Monthly Archives: November 2020

News: Getaround tops up $25M debt financing to its $140M Series E

• November 13, 2020
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Silicon Valley peer-to-peer car rental startup Getaround has secured a $25 million loan from Horizon Technology Finance Corporation. The financing announcement comes one month after Getaround raised $140 million from investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund, Menlo Ventures, Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus’ Reinvent Capital. Getaround’s raise signals that the company is looking for new ways

Silicon Valley peer-to-peer car rental startup Getaround has secured a $25 million loan from Horizon Technology Finance Corporation. The financing announcement comes one month after Getaround raised $140 million from investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund, Menlo Ventures, Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus’ Reinvent Capital.

Getaround’s raise signals that the company is looking for new ways to secure cash without further diluting executives or investors.

A Getaround spokesperson said “Horizon presented an opportunity that provides us with additional capital to accelerate our plans in the same way as our recent Series E fundraise.”

Dan Devorsetz, Horizon’s chief investment officer, told TechCrunch that venture debt has been a part of Getaround’s financing strategy for 2020.

“It diversifies funding sources and lowers their overall cost of capital, while also mitigating the dilution impact of incremental equity,” he said. While he wouldn’t clarify on where the debt capital was going, he said that the debt is allowing Getaround to accomplish both “working capital needs and long term strategic growth initiatives.”

Getaround, like many travel-related startups, struggled in the beginning of the pandemic as governments issued stay-at-home orders in an effort to keep the disease caused by coronavirus from spreading. Bookings dropped 75% in March, forcing Getaround to layoff 100 employees. The company also applied and received approval for a Paycheck Protection Program loan to help retain workers. Getaround previously told said TechCrunch that the program “helped reduce the otherwise severe impact on the health of our organization,” due to lockdowns and coronavirus restrictions.

Demand returned in May as travelers turned to cars instead of flights for short-distance trips. Getaround CEO Sam Zaid last told TechCrunch that worldwide revenue has more than doubled from pre-COVID baselines.

By July, Getaround said it had rehired all of its furloughed employees.

There have been scattered signs of a comeback throughout the mobility industry. This week, Uber had its highest close since IPO, and Lyft saw its ride revenues recover enough to give investors some calm.

The upshot: the green shoots have sprouted. But will another wave of COVID-19 nip those buds before they can establish roots?

Getaround’s decision to pursue debt financing so soon after raising a six-figure venture capital round could signal the company’s anticipation of another lockdown, and subsequent drop in bookings. Unlike other mobility companies, Getaround doesn’t own the cars, trucks and SUVs on its rental platform, a benefit that could help the company weather a short downturn.

News: Which emerging technologies are enterprise companies getting serious about in 2020?

• November 13, 2020
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Even within the same industry, not all big, established companies are the same when it comes to their readiness to start investing in new technology.

Startups need to live in the future. They create roadmaps, build products and continually upgrade them with an eye on next year — or even a few years out.

Big companies, often the target customers for startups, live in a much more near-term world. They buy technologies that can solve problems they know about today, rather than those they may face a couple bends down the road. In other words, they’re driving a Dodge, and most tech entrepreneurs are driving a DeLorean equipped with a flux-capacitor.

That situation can lead to a huge waste of time for startups that want to sell to enterprise customers: a business development black hole. Startups are talking about technology shifts and customer demands that the executives inside the large company — even if they have “innovation,” “IT,” or “emerging technology” in their titles — just don’t see as an urgent priority yet, or can’t sell to their colleagues.

How do you avoid the aforementioned black hole? Some recent research that my company, Innovation Leader, conducted in collaboration with KPMG LLP, suggests a constructive approach.

Rather than asking large companies about which technologies they were experimenting with, we created four buckets, based on what you might call “commitment level.” (Our survey had 211 respondents, 62% of them in North America and 59% at companies with greater than $1 billion in annual revenue.) We asked survey respondents to assess a list of 16 technologies, from advanced analytics to quantum computing, and put each one into one of these four buckets. We conducted the survey at the tail end of Q3 2020.

Respondents in the first group were “not exploring or investing” — in other words, “we don’t care about this right now.” The top technology there was quantum computing.

Bucket #2 was the second-lowest commitment level: “learning and exploring.” At this stage, a startup gets to educate its prospective corporate customer about an emerging technology — but nabbing a purchase commitment is still quite a few exits down the highway. It can be constructive to begin building relationships when a company is at this stage, but your sales staff shouldn’t start calculating their commissions just yet.

Here are the top five things that fell into the “learning and exploring” cohort, in ranked order:

1. Blockchain.
2. Augmented reality/mixed reality.
3. Virtual reality.
4. AI/machine learning.
5. Wearable devices.

Technologies in the third group, “investing or piloting,” may represent the sweet spot for startups. At this stage, the corporate customer has already discovered some internal problem or use case that the technology might address. They may have shaken loose some early funding. They may have departments internally, or test sites externally, where they know they can conduct pilots. Often, they’re assessing what established tech vendors like Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco can provide — and they may find their solutions wanting.

Here’s what our survey respondents put into the “investing or piloting” bucket, in ranked order:

1. Advanced analytics.
2. AI/machine learning.
3. Collaboration tools and software.
4. Cloud infrastructure and services.
5. Internet of things/new sensors.

By the time a technology is placed into the fourth category, which we dubbed “in-market or accelerating investment,” it may be too late for a startup to find a foothold. There’s already a clear understanding of at least some of the use cases or problems that need solving, and return-on-investment metrics have been established. But some providers have already been chosen, based on successful pilots and you may need to dislodge someone that the enterprise is already working with. It can happen, but the headwinds are strong.

Here’s what the survey respondents placed into the “in-market or accelerating investment” bucket, in ranked order:

News: Nintendo’s Mario Game & Watch is a choice gaming stocking stuffer of 2020

• November 13, 2020
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Nintendo will never stop mining its past for new nostalgia-based products, but at least it tends to do so with aplomb and occasionally even generosity. The former at least is on display with the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, a standalone handheld that plays the first Mario game, its unbelievably hard “Lost Levels” sequel,

Nintendo will never stop mining its past for new nostalgia-based products, but at least it tends to do so with aplomb and occasionally even generosity. The former at least is on display with the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, a standalone handheld that plays the first Mario game, its unbelievably hard “Lost Levels” sequel, and acts as a totally impractical timepiece.

This tiny gaming system isn’t the most practical thing in the world, but it is a charming piece of hardware that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Turn on the Game & Watch with a button on the side and you can select between, naturally, the Game and Watch modes. In game mode, you can select between playing the original Super Mario Bros. for NES, the sequel we never got in the U.S., but was eventually released as “The Lost Levels,” and a recreation of an old-school LCD game where Mario juggles balls at ever-increasing speeds.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

The screen, while certainly small, is bright and sharp, apparently displaying the exact pixel dimensions of the original Nintendo game. It plays well, too — the controls are responsive, though it feels strange to play the game on anything other than an original NES controller. The buttons of the Game & Watch are a bit softer than I’d like — but they were good enough that I cleared the first set of levels without any real frustration other than my own lack of skill.

While there is no support for saving or rewinding the game — pretty much essential for the 99 percent of us who can’t beat it honestly — at least you don’t have to to try to beat it in one sitting. The game freezes its state when you turn if off or switch to any other game or mode, meaning you can play a couple levels between subway stops and not worry about losing progress.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

You can hand it back and forth with a friend (after sanitizing it, of course) too, since player 2 uses the same controls.

The juggling game is a fun little diversion but, like most of those old LCD games, goes from really boring to nearly impossible in the course of about 60 seconds.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

The “Watch” mode has a charming little landscape with the current time made out of bricks, and Mario running across the screen below stomping goombas and avoiding bullet bills. If you watch for a while he’ll moonwalk, mount a pipe, and perform other hijinks. You can switch the background from normal to hills to mushroom platforms. I wouldn’t use it as a watch but if you don’t want to pull your phone out while you’re playing, there you go.

For $50 it may seem a little steep, and perhaps it is. If this had Marios 1 through 3 on it I would consider it a bargain, especially considering the ability to come back to the game time after time — I’d work my way through the epic-length third game with pleasure.

As it is, however, it’s hard to justify the price — except, of course, as a gift to a Nintendo-loving friend or loved one. That’s why I suspect these will sell like hotcakes this holiday season. With no new Switch hardware, no N64 mini, and no must-have games on Nintendo’s platforms, it’s looking a bit dry, but a Game & Watch is just silly enough — and decent enough — a device to sate the hunger of a retro-minded gamer for a few days.

News: T-minus 24 hours left to save on tickets to TC Sessions: Space 2020

• November 13, 2020
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We’ve initiated the final countdown, and we’re just hours away from the deadline for early bird savings to TC Sessions: Space 2020 (December 16-17). It’s your last chance to grab the first of many opportunities this two-day conference provides. Purchase your early-bird ticket today before the offer expires tonight at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Let’s talk about

We’ve initiated the final countdown, and we’re just hours away from the deadline for early bird savings to TC Sessions: Space 2020 (December 16-17). It’s your last chance to grab the first of many opportunities this two-day conference provides.

Purchase your early-bird ticket today before the offer expires tonight at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

Let’s talk about the opportunities at TC Sessions: Space. You’ll learn from and engage with the top leaders and officials across private, public and military sectors. These are the people currently driving and funding the future of space technology — founders, CEOs, generals, NASA officials, scientists and investors. Peruse the event agenda for all the presentations, fireside chats interviews, breakout sessions and interactive Q&As.

Fresh from the “Thank you, Captain Obvious” file, building a space startup ain’t cheap. Don’t miss your opportunity to meet some of the leading space funding programs and learn how you can access grant money to fuel your startup for the long haul. Representatives from each program will present and explain its grant process for 30 minutes. Then you can schedule individual appointments — using CrunchMatch — to discuss the specifics of your proposal.

We’ll add even more programs in the coming days, but here are four of the programs available (read more about them here).

• The Space Force Accelerators
• Advancing Space Technology with NASA SBIR
• NAVWAR SBIR/STTR Primer 
• Introduction to In-Q-Tel

You’ll go further with a strong network, and you won’t find a better opportunity to expand yours. Connect with people who share your business goals and can help you achieve startup success. CrunchMatch, our free, AI-powered platform makes it much easier to find and connect with people across a virtual environment. Schedule 1:1 video calls, find partners, potential customers, investors or the perfect engineer to advance your business.

Explore the early-stage startups exhibiting in the expo area and see what your peers are working on. All exhibitors will get five minutes to pitch live to global attendees. If you want in on that action, grab an Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package ($360 gets you three tickets, digital exhibition space and the ability to generate leads).

TC Sessions: Space 2020 offers almost infinite opportunity, but your first opportunity — to save $100 — disappears tonight at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Take flight with the early bird and buy your ticket right now.

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

News: Springtide, an autism treatment center network, raises $15.6 million

• November 13, 2020
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With one in 54 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the US, the issue of how to treat patients diagnosed with the condition has become almost as acute as the prevalence of the condition itself. That’s one reason why Jia Jia Ye and the team at the healthcare startup studio Redesign Health, were able

With one in 54 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the US, the issue of how to treat patients diagnosed with the condition has become almost as acute as the prevalence of the condition itself.

That’s one reason why Jia Jia Ye and the team at the healthcare startup studio Redesign Health, were able to raise $15.6 million in a recent round of funding for the new startup, Springtide Child Development.

A longtime executive in the healthcare industry with previous stints at OneMedical and Oscar, Ye and Redesign Health’s team began talking two years ago about potential business ideas. The group settled on autism care because of what they saw as the clear need in the market, Ye said.

“Why this immediately clicked is that the supply and demand imbalance was super clear,” Ye said. 

Simply put, Springtide combines the concierge medical business model with early childcare and education businesses like Sylvan Learning to offer autism care through specialists and a team of registered behavioral technicians.

To ensure that as many people as possible can use Springtide’s services the company takes both private insurance and Medicaid.

So far, the company has one clinic set up in Connecticut providing both remote and in-person services, and it plans to launch several sites throughout the Northeast on the back of its $15.6 million in financing.

Joining Ye in designing the company’s facilities and treatment services is Dr. Tiva Pierce, who previously worked at Constellation Health Services, which provides behavioral and physical healthcare through schools.

Like many companies which had an in-person services model, Springtide had to pivot to delivering remote care as soon as the pandemic lockdowns hit the Northeast.

Image Credit: Thetaree Sarmkasat iStock / Getty Images Plus

The company charges Medicaid $46 per hour and commercial payers will be charged between $50 and $60 per hour, but the company’s services will only cost families their typical co-pay and deductible.

Taking Medicaid was a priority, Ye said, to increase access for more people who need it.

Already, the families in the US spend about $17 billion on ABA therapy, according to Ye. And the overall spending on autism related issues is $68 billion, she said.

The financing, which came from Deerfield Management and Optum Ventures, will be used to expand the company’s footprint and staff, which currently numbers roughly 30 employees.

“The rapidly growing autism care market is highly fragmented and uncoordinated, which creates significant challenges for children and their families who deserve to have access to care that is consistently of exceptional quality,” said Julian Harris, M.D., Partner at Deerfield. “Springtide offers an interdisciplinary, in-center care experience with a tech-enabled wrap-around for families who want their children to get all of their care in one setting.  With an emphasis on outcomes measurement, we hope that Springtide can serve as a platform for care and research, ultimately establishing the gold standard in this field.”

News: NASA’s head of human spaceflight, Kathryn Lueders, will join us at TC Sessions: Space

• November 13, 2020
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NASA’s human spaceflight program took big strides in 2020 with the official kick-off of the commercial crew program with SpaceX, and on plans to return humans to the surface of the Moon via the Artemis program. NASA Associate Administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate Kathryn Lueders has been there for it

NASA’s human spaceflight program took big strides in 2020 with the official kick-off of the commercial crew program with SpaceX, and on plans to return humans to the surface of the Moon via the Artemis program. NASA Associate Administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate Kathryn Lueders has been there for it all, and actually rose to her current position from previously serving as Commercial Crew Program Manager, so there’s no one better to speak to the agency’s achievements and goals around putting humans in space.

Lueders will join us at TC Sessions: Space this year, which is happening December 16 and 17. It’s a fully virtual event, featuring all-star programming from across the space industry, public sector, and of course the startup scene. Associate Administrator Lueders will be joined on stage by moderator Emily Calandrelli, scientist, engineer, and host of the hit Netflix show Emily’s Wonder Lab.

We’ll be talking to Lueders about NASA’s historic certification of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Dragon human launch system, which ends the U.S. reliance on Russia’s Soyuz for transportation to and from the International Space Station – and becomes the first commercial spacecraft certified for human flight ever.

Dragon will make history yet again with its first-ever operational crew mission, set to take three NASA astronauts and one JAXA astronaut to the ISS this weekend.

Associate Administrator Lueders will also be able to talk us through the ongoing effort to gain a second commercial crew mission provider with Boeing, which is still in the process of certifying their Starliner spacecraft, and NASA’s work toward putting the next American man and the first American woman on the surface of the Moon with Artemis. She’s also the perfect person to talk about the agency’s future with commercial and startup partners when it comes to human spaceflight.

You can get an Early Bird Ticket for just $125 until 11:59pm tonight, Friday, November 13. And we have discounts available for groups, students, active military/government employees and for early-stage space startup founders who want to pitch and give their startup some extra visibility.

News: Fintech VC keeps getting later, larger and more expensive

• November 13, 2020
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The venture capital market appears to be getting later, larger and more expensive. As a result, fintech — one of its hottest and most-funded sectors — is evolving in a similar manner. For late-stage fintech companies, it’s great news. But for smaller players, is the shift towards bigger, more mature rounds undercutting their ability to

The venture capital market appears to be getting later, larger and more expensive. As a result, fintech — one of its hottest and most-funded sectors — is evolving in a similar manner.

For late-stage fintech companies, it’s great news. But for smaller players, is the shift towards bigger, more mature rounds undercutting their ability to attract capital and reach scale?

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

Venture capital getting later and larger was something we saw repeatedly in our examinations of what happened in Q3 2020 more broadly. For example, during our look into United States’ results during the period, we noted that “54% of all venture capital money invested in the United States in the third quarter was part of rounds that were $100 million or more,” with those 88 rounds — a record — totaling $19.8 billion.

The other 1,373 rounds in the quarter had to split the rest of the money. And the percentage of rounds that are late-stage is rising, along with their average deal size, to add to the trend.

Fintech appears to be in a very similar boat.

The Exchange previously dug into the fintech VC market, focusing our examination on the payments, insurtech, wealth management and banking verticals.

This morning, leaning on a report from PitchBook covering fintech’s third quarter, I want to highlight how the vertical is also tilting later-stage — a trend to keep in mind as we care not only about which startups are gearing up to go public, but also which ones have a shot at raising the capital they need to make it to the growth stage.

More big, and more late

Top-line numbers from PitchBook concerning North American and European venture capital results for fintech in Q3 are as follows: $8.9 billion in total capital raised, +$1.3 billion or +17% from Q2 2020’s $7.6 billion haul.

But, as PitchBook notes, “only 414 deals closed during the quarter—the lowest count since Q3 2017.” More capital then, into fewer rounds. That sounds familiar.

Initially, when looking at the dataset, we were going to note that consumer fintech startups are having a great year, while it appears that certain B2B fintech categories were pulling back. Indeed, after raising $3.7 billion in 2019, consumer-facing fintechs in North America and Europe have already raised $5.9 billion in 2020.

But that growth story was dwarfed by the figures on this chart:

Via PitchBook, shared with permission.

News: Kyklo raises $8.5M to bring electrical distributors online

• November 13, 2020
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Kyklo, a startup that helps wholesale distributors of electrical and automation products launch e-commerce stores, is announcing that it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding. The industry may sound a bit arcane, but it’s one that founders Remi Ducrocq (Kyklo’s CEO) and Fabien Legouic (CTO) know from having worked at Schneider Electric. Ducrocq said

Kyklo, a startup that helps wholesale distributors of electrical and automation products launch e-commerce stores, is announcing that it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding.

The industry may sound a bit arcane, but it’s one that founders Remi Ducrocq (Kyklo’s CEO) and Fabien Legouic (CTO) know from having worked at Schneider Electric. Ducrocq said that the process of selling these products to manufacturers and electricians remains a cumbersome process that relies largely on PDF catalogs.

Shifting these businesses to digital is a much bigger challenge than creating your standard online store, both because of the number of products being sold and the needs for accurate listings.

“Even the small folks sell 100,000 SKUs [distinct products], up to 1 million SKUs,” Ducrocq told me. “If you choose the wrong product, your factory gets shut down. [It’s essential] to have accurate information present on the web store to have a transaction happen.”

Kyklo doesn’t automate the process completely, Ducrocq added, because “you can’t just create content or apply AI to something that is so unstructured.” Sreating these stores remains a manual process for the Kylo team, but the company has built “technology to make that manual process as easy as possible.”

That includes standardized data structures and a variety of scripts to create these product listings more quickly. Ultimately, Ducrocq said Kyklo can get distributors up and running with an online store within 30 days, and sometimes as quickly as two weeks.

In total, Kyklo has created a catalog of more than 2.5 million products for more than 35 distributors. It’s also been endorsed by manufacturers like Schneider Electric, Wago, Festo US and Mitsubishi Electric Automation as their preferred e-commerce partner.

Ducrocq suggested that creating going digital with Kyklo helps these businesses both by allowing them to reach new customers with improved SEO and by giving them tools to expand their sales with existing customers. For example, IEC Supply says that its online sales increased 600% for the first six months after launching with Kyklo, while new customer interactions tripled.

“Market maturity accelerated because of the pandemic,” he added. “These B2B traditional businesses were reluctant to go towards digitization, with only visionaries embarking on the journey. But during the pandemic, salespeople haven’t been able to see ther customers in person for six months, so many distributors are reassessing how they should effectively go to market.”

Kyklo has now raised a total of $10.2 million. The new funding was led by Felicis Ventures and IA Ventures, with participation from Jungle Ventures, partners at Wavemaker, Seedplus and strategic angel investors.

“With 80% of the $640 billion electrical, industrial and automation distribution industry still relying on PDF catalogs and phone and emails for its operations, distributors face a challenge in the market,” said Felicis Managing Director Sundeep Peechu in a statement. “KYKLO’s platform helps these companies keep pace with crucial industry needs and reassess how digital tools can transform their sales force.”

News: The VC and founder winners of DoorDash’s IPO

• November 13, 2020
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After years of rumors and high-flying headlines, we finally have the S-1 for DoorDash. Alex has covered the primary details, but I figured it would be good to dive in so we can see who is raking in the returns on the country’s delivery startup champion. DoorDash’s filing indicates that the company raised a combined

After years of rumors and high-flying headlines, we finally have the S-1 for DoorDash. Alex has covered the primary details, but I figured it would be good to dive in so we can see who is raking in the returns on the country’s delivery startup champion.

DoorDash’s filing indicates that the company raised a combined $2.485 billion in capital across a seed round and eight rounds Series A-H. The three VC firms with the largest holdings noted in the filing were the SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia and Singapore’s GIC investment fund, listed here as Greenview (no relation to the cannabis fund of the same name that was charged with fraud a few years ago).

DoorDash’s most recent per share valuation was $45.91 for the Series H back in June. Shares purchased by investors over the entire life of the company had an average value of $8.73.

We’ll dive into the VCs and who won here in a second, but first, I want to discuss the founders and their ownership stakes. Co-founder and CEO Tony Xu currently owns 5.2% of DoorDash, according to the filing, which doesn’t include any future performance incentives. Co-founders Andy Fang, who is CTO, and chief product officer Stanley Tang both own 4.7% of the company. A fourth co-founder, Evan Moore, formerly head of operations at DoorDash and now a partner at DoorDash’s seed investor Khosla, doesn’t have his ownership listed as he is no longer an active executive with the company.

News: Nintendo’s Switch dominates US console sales ahead of PlayStation/Xbox launches

• November 13, 2020
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Another banner month month for Nintendo hardware sales, per the latest figures from NPD. The firm puts Switch sales (including the standard and Lite models) at 735,000 units in the U.S., making the best October for a Nintendo console since the Wii sold 807,000 units in October 2008. It’s been a good couple of years

Another banner month month for Nintendo hardware sales, per the latest figures from NPD. The firm puts Switch sales (including the standard and Lite models) at 735,000 units in the U.S., making the best October for a Nintendo console since the Wii sold 807,000 units in October 2008.

It’s been a good couple of years for the Switch, which has marked 23 straight months as the best-selling console in the States. In its own reporting, Nintendo adds that the company has sold more than 63 million units worldwide, to date. 2020 has been particularly strong for the company, owing to both pandemic-related stay-at-home orders and the strength of titles like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which was a downright powerhouse.

Of course, many Microsoft and Sony devotees were no doubt holding off on purchasing new hardware, with the arrival of the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 a month out. Per NPD, Nintendo offset its competitors’ declines in the meantime. Though an end to Nintendo’s console sales dominance could very well be in the cards for November, even with the Switch bundles the company has on offer for Black Friday.

FIFA 21 was the best-selling game for the month — the first time an entry in the soccer franchise hit the number one spot in the U.S. on launch. The hybrid title, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, was Nintendo’s best-selling game at number five overall, though Nintendo managed to claim nine of the top 20 spots for the month.