Monthly Archives: March 2021

News: Embedded procurement will make every company its own marketplace

• March 31, 2021
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The embedded fintech movement has just begun, but there is already a sister concept percolating: embedded procurement, which will allow businesses to buy things they need through vertical B2B apps.

In 2019, my colleague Matt Harris coined the term “embedded fintech” to describe how virtually all software-driven companies will soon embed financial services into their applications, from sending and receiving payments to enabling lending, insurance and banking services, an idea that quickly spread within the fintech community.

Vertical apps such as Toast for restaurants, Squire for barbershops and Shopmonkey for car repair shops will deliver financial services to businesses in the future rather than traditional, stodgy financial institutions.

The embedded fintech movement has just begun, but there is already a sister concept percolating: embedded procurement. In this next wave, businesses will buy things they need through vertical B2B apps, rather than through sales reps, distributors or an individual merchant’s website.

If you own a coffee shop, wouldn’t it be convenient to schedule recurring orders for beans and milk from the same software portal where you process payments, manage accounting and handle payroll? The companies that figured out how to monetize financial services via embedded fintech are well positioned to monetize through procurement, too.

Embedded procurement is the natural evolution of embedded fintech. The salon software company Fresha is a typical embedded fintech story. Fresha’s platform is an online and mobile platform specially designed for spas and salons, encompassing appointment scheduling, reporting and analytics, marketing promotions, and point-of-sale capabilities. The software is free for salons; Fresha monetizes through payment processing.

In the future, Fresha will undoubtedly turn to embedded procurement, becoming a logical place for business owners to order and manage inventory like shampoo, scissors, brushes and other supplies. In turn, Fresha can aggregate demand from thousands of spas to place orders with its suppliers, leveraging its scale to negotiate more favorable pricing on behalf of its customers. Borrowing a concept from the healthcare world, vertical software companies will become group purchasing organizations in every sector.

News: Grab an opportunity to pitch in front of global influencers at TC Disrupt 2021

• March 31, 2021
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Picture it. It’s September, and you’re at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 about to present your virtual elevator pitch to thousands of attendees around the world. In the short span of 120 seconds, your company will become known to a rapt audience of early-startup influencers including potential customers, investors, tech icons and the media. An awesome opportunity,

Picture it. It’s September, and you’re at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 about to present your virtual elevator pitch to thousands of attendees around the world. In the short span of 120 seconds, your company will become known to a rapt audience of early-startup influencers including potential customers, investors, tech icons and the media.

An awesome opportunity, amirite? Don’t just picture it — make it happen by exhibiting in Startup Alley. Yes, it really is that easy. Every early-stage startup that exhibits in Startup Alley gets to pitch to the Disrupt audience.

It’s not only a tremendous opportunity to practice, pitching at Disrupt can have long-term benefits. Don’t just take our word for it. Jessica McLean, the director of marketing and communications at Infinite-Compute, talks about her company’s experience pitching last year at Disrupt 2020.

“Startup Alley exhibitors got to pitch to attendees, and we were thrilled with how it went. I recorded the pitch, and now we just shoot potential investors a quick video saying, “take a look at our CEO pitching at Disrupt 2020.” It’s a great piece of marketing collateral.”

Along with the epic exposure that comes from pitching at Disrupt, Startup Alley exhibitors also have a shot at being interviewed during one of the many hour-long Startup Alley Crawls. Each tech category gets its own crawl — we’ll post the specific times in the agenda closer to the show’s opening — and TechCrunch journalists will interview a select number of exhibiting founders from each category.

Here’s yet another reason to buy a Startup Alley Pass sooner rather than later. Your pass makes you eligible to participate in Startup Alley+, a curated experience designed to help founders increase their opportunities for exposure and business growth. Only 50 companies — chosen by TechCrunch — will form this cohort, and there’s no additional cost. Here’s the kicker — the benefits start months before Disrupt 2021 begins. Learn more about the Startup+ experience here.

Did you know that TechCrunch editors award two Startup Alley exhibitors with a Startup Battlefield Wild Card? Those founders get to compete for $100,000 in the always-epic Startup Battlefield competition. Who knows? You might follow in the steps of RecordGram. That startup, chosen from Startup Alley as a Wild Card, went on to win the Startup Battlefield competition.

Bottom line: Exhibiting in Startup Alley is a savvy strategy. You’ll pitch your company to a global audience, gain valuable exposure, meet and connect with influencers and potential customers. Win-win-win.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23. If you want to take advantage of every opportunity, there’s just one item to cross off your to-do list. Apply for Startup Alley before the early-bird price ($199) expires on May 13 at 11:59 pm (PST).

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

News: Instagram officially launches Remix on Reels, a TikTok Duets-like feature

• March 31, 2021
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Instagram today is officially launching a new feature called Remix, which offers a way to record your Reels video alongside a video from another user. The option is similar to TikTok’s existing Duets feature, which also lets users to react to or interact with another person’s video content while creating their own. Instagram’s new feature

Instagram today is officially launching a new feature called Remix, which offers a way to record your Reels video alongside a video from another user. The option is similar to TikTok’s existing Duets feature, which also lets users to react to or interact with another person’s video content while creating their own. Instagram’s new feature has been in public testing before today, so some Instagram users may have already gained access.

We recently reported on Instagram’s plans with Remix, when noting that Snapchat was developing a Remix feature of its own. In fact, Snapchat is also using the name “Remix” for its TikTok Duets rival that’s currently in development.

On TikTok, Duets are a key part to making the app feel more like a social network and less of just a passive video-watching experience. Users take advantage of Duets to sing, dance, joke or act alongside another user’s video. They will do things like cook someone else’s recipe, record a reaction video, or even just watch a video from a smaller creator to give them a boost.

Meanwhile, TikTok competitors — like Instagram Reels, Snapchat’s Spotlight or YouTube’s Shorts, for example — have launched their short-form video experiences without a full set of engagement or editing features like TikTok has, making their apps feel like pale knock-offs of the original. Remix on Reels is a first step towards changing that perception, by giving users at least one important option to engage and collaborate with their fellow creatives.

To use the new Remix feature, you’ll first tap on the three-dot menu on a Reel and select the new “Remix this Reel” option. The screen will then split into the original Reel and your own new one, where you can begin to record side-by-side with the original. When you’ve finished, you can tweak other aspects of the recording like the volume of the original video or your audio and you can optionally add a voiceover. After applying these or any other edits, you can publish the Remix.

The feature will only be available on newly uploaded Reels — so unfortunately, if you want your older Reels to be duetted, you’ll need to reupload them, it seems.

Image Credits: Instagram

Your Remixes will appear alongside any other Reels you’ve recorded on the Reels tab on your Instagram profile, and you’ll be able to track who has remixed your content through Instagram’s Activity tab.

The feature is rolling out, starting today, says Instagram.

News: Discord is launching new Clubhouse-like channels for audio events

• March 31, 2021
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Everyone is scrambling to build a Clubhouse clone right now, but for Discord it makes perfect sense. With everyone stuck at home searching for safe ways to rekindle their social lives over the last year, Discord’s appeal exploded. The company cites new behavior it observed during the pandemic as the inspiration for Stage Channels, a

Everyone is scrambling to build a Clubhouse clone right now, but for Discord it makes perfect sense.

With everyone stuck at home searching for safe ways to rekindle their social lives over the last year, Discord’s appeal exploded. The company cites new behavior it observed during the pandemic as the inspiration for Stage Channels, a new feature that will facilitate more structured voice chats with designated speakers and listeners.

Voice chat is already Discord’s core feature. It’s been that way for years, offering gamers a crystal clear, seamless voice chat service that blew the functionality of in-game chat services out of the water. But there’s no denying the Clubhouse-inspired voice event zeitgeist at the moment, even if ultimately Discord was there first in many ways.

Discord says the new kind of channel will be useful for stuff like voice-based AMAs and interviews, book clubs and even karaoke. The new channels will capture activity that’s already happening on Discord, making it way easier for anyone who runs a server to host formalized conversations without needing to mess around with a bunch of granular user permissions stuff.

The new channel type fits right in with Discord’s existing vibe. Stage Channels do what’s on the label, allowing anyone who runs a Discord to curate a speaker experience and use moderator tools to control who gets the mic and when. Much like Clubhouse (or Zoom), participants can raise their hand to speak. They can also slink out quietly.

Stage Channels will be specific to community servers, which are geared around larger groups on Discord. To enable the new kind of channel, server owners will need to convert a channel to a community server if it isn’t one already.

Because Discord is Discord, discovery for voice-based events won’t work like it does on Clubhouse, which serves up user-created live events front and center to anyone who opens the app. Community servers on Discord can apply to be featured in the server discovery menu, but the app’s focus remains on private, intimate groups and larger interest-based communities that you’re already a part of.

Given its healthy user base and existing utility as the go-to app for casual, seamless voice chat, Discord is well positioned to capture a completely different market for voice-based events. The app is a mainstay of the gaming community and generally skews young, putting it in contrast with the entrepreneurs, VCs and brands that flocked to Clubhouse’s early buzz.

Discord’s gaming DNA isn’t holding it back. In recent years, Discord has grown beyond its gaming roots without betraying them, expanding into a seamless chat experience for everything from college study groups to influencer fan hubs. Last year, Discord doubled its valuation within six months. Just a quarter later, Microsoft is reportedly in talks with the company on a $10 billion deal.

News: Here’s what’s you don’t want to miss tomorrow at TC Early Stage 2021

• March 31, 2021
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In less than 24 hours, thousands of new startup founders from around the world will tune in to day one of TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising. They’ll choose from a wide range of presentations that span the startup ecosystem and actively engage with top experts ready to help them develop and strengthen their

In less than 24 hours, thousands of new startup founders from around the world will tune in to day one of TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising. They’ll choose from a wide range of presentations that span the startup ecosystem and actively engage with top experts ready to help them develop and strengthen their core entrepreneurial skills.

Want to build a better startup? Buy your ticket, join your community and learn the best startup practices from those who earned their expertise by doing.

Here’s a look at just some of the 22 discussions, topics and presentations happening tomorrow at TC Early Stage 2021. Check the packed agenda, strategize your day and get ready to move your startup forward!

Finance for Founders

As a founder, you not only have to master your company’s finances, but you also have to tackle your own personal finances. Managing your money as a founder comes with a unique set of questions (see: QSBS). Leveraging her expertise from LearnVest and as a Certified Financial Planner, Alexa von Tobel (founder/managing partner, Inspired Capital Partners) will share financial planning best practices so founders can remove this layer of stress from the pressure of building a business.

Building and Leading a Sales Team

Contrary to popular opinion, even the very best products don’t sell themselves. Salespeople do. Hear from Zoom’s Chief Revenue Officer, at the helm of the company’s sales team during the biggest period of growth of any software company ever, lay out how to build a stellar sales team.

Bootstrapping and the Power of Product-Led Growth

Building a bootstrapped company forces you to be creative. For Calendly, it pointed the company toward a product-led growth model built on virality. Hear from Calendly’s Tope Awotona and OpenView’s Blake Bartlett, as they cover pro tips on bootstrapping, PLG and when a profitable company should consider raising capital.

There’s plenty more to explore, and TC Early Stage offers something for everyone. Here’s what Chloe Leaaetoa, founder of Socicraft, told us about her experience at Early Stage last year.

“This conference caters to early stage founders no matter where you are in your process. Maybe your pitch deck is set but you need to hire internationally — they had a session on that. The range of topics was all-encompassing.”

Don’t worry about missing out. Your ticket includes access to video on demand, so you can catch any presentation you miss once the conference ends.

Day one of TC Early Stage 2021: Operations & Fundraising starts in less than 24 hours. Don’t miss out on your chance to learn the best ways to build your startup, avoid pitfalls, foster community and expand your network. Click here and buy your ticket today.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Early Stage 2021 — Operations & Fundraising? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

News: 5 machine learning essentials non-technical leaders need to understand

• March 31, 2021
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Best practices and must-know components of machine learning, broken down into five practical and easily applicable lessons.

We’re living in a phenomenal moment for machine learning (ML), what Sonali Sambhus, head of developer and ML platform at Square, describes as “the democratization of ML.” It’s become the foundation of business and growth acceleration because of the incredible pace of change and development in this space.

But for engineering and team leaders without an ML background, this can also feel overwhelming and intimidating. I regularly meet smart, successful, highly competent and normally very confident leaders who struggle to navigate a constructive or effective conversation on ML — even though some of them lead teams that engineer it.

I’ve spent more than two decades in the ML space, including work at Apple to build the world’s largest online app and music store. As the senior director of engineering, anti-evil, at Reddit, I used ML to understand and combat the dark side of the web.

For this piece, I interviewed a select group of successful ML leaders including Sambhus; Lior Gavish, co-founder at Monte Carlo; and Yotam Hadass, VP of engineering at Electric.ai, for their insights. I’ve distilled our best practices and must-know components into five practical and easily applicable lessons.

1. ML recruiting strategy

Recruiting for ML comes with several challenges.

The first is that it can be difficult to differentiate machine learning roles from more traditional job profiles (such as data analysts, data engineers and data scientists) because there’s a heavy overlap between descriptions.

Secondly, finding the level of experience required can be challenging. Few people in the industry have substantial experience delivering production-grade ML (for instance, you’ll sometimes notice resumes that specify experience with ML models but then find their models are rule-based engines rather than real ML models).

When it comes to recruiting for ML, hire experts when you can, but also look into how training can help you meet your talent needs. Consider upskilling your current team of software engineers into data/ML engineers or hire promising candidates and provide them with an ML education.

Image Credits: Snehal Kundalkar

The other effective way to overcome these recruiting challenges is to define roles largely around:

• Product: Look for candidates with a technical curiosity and a strong business/product sense. This framework is often more important than the ability to apply the most sophisticated models.
• Data: Look for candidates that can help select models, design features, handle data modeling/vectorization and analyze results.
• Platform/Infrastructure: Look for people who evaluate/integrate/build platforms to significantly accelerate the productivity of data and engineering teams; extract, transform, load (ETLs); warehouse infrastructures; and CI/CD frameworks for ML.
  

  

News: Manticore Games raises $100 million to build a ‘creator multiverse’

• March 31, 2021
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The gaming sector has never been hotter or had higher expectations from investors who are dumping billions into upstarts that can adjust to shifting tides faster that the existing giants will. Bay Area-based Manticore Games is one of the second-layer gaming platforms looking to build on the market’s momentum. The startup tells TechCrunch they’ve closed

The gaming sector has never been hotter or had higher expectations from investors who are dumping billions into upstarts that can adjust to shifting tides faster that the existing giants will.

Bay Area-based Manticore Games is one of the second-layer gaming platforms looking to build on the market’s momentum. The startup tells TechCrunch they’ve closed a $100 million Series C funding round, bringing their total funding to $160 million. The round was led by XN, with participation from Softbank and LVP alongside existing investors Benchmark, Bitkraft, Correlation Ventures and Epic Games.

When Manticore closed its Series B back in September 2019, VCs were starting to take Roblox and the gaming sector more seriously, but it took the pandemic hitting to really expand their expectations for the market. “Gaming is now a bonafide super category,” CEO Frederic Descamps tells TechCrunch.

Manticore’s Core gaming platform is quite similar to Roblox conceptually, the big difference is that the gaming company is aiming to quickly scale up a games and creator platform geared towards the 13+ crowd that may have already left Roblox behind. The challenge will be coaxing that demographic faster than Roblox can expand its own ambitions, and doing so while other venture-backed gaming startups like Rec Room, which recently raised at a $1.2 billion valuation, race for the same prize.

Like other players, Manticore is attempting to build a game discovery platform directly into a game engine. They haven’t built the engine tech from scratch, they’ve been working closely with Epic Games which makes the Unreal Engine and made a $15 million investment in the company last year.

A big focus of the Core platform is giving creators a true drag-and-drop platform for game creation with a specific focus on “remixing” allowing users to pick pre-made environments, drop pre-rendered 3D assets into them, choose a game mode and publish it to the web. For creators looking to inject new mechanics or assets into a title, there will be some technical know-how necessary but Manticore’s team hopes that making the barriers of entry low for new creators means that they can grow alongside the platform. Manticore’s big bet is on the flexibility of their engine, hoping that creators will come on board for the chance to engineer their own mechanics or create their own path towards monetization, something established app store wouldn’t allow them to.

“Creators can implement their own styles of [in-app purchases] and what we’re really hoping for here is that maybe the next battle pass equivalent innovation will come out of this,” co-founder Jordan Maynard tells us.

This all comes at an added cost, developers earn 50% of revenues from their games, leaving more potential revenue locked up in fees routed to the platforms that Manticore depends on than if they built for the App Store directly, but this revenue split is still much friendlier to creators that what they can earn on platforms like Roblox.

Building cross-platform secondary gaming platforms is host to plenty of its own challenges. The platforms involved not only have to deal with stacking revenue share fees on non-PC platforms, but some hardware platforms that are reticent to allow them all, an area where Sony has been a particular stickler with PlayStation. The long-term success of these platforms may ultimately rely on greater independence, something that seems hard to imagine happening on consoles and mobile ecosystems.

News: Consumers spent $32B on apps in Q1 2021, the biggest quarter on record

• March 31, 2021
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The pandemic’s remarkable impact on the app industry has not slowed down in 2021. In fact, consumer spending in apps has hit a new record in the first quarter of this year, a new report from App Annie indicates. The firm says consumers in Q1 2021 spent $32 billion on apps across both iOS and

The pandemic’s remarkable impact on the app industry has not slowed down in 2021. In fact, consumer spending in apps has hit a new record in the first quarter of this year, a new report from App Annie indicates. The firm says consumers in Q1 2021 spent $32 billion on apps across both iOS and Google Play, up 40% year-over-year from Q1 2020. It’s the largest-ever quarter on record, App Annie also notes.

Last year saw both app downloads and consumer spend increase, as people rapidly adopted apps under coronavirus lockdowns — including apps for work, school, shopping, fitness, entertainment, gaming and more. App Annie previously reported a record 218 billion in global downloads and record consumer spend of $143 billion for the year.

Image Credits: App Annie

These trends have continued into 2021, it seems, with mobile consumers spending roughly $9 billion more in Q1 2021 compared with Q1 2020. Although iOS saw larger consumer spend than Android in the quarter — $21 billion vs. $11 billion, respectively — both stores grew by the same percentage, 40%.

But the types of apps driving spending were slightly different from store to store.

On Google Play, Games, Social and Entertainment apps saw the strongest quarter-over-quarter growth in terms of consumer spending, while Games, Photo & Video, and Entertainment apps accounted for the strongest growth on iOS.

By downloads, the categories were different between the stores, as well.

On Google Play, Social, Tools, and Fiance saw the biggest download growth in Q1, while Games, Finance and Social Networking drove download growth for iOS. Also on Google Play, other top categories included Weather (40%) and Dating (35%), while iOS saw Health and Fitness app downloads grow by a notable 25% — likely a perfect storm as New Year’s Resolutions combined with continued stay-at-measures that encouraged users to find new ways to stay fit without going to a gym.

Image Credits: App Annie

The top apps in the quarter remained fairly consistent, however. TikTok beat Facebook, in terms of downloads, and was followed by Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp and Zoom. But the short-form video app only made it to No. 2 in terms of consumer spend, with YouTube snagging the top spot. Tinder, Disney+, Tencent Video, and others followed. (Netflix has dropped off this chart as it now directs new users to sign up directly, rather than through in-app purchases).

Image Credits: App Annie

Though Facebook’s apps have fallen behind TikTok by downloads, its apps — including Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram — still led the market in terms monthly active users (MAUs) in the quarter. TikTok, meanwhile, ranked No. 8 by this metric.

Up-and-comers in the quarter included privacy-focused messaging app Signal, which saw the strongest growth in the quarter by both downloads and MAUs — a calculation that App Annie calls “breakout apps.”  Telegram closely followed, as users bailed from mainstream social after the Capitol riot. Another “breakout” app was MX TakaTak, which is filling the hole in the market for short-form video that resulted from India’s ban  of TikTok.

Image Credits: App Annie

Gaming, meanwhile, drove a majority of the quarter’s spending, as usual, accounting for $22 billion of the spend — $13 billion on iOS (up 30% year-over-year) and $9 billion on Android (up 35%). Gamers downloaded about a billion titles per week, up 15% year-over-year from 2020.

Among Us! dropped to No. 2 in the quarter by downloads, replaced by Join Clash 3D, while DOP 2: Delete One Part jumped 308 places to reach No. 3.

Image Credits: App Annie

Roblox led by consumer spend, followed by Genshin Impact, Coin Master, Pokemon Go and others. And although Among Us! dropped on the charts by downloads, it remained No. 1 by monthly active users in the quarter, followed by PUBG Mobile, Candy Crush Saga, Roblox and others.

App Annie notes that the pandemic also accelerated the mobile gaming market, with game downloads outpacing overall downloads by 2.5x in 2020. It predicts that mobile gaming will reach  $120 billion in consumer spending this year, or 1.5x all other gaming formats combined.

News: Apple adds two brand new Siri voices and will no longer default to a female or male voice in iOS

• March 31, 2021
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Apple is adding two new voices to Siri’s English offerings, and eliminating the default ‘female voice’ selection in the latest beta version of iOS. This means that every person setting up Siri will choose a voice for themselves and it will no longer default to the voice assistant being female, a topic that has come

Apple is adding two new voices to Siri’s English offerings, and eliminating the default ‘female voice’ selection in the latest beta version of iOS. This means that every person setting up Siri will choose a voice for themselves and it will no longer default to the voice assistant being female, a topic that has come up quite a bit with regards to bias in voice interfaces over the past few years.

The beta version should be live now and available to program participants.

I believe that this is the first of these assistants to make the choice completely agnostic with no default selection made. This is a positive step forward as it allows people to choose the voice that they prefer without the defaults bias coming into play. The two new voices also bring some much needed variety to the voices of Siri, offering more diversity in speech sound and pattern to a user picking a voice that speaks to them.

in some countries and languages Siri already defaults to a male voice. But this change makes the choice the users’ for the first time.

“We’re excited to introduce two new Siri voices for English speakers and the option for Siri users to select the voice they want when they set up their device,” a statement from Apple reads. “This is a continuation of Apple’s long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, and products and services that are designed to better reflect the diversity of the world we live in.”

The two new voices use source talent recordings that are then run through Apple’s Neural text to speech engine, making the voices flow more organically through phrases that are actually being generated on the fly.

I’ve heard the new voices and they sound pretty fantastic, with natural inflection and smooth transitions. They’ll be a welcome addition of choice to iOS users. I’ll embed some samples here after the beta drops.

This latest beta also upgrades the Siri voices in Ireland, Russia and Italy to Neural TTS, bringing the total voices using the new tech to 38. Siri now handles 25 billion requests per month on over 500M devices and supports 21 languages in 36 countries.

The new voices are available to English speaking users around the world and Siri users can select a personal preference of voice in 16 languages.

It seems very likely that these two new voices are just the first expansion in Siri’s voice selections. More diversity in voice, tone and regional dialect can only be a positive development for how inclusive smart devices feel. Over the past few years we have finally begun to see some movement from Amazon, Google and Apple to aggressively correct situations where the assistants have revealed bias in their responses to queries that use negative or abusive language. Improvements there, as well as in queries on social justice topics and overall accessibility improvements are incredibly key as we continue to see an explosion of voice-first or voice-native interfaces. These kinds of choices matter, especially at a scale of hundreds of millions of people.

Article updated to note that in some countries and languages Siri currently defaults to a male voice. 

News: Pipe, which aims to be the ‘Nasdaq for revenue,’ raises more money at a $2B valuation

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Fast-growing fintech Pipe has raised another round of funding at a $2 billion valuation, just weeks after raising $50M in growth funding, according to sources familiar with the deal. Although the round is still ongoing, Pipe has reportedly raised $150 million in a “massively oversubscribed” round led by Baltimore, Md.-based Greenspring Associates. While the company

Fast-growing fintech Pipe has raised another round of funding at a $2 billion valuation, just weeks after raising $50M in growth funding, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Although the round is still ongoing, Pipe has reportedly raised $150 million in a “massively oversubscribed” round led by Baltimore, Md.-based Greenspring Associates. While the company has signed a term sheet, more money could still come in, according to the source. Both new and existing investors have participated in the fundraise.

The increase in valuation is “a significant step up” from the company’s last raise. Pipe has declined to comment on the deal.

A little over one year ago, Pipe raised a $6 million seed round led by Craft Ventures to help it pursue its mission of giving SaaS companies a funding alternative outside of equity or venture debt.

The buzzy startup’s goal with the money was to give SaaS companies a way to get their revenue upfront, by pairing them with investors on a marketplace that pays a discounted rate for the annual value of those contracts. (Pipe describes its buy-side participants as “a vetted group of financial institutions and banks.”)

Just a few weeks ago, Miami-based Pipe announced a new raise — $50 million in “strategic equity funding” from a slew of high-profile investors. Siemens’ Next47 and Jim Pallotta’s Raptor Group co-led the round, which also included participation from Shopify, Slack, HubSpot, Okta, Social Capital’s Chamath Palihapitiya, Marc Benioff, Michael Dell’s MSD Capital, Republic, Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six and Joe Lonsdale.

At that time, Pipe co-CEO and co-founder Harry Hurst said the company was also broadening the scope of its platform beyond strictly SaaS companies to “any company with a recurring revenue stream.” This could include D2C subscription companies, ISP, streaming services or a telecommunications companies. Even VC fund admin and management are being piped on its platform, for example, according to Hurst.

“When we first went to market, we were very focused on SaaS, our first vertical,” he told TC at the time. “Since then, over 3,000 companies have signed up to use our platform.” Those companies range from early-stage and bootstrapped with $200,000 in revenue, to publicly-traded companies.

Pipe’s platform assesses a customer’s key metrics by integrating with its accounting, payment processing and banking systems. It then instantly rates the performance of the business and qualifies them for a trading limit. Trading limits currently range from $50,000 for smaller early-stage and bootstrapped companies, to over $100 million for late-stage and publicly traded companies, although there is no cap on how large a trading limit can be.

In the first quarter of 2021, tens of millions of dollars were traded across the Pipe platform. Between its launch in late June 2020 through year’s end, the company also saw “tens of millions” in trades take place via its marketplace. Tradable ARR on the platform is currently in excess of $1 billion.