Daily Archives: April 8, 2021

News: Private chef parties at home startup Yhangry raises $1.5M Seed from VC angels and Ollie Locke

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There’s an “uber for everything” these days and now there are “Ubers for personal chefs”. Just take a look at PopTop or 100 Pleats for instance. Now in London, there is Yhangry (which brands itself as the appropriately shouty YHANGRY). This is a “private chef parties at home” website, and no doubt an app at

There’s an “uber for everything” these days and now there are “Ubers for personal chefs”. Just take a look at PopTop or 100 Pleats for instance. Now in London, there is Yhangry (which brands itself as the appropriately shouty YHANGRY). This is a “private chef parties at home” website, and no doubt an app at some point. The startup has now raised a $1.5 million Seed round from a number of notable UK angels which also includes a few UK VCs for good measure, as well as ‘Made In Chelsea’ TV star Ollie Locke.

Founders Heinin Zhang and Siddhi Mittal created the startup before the pandemic, which lets people order a made-to-measure dinner party online. Although it trundled along until Covid, it had to pivot into virtual chef classes during lockdowns last year and this. The company is now poised to take advantage of London’s unlocking, which will see legal outdoor and indoor dining return.

The startup also speaks to the decentralization of experiences going on in the wake of the pandemic. In 2019 we were working out in gyms and going to restaurants. In 2021 we are working out at home and bringing the restaurant to us.

Normally booking private dinner parties involves a lot of hassle. The idea here is that Yhangry makes the whole affair as easy to order as an Uber Eats or Deliveroo.

Investors in the Seed round include Carmen Rico (Blossom Capital), Eileen Burbidge (Passion Capital), Orson Stadler (Antler) and Martin Mignot (Index Ventures), Made In Chelsea star Ollie Locke, plus fellow tech founders including Jack Tang (Urban), Adnan Ebrahim (MindLabs), Alex Fitzgerald (Cuckoo Internet), Georgina Kirby (Vinehealth) and Deepali Nangia (Alma Angels). Yhangry’s statement said all the investors are also keen customers. I bet they are.

Co-founder Mittal said in a statement: “By making private chef experiences more accessible and affordable, our customers regularly tell us they are finally able to catch up with friends at home… 70% of our customers have never had a private chef before and for them, the freedom and flexibility to curate their own evening is priceless.”

Yhangry now has 130 chefs on its books. Chefs have to pass a cooking trial and adhere to Covid rules. The funding will be used to double the size of the startup’s team.

The menus start at £17pp for six people. The price of the booking covers everything, including the cost of the fresh ingredients, but customers can add extras, such as wine etc. Since its launch in December 2019, the firm says it has served more than 7,000 Londoners.

Yhangry says it will enter key European markets, such as Paris, Berlin, Lisbon and Barcelona.

How will Yhangry survive post-Covid, with restaurants/bars opening up again?

Mittal said: “When restaurants were open between our launch and March 2020, we saw demand because people want to be able to spend time with their friends in a relaxed setting, and aren’t limited to the two-hour slot you get in a restaurant. Once places start to open up again, we believe Yhangry will follow this trend of at-home dining and socializing – not to mention for people who are not ready yet to go out to a busy pub or restaurant.”

News: Yext co-founder unveils Dynascore, which dynamically synchronizes music and video

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Howard Lerman, the co-founder and CEO of Yext, has a new startup called Wonder Inventions, which is officially launching its first product today — Dynascore. Let’s focus on Dynascore first. Lerman said he and his team created the product to solve the problem of the ever-growing demand for video content, which often relies on stock

Howard Lerman, the co-founder and CEO of Yext, has a new startup called Wonder Inventions, which is officially launching its first product today — Dynascore.

Let’s focus on Dynascore first. Lerman said he and his team created the product to solve the problem of the ever-growing demand for video content, which often relies on stock music. But by its nature, stock music isn’t designed for a specific video or a specific length, which can lead to some awkward fits, or require producers to edit their videos to match the music since “you can’t just chop three seconds out of a song and put it together.”

Dynascore, however, can take an existing piece of music and adapt it to a video of any length. It can also adjust the music to put the transitions, pauses and endings where you want them.

Lerman and his team demonstrated this for me, taking a fitness commercial and fitting different pieces of music to it, as well as adjusting the length of the commercial and where the transitions fell. Each time, Dynascore would generate a new version of the track that flowed well with the commercial (though I got the sense that if you’ve picked the wrong song for the video, no amount of adjustment can help).

To achieve this, Lerman said Dynascore examines a song and breaks it down to “the smallest unit of music that makes musical sense,” which it calls at a “morphone.” So depending on the specifications, it can assemble those morphones in ways that maximize what the company calls “musicoherence” — basically, to make sure it still flows like a real song.

Image Credits: Dynascore

Lerman emphasized that Dynascore’s technology isn’t trying to write music from scratch. Instead, it’s adapting human compositions — there are Masterworks, a.k.a. classic compositions that are in the public domain, as well as around 1,000 original compositions to start.

“There’s a lot of companies out there that use AI to write music,” he said. “They train their models on Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, but the stuff that comes out of it is trash […] The critical breakthrough we realized is that computers cannot write music, the same way that AI can’t write a film and can’t write a book. But AI can reconstruct music in a way that the human ear responds to.”

After a free trial, pricing for Dynascore starts at $19 per month. It’s available as a desktop app for Mac and Windows, as well as an extension for editing software Adobe Premiere Pro. The company has also built a Developer API to integrate into other apps, starting with video builder Biteable and marketing production tool Rocketium.

Dynascore is just the first product that we should expect from Wonder Inventions, which Lerman said will develop a whole portfolio of new products.

Image Credits: Dynascore

“We’re not starting Wonder Inventions for a single idea,” he said. “Wonder Inventions is 20 master inventors who are some of the most creative and brilliant and people we’ve ever met, and they will develop many products that will have synergies.”

Lerman himself is serving as Wonder’s chairman while he remains CEO at Yext, which he described as his full-time job. When pressed on whether there’s a unifying vision for the company beyond making cool stuff, he replied, “Thirty years ago, when people started a business, it would be about the company. Now when a company is started, it’s about the product” — something he attributed to venture capitalists’ focus on a single, scalable idea.

“I don’t think any VC would fund Dynascore — it’s too goofy and someone would look at the [total addressable market] and say, ‘I don’t think this is a multi-billion dollar category,’” Lerman continued. He doesn’t necessarily disagree with that assessment, but he added, “It can be great first product, with more hits to come.”

News: How to get into a startup accelerator

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Neal Sáles-Griffin, managing director of Techstars Chicago, hands out essential tips and tricks for when you’re applying to an accelerator

Should you try to get your company into an accelerator? How far along should your idea and your team be before applying? When it is time to apply, how do you make your application stand out from hundreds or thousands of others? How fancy do you need to get with the application video?

For answers, we spoke with Neal Sáles-Griffin, managing director of Techstars Chicago, and the founder of one of the earliest coding bootcamps with Code Academy (later known as The Starter League). He is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and was a mayoral candidate in Chicago’s 2019 election. He’s got an incredible wealth of knowledge about all things startups — our chat was only about 40 minutes long, but he absolutely crammed it with insights.

Here are some highlights from our conversation at TC Early Stage — Extra Crunch members will find the full video and a transcript below.

Why (or why not to) join an accelerator

Throughout the talk, Neal shares plenty of reasons why you might want to join an accelerator. The connections! The shared knowledge! The support network! The funding is nice too, of course — but he’s quick to point out that it shouldn’t be your sole motivation.

It can’t just be about the money. If it’s just about fundraising and you don’t really want any of the other parts of the experience, you’re probably setting yourself up to not have a very good time. I would highly recommend reconsidering that and instead focusing more on talking to early-stage investors who might be interested in providing more hands-on and specific support that you would need.

That being said, doing an accelerator can be amazing, because all those things that you would naturally do as a startup in your local ecosystem or community, or wherever you’re trying to grow your business … all of that happens in a far more immersive, effective and accelerated way. The mentors that you get connected to, the investors that you get introduced to, the level of knowledge, the holistic educational experience that you gain from being a part of an accelerator can be a game changer for so many startups that are in those early days of trying to figure out and find their path.
(Time stamp: 2:30)

Be prepared and follow up

It’s important to think through the entire interview process — not just your answers to the questions that might pop up. Knowing a little bit about the person interviewing you and showing that you really know what you’re getting into can go a long way.

News: Both& introduces a line of D2C transmasculine clothing

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Historically, the transmasculine community has been neglected by the fashion world. But Both& is a new brand looking to offer clothing tailored specifically for transmasculine bodies. The company was founded by Finnegan Shepard, a trans man who started Both& after going through top surgery and feeling like he still couldn’t find clothing that fit his

Historically, the transmasculine community has been neglected by the fashion world. But Both& is a new brand looking to offer clothing tailored specifically for transmasculine bodies.

The company was founded by Finnegan Shepard, a trans man who started Both& after going through top surgery and feeling like he still couldn’t find clothing that fit his body. The items are designed to emphasize a masculine figure, disguise bindings, and the line is size inclusive.

The general idea is that our clothing is a representation of who we are, and no one should have their clothing options limited based on their body.

Both& is fully bootstrapped and sells direct to consumer through the website. The strategy is to do super small batches of capsule lines, with the first going on pre-order today.

The first line is comprised of three basic t-shirts.

The Finnegan is an everyday basics shirt. The Tyla is similar to the Finnegan, but has a ribbed sleeve cuff for a tighter fit around the biceps. The Khazeel is designed for an oversize fit, and is designed to cover bindings and appear boxy. These items range from $39 to $45.

Both& wants to start with simple designs and forget about color and prints for now.

“Let’s get the basics right in terms of shape, and focus on relatively minimalist-ish colors, and then once we have those nailed, then we move on to a lot more colorful stuff,” said Shephard. “We’re not really interested in prints. That was one of the things that I actually had an adverse reaction to. There are a lot of companies out there that are printing sort of Trans Pride stuff on t-shirts, but they’re not really changing the shapes or making them fit better.”

The plan is to release new designs every six to eight weeks.

One of the challenges for Both& is that the target demographic is very focused on sustainability, but traditionally doesn’t have a lot of disposable income, according to Shepard.

“We’re making it at an accessible price point and also sustainable and we’re building items that can also be produced in small batch,” said Shepard. “That’s a lot of different things to try and juggle at once.”

News: Comet announces $13M Series A for ML model building tool

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There’s been a lot of investment in machine learning startups recently as companies try to push the notion into a wider variety of endeavors. Comet, a company that helps customers iterate on models in an experimentation process designed to eventually reach production, announced a $13 million Series A today. Scale Venture Partners led the round

There’s been a lot of investment in machine learning startups recently as companies try to push the notion into a wider variety of endeavors. Comet, a company that helps customers iterate on models in an experimentation process designed to eventually reach production, announced a $13 million Series A today.

Scale Venture Partners led the round with help from existing investors Trilogy Equity Partners and Two Sigma Ventures. The startup has raised almost $20 million, according to Crunchbase data.

Investors saw a company that has grown revenue over 500% over the last year, says Gideon Mendels, co-founder and CEO. “Things have been working very well for us. On the product side, we’ve continued to double down on what we call experimentation management where we are really tracking these models — data that came into them, the hyper parameters and helping teams to debug and understand what’s going on with their models,” he said.

In addition to the funding, the company is also announcing an expansion of the platform to follow the models into post production with a product they are calling Comet Model Production Monitoring (MPM).

“The model production monitoring product essentially focuses on models post production. The original product was more around how multiple offline experiments are modeled during training, while MPM is focused on these models once they hit production for the first time,” Mendels explained.

Andy Vitus, partner at investor Scale Venture Partners, sees model lifecycle management tooling like Comet’s as a developing market. “Machine learning and AI will drive the future of enterprise software, and ensuring that organizations have full visibility and control of a model’s life cycle will be imperative to it,” Vitus said in a statement

As the company grows, it’s opening a new engineering hub in Israel in addition to its office in NYC. While these offices are closed for now, Mendels says that they will have a hybrid office when the pandemic ebbs.

“Moving forward we are planning to have an office in New York City and another office in Tel Aviv. But we’re not going to require anyone to work from the office if they choose not to, or, they can come in a couple days a week. And we’re still going to support hires from around the world.”

News: Omada Health launches the Omada Insights Lab to help improve healthcare outcomes

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Omada Health, one of the U.S.’s original virtual healthcare providers, today announced the creation of the Omada Insights Lab. “The Insights Lab is an approach to product development that leverages multidisciplinary teams to rapidly look at what does and does not work in a digital care setting and then scale those tools within the company,”

Omada Health, one of the U.S.’s original virtual healthcare providers, today announced the creation of the Omada Insights Lab.

“The Insights Lab is an approach to product development that leverages multidisciplinary teams to rapidly look at what does and does not work in a digital care setting and then scale those tools within the company,” Sean Duffy, co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch.

Omada offers care management for diabetes, musculoskeletal issues, preventative health, hypertension, and behavioral health. Its main differentiator from other virtual healthcare providers is the amount of handholding it offers to its patients, which in turn has shown to deliver better health outcomes. Through the Insights Lab, it plans to share insights to help improve care outcomes across the industry.

“A shared sense of commitment with an Omada care professional increases the likelihood of a better outcome by 250%,” Duffy said.

One tactic Omada uses to keep patients on track is the “nudge.”

Like your Apple watch that tells you when to stand up or breathe, the Omada app can remind its diabetes patients to have a meal and to measure their blood sugar, for example. If you’re thinking, “Yeah, but I often ignore my Apple watch,” you’re not alone. The company has also noticed that passive nudges aren’t as successful as a comprehensive and proactive approach to care, especially one that involves human interaction. As a result, the Omada doctors have made changes to their care delivery.

Omada co-founder and CEO Sean Duffy

Here’s an example: the Lab wanted to find out how to help their diabetes prevention patients lose weight – being overweight is a key indicator of developing diabetes. They looked at the automated nudges, reminders to track meals, mealtime push notifications, and engagement with the care team.

While all of the approaches made it more likely that people would track their meals – an important task that helps patients stay on track with their diets – only one drove increases in weight loss: engagement with the care team. They found that patients who interact with their care team or community in the first week of the program are 24% more likely to achieve their health goals and patients who message their care teams are twice as likely to achieve positive health outcomes.

Consequentially, Duffy said, “It’s not just engagement that matters, it’s the type of engagement.”

Omada took these insights and reduced the use of nudges and implemented ways for the care team to interact with the patients more.

While Omada is already using the more than a billion data points it’s recorded from 450,000 members in the company’s 10 years of business to improve its own tools, with the launch of the Lab, the company also plans to share the data and strategies with the broader medical community through content on its website and other outlets.

Because the company is only virtual, it prides itself on the amount – and quality – of its data.

“It’s so hard to measure small details in in-person settings, but with digital, you can measure everything,” Duffy said. “Everything people are doing in the app are connected to meaningful outcomes,” he added. 

News: Verizon and Honda want to use 5G and edge computing to make driving safer

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Honda and Verizon are researching how 5G and mobile edge computing might improve safety for today’s connected vehicles and the future’s autonomous ones.  The two companies, which announced the partnership Thursday, are piloting different safety scenarios at the University of Michigan’s Mcity, a test bed for connected and autonomous vehicles. The aim of the venture

Honda and Verizon are researching how 5G and mobile edge computing might improve safety for today’s connected vehicles and the future’s autonomous ones. 

The two companies, which announced the partnership Thursday, are piloting different safety scenarios at the University of Michigan’s Mcity, a test bed for connected and autonomous vehicles. The aim of the venture is to study how 5G connectivity coupled with edge computing could allow for faster communication between cars, pedestrians and infrastructure. The upshot: faster communication could allow cars to avoid collisions and hazards and find safer routes. [TechCrunch is owned by Verizon Media, which is itself owned by Verizon]

The 5G testing is in its preliminary research phase and Honda doesn’t intend to implement this new technology as a product feature just yet. The companies do have plans to test 5G-enabled vehicles on public roads in at least four cities this year, according to Brian Peebles, Verizon’s senior manager of technology development and one of the leads on the project.  

This partnership builds off of Honda’s onboard SAFE SWARM AI technology, which the automaker began developing in 2017. That technology uses Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything, or C-V2X communication, which does what the name implies and lets vehicles communicate with other road users.

“Traditionally, with V2X, the cars talk to each other,” Dr. Ehsan Moradi Pari, research group lead at Honda’s advanced technology research division told TechCrunch. “They provide their information, like their location, speed and other sensor information, and the car does a threat assessment, like whether I’m going to collide with another car. What this [5G and MEC] technology offers is that we all provide our information to the network, and the network tells me if there is a potential for an accident or not.”

Honda and Verizon’s premise is that the technology can handle communication far faster than a car’s computer. Instead of relying on a car’s less capable computer to do the work, information generated from connected cars, people and infrastructure is sent up into the 5G network. The computations are then done at the edge of network (meaning not in the cloud) in real time.

The payoff: a car relying on sensors and software might be able to understand a driver is about to hit something and hit the breaks, but the MEC can almost see into the future by checking out and communicating what’s happening farther down the road. 

One of the safety scenarios that Verizon and Honda tested was a red light runner. Using data from smart cameras, MEC and V2X software they were able to detect the vehicle running a red light and send a visual warning message to other vehicles approaching the intersection. They tested similar scenarios to warn drivers or vehicles about a pedestrian obscured by a building and an oncoming emergency vehicle whose sirens are drowned out by the car’s loud music. 

“Ensuring real-time communication among all road users will play a critical role in an automated driving environment,” said Pari. “Through these connected safety technologies, we can develop vehicle systems that detect potential dangerous situations in real time to warn the driver or automated system.”

While this initial research stage involves making human-driven vehicles safer, the Honda-Verizon partnership might eventually lay the groundwork for the use of 5G in future autonomous vehicles. If testing proves out, connected vehicles would be safer and could lead to a more efficient network that smooths out traffic congestion and reduces air pollution. 

“We’re primarily doing this to promote vehicle safety and human safety,” Peebles told TechCrunch. “There are over 42,000 people a year in the United States alone that are killed in automobile accidents, and another two million are injured. Technology is becoming more crucial as we undergo an evolution of human drivers, so as that transition happens, we need to do it in a safe and orchestrated manner, such that everything is working together.”

Autonomous vehicles being tested on public roads today don’t require 5G or edge computing. While autonomous vehicle companies are eyeing what might be possible with 5G, the vehicles they’re developing are based on present-day technology.

There are headwinds to this 5G-MEC combination. This level of interconnectivity only works if there are sensors on every highway and every intersection. Many 5G-enabled vehicles and devices will be able to communicate with one another, but they can only communicate with pedestrians or infrastructure if smart cameras are clocking them and sharing that info with the network. And sensors are not perfect.

That would require a huge infrastructure investment as well as public acceptance and cooperation with states, cities and localities to install all of the necessary sensors. However, one might look to China as a use case. The country has a national policy to move rapidly over to a 5G network, and many Chinese autonomous driving companies are finding this type of connectivity and computational power essential to development.

News: Norwegian corporate training startup Attensi raises $26M from NYC’s Lugard Road, DX Ventures

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Corporate training startup Attensi — which originally emerged out of Oslo, Norway — has raised $26 million from New York-based Lugard Road Capital, DX Ventures (a VC fund backed by Delivery Hero), and existing shareholder Viking Venture. The new funding will be used to expand in North America and Europe. Attensi uses a ‘gamified approach

Corporate training startup Attensi — which originally emerged out of Oslo, Norway — has raised $26 million from New York-based Lugard Road Capital, DX Ventures (a VC fund backed by Delivery Hero), and existing shareholder Viking Venture. The new funding will be used to expand in North America and Europe.

Attensi uses a ‘gamified approach to corporate training, putting employees into 3D simulations of their workplace and work processes. Its competitors include companies like GoSkills, Mindflash SAP Litmos Skilljar.

With the pandemic shifting all office work to remote, digital training platforms like this stand to benefit.

This is also yet another recent example of how US VCs are ‘going hunting’ for startups in Europe, putting pressure on local VCs.

Attensi co-founder and co-CEO, Trond Aas said in a statement: “With gamified simulation training, we have combined the best of workplace psychology with our expertise in simulations and gamification to create a new category of training solutions.”

The company claims it’s experienced a 63% CAGR in annual recurring revenue. Its clients include Daimler Mercedes Benz, Circle K, Equinor, BCG, and ASDA.

Doug Friedman, a partner at Lugard Road Capital, said: “We could not be more excited to be investing in the Attensi team as they work to forever change and improve corporate learning and development through their Attensi solutions.”

News: KKR hands Box a $500M lifeline

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Box announced this morning that private equity firm KKR is investing $500 million in the company, a move that could help the struggling cloud content management vendor get out from under pressure from activist investor Starboard Value. The company plans to use the proceeds in what’s called a “dutch auction” style sale to buy back

Box announced this morning that private equity firm KKR is investing $500 million in the company, a move that could help the struggling cloud content management vendor get out from under pressure from activist investor Starboard Value.

The company plans to use the proceeds in what’s called a “dutch auction” style sale to buy back shares from certain investors for the price determined by the auction, an activity that should take place after the company announces its next earnings report in May. This would presumably involve buying out Starboard, which took a 7.5% stake in the company in 2019.

Last month Reuters reported that Starboard could be looking to take over a majority of the board seats when the company board meets in June. That could have set them up to take some action, most likely forcing a sale.

While it’s not clear what will happen now, it seems likely that with this cash, they will be able to stave off action from Starboard, and with KKR in the picture be able to take a longer term view. Box CEO Aaron Levie sees the move as a vote of confidence from KKR in Box’s approach.

“KKR is one of the world’s leading technology investors with a deep understanding of our market and a proven track record of partnering successfully with companies to create value and drive growth. With their support, we will be even better positioned to build on Box’s leadership in cloud content management as we continue to deliver value for our customers around the world,” Levie said in a statement.

Under the terms of the deal, John Park, Head of Americas Technology Private Equity at KKR, will be joining the Box board of directors. The company also announced that independent board member Bethany Mayer will be appointed chairman of the board, effective on May 1st.

Earlier this year, the company bought e-signature startup SignRequest, which could help open up a new set of workflows for the company as it tries to expand its market. With KKR’s backing, it’s not unreasonable to expect that Box, which is cash flow positive, could be taking additional steps to expand the platform in the future.

Box stock was down over 8% premarket, a signal that perhaps Wall Street isn’t thrilled with the announcement, but the cash influx should give Box some breathing room to reset and push forward.

News: Alyce, an AI-based personalised corporate gifting startup, raises $30M

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Swag has a long and patchy history in the world of business. For every hip pair of plaid socks, there are five t-shirts you may never wear, an itchy scarf, a notepad your kids might use, and an ugly mug; and most of all, likely thousands of dollars and lots of time invested to make

Swag has a long and patchy history in the world of business. For every hip pair of plaid socks, there are five t-shirts you may never wear, an itchy scarf, a notepad your kids might use, and an ugly mug; and most of all, likely thousands of dollars and lots of time invested to make those presents a reality. Now, a startup that has built a service to rethink the concept behind corporate gifts and make them more effective is today announcing a round of funding to continue expanding its business — and one sign that it may be on to something is its progress so far.

Alyce, a Boston startup that has built an AI platform that plugs into various other apps that you might use to interact and track your relationships with others in your working life — sales prospects, business partners, colleagues — and then uses the information to personalise gift recommendations for those people, has raised $30 million, a Series B that it will be using to continue building out its platform, signing up more users, and hiring more people for its team.

This round is being led by General Catalyst, with Boston Seed Capital, Golden Ventures, Manifest, Morningside and Victress Captial — all previous backers — also participating.

Alyce says that it has grown 300% year-over-year between 2019 and 2020, tackling a corporate gifting and promotional items industry that ASI Market Research estimates is worth around $24.7 billion annually. Its customers today include Adobe’s Marketo, G2, Lenovo, Wex, Invision, DialPad, GrubHub, and 6Sense.

As with so many other apps and services that aim at productivity and people management, Alyce notes that this year of working remotely — which has tested many a relationship and job function, led to massive inbound and outbound digital activity (the screen is where everything gets played out now), and frankly burned a lot of us out — has given it also a new kind of relevance.

“As everyone was flooded with spam last year unsubscribing soared,” Greg Segall, founder and CEO of Alyce, said in a statement. “When a prospect opts out, that’s forever. It’s clear that both brands and customers crave the same thing – a much more purposeful and relatable way to engage.”

Alyce’s contribution to more quality engagement comes in the form of AI-fueled personalization.

Linking up with the other tools people typically use to track their communications with people — they include Marketo, Salesforce, Vidyard and Google’s email and calendar apps — the system has been built with algorithms that read details from those apps to construct some details about the preferences and tastes of the intended gift recipient. It then uses that to come up with a list of items that might appeal to that person from a wider list that it has compiled, with some 10,000 items in all. (And yes, these can also include more traditional corporate swag items like those socks or mugs.) Then, instead of sending an actual gift, “Swag Select”, as Alyce’s service is called, sends a gift code that lets the person redeem with his or her own choice from a personalised, more narrowed-down list of items.

Alyce itself doesn’t actually hold or distribute the presents: it connects up with third parties that send these out. (It prices its service based on how much it is used, and how many more tools a user might want to have to personalise and send out gifts.)

Yes, you might argue that a lot of this sounds actually very impersonal — the gift giver is not directly involved in the selection or sending of a present at all, which instead is “selected” by way of AI. Essentially, this is a variation of the personalization and recommendation technology that has been built to serve ads, suggest products to you on e-commerce sites, and more.

But on the other hand, it’s an interesting solution to the problem of trying to figure out what to get someone, which can be a challenge when you really know a person, and even harder when you don’t, while at the same time helping to create and fulfill a gesture that, at the end of the day, is about being thoughtful of them, not really the gift itself.

(You could also argue, I think, that since the gift lists are based on a person’s observations about the recipient, there is in fact some personal touches here, even if they have been run through an algorithmic mill before getting to you.)

And ultimately, the aim of these gifts is to say “thank you for this work relationship, which I appreciate”, or “please buy more printer paper from me” — not “I’m sorry for being rude to you at dinner last night.” Although… if this works as it should, maybe there might well be an opportunity to extending the model to more use cases, for example brands looking for ways to change up their direct mail marketing campaigns, or yes, people who want to patch things up after a spat the night before.

Notably, for General Catalyst, it’s interested indeed in the bigger gifting category, pointing to the potential of how this service could be scaled in the future.

“At General Catalyst, we are proud to lead the latest round of funding for Alyce as the company has reimagined the gifting category with technology and impact. The ability to deliver products and experiences that both the giver and recipient feel good about is incredibly powerful,” said Larry Bohn, Managing Director at General Catalyst, in a statement.