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News: Omnibiz gets $3M to digitize Nigeria’s informal B2B supply chain

• August 10, 2021
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Despite the prevalence of shopping malls and the emergence of VC-backed e-commerce companies like Jumia, informal retail in Africa is still king. A 2016 study by PwC states that 90% of sales in Africa’s major economies come through informal channels — markets and kiosks. This presents a large market ripe for digitization, and over the

Despite the prevalence of shopping malls and the emergence of VC-backed e-commerce companies like Jumia, informal retail in Africa is still king.

A 2016 study by PwC states that 90% of sales in Africa’s major economies come through informal channels — markets and kiosks.

This presents a large market ripe for digitization, and over the past five years, African startups have risen to the challenge, raising millions of dollars in the process. Today, Omnibiz, a Lagos-based startup, joins the fray and has raised a seed round of $3 million to expand into new markets.

Omnibiz is a B2B e-commerce platform that connects fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) manufacturers to retailers by digitizing the supply chain stakeholders.

The platform offers a mobile app, WhatsApp channel and a phone number that retailers can use to stock their shops. Omnibiz says in a statement that retailers “can place orders at their convenience and have goods delivered to their doorstep at no cost.”

Omnibiz was launched in 2019 by Deepankar Rustagi. The Indian founder and CEO who has stayed in Nigeria for over two decades started his first startup, VConnect, in 2011 as an online marketplace and search engine to find local professionals for service needs.

The platform connected individuals with more than 100 services and over 500,000 listed businesses across the country before shutting down in 2017, Rustagi claims.

Post-VConnect, Rustagi consulted for multiple FMCG brands. He figured a need existed for manufacturers and retailers of goods to digitize their processes leading to the launch of Omnibiz in late 2019.

Omnibiz operates an asset-light retail distribution model. When a retailer makes an order on the Omnibiz platform, it is requested from partner distributors who store goods on behalf of manufacturers and are traditionally known to help out with warehousing and transportation.

With Omnibiz, these distributors can focus solely on warehousing and pass on the responsibility of transporting goods to Omnibiz’s third-party logistics providers. The drivers of these logistics providers use Omnibiz to efficiently distribute the orders to the retailers within 24 hours.

“We work with manufacturers to provide visibility. Then buy goods from them and keep them in partner hubs that act as warehouses and distributors. Then, use the services of drivers that work with third-party logistics drivers who get paid on every delivery made,” Rustagi told TechCrunch.

Image Credits: Omnibiz

Digitizing this value chain helps retailers save working capital while Omnibiz connects them with more than 20 brands, including Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark.

The B2B e-commerce retail company is currently in four cities across Nigeria — Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kaduna. The company will add two more cities, Ibadan and Kano, before the end of August, Rustagi adds.

By Rustagi’s account, Omnibiz will feed off his experience at VConnect, his prior business that struggled to monetize and scale despite the huge traction it got as a popular local marketplace. 

“We knew about small businesses and what sort of technology they like. That was our specialization, but our business model didn’t work. But in this case [Omnibiz], the monetization happens on our platform, and there’s money to be made for the small business. We’ve been growing 30% month-on-month for the last 12 months,” he said.

The B2B informal e-commerce market has seen a resurgence in the last couple of years. Kenya’s Sokowatch and Twiga, Nigeria’s TradeDepot and Egypt’s MaxAB have longed vied for market-leader positions in their respective markets.

The pandemic spiked more interest in their activities as all the aforementioned startups have raised money this past year, including newcomers Kenya’s MarketForce and now Omnibiz.

Some operate asset-light models, while others take up the responsibility of managing the end-to-end digitization process. Rustagi believes the former is perfect for the company because it helps distributors expand their reach rather than eliminate them.

“I think scaling in one city with assets is not that difficult. But if you have to scale in 20, 24 cities in a country like Nigeria or Ghana, or Ivory Coast or East Africa, the investment required will be very high.” Rustagi continued. “So we think without significant investment in assets, we will be able to scale much faster. And since we took the tech-first approach, we have good control over the business. I believe we’re in the right space and the right time with the right model.”

Omnibiz’s seed round was led by V&R Africa, Timon Capital and Tangerine Insurance. The round also included Lofty Inc., Musha Ventures, Sunu Capital, Launch Africa, and Rising Tide Africa. It takes the company’s total investment to $4 million. Rustagi also disclosed that the company also got funding from Seedstars and will participate in the accelerator’s growth program.

“I think Omnibiz will be the role model for B2B retail in Africa and can scale well into other emerging markets. We are excited and happy to be supporting Omnibiz in all ways beyond just providing capital,” Raj Kulasingam and Vishal Agarwal of V&R Africa said in a statement. 

Over the next few months, Omnibiz will use the investment to expand in other West African cities outside Nigeria —  Abidjan, Takoradi, Kumasi and Accra. Food, non-alcoholic beverages, personal care, and baby care products are the top categories on the Omnibiz platform. The company is planning to expand into new categories like alcoholic beverages and OTC pharmaceutical products.

Omnibiz will also use the investment to create new tech products that will enhance value for the retailers. The company will work with partners to increase the working capital availability for the retailers and digital tools to manage their business more efficiently.

“One of the key things we intend to do is to bring on medium-scale manufacturers who find it difficult to get the last-mile delivery to reach customers. We want to scale them so they can reach a large number of retailers. That’s something we are rolling out so we can onboard more and more manufacturers,” said the CEO on Omnibiz’s next plans.

News: Japan’s TechnoPro acquires Indian app development studio Robosoft for $108 million

• August 10, 2021
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Robosoft Technologies, an India-headquartered app development studio, said on Tuesday it has reached a definitive agreement to sell the business to Japan’s IT services firm TechnoPro for $108 million. Founded in 1996 in Udupi, a small town in the Southwest Indian state of Karnataka, Robosoft Technologies started its journey as a software development firm. It

Robosoft Technologies, an India-headquartered app development studio, said on Tuesday it has reached a definitive agreement to sell the business to Japan’s IT services firm TechnoPro for $108 million.

Founded in 1996 in Udupi, a small town in the Southwest Indian state of Karnataka, Robosoft Technologies started its journey as a software development firm.

It was one of the earliest firms globally to be certified as Mac OS developer by Apple and has been recognized by the iPhone-maker several times in the decades since.

“We knew mobile was going to be big with the launch of iPhone and the App Store ecosystem. We began building mobile apps for clients across the globe and there’s been no looking back,” the companies describes on its website.

Robosoft, which counts Ascent Capital and Kalaari Capital among its investors, has courted clients operating in several categories including games, news, sports, utilities and lifestyle and expanded its offerings to include product advisory, and tools for design, engineering and analytics.

The original app for the Indian news network NDTV, for instance, was developed by Robosoft. Some of its other clients include media giant Viacom and McDonald’s India. It has clients in the U.S. and Middle East as well.

In a statement on Tuesday, Robosoft said its current management team will continue to lead the firm. “Robosoft has had a phenomenal journey over the last two decades and has grown by leaps and bounds during this period. The partnership with Ascent Capital and Kalaari Capital heralded a strong growth era for us and I am very happy that we are handing over the reins of the Company to a global player like TechnoPro,” said Rohith Bhat, Founder and Managing Director of Robosoft.

“We look forward to a close collaboration with Robosoft in the company’s next phase of growth and see tremendous synergies between TechnoPro and Robosoft,” said Takeshi Yagi, President and Representative Director and CEO of Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed firm TechnoPro.

News: FreshBooks reaches $1B+ valuation with $130.75M for its SMB-focused accounting platform

• August 10, 2021
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FreshBooks, a Toronto-based cloud accounting software company focused on SMBs, announced today it has secured $80.75 million in a Series E round of funding, as well as $50 million in debt financing. Existing backer Accomplice led the equity financing, which the company described as “an inside round” that propelled FreshBooks to unicorn status with a

FreshBooks, a Toronto-based cloud accounting software company focused on SMBs, announced today it has secured $80.75 million in a Series E round of funding, as well as $50 million in debt financing.

Existing backer Accomplice led the equity financing, which the company described as “an inside round” that propelled FreshBooks to unicorn status with a valuation of “over $1 billion.” 

J.P. Morgan, Gaingels, BMO Technology & Innovation Banking Group and Manulife also participated in the equity investment, along with platform partner and new backer Barclays. With the new capital injection, FreshBooks has now raised a total of more than $200 million in funding over its lifetime.

FreshBooks has built a cloud-based accounting software platform designed to make things like invoicing, expenses, payments, payroll and financial reporting easier for small business owners and self-employed people (and their clients). The company, which says it has served more than 30 million people in over 160 countries, was bootstrapped for the first decade of its life.

As in the case of many startups, FreshBooks was started to solve a pain point for one of its founders. In 2003, FreshBooks’ co-founder Mike McDerment was running a small design agency. When it came to billing clients, he found Word and Excel frustrating to use and felt like they weren’t built to create professional-looking invoices. So he coded his own solution that became the foundation of what is now FreshBooks. The company was self-funded until 2014, when McDerment decided to bring on outside investors and raised $30 million from Oak Investment Partners, Accomplice and Georgian Partners.

In 2019, Don Epperson joined FreshBooks as executive director before transitioning to the role of CEO this year. McDerment, who previously held the position, remains as executive chair of the company.

FreshBooks has 500 employees in Canada, Croatia, Mexico, the Netherlands and the United States — hiring over 100 people in the past year. Also in the last year, the company entered the LatAm market after acquiring Mexico-based e-invoicing company Facturama in September 2020 in an effort to expand its audience in Spanish-speaking markets.

FreshBooks plans to use its new capital toward sales and marketing, research and development and additional strategic acquisitions. 

The company will also use its new funding toward investing in markets that are becoming more regulated and helping owners manage their finances through “simplistic workflows,” according to Epperson.

For example, he said, more business owners are working to become digitally enabled to meet local tax and invoice compliance systems. 

“The need for owners to manage their business digitally has accelerated, and this has changed how small business owners work with bookkeepers and accountants,” Epperson told TechCrunch. “The funding comes as an injection of confidence in our mission to digitally enable small businesses.”

Image Credits: FreshBooks

When it comes to growth metrics like year-over-year revenue percentage growth, the exec was tight-lipped, saying only that FreshBooks has “seen significant growth” in the number of new customers since last year, in part fueled by a pandemic-driven increase in new small businesses.

The pandemic also uncovered the need for us to understand how seismic events affect our customers, Epperson said. 

“After analyzing FreshBooks’ own proprietary data, we learned that businesses owned by women were taking three times longer to recover in the U.S. versus businesses owned by men,” Epperson said. “This stat laid the foundation for conducting more research into how the pandemic was affecting businesses across multiple industries and entering into data-sharing partnerships with local governments to help policymakers enact change in the support available to small business owners.”

Jeff Fagnan, founder and managing partner at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Accomplice, is clearly bullish on FreshBooks’ potential, saying of his firm’s continued investments in the Canadian company over the past seven years: “With more people choosing self-employment, the FreshBooks team fundamentally believes in the growth of small businesses, and the importance of helping these businesses scale. As insiders, we have better context for how the company is scaling and how the market is growing, and this is why FreshBooks is our largest investment to date.”

FreshBooks is the latest in a growing number of Toronto-based unicorns. Late last month, 1Password raised $100 million in a Series B round of funding that doubled the company’s valuation to $2 billion. 1Password first became a unicorn in 2019.

News: Latent AI, which says it can compress common AI models by 10x, lands some key backing

• August 10, 2021
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Roughly a year ago, Latent AI, a now three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup, pitched a handful of investors during TechCrunch’s Battlefield competition. It didn’t win that contest, but that hasn’t kept it from winning the interest of investors elsewhere. It just closed on $19 million in Series A funding in a round co-led by Future

Roughly a year ago, Latent AI, a now three-year-old, Menlo Park, Ca.-based startup, pitched a handful of investors during TechCrunch’s Battlefield competition. It didn’t win that contest, but that hasn’t kept it from winning the interest of investors elsewhere. It just closed on $19 million in Series A funding in a round co-led by Future Ventures and Blackhorn Ventures, with participation from Booz Allen, Lockheed Martin, 40 North Ventures, and Autotech Ventures. The company has now raised $22.5 million altogether.

What are these backers funding exactly? The company says that its software tools allow AI models to run anywhere, irrespective of hardware constraints, and that includes on the inexpensive chips that are typically found in edge devices. It also says it can compress common AI models by ten times without a noticeable change in accuracy, partly through an “attention mechanism” that enables it to save power and run only what is needed, and partly because it can self-adjust its workload based on environment and operational context.

That means — according to Latent AI — that its tools can help developers deliver AI models that are optimized for compute; that they can overcome memory and power constraints; and that there’s almost no latency (thus the company name).

Steve Jurvetson, the veteran investor and cofounder of Future Ventures, says to “think of face-detection algorithms running locally within security cameras or appliances, or Siri-like voice interfaces working instantly, even when there’s no network connectivity.”

Certainly, there’s a huge market for the kind of tech that Latent AI is developing. Indeed, though in an interview earlier today, cofounder and CEO Jags Kandasamy declined to delve into specifics, he suggested that the U.S. government is already a customer, thanks in part to strategic investors like Booz Allen. (In a press release last month about Booz Allen’s investment in Latent AI, Steve Escaravage, an SVP at the government services agency, noted that the “ability to collect, analyze and quickly act on data is at the core” of the U.S.’s national defense strategy.)

Another strategic investor, Lockheed Martin, is very focused on finding ways that AI technologies can help the U.S. military improve on situational awareness across land, sea, air, space, cyber and electromagnetic spectrum domains, so it’s easy to appreciate its attraction to the startup.

Kandasamy also talked this afternoon about an unnamed ski manufacturer that it is using Latent AI’s tech in its Google Glass-like augmented reality goggles,  and he suggested that Latent AI sees a world of opportunities in the commercial market, too.

Of course, given that the world is now rife with data-collecting-devices and that there’s an enormous interest in making that data actionable without having to send it back and forth to a distant cloud, there are many other companies and projects with the same objective as Latent AI. Among them are open source tools like TensorFlow, hardware vendors like Xilinx, and rival startups like OctoML and Deeplite.

Kandasamy insists that all fall short in some way. Of TensorFlow, he says that developers have only community support when it comes to production deployment. Of the chipmakers of the world, they’re focused on their own hardware and not vertically integrated. And what of those rivals? They’re either focused on compression or compiling and not both, says Kandasamy.

Either way, Latent AI has the kind of backstory that investors like. After Kandasamy, a serial entrepreneur, sold his last startup to Analog Devices, he headed to SRI International in 2018 as an entrepreneur-in-residence. There, he was quickly wowed by tech being developed by Sek Chai, who was the research institution’s technical director for nearly a decade, and who specialized in low-power high performance computing, computer vision, and machine learning. Indeed, soon after, Kandasamy had Chai had formed Latent AI and begun smoothing out some of the kinks.

Now, with fresh funding and a small but growing customer base that pays Latent AI on a subscription basis to access to its tools (then deploy them on premise), the question is whether the 15-person outfit is coming along far enough, fast enough, to get ahead of its current and future rivals.

Jurvetson plainly thinks it’s well-positioned. He says he has been an advisory board member for SRI International for more than a decade and seen a good many technologies like Siri develop and then spin out of the organization.

“This is the only one I have invested in,” he says.

News: 5 ways AI can help mitigate the global shipping crisis

• August 9, 2021
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AI is not a magic wand that will right all the world’s wrongs. But it can help businesses plan for problems in advance and respond to them appropriately if they happen.

With the fourth quarter now upon us, every industry faces a challenge in managing a holiday production calendar that will deliver the goods. The key for startups looking to defend the quarter from disruptions is to adopt a proactive, data-driven approach to inventory management.

Here are five methods we’ve been counseling clients to adopt:

• Use data and analytics to identify and map out the inventory being affected by the global shipping crisis. If you don’t have the data about what is on a ship transporting your materials, then use this crisis as an opportunity to justify prioritizing supply chain digital transformation with data, IoT and advanced analytics (e.g., machine learning and simulation). You need to know the location of your goods all times if you are going to successfully gauge what impact a shortage will have on your operation.

  Ultimately, AI will help startups understand how myriad disruptions affect their supply chain so they can better respond with a Plan B when the unthinkable happens.

• If you don’t have the data readily available, then you need to partner with a vendor and use a secure environment to share second-party data to deliver AI-driven actionable insights on the business impact on all parties involved, from startup to retailer to the consumer.
• Simulate and forecast the impact of these supply-side issues on the demand side. Conduct scenario planning exercises and inform critical business decisions. If this ability is not in place, an emergency like a pandemic, civil unrest or an uncontrollable rate hike will wreak havoc on your business plan. Use this situation as an opportunity to put a disaster management program in place to prepare for the potential risks.
  

  

News: Daily Crunch: Bangalore-based UpGrad becomes India’s newest unicorn with $185M funding round

• August 9, 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 August 9, 2021. We are ever so glad that you are here. We have global startup news for you, rocket news, car-rental IPO news and more. And if you are a student, we even have Extra Crunch discounts for you. Call it a technology and money smorgasbord. All in one email. Let’s go! — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Turo is taking its car rental business public: Turo, a well-known U.S. startup that allows folks to rent their car to other folks, has privately filed to go public. Oh boy are we curious what its numbers show. Not only because it’s an S-1 that we’ve wanted to read for some time, but also because we’re incredibly curious about how the company navigated the pandemic and the changing world of transit during the last 18 months or so. More when it files publicly, you know, to go public.
• China’s tech crackdown continues: Another weekend, another set of regulatory actions from China’s government. Tencent and the larger gaming world could be in trouble next. The turbulence was enough for NetEase, a major gaming company in China, to delay the Hong Kong listing of its music business. Recall that Tencent Music is publicly listed.
• SpaceX buys Swarm Technologies: After seeing a friend get hooked up to Starlink the other day, what SpaceX does in the connectivity space is now more real to your humble scribe than theoretical. So the news that the space launch company is buying Swarm Technologies caught my eye. What does Swarm do? Per TechCrunch, it “operates a constellation of 120 sandwich-sized satellites as well as a ground station network.” Precisely how that may or may not link up to current SpaceX efforts is unclear.

Startups/VC

Let’s start with a brace of unicorn stories and then delve into some earlier-stage startup news, yeah?

• Indian edtech is still hot: Another day, another edtech unicorn. This time it’s UpGrad, a Bangalore-based startup that “specializes in higher education and upskilling courses.” It just raised $185 million at a $1.2 billion valuation. Temasek led the round. Notably, it was a two-part affair, with an earlier tranche worth $120 million first valuing UpGrad at a price of around $600 million.
• Turkey’s first $10B startup: $1 billion isn’t cool. You know what is? $10 billion. I suppose that that means that Turkish e-commerce platform Trendyol is cool? At least General Atlantic and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 think that it is cool enough to be worth $16.5 billion. Per our reporting, the company serves around 30 million shoppers who generate around 1 million packages per day. That’s a lot of shipping.

Now, let’s talk about some younger startups:

• RentCheck wants you to get your dang deposit back: And it has raised $2.6 million to power its efforts. Everyone knows what the problem space is here, so we care a bit more about how the company intends to tilt the rental market more toward renters themselves. Per TechCrunch, the company’s software “works by providing a way for property managers to facilitate and conduct remote, guided property inspections.” So long as more of us get our dang money back, cool.
• Canopy raises $15M for loan-servicing software: Sure, the back end of the financial world isn’t super fun to think about, but it is huge and potentially lucrative. Canopy Servicing is attacking the fintech market with a focus on building software that will help companies better offer and service loans. Credit is a massive problem space, and with $15 million new dollars, it will be interesting to see how quickly this API-delivered startup can grow.
• Meta app search, hell yeah: Today CommandBar left its beta period and announced that it has raised $4.8 million. The company’s tech is a search layer that sits atop web apps, making them easier to, well, search. Frankly, this kicks butt. Why? Because finding what you need inside of web apps can be an enormous hassle if you are in a hurry and not fluent in the application you are presented with. Which happens to everyone. Every day.
• LawVu is building Salesforce for legal teams: Back to the topic of things that are important, if not entirely Super Very Cool, let’s talk about software aimed at helping legal teams. LawVu is working in the space, and just raised $17 million NZD to back its efforts. It’s building a digital space for legal teams to share documents, communicate and more.
• Moove wants to provide car financing to African drivers: After noting that African car ownership rates lagged other continents, the founders of Moove decided to tackle the issue. The startup is starting with working to provide asset-backed financing to folks who make money with their cars and just raised $23 million.

Early-stage brands should also unlock the power of influencers

Before you hire a marketing consultant who doesn’t understand your products or commit to a CMO who has several years of experience — but none in your sector — consider influencer marketing.

If the phrase evokes images of celebrities hawking hard seltzer, think again: An influencer can be as humble as an enthusiastic Reddit user who manages your Telegram channel.

According to Uber growth marketing manager Jonathan Martinez:

“ … You don’t need to find influencers with millions of followers. Instead, lean toward microinfluencers for testing, which will bring cost efficiency and the ability to sponsor a diverse range of people.”

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

Big Tech Inc.

• There will now be ads in your Instagram e-commerce experience: Call it a feature or not, Instagram is bolstering its ads business by building advertising slots that include “both single images and [an] option for an image carousel.” You are welcome, Instagram users.
• How one tech company is building an antiracist culture: TechCrunch’s Ron Miller spoke to several Twilio execs about how their company is working to be a bit more than diversity-friendly. They want Twilio to be opposed to racism. Good. Let’s hope more companies follow suit.
• Facebook under fire for cutting off research access: After Big Blue decided “to close accounts connected to a misinformation research project last week,” Congress got mad. Now a cadre of senators are pressing the company on its decision to cut off access to the researchers, which puts Facebook in the position of managing to have engendered a negative press cycle and more congressional oversight in a single move. You have to give the company points for efficiency.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

Image Credits: Getty Images

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

TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you’re a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we’d like to hear about why they loved working with you.

Community

Image Credits: Apress

Join TechCrunch Managing Editor Danny Crichton for a Twitter Spaces event tomorrow, August 10, at 3 p.m. PDT/6 p.m. EDT. Danny will be joined by Noah Giansiracusa, the author of “How Algorithms Create and Prevent Fake News: Exploring the Impacts of Social Media, Deepfakes, GPT-3, and More.” They’ll discuss Giansiracusa’s book and invite the audience to ask questions.

News: Fortnite’s Ariana Grande concert offers a taste of music in the metaverse

• August 9, 2021
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Ariana Grande strutted and soared around a candy-colored series of Fortnite sets in Epic’s latest major in-game live music event. The multi-day “tour” offered gamers and Grande fans alike plenty to enjoy while showcasing Epic’s impressively smooth and visually inventive vision for live events that millions of people can enjoy simultaneously. Fortnite players have known

Ariana Grande strutted and soared around a candy-colored series of Fortnite sets in Epic’s latest major in-game live music event. The multi-day “tour” offered gamers and Grande fans alike plenty to enjoy while showcasing Epic’s impressively smooth and visually inventive vision for live events that millions of people can enjoy simultaneously.

Fortnite players have known an Ariana Grande event was in the works for a while, and the concert followed previous in-game events featuring rapper Travis Scott and Marshmello. Scott’s in-game performance saw 12.3 million live viewers, a number that the Ariana Grande event is likely to top given that it ran over multiple days.

Epic put up a video of the concert that’s well worth checking out, if only to marvel at the kind of stuff that’s possible in gaming worlds these days. Experiencing the event live in the game is obviously ideal, but the video captures the experience pretty well, minus the sense of presence from having an avatar zooming around the space with grande Grande.

This time around, the show featured a handful of mini-games that gave players more to do than just flying around while a gigantic virtual pop star does her thing. The sequence kicked off with players surfing a rainbow racetrack, hitting power ups in a cross between Mario Kart and Splatoon to “Come & Go” by Juice WRLD and Marshmello. The racetrack sequence was followed by bouncing players through a Dr. Seuss style landscape with candy-pink trees and giant floating eyeballs before dropping them into a mini-game shooting down the game’s Storm King boss to Wolfmother’s “Victorious.”

Grande made her Fortnite debut a few songs in to the 2019 hit “7 Rings,” streaking across the sky and materializing on top of a planet suspended in a sea of stars. Later she soared through the clouds with angelic wings as players followed, suspended in rainbow bubbles. In the coolest portion, a skyscraper-high Grande ascended a series of Escher-esque staircases with a giant diamond mallet before slinging it to shatter the sky, shotput-style.

Fortnite’s latest event didn’t have any huge surprises, but that’s only because Epic sets the bar so high. Getting dressed up in your favorite skin to sail around a skyscraper-tall pop star along with millions of people around the world might not be everyone’s vision for the metaverse, but Fortnite’s wildly imaginative live events are a taste of the future that here’s right now.

News: Match beta test targets dating app complaints like frustration with swiping, ghosting

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Match today is introducing new features that aim to address some of users’ complaints with modern-day dating apps — like how much time it takes to find a relevant match and how frustrating it is when users ghost one another after the initial conversation fades. As part of a new strategy to better position Match

Match today is introducing new features that aim to address some of users’ complaints with modern-day dating apps — like how much time it takes to find a relevant match and how frustrating it is when users ghost one another after the initial conversation fades. As part of a new strategy to better position Match for more “emotionally mature” singles (read: adults), the company says it will begin beta testing a recommendation system called “Matched by Us,” which may pave the way for a broader matchmaking service in the future. It’s also testing an anti-ghosting feature which pushes users to either continue a conversation or unmatch the recipient, instead of leaving them hanging.

The features are designed to address the challenges that face Match’s older demographic. Match users tend to be in their 30’s and up, and have full lives. They’re generally ready to find relationships and settle down with a partner. That’s a different life phase than those using other Match dating apps, like Tinder, where younger users are still in a more exploratory phase and enjoy on going on many dates, including casual dates.

“When we talk to our members, we hear a lot of frustration around [there being] a lot of swiping, a lot of messaging back and forth — that’s happening in the dating world more broadly,” explains Dushyant Saraph, Match’s Chief Product Officer. “When we think about folks on our product, who don’t have a ton of time, that’s where ‘Matched by Us’ came from. Our singles don’t want to swipe through hundreds of profiles,” he says.

Image Credits: Match

The new feature, which is made available to free and paid users alike, will present one, free customized match every week, where both users can see each other and no longer have to wait for a “like” back in order to engage in a conversation.

The system works to find compatible matches by algorithmically examining a new set of preferences around users’ personalities, based on responses to questions posed in users’ Match bios.

For example, questions may ask about users’ five-year plans, their favorite weekend activities, or whether they’re open to moving somewhere new if they find the right person. The latter has become especially relevant in the new age of remote work, driven by the pandemic, which no longer requires people to live in the bigger cities where their company may be headquartered, Saraph notes.

Image Credits: Match

Currently, the system will recommend a match based on a holistic view of users’ preferences, as determined by an algorithm, but the company has been internally testing adding a layer of human curation to its suggestions, as well.

In other words, Match is testing an actual match-making service.

For the time being, however, the human curation team inside Match is working in more of an R&D capacity, Saraph says.

“We’ve been flexing how many experts we need as we’re testing kind of different concepts — everything from coaching to expert picks, where we’re doing human curation,” he says. The team also works on other features, like suggesting conversation starters to keep conversations going.

“Long-term we expect to be flexible, depending on which of these [products] is most interesting to our members, and scaling up our expert team accordingly. Right now, human curation is one area that we’re really excited about and want to crack, and I think you’ll hear more about that in the coming months,” Saraph adds.

Another new feature aimed at helping adults to stop waste their time on dating apps involves how Match will handle matches’ conversations. Typically, conversations either take off leading to real-world dates, or slowly fade away, until communication stops altogether. Sometimes, the other party simply “ghosts,” and never responds at all.

Image Credits: Match

Users told Match that their main issue with ghosting is the uncertainty around what it means.

Did the user just get busy, or did they decide they weren’t interested?, users wonder.

A new feature aims to keep conversations’ momentum going by nudging users when a conversation is about to “expire” — that is, when it will be archived into a new section of the inbox for inactive conversations.

And if you are in the app, you can visit the conversation to get suggestions of conversation starters to help you pick things back up, or you can tap a button to unmatch the other user. The latter would send a more explicit signal to the recipient that there was a lack of interest, though it won’t actually push a notification that tells the user they’ve been unmatched. (That can sometimes lead to safety issues, particularly for women who have received threats from men they’ve rejected.)

Image Credits: Match

Match says it’s currently testing the right number of days to elapse before it nudges users to either re-engage or end their conversations with an unmatch. But the right amount of time seems to be in the three to five-day range, Saraph says.

The new features are rolling out to some portion of Match’s U.S. user base in beta, as the company kicks off a new brand campaign targeting adult daters. The campaign’s message is that Match understands what modern adult singles are looking for in order to date better, and these features are an example of that understanding being put into practice.

The beta tests are rolling out across all Match platforms, including iOS, Android, mobile web and desktop over the next few months, starting in the U.S.

The news follows a mixed earnings report from the dating app giant, Match Group, which owns top brands including Match, Tinder, OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, Hinge, and others. The company saw the impact of a pandemic recovery in the second quarter, with 15 million paying customers across its brands, up from 13 million in the year-ago quarter. Revenue was $707.8 million, topping analyst projections of $694 million. But Match Group missed on earnings, with net income of $140.9 million, or 46 cents a share, when analysts expected 49 cents per share.

The company also spoke in detail about its plans for social networking app maker Hyperconnect, a company Match bought for $1.73 billion earlier this year. Match Group said it plans to add audio and video chat, including live video, to its dating brand portfolio.

Match’s dating app is among those that will benefit from Hyperconnect integrations, Saraph told TechCrunch, as Match plans to explore “building out live experiences.” The company expects these to be added around year end towards the beginning of 2022, we’re told.

News: Early-stage brands should also unlock the power of influencers

• August 9, 2021
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Let’s demystify influencer marketing, learn how to couple it with a little-known paid marketing hack and uncover the numerous mediums to leverage influencer assets

They’ve made waves on every screen and have been sponsored by nearly every major brand, from Charli D’Amelio x Hollister to MrBeast x Honey. And they’re only multiplying.

If influencers aren’t part of your early-stage growth marketing plan, it’s time to get on board. When companies think of how to rapidly increase their reach and revenue, paid acquisition is always at the top of the list. But there are other important pillars in a growth marketing engine, such as leveraging lifecycle marketing, cultivating organic reach via SEO and doing later-stage brand marketing.

However, an often overlooked tactic for new brands is influencer marketing. If the value and power of influencer marketing were widespread knowledge, we would see more of an uptick. And it doesn’t help that we have a supply-constrained pool of marketers who understand how to unlock this lever.

Influencer marketing spending from 2016 to 2021 (predicted). Image Credits: Jonathan Martinez

This marketing tactic is only growing. So let’s demystify influencer marketing, learn how to couple it with a little-known paid marketing hack and uncover the numerous mediums to leverage influencer assets. After three years at Postmates (which nailed influencer marketing), being a YouTuber myself in 2008 and advising startups, I’ve unlocked the power of influencer marketing and want everyone to do the same.

Starting out

If there’s one key piece of advice to take from this column, it’s that influencer marketing isn’t solely for big brands. It’s for every brand. As you start to formulate your growth strategy, make sure to include an influencer pillar as part of the plan.

When reaching out to influencers, it’s a sheer numbers game in capturing their attention and pitching your brand, but there are myriad ways to increase response conversion. Below are the cold message components you must nail down before reaching out to influencers:

• Your brand pitch.
• An enticing offer.
• Clear next steps.

The one constant with influencers is the high number of messages they receive from fans and brands alike. If you’re at the marketing stage, nailing your pitch should hopefully be natural at this point, so utilize what you’ve crafted and condense it down to a sentence or two.

What are your brand’s key value propositions, and why should influencers care? To show them, relate your brand to their category, to their style and to the content that they post.

After the pitch, an irresistible offer needs to follow — something that’s the opposite of this: “I’ll send you a few samples of our protein bars.” The conversion rate will be a freakishly low tenth of a percent with that offer. Instead, make your offer enticing and utilize one of these structures: fixed fee, fixed fee + performance or performance.

Depending on budget and risk tolerance, there are a few ways to structure an influencer offer: paying a one-time fixed fee, paying for each conversion (CPA performance basis) or a hybrid of the two.

News: UN’s IPCC report on climate change sounds “code red” for planet

• August 9, 2021
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A major UN scientific report has concluded that human activity is changing the climate at an unprecedented rate. The report has been describe as a “code red for humanity” by its authors. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is stern and blunt in its conclusions: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed

A major UN scientific report has concluded that human activity is changing the climate at an unprecedented rate. The report has been describe as a “code red for humanity” by its authors.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is stern and blunt in its conclusions: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land,” it says.

The IPCC — a grouping of scientists whose findings are endorsed by the world’s governments — warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts, and flooding and a key temperature limit being broken inside the next decade.

This “means that the world will hit one-and-a-half degrees warming much earlier than expected, possibly the middle of 2034” says the report.

The IPCC says going past 1.5 C will create more intense and more frequent heat waves.

Prof. Ed Hawkins, from the University of Reading, U.K., one of the report’s authors said: “It is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet.”

However, the scientists say a catastrophe can be avoided if the world acts fast, and, with deep cuts to the emissions of greenhouse gases, could stabilize rising temperatures.

And scientists are hopeful that global emissions can be cut by 2030 and reach net zero by the middle of this century.

The report is the first major review by the IPCC since 2013 and comes less than three months before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

IPCC report key points

• 1.5 C will be reached by 2040 in all scenarios unless emissions aren’t slashed in the next few years.
• Keeping to 1.5 C will require “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions” in emissions and slower action leads to 2 C and more suffering for all life on Earth.
• Human influence is “very likely” (90%) the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea ice.
• Heat waves have become more frequent and more intense since the 1950s, while cold events have become less frequent and less severe.
• There will be likely increases in “fire weather” in many countries.
• Drought is increasing in more than 90% of regions.
• Global surface temperature was 1.09 C higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900.
• The past five years have been the hottest on record since 1850.
• The recent rate of sea-level rise has nearly tripled compared with 1901-1971.
• A rise of around 2 meters in sea levels by 2100 cannot be ruled out — and neither can a 5-meter rise by 2150, threatening millions of people in coastal areas.
• Extreme sea-level events that occurred once a century are projected to occur at least annually.

Under all the emissions scenarios considered in the report, all targets for reductions targets will be broken this century unless huge cuts in carbon emissions take place.

Solutions proposed by the scientists include using clean technology, carbon capture and storage, or planting trees.

Another co-author, Prof. Piers Forster from the University of Leeds, U.K., was quoted as saying: “If we are able to achieve net-zero, we hopefully won’t get any further temperature increase; and if we are able to achieve net-zero greenhouse gases, we should eventually be able to reverse some of that temperature increase and get some cooling.”

The IPCC report found that 2,400 billion tonnes of CO2 have been emitted by humanity since 1850, and that we can only leak another 400 billion tonnes to have a 66% chance of keeping to 1.5 C.

This means the planet has spent 86% of its carbon “budget” already.

Furthermore, no one is safe from the effects of climate change.

“We can no longer assume that citizens of more affluent and secure countries like Canada, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. will be able to ride out the worst excesses of a rapidly destabilizing climate,” says Prof. Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy. “It’s clear we’re all in the same boat — facing a challenge that will affect every one of us within our lifetimes.”