Daily Archives: February 23, 2021

News: Daily Crunch: Facebook brings news sharing back to Australia

The Facebook-Australia news battle seems to have reached an end, Android gets an update and Lucid Motors is going public via SPAC. This is your Daily Crunch for February 23, 2021. The big story: Facebook brings news sharing back to Australia Last week, Facebook responded to the Australian government’s proposed law requiring internet platforms to

The Facebook-Australia news battle seems to have reached an end, Android gets an update and Lucid Motors is going public via SPAC. This is your Daily Crunch for February 23, 2021.

The big story: Facebook brings news sharing back to Australia

Last week, Facebook responded to the Australian government’s proposed law requiring internet platforms to strike revenue-sharing agreements with news publishers by blocking news sharing and viewing for users in the country. But with the government amending the law, Facebook said it will restore news sharing in the “coming days.”

Among other things, the amendments call for a two-month mediation period before Facebook is forced into arbitration with publishers, and it also says the government will consider commercial agreements that the platforms have made with local publishers before deciding whether the law applies to them.

William Easton, Facebook’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, said in a statement that the amendments address “core concerns about allowing commercial deals that recognize the value our platform provides to publishers relative to the value we receive from them.”

The tech giants

Android’s latest update will let you schedule texts, secure your passwords and more — This update will integrate a feature called Password Checkup to alert you to passwords you’re using that have been previously exposed.

Twitter relaunches test that asks users to revise harmful replies — Twitter is running a new test that will ask users to pause and think before they tweet.

Area 120 is beginning to use Google’s massive reach to scale HTML5 GameSnacks platform — GameSnacks is an HTML5 gaming platform where titles are bite-sized and load much faster.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Lucid Motors strikes SPAC deal to go public with $24B valuation — This will be the largest deal yet between a blank-check company and an electric vehicle startup.

Shippo raises $45M more at $495M valuation as e-commerce booms — The startup provides shipping-related services to e-commerce companies.

Reddit ups Series E round by another $116M — Reddit had already announced a $250 million Series E earlier this month.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

How to overcome the challenges of switching to usage-based pricing — The usage-based pricing model almost feels like a cheat code, according to OpenView’s Kyle Poyar.

Oscar Health’s initial IPO price is so high, it makes me want to swear — Alex Wilhelm doesn’t mince words: “Public investors have lost their damn minds.”

RIBS: The messaging framework for every company and product — The test is designed to tell you if your story is memorable, so you can turn it into a compelling message.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Announcing the complete agenda for TC Sessions: Justice — Our second-ever dedicated event to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech is coming up on March 3.

Six Miami-based investors share their views on the region’s startup scene — Investors see a huge opportunity for the region to become a major startup hub by utilizing its diverse workforce and wonderful quality of life.

SolarWinds hackers targeted NASA, Federal Aviation Administration networks — Hackers are said to have broken into the networks of U.S. space agency NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a wider espionage campaign.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: Join a conversation and AMA with Run The World on virtual events now and post COVID

Join TechCrunch for its first 2021 installment of the Ask Me Anything series, where TechCrunch interviews experts and answers your burning questions about virtual events. Our first guest is Xiaoyin Qu, co-founder and CEO of Run The World.  Friday, February 26, 1 p.m. PT Register here Run The World is a one-stop shop virtual events

Join TechCrunch for its first 2021 installment of the Ask Me Anything series, where TechCrunch interviews experts and answers your burning questions about virtual events.

Our first guest is Xiaoyin Qu, co-founder and CEO of Run The World

Friday, February 26, 1 p.m. PT

Register here

Run The World is a one-stop shop virtual events platform with a focus on community engagement. TechCrunch has written about Run The World in the past. It launched in 2019, with backers like Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund, and skyrocketed in popularity when COVID canceled in-person events and created an overwhelming desire for one-on-one connection. Run The World has since grown to 45 employees and has hosted more than 10,000 events, including for TechCrunch. 

At this AMA, Xiaoyin and TechCrunch will discuss: 

  • How COVID changed the virtual event roadmap
  • What virtual events look like when in-person events come back
  • Lessons learned from managing products at Facebook and Instagram
  • What’s next for Run The World
  • Audience Q&A 
  • 1:1 networking using Run The World

Who should attend? Event organizers, event marketers, event sponsors. 

It’s free. Register here and submit your questions for Xiaoyin. 

News: Spain’s ten-year plan to put startups in the economic driving seat

Spain is preparing to push forward with pro-startup legislation, having recently unveiled a big and bold transformation plan with the headline goal, by 2030, of turning the country into ‘Spain Entrepreneurial Nation’, as the slightly clumsy English translation has it. Prime minister Pedro Sanchez took a turn on Web Summit’s stage in December to announce

Spain is preparing to push forward with pro-startup legislation, having recently unveiled a big and bold transformation plan with the headline goal, by 2030, of turning the country into ‘Spain Entrepreneurial Nation’, as the slightly clumsy English translation has it.

Prime minister Pedro Sanchez took a turn on Web Summit’s stage in December to announce the introduction of the forthcoming Startup Act — and to trumpet a new role, a high commissioner, tasked with bringing off a nationwide entrepreneurial economic transformation by working with all the relevant government ministries.

The broad-brush goals for the strategy are to increase growth in startup investments; attract and retain talent; promote scalability; and inject innovation into the public sector so it can bolster and support Spain’s digital development.

The aforementioned Startup Act is the first piece of dedicated legislation for the sector — and is intended to simplify starting up in Spain, as well as bringing in tax concessions and incentives for foreign investments. So it will be something of a milestone.

Chat to local founders and there’s a litany of administrative, tax-based and fundraising pain-points they’ll quickly point to as frustrations. Wider issues seem more cultural; startups not thinking big enough, investors lacking the necessary appetite for risk, and even — among wider society — some latent suspicion of entrepreneurs. While Spain-based investors are champing at the bit for administrative reform and better stock options. Moving the needle on all that is the Spanish government’s self-appointed mission for the foreseeable future.

TechCrunch spoke to Francisco Polo, Spain’s high commissioner overseeing delivery of the entrepreneurial strategy, to get the inside track on the plan to grow the startup ecosystem and find out which bits entrepreneurs are likely to see in action first.

“The high commissioner for Spain entrepreneurial nation is a new body that’s within the presidency. So for the first time we have an institution that, from the presidency, is able to help coordinate the different ministries on one single thing: Creating the first national mission. In this case this nation mission has the goal to turn Spain into the entrepreneurial nation with the greatest social impact in history,” says Polo.

“What we do is that work of coordination with all the ministries. Basically we have a set of internal objectives. First is what we call impacts — different sets of measures that is contained in the Spain entrepreneurial nation strategy. We also work trying to get everyone together on this national mission so we work on different alliances.

“Finally, we are also very focused on helping let the people know that Spain has made a decision to become — by 2030 — this entrepreneurial nation that is going to leave no one behind. So that’s our job.”

Scaling up on the shoulders of giants

The southern European nation doesn’t attract the same level of startup investment as some of its near neighbors, including the UK, France and Germany. But in some ways Spain punches above its regional weight — with major cities like Barcelona and Madrid routinely ranked as highly attractive locations for founders, owing to relatively low costs and the pull of a Mediterranean lifestyle.

Spanish cities’ urban density, high levels of youth unemployment and a sociable culture that’s eagerly embraced digital chatter makes an attractive test-bed for consumer-facing app-based businesses — one that’s demonstrated disruptive potential over the past decade+, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis which hit the country hard.

Local startups that have gained global attention over this period — for velocity of growth and level of ambition, at the least — include the likes of Badi, Cabify, Glovo, Jobandtalent, Red Points, Sherpa.ai, TravelPerk, Typeform and Wallapop, to name a few.

Spain’s left-leaning coalition government is now looking to pick up the startup baton in earnest, to drive a broader pro-digital shift in the economy and production base — but in a way that’s socially inclusive. The shift will be based on “an ironclad principle that we leave no one behind”, said Sanchez in December.

For this reason the slate of policy measures Sanchez’s government has distilled as necessary to support and grow the ecosystem — following a long period of consultation with private and public stakeholders — pays close attention to social impact. Hence the parallel goal of tackling a variety of gaps (territorial, gender, socio-economic, generational and so on) that might otherwise be exacerbated by a more single-minded rush to accelerate the size of the digital sector.

“We are a new generation of young people in government. I think in our generation we don’t understand creating a new innovation system or a new industrial-economic system if we are not also talking about its social impact,” says Polo. “That’s why at the basis of the model we have also designed inclusion policies. So all this strategy is aimed at closing the gender gap, the territorial gap, the socio-economic gap and the generational gap. So at the end of the day, by 2030, we have created the entrepreneurial nation with the highest social impact in history.”

There’s money on the table too: Spain will be routing a portion of the ‘Next Generation EU‘ coronavirus recovery funding it receives from the pan-EU pot into this ‘entrepreneurial’ push.

“Specifically, for 2021, the budget assigned to the different goals of the strategy — we have more than €1.5BN for the main measures that we want to start setting up. And for the period 2023 it’s over €4.5BN dedicated to the rest of the measures. So basically between 2021 and 2023 we will be setting the basis/foundations of the Spain entrepreneurial nation,” says Polo.

Execution of the strategy will be down to the relevant ministries of government — who will be enacting projects and passing legislation, as needed — but Polo’s department is there to “guide and accompany” the various arms and branches of government on that journey; aka “to help make things happen” with a startup hat on.

The national strategy envisages entrepreneurship/startup innovation as the driving force at the top of a pyramid that sits atop existing sectors of the Spanish economy — “spearheading the innovative system that we want to generate”, as Polo puts it. “We are not only focusing on innovative entrepreneurship. We are also trying to create virtuous cycles between this ecosystem and the actual driving sectors of the Spanish economy — that’s why we listed a set of ten driving sectors that represent above 60% of the GDP. And this is of utmost importance.”

The listed sectors where the government wants to concentrate and foster support — so those same sectors can leverage gains through closer working with digital innovation are: Industry; Tourism and culture; Mobility; Health; Construction and materials; Energy and ecological transition; Banking and finance; Digitalization and telecommunications; Agri-food; and Biotechnology.

“We decided we needed to make the cut at some point and we decided that putting together 60% of the GDP in Spain was a clear direction of the sectors that we could be using in order to accelerate the change that we want to see,” says Polo. “Basically what we want to shift with this model is that the innovative entrepreneurship that has been quite enclosed in the past starts working with the different driving sectors that we have in the country because they can help each other solve their different issues.

“So first, for example, for investment — what if big companies start investing more and more than they are actually doing? We accelerate also that path — into innovative entrepreneurship system. That is going to help close that gap… What if startups and scale ups in Spain work together with our international companies in order to attract and retain that talent? That is going to put us as a country in a better position.

“To me the best example is about scaling up: Because what is better than scaling up on the shoulders of giants? We have already a big number of international of world class companies that are in different markets so what is better than being able to scale up with a company that is already there, that has the knowledge and that can help you mature as a scale up in a shorter period of time. So there are a lot of virtuous cycles that we can generate and that’s why we wanted to make also a broad appeal to the different driving sectors. Because we want to let the country know that everyone is called to make this a reality.”

Lime scooters outside El Retiro Park in Madrid (Image credits: Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Digital divides

Digital can itself divide, of course, as has been writ large during a global pandemic in which the development of children excluded from attending school in person can hinge on whether or not they have Internet access and computer literacy.

So the principle of entrepreneurial growth being predicated upon social inclusion looks like an important one — even if pulling off major industrial transformations which will necessitate a degree of retraining and upskilling in order to bring workers of all ages along the same path is clearly not going to be easy.

But the ten-year timeframe for ‘Spain Entrepreneurial Nation’ looks like a recognition that inclusion requires time.

The long term plan is also intended to address a common criticism of Spain’s politics being too short-termist, per Polo. “In Spain particularly it’s been a regular criticism that politics always look in the small term so this is proof that this government is also addressing the short term issues but also is preparing Spain for the future,” he says, adding: “We really believe that [presenting a long term vision is] a good thing and it’s an answer to that social demand.”

The country has also — over the last decade or so — gained a bit of a reputation for successfully challenging digital developments over specific societal impacts in Europe’s courts. Such as, in 2010, when a Spanish citizen challenged Google’s refusal to delist outdated information about him from its index — which led, in 2014, to Europe’s top court backing what’s colloquially referred to as the ‘right to be forgotten’.

Uber’s regulation-dodging was also successfully challenged by Spanish taxi associations — leading to a 2017 ruling at the highest level in Europe that Uber is a transport service (and therefore subject to local urban transport rules; not just a technology platform as the ride-hailing giant had sought to claim).

Anti-Uber (and anti-Cabify) strikes have, meanwhile, been a quasi-regular (and sometimes violent) feature of Spain’s streets — as the taxi industry has protested at a perceived lack of enforcement of the law against app-based rivals who are not competing fairly, as it sees it.

And while gig platforms (even homegrown European ones) tend to try to shrug off such protests as protectionist (and/or ‘anti-innovation’), they have oftentimes found themselves losing challenges to the legality of their models — including most recently in the UK Supreme Court (which just slapped down Uber’s classification of drivers/riders as self employed — meaning it’s liable for a slew of costs for associated benefits).

All of which is to say that the muscular sense of injustice that segments of Spanish society have willingly — and even viscerally — demonstrated when they feel unfair impacts flowing from shiny new tech tools should not be dismissed; rather it looks like people here have their finger on the pulse of what’s really important to them.

That may also explain why the government is so keen to ensure no one in Spain feels left behind as it unboxes a major packet of startup-friendly policies.

Among a package of some 50 support measures, the entrepreneurial strategy makes a reference to “smart regulation” and floats the idea of sandboxing for testing products publicly (i.e. without needing to worry about regulatory compliance first).

The idea of opening up sandboxing is popular with local gig platform Glovo. “I really believe this is key; allowing innovation to test products/services without having to go through regulatory nightmares to test. This would really drive innovation,” co-founder Sacha Michaud tells us. “This is working well in financial services but could be applied across a wide range of tech areas.”

Attracting more investment to Spain and improving stock options so that local companies can better compete to attract talent are other key priorities for him.

Michaud says he’s fully supportive of the government’s entrepreneurial strategy and the Startup Act, while not expecting immediate results on account of what he expects will be a long legislative process.

He’s less happy about the government’s in-train plan to regulate gig platforms, though — arguing that last-mile delivery is being unfairly singled out there. This reform, which is being worked on by the Ministry of Labor, has been driven by a number of legal challenges to platforms’ employment classifications of gig workers in recent years — including a loss last year for Glovo in Spain’s Supreme Court.

“In Glovo’s case [the government] are specifically looking at regulating only riders, last-mile delivery platforms — yet still allowing over an estimated 500,000 autonomous workers in logistics, services and installations to continue,” says Michaud, dubbing this “very discriminatory; affecting literally a handful of tech companies and ‘protecting’ the status quo of the traditional IBEX35 Spanish companies”.

Asked about progress on the reform of the labor law Polo says only that work is continuing. “I don’t have more transparency on the work they are doing. I have probably the same information that you have and the conversations that we have with the different companies, also the gig companies that we keep an open dialogue with,” he says.

But when pressed on whether reforming regulations to take account of tech-driven changes to how people work is an important component of the wider entrepreneurial strategy he also emphasizes that the “ultimate goal” of the national transformation plan is “to generate more and better jobs”.

“We are always inclined to try to foster the companies that generate these better and increasing new jobs,” says Polo. “And I’m sure that the different gig companies that we have in Spain — I know that they understand this ultimate goal. They understand the benefits for the company and for the country of following this path and that they are willing to transform and evolve as the country is also evolving.”

At the time of writing Barcelona is also being rocked by street protests over the jailing of rapper, Pablo Hasél, over certain social media postings — including tweets criticising police brutality — judged, by Spanish courts, to have violated its criminal code around glorifying terrorism.

Spain’s laws in this area have long been denounced as draconian and disproportionate. Including by Amnesty International — which called Hasél’s imprisonment “an excessive and disproportionate restriction on his freedom of expression”. But Polo dismisses the idea that there’s any contradiction in Spain seeking to rebrand itself as a modernizing, pro-entrepreneur nation at the same time as Spain’s courts are putting people in prison over the contents of their tweets. (Hasél is not the only artist or citizen to fall foul of this law — which has also been infamously triggered by social media jokes).

“There’s no opposition of concepts at all,” Polo argues. “Spain is one of the most robust democracies in the world and that is something that is not us who are saying it — it’s the international rankings. And we have a rule of law. And in this case it’s a very clear case of someone who went across the limits that are established in legislation because the freedom of speech has limits of the rights of other people so it’s something that has nothing to do unfortunately with freedom of speech… The reason why Pablo Hasél is in jail is because he promoted terrorism.”

Pressed further on how ‘jail time for tweets’ might look to an international audience, he reiterates a recent government statement that they do intend to reform the penal code. “There are very specific things that, yes, we want to reform. Because times have advanced,” he says, adding: “We are a more mature country than the one we were in the 1980s. And there are specific things that we want to change in the penal code — but they have nothing to do with the recent events.”

Graffiti in a Barcelona street protesting against the imprisonment of rapper, Pablo Hasél, for crimes involving freedom of speech (Image credit: Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Measures to change mindsets

On the broader issue of cultural challenge — aka: how to change a national mindset to be more entrepreneurial — Polo expresses confidence in his mission. He says it’s about making sure people see the big picture and their place in the vision of the future you’re presenting to them; so they see you’re actively working to bring them along for the ride.

“This is one of the things that I feel confident about. Particularly based on my background prior to being in politics. That is helping change mindsets,” he tells TechCrunch. “In the past I was able to help tonnes of people realize that they were capable of doing things that they thought they were never capable of doing. My understanding is that in order to generate those cultural changes you need to do one thing first: That is generating a vision for the future.

“That’s why we insist so much that by 2030 Spain is going to become an entrepreneurial nation with the greatest social impact in history and that we have a plan for that… Where we take the entrepreneurship and we help them spearhead this new innovation model. We leverage all the driving sectors of the economy so we are actually building on success; on the actual success of Spain as an international economy. And that there’s something for you in that plan. That’s why we are including in the strategy at the basis of the strategy the inclusion policies in order to close the gender gap, the territorial gap, the socio-economic gap, the generational gap.

“In order to change cultures you need align people into working together towards building something that is greater than themselves and I think that with the Spain entrepreneurial nation strategy we made that first step. And this is why — and this is a parenthesis — that’s why we say the [startup] law is as important as having this strategy.”

That startup law — due to be presented shortly in draft (aka as an anteproyecto de ley) for approval by the Council of Ministers, before going to parliament for a wider debate process (and potential amendments) — is the first piece of legislation aligned with the wider strategy. It also looks set to be one of its first deliverables.

Although it’s not clear how long it will be before Spain gets its shiny new startup law. (The country’s politics has lacked consensus for years; Sanchez’s ‘progressive coalition’ was only put together after he tried and failed to get a full majority for his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) twice in a row.)

“That’s something that is difficult to say because there are laws that have a shorter and others that have a longer period of approval,” says Polo, on the timeframe for passing the legislation. “For us the important issue here is that the startup law has a full process — so it has a full agreement on every side of the hill so it becomes robust and stable legislation for the years to come.”

This “long awaited” regulation which the ecosystem has been calling for for “years”, per Polo, will address a number of different issues — from the first legal “definition” of startup (to reflect differentiation vs other types of companies); to measures to help startups retain and attract talent.

“We need to reform stock options so that they become a tool in order to compete internationally for talent,” he says, noting that the idea is to enable Spain to compete with regimes already offered by countries elsewhere in Europe, such as the UK, France and Germany.

“Also we need to reform VISAs in order to again retain and attract that talent,” he continues. “The president also talked about incentivizing investment and having a certain degree of tax breaks — and we understand that business angels need more incentives. So we have a more ordain and logical system of investment at the pre-seed and seed stage. And many other actions — it’s the Ministry of Economy that will end up with the final text that will be passed in the Council of Ministers in the coming weeks.”

Polo cautions that the law won’t instantly fix every gripe of founders and investors in Spain. Clearly it’s going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

“That’s why we have a strategy,” he emphasizes. “I understand the interest in the startup law but I always say that as important as the startup law is the Spain entrepreneurial nation strategy. Because it’s in there where we address the big problems that we have as a country when it comes to the ecosystem. And in there we have pointed out four big challenges that we have.

“First is investment. We need to accelerate the velocity of maturity of the investment in Spain… The numbers have been growing, year after year, and they look really good. So what we want to do is to help accelerate those numbers so we are able to run faster and close the gap that we have between us and our neighbours: Basically Germany and France. That they have 4x or 5x the number of investment that we have in Spain. We really want to be in ten years in a place where Spain could be leading the investment in innovative entrepreneurship in mainland Europe.

“Second challenge: Talent. We know that in order to build the entrepreneurial nation we need all the talent that we have. So we need to develop the internal talent but we also need to attract international talent and we need to retain that talent. So that’s why we were talking about the different tools that might be included in the startup law.

“The third challenge is scaling up. We in Spain have a lot of companies that assimilate success to selling. And that’s great — it’s totally legitimate. But what we need as a country is to have an increasing percentage of companies in the future that do not think about selling as a synonym of success; but they think about buying other startups around the world. Of growing. Of scaling up. So they started building today the big companies that in the future by 2030 they will generate thousands of good quality jobs in Spain which is the ultimate goal and the bottom line of the strategy.

“And the fourth goal: Turn the political administration into an entrepreneurial administration. Meaning that the political administration, it’s more agile. That we generate a positive benchmark. And that sometimes the public sector makes the investment that not even the riskier of venture capital funds can do. Because that’s the role of the public sector; to generate this kind of visions and to put the means in in order to achieve those. So among all the challenges that we have in the ecosystem it’s something we have put together in the strategy — that is going to addressed not only with one law but with 50 different measures that we included in the Spain entrepreneurial nation strategy.”

The wider entrepreneur strategy talks about nine priority actions to be developed in the next two years via certain projects — which Polo envisages being accelerated in the near term with the help of EU coronavirus recovery funds.

He highlights a couple of priority projects: One to create a network to link entrepreneurs and policymakers with the wider ecosystem, and another to connect incubators and accelerators to build out a national support network for founders — both of which have been inspired by approaches taken in other European countries.

“Among these projects we have one — Oficina Nacional de Emprendimiento — which is deeply inspired by La French Tech in France. So we want to generate a one-stop-shop for entrepreneurs, investors and the rest of the ecosystem to access all of opportunities of collaboration between the central government, regions and CP councils in order to improve entrepreneurship in their respective areas,” says Polo.

“We have other projects like Renace — which is an acronym for Red Nacional de Centros de Emprendimiento — and in there we’ve also been inspired by the network that Portugal has that are doing such exciting things. So what we want to do is help connect the different incubators and accelerators and venture builders that we have in Spain. So they’re at first connected and we add more value — but with one particular focus: The different gaps.

“With Renace in particular we want to help close the territorial gap. Because it’s going to be very interesting to be able to work with engineers in Cáceres for a company that is based in Barcelona. Or to work with a team of designers from the Basque country for a company that is setting up in Malaga. With Renace we can help integrate the country and really talk about an entrepreneurial nation and not just cities. So Spain has the potential to build that. And there are many others issues.”

France alone spends billions annually both on R&D and on direct support for the digital sector. And even with EU funding Spain can’t hope to match the level of ‘ecosystem’ spend of richer, northern European countries. But Polo says the plan is to make the most of what it has with the resources it can marshal — hence, with the Renace project, it’s about linking up existing incubators/accelerators (and adding “a new layer of value” such as via public-private partnerships).

“When you end up reading the Spain entrepreneurial strategy you realize it’s not a billionaire plan of money that you put on the table in order to start building this Spain entrepreneurial nation,” he says. “It’s instead it’s a very robust plan in order to create that vision and putting together the different pieces that we already have — the different assets that we have as a country to start working together intelligently so we can make the best of everything that we can.”

Polo also argues that Spain is already doing well on the startup cluster front — saying it stands alone with Germany in having more than one city ranked among the top ten ‘most entrepreneurial’ in Europe, per such listings. More recently, he says, Spain has risen further up these listicles — as more of its cities have popped up in the “global competition for innovative entrepreneurship”.

“Meaning that in different places of Spain there are many cities and regions that have the hunger to become a place that is helping entrepreneurs to create this kind of economy. And we can get many more,” he suggests, pointing to Renace‘s hoped for value from a social inclusion angle.

“With Renace what we want to do is generate this network and add more value — provide services, get into public-private partnership in order to add the value of the different places that we have in the country. So let’s say that a company in Barcelona can find tonnes of engineers in a city like Cáceres. The company in Barcelona becomes more competitive because the salaries in Cáceres — if you pay them the best salary in Cáceres they could be two-thirds of the salary in Barcelona. So the company in Barcelona becomes more competitive. But also the engineers in the city of Cáceres who want to stay in the region, who want to stay with their family or to have a life-project in Cáceres they can stay. So this is an example of how we can close the territorial gap and also become really integrated startup nation in the full term of nation.”

“The ultimate goal of the Spain entrepreneurial nation strategy is turning Spain into a country that is able to avoid the effects of different crises. And particularly the effects of that we saw in 2008 when the most vulnerable jobs were destroyed overnight — and they were counted by tens of thousands. That particularly struck the young people with unemployment rates that were above 55%. The immigrants and the people over 50. We don’t want that to happen again. So there’s been a very profound reflection on what needed to happen in Spain for that to change. And the conclusion was that we needed to change the productive basis of the country,” he continues.

“That’s why we are putting together a strategy that is going to help the innovative entrepreneurship sector spearhead these new models, this new economic model for Spain. That is going to be leveraging the different driving sectors of the economy — those ten sectors that we state in the strategy — and that as it could not be differently in a 21st century strategy, and particularly a strategy designed by a new generation of politicians and trying to respond to the ambitions of the new generations that is a strategy that is not including the social impact of this phenomenon. So that’s why we are also focused on putting together inclusion policies.”

Polo won’t be drawn into naming any especially promising startups he’s encountered on his travels around Spain — referring instead to the “tonnes of super innovative companies” he says he’s sure will soon be disrupting business as usual in Spain and (the government hopes) internationally — from battery charging companies to retail disruptors working on new ways to make clothes. (“Different kinds of innovations that people can’t imagine,” is his pithy shorthand.)

“What we are trying to do every time we have an opportunity is to also promote the knowledge of these companies — and also help Spanish people and also people abroad — to know that we have everything that we need in order to succeed as a nation and become that entrepreneurial nation with the greatest social impact in history,” he adds, acknowledging that a big part of his mission is “to tell the rest of the world that we are here”.

 

News: SpaceX’s new $850 million raise confirmed in SEC filing

SpaceX hasn’t issue any public statement about the $850 million in fresh funding CNBC reported it raised last week, but a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published today confirms the round. SpaceX’s funding was said to value the company at around $74 billion, with a per-share value moon the round set

SpaceX hasn’t issue any public statement about the $850 million in fresh funding CNBC reported it raised last week, but a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published today confirms the round. SpaceX’s funding was said to value the company at around $74 billion, with a per-share value moon the round set at around $420.

Investment firm Sequoia led the considerable raise, and has now put over $600 million into the Elon Musk-led space company overall between this and a round it participated in in 2020, according to Bloomberg. CNBC’s report also said that a secondary sale of existing shares generated an additional $750 million in capital for the company, putting the total new money available for SpaceX’s use at $1.6 billion – not too far shy of the $2 billion it raised at a valuation of $46 billion last August.

That probably seems like a lot of money to raise in such less than a year. But few companies – private or otherwise – have the kind of capital needs of SpaceX. While it’s been able to build a thriving launch business on the money raised during the first part of its now nearly two-decade existence, that hasn’t slowed the rate at which it’s been undertaking big new projects with tremendous upfront costs.

Currently, SpaceX is rapidly building new prototypes of its Starship, a next-generation reusable rocket with multiple times the cargo capacity of its current Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 cargo nosecone. It has flown a number of prototypes – and lost two in the process due to missed landings. The company typically has at least two new prototypes under construction simultaneously, and had been operating at that pace for many months now, with a highly manual production process for both the rockets and the new engines that power them.

Meanwhile, it’s also building out Starlink – the global broadband internet satellite constellation that it wants to scale from its current 1,000+ size, to more than 12,000 for final, world-spanning coverage reach. To scale it quickly and get its service operational (which it now is, to select areas in North America), SpaceX has been launching its own dedicated Falcon 9 rockets with 60 Starlink satellites on each. Since the company is its own customer for the majority of those missions, they’re entirely operating expenditure. Musk has estimated that fully deploying Starlink will take around $10 billion.

Both of these projects – Starship and Starlink – carry massive upfront costs, but they also have a lot of potential long-term upside; hence the skyrocketing valuation as both efforts begin to produce positive results, between Starship’s high-altitude tests, and Starlink’s initial service availability.

News: From food delivery to housing: Former Favor founders raise millions for Sunroom Rentals

Real estate tech startup Sunroom Rentals, which leases units on behalf of property managers and apartment owners, has raised $11 million in a Series A round of funding led by Gigafund. Ben Doherty and Zachary Maurais, former founders of the delivery app Favor, launched Sunroom in May 2018 with the mission of “boosting the profitability”

Real estate tech startup Sunroom Rentals, which leases units on behalf of property managers and apartment owners, has raised $11 million in a Series A round of funding led by Gigafund.

Ben Doherty and Zachary Maurais, former founders of the delivery app Favor, launched Sunroom in May 2018 with the mission of “boosting the profitability” of mid-size property managers and apartment owners by giving them a way to outsource their leasing operations.

The pair sold Favor to Texas grocer H-E-B in 2018 and soon after shifted their focus on building out Sunroom. The Austin-based company has developed an app that it says gives renters a way to tour, apply for and lease a unit “entirely online.” COVID-19 has led to more renters wanting virtual ways to explore and secure rental units. Mobile-first, Maurais noted, is particularly appealing to millennials and Gen Zers.

“Personally, we love to create products that fulfill consumer’s most basic needs,” said Maurais, the company’s president. “With food under our belt, we decided to focus on housing.”

While one might wonder what the parallels between food delivery and housing might be beyond fulfilling consumers’ needs, CEO Doherty said the rental market in 2021 looks a lot like the food delivery market in 2013.

“In 2013, Grubhub had successfully put many restaurant menus online, but most of the transactions and delivery process was still offline,” he told TechCrunch. “We’re in a similar position with the rental market, as the majority of rental listings are online, but touring, applying or leasing units is still done offline.”

Since its launch, Sunroom Rentals has signed more than 2,000 leases and had over 100,000 renters sign up for its services in fast-growing Austin, where it focused its initial efforts.

“According to the U.S. Census, that represents roughly 10% of renters in the greater Austin metro,” Maurais said. “Instead of going shallow and wide nationally, we decided to go deep in markets, in an effort to gain network effects, which was a strategy that worked well for us at Favor.”

Sunroom Rentals claims that it’s leasing units five days faster than the market average. This benefits property managers, Doherty said, because they can grow quicker “while improving leasing performance.”

Looking ahead, the company will use the funding to expand across Texas, including in Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. It will also invest in its partner portal, which aims to give owners and property managers a way to view real-time data on leasing performance.

Sunroom Rentals currently has 18 employees with the goal of more than doubling its headcount this year. It’s in particular looking to hire across its engineering, product and sales departments.

As mentioned above, Gigafund led the Series A financing, which included participation from NextGen Venture Partners, Calpoly Ventures and a slew of angel investors, including Gokul Rajaram (Google & Square) and Homeward’s Tim Heyl, among others. Existing backers include Founders Fund Seed, Draper Associates, Boost VC and Capital Factory (among many others). The round marked Sunroom’s first “priced” round, meaning the first time it’s given up stock.

Jonathan Basset, managing partner at NextGen Venture Partners, believes Sunroom was essentially in the right place at the right time and “on trend with touchless leasing even before COVID hit.”

“I watched them build a profitable consumer marketplace in a competitive market with Favor and was impressed with them as operators,” he said. “These businesses have a surprising amount of similarities and I’m confident they can rise to the challenge.

Last week, TechCrunch reported on the raise of another startup operating in this increasingly crowded space. Seattle-based Knock — a company that has developed tools to give property management companies a competitive edge — raised $20 million in a growth funding round led by Fifth Wall Ventures.

Knock’s goal is to provide CRM tools to modernize front office operations for these companies so they can do things like offer virtual tours and communicate with renters via text, email or social media from “a single conversation screen.” For renters, it offers an easier way to communicate and engage with landlords.

News: Announcing the complete agenda for TC Sessions: Justice

TC Sessions: Justice, our second-ever dedicated event to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech, is coming up on March 3, 2021. This is a virtual one-day conference featuring the brightest innovators, leaders and worker-activists in the industry. We’re pumped to be able to host Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Backstage Capital founder and Managing Partner Arlan

TC Sessions: Justice, our second-ever dedicated event to diversity, equity, inclusion and labor in tech, is coming up on March 3, 2021. This is a virtual one-day conference featuring the brightest innovators, leaders and worker-activists in the industry.

We’re pumped to be able to host Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Backstage Capital founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton, Gig Workers Collective’s Vanessa Bain, Alphabet Workers Union Executive Chair Parul Koul, Color of Change President Rashad Robinson, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and others.

In addition to the firesides and panel discussions of the virtual stage, the event will also include networking, startup presentations and the chance to connect with attendees from around the world.

Below, you’ll find the official agenda for TC Sessions: Justice. If you want to be a part of this event, you can grab a ticket here for just $5.

If you’re interested in a sponsored speaking opportunity to join the stage with these fantastic speakers, contact us here to speak with someone from our sales team!

AGENDA

Wednesday, March 3

State of the Union with Parul Koul (Google), Grace Reckers (Office and Professional Employees International Union) and Clarissa Redwine (NYU)

Labor unions have been fairly uncommon in tech. That’s finally starting to change in recent years, as workers have pushed to organize at some the industry’s biggest companies, from Alphabet to Kickstarter. Parul Koul (Google), Grace Reckers (Office and Professional Employees International Union) and Clarissa Redwine (NYU) will join us to discuss the growing movement.

Finding the Next Unicorn with Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital)

Arlan Hamilton, the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, has raised more than $12 million to back 150 companies led by underrepresented founders. In this session, Hamilton will discuss how she vets the biggest opportunities in investment, and how to disrupt in a positive way.

The Path Forward for Essential Tech Workers with Vanessa Bain (Gig Workers Collective), Jessica E. Martinez (National Council for Occupational Safety and Health) and Christian Smalls (The Congress of Essential Workers)

Gig workers and warehouse workers have become essential in a pandemic-ravaged economy. In California, a law went into effect earlier this year that makes gig workers independent contractors. Meanwhile, Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama are actively seeking to form a union to ensure better protections at the workplace. You’ll hear from workers and organizers about what’s next for gig workers and tech’s contractor workforce, and what battles lie ahead for these essential workers.

Creating Equity in Tech with Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA)

The ‘pipeline problem’ is often cited as the reason for a lack of diversity in the tech industry. But it’s a myth. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, having represented the East Bay of California for almost a decade, knows all too well about the rise of tech in the Bay Area. We’ll talk with Congresswoman Lee about the opportunities before us to create an equal playing field in tech so that underrepresented investors, founders, designers, coders and the like can reap the benefits.

Identifying and Dismantling Tech’s Deep Systems of Bias with Haben Girma (Disability Justice Lawyer), Mutale Nkonde (AI for the People) and Safiya Umoja Noble (UCLA)

Nearly every popular technology or service has within it systems of bias or exclusion, ignored by the privileged but obvious to the groups affected. How should these systems be exposed and documented, and how can we set about eliminating them and preventing more from appearing in the future? AI for the People’s Mutale Nkonde, disability rights lawyer Haben Girma and author of “Algorithms of Oppression” Safiya Umoja Noble discuss a more inclusive future.

Sponsored by Latinx Startup Alliance: Latinx Founders Leading with Inclusion 

Latinx Founders who are leading with inclusion through diverse teams and/or supporting a diverse mission, inclusion is a part of their DNA.

Founders in Focus with Tracy Chou (Block Party)

We sit down with the founders poised to be the next big disruptors in this industry. Here we chat with Tracy Chou of Block Party, which works to protect people from abuse and harassment online.

The Role of Online Hate and Where Social Media Goes from Here with Naj Austin (Somewhere Good and Ethel’s Club), Jesse Lehrich (Accountable Tech) and Rashad Robinson (Color of Change)

Toxic culture, deadly conspiracies and organized hate have exploded online in recent years. We’ll discuss how much responsibility social networks have in the rise of these phenomena and how to build healthy online communities that make society better, not worse.

Sponsored by StartOut: The Impact of Out LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs

StartOut and Socos Lab are excited to speak at TechCrunch Justice, and cover the Inclusion Impact Indexes. Its first iteration; the StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index quantifies the economic value of under-utilized LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs. The project looks at entrepreneurs’ economic impact in terms of job creation, patents, financings, and exits in the U.S. Our agenda will be a brief introduction, a demo of the index and its current findings, and a Q&A discussion with the publishers of the index.

Sponsored by Onshape: Fireside Chat – Diversity Is More Than Hiring People of Color

It may appear that the country is accepting change – from racial diversity to equality in the workplace. However, we still have ways to go. For example, organizational diversity is still about hiring from diverse talent pools. In reality, to activate the full potential of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requires more than a “people strategy.” Robust and sustainable work in this area requires embedding DEI principles, policies, systems, and practices into all parts of the business, including the employee and customer experience, brand culture, and overall industry/corporate citizenship.

Networking Break

With our virtual platform, attendees can network via video chat, giving folks the chance to make meaningful connections. CrunchMatch, our algorithmic matching product, will be available to ensure you’re meeting the right people at the show, as well as random matching for attendees who are feeling more adventurous.

Demystifying First-Check Fundraising with First-Check Investors with Brian Brackeen (Lightship Capital), Astrid Scholz (Zebras Unite) and Sydney Thomas (Precursor Ventures) 

There are so many ways to finance your startup that don’t include Y combinator or a traditional fund. In this stacked panel, founders will hear from a trio of decision-makers about how to leverage unconventional communities and resources to get the first dollars they need to execute.

Tech in the Era of Accountability with Jonathan Greenblatt (Anti-Defamation League

A hands-off approach to moderating online platforms invited hate to flourish in plain sight over the last four years. We’ll speak with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on proposed policy solutions, if tech is on the cusp of a real era of accountability and what the organization’s mission looks like in 2021 and beyond.
Meeting of the Minds with Sandra Altine (Facebook),  Wade Davis (Netflix) and Bo Young Lee (Uber)

Diversity and inclusion as an idea has been on the agenda of tech companies for years now. But the industry still lacks true inclusion, despite best efforts put forth by heads of diversity, equity and inclusion at these companies. We’ll seek to better understand what’s standing in the way of progress and what it’s going to take to achieve real change.

Access All Areas: Designing Accessibility from Day One with Cynthia Bennett (Carnegie Mellon University), Srin Madipalli (formerly of Accomable and Airbnb) and Mara Mills (NYU)

The session will examine the importance of ensuring accessible product design from the beginning. We’ll ask how the social and medical models of disability influence technological evolution. Integrating the expertise of disabled technologists, makers, investors, scientists, software engineers into the DNA of your company from the very beginning is vital to the pursuit of a functioning and equitable society. And could mean you don’t leave money on the table.

Reimagining Pathways for Returned Citizens with Jason Jones (The Last Mile), Deepti Rohatgi (Slack) and Aly Tamboura (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)

Reentering society after having been incarcerated presents challenges few of us can understand. In this panel, we will examine the role tech can play in ensuring pathways to employment for returned citizens.

News: 6 Miami-based investors share their views on the region’s startup scene

Miami is quickly becoming a symbol for the tech exodus from Silicon Valley. The area is home to a number of investors, successful tech founders and an eager local government. For this survey, TechCrunch spoke to a number of investors about the area’s potential, opportunities and key players. This is the second survey TechCrunch published

Miami is quickly becoming a symbol for the tech exodus from Silicon Valley. The area is home to a number of investors, successful tech founders and an eager local government.

For this survey, TechCrunch spoke to a number of investors about the area’s potential, opportunities and key players. This is the second survey TechCrunch published on the area and the first can be found here.

In this survey, these investors agree on several aspects of Miami. They see a huge opportunity for the region to become a major startup hub by utilizing its diverse workforce and wonderful quality of life. As they say below, the future of work is uncertain and Miami is becoming more attractive as workforces disconnect from office buildings.

We spoke to the following investors:


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Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, co-founder and managing partner, Clerisy

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

Miami’s startup scene has been growing and evolving over the past 5+ years thanks to local organizations supporting entrepreneurship including, but not limited to Endeavor Miami, The Knight Foundation, The Lab, Rokk3r Labs, eMerge Americas, Miami Angels and Wyncode. Many of Miami’s entrepreneurs, investors and startups have historically had ties to Latin America. I think going forward, the Miami tech scene will certainly continue to be a conduit to Latin America as it has been in the past. However, I predict more non-Latin American founders, investors, engineers and operators from cities like New York, LA and San Francisco, will also choose to build their businesses in Miami due to higher quality of life and more attractive tax rates. This dynamic will bring more relevant talent and a larger, more robust tech ecosystem to South Florida.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

I think we will see more diverse talent flow through Miami as a result of remote work becoming the norm. If employees technically headquartered in other cities are able to work remotely from anywhere, why not try out working from home while based in sunny Miami where one can be outdoors every day of the year? I recently joined a WhatsApp chat called “Nomads in Miami” that includes a variety of intellectually curious people from all walks of life (from creatives, to entrepreneurs, to traditional professionals) who are either temporarily in Miami this winter or have made a permanent move to South Florida. This chat is reflective of new groups of people coming to experience The Magic City. Anecdotally, I’ve found that many of these people who are “testing Miami out,” had never spent significant time in Miami before. I also recently joined another WhatsApp chat #miamitechlife that includes a local community of founders, investors, executives and local leaders to meet, collaborate and network while engaging in fun activities around Miami. There is an excitement and energy in Miami right now, and I believe it’s here to stay!

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

I recently launched a growth equity fund called Clerisy with my amazing business partner Lisa Myers who was most recently a partner at L Catterton, a leader in consumer private equity. We are excited to invest in fast-growing consumer and techsumer companies doing over $10 million in revenue, are quickly scaling and need growth capital. We will fund businesses that meet our criteria in categories we like such as health and wellness, consumerization of healthcare, food and beverage, beauty, and other consumer and techsumer areas. I would be thrilled to find an investment based in Miami, however Clerisy is not focused on a specific geography. We will invest in businesses located in cities or countries where we have previous business experience and ample, relevant networks.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in, or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

The Miami tech ecosystem is smaller than in the Bay Area or New York and arguably less intense, with fewer exits so far of which to speak. Although tightly knit, it is indeed welcoming to newcomers. I think this local hospitality is because Miami has had a bit of a transient nature among some of its inhabitants due to many Latin Americans coming and going every year, depending on the political or economic situations in their respective home countries. I think it will be easier than ever to convince new hires to relocate to Miami. The more success and exits Miami’s existing startups have, the easier it will be to attract more investment at the local level and more future talent.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc.

On a local level, Miami needs a range of people to support its startup ecosystem: founders, high-quality talent ranging from engineers to marketers to creatives, angel investors, venture capital and private equity funds, lawyers, and then ideally a loyal and engaged consumer base that proudly supports its local companies.

David Goldberg, general partner, Alpaca

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

Miami has everything in place to accelerate its rise to be cemented as a significant tech/startup ecosystem. It now has capital (investors), founders, talent and infrastructure, each growing by the day given the attractiveness to the area. In five years, I am confident Miami will only trail SF, NYC, LA and Boston in terms of size/deals.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

It’s a double-edged sword. In a positive sense, you’ll get founders moving here, building out remote/distributed/hybrid teams. You’ll also have individual employees living here, but working remotely for companies based in other areas. What will be harder to get is the giant company all built from scratch with everyone local. These successes (e.g., Uber in SF) create thousands of future founders, operators and investors that pay it forward in their ecosystem. Without that, it will be tough to truly crack the top tier.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

As a firm, we focus broadly on consumer, marketplaces, e-commerce infrastructure, real estate technology and fintech. Given the influx of talent, I’m not sure if Miami needs to be pigeonholed to a few sectors. Traditionally, it’s been known for travel/hospitality, healthcare tech and real estate tech, but I’m already seeing emerging trends around blockchain/crypto, fintech, remote work and even some traditional enterprise SaaS. Miami is also an incredible bridge to Latam and South America and I can see a slew of companies taking advantage of that.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

The physical dispersion can make it more difficult. Just in Miami, there are minihubs in Brickell, Wynwood/Midtown, The Grove, Coral Gables, etc. Then you have completely separate networks up north in Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, etc.

Additionally, Miami needs a bigger focus and contribution from its universities. Silicon Valley, LA, Boston and New York each have top-tier institutions that churn out tech talent. That’s still missing here.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

Honestly, I am uncovering more each day. And everyone likes to talk about the “big names” that have recently moved here, like Keith Rabois, Anthony Pompliano, Harry Hurst, Jon Oringer, etc. But I also have deference to the folks that have been here, working tirelessly for years, creating the foundation. Some that come to mind: Melissa Medina, Matt Haggman, Nico Berardi, Shervin Pishevar, Raul Moas, Nancy Dahlberg, Rebecca Danta, Moishe Mana, Laura Maydon, Brian Brackeen, Tony Jimenez, Brian Breslin, Juan Pablo Cappello, Mellissa Krinzman, Mark Kingdon, and now, of course, Mayor Francis Suarez.

Mark Volcheck, founding partner, Las Olas Venture Capital

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

We think that things are still very early, but are bullish on the future of Florida tech. One of the key things to work on over the next five years is the continued community building — right now, there are a lot of disparate groups and not much communication between them. Over time, that cohesiveness could really drive south Florida forward as a tech ecosystem.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

We do think there will be a future for offices and in-person collaboration. Across our entire portfolio nearly all companies have some plan to retain in-person talent. The biggest benefit is that remote work has enabled people in Big Tech to work outside of Silicon Valley, and it appears Miami and South Florida, more broadly, are enjoying the benefits of that decentralization. The distribution of talent will benefit founders here locally as the old VC expectations of tech talent to be hyperconcentrated in Silicon Valley is no longer as true, and people here locally will have access to better resources.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

Our fund targets two primary themes: B2B vertical SaaS and SaaS-enabled businesses/marketplaces, and broadly what we call knowledge worker tools — DevOps, cybersecurity and other typically product-led horizontal applications. Within vertical SaaS, logistics and supply chain tech has really taken off within the last few years, with even more tailwinds due to COVID’s impact on consumer demand and delivery expectations. As logistics is a huge industry for Miami and Florida, we think startups here have a very exciting opportunity in that space. We have now funded several companies in Florida across various aspects of logistics, from final mile delivery to long-haul trucking route optimization.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Access to capital has been a significant problem for Florida-based founders since before we started our first fund back in 2016. There are relatively few funds actively investing in tech companies here at the seed and Series A stage, and essentially none post-Series A. Companies have historically had difficulty getting attention from Silicon Valley-based VCs due to the preconceptions of Florida as a bad place to start a company. Even as recently as last year the standard line from some Bay Area investors was, “Move out of Florida if you are serious about raising money.” That said, some of these preconceptions have been deserved, as historically South Florida as a business community has been prone to falling for flash over substance and that has occasionally been true for investors and startups as well. With the buzz around Miami and Florida as a place of interest for VCs and tech, we hope that attitudes around funding Florida companies have changed, as it is clear that good businesses can be built anywhere.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc.

We’d like to mention all of our Florida-based companies who have been heads down building great businesses here locally — ReloQuest, CarePredict, OneRail, SmartHop and Plum. They are all hiring and growing like crazy, and several have received follow-on funding from top VCs. Check them out!

Maya Baratz Jordan, CEO and founding partner, Founders Factory New York

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

Cities with a diverse set of well-represented industries are often fertile grounds for building interesting companies. New York is a great example. Tech ecosystems thrive in an environment where you can unearth and solve a myriad of different problems versus just the problems of a single sector. The most interesting and lucrative companies tend to focus on blindspots in big markets. The blindspots are often discovered when they emerge out of silo and there’s a creative flow between industries. This is why I believe the diversity of industries and talent is ultimately a strength for Miami.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

One of the reasons it seems a lot of people are moving to Miami now is the fact that their job may not be tethered to a geographic location and they can work where they enjoy living. Given this unique strength to encompass work/life balance, Miami can experiment with hybrid models of working environments. Perhaps the dichotomy of working in an office versus working at home is dated. Offices were created for a time when technology used to be limited and the fastest way to communicate was in person. In-person interaction is important, but perhaps there are ways we can maintain [in-person interaction] that are not necessarily tethered to an office and that incorporate more ways to integrate with one’s life.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

Consumer healthcare is an area I’ve been actively investing in, and it seems like there’s been a lot of activity in Miami in that vertical, ranging from medical robotics to remote monitoring for chronic illnesses. I’m also interested in the future of work and the creator economy, and I believe the diverse set of industries in Miami will breed interesting companies that address the need for people to lucratively pursue their passions.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in, or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

People in Miami joke that they run on “Miami time,” which is something between island time and how New Yorkers think of time.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc.

Miami is a city built by immigrants, and that strength is what will allow Miami to thrive as a tech ecosystem; immigrants start businesses at higher rates than those who are native born. It seems like female founders in particular have been quietly building interesting and successful businesses here.

Sanket S. Parekh, managing partner, Secocha Ventures

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now? The city has attracted a wide range of people over the years, including more tech and finance companies very recently. How will it add up to something more than the sum of the parts?

If you think of Miami as a product and evaluate its adoption curve, it seems like we have reached the chasm. I.e., those of us who have been here pre-COVID are like those you’d characterize as innovators and the during-COVID crowd as the early adopters. Miami is at the point where we now need to prove we can continue on the curve from early adopters to early majority.

Five years from now we’ll hopefully be focused on headlines showcasing startups that are growing and hiring here, and not just about which investor has relocated here (which is also good, don’t get me wrong, but not the end-all).

We can also wish that Miami’s best traits — its international perspective, its racial, socioeconomic and cultural diversity — will infuse something unique and truly distinctive into the founders and investors building their businesses here.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

I don’t see a future where humans stop interacting with each other IRL. While how we “work” will look very different, offices “disappearing” is a bit of a stretch. It’s more likely that we will see an evolution of what an office looks like and how it functions as a “hub.”

Miami is full of disjointed “neighborhood clusters.” Up until now, this has been a negative, but given the changes we are going to see in how we work, I believe this is no longer as critical. In fact, it can be seen as an advantage where someone could live/work on the beach, and go to events/meetings at their “hub,” which may be elsewhere, when needed versus being so focused on living close to your workplace since you need to commute every day.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

While we’ve been based in Miami for the last seven years, we invest globally. In fact, COVID has made it even more acceptable to not be geographically constrained. This is the precise reason you are seeing investors move here.

We invest in fintech, healthcare tech, consumer tech and consumer products.

One of our most exciting portfolio companies is based in Broward: CarePredict. With the changes that COVID has brought about, they are uniquely placed to take advantage and provide the right dose of technology that eldercare requires.

Within our local ecosystem, Chewy and MagicLeap have been large employers. I’m most excited to see what their employees branch out and create in the coming years.

We are also excited to see a growing number of exceptionally talented founders moving to Miami to start their companies. These talents may have selected San Francisco or NYC previously, which is a great opportunity for us to meet exceptional teams at the infancy of an idea.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Angel rounds are challenging here as compared to other more mature markets where founders or folks from the startup ecosystem play a larger role in angel rounds. Most local angels are used to investing in real estate, and approach early-stage deals differently than those who may be more accustomed to the asset class.

Hiring top-quality talent was also traditionally more challenging here than in tier-one entrepreneurial cities. With the significant influx of remote workers in the past year and the change in perceptions about Miami, we are hopeful that local companies will be able to overcome this challenge.

Miami is a collection of neighborhood clusters, as I mentioned earlier. If someone is looking to relocate here, they should spend some time getting to know what works for them before they commit to a neighborhood.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc.

  • Venture Bites is a local grassroots organization made up of people passionate about the startup ecosystem. They organize educational sessions with key players from across the country and are also organizing a pitch competition with prominent public and private partnerships already in place.
  • Refresh Miami has been a vocal supporter and “info hub” for the community.
  • Miami Angels has been working tirelessly to get more angel investors into the startup ecosystem. There are a lot of high net worth individuals here, but it’s been historically challenging to get their attention away from real estate investing to startup investing. Hopefully, with Miami crossing the chasm it’ll bring more folks into the mix.
  • Animo Ventures and Las Olas Venture Capital are two other VC firms located in South Florida from pre-COVID days. Hopefully we’ll hear of many more setting up shop here in the coming months.
  • The Knight Foundation has been one of the most consistent supporters of the ecosystem and its impact cannot be understated.
  • 500 Startups is one of the very first Silicon Valley firms to have recognized the potential of Miami, setting up an office here a few years ago. Ana and her colleagues have been instrumental in stimulating and engaging the local ecosystem.

Laura González-Estéfani, founder, TheVentureCity

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

If the leaps we have made in the last five years are any indication of the next five, we believe Miami will be the next big tech hub in the southern United States. We have all the right pieces to make that true: engineer/developer schools and academies, startup programs and accelerators for seed, a thriving tech community, exits from founders reinvesting in the next generation of founders, influx of new capital, quality of life that tech company founders and employees are starting to prioritize, engaged local government as we have recently seen, as well as an incredibly diverse pool of talent.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

We believe talent has no zip code and smart cities are those that attract and retain the best talent — it’s no longer just about connectivity or infrastructures exclusively. In the past, people had to relocate to work at their dream job sacrificing too much personally. 2020 has just confirmed that you don’t need to sacrifice the way you want to live your life because of a dream job. The complaint we used to hear from talent was that there were not enough mid- to senior-level roles in Miami in tech — remote work has significantly strengthened Miami. Miami is a dream destination for a lot of people in different stages of life, so we see Miami also becoming a great remote work hub for those that can be 100% remote, even if they only spend part of the year here and then migrate to other climates. The workforce has more choices now than ever before and we think people will start to really put quality of life over job location. It is a true game changer.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

We have been based in Miami for the past four years and we invest from Miami to where the best founders are. Sometimes [they are] in Miami and sometimes in other states or countries. “We are from Miami to the world.” We are now witnessing a huge internal movement from other states to Miami, but many of us moved from our countries to Miami because of the immense opportunities Miami offers. We invest in software companies disrupting traditional industries, Health tech, fintech, mobility, cybersecurity and jobs. We have also invested in marketplace business models in products disrupting travel, pets, solutions for SMBs. We love giving a first ticket from $100,000 to seed stage companies jointly with a product-led growth program or a pre-Series A to a ticket of an average of $3 million through our Fund II. We love diverse companies, international mindset and execution over anything else.

Miami has always been an extraordinary hub for fintech, we are closely following interesting companies in this space and obviously health tech. We have to say that we have seen very disruptive companies in proptech and also very interesting marketplaces of all kinds B2C and B2B.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Our biggest challenge has always been fighting the biases of people around Miami. You have to experience Miami to understand the opportunities it brings. It’s a very welcoming city where so many people will help you land. The next biggest challenge is that the amount of capital that Miami moves versus how much is invested in tech is ridiculous, really a pity. For this reason we need a fund of funds that supports the local funds so that they can develop the ecosystem on this front. And I am not talking about leftovers of capital that need to meet a quota or small initiatives. I mean people investing with true conviction in the asset. That is what gets the flywheel running, capital to fund managers that chose the right entrepreneurs from Miami or outside [and] that create jobs, etc. Let’s not forget that capital attracts founders and founders develop a huge industry that creates thousands of jobs. It is not only about investing in Miami, it’s also about investing from here to the world.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystems roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc?

Sure, Juha and Johanna Mikola from Wyncode [since submitting these answers, the company was acquired by Brain Station], Andrew Parker from Papa, Claudia Duran from Endeavor, Victor Servin — CTO of TheVentureCity, David Smith — chief data scientist from TheVentureCity, David Marcus — chief product officer at TheVentureCity. Jimena Zubiria — VP of People at TheVentureCity, Anabel Perez-Novo — CEO of NovoPayment, Adolfo Babatz — CEO of Clip, Rodrigo Teijeiro — CEO of RecargaPay, Jackie Baumgarten — CEO of Boatsetter, Justin Meyers — CEO of Explorest and Vivek Jayaram (lawyer).

News: Streamlabs launches a ‘link in bio’ website builder that includes tipping

A number of online creators and influencers have adopted mobile-friendly “link in bio” websites, like Linktree, to point their fans to their social profiles or other content they want to promote. Today, live streaming software company Streamlabs launched its own product in this market with its new mobile website builder Willow. Its tool differentiates itself

A number of online creators and influencers have adopted mobile-friendly “link in bio” websites, like Linktree, to point their fans to their social profiles or other content they want to promote. Today, live streaming software company Streamlabs launched its own product in this market with its new mobile website builder Willow. Its tool differentiates itself from others in this space by integrating a tipping feature directly on the landing page.

“Link in bio” websites have grown in popularity because social platforms like TikTok and Instagram only allow users to feature one main URL on user profiles. But online creators and influencers often have a presence on multiple sites they want their fans to know about. That’s where these custom websites come in.

Like most “link in bio” website builders, Willow offers a simple way to add a list of links to a customized, mobile-optimized webpage.

The product itself is somewhat basic compared to those being offered by newer startups — like Beacons, for example, which lets users add links for donations, affiliate shopping, paid downloads, and more. In Willow’s case, you just enter a URL and it appears on your website. You can also pick from a handful of colorful designs, each with their own style and font.

The online website builder lets you view your site in progress as you add links or update the design, and you can preview how it looks on mobile, tablet and desktop by clicking a button.

But Willow’s more interesting feature is the ability to add tipping to your website.

To do so, you’ll just toggle on the Tips feature from the website builder interface and then connect your PayPal account to Willow. This places a “Donate!” button at the top of your link list, so you can encourage fans to leave a tip.

Image Credits: Streamlabs

This feature will be the new website builder’s key selling point, given that today, creators who receive tips through social and streaming platforms often have to share the revenue from those transactions back with the platform itself. Tips through PayPal will be a more direct form of payment between fans and creators, beyond any applicable PayPal fees.

Streamlabs tells us it doesn’t keep any of the tip money — everything goes to the creator.

However, it does plan to soon monetize the new product in a different way. In a few weeks’ time, the company will introduce a paid version for $5 per month that will include enhanced analytics like click-through rates and which days see the most clicks and views. The pro version will also include more custom themes.

Image Credits: screenshot of Willow

Because Willow only launched today, it doesn’t have a large number of users at this time. However, a top streamer FaZe Mew has already signed up, per the short Willow link (wlo.link) found on his various social media bios.

“Our experience building tools for live streamers inspired us to build products that cater to the greater content creator ecosystem,” said George Kurdin, Streamlabs GM. “To deliver on this mission and grow our business, we are building products that cater to more brands, businesses, and individuals,” he said.

News: Quill, the messaging app backed by Index, quietly comes out of stealth to take on Slack

Slack took the workplace communications landscape by storm after it launched its integration-friendly, GIF-tastic chat platform in 2013. Within the space of a decade it entered into the pantheon of big tech: first with massive growth and usage, then a series of giant VC rounds and valuations, spawning controversial competition from incumbents, followed by a

Slack took the workplace communications landscape by storm after it launched its integration-friendly, GIF-tastic chat platform in 2013. Within the space of a decade it entered into the pantheon of big tech: first with massive growth and usage, then a series of giant VC rounds and valuations, spawning controversial competition from incumbents, followed by a public listing and ultimately a $27.7 billion acquisition by Salesforce. Now that the cycle is complete, the decks are clear for a Slack disruptor!

Today, a new app quietly launched out of stealth called Quill, available by way of apps for the web, MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS.

Like Slack, Quill is a messaging app for co-workers to update each other on what they are doing, have conversations about projects and more.

Unlike Slack — the implication seems to be — the difference is that Quill is about delivering messaging in a non-distracting way that doesn’t take up too much of your time, your concentration, and your energy. Quill bills itself as “messaging for people that focus.”

So while you get a lot of the same features you have in Slack for chatting with workers, creating channels, integrating other apps, and having video and voice conversations — one of my colleagues quipped, “It looks like Slack, but more colorful!” — it also includes a bunch of features that put the focus on, well, focus.

“We grew exhausted having to skim thousands of messages every day to keep up, so we built a way to chat that’s even better than how we already communicate in person,” Quill notes on its website. “A more deliberate way to chat. That’s what Quill is all about.”

For example, “structured channels” let you enforce threads in a channel for different conversations rather than view chatter in a waterfall. Automatic sorting in the app moves up active conversations you’re in above others. Limitations on notifications mean you can have more nuance in what ultimately might end up distracting you, and senders for example can alter a setting (with a !!) to notify you if something is critical and needs to ping you. Video chats come automatically with a sidebar to continue texting, too.

Then, you get separate channels for social and non-work chat; and a series of features that let you manipulate conversations after they’ve already started: you can recast conversations into threads after they’ve already started and you have a fast way to reply to messages. There is an easier and more obvious way to pin important things to the tops of channels; and in addition to creating new threads after a conversation starts, you can also move messages from one channel or thread to another.

You can also interact with Quill chats using SMS and email, and like Slack, it offers the ability to integrate other app notifications into the process.

It’s also working on adding a Clubhouse-like feature for voice channels, end-to-end encryption, context-based search (it already has keyword search), and user profiles.

Managing “high load”

The app has been in stealth mode for nearly three years, and while some projects might never go noticed in that time, this one is a little different because of the pedigree and the context.

For starters, Quill was founded by the former creative director of Stripe, Ludwig Pettersson, who was given a lot of the credit for the simplicity and focus of the payment company’s flagship product and platform (simplicity that became the hallmark of the service and helped it balloon into a commerce behemoth).

His involvement signaled that the effort might get at least a little attention. In a landscape that seemed to be all but dominated by Slack and a few huge, well-funded rivals in the form of Microsoft and Facebook, it’s notable that when Quill was just an idea, it had already picked up $2 million in seed funding, from Sam Altman (at the time the head of Y Combinator) and General Catalyst.

Following that it raised a Series A of $12.5 million led by Sarah Cannon of Index Ventures, totaling some $14.5 million in funding in all. The Series A valued the company at $62.5 million, as we reported at the time.

Added to this is the story behind Quill and what brought Pettersson and others on his team to the idea of building it. From what we understand, the idea in its earliest inception was to capture something of the magic of communication that you get from messaging apps, and specifically from workplace communication tools like Slack, but without the distraction and resulting frustration that often come along with them.

By 2018, Slack was already a big product, valued at over $7 billion and attracting millions of users. But there was also a growing number of people criticizing it for being the opposite of productive. “It’s hard to track everything that’s going on in Slack, it can be distracting. Given the network effect, Slack has become powerful, but it was not designed as a high-load system,” Sam Altman, the investor and former head of both Y-Combinator and OpenAI, said to me back in 2018 when I asked him what he knew about Quill after I first got wind of it.

He said he was “super impressed” by Ludwig’s work at Stripe, and then OpenAI (where he stayed for a year after leaving Stripe), so much so that when Ludwig suggested building “a better version of Slack,” it seemed like a “credible idea” and one worth backing even without a product yet to be built.

It’s quite fitting that for an app focused on focus, Quill launched today quietly and without much fanfare: why worry about PR distraction when you can just get something out there?

In any case, we’re hoping to hear more and see what kind of momentum it picks up. We’ve asked Index if we can talk to Sarah Cannon about the investment, and we are still waiting to hear back. We are also trying to see if we can talk to Pettersson. But I should mention we have been trying to talk to him since first getting wind of this app back in August of 2018, so we’re not holding our breath (nor this story).

News: SolarWinds hackers targeted NASA, Federal Aviation Administration networks

Hackers are said to have broken into the networks of U.S. space agency NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a wider espionage campaign targeting U.S. government agencies and private companies. The two agencies were named by the Washington Post on Tuesday, hours ahead of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing tasked with investigating

Hackers are said to have broken into the networks of U.S. space agency NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a wider espionage campaign targeting U.S. government agencies and private companies.

The two agencies were named by the Washington Post on Tuesday, hours ahead of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing tasked with investigating the widespread cyberattack, which the previous Trump administration said was “likely Russian in origin.”

Spokespeople for the agencies did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but did not deny the breach in remarks to the Post.

It’s believed NASA and the FAA are the two remaining unnamed agencies of the nine government agencies confirmed to have been breached by the attack. The other seven include the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, and State, the Treasury, and the National Institutes of Health, though it’s not believed the attackers breached their classified networks.

FireEye, Microsoft, and Malwarebytes were among a number of cybersecurity companies also breached as part of the attacks.

The Biden administration is reportedly preparing sanctions against Russia, in large part because of the hacking campaign, the Post also reported.

The attacks were discovered last year after FireEye raised the alarm about the hacking campaign after its own network was breached. Each victim was a customer of the U.S. software firm SolarWinds, whose network management tools are used across the federal government and Fortune 500 companies. The hackers broke into SolarWinds’ network, planted a backdoor in its software, and pushed the backdoor to customer networks with a tainted software update.

It wasn’t the only way in. The hackers are also said to have targeted other companies by breaking into other devices and appliances on their victims’ networks, as well as targeting Microsoft vendors to breach other customers’ networks.

Last week, Anne Neuberger, the former NSA cybersecurity director who last month was elevated to the White House’s National Security Council to serve as the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said that the attack took “months to plan and execute,” and will “take us some time to uncover this layer by layer.”

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