Monthly Archives: March 2021

News: Elon Musk, Tesla board sued in lawsuit alleging ‘erratic’ tweets violate fiduciary duty

• March 12, 2021
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets are the subject of another lawsuit. A Tesla investor is suing the company board and Musk for continuing to send “erratic tweets” that violate a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that requires oversight of his social media activities. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Bloomberg, claims

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets are the subject of another lawsuit.

A Tesla investor is suing the company board and Musk for continuing to send “erratic tweets” that violate a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that requires oversight of his social media activities. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Bloomberg, claims Musk is exposing the company to potential fines and penalties from regulators and could drive down its share price. The lawsuit names the board for failing to control Musk’s behavior, which puts the company at risk.

The lawsuit by investor Chase Gharrity, which was filed in Delaware Chancery Court, was unsealed Friday. It was originally filed March 8. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. 

Tesla, Musk and the SEC reached an agreement in April 2019 that gave the CEO freedom to use Twitter — within certain limitations — without fear of being held in contempt for violating an earlier court order. The agreement allows Musk to tweet as he wishes except when it’s about certain events or financial milestones. In those cases, Musk must seek pre-approval from a securities lawyer, according to the agreement filed with Manhattan federal court.

The April 2019 agreement was the product of a years-long fight between Musk and the SEC that began after his infamous August 7, 2018 tweet in which he stated the company had “funding secured” for a private takeover at $420 per share. The SEC filed a complaint alleging that Musk had committed securities fraud.

Musk and Tesla settled with the SEC without admitting wrongdoing. Tesla agreed to pay a $20 million fine; Musk had to agree to step down as Tesla chairman for a period of at least three years; the company had to appoint two independent directors to the board; and Tesla was also told to put in place a way to monitor Musk’s statements to the public about the company, including via Twitter.

The fight was reignited after Musk sent a tweet on February 19, 2019 that Tesla would produce “around” 500,000 cars that year, correcting himself hours later to clarify that he meant the company would be producing at an annualized rate of 500,000 vehicles by year’s end.

This latest lawsuit alleges that Musk’s tweeting violates the April 2019 judgment and betrays his, and the board’s, fiduciary duty.  The 105-page suit cites several tweets sent from Musk’s account, including a tweet on May 1, 2020 — over a year after the SEC judgment — which stated: “Tesla stock is too high IMO.”

The tweet sent shares into a free fall — nearly 12% in the half-hour following his stock price tweets. The tweet was one of many sent out in rapid fire that day, covering a variety of topics and demands “give people back their freedom” and lines from the U.S. National Anthem to quotes from poet Dylan Thomas and a claim that he will sell all of his possessions. Musk later told the Wall Street Journal in an email that he was not joking and that his tweets were not vetted in advance.

The lawsuit revealed Friday alleges that the Tesla board has also failed to secure a general counsel “who can provide advice untainted by Musk,” the lawsuit. Three general counsels departed from the company in 2019, which the lawsuit points to as evidence that none were able to exercise independent advice that differed from Musk’s “desired outcome.”

Musk’s “erratic” actions have caused the company “substantial damage,” including billions of dollars in lost market capitalization, the lawsuit says. 

The case is Gharrity v. Musk, Del. Ch., No. 2021-0199.

News: How nontechnical talent can break into deep tech

• March 12, 2021
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Here, I’ll share what I’ve learned and offer tactical advice for finding, reaching out to, cultivating relationships with and working at deep tech companies as a nontechnical candidate.

In a recent article, I shared more about how deep tech companies can hire growth talent. Here, I explore the other side: how nontechnical talent can build relationships with deep tech companies.

Startup hiring processes can be opaque, and breaking into the deep tech world as a nontechnical person seems daunting. As someone with no initial research background wanting to work in biotech, I felt this challenge personally. In the past year, I landed several opportunities working for and with deep tech companies.

Here, I’ll share what I’ve learned and offer tactical advice for finding, reaching out to, cultivating relationships with and working at deep tech companies as a nontechnical candidate.

Find companies by tracking fundraising

After startups raise capital, they are ready to spend the new funds on hiring. These companies are more likely to be posting new roles and actively hiring for a wide range of different teams, including nontechnical groups.

News: Hackers are exploiting vulnerable Exchange servers to drop ransomware, Microsoft says

• March 12, 2021
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Hackers are exploiting recently discovered vulnerabilities in Exchange email servers to drop ransomware, Microsoft has warned, a move that puts tens of thousands of email servers at risk of destructive attacks. In a tweet late Thursday, the tech giant said it had detected the new kind of file-encrypting malware called DoejoCrypt — or DearCry —

Hackers are exploiting recently discovered vulnerabilities in Exchange email servers to drop ransomware, Microsoft has warned, a move that puts tens of thousands of email servers at risk of destructive attacks.

In a tweet late Thursday, the tech giant said it had detected the new kind of file-encrypting malware called DoejoCrypt — or DearCry — which uses the same four vulnerabilities that Microsoft linked to a new China-backed hacking group called Hafnium.

When chained together, the vulnerabilities allow a hacker to take full control of a vulnerable system.

Microsoft said Hafnium was the “primary” group exploiting these flaws, likely for espionage and intelligence gathering. But other security firms say they’ve seen other hacking groups exploit the same flaws. ESET said at least 10 groups are actively compromising Exchange servers.

Michael Gillespie, a ransomware expert who develops ransomware decryption tools, said many vulnerable Exchange servers in the U.S., Canada, and Australia had been infected with DearCry.

The new ransomware comes less than a day after a security researcher published proof-of-concept exploit code for the vulnerabilities to Microsoft-owned GitHub. The code was swiftly removed a short time later for violating the company’s policies.

Marcus Hutchins, a security researcher at Kryptos Logic, said in a tweet that the code worked, albeit with some fixes.

Threat intelligence company RiskIQ says it has detected over 82,000 vulnerable servers as of Thursday, but that the number is declining. The company said hundreds of servers belonging to banks and healthcare companies are still affected, as well as more than 150 servers in the U.S. federal government.

That’s a rapid drop compared to close to 400,000 vulnerable servers when Microsoft first disclosed the vulnerabilities on March 2, the company said.

Microsoft published security fixes last week, but the patches do not expel the hackers from already-breached servers. Both the FBI and CISA, the federal government’s cybersecurity advisory unit, have warned that the vulnerabilities present a major risk to businesses across the United States.

John Hultquist, vice president of analysis at FireEye’s Mandiant threat intelligence unit, said he anticipates more ransomware groups trying to cash in.

“Though many of the still unpatched organizations may have been exploited by cyber espionage actors, criminal ransomware operations may pose a greater risk as they disrupt organizations and even extort victims by releasing stolen emails,” said Hultquist.

News: US-listed SPACs have a new target: Latin American tech companies

• March 12, 2021
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There has been an unprecedented IPO boom of tech companies in the Brazilian stock exchange, which is transformative for a market that was traditionally dominated by utilities, mining, oil and financial companies.

There has been an unprecedented IPO boom of tech companies in the Brazilian stock exchange, which is transformative for a market that was traditionally dominated by utilities, mining, oil and financial companies.

The trend continues to be strong; in February alone, growth companies like Bemobi, Westwing, Mobly and Mosaico went public. Mosaico, for example, was 20x oversubscribed and went up 70% on its first trading day. The same is true for other companies like Meliuz, Enjoei and Neogrid, up 173%, 53% and 74%, respectively, since their listing just a few months ago.

But what is even more surprising is that now, new special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are raising money in Nasdaq with a mandate to buy Latin American private growth companies, which would be completely unthinkable just a year ago.

The opportunity for SPAC mergers in the U.S. has become quite competitive, as almost 300 SPACs, which raised over $90 billion, are now competing to find deals before the deadline. As a result, it has become more common to see SPACs with global mandates seeking to acquire foreign growth companies and list them in the U.S. to benefit from better multiples.

Just in 2021, eight Asian-sponsored SPACs raised over $2.3 billion in the Nasdaq/New York Stock Exchange, already surpassing the entire volume of 2020. More recently, it looks like the activity level may pick up in Brazil, and, potentially, in other Latin American countries, with $1.1 billion of Brazil-focused SPACs coming into fruition.

News: Eying sustainability gains for its supply chain, BMW backs Boston Metal’s CO2-free iron production tech

• March 12, 2021
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BMW has joined the cohort of investors that are backing Boston Metal’s carbon dioxide-free production technology for steel. The Boston-based startup had targeted a $50 million raise earlier in the year, as TechCrunch reported, and BMW’s addition closes out that round, according to a person familiar with the company. Looking to decarbonize the metal industry,

BMW has joined the cohort of investors that are backing Boston Metal’s carbon dioxide-free production technology for steel.

The Boston-based startup had targeted a $50 million raise earlier in the year, as TechCrunch reported, and BMW’s addition closes out that round, according to a person familiar with the company.

Through a commitment from BMW iVentures, the automaker’s investment arm, Boston Metal will have an in to a company with massive demands for more sustainably manufactured metal. For instance, BMW Group press plants in Europe process more than half a million tonnes of steel per year, the company said.

“We systematically identify the raw materials and components in our supplier network with the highest CO₂ emissions from production,” said Dr Andreas Wendt, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Purchasing and Supplier Network, in a statement. “Steel is one of them, but it is vital to car production. For this reason, we have set ourselves the goal of continuously reducing CO₂ emissions in the steel supply chain. By 2030, CO₂ emissions should be about two million tonnes lower than today’s figure.”

Conventional steel production requires blast furnaces that generate carbon dioxide emissions, but using Boston Metal’s process, an electrolysis cell produces the pig iron that gets processed into steel, the company said.

The addition of BMW to its investor group, which already includes Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and other strategic and financial investors, caps the fundraising process with another corporate partner wielding incredible industry influence.

“Our investors span across the steel value chain, from the upstream mining and iron ore companies to the downstream end customer, and validate Boston Metal’s innovative process to produce high-quality steel, cost-competitively, and at scale,” said chief executive officer and founder, Tadeu Carneiro.

News: Here are the new features and upgraded virtual Startup Alley experience at TC Disrupt 2021

• March 12, 2021
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Spring may be just around the corner (in the U.S., anyway), but it’s never too early to start planning for TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, which takes place on September 21-23. This all-virtual conference allows makers, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors from around the world to connect, collaborate and grow. Startup Alley is a huge part of every

Spring may be just around the corner (in the U.S., anyway), but it’s never too early to start planning for TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, which takes place on September 21-23. This all-virtual conference allows makers, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors from around the world to connect, collaborate and grow.

Startup Alley is a huge part of every Disrupt — it’s where hundreds of innovative, ground-breaking early-stage startups showcase their tech talent, products, platforms and services. This year, we’re shaking things up a bit to help exhibiting founders make the most of a virtual environment.

What’s new and different about exhibiting in Startup Alley at Disrupt 2021? Plenty. When you apply for a Startup Alley Pass, you stand in a giant spotlight of opportunity:

• Pitch it. Pitch it real good. Bring the heat, because every exhibiting startup gets a guaranteed spot to deliver a 60-second elevator pitch during a breakout feedback session. Your audience? TechCrunch staff and thousands of Disrupt attendees around the world.
• The Startup Alley Crawl. Every startup category will have an hour-long crawl in the agenda, where we’ll go live from the Disrupt Stage to interview a select number of founders in Startup Alley from that category.
• Startup Battlefield Wild Card. The Startup Battlefield is the stuff of legend. Past winners include the likes of Vurb, Dropbox, Mint and Yammer. Two Startup Alley exhibitors — chosen by the TechCrunch Editorial team — will compete in this year’s Battlefield and have a shot at the $100,000 (equity-free) cash.
• Startup Alley+. Every Startup Alley exhibitor is eligible, but only up to 50 companies will make the final cut to participate in Startup Alley+. These founders receive, at no additional cost, a curated experience to set them up for additional opportunities, learnings, exposure and success before Disrupt even starts. They’ll receive access to a series of founder masterclasses, take part in a pitch-off at Extra Crunch Live, and get introductions to elite investors in the TechCrunch community. Get your Startup Alley Pass soon because StartupAlley+ shifts into high gear at TC Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising in July, where all Startup Alley+ companies get to attend this virtual event for free.

Pro Tip: Early-bird pricing to apply for Startup Alley ($199) ends May 13 at 11:59 pm (PST). The sooner you apply, the more you save.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23. Don’t miss an opportunity to exhibit in all-new Startup Alley and apply now! Snag extra exposure, build your network and make connections that can alter the trajectory of your startup in the best possible way.

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

News: Fintech investor Emmalyn Shaw will share why she led the Steady Series A

• March 12, 2021
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Investors often say they don’t just invest in products, but in the right teams to solve a particular problem. With Steady, Adam Roseman built the platform based on his own personal experience. His father hadn’t saved enough for retirement and needed to work part-time. Steady, a platform that helps people find flexible jobs quickly, get

Investors often say they don’t just invest in products, but in the right teams to solve a particular problem. With Steady, Adam Roseman built the platform based on his own personal experience. His father hadn’t saved enough for retirement and needed to work part-time. Steady, a platform that helps people find flexible jobs quickly, get financial advice and save money through deals on things like healthcare plans and tax help.

Today, Steady has more than 2 million registered users.

So it’s no surprise that Emmalyn Shaw, co-manager of the $500 million Flourish Ventures fund, was eager to invest. She led the company’s Series A back in 2018.

We’re thrilled to have Roseman and Shaw join us on an episode of Extra Crunch Live on Wednesday at 3pm ET/noon PT.

We’ll interview Shaw and Roseman about what made them want to work with one another, advice on how to make the most out of pitch meetings, and what it takes to secure capital and be successful in the fintech space.

This episode of Extra Crunch Live will also feature the Pitch Deck Teardown. Decks sent in by audience members will be featured on the show, and Shaw and Roseman will give their live feedback on those decks about what works and what doesn’t.

Audience members are welcome to ask questions.

Extra Crunch members have always had free access to Extra Crunch Live (and always will), both live and on demand. But, we’ll also be selling tickets à la carte to the show. That’s right! Anyone can come hang out, ask their own questions to Shaw and Roseman, and learn a thing or two from the seasoned experts.

You can hit up this link to either register (if you’re logged into Extra Crunch, the ticket is free) or purchase a ticket.

A full library of past episodes can be found here, and folks interested in checking out our future slate can find everything they need right here.

See you there!

News: Lordstown Motors accused of faking EV truck orders by short-seller firm Hindenburg Research

• March 12, 2021
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Hindenburg Research, the short-seller firm whose report on Nikola Motor led to an SEC investigation and the resignation of its founder, is targeting another electric vehicle company. This time it’s Lordstown Motors, the Ohio electric automaker that went public after merging with special-purpose acquisition company DiamondPeak Holdings Corp., with a market value of $1.6 billion.

Hindenburg Research, the short-seller firm whose report on Nikola Motor led to an SEC investigation and the resignation of its founder, is targeting another electric vehicle company. This time it’s Lordstown Motors, the Ohio electric automaker that went public after merging with special-purpose acquisition company DiamondPeak Holdings Corp., with a market value of $1.6 billion.

Hindenburg said in a report Friday that it has taken a short position on Lordstown Motors, causing shares to plummet 21%. Shares have recovered slightly and are now down about 15% from the previous day’s trade. Hindenburg’s short position is based on a company that it says has “no revenue and no sellable product, which we believe has misled investors on both its demand and production capabilities.”

In a report issued Friday, Hindenburg disputes that the company has booked 100,000 pre-orders for its electric pickup truck, a stat shared by Lordstown Motors in January. The short seller says that “extensive research reveals that the company’s orders appear largely fictitious and used as a prop to raise capital and confer legitimacy.” The firm goes further and alleges that Lordstown founder and CEO Steve Burns paid consultants for every truck pre-order as early as 2016 while he was leading Workhorse.

The report also provides photos and a 911 call of an incident in January when a Lordstown prototype vehicle burst into flames during a test drive.

Lordstown Motors could not be reached for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if the company responds.

Lordstown has an interesting history for company that is less than two years old. Lordstown Motors is an offshoot of Burns’ other company, Workhorse Group, a battery-electric transportation technology company that is also publicly traded. Workhorse holds a 10% stake in Lordstown Motors.

Workhorse is a small company that was founded in 1998 and has struggled financially at various points in its lifetime. Most recently, Workhorse lost a bid to become the supplier of electric vehicles to the U.S. Postal Service, which caused shares to fall nearly 15% in the days following the news. Workhorse shares are now hovering around $16.58, down 60% from its record price of $42.96 reached February 4.

Lordstown Motors acquired a 6.2 million-square-foot factory from GM in 2019. The company has said it plans to produce 20,000 electric commercial trucks annually, starting in 2021, at the former GM Assembly Plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

Lordstown revealed its Endurance electric pickup in a splashy and political-leaning ceremony in June 2020. At the time, the company didn’t provide details on the interior, performance or battery of its planned electric pickup truck. The entire second half of the event took a 90-degree turn away from the truck and centered on its special guest, former Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke for 25 minutes about former President Trump’s policies on jobs and manufacturing, China and the COVID-19 response.

Despite those lack of details, Burns told the crowd in June that it had received 20,000 pre-orders. That would mean the entire first year of production would be locked in if every customer who pre-ordered the truck followed through and bought the vehicle. Lordstown Motors said, at the time, that a number of potential customers had sent letters of intent, including AutoFlexFleet, Clean Fuels Ohio, Duke Energy, FirstEnergy, GridX, Holman Enterprises and ARI, Summit Petroleum, Turner Mining Group and Valor Holdings, as well as several Ohio municipalities.

Burns later said pre-orders had reached 100,000. Hindenburg disputes those claims.

From the Hindenburg report:

Our research has revealed that Lordstown’s order book consists of fake or entirely non-binding orders, from customers that generally do not even have fleets of vehicles. According to former employees and business partners, CEO Steve Burns sought to book orders, regardless of quality, purely as a tool to raise capital and confer legitimacy. In addition, we show how, in desperation to claim there was demand for the proposed vehicle, he paid for customers to book valueless, non-binding pre-orders.

We detail conversations with Lordstown “customers” who were eager to explain that the letters of intent (“LOI”s) with the company were “promotional”. Others assured us they were “not committed to anything” and that the pre-order commitment size recorded by Lordstown was “totally impossible”. One CEO at a ‘key’ customer told us our outreach was the first he had heard of any arrangement with Lordstown.

News: TaxDown banks ~$3M for tech that helps people get their taxes done

• March 12, 2021
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Madrid-based TaxDown, which automates income tax filing by calculating regional deductions due to users so they don’t have to navigate complex tax rules themselves, has raised €2.4 million (~$3M) in seed funding. US-based FJ Labs has joined TaxDown’s investment board as it closes the seed round. It says all its previous investors participated in the

Madrid-based TaxDown, which automates income tax filing by calculating regional deductions due to users so they don’t have to navigate complex tax rules themselves, has raised €2.4 million (~$3M) in seed funding.

US-based FJ Labs has joined TaxDown’s investment board as it closes the seed round. It says all its previous investors participated in the round, including James Argalas (Presidio Union); Abac Nest, Abac’s venture capital business; Baldomero Falcones, the former Chairman at Mastercard; and the founders of Jobandtalent, Juan Urdiales and Felipe Navío (another Madrid-based startup).

For the past three years TaxDown been offering a service in Spain but is now eyeing international expansion, as well as further growth in its home market.

Last year, it says it managed more than €29M in taxes for users — delivering savings of €4M+ to users.

Its target is to hit 500,000 users in Spain this year. While international expansion is planned for the second half of 2021, with TaxDown saying it’s focused on other European and Latin American markets.

“From the beginning, our ambition has been to help people fill in their taxes all over the world. That is why we developed our proprietary software/tax language that allows a tax expert with no coding capabilities to translate the tax law into calculation and logic that can be interpreted by our backend seamlessly,” says Enrique García, CEO and co-founder. “This tax language allowed us to launch in Spain in 4 months with only one tax consultant. We are confident that we can launch a new country in only 6 months.”

“The tax filing process is far from being simple,” he goes on, explaining how its tech simplifies income tax filing in Spain. “Currently, when using the Spanish Tax Agency tax-filling tool, taxpayers need to manually apply deductions on their tax forms. The problem is, with national regional deductions being different in each region in Spain, taxpayers often do not even know they’re entitled to those deductions. Thus, by not applying them to their tax form, they lose money. What TaxDown does is leverage the advanced Spanish Tax Agency technology, which offers an API to request the financial data related to a taxpayer — always with prior authorization from the user — with 2.000+ datapoints.

“Once we have that, our algorithm ‘RITA’ is capable of understanding the user’s personal and financial data, select the optimum questions that the user needs to answer — an average of 9 over a database of 3.000+ – and precisely calculate the tax return, with no errors.”

“Technology is the heart of TaxDown,” he adds. “Besides our algorithm RITA that has been trained with over 40.000+ tax returns, today we also use AI to help our ‘taxers’ with tips on how to lower future tax bills, and we have started working on live income tax simulation for our users throughout the entire year.”

García says TaxDown calculated more than 42,000 tax returns last year with a team of just two in-house tax experts — thanks to proprietary internal tools which allow them to handle this scale (by being “80x more efficient than the Spanish average”, as he puts it). He adds that further efficiency gains are expected.

“We have developed a machine-learning tool that flags the tax returns that need to be reviewed before filing based on historical data. Thus, we continuously increase the percentage of tax returns that are automatically submitted with no manual intervention,” he tells TechCrunch, adding: “Thanks to this feature, we expect to improve our efficiency at least 5x versus last year.”

According to García, TaxDown has never had any filings rejected for inaccuracies because he says its algorithms continually run tests and validate the information with the authorities. “Furthermore, our technology can flag errors in real time in case that there is a discrepancy, so our tax experts can manually check the tax return form if needed,” he adds.

Its business model — currently — is a sort of twist on freemium, in that it will only charge users if the income tax savings it calculates for them exceed €35.

García says that so far an average of three out of 10 users see financial savings from using its tool — but he suggests it’s not only savings that motivate users; he says they also want reassurance that they are taking “the best approach with their taxes: doing them effortlessly, correctly, with all the guarantees, tapping for experts’ live help at any time, ensuring the best result they can get, and of course knowing that we have their backs in case of an audit”.

Given that wider relationship it’s building with users, TaxDown sees potential to evolve its business model by expanding to offer additional fintech services, such as financial advice, in the future.

“Our vision goes far beyond income tax return preparation, we believe that tax data is becoming one of the most valuable data assets for people (take Trump’s tax returns for example), and we want to assess our ’taxers’ based on the best and more qualitative information that we can get,” says García. “Therefore, in the future we want to be a trusted financial advisor not just for taxes, but for personal finances as well. We believe we are well positioned to be an intermediary between our users and financial institutions.”

News: Why I’m hitting pause on ARR-focused coverage

• March 12, 2021
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One last time, let’s discuss some big startups that are scaling quickly: Appspace, Synack, and Druva. We’ll proceed in alphabetical order.

As 2021 kicked off, I reformulated a series of posts we published last year focused on startups that had reached the $100 million ARR (annual recurring revenue) mark. In our refreshed effort, we cut the target in half and dug up companies around the $50 million ARR threshold. The goal was to figure out what those firms were going through as they reached material scale, not after they had achieved effective pre-IPO status.

And the results were a bit medium.

While it was fun to chat with OwnBackup, Assembly, SimpleNexus and PicsArt, ultimately we were getting similar notes from each company: hiring is incredibly important as a company scales, founders have to cede decision-making, and as startups grow from $30 million ARR to $50 million or more, they must harden internal systems and build business infrastructure.

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

All that made sense, but it wasn’t entirely scintillating. I meant to keep the project going; I had publicly made noise about the effort and had a few interviews in the bag that were collecting dust (and emails from various PR folks).

But they wound up in the Google Docs graveyard as the news cycle somehow managed to keep accelerating, meaning that the time required to execute the somewhat effort-intensive series dried up as I held on for dear life as the early, middle, late and IPO-stage startup market stormed.

And so after some reflection, it’s time to admit defeat.

For now, I’m hitting pause on the $50 million ARR series and whatever might have come from the $100 million ARR legacy effort. I may bring it back at some point, but for now, there are just more pressing and interesting things to work on.

What follows is what I believe to be the remainder of my notes from interviews that never saw the light of day. So, one last time, let’s discuss some big startups that are scaling quickly: Appspace, Synack and Druva. We’ll proceed in alphabetical order.

Appspace

The Exchange caught up with Appspace a bit ago, chatting with a few of its executives, including CMO Scott Chao and CEO Brandon Miles. It’s an interesting company that sells a software platform that powers in-office displays and kiosks. You’ve seen office sign-in screens at a welcome desk, screens outside conference rooms showing how booked they are, or company messaging and the like on various large screens? That’s what Appspace’s software does.

And the company has an interesting vibe. Unlike nearly every other startup I’ve met, Appspace doesn’t think it is saving the world. In our chat, the company joked that its culture is to move quickly, but with the cognizance that they aren’t curing cancer.

Such modesty might feel odd, but it was actually refreshing. Appspace’s job is to white-label itself, let its customers speak to their workers through its various apps (including mobile) and services, and simply feature rock-solid uptime.