Monthly Archives: April 2021

News: The TechCrunch Germany Survey – Calling Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Bielefeld, Frankfurt

• April 23, 2021
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TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey European founders and investors in cities outside the larger European capitals. Over the next few weeks, we will ask entrepreneurs in these cities to talk about their ecosystems, in their own words. This is your chance to put Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Bielefeld, Frankfurt on the

TechCrunch is embarking on a major new project to survey European founders and investors in cities outside the larger European capitals.

Over the next few weeks, we will ask entrepreneurs in these cities to talk about their ecosystems, in their own words.

This is your chance to put Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Bielefeld, Frankfurt on the Techcrunch Map!

If you are a tech startup founder or investor in these cities please fill out the survey form here.

We are particularly interested in hearing from women founders and investors.

This is the follow-up to the huge survey of investors (see also below) we’ve done over the last six or more months, largely in capital cities.

These formed part of a broader series of surveys we’re doing regularly for ExtraCrunch, our subscription service that unpacks key issues for startups and investors.

In the first wave of surveys, the cities we wrote about were largely capitals. You can see them listed here.

This time, we will be surveying founders and investors in Europe’s other cities to capture how European hubs are growing, from the perspective of the people on the ground.

We’d like to know how your city’s startup scene is evolving, how the tech sector is being impacted by COVID-19, and generally how your city will evolve.

We leave submissions mostly unedited and are generally looking for at least one or two paragraphs in answers to the questions.

So if you are a tech startup founder or investor in one of these cities please fill out our survey form here.

Thank you for participating. If you have questions you can email mike@techcrunch.com and/or reply on Twitter to @mikebutcher.

News: Watch SpaceX launch its second crew of Space Station astronauts on a flight-proven Falcon 9 live

• April 23, 2021
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SpaceX is set to launch its second operational commercial crew mission to the International Space Station for NASA, with a liftoff time of 5:49 AM EDT (2:49 AM PDT) on Friday morning. The flight will carry four astronauts, including two from NASA, one from JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and one from the ESA

SpaceX is set to launch its second operational commercial crew mission to the International Space Station for NASA, with a liftoff time of 5:49 AM EDT (2:49 AM PDT) on Friday morning. The flight will carry four astronauts, including two from NASA, one from JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and one from the ESA (European Space Agency), to the station, where they will begin a regular tour of duty conducting science experiments, and maintaining and upgrading the orbital platform.

This is the second commercial crew mission for SpaceX, which officially qualified its Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for human flight last year. NASA then launched four astronauts using SpaceX’s human-certified launch system later that year in November, becoming the first private company to deliver people to the ISS, and the first American vehicle to do so since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. Since the end of that program, NASA has relied on buying rides aboard Russian Soyuz rockets to keep up its representation on the ISS.

There’s already a SpaceX Crew Dragon at the Space Station from that Crew-1 launch last year, and it was relocated to another port on the station earlier this month in preparation for the arrival of the one flying for Crew-2. The Crew-1 Dragon capsule is set to return back to Earth with astronauts on board once they’re relieved by this flight’s crew, likely later this month on April 28.

One major notable change for this launch is the use of a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket booster. SpaceX has previously used new boosters fresh from the factory for its human launches, though it has a spotless track record when it comes to booster re-use for its cargo flights. It’s also the first re-use of a dragon spacecraft, and both components of this launch system actually previously supported human launches, with the first stage serving during Crew-1, and the Dragon capsule providing the ride for Demo-2, which flew astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

The astronauts on today’s flight are Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur from NASA, as well as Akihiko Hoshide from JAXA and Thomas Pesquet from the ESA. As mentioned, liftoff time is set for 5:49 AM EDT, but SpaceX will begin streaming live hours in advance at approximately 1:30 AM EDT on Friday (10:30 PM PDT on Thursday).

News: Citi Bike rival JOCO brings shared, docked e-bikes to NYC

• April 22, 2021
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Move over Citi Bike, there’s a new docked, shared bike service in town — only this one is all electric. Next week, JOCO will be the first shared operator in New York City to launch a network of e-bike stations on private property for public use. The service, powered by shared mobility platform Vulog, will

Move over Citi Bike, there’s a new docked, shared bike service in town — only this one is all electric. Next week, JOCO will be the first shared operator in New York City to launch a network of e-bike stations on private property for public use.

The service, powered by shared mobility platform Vulog, will start with 30 stations and 300 e-bikes located around Manhattan, expanding to 100 stations and 1,000 bikes by June. This is not the first new shared operator to hit the streets of New York this year. Last week, the city announced the winning companies of the e-scooter pilot in the Bronx. But while Bird, Lime and Veo are restricted to operating in a section of the Bronx, far from any Citi Bike territory, JOCO is under no such constraints.

The company’s bikes will initially be stationed at parking garages around the city, including at Icon Parking garages, the city’s largest parking operators, but the company says it hopes to expand to residential and commercial buildings in the near future. The company essentially pays landlords to provide this amenity, while absolving them from having to operate or maintain the e-bikes.

“What differentiates us from Citi Bike is, first of all, our bikes are 100% electric, 100% premium,” co-founder Jonathan “Johnny” Cohen from New York told TechCrunch. (The two co-founders are both named Johnathan Cohen — one is from New York, the other from London. JOCO…get it?). “You can reserve our bikes in advance, and as we’re on private property, there are hand sanitizer at our stations, the bikes aren’t getting rained on every night, they’re a bit cleaner and easier to access.”

A map of JOCO’s 30 launch e-bike dock locations in NYC.

Citi Bike’s fleet is about 30% electric. To charge the e-bikes, the Lyft-owned company must manually take the drained vehicles from their stations to charge them, whereas JOCO’s vehicles are charged at the stations. Like Citi Bike, each e-bike can last for about 30 miles on a charge.

“That’s enough to get around Manhattan several times,” said London Jo (another moniker for differentiating between the two John/Jon Cohens). “We expect our vehicles to always be charged and ready to go for the customer. It defeats the purpose when you’re taking a bike that’s extremely sustainable, and then come along in a gas-burning vehicle to swap the battery. We’re looking to be a truly environmentally friendly company and provide a more consistent and reliable service.”

Founded in 2019 and funded privately by a group of former CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and specifically investors with technology and real estate backgrounds, JOCO offers e-bikes at a price point that’s comparable, if not directly competitive, to Citi Bike. It’ll cost riders $1 to unlock the bike and .25 cents a minute, so a 10 minute ride will come out to $3.50. If you can find an electric Citi Bike, it’ll cost a rider $3.50 to unlock and .18 cents a minute, which comes out to about $5.30.

“That’s significantly cheaper in our opinion for a brand new, gorgeous, full electric premium bike,” said NY Jo.

Neither company charges unlock fees for members. JOCO’s monthly membership is $49 per month with unlimited use, and Citi Bike’s is $20 per month, with monthly members continuing to pay 18 cents per minute, and annual members paying 12 cents per minute. Under Citi Bike’s annual membership, if a rider is averaging out about five 10-minute rides per week, the monthly spend is comparable between the two companies.

“Citi Bike has been around since 2013 and has done a tremendous job at driving cycling adoption on the streets of NYC,” Monica Wejman, Vulog’s North America managing director, told TechCrunch. “And now you have JOCO entering this space, powered by Vulog, really there to complement Citi Bike and satisfy what we’re seeing as a significant increase in demand for access to e-bikes. We’re truly empowering mobility operators to launch mobility programs at scale.”

While JOCO will not be reliant on the NYC Department of Transportation to carve out street and sidewalk space for docking stations, the operator is still taking steps to ensure a good working relationship with the city.

London Jo says JOCO’s bikes are made with safety-critical features, like hidden cables to make them less susceptible to vandalism, puncture-proof airless tires and bike-tracking, provided by Vulog’s backend.

“In addition, by operating in private spaces, we’re eliminating that problem of sidewalk clutter for the city,” said the British Cohen. “And they don’t have to worry about what has to go to fit 50 new bikes on the street. We’re taking a big headache off them, and it’s allowing us to stay in control a little bit more and not have to depend on the city.”

News: Daily Crunch: First impressions of Apple’s AirTags

• April 22, 2021
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We test out Apple’s lost item finder, Google Fi gets a new unlimited plan and Facebook tests new video ad targeting features. This is your Daily Crunch for April 22, 2021. The big story: First impressions of Apple’s AirTags AirTags are Apple’s new Tile competitor designed to help owners locate lost objects. They use Bluetooth

We test out Apple’s lost item finder, Google Fi gets a new unlimited plan and Facebook tests new video ad targeting features. This is your Daily Crunch for April 22, 2021.

The big story: First impressions of Apple’s AirTags

AirTags are Apple’s new Tile competitor designed to help owners locate lost objects. They use Bluetooth technology to announce their presence to nearby devices with iOS 14.5 or above.

Matthew Panzarino tried them out and reported that it could take 30 seconds or more to locate an AirTag. But once located, Apple was able to provide directions that were “extremely accurate down to a few inches.”

Matthew also got his hands on the purple iPhone and was extremely excited.

The tech giants

Google Fi turns 6 and gets a new unlimited plan — The new “Simply Unlimited” plan starts at $60 per month for a single line.

Apple downplays complaints about App Store scams in antitrust hearing — Apple was questioned on its inability to rein in subscription scammers on its App Store during yesterday’s Senate antitrust hearing.

Facebook tests topic targeting for in-stream video ads — The company says there are now 2 billion people each month who watch videos that are eligible for in-stream ads.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Tiger Global backs Indian crypto startup at over $500M valuation — CoinSwitch Kuber allows young users in India to invest in cryptocurrencies.

Universal Hydrogen raises $20.5M Series A to help launch hydrogen aviation — Universal Hydrogen aims to develop hydrogen storage solutions and conversion kits for commercial aircraft.

MasterClass co-founder’s Outlier.org raises $30M for affordable, virtual college courses — Like MasterClass, Outlier offers beautifully shot online courses; unlike MasterClass, students can actually earn college credit.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

How are VCs handling diligence in a world where deals open and close in days, not months? — For venture capitalists, the timeline for reaching conviction around a startup’s thesis and executing due diligence has become compressed.

Five emerging use cases for productivity infrastructure in 2021 — Cloud communications services, API platforms, low-code development tools, business process automation and AI software development kits grew exponentially in 2020.

Customer care as a service: Outsourcing can help your startup wow clients 24/7 — Your clients might not demand 24/7 customer service yet, but they’re certainly hoping for it.

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

Everything else

Look at this tiny new Polaroid camera can you believe it — The company says its latest camera, the Polaroid Go, is the world’s smallest analog instant camera.

To ensure inclusivity, the Biden administration must double down on AI development initiatives — EqualAI’s Miriam Vogel argues that left unchecked, seemingly neutral artificial intelligence tools can and will perpetuate inequalities.

Alexa von Tobel will join Disrupt 2021 as a Startup Battlefield judge — Battlefield applications are now open, so don’t hesitate to throw your hat in the ring!

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

News: Deepfake tech takes on satellite maps

• April 22, 2021
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While the concept of “deepfakes,” or AI-generated synthetic imagery, has been decried primarily in connection with involuntary depictions of people, the technology is dangerous (and interesting) in other ways as well. For instance, researchers have shown that it can be used to manipulate satellite imagery to produce real-looking — but totally fake — overhead maps

While the concept of “deepfakes,” or AI-generated synthetic imagery, has been decried primarily in connection with involuntary depictions of people, the technology is dangerous (and interesting) in other ways as well. For instance, researchers have shown that it can be used to manipulate satellite imagery to produce real-looking — but totally fake — overhead maps of cities.

The study, led by Bo Zhao from the University of Washington, is not intended to alarm anyone but rather to show the risks and opportunities involved in applying this rather infamous technology to cartography. In fact their approach has as much in common with “style transfer” techniques — redrawing images in an impressionistic, crayon, and arbitrary other fashions — than with deepfakes as they are commonly understood.

The team trained a machine learning system on satellite images of three different cities: Seattle, nearby Tacoma, and Beijing. Each has its own distinctive look, just as a painter or medium does. For instance, Seattle tends to have larger overhanging greenery and narrower streets, while Beijing is more monochrome and — in the images used for the study — the taller buildings cast long, dark shadows. The system learned to associate details of a street map (like Google or Apple’s) with those of the satellite view.

The resulting machine learning agent, when given a street map, returns a realistic-looking faux satellite image of what that area would look like if it were in any of those cities. In the following image, the map corresponds to the top right satellite image of Tacoma, while the lower versions show how it might look in Seattle and Beijing.

Image Credits: Zhao et al.

A close inspection will show that the fake maps aren’t as sharp as the real one, and there are probably some logical inconsistencies like streets that go nowhere and the like. But at a glance the Seattle and Beijing images are perfectly plausible.

One only has to think for a few minutes to conceive of uses for fake maps like this, both legitimate and otherwise. The researchers suggest that the technique could be used to simulate imagery of places for which no satellite imagery is available — like one of these cities in the days before such things were possible, or for a planned expansion or zoning change. The system doesn’t have to imitate another place altogether — it could be trained on a more densely populated part of the same city, or one with wider streets.

It could conceivably even be used, as this rather more whimsical project was, to make realistic-looking modern maps from ancient hand-drawn ones.

And should technology like this be bent to less constructive purposes, the paper also looks at ways to detect such simulated imagery using careful examination of colors and features.

The work challenges the general assumption of the “absolute reliability of satellite images or other geospatial data,” said Zhao in a UW news article, and certainly as with other media that kind thinking has to go by the wayside as new threats appear. You can read the full paper at the journal Cartography and Geographic Information Science.

News: To sell or not to sell: Lessons from a bootstrapped CEO

• April 22, 2021
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Regardless of a young company’s struggles or success, sooner or later the question of when, how or whether to sell the enterprise presents itself. It’s the biggest question a founder will face.

The clock begins ticking on a startup the day the doors open. Regardless of a young company’s struggles or success, sooner or later the question of when, how or whether to sell the enterprise presents itself. It’s possibly the biggest question an entrepreneur will face.

For founders who self-funded (bootstrapped) their startup, a boardroom full of additional factors come into play. Some are the same as for investor-funded firms, but many are unique.

After 18 years of bootstrapping a BI software firm into a business that now serves 28,000 companies and three million users in 75 countries, here’s what I’ve learned about myself, my company, about entrepreneurship and about when to grab for that brass ring.

Profitable or bust

Starting a software company 7,900 miles southwest of Silicon Valley requires some forethought and not a small amount of crazy. When we opened, it didn’t occur to us that one could have an idea and then go knock on someone’s door and ask for money.

Bootstrapping forced us to be a bit more creative about how we would go about building our company. In the early days, it was a distraction to growth, because we were doing other revenue-generating activities like consulting, development work, whatever we could find to keep ourselves afloat while we built Yellowfin. It meant we couldn’t be 100% focused on our idea.

However, it also meant we had to generate income from our new company from Day One — something funded companies don’t have to do. We never got into the mindset that it was okay to burn lots of cash and then cross our fingers and hope that it worked.

News: Forerunner’s Eurie Kim will share why she invested in Oura on Extra Crunch Live

• April 22, 2021
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When it comes to building a successful startup, biotech and hardware happen to be two of the most difficult verticals in the tech industry. But Oura is doing it anyway. The health and fitness tracking ring has been used in a number of studies around COVID-19, and been worn by NBA and WNBA players to

When it comes to building a successful startup, biotech and hardware happen to be two of the most difficult verticals in the tech industry. But Oura is doing it anyway.

The health and fitness tracking ring has been used in a number of studies around COVID-19, and been worn by NBA and WNBA players to help prevent outbreaks in the league. Oura has raised nearly $50 million from investors including Lifeline Ventures, Bold Capital Partners, and Forerunner.

So it should come as no surprise that we’re thrilled to have Forerunner’s Eurie Kim and Oura CEO Harpreet Rai join us on a forthcoming episode of Extra Crunch Live.

Kim is herself a former entrepreneur and joined Forerunner in 2012. She sits on the boards of companies like The Farmer’s Dog, Curology, Attabotics, Oura Ring, Eclipse, Juni, among others, and found herself on the Midas Brink List in 2020.

Rai, for his part, is CEO at Oura, where he leads a team of over 150 employees. Before Oura, Rai was a portfolio manager at Eminence Capital for nine years.

On Extra Crunch Live, the duo will talk about how Oura went about raising its $28 million Series B round and why Kim took a bet on the startup. We’ll also ask about tactical advice for founders looking to fundraise and grow their businesses.

Anyone can join the live event, which goes down on April 28 at noon PT/3pm ET. REGISTER FOR FREE HERE!

News: Apple downplays complaints about App Store scams in antitrust hearing

• April 22, 2021
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Apple was questioned on its inability to rein in subscription scammers on its App Store during yesterday’s Senate antitrust hearing. The tech giant has argued that one of the reasons it requires developers to pay App Store commissions is to help Apple fight marketplace fraud and protect consumers. But developers claim Apple is doing very

Apple was questioned on its inability to rein in subscription scammers on its App Store during yesterday’s Senate antitrust hearing. The tech giant has argued that one of the reasons it requires developers to pay App Store commissions is to help Apple fight marketplace fraud and protect consumers. But developers claim Apple is doing very little to stop obvious scams that are now raking in millions and impacting consumer trust in the overall subscription economy, as well as in their own legitimate, subscription-based businesses.

One developer in particular, Kosta Eleftheriou, has made it his mission to highlight some of the most egregious scams on the App Store. Functioning as a one-man bunco squad, Eleftheriou regularly tweets out examples of apps that are leveraging fake reviews to promote their harmful businesses.

Some of the more notable scams he’s uncovered as of late include a crypto wallet app that scammed a user out of his life savings (~$600,000) in bitcoin; a kids game that actually contained a hidden online casino; and a VPN app scamming users out of $5 million per year. And, of course, there’s the scam that lit the fire in the first place: A competitor to Eleftheriou’s own Apple Watch app that he alleges scammed users out of $2 million per year, after stealing his marketing materials, cloning his app and buying fake reviews to make the scammer’s look like the better choice.

Eleftheriou’s tweets have caught the attention of the larger app developer community, who now email him other examples of scams they’ve uncovered. Eleftheriou more recently took his crusade a step further by filing a lawsuit against Apple over the revenue he’s lost to App Store scammers.

Though Eleftheriou wasn’t name-checked in yesterday’s antitrust hearing, his work certainly was.

In a line of questioning from Georgia’s Senator Jon Ossoff, Apple’s Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer was asked why Apple was not able to locate scams, given that these fraudulent apps are, as Ossoff put it, “trivially easy to identify as scams.”

He asked why do we have rely upon “open-source reporting and journalists” to find the app scams — a reference that likely, at least in part, referred to Eleftheriou’s recent activities.

Eleftheriou himself has said there’s not much to his efforts. You simply find the apps generating most revenues and then check them for suspicious user reviews and high subscription prices. When you find both, you’ve probably uncovered a scam.

Andeer demurred, responding to Ossoff’s questions by saying that Apple has invested “tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars” in hardening and improving the security of its App Store.

“Unfortunately, security and fraud is a cat-and-mouse game. Any retailer will tell you that. And so we’re constantly working to improve,” Andeer said. He also claimed Apple was investing in more resources and technologies to catch wrong-doers and noted that the App Store rejected thousands of apps every year for posing a risk to consumers.

The exec then warned that if Apple wasn’t the intermediary, the problem would be even worse.

” … No one is perfect, but I think what we’ve shown over and over again that we do a better job than others. I think the real risks of opening up the iPhone to sideloading or third-party app stores is that this problem will only multiply. If we look at other app stores out there, we look at other distribution platforms, it scares us.”

Ossoff pressed on, noting the sideloading questions could wait and inquired again about the scam apps.

“Apple is making a cut on those abusive billing practices, are you not?” he asked.

Andeer said he didn’t believe that was the case.

“If we find fraud — if we find a problem, we’re able to rectify that very quickly. And we do each and every day,” he said.

But to what extent Apple was profiting from the App Store scams was less clear. Ossoff wanted to know if Apple refunded “all” of its revenues derived from the scam billing practices — in other words, if every customer who ever subscribed got their money back when a scam was identified.

Andeer’s answer was a little vague, however, as it could be interpreted to mean Apple refunds customers who report the scam or file a complaint — procedures it already has in place today. Instead of saying that Apple refunds “all customers” when scams are identified, he carefully worded his response to say Apple worked to make sure “the customer” is made whole.

“Senator, that’s my understanding. There’s obviously a dedicated team here at Apple who works this each and every day. But my understanding is that we work hard to make sure the customer is in a whole position. That’s our focus at the end of the day. If we lose the trust of our customers, that’s going to hurt us,” he said.

For what it’s worth, Eleftheriou wasn’t buying it.

“Apple’s non-answers to Senator Ossoff’s great questions in yesterday’s hearing should anger all of us. They did not offer any explanation for why it’s so easy for people like me to keep finding multimillion-dollar scams that have been going on unchecked on the App Store for years. They also gave no clear answer to whether they’re responsible for fraudulent activity in their store,” he told TechCrunch.

“Apple appears to profit from these scams, instead of refunding all associated revenues back to affected users when they belatedly take some of these down. We’ve been letting Apple grade their own homework for over a decade. I urge the committee to get to the bottom of these questions, including Apple’s baffling decision years ago to remove the ability for users to flag suspicious apps on the App Store,” Eleftheriou added.

Apple did not provide a comment.

News: 5 emerging use cases for productivity infrastructure in 2021

• April 22, 2021
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As market demand continues to accelerate, companies are taking advantage of the benefits productivity infrastructure bring to their organization both internally and externally.

When the world flipped upside down last year, nearly every company in every industry was forced to implement a remote workforce in just a matter of days — they had to scramble to ensure employees had the right tools in place and customers felt little to no impact. While companies initially adopted solutions for employee safety, rapid response and short-term air cover, they are now shifting their focus to long-term, strategic investments that empower growth and streamline operations.

As a result, categories that make up productivity infrastructure — cloud communications services, API platforms, low-code development tools, business process automation and AI software development kits — grew exponentially in 2020. This growth was boosted by an increasing number of companies prioritizing tools that support communication, collaboration, transparency and a seamless end-to-end workflow.

According to McKinsey & Company, the pandemic accelerated the share of digitally enabled products by seven years, and “the digitization of customer and supply-chain interactions and of internal operations by three to four years.” As demand continues to grow, companies are taking advantage of the benefits productivity infrastructure brings to their organization both internally and externally, especially as many determine the future of their work.

Automate workflows and mitigate risk

Developers rely on platforms throughout the software development process to connect data, process it, increase their go-to-market velocity and stay ahead of the competition with new and existing products. They have enormous amounts of end-user data on hand, and productivity infrastructure can remove barriers to access, integrate and leverage this data to automate the workflow.

Access to rich interaction data combined with pre-trained ML models, automated workflows and configurable front-end components enables developers to drastically shorten development cycles. Through enhanced data protection and compliance, productivity infrastructure safeguards critical data and mitigates risk while reducing time to ROI.

As the post-pandemic workplace begins to take shape, how can productivity infrastructure support enterprises where they are now and where they need to go next?

News: At Basis Set Ventures merging venture capital and software development yields a $165 million new fund

• April 22, 2021
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When Xuezhao Lan first formed Basis Set Ventures, the goal was to leverage technology to give venture capital investing super powers. From the earliest days, when Lan hired former TechCrunch reporter John Mannes, and then built out the team with the data scientist, Rachel Wong, former Upfront Ventures partner, Chang Xu, and former vice president

When Xuezhao Lan first formed Basis Set Ventures, the goal was to leverage technology to give venture capital investing super powers.

From the earliest days, when Lan hired former TechCrunch reporter John Mannes, and then built out the team with the data scientist, Rachel Wong, former Upfront Ventures partner, Chang Xu, and former vice president of growth, Sheila Vashee, the focus was as much on technology products as it was on dollar investments and advisory services.

Together with Niniane Wang, a former advisor who now serves as the firm’s chief technology officer, Basis Set grounded its decisions in the technical bona fides of Lan’s firm. And product development isn’t something that the firm simply pays lip service about. Basis Set ships about three different updates to a massive suite of internal and external products every week, according to the partnership.

That product development is one reason why the firm has managed to stay relatively lean and why it was two times oversubscribed when it went out to raise its second fund, a $165 million vehicle, which closed recently.

The fund isn’t that much larger than the $136 million Basis Set had previously raised, but Lan thinks its the right size for her goals, which are to return massive amounts of capital to her limited partners.

Internal technology programs like the company’s Pascal system have allowed Basis Set to review roughly 9,000 different software deals developing tech in the company’s core thesis, which is artificial intelligence-enabled software as a service and business-to-business deals.

Image Credit: Getty Images

Over the next year, those technology services are going to start paying dividends, according to Lan, in the form of a couple of initial public offerings that will soon make their way to market.

And Basis Set doesn’t limit itself geographically, thanks to the coverage support that its software provides. “Pascal is a major asset for finding companies outside of the Bay Area,” said Lan.

Once those companies are identified and in the portfolio, the startups have access to a tool called HyperGrowth, which links tech companies with mentors from the Bay Area to help those companies scale. It’s another example of Basis Set’s product-driven approach, said Lan.

“When I started BSV, we’re a pretty technical team and technical people. Every single person came back to us to ask how to grow, how to do sales, how to do tech, how to make the first hires, introductions to customers, introductions to advisors. The number one need for companies is go to market,” said Lan. “Over time we started scaling that efforts. Introductions manually, and then holding events, and then bringing in a growth partner, Sheila. We built this tool where hundreds of advisors would opt in to be connected to a portfolio company.”

Currently Basis Set has at least three different programs all aimed to recruit and nurture talent that typical Bay Area firms haven’t traditionally focused on. The first is its Persistence platform, which is designed to help women developers and founders network and nurture connections and foster ideas. The firm also has a service that it calls Founder Superpowers, to help entrepreneurs identify and develop areas of strength while looking for additional tools to augment their capabilities.

“We had a data science team very early and we already started automating a bunch of things. These are the ones that made it to the end of the finish line. Because of the way we operate we are constantly iterating,” said Lan. 

Another key factor for the company is trying to find a more diverse set of founders with different background from the typical Silicon Valley biography, Mannes said.

“We talk a lot about how to find founders outside of the Bay Area… the entrepreneurs who aren’t hanging out at Blue Bottle 24-7,” said Mannes. The Persistence platform, the Founder Superpowers tool, and the work that Basis Set does with Dev Color, an organization designed to support under-represented members of the tech community are all manifestations of that, Mannes and Lan both said. 

Image via Getty Images / sorbetto

Companies in the firm’s current portfolio include: Ergeon, which helps simplify the process of staffing for the construction industry; the autonomous weed picking and crop dusting agtech startup, Farmwise; and Quince, which Basis Set has dubbed the anti-Amazon for its factory direct sales model. 

Meanwhile, companies like the conversational machine learning company, Rasa; the privacy and compliance automation toolkit developer, DataGrail; the workflow automation software developer for deskless workers, Workstream; and Assembled, which provides tech infrastructure support for teams, have all raised significant follow-on funding.

All of these investments are undergirded by the technical team’s work and the collaboration with investors, the firm stressed.

“We’re in lock sink about what we need to build and we’re literally shipping every day,” said Vashee. “That’s what best in class looks like and that’s what we try to achieve… It’s the iron man suit. That’s what we’re looking to build with products here.  Our goal is to automate every part of the process that we can while building the empathy with our founders.”