TechCrunch

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• At SoftBank, a reported battle over pay with COO Marcelo Claure adds to other bad news
• Don’t let new hybrid workplaces keep the old systemic racism
• Daily Crunch: Oura Ring offers a smaller wearable for tracking fitness data
• Gift Guide: 10 great cameras for when a smartphone lens just isn’t enough
• New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal begins restructuring as two execs step down
• Essential steps to thriving and surviving while fundraising
• AWS re:Invent 2021 was more incremental than innovative
• 3 ways to recruit engineers who fly under LinkedIn’s radar
• Tech stocks are getting hammered (again)
• A step forward for CO2 capture
• Last chance to save $55 on passes to TC Sessions: Space 2021
• MrBeast’s ‘Real Life Squid Game’ and the price of viral stunts
• First we SPAC, then we take down AWS
• Facebook Messenger is testing a new ‘Split Payments’ feature in the US
• Square’s Better.com name Block is Butter-y smooth
• Vinehealth, offering digital support for cancer patients and SaaS for R&D, gets $5.5M to launch in the US
• TechCrunch+ roundup: Singapore’s fintech buzz, SaaS slump, amplified marketing strategies
• Why Pinduoduo is putting all its profit into agriculture
• Umamicart bags $6M to deliver traditional Asian ingredients right to your home

At SoftBank, a reported battle over pay with COO Marcelo Claure adds to other bad news Posted: 03 Dec 2021 07:01 PM PST Not for the first time, SoftBank is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. Indeed, even while the Japanese conglomerate is known for its extremes — be it bold bets, internal squabbles, soured business relationships, or its ability to repeatedly bounce back from the brink — some newer developments could prove particularly hard, if not impossible, to overcome. The worst of these, seemingly, is the lawsuit filed yesterday by the Federal Trade Commission to block chipmaker Nvidia’s acquisition of Arm, the British company that licenses chip technology, out of stated concern that the deal would give Nvidia too much control over computing technology. "Tomorrow's technologies depend on preserving today's competitive, cutting-edge chip markets," Holly Vedova, the director of the agency’s competition bureau, said in a related statement. "This proposed deal would distort Arm's incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine Nvidia's rivals." The problem for SoftBank? A scuttled deal could means tens of billions of dollars to the outfit, which acquired the now 21-year-old Arm in July 2016 for $32 billion before selling it to Nvidia in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $40 billion. It’s even worse than it sounds. Nvidia’s share price has continued to rise so fast that, as Bloomberg noted earlier today, that $40 billion deal has since ballooned into a $74 billion deal. It might not be a complete disaster for SoftBank. The deal has expected to receive regulatory scrutiny from the moment it was announced, so SoftBank might already have factored in this very likely possibility. Nvidia also says it will contest the FTC lawsuit (though it seems unlikely to win against the agency). Besides, all things chip-related are much in demand at the moment. Still, it isn’t clear what Arm would be worth to another buyer. Meanwhile, if SoftBank decides to take the outfit public instead, it could be worth closer to half what Nvidia paid for it, estimates Bloomberg, based on the average market-capitalization-to-sales ratio of 9.9 times that members of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index currently enjoy. In the meantime, SoftBank is also in danger of losing a key lieutenant over compensation. According to a New York Times story published this afternoon, Marcelo Claure, who is SoftBank’s chief operating officer and is widely believed to be the right-hand man to SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, has been locked in a protracted battle with the company over his compensation. In fact, according to four people who spoke with the Times, he’s apparently prepared to leave SoftBank if he doesn’t get what he wants, which is $2 billion in compensation over the next several years. SoftBank is apparently thinking more along tens of millions of dollars at most instead. Asked for more information, a SoftBank spokesperson sent us the following statement: “Softbank and Marcelo Claure are actively engaged in discussions about his role at the company and his compensation. Marcelo is an important executive at Softbank who has helped with many important initiatives since joining us in 2017. SoftBank does not intend to comment further on this matter.” It would be a major loss to SoftBank. Claure wears many hats for the company. He was WeWork’s interim CEO after it pushed out Adam Neumann for example, and helped recruit current CEO Sandeep Mathrani. Claure is also at the top of two other org charts: its diversity-focused SoftBank Opportunity Fund and its SoftBank Latin America Fund vehicles, which are responsible for most of the firm’s outsize bets these days. (We talked with Claure about SoftBank’s aggressive LatAm strategy at Disrupt in September; see below.) Claure would also be among the highest profile in a very long string of departures from the firm. Earlier this month, Bloomberg noted that SoftBank’s “eccentric” approach to compensation — it pays far less than similar-size rivals — has helped precipitate the resignations of seven managing partners since March of last year, with its only senior managing partner, Deep Nishar, announcing last week that he is joining General Catalyst as a managing director. SoftBank has recovered from worse, but it seems particularly vulnerable at the moment. Just last week, Son revealed that SoftBank Group has lost more than $50 billion owing to Beijing's tech crackdown and its shares are down sharply. With these two newer and very public developments, it’s going to be that much harder to boost investor confidence in the company.

Don’t let new hybrid workplaces keep the old systemic racism Posted: 03 Dec 2021 03:39 PM PST Donald R. Cravins Jr. Contributor Donald R. Cravins Jr. is the executive vice president of the National Urban League. Systemic racism is nothing new in America, and the effects of unconscious racial bias have long created inequity in the workplace. So why — when presented with the task of developing new "normal" hybrid workplaces — are we allowing the same systemic problems that boxed generations of Black and brown people out of the workforce to exist? We must bravely confront this problem with whatever tools are available to us now while we still have a once-in-a-generation chance to shape the foundation of what is being built. Statistics help tell the story of stark disparities in the economic status of Black and white families. The typical Black household earns only 57 cents on the dollar made by white families, and the median wealth of Black families is just $17,000 — compared with $171,000 for white families. Black families also suffer from lower annual incomes, making about $29,000 less a year, on average, than their white counterparts. Their children are three times as likely to grow up in poverty and stay poor throughout their lifetimes. There's also a dismal wealth gap in homeownership: Only 42% of Black families own their homes, compared with 73% of white families. I recently shared this data with lawmakers serving on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion. The hearing, "The Legacy of George Floyd: An Examination of Financial Services Commitments to Economic and Racial Justice," specifically addressed the negative economic impact of systemic racism in the financial services industry. Everything from biased lending practices to an imbalance in the distribution of philanthropic dollars has massive economic ramifications. Equity cannot be fully achieved by simply donating money to external partners, such as my organization, the National Urban League. While I'm the first to say the league and many of my colleagues in the field are doing great work, too many companies are relying on us alone to change the world. Actions speak. Entrepreneurs need to help get their employees into proven training programs that show the true impact of their unconscious biases. Startups must look inward and ensure their organizations are diverse, inclusive and equitable places for both employees and their customers. But this requires internal work. And in certain cases, external voices. We have already seen companies like Comcast NBCUniversal, Charter Communications and T-Mobile create external diversity and inclusion councils with independent leaders to advise and help drive common objectives forward. Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) isn't just the right and moral thing for entrepreneurs to do. It also makes economic sense. Companies that stress internal diversity are more profitable, as they can successfully appeal to more diverse markets. Ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to outperform companies with less diversity. To be sure, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and profoundly altered many aspects of work life, including in-person diversity training and workforce development. As more workplaces move to a hybrid model of remote and in-person work, this is the time to take DEI off the back burner and rethink inclusion programs to incorporate leading-edge technology to reach employees wherever they are. Companies must start now. But there's no need to start from scratch. The resources already exist, and there is a wealth of external partners that can help improve corporate culture and diversity metrics. With a deep and nuanced understanding of the issues at hand, civil rights organizations are uniquely poised to support corporate DEI management by providing strategic advisory services, executive coaching, DEI subject matter expertise, and DEI strategy development and planning. For instance, we have the lessons we've learned over our 111 years working to connect diverse communities to opportunities, and we integrate these lessons with new tech advancements to advise our partners. Accordingly, groups like the National Urban League have successfully collaborated with public and private partners on the issues of diversity, inclusion, fair employment, equity and parity. Although these conversations can sometimes be difficult, companies who are intentional in addressing these issues must do so head-on. Here are some ways founders can usher in a more inclusive startup culture in a hybrid work environment. VR training programs Virtual reality technology is one of the newest additions to the DEI training toolbox to facilitate having those sometimes difficult discussions. Virtual reality scenarios can be used to train a large group of people in a cost-effective way. By donning a VR headset, individuals can participate in an immersive training experience where they can engage in a conversation about race and inherent bias without fear of judgment or reprisals. For example, Moth+Flame, a Brooklyn-based virtual reality developer and production studio, has already developed successful DEI programs for the U.S. Air Force and Accenture, where users enter a simulated real-world environment to practice tough conversations using their own voice. This innovative technology offers a deep level of immersion that creates a long-lasting emotional impact for employees. The beauty of VR is that it lends itself well to in-person situations and can also be used effectively with remote employees. In a hybrid workplace, VR ensures all employees walk away with a consistent training experience — regardless of their location. Professional and workforce development programs Programs can be developed for America's startups to connect recruiting teams to historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions. These programs include supported and hosted online job boards, career fairs and workforce development initiatives. But just getting diverse faces in the door isn't enough — that's only diversity. Founders need to invest in their employees of color by allowing them to participate in professional development programs to create the next generation of executives — that's equity. This is even more critical with a dispersed workforce as a divide in the employee experience can become more pronounced when some groups work in the office and some remain remote. Workers can feel left out, lonely or just out of the loop. Professional development programs encourage employee engagement and signal the company is investing in their personal and professional growth despite where they are located — that's inclusion. Supplier diversity The return to some level of in-office activities also comes with the return of relying on suppliers — like travel agents, catering vendors, event production companies and more. As companies look for new suppliers to build out their new hybrid work environments, they should be working now to create a framework for establishing a diverse supplier network, vetting current vendors and sourcing new vendors. Based on my experience, many companies consistently list difficulty in locating diverse suppliers as the chief impediment to furthering such diversity. To remedy the problem, BidConnect USA created a centralized business network platform that connects companies and government agencies with small businesses, aggregates online events and creates a tool to foster ethical practices and economic inclusion. Recognizing, assessing, measuring Without employees coming together in the same office day in and day out, it can be harder for staff to feel when progress is made toward positive company cultural change. That's where numbers and accountability come into play. Startups must transparently determine which metrics they want to incorporate to measure diversity within their organization. With equity being a higher priority than ever for employees, consumers, investors and activists, there have never been greater risks and costs for lagging or greater rewards and benefits for leading. Management Leadership for Tomorrow's (MLT) Black Equity at Work Certification Program enables employers that embrace rigorous action to minimize downside and maximize upside by assuring major, sustained Black equity progress and providing valuable recognition. The MLT program isn't another pledge, index or disclosure push. It's a unique, affordably priced improvement system that includes a meticulously developed scoring rubric that quantifies overall Black equity progress; planning resources and support that enable employers to chart their own path on their timeline; an array of valuable services that ensure and accelerate results; and a high degree of trust and guarantee of strict confidentiality. Socializing tangible data to measure progress toward diversity goes a long way toward shaping company culture. Achieving full racial equity and inclusion won't be easy. It requires the firm commitment of all sectors of our civil society. Government entities, startups, private and public companies, and nonprofits alike need to ask themselves uncomfortable questions, address inequities head-on, and resolve to change practices and policies so that all people have equal opportunities to live full and prosperous lives. With the right programs in the hands of dedicated employees, we might just get there a little faster.

Daily Crunch: Oura Ring offers a smaller wearable for tracking fitness data Posted: 03 Dec 2021 03:10 PM PST To get a roundup of TechCrunch's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for December 3, 2021! I don't know about you, but after watching stocks get hammered all day, I mostly want to snag a nap and breathe. But things were worse for DocuSign and Didi than they were for us, so we can take solace in that. What did Didi do? Well, let's talk about it. —Alex The TechCrunch Top 3 Didi to delist: The latest detail from the dada-esque Didi disaster came today, with the Chinese ride-hailing giant announcing that it will delist from U.S. markets. It will, instead, list in Hong Kong. The Didi IPO, akin to the failed Ant debut, may become timeline markers of further decoupling of the Chinese market with the larger world. Read this Amanda Silberling piece on the creator economy: The worldwide success of Netflix's “Squid Game” has spawned a cottage industry of me-toos. None, perhaps, more notable than an entry from YouTuber MrBeast. I once saw a clip of him burying himself alive for laughs. Regardless, Silberling digs into the YouTube economy and how stunts can leverage already-created content. It's worth reading. SPACs challenge Amazon, Microsoft: The blank-check company circus continued this week with news that Rumble — the video hosting platform that has ridden right-wing personalities to prominence — will go public via a SPAC. And like the Trump Technology deal, it has a long-term vision to take on the internet's major platform companies. To which we say, good luck. Startups/VC How to think about the Oura Ring: Our own Brian Heater has a great dig into the Oura Ring 3, which he argues is not an Apple Watch replacement. Instead, he says, it's a replacement for a fitness band. Given that I have turned my Apple Watch into a fitness band by nuking all of its notifications aside from those prompting me to move my lard about, I do not mind Heater's view. Vinehealth raises pre-Series A money: A $5.5 million round was once Series A scale. Now it's seed, or something a little later. No matter how Vinehealth wants to describe its latest round, the London-based digital health startup that's built an app offering personalized support for cancer patients while also making it easier to gather patient-reported outcome data now has the capital it needs to reach its next round. Let's see how it scales. Umamicart has a great name: What does Umamicart do, if you had to guess? Would you reckon, say, the delivery of Asian ingredients? Bingo! That's what it does, and the company just raised $6 million to keep the growth coming. Zindi is using community solve data questions: What happens if you blend community and AI and deploy the result to tricky data problems? You get Zindi, it turns out. TechCrunch has a toothsome look at the South African concern that you should read. If you need a weekend listen, there's new Equity (here) out for your audio enjoyment. 3 ways to recruit engineers who fly under LinkedIn's radar Image Credits: the_burtons (opens in a new window) / Getty Images This week, LinkedIn rolled out support for Hindi users, allowing it to reach approximately 500 million people in India and 100 million more around the globe. Talented developers abound in emerging markets, but few of them use the same social network that so many startup recruiters rely upon. Additionally, many devs simply don’t like social media — so what’s your plan for reaching them? We’re in the midst of a talent drought, so it’s a good idea to draw water from more than one well. To bring in a broader mix of candidates, use the three ideas laid out here to elevate your startup’s hiring game. (TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Big Tech Inc. Facebook Messenger tests payment splitting: When you reach Facebook's scale, every product in the market is a potential add-on to your core service. So, that Big Blue is adding payment splitting to its Messenger service is not a huge surprise. What can users do with the ability to "share the cost of bills and expenses through the app"? Well, most of what you can do with Venmo or Splitwise, we reckon. Tech stocks get hammered (again): Leading the downward charge, DocuSign was the first horseman of the tech valuation unravelling this Friday. Shares of tech stocks took a number of blows this week, pushing software stocks into bear market territory. Sure, valuations are still high, but the hype could be evaporating atop the market's warm climate. Why is Pinduoduo growing food? This was a surprise to my eyes. Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo unveiled a huge agricultural effort in August, where it is seemingly putting both capital and focus. "The program won't be profit-driven, the company promised, and all profit from the second quarter and 'any potential profits in future quarters would be allocated to the initiative,'" TechCrunch reported. My first take is that this is how tech companies in China can keep being tech shops while also fitting into the top-down demand for “common prosperity.” TechCrunch Experts Image Credits: SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you're a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we'd like to hear about why they loved working with you.

Gift Guide: 10 great cameras for when a smartphone lens just isn’t enough Posted: 03 Dec 2021 01:00 PM PST Welcome to TechCrunch's 2021 Holiday Gift Guide! Need help with gift ideas? We've got lots of them. Looking for our other guides? Find them here! As we wade into the second pandemic-era holiday season, there’s no better time to throw yourself headlong into a new hobby. Or that’s what you should tell your loved ones when you gift them one of the cameras on our list of photography gift ideas this year. Mobile photography is ubiquitous but it still can’t compete with the control and quality afforded by some of the most innovative cameras around, so don’t rule out a serious upgrade for anyone on your gift list who’s looking to get more creative this winter. GoPro Hero 10 Black Image Credits: GoPro For action and sports, GoPro still leads the pack. The tiny cube-like GoPro Hero 10 Black can record any thrill-seeking endeavor you can dream up and pull off, with excellent waterproofing and a wealth of useful accessories to make it happen. The GoPro Hero 10 Black is the cream of the crop with a faster processor and slightly higher image resolution, but the previous generation Hero 9 Black will save you some cash with little sacrifice. But because the laggy user interface is historically one of the only downsides to shooting with a GoPro, you probably won’t be mad about going for the latest and greatest, though older generations offer a great value. Price: $449 from Best Buy Sony A7C Image Credits: Sony Released late last year, Sony’s A7C builds on the company’s solid track record of releasing innovative mirrorless cameras that even pro photographers can love. The Sony A7C is a full-frame mirrorless shooter, which means it’s probably overkill for any brand new photographer just figuring out the ropes, but it’s a perfect upgrade for anyone who’s pushed past the limits of an old DSLR or a newer APS-C camera. The A7C bills itself as an ultra-portable option within an already ultra-portable category, and with in-body image stabilization and an impressive sensor, the A7C doesn’t require any meaningful trade-offs. Also: For anyone looking to pick up a similarly super-compact full-frame camera at a friendlier price, the Canon EOS RP is worth a look. It lacks the in-body image stabilization of its pricier competition but is a great entry point for someone looking to make the leap to full-frame photography in a tiny package. Price: Sony A7C, $1,800 from B&H | Canon EOS RP, $999 from B&H Fujifilm X100V Image Credits: Fujifilm There’s no new model this year, but Fujifilm’s X100V is still an amazing option for a pocket-sized pro-level camera. Offering tactile touches that hearken back to a bygone era of photography, it’s no surprise that Fujifilm’s little shooter manages to charm so many people. You don’t get interchangeable lenses for the price, but you do get a very capable camera that fits in a pocket, making all kinds of unobtrusive street and travel photography a breeze. Price: $1,400 from Adorama DJI Mini 2 Image Credits: DJI For the drone-curious giftee, the DJI Mini 2 is a perfect well-rounded entry point. Small enough to be carted around on adventures but feature-rich enough to be worthwhile, the Mini 2 brings DJI’s smaller option closer to parity with the more advanced Mavic line. Notably, the Mini 2’s addition of Ocusync 2.0 makes for a more reliable connection and an improved motor makes things more stable across the board — and the 4K video doesn’t hurt either. Price: $450 from DJI Polaroid Go Image Credits: Polaroid Okay, there are probably more practical instant photography options out there, but have you seen this thing? Possibly the cutest camera (device?) ever made, the Polaroid Go is probably the smallest instant camera ever at 4.1 inches on the widest side. It shoots a miniaturized version of Polaroid’s classic film that’s not much of a size step-down from something like the tried-and-true Instax format, and you can even wear it around your neck. If you’re looking to get weird in a different way, the Canon Ivy Cliq 2 is a quirky option that blends a ring light-enabled digital camera with a slim, pocket-sized photo printer. If you’re looking to get less weird, Fujifilm’s Instax line offers a slew of great instant camera options with great-looking prints. Price: Polaroid Go, $100 from Polaroid | Canon Ivy Cliq 2, $130 from Best Buy | Fujifilm Instax, price varies Logitech StreamCam Image Credits: Logitech Don’t give someone a webcam that just makes their work Zoom meetings look better, that’s depressing. But do give the budding Twitch star in your life a webcam built with content creators in mind. Logitech’s StreamCam can produce pro-level video, complete with face-tracking tech and 1080p video quality 60 frames per second. For anyone just getting started streaming and looking to get up and running quick, the built-in dual webcams mean there’s one less thing to worry about. Streaming capture card-maker Elgato is out with their own dedicated creator webcam, the Facecam. Elgato’s option is pricier and skips the built-in mic, but if a streamer you know is getting serious about image quality, it’s well worth a look. Price: Logitech StreamCam, $160 from Logitech | Elgato Facecam, $200 from Best Buy Gift guide: 11 gift ideas for the friend who is on way, way too many video calls

New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal begins restructuring as two execs step down Posted: 03 Dec 2021 12:50 PM PST Earlier this week, Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down from his role. He appointed CTO Parag Agrawal as new CEO, effective immediately. Agrawal, who joined Twitter as an engineer in 2011, already announced a major reorganization of the company today, per an internal email obtained by The Washington Post. Twitter confirmed the news to TechCrunch, as well. So far, two executives have stepped down as part of this restructuring: Twitter’s Chief Design Officer Dantley Davis, who joined the company in 2019, and Head of Engineering Michael Montano, who joined in 2011. In August, The New York Times reported on Davis’ “tough love” policy in the workplace, which company officials said may have gone too far at times. This behavior seemed contrary to Twitter’s #LoveWhereYou Work and #OneTeam slogans, which emphasize “creating a culture that’s supportive, respectful, and a pretty cool vibe.” “Dantley's departure is singularly focused around shifting our organizational model around a structure that has one lead manager supporting a key company objective,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We don't have further details to share on these changes out of respect for the individuals involved.” “Parag is focused on operational excellence and setting Twitter up to hit its goals; these changes were made with that in mind. For our teams working within the product and technology organizations, we're moving to a General Manager model and having one person lead work that supports one of our key company objectives. This will allow us to operate more cross-functionally and enable faster, more informed decision-making,” the Twitter spokesperson added. 3 views on Jack Dorsey’s decision to step down as Twitter’s CEO Earlier this year, Dorsey was criticized and even sued by a shareholder over his dual CEO roles at Twitter and Square, the fintech giant that he also co-founded. Twitter had been slow to innovate, but for much of this year, the platform has rapidly added new features like its subscription Twitter Blue service, Spaces audio rooms, Super Follows, Ticketed Spaces, crypto features and more. Agrawal has expressed interest in continuing to pick up the pace at Twitter. “We’ve recently updated our strategy to hit ambitious goals, and I believe that strategy to be bold and right,” Agrawal wrote in an email to staff on Monday, which he then tweeted. “But our critical challenge is how we work to execute against it and deliver results — that’s how we’ll make Twitter the best it can be for our customers, shareholders and each of you.” For both companies that Dorsey co-founded, it’s been a week of immense change. Days after his announcement to step down as Twitter CEO, Square announced it would rebrand to Block.

Essential steps to thriving and surviving while fundraising Posted: 03 Dec 2021 12:39 PM PST Russ Heddleston Contributor Russ Heddleston is the co-founder and CEO of DocSend. He was previously a product manager at Facebook, where he arrived via the acquisition of his startup Pursuit.com, and has held roles at Dropbox, Greystripe and Trulia. Follow him here: @rheddleston and @docsend More posts by this contributor Pre-seed round funding is under scrutiny: Is VC pandemic posturing here to stay? What to expect while fundraising in 2021 The road to a successful funding round can be a long and arduous one. From your first meeting with a VC to money in the bank, a seed round takes on average 18.5 weeks. Within that time frame, you are pitching your heart out to multiple investors and ideally setting a number of meetings, either virtual or in-person. You're also busy building and constantly tweaking your narrative (and pitch deck) and managing each of those meetings and the necessary followup. Then, if things go well, you're negotiating term sheets and final closing details. All the while running a startup with equal intensity. Having transparency into how investors engage with your pitch deck gives you an advantage. So how do you prepare for this important stage in your company's growth, navigate the challenges of a fundraise, and not let the process overwhelm the responsibility of still running your business? While not every fundraise is the same, founders can tap the experience of others who have been down this path to ensure their fundraising efforts are efficient and, most importantly, successful. This can be done both qualitatively and quantitatively. Tap your network to learn from both peers that have been through the fundraising process recently as well as more seasoned experts that can impart useful wisdom and perspective. And quantitatively, there's a ton of data out there on the fundraising process that can remove the mystery and uncertainty for you as a founder. Having very clear data on where VCs focus their time on pitch decks or in meetings will guide you to deliver a finely tuned pitch to the right investor. This year has shown growth in the fundraising landscape like we've never seen before. Records in deal dollars have been continuously broken, and VC demand and startup supply have increased consistently since April 2020. While the tides have seemingly turned in the favor of founders, there are different investor expectations for each stage of funding, from pre-seed to Series A and beyond. Image Credits: DocSend's weekly PDI metrics As more founders pitch their startups, funding rounds are competitive, so you need to prepare accordingly. Below I'll lay out a few essential steps every founder will take during their fundraising journey, with proven and data-driven strategies to approach them. The right pitch deck A good pitch deck is key to opening the door to funds. It's the first impression you make on a VC, and with them breezing through decks at record speeds (2 minutes and 34 seconds per deck), yours has to count. It needs to clearly communicate purpose and value, demonstrating that your company is a solid investment and that your idea is worth their money and time. By analyzing deck compilation and comparing it to metrics, DocSend has found that startups that have successfully fundraised have commonalities across their pitch decks. This can be broken down by different stages and help you understand the order of your slides, which sections to include more detail on, which sections will get the most attention and more.

AWS re:Invent 2021 was more incremental than innovative Posted: 03 Dec 2021 12:05 PM PST AWS held its annual customer conference, re:Invent, this week in Las Vegas. It’s typically been a high-energy customer extravaganza — a circus for tech people — but there were a few unusual things about this year’s model that made the event feel a bit more subdued than in the past. For starters, it was the first time back in Vegas after the pandemic forced the event into virtual mode last year. There were fewer people onsite than in a normal year (whatever normal is now), and it was also the first re:Invent with new CEO Adam Selipsky delivering the main keynote on Tuesday. Amazon CTO Werner Vogels pointed out that much of the innovation was going on behind the scenes as the company worked to simplify operations for its customers. There was some thinking that he would want to put his stamp on things and perhaps chart a course for the future of the lucrative division, but what the audience got was more incremental than innovative, more bland than exciting. It was a nice, well-organized affair without a lot of fanfare. Selipsky’s delivery was smooth and professional but lacked a major announcement to really turn heads, as Andy Jassy had in the past. While there were newsworthy announcements — we certainly covered a bunch of them — nothing came out of the 2021 re:Invent that felt really cool. It felt more like Amazon was checking boxes and filling in holes in the product road map. Maybe that’s what we all needed this year. Maybe it’s the best that Amazon could do in a year of turbulence, when Jassy moved on to become CEO of the entire company and the world fought its way through a pandemic. But whatever the reason, it just didn’t seem like anything major happened. AWS CEO Adam Selipsky on stage at AWS re:Invent 2021. Image Credits: Amazon Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research who has attended the conference for nine straight years, called it “one of the tamest re:Invents” he could remember. “Overall re:Invent did not have the usual big announcements. For example, this is the first re:Invent in a long time where AWS did not announce a new database. Instead, it moved a number of services to serverless and added [minor] capabilities across the board,” he said.

3 ways to recruit engineers who fly under LinkedIn’s radar Posted: 03 Dec 2021 10:19 AM PST Sergiu Matei Contributor Sergiu Matei is the founder of Index, a platform that helps teams find and hire world-class remote software developers and be globally compliant from the get-go. We’ve recently been bombarded with news of job surpluses, including predictions that the number of software developer roles will increase 22% by 2030. With the need for nearly a quarter more developers, recruiters are having to scale their search and look under the stones that have previously been left unturned. It’s easy to assume in the digital age that job candidates are waiting at the end of a mouse click, but the online hiring space isn’t as encompassing as we think. Less than 10% of people on LinkedIn don’t have an education that surpasses high school, despite 87% of developers having taught themselves a new coding language, framework or tool without formal education. People who live in emerging markets use LinkedIn less frequently, even though these locations harbor some of the world’s most promising tech talent. Some developers choose not to have a LinkedIn account because it feels like another social media channel to maintain. This aversion makes sense considering engineers focus more on hard skills rather than their online personae. This week, LinkedIn announced it would start offering its services in Hindi, which will allow the service to reach 600 million people globally. People who live in emerging markets use the platform less frequently, even though these locations harbor some of the world’s most promising tech talent. Companies can’t let how they’ve hired in the past influence their approach today — doing so means missing not just the quantity of developers, but the quality and diversity of them. The remote revolution didn’t just broaden where we can recruit, it’s expanded who we can bring on board. With that in mind, these are the best ways to tap into the hidden developer gems. Open up your content, chats and code No recruiter should think of hiring a developer as the same process as selling a product or service. As Adam DuVander explains in “Developer Marketing Does Not Exist,” resonating with developers requires more education and less promotion than the majority of companies currently provide. The content you publish can organically pique people’s interest, as long as it has a strategic purpose and doesn’t overly mention your brand or services; for example, blog posts about upskilling, industry trends and exclusive data insights. You could also host events like webinars, round tables, quizzes and hackathons that are less for recruitment purposes and more to showcase the team and culture. Don’t be afraid to be lighthearted with your content, either. Memes, GIFs and videos are a great way to demonstrate that you don’t take yourself too seriously. And once you remove the promotional positioning, developers in the shadows will start to come forward.

Tech stocks are getting hammered (again) Posted: 03 Dec 2021 09:28 AM PST I have a run of internal meetings starting in 15 minutes, so we have to be quick, but tech stocks are taking body blows yet again today. A selloff earlier in the week had us taking note. Today cements our raised eyebrows. And when we say tech shares are under attack, we are not only pointing out that DocuSign has lost more than 40% of its worth thus far today, or that the Nasdaq Composite is off 2.5%. SaaS and cloud stocks are off 6.5% today after declines earlier in the week. They are now in a technical bear market. That matters! Yes, things could snap right back. But they may not. The first inning of a correction, or just another blip? Context. Image Credits: TechCrunch screengrab Keep an eye out.

A step forward for CO2 capture Posted: 03 Dec 2021 09:07 AM PST The air we breathe has a carbon problem. But in Hellisheidi, Iceland, a geothermally active plateau just outside of Reykjavik, a new technology is taking a small but mighty step toward fixing it. A plant called Orca, built by Climeworks, is the first-ever facility where CO2 is being filtered directly from the air and stored permanently underground. Orca's carbon-capturing devices resemble giant transistor radios. They fit right into an already larger-than-life Icelandic landscape, where the wind blows fierce even on a rare day when sunlight gleams off the icy mountaintops. Though the plant has only been operational since September, its air-straining technology, known as direct air capture, has been a point of contention among environmentalists for much longer. Vacuuming up carbon dioxide was once considered a last resort, but it's looking like we're headed toward a future where last resorts are a must-have. "The combination of direct air capture and storage is very likely what the world will need at a massive scale if we want to be compliant with Paris climate targets," said Jan Wurzbacher, the CEO and co-founder of Climeworks. Carbon removal, by math and magic By "Paris" targets, Wurzbacher was referring to the global goal of limiting emissions to two degrees Celsius (or ideally 1.5 degrees), established under the 2015 Paris Agreement. To meet that goal, the United Nations has estimated that 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide will need to be removed from the atmosphere annually by 2050. That number is a best-case scenario, assuming that aggressive cuts in emissions are achieved through other means. Without enough cuts, the need for carbon removal could be even higher. "It's relatively simple climate math," Wurzbacher explained on a video call from Zurich, Switzerland, where Climeworks is based. "By mid-century, we need to remove 10 billion tons of CO2, if everything else goes well. We might end up needing to remove 20 billion tons, because we can't ramp down fast enough coal power plants and other stuff.” Direct air capture technology is one among many options for removing excess CO2. There are natural methods, like planting trees, and there are technologies that capture CO2 directly from smokestacks and other emission sources. Compared to capturing CO2 at the source, it's more challenging and costly to pull CO2 literally out of thin air, but a benefit of direct air capture is that it doesn't require finding and stopping every single polluter. It's a solution that works across the globe. "When you do direct air capture, you don't need to go where the CO2 is, because air is everywhere," said Wurzbacher. The Orca plant consists of eight shipping container-sized boxes, which Climeworks calls collectors. On the front of each box, there are slats, kind of like large venetian blinds. On the back, there are 12 fans that pull air through the box. Within the collectors, the CO2 molecules hit the surface of a specially developed filter material, where molecules, called amines, selectively grab onto them. That point of contact is a magical moment. The rest of the air continues out the other side of the collectors, but the carbon sticks tight to the amines. In that moment, the CO2 goes from the chaotic fray of the atmosphere to the ordered grip of humanity, potentially remaining under control for thousands of years to come. With the application of heat, the CO2 is released from the amines, and then it gets pumped into nearby volcanic rocks, where it forms long-lasting carbonate minerals. Currently, removing a ton of CO2 at Orca costs between $600 and $800, which is prohibitive for most potential payers. Early customers have been companies and individuals willing to pay a premium, such as Microsoft, Stripe, Swiss Re and even the band Coldplay (which hired Climeworks to cancel out some of the emissions from its upcoming world tour). Climeworks is aiming to get that cost down to between $100 and 200. The US Department of Energy recently set a similar goal of bringing the cost of technological carbon removal to under $100 per ton. At those lower price points, direct air capture would be on par with other ambitious measures to reduce emissions. [gallery ids="2241087,2241088,2241086"] For now, the magic moment of capture may not be cheap, but at least it works. "Orca has gone from zero to one," said Dr. Julio Friedmann, a senior research fellow at Columbia University "At this point we know, if we had to, we could make more Orcas. We imagine the cost will reduce, we imagine the performance will improve, et cetera, but we now have a single-unit device that pulls four thousand tons of CO2 from the air every year." In addition to the high cost, Orca has been criticized for the miniscule quantity of CO2 that it captures. Four thousand tons is paltry compared to the 10 billion tons that need to be removed within several decades. At our current level of emissions, humanity is canceling out Orca's yearly efforts every three seconds. However, it may be helpful to reframe this amount by considering it relative to other means of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Growing an acre of redwood forest also removes about 4,000 tons of CO2, but it takes much longer than a year, and it can only be done in a limited number of places. Friedmann framed the elevator pitch for direct air capture in similar terms: "It does the work of two hundred thousand trees, in one thousand times less space." Activists like Greta Thunberg have dismissed engineered solutions like direct air capture as "technologies that barely exist" and have instead promoted nature-based solutions, but it's possible to pursue both strategies. If the United Nations estimates are correct, there will be room for multiple solutions to suck up the extra carbon. "It's at the order of billions of tons that we will need this. I'm quite sure of that," said Wurzbacher. Sometimes, smaller is better Criticisms of Orca's small size also miss another key point: starting small is a unique learning opportunity. Like with any technology, direct air capture can improve with iteration, becoming more efficient and less expensive over time. The Climeworks CO2 collectors are modular, meaning that the way to collect more CO2 is to add more collectors, rather than making the collectors themselves any bigger. With a modular product, it's cheaper and easier to iterate than with one that's larger and more bespoke. "By the time we build big plants or multiples of what we have now, we are quite certain that it works and how we keep operating," said Nathalie Casas, the head of technology at Climeworks. "That's the beauty of the modular approach." A bigger plant is already in the works, according to Wurzbacher, though the location has not yet been determined. It will be ten times larger than the Orca plant, so there will be 80 shipping container-sized collectors, instead of just eight, capturing 40,000 tons of CO2 per year. An advantage of building a plant the size of Orca is that any tweaks to the collector design only need to be repeated eight times. "If you build eighty containers, it's a whole different story," Wurzbacher said. Climeworks' small- to medium-scale approach stands in contrast to that of another major company commercializing direct air capture technology, Carbon Engineering, which is currently building a plant in Texas that will capture half a million tons of CO2. That plant is scheduled to go online towards the middle of this decade. "Climeworks is going into the swimming pool step by step as opposed to cannonballing in all at once," said Colin McCormick, chief innovation officer at Carbon Direct, an investment and advisory firm focused on carbon removal. It remains to be seen if one, both, or neither of these approaches will be able to achieve carbon removal at scale and at cost. Direct air capture is still in its infancy, but it has parallels to some of the heavy hitters of sustainable technology. Both solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines started off as long shots several decades ago, but now they're huge and growing industries at the vanguard of the energy transition. The solar comparison is particularly apt, because the panels were working with novel materials to achieve something theoretically possible but commercially unproven. According to McCormick, there's a minimum amount of energy needed to capture carbon dioxide from ambient air, and it's substantial, but Climeworks and Carbon Engineering are both using about ten times more energy than that minimum, so there's a lot of room for improvement. "We're wildly off from 100% efficiency, and that's okay," he said. "Early solar panels were a few percent efficient." There are many ways that Climeworks is seeking to boost efficiency and reduce costs. A big one is to improve the filter material, so that it captures more CO2 and lasts longer. The company is also sorting out how to streamline production, so that the modular units are cheaper to build. Then there are the relatively fixed costs, like pipelines for CO2, that will naturally decrease as the plants get bigger. The technical challenges ahead may seem daunting, but the team at Climeworks is unfazed. In fact, Wurzbacher considers the current state of direct air capture to be much more favorable than that of wind and solar in the 1970s and 1980s. "If you compare it to where solar PV or wind started, they had to do larger factors of cost reduction," said Wurzbacher. "It's actually good news that it's only on the order of a factor of ten that we have to do." Achieving these cost reductions requires learning that can only take place in real-world conditions, not a laboratory or an office. "It's not a software startup," said Wurzbacher. "We're putting steel and concrete in harsh environments. Weird things happen that you can only predict maybe to ninety percent, but the last ten percent you can never predict, and then you learn it, so it's so important to get stuff out in the field." The Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant, which supplies heat and energy to Orca, as well as much of Reykjavik. Why Iceland? You'd be hard-pressed to find a field site more majestic than Orca. The plant sits on the edge of a grassy plain, just beneath craggy black peaks accentuated with crisp white snow. But the Climeworks team didn't choose to build Orca in that spot for the scenery. The site in Hellisheidi offers two elements that are essential for direct air capture: cheap renewable energy and a place to put CO2. Both of those elements are products of Iceland's unique volcanic geology. Orca is located directly next to the Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant, which is one of Iceland's biggest sources of geothermal energy. The plant draws hot water from over a mile below the ground, where it's naturally warmed by a volcanic hotspot. The geothermal process produces heat and electricity, both of which are key inputs to direct air capture. The electricity is used to move air through the collector, and the heat is used to release captured CO2 from the filter material, which happens at around 100 degrees Celsius, the temperature of boiling water. "Geothermal is particularly good to start with, because it's 24/7; it's heat and electricity, so it's really well suited to what we are doing," said Wurzbacher. Then there's the CO2. The rock under Hellisheidi is porous basalt, less than 1 million years old, which means it's pretty much brand new, geologically speaking. A company called Carbfix has figured out how to inject CO2 into this young rock so that it reacts to form carbonate minerals. Carbfix is a subsidiary of Reykjavik Energy, the municipal-owned utility that operates the geothermal plant. For over five years, it had been using its technique to store the small amounts of CO2 released from the geothermal process, so the infrastructure to store the CO2 from Orca was already in place. "This is a big part of why Orca is in Iceland," said McCormick. "They have waste heat and zero-carbon power from the geothermal field. They have already-drilled injection holes and excellent geology for injecting CO2, so that location has everything you want." Carbon storage is an essential piece of the equation for carbon removal. There are many ways to do it, but the Carbfix method is particularly promising because the carbon dioxide turns quickly into rock. It mineralizes within two years—or more likely a few months—and it will remain in that solid state for thousands of years. "The CO2 is not going anywhere, so basically once it's underground, we know it's going to stay underground," said Kari Helgason, the head of research and innovation at Carbfix. This time frame contrasts with other methods, like storage in abandoned oil wells, which requires indefinite monitoring to make sure that the CO2 does not escape. Another benefit of the Carbfix method is that the cost is almost negligible, especially relative to the high cost of capturing carbon. "If we receive pure CO2, it's pretty cost efficient," said Helgason. "What we're doing with Climeworks, it's ridiculously cheap." Fortunately, Iceland is comprised mostly of basalt, so the storage opportunities are almost limitless. Helgason estimates that each cubic kilometer of basalt can store one hundred million tons of CO2. "The storage capacity is enormous," he said. And it's not just Iceland where this massive storage capacity exists. Carbfix put together an online atlas that maps out regions round the world with potential for geologic carbon storage. Wurzbacher noted that Hellisheidi and Carbfix were a perfect match for the Orca plant, but Climeworks is open to other locations for subsequent projects. "What is not so perfect is the weather and wind in Iceland," he said. "If you ask our commissioning team if they want to build the next plant in the same weather conditions, they might rather ask for going to Hawaii or someplace else with a lot of volcanic rocks." [gallery ids="2241305,2241306,2241326,2241325"] It takes a village to capture carbon The partnership between Climeworks and Carbfix is an example of the collaborative innovation that's needed for carbon removal to succeed. In an attempt to incentivize similar relationships, the US has allocated $3.5 billion for building four direct air capture "hubs," where multiple companies will work together to capture and store CO2. The provision is part of the infrastructure bill recently passed in Congress. "It's really important to think of direct air capture as a partnership among a number of different groups," said Rory Jacobson, deputy director of policy at Carbon180, a think tank focused on carbon removal. Often, oil and gas companies have been part of direct air capture projects, usually in the role of financial backers. Carbon Engineering is partnering with Occidental Petroleum on its project in Texas, and another direct air capture company, Global Thermostat, is is partnering with Exxon Mobil on several smaller projects in the US. For carbon capture startups, it makes sense to work with these larger companies, because they can write big checks and have a deep understanding of geology, but such partnerships have also fueled claims that carbon capture is a smokescreen for continued pollution. "The thing that's really promising about Orca is that there is no clear fossil fuel involvement at all in the project," said Jacobson. With or without help from the fossil fuel industry, direct air capture is likely to face limits in its ability to scale without support from government climate policy. The problem is that there's no inherent market for removing carbon from the atmosphere, like there is for the electric power generated from wind and solar. Direct air capture needs to be funded by voluntary purchases (such as those that have so far supported Climeworks) or government incentives and directives. "The voluntary market for carbon removal will bring us to millions of tons, maybe ten million tons, maybe more," said Wurzbacher. "Public instruments will have to bring us from tens of millions of tons to billions of tons." Some incentives are already in place. The US currently has a policy called 45Q that pays $50 per ton for carbon capture and storage, and that payment would be expanded to $180 per ton under the Build Back Better bill, which was recently passed by the House of Representatives but remains in limbo in the Senate. However, direct air capture will have a much bigger market if governments charge high carbon taxes or enact other measures that force industries to steeply reduce or remove their emissions right away. At the recent United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, world leaders weren't announcing those kinds of bold moves. That may change as both public pressure and the effects of climate change continue to intensify. Neither shows signs of letting up any time soon. If stronger policies materialize in the coming years, Climeworks will be ready, with direct air capture technology that's likely to be much cheaper than it is today. The price will still be high, but the price of doing nothing could be far higher. The Orca plant is a 20-minute drive from Reykjavik.

Last chance to save $55 on passes to TC Sessions: Space 2021 Posted: 03 Dec 2021 09:02 AM PST Here today, gone tomorrow: The chance to keep $55 in your wallet disappears in mere hours. Buy your pass to TechCrunch Sessions: Space before 11:59 pm (PT) today. TC Sessions: Space dedicates two full days focused on the leading-edge technology, founders, creators, academics, scientists, investors and policymakers. We'll dig deep and look at the very latest developments in topics like launch vehicles, on-orbit operations and servicing, the benefits of studying lunar samples and in-space propulsion systems. Here are other examples of the interviews, panel discussions and breakout sessions we have in store for you. You'll find everything listed, with dates and times, in the event agenda. New Kids on the Launch Block — There's a new crop of launch companies nipping at the heels of SpaceX and Rocket Lab, including Astra, Firefly and Launcher. We'll hear from leaders of those companies about the opportunities in the evolving launch market and how they're posted to take advantage. Maneuvering Towards Better In-space Propulsion — What goes up must come down, but we can delay that second part a bit with better propulsion on our satellites and spacecraft. Leaders from Accion Systems, Phase Four and Morpheus Space are pushing the boundaries of in-space propulsion and will discuss the challenges and opportunities in changing how in-space assets move about. Being There When Stars Form — At the earliest stages, space companies are at their riskiest. But these investors are willing to wade in and write checks to help those companies gain their footing. Hear from Space Capital, Techstars and Assembly Ventures about how they pick their winners. Robots, Meet Regolith: A New Generation of Lunar Landers and Rovers — The moon is back on the menu with Artemis and a dozen other missions, and companies like Lockheed Martin, Masten Space and iSpace are building a new generation of robotic explorers and surveyors to roam around its surface. Hear how they design for the moon's unforgiving surface and what robots can do to help prepare for human arrival. TC Sessions: Space 2021 takes place on December 14-15. If you want to save $55, blast procrastination out the pod bay door and buy your pass today before 11:50 pm (PT). Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Space 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

MrBeast’s ‘Real Life Squid Game’ and the price of viral stunts Posted: 03 Dec 2021 08:18 AM PST First, everyone was talking about “Squid Game,” the Korean psychological thriller that became Netflix’s biggest series launch ever, with 142 million viewers. Now, everyone’s talking about YouTuber MrBeast’s recreation of the show’s titular fight-to-the-death, which racked up 142 million views in eight days. (Don’t worry, no one was killed). Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast), the 23-year-old who was just named YouTube’s Top U.S. Creator for the second year in a row, built sets and made costumes for 456 competitors, making the video look as close to the Netflix show as possible. And, like the popular series, the last player standing would win a life-changing cash prize — in Donaldson's case, competitors had the chance to win $456,000. There are a number of reasons why Donaldson's "Squid Game" is almost as popular as "Squid Game" itself, at least by the number of views. For one thing, YouTube is free, and Netflix isn't. But Donaldson's virality comes at a cost. His 25-minute video required a whopping $3.5 million to make, he said on Twitter. For comparison, the nine-episode series cost Netflix a total of $21.4 million, averaging out to about $2.4 million per hour-long installment. Even the most popular YouTube creators like Donaldson can't measure up to the resources that a publicly traded, global company like Netflix has. So for creators who make shocking, stunt-based videos like Donaldson, it's getting harder to do something unprecedented, like recreating "Squid Game." If you haven’t had nine hours to spare since the September release of “Squid Game,” here’s the premise: If you’re so deep in debt that you’ll never get out, why not fight to the death for the chance to win unfathomable wealth? This is director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s response to South Korea’s debt crisis, but international viewers can relate — the U.S. has $1.73 trillion in student debt, increasing by more than 91% over the last 10 years. If you’re someone who fears that one bad dental visit could deplete your life savings, it’s not hard to relate to these characters’ desperation for quick cash. In “Squid Game,” it turns out that a ring of wealthy elites created the games for their own entertainment — why not pay poor people to fight to the death if they agree to the terms of the game? But in a far less extreme way, MrBeast’s videos do the same thing. He gives out large sums of money to ordinary people, entertains millions of viewers with his brand of performative philanthropy, then reaps the financial benefit of their attention. Predictably, MrBeast's “Squid Game” video lacked the emotional resonance and suspense that made the Netflix show so compelling — since there is nothing at risk for the participants, the stakes feel about as high as a daytime rerun of "Wheel of Fortune." But Donaldson has pioneered — and perfected — this style of YouTube content: Do something outrageously absurd, and people will watch, because, on YouTube, time watched is money. However, the cost to capture users' attention when pursuing this model requires an increasingly heftier investment over time. As the creator economy grows, some YouTubers' budgets are growing, too. But with the precarious nature of this work, falling into the red could be dangerous. While Netflix’s "Squid Game" has made at least $891.1 million so far (almost 42 times the size of its budget), Donaldson might not recoup his own “Squid Game” investment. Going big until you can’t go bigger In Donaldson’s video “How I Gave Away $1,000,000,” the creator explains how he got started making this sort of content when Quidd, a digital collectibles app, offered him a $10,000 brand deal for a video. He filmed a video giving the $10,000 to a homeless person, and then Quidd kept paying him to make more videos, so it snowballed from there. Today some of his most popular videos include even larger investments, like “I Ate A $70,000 Golden Pizza,” “Last To Leave Circle Wins $500,000” and “Donating $100,000 To Streamers With 0 Viewers.” In September, MrBeast told the creator-focused YouTube channel Colin and Samir that he spends $4 million every month to make his videos, and while some outperform his expectations, other videos don’t. He said that his video “I Sold My House For $1” cost over $1 million to make, but he recouped less than half a million from ad revenue, and sponsorship money didn't make up the difference. But as long as some videos do better than he expected, a slightly-less-viral video here and there won't kill him. "Once you know how to make a video go viral, it's just about how to get as many out as possible," he told Bloomberg last year. "You can practically make unlimited money." Forbes estimated that Donaldson made $24 million on YouTube between June 2019 and June 2020 (YouTube isn't his only income source – he also runs a ghost kitchen called MrBeast Burger, streams on Twitch and collaborates with a number of brands). But he said in an interview with fellow viral star Logan Paul that he puts most of his income directly back into his videos. "If I make three or four million dollars a month, I just spend it on videos the next month," Donaldson said. "We literally have like, razor-thin margins, and just reinvest it all." The problem with this clickbait model is that viewers become desensitized to these high-budget YouTube videos, which requires creators to keep upping the ante. The comedian Demi Adejuyigbe also encountered this issue with his yearly videos in which he dances to “September” by Earth, Wind, & Fire. In his first viral video in 2016, he simply danced in his bedroom wearing a homemade shirt that read “SEPT 21” on the front and “THAT’S TODAY” on the back. The following year, he got some fancy balloons, then in 2018, he enlisted a children’s choir, and in 2019, he hired a mariachi band — you get where this is going. This year, he decided he wasn’t going to make any more videos, because it’s too time-consuming and challenging to keep going bigger and better every year — so he went all out one last time and ended up raising over $1 million for charity from fans. But these "September" videos aren't Adejuyigbe's bread and butter. Going viral might have helped him get noticed in Hollywood, though. In between plotting each year's "September" videos, he earned writing credits on shows like "The Good Place" and "The Late Late Show with James Corden." A fashion and beauty creator, Safiya Nygaard, is another example. She first developed a following as a video producer at BuzzFeed, but left to invest in her own channel and retain more independence. Nygaard differentiated herself in the beauty space by doing "bad makeup experiments," like "Melting All My Nude Lipsticks Together" or "Mixing All My Foundations Together." Over a year, this escalated to "Melting Every Candle From Bath & Body Works Together" and “Melting Every Lipstick From Sephora Together.” For the latter video, she used more than 600 lipsticks — and with Sephora lipstick prices ranging from around $10 to $50, Nygaard's bill was so expensive that she filmed the Sephora cashier calling her bank to verify the purchase. But once you buy every lipstick at Sephora, you can't really push further. Now, Nygaard updates her YouTube channel with almost 10 million subscribers only once or twice a month, though she started posting on Instagram Reels and TikTok every few days. Sometimes, even a TikTok might require a pricey purchase — in one popular TikTok, Nygaard styles Balenciaga's $1,350 toe-heels. Still, that's a small purchase compared to 117 Bath and Body Works candles, or 600 Sephora lipsticks. Creators like Nygaard and Adejuyigbe have been able to pivot away from this high-cost, sometimes-low-reward content. But Donaldson’s high-budget videos are his lifeblood. He can’t stop making more and more extreme content if he wants his channel to remain at the top of the YouTube food chain. Funding the creator economy When startups need cash to fund the growth of their business, they turn to venture capital. Now, some firms are looking at viral creators as an investment opportunity in a time when video creation costs are growing. Venture capital firm SignalFire says that creators are the fastest-growing small businesses, and some firms like Sam Lessin’s Slow Ventures take that idea to the next level. Slow Ventures recently invested $1.7 million in the future of YouTuber Marina Mogilko, whose channel is called Silicon Valley Girl — they will get 5% of her earnings as a creator for the next 30 years. Investing in literal people might seem sketchy, but assuming everyone involved has good intentions, is offering artists a financial cushion really the worst thing in the world? This is essentially what happens in Hollywood already. A production company might buy a script, hire talent and market a film, only for it to be a flop at the box office. But creators — literal people — aren't startups. And what happens when you keep trying to out-do yourself? You burn out. It's possible that the cushion of venture funding could take some financial burden off of creators, but the pressure to appease stakeholders could also add more stress. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki acknowledged the growing issue of burnout in a letter to creators in 2019. “I’ve heard some creators say they feel like they can’t take a break from filming because they’re concerned their channel will suffer,” Wojcicki wrote. “If you need to take some time off, your fans will understand. After all, they tune into your channel because of you.” YouTube's product team found that creators only garner more views once they come back from breaks. But Drake McWhorter told CNN at the time that he didn't think this was true. “YouTube is a treadmill,” McWhorter said. “If you stop for a second, you’re dead.” It's easier than ever to go viral online, but that doesn't always mean it's easy to capture viewers' attention in the long term — and to make a living on the internet, you need an audience. Now that MrBeast is making YouTube videos with Hollywood-sized budgets, yet still making a "razor-thin" profit, we have to ask: Who's winning in the creator economy? At the end of the day, the success of "Real Life Squid Game" may be better news for YouTube, or even Netflix, than it is for Donaldson.

First we SPAC, then we take down AWS Posted: 03 Dec 2021 07:23 AM PST The plan is simple: First, we create a knockoff of a popular digital service. Second, we cry political persecution. Third, we raise a bunch of money with a SPAC. And then, to cap it off, we take on AWS. Got it? What’s actually funny is that I am not kidding. That is not only a real plan, but one that we’ve now seen twice. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. We first got wind of the method of raising capital with the Trump SPAC deal taking a collection of ideas and very little product public. And then we got another dose yesterday with online video hosting portal Rumble’s SPAC plan. Both have long-term ambitions, or at least teasers, to take on the incumbent cloud players. Good luck? That goal, about a hundred billion dollars, and 15 years might get you to quaternary status in the vicinity of where the big public clouds play. So let’s take a look at the Rumble scheme to conquer the digital world. After all, startups are designed to make big plans. Rumble’s plot to take on the combined heft of Amazon, Microsoft and Google is, if nothing else, not a small endeavor. Surely *this* is peak SPAC? Rumble, a self-described “neutral video platform,” is merging with CF Acquisition Corp. VI. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022, per the companies. Here are the financial terms of the deal (modestly condensed): The transaction values Rumble at an initial enterprise value of $2.1 billion, with current Rumble shareholders having the ability to earn additional shares of the combined company if the stock reaches price hurdles of $15.00 and $17.50 per share. The transaction is expected to provide approximately $400 million in proceeds to Rumble, including a fully committed PIPE of $100 million at $10.00 per share and $300 million of cash held in the trust account of CFVI. You are correct in being surprised that Rumble is worth $2.1 billion, or will be next year when it combines with the blank-check company. After all, we don’t really know that much about it. Crunchbase data has a single funding event on record for the company, a May 2021 round with capital arriving from Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance. At the time, the company was worth around $500 million, per The Wall Street Journal. The Journal also notes that Rumble was founded in 2013, but only recently found more mainstream popularity after right-wing figures began to promote the service as “a more welcoming, free-speech alternative” to video offerings from major platform players like Meta and Alphabet.

Facebook Messenger is testing a new ‘Split Payments’ feature in the US Posted: 03 Dec 2021 07:23 AM PST Facebook Messenger announced today that it’s starting to test out a new “Split Payments” feature that introduces a way for users to share the cost of bills and expenses through the app. The company says the new feature is a “free and fast” way to handle finances through Messenger. The new feature is rolling out next week for U.S. users. To use Split Payments, users need to click on the "Get Started" button in a group chat or the Payments Hub in Messenger. From there, you can split a bill evenly or modify the contribution amount for each individual in the group chat, either with or without yourself included. You’ll also have the option to enter a personalized message. Lastly, you will be asked to confirm your Facebook Pay details, after which your request will be sent and viewable in your group chat thread. “If you've struggled with dividing up (and getting paid back for) group dinners, shared household expenses or even the monthly rent, it's about to get easier,” the company said in a blog post about the new feature. The launch of Split Payments comes as Messenger added Venmo-like QR codes for person-to-person payments a few months ago. The codes launched in the U.S. and allow anyone to send or request money through Facebook Pay — even if they're not Facebook friends. The feature can be accessed under the "Facebook Pay" section in Messenger's settings. Facebook Pay first launched in November 2019, as a way to establish a payment system that extends across the company's apps for not just person-to-person payments, but for other things like donations and e-commerce. Split Payments was introduced alongside a few other Messenger updates, including four new group AR effects designed with creators Emma Chamberlain, Zach King, Bella Poarch and King Bach. The company notes that it also recently launched two new “Stranger Things” Soudmojis, which are emoji that play a sound when you send them within Messenger, and a new chat theme. Messenger also recently rolled out a new Taylor Swift Soudmoji to celebrate the release of “Red.”

Square’s Better.com name Block is Butter-y smooth Posted: 03 Dec 2021 07:00 AM PST Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It’s Friday, which means the whole crew was aboard for this particular episode. We had Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex on the mics. And, frankly, we needed the full team, because the holidays aren’t slowing any news down. First up? Square becoming Block, which we wanted to make fun of but mostly found to be reasonable, given the company’s disparate interests. From there we chatted about Inpathy’s neat take on social networking, Massive’s $11 million funding round and why Butter could help grease the skids of many a subscription business. Then it was time to trade startups for bigger companies, as we had to riff on Bret Taylor’s quasi-ascension to the top of Salesforce along with a host of other executive exits. Alex calls it cold resignation winter, but Meta clearly has put some people on the hot seat. Better.com was also in our remit this week, due to its fundraising and layoffs. We debate if you should raise if it comes at the cost of your employees, and the morality of a Zoom layoff. And, finally, Sounding Board’s Series B reminded us that executive coaching, even and especially for the folks above, isn’t just a services business. It’s a SaaS business. See you here next week, unless Jack shaves off his beard and we’re forced to do a shot. Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 a.m. PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts!

Vinehealth, offering digital support for cancer patients and SaaS for R&D, gets $5.5M to launch in the US Posted: 03 Dec 2021 06:47 AM PST Vinehealth, a 2018-founded, London-based digital health startup that’s built an app offering personalized support for cancer patients while also making it easier to gather patient-reported outcome (PRO) data, including for drug development and clinical trials, has closed a $5.5 million seed round as it prepares to expand into the U.S. The round, which co-founder and CTO Georgina Kirby describes as a “late seed” — ahead of a planned Series A “in the next 12-18 months” — is led by Talis Capital with participation from previous investors Playfair Capital and Ascension. A number of angel investors have also joined the round, including Keith Gibbs, former CEO of AXA PPP Healthcare; Pam Garside, partner at Newhealth; Voyagers Health-Tech Fund, led by David Rowan, founding editor of Wired; David Giampaolo, healthcare entrepreneur and founder of PI Capital; Deepali Nangia, venture partner at Speedinvest and Atomico Angel; Faisal Mehmud, VP and former medical director of Bristol Myers Squibb; and KHP MedTech Innovations, a collaboration between King’s College London, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust. The startup — which we billed as one “to watch” back in 2019 when we saw the founders pitching at Entrepreneur First’s demo day — combines behavioral science and AI to deliver timely patient support and nudges (for things like medication reminders) so they can more easily self-manage their treatment. Vinehealth’s platform also acts as a channel through which patients can be remotely monitored by their clinicians as they provide feedback on symptoms and report any treatment side-effects. So far its app has been downloaded around 15,000 times since being made available in January 2020 — which Kirby confirms covers all usage to date, so both for pure patient-support and for trials/research. 8 VCs agree: Behavioral support and remote visits make digital health a strong bet for 2021 The patient-support app is offered free for cancer patients to download themselves — currently available in the U.K. and Ireland. For pharma, Vinehealth provides its platform as a software as a service — supporting drug companies in recruiting patients for trials and gathering PRO to help with R&D and drug development. “We’ve been focused on pharma since the very beginning and we’re getting a lot of traction there and seeing a lot of opportunity,” said Kirby. “The patient support program and the clinical trial are extremely similar [products]. … For pharma they’re different parts of the drug development process but in terms of the delivery of software, the things that patients need throughout that process — it’s extremely similar. So we’ve really narrowed down to that life science offering.” She confirms Vinehealth is not going down the procurement route of trying to sell to healthcare services directly. So essentially the idea is for life sciences research to fund a  free provision of the support software to patients. (Although it can’t disclose any pharma customer names as yet.) For monetization, it’s focused on serving the needs of drug companies, Vinehealth is equally keen to be seen as patient-centric — and wants its app to play a key clinician support role that promotes better patient outcomes. “We have a web dashboard that is accessible through any browser for clinicians and doctors who want to be able to track their patients remotely and do this through running research studies or even within clinical trials,” said Kirby. “Those doctors and nurses can see that data in real-time but they can feed that into either appropriate points of the care pathway — obviously they’re not sitting there on the dashboard all day, but there may times at which it’s very useful for them to see specific red flags and be able to know which patient to see first and also to know how to make better clinical decisions using that kind of more real-time data — rather than the typical [fortnightly or monthly catch up with a patient].” “So it’s kind of giving them that context and that rich longitudinal data that they’ve never had,” she added. Vinehealth has digitized the traditional paper-based questionnaires that cancer patients would typically be asked to fill in during a visit with their clinical team to report their symptoms and provide any wider feedback. Its premise is that moving that legacy process to a dedicated, user-friendly digital interface supports better patient self-management, treatment outcomes and improved quality of life for people living with cancer — given the relative ease of reporting data via an app, combined with the wider support package it offers (it’s worked with charities Macmillan and Bowel Cancer UK to supply support content to the app).  For example, Kirby said they use A/B testing and AI to configure personalized and timely recommendations to surface appropriate resources, as well as to determine how best to nudge and motivate patients to take medications and manage what can be complex medication regimes for cancer treatment. Vinehealth’s app wrapper can also dole out positive feedback to encourage patients to provide PRO. Kirby points to evidence that when patients track their PRO data effectively, survival rates can increase by up to 20%. “Better self-management can have such a huge impact on survival,” she said. “We want to show not only improvements in survival but in quality of life. too.” The blend of behavioral science and data-driven support Vinehealth’s approach involves stems from the combined expertise of the co-founders. “Rayna’s [Patel; co-founder and CEO] background is really in behavioral science; mine is in data science,” said Kirby. “And so when we came together, we thought we can really leverage both sides here — and use the data to understand what people are going through and where those nudges can be most effective. And use behavioral science to deliver some really key nudges at the right time with the right wording that can really nudge people to build their habits and be able to feel more in control and be able to actually understand what’s going on and make some better decisions for their own care. “There are a number of nudges in the app — some small ones, some bigger ones. We build medication nudges and reminders to be delivered in a certain way that is really effective and isn’t just dismissed by patients. We have nudges for logging certain symptoms and what that leads on to — so certain supportive content. So you’re logging anxiety at certain levels, here’s some supportive content that could really help you with dealing with this particular symptom or side effect of your drug.” “At different times it’s about the timing, the wording and the delivery of that nudge,” she added. “If you try to change too many things at once research shows that you don’t change anything at all — so we’ve really carefully thought about how we nudge and how we try to help patients build better habits and how often we do that as well.” Kirby says the goal — in time — is also to use AI to incorporate more advanced suggestions into the platform in the future, such as predictive symptom logging, i.e., “what is likely to occur for this particular drug for this particular patient”. For now, Vinehealth has built a content recommender system that is specialized in oncology and personalized to the patient: tuned to their diagnosis, adapting to their ongoing input, and factoring in content that other similar patients are reading and finding supportive. On the research side, Kirby says the largest study the platform has been used for to date is an ongoing study involving nine NHS Trusts and 300 patients — which is a piece of research that Vinehealth is undertaking itself. Health data is of course highly sensitive, and Kirby confirmed that consent for any third-party research purposes is sought separately to the consent a user of the patient-support product is asked for so that Vinehealth can process their medical information to provide the service and give them personalized treatment support. “That data is not shared with anybody — unless they have [given] explicit consent to do that. By just signing up to the platform, they’re not consenting to sharing their data as part of a clinical trial. That is a completely separate piece of consent,” she said. “We make it extremely clear and don’t want to hide any sharing in any way — it has to be really obvious and really clear to a patient. Ultimately everyone wants to support patients. They want to give more opportunities for patients to be in those clinical trials, to be able to capture that data and feed that back in a way where — normally they’re suffering at home with these kind of side effects and that’s never getting back to the pharma company, for example — so we’re making it really clear what we’re doing and why we’re doing that and we give patients a choice.” Kirby suggested that, in the future, the startup may also look to be able to provide “properly anonymized” data sets based on purely aggregated insights provided by patients — so it might, for example, be able to highlight demographic groups that experience particular side effects of certain drugs. However, she added that that is not something it’s doing at the moment “given our focus on trials and patient support programs.” In the near term, Vinehealth is gearing up for growth via a U.S. launch — which it hopes will happen “early next year” — with the 18-strong team likely to double over the next six months or so and its first U.S. hire already locked in. “The main thing that we’ve been focused on since we fundraised is hiring a great team and growing that team and investing time in really building that out and making sure that everyone’s aligned on the mission and that we’re really building out a product that’s scalable to be able to take into these new markets,” Kirby said. “Building a startup is all about having great people. You can have great technology but if you don’t have great people, then you don’t really have anything.” Commenting on the seed funding in a statement, Beatrice Aliprandi, principal at Talis Capital, said: "We're hugely excited to be partnering with Rayna and Georgina: We'd been keeping a close eye on Vinehealth's growth for several months before we invested in the company, given its unique value proposition where healthcare outcomes work in direct correlation with financial outcomes. It's a win-win-win for patients, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, which is rarely the case in the healthcare space where parties are often at odds with one another. "From our first meeting, the resilience and mission-driven attitude of the founders was immediately clear and is really what made this opportunity so compelling. Both Rayna and Georgina are clearly incredibly driven to improve the lives and survival of cancer patients, and as a team they possess a unique combination of expertise, skills, and drive to make Vinehealth a success." Oviva grabs $80M for app-delivered healthy eating programs 4 strategies for building a digital health unicorn

TechCrunch+ roundup: Singapore’s fintech buzz, SaaS slump, amplified marketing strategies Posted: 03 Dec 2021 06:45 AM PST Bret Taylor is on a roll: On Monday, he became the chair of Twitter's board, and a day later, Salesforce made him its co-CEO and co-chair. Enterprise reporter Ron Miller looked back at Taylor's career to better understand how a one-time Google product manager ended up co-leading one of the world's most valuable companies. To get a fuller perspective, Ron interviewed four analysts: Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription Liz Herbert, VP and principal analyst, Forrester Research Holger Mueller, analyst, Constellation Research Brent Leary, founder and principal analyst, CRM Essentials Jason Wong, analyst, Gartner Leary said Taylor's elevation likely signals that Salesforce founder Marc Benioff is getting ready to transition "into the next phase of his life, whatever that may be." Mueller, however, said power-sharing only succeeds "when the senior partner relinquishes responsibilities. That will be a first for Benioff, and we will see how this will pan out." Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend. Walter Thompson Senior Editor, TechCrunch+ @yourprotagonist 4 analysts break down Bret Taylor’s pretty sweet week How to execute an amplified marketing strategy Image Credits: AaronAmat (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Every blog post, Tweet and Instagram Story is an opportunity to explain to customers (and your board) how the company creates value or is a step ahead of the competition. But quality will always beat quantity when it comes to content marketing; Googlebot may be hungry for new links, but potential customers demand expertise and insights. "Marketers need a new plan of action that puts creativity before quantity, audience before engine, and sets connection as the top priority," says Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO of audio and video content marketing platform Casted. How to execute an amplified marketing strategy Let’s talk about the SaaS selloff Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window) Companies that offer software as a service have been writing their own ticket in recent years, but are we entering a bear market? Last month, the WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund was at a 52-week high of $65.51, but as of this week, that figure had fallen to $53. "That's a decline of 19.1%," writes Alex Wilhelm in The Exchange. "Or, 90 basis points under the 20% required for a particular asset … to reach technical bear-market territory." Let’s talk about the SaaS selloff With $3B expected in 2021, Singapore is becoming a fintech capital Image Credits: TONNAJA (opens in a new window)/ Getty Images Singapore's population is under 5 million, but according to KPMG, fintech investment in the nation-state will reach $3B this year, a significant chunk of the $42B global total. By comparison, investors flowed $4.8B to Canadian fintech startups in the first half of the year. One factor driving Singapore's fintech success is its high consumer adoption rates, but its government also directly supports related initiatives through its Green Finance Action Plan. With $3B expected in 2021, Singapore is becoming a fintech capital Super app Grab starts trading on supersized SPAC combination Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window) Singapore-based Grab started out by offering ride-hailing services, but it has since swelled to become a "super app" that offers everything from food delivery to online payments. The company went public via a SPAC on Thursday in the biggest U.S. debut by a company based in Southeast Asia. But by market close, shares had fallen 21% to $8.75. Looking back, a question Alex Wilhelm asked before trading began seems quite prescient: "What are investors seeing in the company to make them confident enough to drop billions into its accounts and bid its shares higher? Super app Grab starts trading on supersized SPAC combination The unbundling of professional learning and entrepreneurship education Image Credits: jayk7 (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Workers who want to accelerate their professional development no longer need to incur tens of thousands in debt. Online education options are inexpensive and myriad, and "access to coaching and mentoring at the individual and group levels is improving," writes Rhys Spence, head of research at European edtech-focused fund Brighteye Ventures. To get a holistic sense of the opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs, he crafted a market map that charts professional learning startups. "These companies focus on a combination of both B2C and B2B models and have had substantial success on the B2B front," says Spence. "It's a convenient way for employers to offer their teams opportunities for continuous personal development, tailored to an extent to their interests and priorities." The unbundling of professional learning and entrepreneurship education China banning foreign IPOs would be pretty unsurprising Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window) Tencent, Didi and other China-based startups were able to go public in the U.S. thanks to a complex loophole known as a VIE, or variable-interest entity. A VIE sets up an offshore company that allows non-Chinese citizens to get around restrictions on foreign ownership. "The model was always risky as heck," reported Alex Wilhelm, "but now the Chinese Communist Party is considering doing away with the side-step of its own rules," which could have a devastating impact on the nation's VC market. China banning foreign IPOs would be pretty unsurprising

Why Pinduoduo is putting all its profit into agriculture Posted: 03 Dec 2021 05:54 AM PST For the past few years, Pinduoduo has been widely regarded as Alibaba’s strongest challenger. While Alibaba reported 863 million annual active consumers across its retail platforms in the 12 months ended September, Pinduoduo’s monthly active users exceeded 740 million in the quarter ended September. In its pursuit of new growth engines, Pinduoduo is taking a different route from its older rival. Both e-commerce titans are starting to see their growth plateau, but instead of doubling down on cloud computing like Alibaba, Pinduoduo is pouring money into agriculture. In August, Pinduoduo unveiled its 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) agriculture program to “face and address critical needs in the agricultural sector and rural areas.” The initiative is all-encompassing, including possible equity funding for agritech startups and grants for fundamental research and talent training. The program won’t be profit-driven, the company promised, and all profit from the second quarter and “any potential profits in future quarters would be allocated to the initiative.” Some see Pinduoduo’s investment in agriculture as an effort to alleviate rural poverty and is thus an answer to Beijing’s recent call for “common prosperity,” which denotes “affluence shared by everyone, both in material and cultural terms.” But the company has reiterated that agriculture was at its core business from the outset. Founded in 2015, Pinduoduo took off by selling fruit online before gradually broadening its product categories. For many growers, e-commerce was a boon. Agriculture in China was dominated by millions of small family-owned farms, which relied on layers of distributors to sell their produce nationwide. The setup meant farmers often ended up with razor-thin profits. To attract vendors of agricultural products, Pinduoduo has been waiving commissions and said on last week’s earnings call that it planned to maintain the policy for the “future quarters.” Once farmers sign up, the platform then trains them to be savvy digital store operators and marketers. When orders are placed, third-party logistics services transport the produce to consumers, thanks to a mature delivery network that took shape during China’s e-commerce boom. Pinduoduo isn’t the only Chinese internet platform trying to bring rural produce to urban households. Alibaba’s Taobao has long made “agricultural e-commerce” a key initiative and video apps like Kuaishou are helping farmers sell through livestreaming. TikTok’s Chinese rival Kuaishou becomes a popular online bazaar But Pinduoduo wants to go beyond selling and also help tackle farmers’ production problems. “Trained as engineers, my team and I have devoted ourselves to finding technology solutions to implement across the agriculture supply chain,” Chen Lei, who took over from Colin Huang as the firm’s CEO earlier this year, said on the earnings call. “Our efforts in applying agriculture technology go beyond matching supply and demand, and extend into identifying upstream technology solutions to improve productivity, nutritional profiles and environmental sustainability. By strengthening agritech applications, we also hope to make agriculture attractive to a tech-savvy younger generation,” Chen added. Besides selling and growing, Pinduoduo is working with research institutes to implement industry standards for products like meat and crops, the firm’s vice president of finance, Jing Ma, said on the earnings call. As a Nasdaq-listed company, Pinduoduo is, of course, beholden to its investors. In Q3, the company posted a positive operating profit for the second consecutive quarter, due in part to reduced marketing expenses. In the meantime, the firm is shifting its focus to R&D spending, which accounted for nearly 19% of its operating expenses in Q3. It will be a while before Pinduoduo’s agricultural investment starts to produce visible results, like, how will its technology help improve yield output for the 16 million farmers selling on Pinduoduo? The company has shared some early accomplishments. Last year, for instance, it called on startups worldwide to grow the sweetest and most environmentally sustainable strawberries and claimed that the winning team’s precision-farming solution has already been deployed at some farms. Why Alibaba rival Pinduoduo is investing in agritech

Umamicart bags $6M to deliver traditional Asian ingredients right to your home Posted: 03 Dec 2021 05:00 AM PST People come together around the dinner table and the food they love, but for Umamicart founder and CEO Andrea Xu, it wasn't always easy to find the ingredients to make the foods she grew up eating with her family. Xu's parents are Chinese, but moved to Spain, opening up their own Chinese restaurant. She recalls the grocery stores not having the kinds of sauces, thinly-sliced meat cuts and vegetables common in Asian cuisine. Even when she moved to the U.S. for college, she and her friends would talk about what wasn't available in the one aisle of the grocery store dedicated to Asian cooking. Andrea Xu, founder and CEO of Umamicart. Image Credits: Umamicart "Food has been a way to connect back to identity, but there was difficulty in accessing foods that were prevalent in my household," she told TechCrunch. "In the U.S., there are 29 million Asian Americans, yet there is still a hurdle to access products." With most anything available for delivery these days, Xu decided to put that to the test with Asian ingredients. In March, she and Will Nichols, formerly with FJ Labs, launched Umamicart, an online Asian grocer and delivery service offering both a curated and comprehensive selection of traditional and creative Asian products. Umamicart aims to be a one-stop shop for home cooks, offering staple products and pantry essentials, recipe inspirations and occasion-specific kits for cooking activities like holiday roast duck, DIY sushi night, hotpot and dumpling making. Orders can be placed via the company's website — and soon a mobile app — with same-day delivery for New York City customers, or next-day delivery to ZIP codes in greater New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. areas. Today, the company announced $6 million in seed capital in a round co-led by M13 and FJ Labs, with participation from Picus Capital, Starting Line, Golden Ventures, First Minute Capital and Goldhouse Ventures. This brings the company's total funding raised to $7 million, including a $1 million seed round. Brent Murri, investor at M13, was introduced to Xu by FJ Labs, and said Umamicart was in line with the kinds of consumer technology his firm typically invests in, looking at the digitization of food. M13 has invested in similar companies, like Thrive Market and Shef. "The combination of Andrea and Will as co-founders is one of the best market fits I saw this year," Murri said. "Andrea has learned from her parents and retained a lot of relationships with food distributors, while Will led Instacart's New York City market, so he knows how to scale the grocery business. All of that set them apart." Kurly, the Korean grocery startup, raises $200M on a $2.2B valuation after shifting IPO plans away from the NYSE He noted that grocery experts expect half of the U.S. population to make at least one digital grocery purchase next year. However, the digitization of grocery stores is not equal to everyone, citing the Asian market as one that is largely offline, providing space for companies like Umamicart to offer a curated selection of food with good customer experience. The new capital will enable the company to expand its delivery range, grow its team and add product catalogue and geographic service areas as Umamicart sees increased demand from customers. Xu would like to provide more diverse offerings for Southeast Asian cuisine and increase the number of recipes available to users. "We are also seeing huge interest from people who didn't exactly grow up eating Asian food, but have come to enjoy it and cooking it," she added. The global food delivery market was estimated at around $111 billion last year, with forecasts showing that to be $154 billion in 2023, according to a report from ResearchAndMarkets.com. Overall interest in cooking and eating ethnic food continues to increase. U.S. retail sales of ethnic foods was $12.5 billion in 2018, up from $11 billion in 2013, while annual spend at Chinese restaurants in the U.S. was estimated to be just over $15 billion in 2020. Umamicart itself saw 313% in quarter-to-quarter web traffic growth since its launch in March, is growing 20% to 30% month over month and now has more than 3,000 products. The pandemic showed some key insights that when cooking with Asian cuisine, people prefer fresh products, but if those aren't accessible, it impedes cooking and people try to find swaps, Xu said. "Consumers are also rejecting what is in the international or ethnic aisle and want to source products and brands that are better," she added. "We value that, so when they come to Umamicart, they know that what we put on our shelves is a vetted product, tried and true staples or the best new brands we were able to scout." Who’s building the grocery store of the future?

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