Monthly Archives: April 2021

News: Israel’s electric powertrain maker IRP Systems raises a $31M Series C funding

• April 28, 2021
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IRP Systems, a maker of innovative electric powertrains for electric vehicles, has raised a $31m Series C funding, bringing its total funding to $57m. The financing was led by Clal Insurance and Altshuler Shaham, which are Israeli institutional investors. Also participating was Samsung Ventures, Renault-Nissan importer Carasso Motors, and Shlomo Group, as well as existing

IRP Systems, a maker of innovative electric powertrains for electric vehicles, has raised a $31m Series C funding, bringing its total funding to $57m.

The financing was led by Clal Insurance and Altshuler Shaham, which are Israeli institutional investors. Also participating was Samsung Ventures, Renault-Nissan importer Carasso Motors, and Shlomo Group, as well as existing investors such as Entrée Capital, Fosun RZ Capital and JAL Ventures.

IRP Systems supplies a whole host of EV manufacturers including Renault. Its electric powertrain claims to have a high performance and efficiency while reducing the weight, size, and overall cost of the powertrain in electric vehicles of several sizes.

Moran Price, CEO and Co-Founder of IRP Systems said in a statement: “The automotive industry is undergoing tectonic shifts in recent years as electrification and digitalization are becoming core automotive technologies. IRP Systems is in the epicenter of this revolution. With the new investment, we will continue to create disruptive solutions as well as penetrate new EV segments.”
 
IRP Systems will use the new case to scale the development of its systems for EVs and reduce the path to mass production, expand R&D, operations and customer support and make a push on global sales and marketing.

News: PayPal’s ambition and uphill battle in China

• April 28, 2021
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Over the last few months, PayPal has been quietly gearing up for its expansion in China. At the recent Boao Forum for Asia, China’s answer to Davos, the American payments giant said its strategy for China is not to challenge the duopoly of Alipay and WeChat Pay. Instead, it wants to focus on cross-border business

Over the last few months, PayPal has been quietly gearing up for its expansion in China.

At the recent Boao Forum for Asia, China’s answer to Davos, the American payments giant said its strategy for China is not to challenge the duopoly of Alipay and WeChat Pay. Instead, it wants to focus on cross-border business and provide gateways both for Chinese merchants to collect funds and for Chinese consumers to pay for overseas goods.

It’s certainly a lucrative area. The market size of cross-border e-commerce in China surged from about 3 trillion yuan ($460 million) to nearly 6 trillion yuan between 2016 and 2021, according to market research firm iResearch.

But this space has also become crowded in recent years and PayPal may be late to the fray, said a China-based manager for an American tech giant, who asked for anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak to the media.

On Amazon, one of the largest marketplaces for Chinese exporters to sell online, there are already established options for merchants to collect funds. Setting up a bank account in a foreign country can be difficult for a small-time Chinese exporter, not to mention the high fees for remittance, so such merchants often seek third-party payments transfer solutions such as U.S.-based Payoneer and Chinese equivalents Pingpong and Lianlian, which charge a relatively small fee to deposit merchants’ sales into their bank accounts at home.

China has stringent policies for foreign exchange and electronic payments, but PayPal has already cleared the regulatory hurdles. In January, the American fintech titan became the first foreign firm to hold a license for online payment processor in China after it bought out shares in a local payments firm.

Obtaining the government greenlight is just the first step. The appeal of PayPal hinges largely on what it can offer to Chinese e-commerce exporters, who are now flooding the likes of Amazon and eBay.

“At the end of the day, customers only care which service is the cheapest and easiest to use,” said the China-based manager from the American firm.

“The Chinese cross-border payment solutions have achieved impressive results in terms of products, scale, and fees,” the person said. “I don’t think PayPal stands a chance.”

Exporters who build their own online stores instead of selling on mainstream marketplaces may still find PayPal necessary as a tool to accept payments from customers, given the app’s wide reach.

As for cross-border payments, PayPal is competing with Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Ant Group’s Alipay, which have long been ubiquitous in China. Both e-wallets have been aggressively growing their global partnerships to let China’s outbound travelers pay at overseas retailers like they would at home. Those shopping for overseas products domestically often use Chinese-owned e-commerce apps, which tend to have Alipay or WeChat Pay as their payment processor. Credit cards never became prevalent in China.

Cross-border payments have also become one of Ant’s main growth goals, according to the prospectus of its now-halted initial public offering. While overseas businesses accounted for just about 5% of the firm’s revenue in the second half of 2020, most of that segment came from cross-border payments. At the time, Ant also had plans to spend HK$52.8 billion, or 40%, of the net proceeds from its IPO on expanding its cross-border payment and merchant services as well as other overseas functionalities.

“It depends on whether PayPal is able to offer even lower fees than Ant,” said a person who previously worked on cross-border wallets for a Chinese company. “But PayPal itself is not famous for low fees.”

News: France’s SOS Accessoire raises £12M to help people repair their home appliances themselves

• April 28, 2021
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SOS Accessoire, a French startup that helps people diagnose and repair their home appliances, has raised €10M/$12M in a funding round led by ETF Partners. The round was joined by Quadia, Starquest, and Seed for Good. There is now a growing home repair market, powered by startups like this, which allow people to save money,

SOS Accessoire, a French startup that helps people diagnose and repair their home appliances, has raised €10M/$12M in a funding round led by ETF Partners. The round was joined by Quadia, Starquest, and Seed for Good.

There is now a growing home repair market, powered by startups like this, which allow people to save money, but also reduce waste, and ultimately help the environment.

Around 80% of home appliances get replaced instead of repaired, creating an enormous environmental problem. At the same time, says SOS Accessoire, the spare parts market is worth €4.1bn in the European Union alone. So why not tap into that consumer desire? Why indeed not.

However, sourcing spare parts is not easy, there are hundreds of suppliers, and instructions are aimed at professionals, not amateur repairers.

SOS Accessoire provides tools to diagnose home appliance problems, access spare parts, and provides video tutorials for the repair process.

The company says it estimates it has now saved half a million appliances in 2020, equivalent to 20,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions, or the annual equivalent of CO2 emissions from 4,375 French people a year.

Olivier de Montlivault, the founder of SOS Accessoire, said: “We have a huge opportunity to help reduce household appliance waste and, in doing so, disrupt the perceived thinking that once something is broken, it must be replaced.”

Its direct competitors are other digital players focusing on the retail customer such as Spareka and Adepem. But SOS Accessoire says its competitive advantages include its size, availability of spare parts and catalog/database.

Remy de Tonnac, a partner at ETF Partners, said: “We’re seeing an increasingly conscious consumer wanting to maintain their appliances, rather than just throw them away. SOS Accessoire is ideally placed to meet that need, with a management team that has a deep understanding of the market and the business model to not only dominate this niche within the e-commerce sector but disrupt the broader market itself.”

News: Ivorian startup Afrikrea partners with DHL and Visa to launch SaaS e-commerce platform ANKA

• April 28, 2021
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In 2016, Ivorian e-commerce startup Afrikrea started as a marketplace for African-based and inspired clothing, accessories, arts, and crafts. Over the past five years, Afrikrea has served more than 7,000 sellers from 47 African countries and buyers from 170 countries. Per the company’s data, it records more than 500,000 visits monthly, with the majority of

In 2016, Ivorian e-commerce startup Afrikrea started as a marketplace for African-based and inspired clothing, accessories, arts, and crafts. Over the past five years, Afrikrea has served more than 7,000 sellers from 47 African countries and buyers from 170 countries.

Per the company’s data, it records more than 500,000 visits monthly, with the majority of its customers from Europe and North America recording over $15 million in transactions.

But while Afrikrea presents African merchants to showcase and sell their products to the world, it is just one of the many channels available, including personal websites and social media.

Co-founder and CEO Moulaye Taboure says that he noticed that merchants were splitting time and concentration across different channels, which affected their engagement with Afrikrea.

“We noticed that it was getting harder for our sellers to make sales because they were losing time, money and energy switching between channels,” Taboure told TechCrunch. “Every time they want to sell a product, they put it on social media, Afrikrea, and other websites. And when one buyer shows interest, there is no single place to track and see all the orders. That’s hard for these businesses to offer quality services and grow effectively.”

Then last year, Afrikrea began testing an all-in-one SaaS e-commerce platform for these merchants. Today, it is announcing its launch. The platform called ANKA will allow users to sell from Africa, ship products to anywhere in the world and get paid through local and international African payment methods.

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E-commerce, payments and global shipping. That’s ANKA’s play for thousands of micro-retailers and businesses on the continent and around the world.

The platform lets users sell via an omnichannel dashboard with a single inventory, orders and messages management. Customers can carry out transactions via a customized online storefront like Shopify, social media platforms, links such as on Gumroad and the Afrikrea marketplace.

Merchants can carry out payments and payouts via a wallet and an Afrikrea Visa card. The platform, which costs $12, allows customers to perform mobile money and mobile banking transactions with MPesa, Orange, MTN and PayPal. 

Shipping completes the entire sales life cycle, from the point of sale to receipt of goods. In 2019, Afrikrea partnered with global logistics partner DHL to offer shipping services to its customers.

Fashion is ANKA’s best-selling category because of its affiliation with Afrikrea. The African fashion and apparel market is worth $31billion, per Euromonitor, and Afrikrea estimates the yearly spend of its major markets to be worth $12.5 billion. A breakdown from the company puts “the African diaspora in Europe at $1 billion, those in America and the Caribbean at $9 billion and non-Africans with links to the continent at $2.5 billion.”

But in terms of general e-commerce activities on the continent, McKinsey & Company pegs consumer spending to reach $2.1 trillion by 2025. African e-commerce is also expected to account for up to 10% of retail sales.

Platforms like Jumia, Mall4Africa and Takealot have been at the forefront of this growth over this past decade. MallforAfrica struck a partnership with DHL in 2015, then launched DHL Africa eShop with the logistics giant four years later. More than 200 sellers from the U.S. and U.K. serve African consumers in more than 30 countries on the platform.

Unlike MallforAfrica and other e-commerce platforms, ANKA differentiates itself as a platform for export rather than import, specifically for African products. According to Moulaye, ANKA is currently the largest e-commerce exporter on the continent, and since its partnership with DHL, it has shipped more than 10 tons of cargo monthly from Africa. 

“We are the biggest client of DHL exporting from Africa. We ship 10 tons every month and have sellers in 47 African countries, with Kenya and Nigeria as our largest markets. We have something African that is going to a global scale. That’s one of the angles we had with Afrikrea, and we want to keep that with ANKA. What sets us apart is that we’re not just trying to solve a purely African problem; we want to solve a global problem for Africans.”

Since launching five years ago, Afrikrea, which Taboure launched with Luc B. Perussault Diallo and Kadry Diallo, has raised a total of $2.1 million per Crunchbase. In this period, the company has seen its revenue grow 5x and claims to have ARR more than it has raised in its lifetime. To continue its growth efforts, Afrikrea is in the process of concluding a Series A round later this year.

News: Greece’s Viva Wallet raises $80M for its neo-bank targeting small business merchants

• April 28, 2021
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Challenger banks continue to make significant waves in the world of finance, with smaller outfits luring customers away from incumbents by providing an easier way for them to not only engage with basic banking services, but to tap into a wave of technology that brings more personalization and often better deals into the equation. In

Challenger banks continue to make significant waves in the world of finance, with smaller outfits luring customers away from incumbents by providing an easier way for them to not only engage with basic banking services, but to tap into a wave of technology that brings more personalization and often better deals into the equation. In the latest development, Viva Wallet, a Greek startup building banking services aimed at small and medium merchants, has picked up financing of $80 million, money that it will be using to expand its footprint and the services that it is offering to users, in particular expanding its Merchant Advance loans business.

The company is already live in 23 European markets and plans soon to expand that to Croatia, Hungary and Sweden.

The funding is notable in part because of who is doing the investing. Tencent — the Chinese technology giant behind Wechat that is also making major inroads into financial services — is in the round, alongside the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Breyer Capital.

Viva Wallet is not disclosing its valuation right now, but Yannis Larios, the company’s VP of strategy and business development, confirmed to us that it’s in the middle of closing a large Series D — last August sized at €500 million ($603 million) — that will value it at €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion). This is a big leap: he also noted that when Viva Wallet closed its Series C in the second half of 2019, it was valued at €305 million.

When it closes, the Series D will be used, according to a report in Reuters, to help Viva Wallet build out a new kind of loan book around its Merchant Advances and other loans that it provides to customers. Essentially, if approved by regulators, investors would get stakes in a new legal entity, a special purpose vehicle, that will hold the loans. This is not typically how debt from loans is handled by neo-banks, but it seems that the logic is that it could give the startups more agility to scale faster by removing some of the risk from its balance sheet. (The downside: potentially less accountability around those loans?)

The round is notable for coming at a time when Europe is slowly, hopefully poking its head out from under the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has shaken and knocked over many an economy already wobbling even before the public health crisis. Focused primarily on merchants, Viva Wallet is a prime example of the kind of tech business that might help some of these critical businesses recover.

“We are excited to onboard Tencent, EBRD and Breyer Capital to Viva Wallet,” said Haris Karonis, Founder and CEO of Viva Wallet, in a statement. “We are confident that our investors’ extensive know-how and network of partnerships will accelerate Viva Wallet’s plan to unify the fragmented European payments market. The technology innovations that we are bringing forward to European merchants will help them provide a frictionless, localised payment experience to all their clients, and liberate them from the hassle of maintaining legacy card terminals.”

If you think that the world of neo-banks is very crowded — and that specifically neo-banks focussed on the SMB opportunity is also getting crowded (some of the other contenders include Finom, Wise out of the US, Monzo, Penta, Starling, and ANNA among many others)– one reason why Viva Wallet is getting some attention is because of its traction and track record so far.

Larios says that the startup has been profitable as of Q1 of this year, on the back of a business that has grown by more than 40% in the last year, with 60,000 merchants currently active on its books. It’s on track, he said, for that number to be 100,000 by the end of this year.

One reason for its success, he said, is that it’s taken a very localized approach to growth, setting up operations with physical branches in each of the countries where it is active — somewhat of a retro idea in today’s market where banks are regularly shutting down their brick-and-mortar locations and going virtual. “Viva Wallet is proving the resilience of its business model,” he said.

The funding will be used in part to build out its loans program but also to expand areas where Viva Wallet is already strong. One of these is its point of sale Tap-On-Phone solution, which turns any Android device (smartphone, tablet or enterprise device) into a card terminal, to accept both contactless and PIN payments without the need for separate hardware. (Most POS systems use small, separate terminals that will connect to a tablet or phone.)

He also said there will be some M&A in the future to expand to more markets more quickly.

One area where the company will not expand is into the consumer space. Other neo-banks like Revolut and Atom have leveraged their traction with younger consumers to move into providing services for the enterprises that they found, but Larios that that is not a strategy that Viva Wallet will take in the reverse, not least because the consumer market has so far proven to be a tough-margin (or even bad-margin) game.

“Viva Wallet focuses on businesses only and will continue to do so!” he said (exclamation his!). “The consumer segment is not providing any space for profitability and we are seeing that all competing neo-bank business models focusing on consumers are mostly burning money away.

“We are focusing on the SMEs of Europe, providing a pan-European payments solution which however is very much localized to address merchants’ true local needs in terms of local payments acceptance, local IBAN accounts, local BIN business debit cards etc.” But while Viva Wallet may have a lot of SMB customers — and the EBRD investment is definitely being made to endorse that — he points out that it also includes medium businesses and some enterprises — larger merchants like supermarket chains, for example — and that will be an area it will continue to expand in.

This gives Viva Wallet enough specialization and differentiation, alongside its profitability in targeting those areas so far, to bring in the big name investors keen to tap into economic recovery, both to help that along and to ride the wave of that as it pays dividends.

“We are very excited to help Viva Wallet unify the fragmented European payments ecosystem across 23 countries. Viva Wallet is at the forefront of a paradigm shift for fintech and together, we expect to transform the payments industry in Europe” said Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital, in a statement.

“Tencent shares Viva Wallet’s aspirations of creating value for users and partners through innovation. We look forward to supporting Viva Wallet in its expansion across Europe,” added Danying Ma, MD of Tencent Investment.

News: Barkyn, a wellness startups for pets in Southern Europe, hits an $9.6M Series A round

• April 28, 2021
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Barkyn, a European subscription service for pets that combines food with tele-vet services, has raised a further €3 milion ($3.6M) from FoodTech investor Five Seasons Ventures, extending its previous Series A to €8M, and total funds raised to date to €10M. Five Seasons Ventures joins previous investors Indico Capital Partners, All Iron Ventures, Portugal Ventures

Barkyn, a European subscription service for pets that combines food with tele-vet services, has raised a further €3 milion ($3.6M) from FoodTech investor Five Seasons Ventures, extending its previous Series A to €8M, and total funds raised to date to €10M. Five Seasons Ventures joins previous investors Indico Capital Partners, All Iron Ventures, Portugal Ventures and Shilling Capital. Barkyn is in the same space as Tails, acquired by Nestlé, and Butternut Box from the UK which has raised $28M.

Launched in 2017, the Portuguese startup currently serves customers in Portugal, Spain and Italy, and is aiming to be a key ‘pet wellness’ brand for Southern Europe.

Barkyn says its subscription service offers “healthy food using fresh meat” plus a dedicated remote online veterinarian. It says personalizing the food to match the dog’s nutritional needs is part of its attraction for customers. It has also created the ‘Barkyn Complex’, a trademarked anti-inflammatory supplement for pets, plus a pet insurance product to its customers in Portugal.

André Jordão, Barkyn’s CEO and Co-Founder said in a statement: “There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to nutrition and what the body needs, and we solve this based on our knowledge, existing products and continued research and development.”

Barkyn is pushing at an open door. It’s widely acknowledged that during the pandemic, pet ownership has gone up across the world as people fought the lockdown blues.

In 2020 Barkyn says it experienced 40 percent growth each quarter across Southern Europe. 

Commenting on the investment in Barkyn, Five Seasons’ Founding Partner Niccolo Manzoni said: “Barkyn is a unique company within Southern Europe, where the region has higher levels of pet ownership but no inspiring digital pet wellness brands. Combining personalized food with tele-vet services and, in the case of Portugal, insurance, gives customers one destination for the well-being of their pets.”

Speaking to TechCrunch, Jordão said the startup had a shot at over-taking existing pet food brands because it’s “rethinking what the pet market should look like, through technology – building a pet care service and not only a pet food subscription. We’ve developed a 360 holistic experience: a subscription that aligns the best food you could ever give your dog with telemedicine. We’re able to secure a very close relationship while scaling the model.”

News: Kenya’s Ajua acquires WayaWaya to consolidate consumer experience play in African SMEs

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Kenyan consumer experience platform for businesses in Africa, Ajua today announced that it has acquired WayaWaya, a Kenya-based AI and ML messaging and payments company. WayaWaya’s customers and partners include the likes of I&M Bank, Interswitch and MTN. The company offers a range of services, from digital banking and payment services to financial services APIs

Kenyan consumer experience platform for businesses in Africa, Ajua today announced that it has acquired WayaWaya, a Kenya-based AI and ML messaging and payments company.

WayaWaya’s customers and partners include the likes of I&M Bank, Interswitch and MTN. The company offers a range of services, from digital banking and payment services to financial services APIs and payment bots.

According to Ajua, the acquisition is primarily focused on WayaWaya’s payments bots system known as Janja. The platform, which has customers like Airtel, Ezee Money, Housing Finance Company of Kenya (HF Group), enables borderless banking and payments across apps and social media platforms. Teddy Ogallo, the entrepreneur who founded WayaWaya, joins Ajua as VP of Product APIs and Integrations.

Per Crunchbase, WayaWaya has just raised $75,000. Although the two companies did not disclose the financial details of the acquisition, Ajua is expected to have paid 10 times more than WayaWaya’s total raise.

Ajua, formerly mSurvey, was founded in 2012 by Kenfield Griffith. The company is solving a consumer data problem for African businesses to understand their business better and drive growth.

“There’s a lot of commerce happening on the continent and Ajua wants companies to move from transaction numbers to the customers behind such transaction,” Griffith told TechCrunch. “Imagine if we knew what drove consumer habits for businesses. I mean, that’s a huge exponential curve for African businesses.”

Teddy Ogallo (Founder, WayaWaya) & Kenfield Griffith (CEO, Ajua)

Nigeria’s SME market alone is valued at $220 billion annually. And while businesses, mostly big enterprises, can afford customer communication tools, a large segment of small businesses are being left out. Ajua’s play is to use data and analytics to connect companies with their customers in real time. “We’ve taken what makes enterprise customers successful, and we’re capturing it in a simple format so SMEs can have the same tools,” Griffith added. 

Since most consumer behavior for these SMEs happens offline, Ajua gives businesses unique USSD codes to receive payments, get feedback and offer discounts to their customers. It is one of the products Ajua has launched over the years for customer feedback at the point of service to businesses that cumulatively have over 45 million customers.

The company’s partners and clients also include Coca-Cola, FBNQuest, GoodLife Pharmacy, Java House, Safaricom, Standard Chartered and Total.

As an intelligent messaging bot, Janja is used by individuals and businesses across WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram to automate customer support and make cross-border payments. So, Janja’s integration into Ajua’s product stack will close much of the acquirer’s customer experience loop by automating responses and giving customers what they want, when they want it.

This acquisition comes a month after Ajua announced that it partnered with telecom operator MTN Nigeria to launch a customer management product for Nigerian businesses. The product called MTN EnGauge carries the same features present in Ajua but, in this case, is tailored solely for businesses using the MTN network. The roll-out is expected to generate more data for Ajua’s thousands of users. It will also be upgraded to incorporate Janja and other services.

In hindsight, it appears Ajua could have created a product like Janja in-house due to its vast experience in the consumer experience space. However, the company chose an acquisition and Griffith gave two reasons why — building a similar product would have taken a long time and Ogallo seemed to know Janja’s business and operations so well, it just made sense to get him on board. 

“Teddy was going the same direction we’re going. We just thought to acquire WayaWaya instead and make a really good company out of both products attempting to solve the same problem. To me, it’s all about solving the problem together rather than going alone,” said the CEO. 

On why he accepted the acquisition, Ogallo, who now has a new role, noted that Ajua’s ability to scale customer service and experience and also help businesses was one reason and earned admiration from him. “Seeing how WayaWaya’s technology can complement Ajua’s innovative products and services, and help scale and monetize businesses, is an exciting opportunity for us, and we are happy that our teams will be collaborating to build something unique for the continent,” he added. 

This is a solid infrastructure play from Ajua coming from a founder who is a massive advocate of acquisition and consolidation. Griffith believes that the two are strategies for a speedier route to new markets and channels in Africa. 

“I think there are lots of ways we can build the ecosystem. There are lots of young talent building stuff, and they don’t have access to capital to get to the next stage. The question is if they want to race to the finish line or take off time and get acquired. I think there’s a huge opportunity in Africa if you want to solve complex problems by acquisition.”

There has been an uptick in local acquisitions in Africa from startups within a single country and between two countries in the past three years. For the former, Nigerian recruitment platform Jobberman’s acquisition of NGCareers last year comes to mind. And there are pan-African instances like Lagos-based hub CcHub’s acquisition of iHub, its Nairobi counterpart; Ethiopian software provider Apposit sell-off to Nigerian fintech Paga; and Johannesburg-based fintech MFS Africa acquiring Uganda’s Beyonic.

The common theme among the acquisitions (and most African acquisitions) is their undisclosed sums. For Ajua, Griffith cited regulatory issues as one reason why the company is keeping the figure under wraps.

Since launching nine years ago, Ajua has raised a total of $3.5 million, according to Crunchbase. Given the nature of this acquisition and partnership with MTN, the company might set sights on another fundraise to scale aggressively into Nigeria (a market it entered in 2019) and other African countries.

News: Arc opens its remote career platform to all software developers

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The COVID-19 pandemic threw remote work into the spotlight, but tech companies have hired in other locations for years to deal with talent shortages. Arc announced today it is opening its remote hiring platform to all software developers. Previously, Arc was open only to developers who passed its verification process. Developers can still get verified

The COVID-19 pandemic threw remote work into the spotlight, but tech companies have hired in other locations for years to deal with talent shortages. Arc announced today it is opening its remote hiring platform to all software developers. Previously, Arc was open only to developers who passed its verification process. Developers can still get verified to stand out from other applicants, but Arc’s job database and search engine is now available to everyone.

Arc was launched two years ago by the team behind Codementor, an online education platform for software developers. Since then, Arc has been used by companies like Spotify, Hims, Hubspot and FiveStars for hiring. Its investors include TechStars, 500 Startups, WI Harper and Y Combinator.

“As proud as we are of impact we have made for developers, we really want to scale that impact, and that’s why we decided to create a much more open product experience,” founder and chief executive officer Weiting Liu told TechCrunch.

The new version of Arc centers around two features: its smart remote job search engine and developer community. Arc crawls job boards and other sites for its database and has so far aggregated 54,000 developer openings from 13,000 companies. Then its search engine removes some of the challenges associated with searching for remote work.

“For example, one common complaint is that a lot of jobs are remote, but U.S. only. Or it’s only remote until the end of the pandemic,” Liu said. “Our algorithm will do its best based on your circumstances. For example, if you are a developer based in Asia or in Eastern Europe, there are certain job opportunities that are unfortunately not applicable to you based on the time zones. So we filter all of those things, and also based on your experience and tech stacks, to recommend the most relevant jobs.”

Arc Community is a resource for software developers who are new to remote work or want to learn about work practices in other countries. For example, “they might have questions like, should my resume be in this format for a U.S.-based employer, or what are the types of tools used and cultural norms?” Liu said. “If someone is looking for a position with an American company, we will talk about common interview practices or even basic work practices like how many companies use Slack. That’s where the community comes in and we want to enable developers who have already been working remotely to share their experiences.”

Even though it is now optional, Arc still recommends its verification process. It typically takes about a week, and includes a coding challenge and behavioral and technical interviews with an Arc team member. Even if someone doesn’t pass, they get feedback about where they can improve and can reapply in six months. Verification and job searches are free, and Arc monetizes by charging employers for hires through its platform.

Steps from Arc’s developer verification process

In addition to its community, Arc recently launched a program called Elevate. Inspired by Liu’s experiences in Y Combinator and TechStars, Elevate is meant to be a “short-term talent accelerator” for developers who want to transition into remote work. Its first program included 13 developers from Latin America and future cohorts will range in size from 10 to 20 people. The program includes career preparation workshops, interview practice and live mentorship sessions with developers who work at GitLab, Zapier and Dialpad.

Arc is currently running a crowdfunding campaign, started after the SEC implemented its new equity crowdfunding regulations, and has raised about $950,000 so far.

“This is aligned with our vision, which is about democratizing access, so if we can make Arc a partially community-owned remote job platform, it will be extremely interesting because we aspire to become the world’s largest remote job site and if we can turn our community members into investors-slash-owners of the platform, it can help us realize our mission faster,” said Liu.

News: Look out Amazon Go — A Lisbon startup plans to offer autonomous stores to other retailers

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Look out Amazon Go. A Lisbon startup plans to offer the same autonomous store technology to other retailers. Lisbon-based Sensei, a computer vision startup that allows convenience stores to offer check-out-free purchasing has secured a seed round of $6.5 million (€5.4M). The funding was led by Seaya Ventures and Iberis Capital, with participation from 200M

Look out Amazon Go. A Lisbon startup plans to offer the same autonomous store technology to other retailers. Lisbon-based Sensei, a computer vision startup that allows convenience stores to offer check-out-free purchasing has secured a seed round of $6.5 million (€5.4M). The funding was led by Seaya Ventures and Iberis Capital, with participation from 200M Fund.

The startup will now scale its R&D and launch new stores. Its proprietary platform uses a blend of cameras, sensors, and AI to automate stores, both new and existing. The platform means retailers can manage inventory in real-time and also access insights into the way the stores are used.

Vasco Portugal, Sensei’s CEO and Co-founder said: “Sensei’s technology will help level the playing field for retailers to compete against digital giants such as Amazon. We aim to enhance the familiar and enjoyable customer shopping experience, making it seamless, convenient, and safe.”

Sensei is designed to work mainly with grab-and-go stores, forecourts, and similar retail formats. Competitors include Trigo which has raised $89 million.

The advantages of automated stores in a pandemic are obvious: customers no longer have to queue. Plus retailers can avoid stock-outs and staff turn into customer support.

“We are delighted to invest in a business that is part of the digitalization of commerce, a trend that is currently clearly being accelerated,” said Aris Xenofontos, Principal at Seaya Ventures.

Luis Quaresma, Partner at Iberis Capital, added: “Sensei brings tremendous efficiencies and cost-savings to the retail industry, while providing a much needed seamless checkout experience for consumers.”

Sensei was founded by Vasco Portugal (CEO, ex-MIT), Joana Rafael (COO),Nuno Moutinho (CTO) and Paulo Carreira (CSO).

News: Fund managers can leverage ESG-related data to generate insights

• April 28, 2021
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Environmental, social and corporate governance data is everywhere. Learning how to understand it promises big payoffs.

Almost two centuries ago, gold prospectors in California set off one of the greatest rushes for wealth in history. Proponents of socially conscious investing claim fund managers will start a similar stampede when they discover that environmental, social and governance (ESG) insights can yield treasure in the form of alternative data that promise big payoffs — if only they knew how to mine it.

There may be some truth to that line of thinking if you take some of the rhetoric and advertising out of the equation.

First, let’s be clear: ESG is not on the fringe. The European Union has implemented new financial regulations via the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). These improve ESG disclosures and considerations and help to direct capital toward products and companies that benefit people and the planet. As we write, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is also considering drafting and implementation of ESG-related regulations.

Whether enacted or currently under consideration, these rules encourage fund managers to integrate sustainability risks into their business processes, report on them publicly, stamp out greenwashing, and promote transparency and knowledge among investors. Accordingly, it will become easier to compare firms’ sustainability efforts, too, allowing stakeholders from all corners to make more informed decisions.

Incorporating ESG factors into investment strategies is not new, of course. The world’s largest asset managers have been practicing it for years. According to the Governance & Accountability Institute, 90% of companies listed on the S&P 500 now produce sustainability reports, an increase of 70 percentage points from more than a decade ago.

Yet some are still groaning about adopting an ESG investing mindset; they see ESG as a nuisance that detracts from their mission of earning high returns. But could this mindset mean they are missing important opportunities?

Don’t wait

Waiting for new mandatory ESG reporting and compliance framework standards in the U.S. puts Americas-focused managers at a significant disadvantage. Fund managers can start gaining insights today from alternative data originating in ESG-related data stemming from climate change, natural disasters, harassment and discrimination lawsuits, and other events and information that can be mined.