Monthly Archives: July 2021

News: Butlr Technologies, developing anonymous people sensors, inks $7.9M seed round

• July 15, 2021
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New funding boosts Butlr’s ability to apply real-time people-sensing technology beyond real estate and retail uses to monitor falls and other movements for active seniors who are aging in place.

A new $7.9 million seed round boosts Butlr Technologies’ ability to apply its real-time people-sensing technology beyond commercial real estate and retail uses to monitor falls and other movements for active seniors who are aging in place.

Hyperplane led the round, with Founder Collective, Union Labs, 500 Startups, SOSV, E14 Fund, Tectonic Ventures, Scott Belsky, Chad Laurans and Sunny Vu participating.

The new funding comes one year after the Burlingame, California-based proptech company raised $1.2 million in convertible notes, which is included in the $7.9 million. It is developing a platform and Heatic sensors that detect someone’s body heat anonymously to determine occupancy, headcount and activity.

Co-founders Honghao Deng and Jiani Zeng, who spun Butlr out of the MIT Media Lab in 2019, refer to their technology as “Alexa for spatial.” Their wireless sensors capture five frames per second of thermal body heat data — posture, quality of sleep and temperature — and then turn that into insights that customers can use to make decisions on anything from constructing a building to planning how people will coexist in physician spaces.

Deng told TechCrunch the company is “the only one combining accuracy with wireless.” The wireless aspect of the sensors, which can fit in the palm of your hand, means that they can be placed anywhere, require a one-time setup and the batteries last for two years. Butlr is also all about protecting privacy, so the replay doesn’t show faces, but instead the person’s “heat” moving around.

“The sensors can be used in any environment,” Deng said. “It should be invisible and not something people have to worry about. We can bring dignity back to the technology world, while also understanding users’ needs. This is about new things people couldn’t do before, how to use the space in real-time and in a way that is easy to deploy.”

Basic kits, which start at $880, can be purchased from the company’s website, and include space-designing software that someone can use to easily determine where to place the sensors for maximum coverage.

The funding is earmarked for continued market expansion and technology development, including a more advanced API, to meet explosive demand for spatial intelligence — the company is shipping out hundreds of thousands of sensors and grew almost 10 times in revenue last year. Deng expects that to continue as companies figure out their return-to-work policies following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though Butlr initially started with real estate and retailers, Deng sees potential in other use cases, like car traffic flow and assisted living facilities, where early diagnostics and cognitive function can be monitored before an accident happens.

“The assisted living market is huge,” Deng added. “One of the most important things coming from monitoring is understanding where a person is. We can get early predictions about their frailty.”

For example, by being able to transmit images in real time, Butlr is better able to detect rigid movements or behavior that looks like falling. This is unlike incumbent technology, which Deng said “misses minutes” during the transmission of the images.

Incumbents are also relying on wearables or health bands, which have to be charged and can be cumbersome to use in a senior care or home health environment. In addition, by having a sensor versus a camera, it also preserves dignity, Zeng said.

Founder Collective partner Eric Paley told TechCrunch that he loved what Butlr is doing because of its “incredible simplicity,” what he called “the holy grail of indoor sensing.”

He’s seen other startups go after this same market and fail due to making it difficult for an average user to set it up or require an electrician. For the sensors to be fixed in one place and be there for years “is huge,” Paley said.

“What they have been able to do at an early stage is impressive,” he added. “There are so many uses for what Butlr’s technology is doing, and many industries are coming after them to use it. We are constantly having conversations on what are the best opportunities, and by having an API approach we can serve lots of customers.”

 

News: Revolut confirms a fresh $800M in funding at a $33B valuation to supercharge its financial services superapp

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The fintech funding continues to roll in at a rapid pace, a result of the huge shift underway in how consumers spend and manage their money. In the latest development, Revolut — the London-based financial “superapp” that provides banking, investing, currency transfer and other money management services to some 16 million users globally — this

News: India’s Inshorts raises $60 million following Public social network app growth

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Indian startup Inshorts, which operates an eponymous news aggregator service, has raised $60 million in a new financing round as its last year’s bet — launch of a new social media app called Public — takes off, the startup confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. Vy Capital led the new round in Inshorts, which has raised

Indian startup Inshorts, which operates an eponymous news aggregator service, has raised $60 million in a new financing round as its last year’s bet — launch of a new social media app called Public — takes off, the startup confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday.

Vy Capital led the new round in Inshorts, which has raised $140 million in the last one year. The new investment values the startup at about $550 million, up from about $250 million valuation in $41 million fundraise in March and $125 million valuation in September last year, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Azhar Iqubal, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts, confirmed the size of the round and lead investor but declined to comment on the valuation. The startup counts Addition, Tiger Global, SIG, A91 and Tanglin Venture Partners among its investors.

“The world is changing every minute, and each one of us has an inherent desire to remain updated about these changes,” he said in a brief statement. “Both Inshorts app and Public app are aimed to help some of these people in their quest of keeping themselves informed and we are thrilled to have Vy Capital join us in our journey.”

Inshorts is a popular aggregator app that summarizes news articles in 60 words and covers a wide-range of topics including tech and business. But it’s the startup’s expansion into the social media category that has helped it scale widely and attract investors.

Launched last year, Public app has already emerged as one of the most popular social apps in the South Asian country. The location-based social network connects individuals to people in their vicinity. Think about people living in the same society, or people in a mall or within a few miles from each other.

The app, which is available in several major Indian languages (including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Assamese, Gujarati and Marathi), allows shop owners to drive e-commerce, and also serves as a classified, entertainment and recruiting platform.

“We are excited to partner with Azhar and team in their journey to build one of the largest content platforms out of India, running two market leading properties with a rapidly growing user base. We look forward to working closely with the company and the team as it enters the next phase of scaling,” said Vamsi Duvvuri, Partner, Vy Capital, in a statement.

This is a developing story. More to follow…

News: Singapore-based Tinvio raises $12M Series A to build financial services for supply chain merchants

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First created to give supply chain merchants a streamlined way to communicate with buyers, Tinvio is now preparing to launch financial services, including financing and credit card issuing. The Singapore-based startup announced today it has raised a $12 million Series A to build out its B2B transactions platform. The round was led by AppWorks Ventures,

First created to give supply chain merchants a streamlined way to communicate with buyers, Tinvio is now preparing to launch financial services, including financing and credit card issuing. The Singapore-based startup announced today it has raised a $12 million Series A to build out its B2B transactions platform. The round was led by AppWorks Ventures, with participation from strategic investor MUFG Innovation Partners (MUIP), a venture capital firm for collaborations between startups and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.

All of Tinvio’s existing investors—Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Global Founders Capital and Partech Ventures—also returned for its Series A, which brings Tinvio’s total raised to $18.5 million.

Tinvio’s last funding announcement was a $5.5 million seed round in April 2020. The company was founded in July 2019 by Ajay Gopal, whose prior professional experience included leading initial public offering and merger and acquisition transactions as a fintech investment banker for Credit Suisse in London.

Since its seed funding, Tinvio says its client base has increased four times to over 5,000 businesses in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and other Asian markets. Gopal told TechCrunch that as its user base grows, it is acquiring more new customers through word-of-mouth and referrals. For example, Southeast Asian F&B supplier QQ Group onboarded all of its merchants onto Tinvio and now uses the platform for all trade orders.

One of the reasons Tinvio focuses on F&B businesses is because they deal with a lot of perishable goods and constantly need to manage orders and inventory. Gopal said the company also has clients in the healthcare and automotive sectors, but plans to keep targeting growth in F&B.

Tinvio app was originally launched as a way to consolidate orders from different places, including email, SMS and WhatsApp, and let suppliers keep real-time digital ledgers.

It recently entered financial services by adding a digital payments collection and reconciliation features. Gopal says many suppliers still take payment in the form of bank transfers or cash and paper checks on delivery, making it difficult to keep manage their cash cycles. So Tinvio launched a “super dirty pilot” for on-platform payments late last year in Indonesia, and after validating it, added B2B payments to its core product. Tinvio supports payments through credit cards, direct debits and automated bank transfers, and is integrated with regional payment gateways. Over the last two months, 95% of suppliers on the platform have continued to use Tinvio to collect payments from their merchants.

“It’s only been live for a couple of months, but we’ve already gotten so much feedback from our users and we’re sprinting to unlock new capabilities such as real-time payments and credit,” said Gopal.

The company has a 12-month roadmap for its other financial services, including transaction financing, credit card issuing and invoice factoring, with pilots planned for the next two quarters. “In this Series A, we’ve teamed up with MUFG bank,” Gopal said. “This sets us up in a fantastic position to go-to-market even sooner with our financial technology stack that we’ve been building.”

In a statement, AppWorks Ventures managing partner Jessica Liu said, “Tinvio’s focus on modernizing B2B trade with a seamless user experience has seen it onboard and digitalize thousands of merchant and supplier teams without disrupting their daily routines or procurement workflows. Despite COVID-19, we still see great growth momentum, led by increasing network effects, leaving Tinvio well positioned to dominate this category.”

 

News: Easy Eat AI raises $5M to help Southeast Asian restaurants digitize their operations

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Easy Eat AI, a Singapore-based startup that wants to “transform restaurants into technology companies,” announced today it has raised $5 million in funding. Easy Eat AI offers an operating system for restaurants that lets them digitize all parts of their business, from inventory and customer orders to delivery, and gain AI-based data analytics to improve

Easy Eat AI, a Singapore-based startup that wants to “transform restaurants into technology companies,” announced today it has raised $5 million in funding. Easy Eat AI offers an operating system for restaurants that lets them digitize all parts of their business, from inventory and customer orders to delivery, and gain AI-based data analytics to improve revenue.

Many food and beverage businesses started digitizing orders and payments so they could offer deliveries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though Easy Eat AI lets restaurants integrate with third-party food ordering apps, it also has its own delivery infrastructure, including on-demand riders, that costs just 4% per order, compared to the 20%-30% that many of the largest food delivery platforms charge.

Founded in 2019 by Mohd Wassem, Rhythm Gupta and Abdul Khalid, Easy Eat AI currently has operations in Malaysia, and plans to expand into other Southeast Asian markets. The funding included participation from Aroa Ventures, the family office of OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal; Reddy Futures Family Office; Prophetic Ventures; OYO global chief strategy officer Maninder Gulati; Alarko Ventures managing partner Cem Garih; and Esas Ventures founder and managing partner Fethi Sabancı Kamışlı.

Wassem told TechCrunch that Easy Eat AI was created because even though Southeast Asia “is a food paradise, everyone eats out, eating out is a culture here,” the restaurant industry is still one of the least advanced digitally. Before the pandemic, he said that about 80% of restaurant business came from in-person dining, but taking orders manually resulted in very little data kept about who customers are, what they like to order or how often they return.

Easy Eat AI’s platform helps restaurants create that digital connection with their customers. Some of its clients include chains like Richiamo Coffee, Mr. Fish Fishhead Noodles, WTF Group and Hailam Toast. During COVID-19 lockdowns, Easy Eat AI has helped restaurants fulfill deliveries and its other features, like targeted marketing campaigns and loyalty reward programs, are relevant to in-person dining, too.

Easy Eat AI’s consumer interface is based on QR code ordering—customers scan the code with their smartphone and are taken directly to the restaurant’s menu online. They pick what they want, then create an account or sign-in by entering their mobile number. Payments and reward programs can also be accessed through the platform.

The company says that after analyzing 100,000 orders at more than 50 restaurants over six months, it found that people spend about 30% more when they order digitally compared to through a waiter—similar to when people go shopping for a specific item online and end up adding more items to their cart while browsing.

After a restaurant uses Easy Eat AI for about 30 to 45 days, it is able to build a customer database for targeted online marketing strategies, sending offers to the people who are most likely to use them.

For example, a month after launching in its third outlet of Mr. Fish, the platform had collected data from more than 1,400 customers. The restaurant was able to see that about 20% visited the restaurant more than once, and the average duration between their visits was 12 days. Based on that information, it created marketing campaigns to draw back people who hadn’t returned in 20 days. During that time, Mr. Fish also started fulfilling delivery orders through Easy Eat AI, and by the end of the month, 13.4% of its orders were coming through the platform, reducing its reliance on third-party delivery apps.

In a statement about the funding, Keshav Reddy, managing partner of Reddy Futures Family Office, said, “The team is customer obsessed and understands the pain problems of the industry. Their innovative software platform will be disruptive to the entire F&B ecosystem and how customers engage through the entire F&B lifecycle in the online-to-offline world.”

News: YC-backed Deskimo, an on-demand coworking space app, launches in Singapore and Hong Kong

• July 15, 2021
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Part of Y Combinator’s current batch, Deskimo wants to make finding coworking spaces easier. Its on-demand booking app is currently available in Singapore and Hong Kong, with plans to enter more markets after Demo Day. Its founders are former Rocket Internet executives who say that their main competition aren’t spaces like WeWork or other hot

Part of Y Combinator’s current batch, Deskimo wants to make finding coworking spaces easier. Its on-demand booking app is currently available in Singapore and Hong Kong, with plans to enter more markets after Demo Day. Its founders are former Rocket Internet executives who say that their main competition aren’t spaces like WeWork or other hot desk booking apps. Instead, its Starbucks, since Deskimo caters to people who usually work from home, but occasionally need a place nearby where they can get away from distractions or take meetings. Deskimo partners with employers and charges them by the minutes their workers spend at space, instead of a monthly or yearly fee.

Deskimo was launched in February by Raphael Cohen, Rocket Internet’s former head of Asia, and Christian Mischler, who co-founded Foodpanda and served as its global chief operating officer. After Rocket Internet, the two started HotelQuickly, an on-demand booking app they sold in 2017.

The pandemic has quickly changed attitudes toward remote work, with a McKinsey survey finding that 62% of respondents said they only wanted to return to the office a few days a week, or not at all. As a result, many companies, especially startups, will continue offering flexible arrangements.

Mischler and Cohen already have experience watching peoples’ behavior shift after Foodpanda was launched. “Back in 2012, people were saying that food ordering is not going to work online, people just order on the home or in person,” Cohen said. “What we learned from on-demand restaurant delivery, the shared market-based model, is very similar in that case to setting up with workspace partners.”

 

Deskimo now has about 40 properties in Singapore and 25 in Hong Kong, and wants to expand in both residential and business districts, since many remote workers prefer to find a space close to their homes. It works with several different types of property owners and is approaching each group step-by-step. The first are office spaces that are already set up for coworking and see Deskimo as an additional distribution channel. The second are hotels that are converting some of their space into coworking areas. Finally, Deskimo plans to partner with spaces like social clubs and event venues that usually sit empty during weekdays.

On the client side, Deskimo contracts with companies, who then offer the app to their employees. Each person gets a monthly budget on Deskimo, and their employers are only billed for the time they spend at a space. The Deskimo app generates a QR code that workers use to gain access to one of its spaces, and they also scan it when checking out to record how long they were there. Pricing ranges from about $2 to $4 USD per minute, with desks in central business districts typically costing more. Aggregated invoices are sent to clients each month and revenue is then shared with coworking space owners.

“Many companies realize they can save a lot of costs by having people work from home so they can reduce their office space, and instead of adding more fixed costs, they just add variable costs,” said Mischler. “They provide their employees with the ability to go to an office, but if they don’t want to because they have a great home to work from, employees are also more than welcome to work from home.”

In Deskimo’s current markets, other on-demand coworking space apps include Switch, Flydesk, WorkBuddy and Booqed. But Mischler says its main competitors are large F&B chains like Starbucks, since they are easy to find. He adds that Deskimo is more efficient for workers, who are guaranteed a table and don’t need to worry about finding outlets or the quality of Wi-Fi. Besides expanding into more markets, Deskimo also wants to add other services on top of coworking to give it a competitive edge.

“Once we have the company relationships and their employees use Deskimo for their bookings, there’s a lot of different things we can build on top of it, whether it’s employee engagement or workforce management, not just workplace management,” says Mischer. “But we’re focused on the transactional model right now because that’s the biggest pain point.”

 

News: NHTSA urges some Chevy Bolt owners to park their car away from home, citing fire risk

• July 14, 2021
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Chevrolet Bolts are back in the news – this time for another consumer alert issued by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, less than a year after the agency issued a recall for a similar issue. NHTSA is recommending owners of Model Year 2017-2019 park their Bolts away from homes due to the risk

Chevrolet Bolts are back in the news – this time for another consumer alert issued by the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, less than a year after the agency issued a recall for a similar issue.

NHTSA is recommending owners of Model Year 2017-2019 park their Bolts away from homes due to the risk of fire. Those are the same vehicles that were recalled in November 2020, due to the possibility of fire from the battery pack underneath the backseat’s cushion. The recall affected 50,932 2017-2019 Chevy Bolt vehicles.

But this recall seems to have been triggered by two recent fire incidents in vehicles that were supposedly remedied as part of that previous safety recall, General Motors said on its website.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we are asking owners of 2017-2019 Chevrolet Bolt EVs who were part of the recall population to park their vehicles outdoors immediately after charging and not leave their vehicles charging overnight while we investigate these incidents.”

GM says it has potentially identified a remedy to the battery anomalies, which customers can access by visiting a participating Bolt dealer. Customers of 2019 Bolts were able to access this remedy from April 29, and owners of 2017 and 2018 Bolts were eligible from May 26. The diagnostic software GM used to identify the anomalies will be standard in 2022 Bolts, and other future GM vehicles, the automaker said.

News: Daily Crunch: Citing data storage violations, India blocks Mastercard from onboarding new customers

• July 14, 2021
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Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 14, 2021. We have a jam-packed newsletter for you today, so we’re getting something out of the way up top. We’ve covered India’s technology regulatory market often in recent weeks. Why? Because the Indian startup scene is crazy busy. How India’s government handles the boom is going to be critical for a host of founders, investors and workers.

In that vein, the latest chapter in the story involves Mastercard, which just got blocked from onboarding new users. Why? Per our reporting, “noncompliance with local data storage rules.” Data rules, you will recall, are a big part of the changing regulatory world for Chinese startups as well. Something to keep an eye on! — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

Today’s Top 3 are all about social networks. Yes, the massive companies that we share our lives with, day in and day out. Let’s start with Facebook.

• Facebook, like Amazon, is not thrilled with the new U.S. antitrust boss: Lina Khan’s appointment as the head of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is causing waves among the largest tech companies in the world. Amazon demanded that she recuse herself from regulating its business. Facebook is now making similar noises. In short, the tech giants think that her prior criticism of their business practices is disqualifying. This is at once risible and notable; that a regulator has a perspective about, well, regulation seems more like a qualification than a disqualifying fact.
• Facebook is also willing to buy creator love: Sticking to the Facebook world for a moment, the company announced a $1 billion fund that will be paid out to digital creators who produce work that lives on its platforms. The dollar amount is what we should pay attention to here; Facebook is willing to pay up for the sort of attention that TikTok has managed to accrue for free.
• Twitter is killing Fleets: The final bit of Hot New Social Media News is that Twitter is killing off its little-loved stories feature called Fleets. First, read the TechCrunch story, then enjoy this fine tweet and this utterly perfect subheadline.

Really though, are you going to miss Fleets? No.

Startups/VC

We have a lot to get into from the startup world today, starting with two pieces looking at the subject from a more meta level. Then we have a grip of neat new rounds for your enjoyment:

• How to make today’s high-flying startup valuations work: I wrote this earlier today to distill some conversations I’ve had with investors and founders about today’s startup valuations, and how the high prices being paid may work out for both founders and venture capitalists. They may not! But here’s a bullish take.
• Billions for battery tech: LG Chem is planning on spending some $5.2 billion on battery tech in the next four years. That’s more than $1 billion per year. This move details just how hot this sector is. Hell, it’s even minting SPACs for companies with revenue still years in the future.
• a16z not done investing in crypto: That’s the news today, with the venture firm leading a $9 million Series A into Phantom, which Lucas describes as a “crypto wallet startup.” Recall that a16z has reloaded its venture cannon with fresh crypto-focused funds.
• $21M for virtual concerts: One nice thing about the pandemic was musical acts putting on neat virtual shows. Here’s an example. Now FlyMachine has lots of money to “capture some of the magic of live concerts and performances in a livestreamed setting.” Yes, please — that sounds amazing.
• More money for cybersecurity: Life has three absolutes: death, taxes and huge new cybersecurity rounds. Today’s is a $275 million Series F for Cybereason, which works in the extended detection and response (XDR) space.
• Meet the newest Midwest unicorn: It’s M1 Finance, a startup that TechCrunch has covered extensively in the last year. Why? Because the company built a finance superapp that has proven very attractive to users. The company now has $150 million more under its belt — the new funds come just four months after it raised $75 million! — and $4.5 billion in assets under management.
• Finally, more money for fake meat: Raising animals is a pretty inefficient way to generate calories for consumption, and it’s hell on the environment. That’s why investors are pouring capital into fake meat companies. Next Gen Foods announced today that it has raised a $20 million seed extension (yep) for its “plant-based chicken alternative,” TechCrunch reports.

How to navigate an acquisition without alienating your current employees

Now that COVID-19 vaccines are encouraging the world to reopen, two trends are underway:

In the first half of 2021, mergers and acquisitions increased by more than 150% YOY to $2.4 trillion; in several surveys, an overwhelming majority of workers said they intend to seek employment elsewhere.

If your startup is angling toward an exit, the promise of a big payday may not be enough to retain employees who feel burned out or dissatisfied.

Many founders don’t have prior management experience, and, frankly, the uncertainty associated with an exit makes it a poor time for on-the-job learning. With that in mind, here are several communication strategies that can help you keep your winning team intact.

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

Big Tech Inc.

Sure, we covered a lot of Big Tech news up top, but there’s even more to get to:

• Remember Kindle? Amazon has put together a new Kindle service to allow for serialized fiction. Which is super cool. Even better, the service is now live. It’s called Kindle Vella. Anything that gives authors more creative room is good by me.
• Twilio wants to help you add audio, video to your app: API-delivered service trendsetter Twilio has announced Twilio Live, a service that will help developers embed live audio and video into their apps. Details are a bit scarce so far, but there are startups working on related products, so it will be interesting to see how this market shares out.
• Microsoft built cloud Windows while no one was looking: Redmond has a new service out called Windows 365 — which is not Microsoft 365, the rebrand of its Office 365 service. Windows 365 will allow companies to stream Windows to devices. Frederic reports that “Windows 365 has been long expected and is really just an evolution of existing remote desktop services.” We still think it’s neat, however.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

Are you all caught up on last week’s coverage of growth marketing? If not, read it here.

As usual, if you have a recommendation of a growth marketer we should know about, fill out the survey here.

Read one of the testimonials we received below!

Marketer: Mitch Causey, Demandwell

Recommended by: Drew Beechler, High Alpha

Testimonial: “Mitch and the Demandwell team are some of the smartest content, SEO and digital marketers I’ve ever met, and their results speak for themselves. Their process, proprietary software and expertise around organic search and content is some of the best out there in helping companies think about organic search as a repeatable, proven method for growth and demand gen. Mitch and the Demandwell playbook worked so well that after being a client for two years and recommending to many in our portfolio, High Alpha ended up bringing Demandwell into the portfolio to turn their playbook into a scalable software platform.”

News: Khosla’s Adina Tecklu breaks down how to nail your pitch

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It’s so critical to frame the problem from your perspective. And I also think that this is a really great opportunity to introduce emotion to really build a more compelling story.

Pitching is perhaps the single most important skill that any founder needs to hone, so not surprisingly, we kicked off our TechCrunch Early Stage 2021 — Marketing & Fundraising event with a deep dive on all the tips and tricks required to get the most out of pitching and slide decks. On hand was Adina Tecklu, a principal at Khosla Ventures, and who formerly built out Canaan Beta, the consumer seed practice at Canaan Partners.

We talked about the importance of knowing your customer (aka your potential investor), focusing on story, typical slides in a deck, the appendix slides, formatting, and then alternative formats and which to avoid in a pitch deck.

Help TechCrunch find the best growth marketers for startups.

Provide a recommendation in this quick survey and we’ll share the results with everybody.

Know your customer, in this case, your investor

We kicked off our discussion with advice that remains as valuable as it is obvious. Even today, despite the wealth of resources available on the internet to background research potential investors, founders regularly walk into their pitch meetings like deer in headlights with no sense of that particular investor’s interests, tastes, stage of investment and more. Don’t be that founder.

Key number one is know your audience. The best founders understand their users, whether that is an end consumer, or an enterprise customer. They’ve done the research to understand what motivates their customers, how they make buying decisions, and also what their customers like and don’t like as much about their own product. When fundraising, your VC essentially becomes your customer. And so before you begin pitching, or even building your deck, it’s really important to do your research beforehand to understand the firms and the partners that you intend to pitch. (Timestamp: 2:25)

If you do that right,

That knowledge allows you to proactively address any concerns that they might have. And really make sure that you position your business in a way that is both authentic, but in a way that will be well received by the VC. (Timestamp: 3:20)

• Six things venture capitalists are looking for in your pitch
• What to expect when pitching European VCs
• Should you pay $50K for your pitch deck? Yes, why the hell not?

Story-driven, not data-driven

Data is the most important source of wisdom in Silicon Valley, or so the belief holds. But the reality, particularly in early-stage investing, is that the data can only paint a partial picture of a startup and a founder’s ambition. Don’t let a dense copse of trees occlude the wider forest, which is what investors are really investing in.

News: Clubhouse ventures beyond audio with Backchannel, a new messaging feature

• July 14, 2021
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We knew DMs were on the way to Clubhouse and today the new feature landed, spicing up the audio-only app with a text-based chat feature. Clubhouse’s new direct messaging system, called “Backchannel,” gives users an oft-requested way to start conversations behind the scenes on the social audio app. Backchannel offers both one-on-one messaging as well

We knew DMs were on the way to Clubhouse and today the new feature landed, spicing up the audio-only app with a text-based chat feature. Clubhouse’s new direct messaging system, called “Backchannel,” gives users an oft-requested way to start conversations behind the scenes on the social audio app.

Backchannel offers both one-on-one messaging as well as group chat and generally adds quite a bit of utility into the voice-only social network. Speakers can organize in advance or coordinate live through messaging while running a room. They can also accept text-based questions, which some listeners are probably more comfortable with.

Clubhouse users can send links but not images or videos through Backchannel for now, but it sounds like more new features just around the corner. The messaging system also includes a message request area where communication from people you don’t know lives until you approve it. So far, Clubhouse’s DMs are focused on chatting with people you know or people you’d like to know. Without a room-wide text chat option, the main action will remain firmly centered in voice-based rooms.

The messaging system is live now across Clubhouse’s iOS and Android apps. To start a DM — fine, a “Backchannel” — look for the little paper airplane icon on anybody’s profile page or swipe right from the main menu to pull it up. One thing worth noting: It doesn’t look like you can delete messages yet (though you can copy or report them!), so be sure you really mean whatever it is that you’re backchanneling about.