustainability challenges around the world”. The initiative will be formally launched April 22 on World Earth Day.

A very early mover in what is now widely called buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), Klarna has been built on the concept of giving consumers a way to buy things online without having to pay for them upfront, and without resorting to a credit card. It does this both by offering online retailer integrations where Klarna appears as an option at check out, and through its own “shopping mall” app, where users can browse all the stores that let you pay with Klarna.

On the back of this, the company hopes to foster a bigger financial relationship with its users as a fully-fledged challenger bank. It has a range of licensed banking services, such as savings and current accounts, in Sweden and Germany, with more countries to follow.

On the BNPL front, Klarna is active in over 17 countries, and has over 250,000 retail partners including Macys, H&M, IKEA, Expedia Group, Samsung, ASOS, Peloton, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike and AliExpress.

The fintech has been backed by Sequoia Capital since 2010. More recent investors include Dragoneer, Bestseller Group, Permira, Visa, Atomico, Ant Group, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Silver Lake, HMI Capital, TCV, Northzone, GIC (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund) and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.

Meanwhile, Klarna was founded all the way back in 2005 and has a fascinating story from startup to scale-up — a story that almost certainly has a few more twists and turns yet. If you need to catch up, check out this 8,000 word opus on the company for Extra Crunch.

Making sense of Klarna

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Klarna confirms new $31B valuation https://ift.tt/3q58FRQ

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Istanbul’s Dream Games snaps up $50M and launches its first game, the puzzle-based Royal Match

{rss:content:encoded} Istanbul’s Dream Games snaps up $50M and launches its first game, the puzzle-based Royal Match https://ift.tt/3ky0YlW https://ift.tt/37VNgV5 March 01, 2021 at 08:59AM

On the back of Zynga acquiring Turkey’s Peak Games for $1.8 billion last year and then following it up with another gaming acquisition in the country, Turkey has been making a name for itself as a hub for mobile gaming startups, and specifically those building casual puzzle games, the wildly popular and very sticky format that takes players through successive graphic challenges that test their logic, memory and ability to think under time pressure.

Today, one of the more promising of those startups, Istanbul-based, Peak alum-founded Dream Games, is announcing the GA launch of its first title, Royal Match (on both iOS and Android), along with $50 million in funding to double down on the opportunity ahead — the largest Series A raised by a startup in Turkey to date.

While Dream Games will focus for the moment on building out the audience for puzzle games with more innovative ideas, it also has its sights set on a bigger goal.

“We’re building this as an entertainment company,” CEO Soner Aydemir said in an interview, where he described Pixar as a key inspiration not just for size but for quality in its category. “What they did for animated movies, we want to do for mobile gaming. We are focusing on casual puzzle games first because everyone plays these, but we will also move forward with other genres. We want to be a huge interactive entertainment company that builds high quality games.”

The Series A is being led by Index Ventures, with participation also from Balderton Capital and Makers Fund. The latter two backed Dream Games previously, in a $7.5 million seed round in 2019. Index, meanwhile, is a notable VC to have on board: other successful gaming startups it has backed include Discord, King, Roblox, Supercell and Angry Birds maker Rovio.

Interestingly, this is not Index’s first investment in a gaming startup founded by Peak Games alums: in December it led a $6 million round for another Istanbul mobile casual puzzle gaming startup founded by ex-Peak employees: Bigger Games.

Dream Games is not disclosing its valuation with this round.

Dream Games raising $57.5 million ahead of launching any games — or proving whether they get any traction — may sound like a risky bet, but there is some context to the story that sets up the odds in this startup’s favor.

The founding team all come from Peak Games, the Istanbul gaming startup that was so nice, Zynga bought it twice — first, in the form of one small acquisition of some specific titles, and then the whole company some years later.

Zynga acquires Turkey’s Peak Games for $1.8B, after buying its card games studio for $100M in 2017

CEO Soner Aydemir is Peak’s former director of product who built the company’s two biggest hits, Toy Blast and Toon Blast. Ikbal Namli and Hakan Saglam were Peak’s former engineering leads. And Peak product manager Eren Sengul and an ex-Peak 3D artist Serdar Yilmaz round out the rest of the founding team.

(Aydemir notes that the team left and formed Dream Games in 2019, about a year before Zynga’s full acquisition.)

The other indicators that Dream Games is on to something are its metrics for its limited test run of Royal Match.

Royal Match — in which players are tasked with helping King Robert restore his royal castle “to its former glory” by rebuilding it through a series of match-3 levels and obstacles, with new rooms, royal chambers and gardens making up the different levels of the game — was launched first as a limited test on iOS and Android in the U.K. and Canada in July leading up to this launch. In that time, Aydemir said it saw 1 million downloads and 200 daily average users.

“We think the numbers are very promising compared to previous experiences,” he said.

While Aydemir likes to describe Dream as an “entertainment” company, there is a lot of technology going into the product, from the graphics and the mechanics of the puzzles themselves through to the data science behind them.

“If you want to create an iconic game, you need to combine engineering, art and data science together with high quality user acquisition and a strong marketing approach,” he said.

And he believes that when you focus on these it will inevitably lead to quality, which means you no longer have to focus on simply trying to find a hit.

“We don’t like that approach,” he said. “We don’t want to find a hit.”

That was also the mix that Index also wanted to back.

“Building iconic titles requires a harmonious mix of craft, science and flawless execution,” said Index Ventures partner Stephane Kurgan, who led the round together with Index’s Sofia Dolfe. “The Dream Games team has perfected this mix over many years of working together, and has put it on full display in Royal Match. We could not be more excited to work with them in their journey to build the next global casual champion.”

While Dream Games’ long-term ambition is to build out interactive experiences around different audiences and genres, Aydemir said that casual games, and puzzles in particular, have proven to be a huge hit with consumers.

The strength of that trend has up to now meant that puzzle games generally have proven to have more staying power than other genres in mobile games, which have soared in popularity but also somewhat fizzled out.

“Every year we see the bigger market of users growing by 20%,” he said. “It will remain for decades.”

Interestingly, the focus on casual gaming startups in Turkey seems like a perfect storm of sorts. Undeniably, the proven success of Peak has brought in more punters, but it has also shown the way to developers: you can build a successful and global consumer tech startup out of Turkey, and perhaps puzzles — which focus on shapes — are especially good at transcending different language barriers.. Alongside that, Aydemir pointed out that the country is strong on engineers and developers but slim on opportunities with bigger tech companies.

“Mobile gaming is a younger industry, so that presents an opportunity,” he said.

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Autonomous drone maker Skydio raises $170M led by Andreessen Horowitz

Skydio has raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund. That pushes it into unicorn territory, with $340 million in total funding and a post-money valuation north of $1 billion. Skydio’s fresh capital comes on the heels of its expansion last year into the enterprise market, and it intends to use the considerable pile of cash to help it expand globally and accelerate product development.

In July of last year, Skydio announced its $100 million Series C financing, and also debuted the X2, its first dedicated enterprise drone. The company also launched a suite of software for commercial and enterprise customers, its first departure from the consumer drone market where it had been focused prior to that raise since its founding in 2014.

Skydio’s debut drone, the R1, received a lot of accolades and praise for its autonomous capabilities. Unlike other consumer drones at the time, including from recreational drone maker DJI, the R1 could track a target and film them while avoiding obstacles without any human intervention required. Skydio then released the Skydio 2 in 2019, its second drone, cutting off more than half the price while improving on it its autonomous tracking and video capabilities.

Autonomous drone startup Skydio raises $100 million and launches the X2 commercial drone

Late last year, Skydio brought on additional senior talent to help it address enterprise and government customers, including a software development lead who had experience at Tesla and 3D printing company Carbon. Skydio also hired two Samsara executives at the same time to work on product and engineering. Samsara provides a platform for managing cloud-based fleet operations for large enterprises.

The applications of Skydio’s technology for commercial, public sector and enterprise organizations are many and varied. Already, the company works with public utilities, fire departments, construction firms and more to do work including remote inspection, emergency response, urban planning and more. Skydio’s U.S. pedigree also puts it in prime position to capitalize on the growing interest in applications from the defense sector.

a16z previously led Skydio’s Series A round. Other investors who participated in this Series D include Lines Capital, Next47, IVP and UP.Partners.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Autonomous drone maker Skydio raises $170M led by Andreessen Horowitz https://ift.tt/38dNV4r

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Space startup Gitai raises $17.1M to help build the robotic workforce of commercial space

Japanese space startup Gitai has raised a $17.1 million funding round, a Series B financing for the robotics startup. This new funding will be used for hiring, as well as funding the development and execution of an on-orbit demonstration mission for the company’s robotic technology, which will show its efficacy in performing in-space satellite servicing work. That mission is currently set to take place in 2023.

Gitai will also be staffing up in the U.S., specifically, as it seeks to expand its stateside presence in a bid to attract more business from that market.

“We are proceeding well in the Japanese market, and we’ve already contracted missions from Japanese companies, but we haven’t expanded to the U.S. market yet,” explained Gitai founder and CEO Sho Nakanose in an interview. So we would like to get missions from U.S. commercial space companies, as a subcontractor first. We’re especially interested in on-orbit servicing, and we would like to provide general-purpose robotic solutions for an orbital service provider in the U.S.”

Nakanose told me that Gitai has plenty of experience under its belt developing robots which are specifically able to install hardware on satellites on-orbit, which could potentially be useful for upgrading existing satellites and constellations with new capabilities, for changing out batteries to keep satellites operational beyond their service life, or for repairing satellites if they should malfunction.

Gitai’s focus isn’t exclusively on extra-vehicular activity in the vacuum of space, however. It’s also performing a demonstration mission of its technical capabilities in partnership with Nanoracks using the Bishop Airlock, which is the first permanent commercial addition to the International Space Station. Gitai’s robot, codenamed S1, is an arm–style robot not unlike industrial robots here on Earth, and it’ll be showing off a number of its capabilities, including operating a control panel and changing out cables.

Long-term, Gitai’s goal is to create a robotic workforce that can assist with establishing bases and colonies on the Moon and Mars, as well as in orbit. With NASA’s plans to build a more permanent research presence on orbit at the Moon, as well as on the surface, with the eventual goal of reaching Mars, and private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin looking ahead to more permanent colonies on Mars, as well as large in-space habitats hosting humans as well as commercial activity, Nakanose suggests that there’s going to be ample need for low-cost, efficient robotic labor – particularly in environments that are inhospitable to human life.

Nakanose told me that he actually got started with Gitai after the loss of his mother – an unfortunate passing he said he firmly believes could have been avoided with the aid of robotic intervention. He began developing robots that could expand and augment human capability, and then researched what was likely the most useful and needed application of this technology from a commercial perspective. That research led Nakanose to conclude that space was the best long-term opportunity for a new robotics startup, and Gitai was born.

This funding was led by SPARX Innovation for the Future Co. Ltd, and includes funding form DcI Venture Growth Fund, the Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, and EP-GB (Epson’s venture investment arm).

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Space startup Gitai raises $17.1M to help build the robotic workforce of commercial space https://ift.tt/3kwhIKp

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Justworks’ Series B pitch deck may be the most wonderfully simple deck I’ve ever seen

It may be tough to remember, but there was a time long ago when Justworks wasn’t a household name. Though its monthly revenue growth charts were up and to the right, it had not even broken the $100,000 mark. Even then, Bain Capital Venture’s Matt Harris felt confident in betting on the startup.

Harris says that, with any investment (particularly at the early stage of a company), the decision really comes down to the team and more importantly, the founder.

Two of the main reasons this deck “sings” is the line it draws to the Justworks culture and that the deck isn’t “artificially simple.”

“Isaac is a long-term mercenary, but short- and medium-term missionary,” said Harris. “The word that really comes to mind is ‘structured.’ If you ask him to think about something and respond, he’ll think about it and come back with an answer that has four pillars underneath it. He’ll create a framework that not only answers your specific question, but can prove to be a model that will answer future questions of the same type. He’s a systems thinker.”

In 2015, Justworks closed its $13 million Series B, led by Bain Capital Ventures. Harris took a seat on the board. Since, the duo have been working closely together as Justworks has grown into the behemoth it is today.

But these relationships work both ways. Oates said that one of the main things he looks for in an investor is how they’ll react when the chips are down.

“Different people behave different ways under stress,” said Oates. “And people show their values and integrity in those types of situations. That’s when these things are tested. The simple way I think about this is, will this person pick me up from the airport in a pinch?”

Though he’s never asked, he believes Harris absolutely would.

On Extra Crunch Live, Harris and Justworks CEO Isaac Oates sat down to talk through how they resolve disagreements, why Oates never changed what must be one of the most simple pitch decks I’ve ever seen in my life, and how founders should think about pricing their products.

They also gave live feedback on pitch decks submitted by the audience in the Pitch Deck Teardown. (If you’d like to see your deck featured on a future episode, send it to us using this form.)

We record Extra Crunch Live every Wednesday at 12 p.m. PST/3 p.m. EST/8 p.m. GMT. You can see our past episodes here and check out the March slate right here.

Episode breakdown

• Working through disagreements — 11:30
• The Justworks Series B Deck — 15:00
• Pricing the product — 25:00
• Pitch deck teardown — 33:00

Working through disagreements

Despite their glowing praise of one another at the top of the episode, the founder/investor duo haven’t always seen eye to eye. But they did provide an excellent framework around how founders and VCs should wade through disagreements around the business.

Oates gave an example from 2017. He was considering putting in a dual-class stock, which would give a kind of high-vote, low-vote structure to the company. He said that it interested him because he’d seen other companies out there who were vulnerable after going public, whether it be activist shareholders or other outside forces, and that that might prevent a CEO from thinking about the long term.

Harris disagreed and gave a long list of reasons why that neither shared on the episode. However, Oates said that one of the great things to come out of that disagreement was seeing how Harris went about this decision.

Harris introduced Oates to every expert on this particular subject that he knew, asking them to have meetings and discuss it further.

In the end, Oates ultimately stuck to his guns and decided to go forward with the dual-class stock, but armed with all the information he needed to feel confident in the decision.

“I learned a lot about how Matt thinks and how he approaches decisions,” said Oates. “The process of making decisions is just as important as the content. As I’ve gotten to know him more, it means that when we find something where we don’t necessarily agree, we’re able to step back and make sure we have an intellectually rigorous way to process it.”

The story reminded me of a similar conversation with Ironclad CEO Jason Boehmig and Accel’s Steve Loughlin. They explained how much time and energy they spent early on in their investor/founder relationship talking about the “why” behind opinions and strategies and decisions, plotting out the short-, medium- and long-term plan for the company.

Ironclad’s Jason Boehmig: The objective of pricing is to become less wrong over time

“I want to know what you want the company to look like so that I can push you and we can have constructive conversations around the plan,” said Loughlin. “That way, I’m not getting a phone call about whether or not they should hire a head of customer success without any context or a true north in mind.”

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Justworks’ Series B pitch deck may be the most wonderfully simple deck I’ve ever seen https://ift.tt/2MBQw0m

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