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Better Health raises $3.5M seed round to reinvent medical supply shopping through e-commerce
The home medical supply market in the U.S. is significant and growing, but the way that Americans go about getting much-needed medical supplies, particularly for those with chronic conditions, relies on outdated and clumsy sales mechanisms that often have very poor customer experiences. New startup Better Health aims to change that, with an e-commerce approach to serving customers in need of medical supplies for chronic conditions, and it has raised $3.5 million in a new seed round to pursue its goals.
Better Health estimates the total value of the home medical supplies market in the U.S., which covers all reimbursable devices and supplies needed for chronic conditions, including things like colostomy bags, catheters, mobility aids, insulin pumps and more, is around $60 billion annually. But the market is obviously a specialized one relative to other specialized goods businesses, in part because it requires working not only with customers who make the final decisions about what supplies to use, but also payers, who typically foot the bill through insurance reimbursements.
The other challenge is that individuals with chronic care needs often require a lot of guidance and support when making the decision about what equipment and supplies to select — and the choices they make can have a significant impact on quality of life. Better Health co-founder and CEO Naama Stauber Breckler explained how she came to identify the problems in the industry, and why she set out to address them.
“The first company I started was right out of school, it’s called CompactCath,” she explained in an interview. “We created a novel intermittent catheter, because we identified that there’s a gap in the existing options for people with chronic bladder issues that need to use a catheter on a day-to-day basis […] In the process of bringing it to market, I was exposed to the medical devices and supplies industry. I was just shocked when I realized how hard it is for people today to get life-saving medical supplies, and basically realized that it’s not just about inventing a better product, there’s kind of a bigger systematic problem that locks consumer choice, and also prevents innovation in the space.”
Stauber Breckler’s founding story isn’t too dissimilar from the founding story of another e-commerce pioneer: Shopify. The now-public heavyweight originally got started when founder Tobi Lütke, himself a software engineer like Stauber Breckler, found that the available options for running his online snowboard store were poorly designed and built. With Better Health, she’s created a marketplace, rather than a platform like Shopify, but the pain points and desire to address the problem at a more fundamental level are the same.
Better Health head of Product Adam Breckler, left, and CEO Naama Stauber Breckler, right. Image Credits: Better Health
With CompactCath, she said they ended up having to build their own direct-to-consumer marketing and sales product, and through that process, they ended up talking to thousands of customers with chronic conditions about their experiences, and what they found exposed the extent of the problems in the existing market.
“We kept hearing the same stories again, and again — it’s hard to find the right supplier, often it’s a local store, the process is extremely manual and lengthy and prone to errors, they get the surprise bills they weren’t expecting,” Stauber Breckler said. “But mostly, it’s just that there is this really sharp drop in care, from the time that you have a surgery or you were diagnosed, to when you need to now start using this device, when you’re essentially left at home and are given a general prescription.”
Unlike in the prescription drug market, where your choices essentially amount to whether you pick the brand name or the generic, and the outcome is pretty much the same regardless, in medical supplies which solution you choose can have a dramatically different effect on your experience. Customers might not be aware, for example, that something like CompactCath exists, and would instead choose a different catheter option that limits their mobility because of how frequently it needs changing and how intensive the process is. Physicians and medical professionals also might not be the best to advise them on their choice, because while they’ve obviously seen patients with these conditions, they generally haven’t lived with them themselves.
“We have talked to people who tell us, ‘I’ve had an ostomy for 19 years, and this is the first time I don’t have constant leakages’ or someone who had been using a catheter for three years and hasn’t left her house for more than two hours, because they didn’t feel comfortable with the product that they had to use it in a public restroom,” Stauber Breckler said. “So they told us things like ‘I finally went to visit my parents, they live in a town three hours away.’ ”
Better Health can provide this kind of clarity to customers because it employs advisors who can talk patients through the equipment selection process with one-to-one coaching and product use education. The startup also helps with navigating the insurance side, managing paperwork, estimating costs and even arguing the case for a specific piece of equipment in case of difficulty getting the claim approved. The company leverages peers who have firsthand experience with the chronic conditions it serves to help better serve its customers.
Already, Better Health is a Medicare-licensed provider in 48 states, and it has partnerships in place with commercial providers like Humana and Oscar Health. This funding round was led by 8VC, a firm with plenty of expertise in the healthcare industry and an investor in Stauber Breckler’s prior ventures, and includes participation from Caffeinated Capital, Anorak Ventures and angels Robert Hurley and Scott Flanders of remote health pioneer eHealth.
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Argentina’s Digital House raises over $50M to help solve LatAm’s tech talent shortage
Digital House, a Buenos Aires-based edtech focused on developing tech talent through immersive remote courses, announced today it has raised more than $50 million in new funding.
Notably, two of the main investors are not venture capital firms but instead are two large tech companies: Latin American e-commerce giant Mercado Libre and San Francisco-based software developer Globant. Riverwood Capital, a Menlo Park-based private equity firm, and existing backer early-stage Latin American venture firm Kaszek also participated in the financing.
The raise brings Digital House’s total funding raised to more than $80 million since its 2016 inception. The Rise Fund led a $20 million Series B for Digital House in December 2017, marking the San Francisco-based firm’s investment in Latin America.
Nelson Duboscq, CEO and co-founder of Digital House, said that accelerating demand for tech talent in Latin America has fueled demand for the startup’s online courses. Since it first launched its classes in March 2016, the company has seen a 118% CAGR in revenues and a 145% CAGR in students. The 350-person company expects “and is on track” to be profitable this year, according to Duboscq.
Digital House CEO and co-founder Nelson Duboscq. Image Credits: Digital House
In 2020, 28,000 students across Latin America used its platform. The company projects that more than 43,000 will take courses via its platform in 2021. Fifty percent of its business comes out of Brazil, 30% from Argentina and the remaining 20% in the rest of Latin America.
Specifically, Digital House offers courses aimed at teaching “the most in-demand digital skills” to people who either want to work in the digital industry or for companies that need to train their employees on digital skills. Emphasizing practice, Digital House offers courses — that range from six months to two years — teaching skills such as web and mobile development, data analytics, user experience design, digital marketing and product development.
The courses are fully accessible online and combine live online classes led by in-house professors, with content delivered through Digital House’s platform via videos, quizzes and exercises “that can be consumed at any time.”
Digital House also links its graduates to company jobs, claiming an employability rate of over 95%.
Looking ahead, Digital House says it will use its new capital toward continuing to evolve its digital training platforms, as well as launching a two-year tech training program — dubbed the the “Certified Tech Developer” initiative — jointly designed with Mercado Libre and Globant. The program aims to train thousands of students through full-time two-year courses and connect them with tech companies globally.
Specifically, the company says it will also continue to expand its portfolio of careers beyond software development and include specialization in e-commerce, digital marketing, data science and cybersecurity. Digital House also plans to expand its partnerships with technology employers and companies in Brazil and the rest of Latin America. It also is planning some “strategic M&A,” according to Duboscq.
Francisco Alvarez-Demalde, co-founder & co-managing partner of Riverwood Capital, noted that his firm has observed an accelerating digitization of the economy across all sectors in Latin America, which naturally creates demand for tech-savvy talent. (Riverwood has an office in São Paulo).
For example, in addition to web developers, there’s been increased demand for data scientists, digital marketing and cybersecurity specialists.
“In Brazil alone, over 70,000 new IT professionals are needed each year and only about 45,000 are trained annually,” Alvarez-Demalde said. “As a result of such a talent crunch, salaries for IT professionals in the region increased 20% to 30% last year. In this context, Digital House has a large opportunity ahead of them and is positioned strategically as the gatekeeper of new digital talent in Latin America, preparing workers for the jobs of the future.”
André Chaves, senior VP of Strategy at Mercado Libre, said the company saw in Digital House a track record of “understanding closely” what Mercado Libre and other tech companies need.
“They move as fast as we do and adapt quickly to what the job market needs,” he said. “A very important asset for us is their presence and understanding of Latin America, its risks and entrepreneurial environment. Global players have succeeded for many years in our region. But things are shifting gradually, and local knowledge of risks and opportunities can make a great difference.”
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Acquisition-happy space infrastructure company Redwire set to go public via SPAC
The latest in a string of space tech SPACs announced this year is Redwire, an entity created by a PE firm in 2020, which has acquired a number of smaller companies including Adcole Space, Roccor, Made in Space, LoadPath, Oakman Aerospace, Deployable Space Systems and more — all within the last year or so. Redwire announced that it will go public through a merger with special purpose acquisition company Genesis Park Acquisition Corp., and the combined company will list on the NYSE.
The deal puts Redwire’s pro forma enterprise value at $615 million, and is expected to provide an additional $170 million to Redwire’s coffers post-merger, including a PIPE valued at over $100 million. Unsurprisingly, one of the uses of the proceeds that Redwire intends to pursue is continued M&A activity to build out its list of service offerings in the space domain.
Redwire’s mandate isn’t specifically to go after new space companies, and instead its targets share in common expertise in a particular, rather narrow slice of the severally crowded space market. It’s capabilities include on-orbit manufacturing and servicing; satellite design, manufacture and assembly; payload integration; sensor design and development; and more. The idea appears to be to build a full-stack infrastructure company that can offer tip-to-tail space technology services, exclusive really only of launch and ground station components (for now).
It’s a smart approach for a bourgeoning new space economy where increasingly, technology companies who want to operate in space would rather focus on their unique value proposition, and outsource the complex, but mostly settled business of actually getting to, and operating in, space. Other companies are addressing the market in similar ways, with launchers bringing more of that part of the process in-house so their payload customers basically only have to show up with the sensor or communication device they want to send to space, and the launcher providing everything else — including even the satellite, in the relatively near future.
Redwire has proven revenue-generating power, with projected 2021 revenue of $163 million, and many of the companies now operating under its umbrella are fairly mature and have been operating cash flow positive for many years. Accordingly, a SPAC as a path to public markets likely does make sense in this particular instance, but the increasing frequency and volume of space companies choosing this route, is, on the whole, a trend to watch with healthy skepticism.
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The best logos of Y Combinator’s W21 batch
Our picks for the most intriguing companies of Y Combinator’s latest batch were based entirely on substance and our endless expertise, so it’s time for something much more superficial. Here are the 11 best logos from the hundreds of companies that presented yesterday.
Watching companies go by 60 seconds at a time for like eight hours was pretty mind-numbing, even when a lot of them were cool, but I always perked up when I saw something with a nice logo. So I started marking them down, and sure enough soon a post appeared.
Sadly many of these will be bought in short order and their cool logos retired, like what happened with my favorite recent logo, DataFleets. I guess it isn’t really sad because they all get super rich, but there goes a perfectly good logo, you know?
Anyway, let’s proceed. These aren’t in any particular order except that the first three are my favorites and the rest all tie for fourth.
Enombic
A capital E always makes a lot of interesting geometric possibilities available. Enombic’s logo makes the most of this famous trisulc optical illusion while not overdoing it, giving a clear (if impossible) shape that is also obviously a letter — without any extraneous lines or materials, in fact with the absolute minimum. The clean type is also well-chosen (and avoids repetition by changing case). Gold star.
Uiflow
This isn’t the first time a U and I have been joined in this way, but it’s done here very elegantly and with complementary curves and spacing in all the right places. They use the inversion of the above as well, but I think white on black looks better than black on white.
Perfect Recall
Here’s one where the logo is informed by the purpose of the company, which records and highlights video calls. A loop with an arrow is a universal cross-lingual symbol for returning to something, and there are a few ways to do this that are flashier but don’t look as good. Getting the effect of a circle and not just a semicircle without compromising the shape of the P is a tough thing to balance. This logo does have the awkward side effect of putting a recognizable P right before the P in perfect, so you end up with PPerfect Recall. It happens a lot, but still something to watch out for.
Furmacy
Another logo actually informed by the company’s purpose, this one combined with the logotype could do with a little more work (the tail curve bothers me, the plus is too much, and the Dr Mario player in me wants a solid lower capsule half) — but it’s immediately recognizable and adequately communicates what the company does wordlessly, a rare quality. Got to hand it to them for the name, too.
Routine
It’s a bold decision to leave off half the “o” in any situation, since it can quickly become another letter or symbol if you don’t do it right. In this case using it as a rising sun works really well, also suggesting the purpose of the app. Having an uppercase R the same size as the lowercase letters is normally something that would really bother me, and might have gone badly, but it works here because of the white space left by the o. Not perfect, but surprisingly palatable.
Dashlabs.ai
I liked the idea of this one, but the graphic needs simplification. The proportions are off with the eyepiece, lens barrel and plate, and the dial is one element too many. I like the slotted D, but there’s something off about it. Maybe it’s an optical illusion, but some of the stripes look thicker than the others. Actually, now that I look closely it’s super obvious someone left an extra pixel on the bottom layer. The geometric type is solid too, but lose the .ai, it’s small and weird. Just… Dashlabs.
Mendel
This one truly seems to have no connection whatsoever to the company, or even the famed geneticist, but I just love the M-mountain. It would have been legendary if Mendel made hiking boots or camping gear (not too late for a pivot). This kind of letter-art is surprisingly rare to find done well, and this is really just on the charming side of primitive, but you can see the thought that went into it. The type isn’t great, though — I can’t stand those billowy d’s.
Nuntius Therapeutics
DNA’s double helix structure (tied in with Nuntius’s gene therapy) can be used to create lots of forms, but this capital N is really a nice one. The stylized bases aren’t exactly biologically accurate, but they work well and the sinuous curve of the helix flows beautifully into the circle.
Aspen Cloud
The muted rainbow has been used to death, but apparently they just didn’t mute it enough. Aspen Cloud goes all the way into pastels, but they’re harmonious enough that they suggest CMYK rather than other polychromatic logos. The leaf-tree combo is simple and memorable, they avoid weight and symmetry problems and the colors are nicely arranged. On a white background it recedes harmlessly and on a black one it pops. Can’t say the same about the type, though. Can’t really say anything at all.
PingPong
I hate this high-visibility color when it’s on the stupid Uber bikes that litter my neighborhood, but I have to say, it makes for a great dot. The full logotype is nothing to write home about (any logotype for a company called “ping pong” that doesn’t utilize some kind of symmetrical or two-sided motif is a waste), but what I assume is the app logo is great. The darker grey tone does a lot of work — it establishes a sort of “off-camera light” that casts a shadow, and because it’s ever so slightly narrower than the dot/ball, it gives an illusion of depth as well. I suppose it could be interpreted as being the flight line of the ball (i.e. it is zooming up and to the left) but I like my way better. It also might be a little too close to the flag of Japan.
MagicBell
I don’t know why this works, but it does. The bell combined with the chicken takes two “alarms” and makes them one cute item that screams (or rather crows) “notifications.” Or possibly “Peeps.” Let’s just hope Nintendo doesn’t sue them for infringement of a bunch of the bird-type characters in Animal Crossing (especially Knox).
Good work to all these companies and the many more I only didn’t list because I got tired. Design is important, not just for catching the user’s eye, but because it indicates attention to detail and an approach beyond the purely functional — something startups often struggle with.
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Y Combinator’s biotech startups incubate a new generation of therapies and tools
Medical and biotech had a strong showing at Y Combinator’s latest demo day, with nearly a dozen companies in the space catching my eye. The things a startup can accomplish in this space are astonishing these days, so don’t be surprised if a few of these companies are headline news in the next year.
Startups take on big pharma
Atom Bioworks has one of the shortest timelines and highest potential impacts; as I wrote in our second set of favorites from demo day, the company seems to be fairly close to one of the Holy Grails of biochemistry, a programmable DNA machine. These tools can essentially “code” a molecule so that it reliably sticks to a specific substance or cell type, which allows a variety of follow-up actions to be taken.
For instance, a DNA machine could lock onto COVID-19 viruses and then release a chemical signal indicating infection before killing the virus. The same principle applies to a cancer cell. Or a bacterium. You get the picture.
Atom’s founders have published the details of their techniques in Nature Chemistry, and the company says it’s working on a COVID-19 test as well as therapies for the virus and other conditions. It expects sales in the nine-figure range.
Another company along these lines is LiliumX. This company is going after “biospecific antibodies,” which are kind of like prefab DNA machines. Our own antibodies learn to target various pathogens, waste and other items the body doesn’t want, and customized, injected antibodies can do the same for cancer cells.
LiliumX is taking the algorithmic approach to generating potential antibody structures that could be effective, as many AI-informed biotech companies have before it. But the company is also using a robotic testing setup to thin the herd and get in vitro results for its more promising candidates. Going beyond lead generation is a difficult step, but one that makes the company that much more valuable.
Entelexo is one step further down the line, having committed to developing a promising class of therapeutics called exosomes that could help treat autoimmune diseases. These tiny vesicles (think packages for inter-cell commerce) can carry all kinds of materials, including customized mRNA that can modify another cell’s behavior.
Modifying cell behavior systematically could help mitigate conditions like multiple sclerosis, though the company did not elaborate on the exact mechanism — probably not something that can be explained in less than a minute. They’re already into animal testing, which is surprising for a startup.
One step further, at least mechanically, is Nuntius Therapeutics, which is working on ways to deliver cell-specific (i.e. to skeletal muscle, kidney cells, etc.) DNA, RNA and CRISPR-based therapies. This is an issue for cutting-edge treatments: while they can be sure of taking the correct action once in contact with the target cell type, they can’t be sure that the therapeutic agent will ever reach those cells. Like ambulance drivers without an address, they can’t do their jobs if they can’t get there.
Nuntius claims to have created a reliable way to deliver genetic therapy payloads to a variety of target cells, beyond what major pharma companies like Moderna have accomplished. The company also develops and licenses its own drugs, so it’s practically a one-stop shop for genetic therapies if its techniques pan out for human use.
Beyond providing therapeutics, there is the evolving field of artificial organs. These are still highly experimental, partly due to the risk of rejection even when using biocompatible materials. Trestle Biotherapeutics is taking on a specific problem — kidney failure — with implantable lab-grown kidney tissue that can help get these patients off dialysis.
While the plan is to eventually create full kidney replacements, the truth is that for people with this condition, every week and month counts. Not only does it improve their chances of finding a donor or moving up the list, but regular dialysis is a horrible process by all accounts. Anything that reduces the need to rely on it would be welcomed by millions.
This Yale-Harvard tie-up comes from a team with quite a bit of experience in stem cell science and tissue engineering, including 3D printing human tissues — which no doubt is part of the approach.
Beyond therapy
Moving beyond actual techniques for fighting various conditions, the YC batch had quite a few dedicated to improving the process of researching and understanding those conditions and techniques.
Many industries rely on cloud-based document platforms like Google Docs for sharing and collaboration, but while copywriters and sales folks probably find the standard office suite sufficient, that’s not necessarily the case for scientists whose disciplines demand special documentation and formatting.
Curvenote is a shared document platform built with these folks in mind; it integrates with Jupyter, SaturnCloud and Sagemaker, supports lots of import and export options, integrates visualization plug-ins like Plotly, and versions through Git. Now you just have to convince the head of your department it’s worth paying for.
Image Credits: Curvenote
A more specialized cloud tool can be found in Pipe | bio, which does hosted bioinformatics for developing antibody drugs like LiliumX. It’s hard to get into details here beyond that the computational and database needs of companies in biotech can be very specific and not everyone has a bioinformatics specialist on staff.
Having a tool you can just pay for instead of getting a data science grad student to moonlight for your lab is almost always preferable. (Also preferable is not using special characters in your company name — just saying, it’s going to come up.)
Special tools can be found on the benchtop as well as the laptop, though, and the remaining companies are firmly in meatspace.
Forcyte is another company I highlighted in our favorite demo day companies roundups: It’s less about chemistry and molecular biology than the actual physical phenomena experienced by cells. This is a difficult thing to observe systematically, but important for many reasons.
The company uses a micropatterned surface to observe individual cells and watch specifically for contraction and other shape changes. Physical constriction or relaxation of cells is at the heart of several major diseases and their treatments, so being able to see and track it will be extremely helpful for researchers.
The company has positioned itself as a way to test drugs at scale that affect these properties and claims to have already found promising compounds for lung fibrosis. Forcyte’s team is published in Nature, and received a $2.5 million SBIR award from the NIH, a pretty rare endorsement.
Image Credits: Kilobaser
Kilobaser is taking aim at the growing DNA synthesizing space; companies often contract with dedicated synthesizing labs to create batches of custom DNA molecules, but at a small scale this might be better done in-house.
Kilobaser’s benchtop machine makes the process as simple as using a copier, even for people with no technical know-how. As long as it has some argon, a reagent supply and microfluidic chip (sold by the company, naturally), it can replicate DNA you submit digitally in less than two hours. This could accelerate testing in many a small lab that’s held back by its reliance on a separate facility. The company has already sold 15 machines at €15,000 each — but like razor blades, the real money is in the refills.
Image Credits: Reshape Biotech
Reshape Biotech is perhaps the most straightforward of the bunch. Its approach to automating common lab tasks is to create custom robots for each one. That’s it! Of course, that’s easier said than done, but given the similarity of many lab layouts and equipment, a custom robotic sampler or autoclave could be adopted by thousands as (again) an alternative to hiring another part-time grad student.
There were several other companies in the biotech and medical space worth looking at in the batch, but not enough space here to highlight them individually. Suffice it to say that the space is increasingly welcoming to startups as advances in tech and software are brought to bear where insuperable barriers to entry once left such possibilities remote.
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Announcing the TC Early Stage Pitch-Off startups
Next week, TechCrunch is hosting Early Stage — a virtual bootcamp for founders to gain the critical insight needed to launch and scale their companies. Day one is all about how-to’s. What about day two? April 2 is the inaugural TC Early Stage Pitch-Off featuring 10 exceptional early-stage startups.
The Pitch-Off is split into two segments. For the semifinals, each company will pitch for five minutes followed by a Q&A with our expert panel of judges. Check them out here, you might see some names you recognize. Three startups will make it into the final round — same pitch but a new batch of judges with a deeper Q&A.
We know you are excited to see who has made it. Tune in on April 2 to watch TC’s first Early Stage Pitch-Off event. Without further ado:
Session 1: 9:00 a.m. – 9:50 a.m. PDT
Clocr (Austin, Texas) — Clocr provides an all-in-one digital legacy planning and disbursement platform backed by patent-pending security.
Crispify (Tel Aviv, Israel) — Crispify provides air-quality monitoring and management solutions for mobility-as-a-service fleets like Uber, Avis and Zipcar.
Fitted (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) — Fitted is the ultimate closet management service. [Fitted] combines a subscription laundry service with integrated technology that assists urban dwellers discover, clean and donate their clothes.
hi.health (Vienna, Austria) — hi.health provides zero friction financing for out-of-pocket health expenses, currently in Germany. The offering enables direct reimbursement solutions for pharmacies, medical product and service providers — where previously the insured person had to spend their own money and then file for reimbursement.
Pivot Market (Miami, Florida) — Pivot Market is a B2B marketplace where consumer brands gain immediate distribution in physical stores. Brand rent spaces inside B&M stores and stores earn money by managing those spaces on behalf of the brands.
Session 2: 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. PDT
Soon (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Soon’s patent-pending cash flow algorithm automates investing from start to finish, with the best combination of simplicity and wealth generation in a personal finance solution. Soon functions across all assets from your checking account to your savings and more.
Nalagenetics (Singapore City, Singapore) — Nalagenetics designs and develops preemptive genetic tests for developing markets. By combining genetic, clinical and behavioral data from patients, Nalagenetics builds localized risk-prediction models for minorities, starting with Asian populations
The Last Gameboard (Boulder, Colorado) — Gameboard is a gaming device and platform that unleashes the power of digital media with tactile movements of physical game pieces, creating a new genre of phygital gaming for tabletop fans.
Attention Quotient by Mindwell Labs (New York, New York) — Mindwell Labs is a precision healthcare technology startup. Its first consumer product is AQ
— the first personalized mental fitness tracking and training app that uses our unique biomarkers to measure and improve attention.
FLX Solutions (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) — FLX Solutions is pioneering functional applications for robotics with highly intelligent robots that are miniaturized to operate in spaces that humans and traditional robots cannot easily access. Our first product, The FLX BOT, is a patented 1″ diameter snake-like robot that is able to fit into these spaces to inspect, map, and then autonomously perform any required maintenance.
Finals: 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. PDT
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Dear Sophie: When can I finally come to Silicon Valley?
Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.
“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”
Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.
Dear Sophie:
I’m a startup founder looking to expand in the U.S. I was originally looking at opening an office in Silicon Valley to be close to software engineers and investors, but then … COVID-19 🙂
A lot has changed over the last year — can I still come?
— Hopeful in Hungary
Dear Hopeful:
How and where work is getting done in Silicon Valley (as well as in much of the world) shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic. That said, yes, it can still make business sense for many to join the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
According to a recent report from PitchBook, Silicon Valley will continue to be the center for VC investment and high-tech talent, even though several large tech companies relocated out of Silicon Valley and implemented full-time work-from-home policies — and many predicted that “the Bay Area tech scene as we know it would be lost, and VC would find a new home.”
Clearly, while the pandemic’s impact on the venture industry will be felt in years to come, VC will continue to be centered in Silicon Valley. In a recent episode of my podcast, I discussed work trends and how to use immigration to support company priorities as well as attract and retain talent in the United States.
The PitchBook report points out that Silicon Valley “has kept a tight hold on fundraising in the U.S., closing on commitments exceeding $151 billion over the past five years, more than the rest of the U.S. ecosystems combined. LPs have continued to funnel capital to area VCs because of the region’s track record of success, which includes 17 of the 22 U.S. companies to ever receive a private valuation of $10 billion or more.”
Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)
So while VCs will likely return to the old ways of networking and funding post-pandemic, we’ll see a hybrid of online and in-person meetings because there are so many benefits to in-person networking and exchanging ideas.
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Dual-event ticket prices to TC Early Stage 2021 increase this Friday
We’ve all heard the adage, less is more. But when it comes to learning all the complex ins and outs of building and launching a successful startup, more is definitely the way to go. Enter not one, but two bootcamp experiences for the early-stage crowd: TC Early Stage: Operations & Fundraising on April 1-2 and TC Early Stage: Marketing & Fundraising on July 8-9.
Here’s another relevant adage: A penny saved is a penny earned. Kill two adages with one click, buy a dual-event pass at the early-bird price and you’ll save $100 or more. More knowledge for less money — what’s not to love?
Big, fat caveat: Procrastinate at your own peril. Prices on dual-event passes go up this Friday, March 26 at precisely 11:59 pm (PST).
Both TC Early Stage events focus on the essential skills every founder needs to succeed, and you’ll learn from leading industry experts. Each bootcamp features a discrete set of speakers, range of topics and presentations, but they’re all dedicated to helping founders in the early stages of the startup journey build a solid foundation.
We have a tremendously talented group of people ready to share their expertise and experience with you. Check out the TC Early Stage agenda for April.
Here’s another cool commonality: Day two of each bootcamp features a TC Early Stage Pitch-Off. You’ll tune in live to watch 10 global early-stage companies pitch to a panel of top VCs. The ultimate winner will be featured on TechCrunch.com, receive an annual Extra Crunch subscription and attend TC Disrupt this September — gratis.
Contenders for the April pitch-off are ready to go, but we’ll be opening the application process for July soon, so keep checking back for your chance to bring the heat.
We’re busy building out the agenda for July’s TC Early Stage: Marketing & Fundraising, but we’re thrilled to share that Lisa Wu, a partner at Norwest — with investments like Calm, Plaid, Opendoor and Grove Collaborative — will join us to discuss how to ace a one-hour pitch. Spoiler alert: think like a VC.
Get more and spend less is the best possible adage (okay, we made that up). But hey, saving $100 or more on a dual-event pass to TC Early Stage in April and July is just a smart way to go. Buy your pass before the deadline hits this Friday, March 26 at 11:59 pm (PST).
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A look at 4 IPO updates and 2 late-stage funding rounds
Covering YC Demo Day yesterday was good fun, but I missed a few items while watching several hundred startup pitches. A few years ago, these stories might have been the biggest news of the week.
But with the venture capital market redlining its engines while public markets remain sympathetic to growing, unprofitable companies, there’s lots going on. So, as a follow-up to our first late-stage roundup that we published yesterday morning, here’s another.
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This time we’re discussing IPO news from DigitalOcean (context), Kaltura (context), Robinhood (context) and Zymergen, and big rounds for Lattice and goPuff. That’s a lot to chew on, but I’ll be brief and to the point.
We’ll commence with the IPO news and then pivot into the late-stage rounds, just in case more drops this morning while we’re typing our way through yesterday’s news. Let’s go!
IPO updates
Today’s most pressing news is that DigitalOcean, a provider of cloud services to small businesses, priced its IPO at $47 per share last night. That was right at the top of its public-offering price range of $44 to $47. Before counting shares reserved for its underwriters, DigitalOcean is worth just under $5 billion.
And the company raised a gross $775.5 million in the offering, giving DigitalOcean a massive war chest to pursue its vision. As the company has proved increasingly unprofitable on a GAAP basis in recent years, the extra cash isn’t a problem: DigitalOcean plans to reduce its aggregate debt load with some of the proceeds, which will improve its profitability.
The company won’t trade for hours, so we’re done with DigitalOcean for now. File it in your mind as a win, as the company raised $50 million last year at a $1.1 billion valuation (PitchBook data). That’s a quick 5x.
Next up from the IPO treadmill is Kaltura, which released a first guess of its market value as a public company. Targeting $14 to $16 per share in its impending debut, the video software company is worth around $2 billion at the top end of its range, not counting shares reserved for its underwriting banks or other shares tied up in vested options and recruited stock units (RSUs).
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Plaid accelerator announces inaugural cohort of fintech startups
Plaid, the fintech giant, has announced the inaugural cohort of startups in its new accelerator program, FinRise.
The equity-free and capital-free program has chosen five early-stage fintech startups out of 100 applications to join its cohort, working on issues central to the financial services industry such as simplifying payments and access to credit. The accelerator, announced two months ago, is explicitly focused on backing underrepresented founders in tech.
Last week, The Information reported that Plaid is nearing a new financing deal that would value the company at between $10 billion to $15 billion. Beyond a high valuation, Plaid sports a key characteristic that positions it well to help early-stage startups: it has gone through regulatory hurdles. Months ago, Plaid announced it would not merge with Visa in what would have been a $5.3 billion acquisition. This event, as well as advice on how private fintech startups can deal with policy issues, will be part of FinRise programming.
While participants don’t get funding, FinRise has collated a number of “capital access partners,” which basically means investors who are committed to meeting with these companies and potentially writing a check. This network includes Accion, Acrew, Amex Ventures, Flourish, Harlem Capital, Kapor, Matrix, Village Capital, Visible Hands and First Round.
Here’s a look at the five startups:
- Global Data Consortium is building a process for global digital identity verification for businesses. Co-founded by Bill Spruill and Charles Gaddy, the startup is building a data supplier network of more than 200 sources to help build a standard of processes around digital identity verification. “As we continue to scale our platform it’s important to make sure our technical infrastructure continues to be enterprise-ready. Plaid’s engineering expertise and knowledge will prove useful to our team to help us plan and execute around our next level of service support architecture,” Spruill told TechCrunch.
- Guidefi is a marketplace focused on connecting communities of color to culturally savvy financial advisors. Led by Charlene Fadirepo, the financial wellness startup doesn’t charge for matches to advisors, but only charges money once services begin.
- OfColor wants to be the go-to enterprise wellness platform for employees of color. Founder Yemi Rose tells TechCrunch that “a lot of companies we encounter generally pride themselves on being colorblind in their HR benefit practices, in spite of outcomes that show a different approach is needed…our biggest hurdle is education.” The startup focuses on features like a personalized financial manager as well as loans that allow employees to maximize their 401(k) contribution.
- Walnut is a point-of-sale lending platform that wants to make healthcare more affordable for patients. Roshan Patel, founder and CEO of the startup, says that its biggest competitor is PrimaHealth Credit, which focuses on elective care. “Walnut is care-agnostic: no matter where you are in the healthcare system, you can use Walnut to break up your bill into an installment plan that works for you. That can be at the dentist or cosmetic surgery practice, but it can also be in the emergency room or at your primary care physician,” he said.
- Zeta wants to build a better joint-bank experience for the modern couple. First covered by TechCrunch in February, Zeta has already raised $1.5 million in venture funding to create a platform that makes it easier to join accounts and split purchases. “In some ways, we see ourselves as part of a replacement for Venmo,” CEO and co-founder Aditi Shekar said. “We saw couples Venmoing back and forth to each other sometimes six times a day…we want to take over your money chores.” While Zeta is entering the market as a tool for couples, Shekar sees the startup’s moonshot as being the go-to operational account for any modern household.
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