Customer experience management platform Medallia (NYSE: MDLA) rose more than 70% in its New York Stock Exchange debut Friday.

The nearly two-decades-old business priced its shares at $21 apiece, the top of its proposed range, Thursday evening and traded as high as $39.54 the following morning. Medallia closed up roughly 76% at about $37 per share on Friday.

Medallia sold a total of 15.5 million shares in its IPO, raising $326 million at a $2.5 billion valuation in the process.

San Mateo-headquartered Medallia, led by chief executive officer Leslie Stretch, operates a platform meant to help businesses better provide for their customers. Its core product, the Medallia Experience Cloud, provides employees real-time data on customers collected from online review sites and social media. The service leverages that data to provide insights and tools to improve customer experiences.

The company is backed by four venture capital firms: Sequoia Capital — which owned a roughly 40% pre-IPO stake — Saints Capital, TriplePoint Venture Growth and Grotmol Solutions, the latter which invested a small amount of capital in 2010. Medallia has raised a total of $268 million in equity funding, including a $70 million Series F funding earlier this year.

Sequoia’s 40% stake was worth upwards of $1.8 billion at Medallia’s high price Friday.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Medallia stock up 76% following first day trading on the NYSE

We’ve got great news for all the time-strapped female founders out there. Yeah, we’re looking at you, sister. We’re extending the application deadline to apply for the All Raise “ask me anything” (AMA) sessions at Disrupt SF 2019. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to meet with a leading female VC and, well, ask her anything. Apply for an AMA session by August 15.

Not familiar with All Raise? This startup nonprofit, dedicated to accelerating female founder success, will host a day-long AMA event on October 3 at Disrupt SF 2019 — in a dedicated section of Startup Alley. Each AMA session lasts 30 minutes and consists of three founders and one VC. All Raise expects more than 100 female founders to take part in at least 30 sessions scheduled throughout the day.

Don’t bring your pitches, bring your questions — the kind of questions that keep you up at night. It’s a rare opportunity to ask a leading VC advice on topics like your next raise, key hires, your competition. Imagine receiving business advice from any of these female VCs:

• Dayna Grayson, NEA
• Susan Lyne, BBG
• Shauntel Garvey, Reach Capital
• Eurie Kim, Forerunner
• Jess Lee, Sequoia
• Kara Nortman, Upfront
• Sara Guo, Greylock,
• Anarghya Vardhana, Maveron
• Eva Ho, Fika Ventures
• Sarah Smith, Bain Capital Ventures
• Jess Lin, Work-Bench

You can apply for an All Raise AMA session if you’re a U.S.-based woman founder and you’ve raised at least $250,000 in a seed, A or B round. All Raise gives special consideration to founders from underrepresented groups (e.g. Black, Latinx or LGBTQIA women).

All Raise will review the applications and notify the founders. Acceptance is based on availability for session spots, investor fit with industry sector and company stage, as well as demand for certain categories.

If you’re selected, your next step is to buy any pass to Disrupt SF (including Expo Only). All Raise will send an email to let you know what time they’ve scheduled your session.

Networking opportunities of this caliber don’t come along very often — especially for women in tech. Build connections, learn from expert female VCs and move your startup forward. Take advantage of the deadline extension and apply for an AMA session before August 15. We want to see you in San Francisco!

If you are interested in sponsoring this event or exhibiting at Disrupt San Francisco 2019, fill out this form to get in contact with our sales team.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Deadline extended! Apply to the All Raise female founder program at Disrupt SF 2019

The fast-growing Indian hospitality business Oyo has garnered a valuation of $10 billion after its founder, Ritesh Agarwal, purchased $2 billion in shares from venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company announced Friday.

Agarwal, 25, founded Oyo in 2013 at the age of 19. Following immense growth of the now global hotel chain business, Agarwal opted to increase his 10% stake to 30% via a Cayman Islands company called RA Hospitality Holdings, according to The Wall Street Journal. SoftBank has also increased its percent ownership as part of this round, now owning nearly half of the company.

Oyo has raised a whopping $1.6 billion in equity funding to date, reaching a valuation of $5 billion at its last funding round. Other investors in the company include Airbnb, Grab Holdings and Didi Chuxing.

Oyo is active in 800 cities in 80 countries, with more than 23,000 hotels in its portfolio. Recently, the company announced plans to invest $300 million in the U.S. market, where it currently operates more than 50 Oyo Hotels in 35 cities and 10 states.

Earlier this week, the Gurgaon-headquartered firm introduced Oyo Workspaces. The new entity was born out of its acquisition of Innov8, a co-working startup with more than 200 employees. The four-year-old startup was acquired for about $30 million, according to reporting by TechCrunch’s Manish Singh.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | India’s Oyo valued at B after founder purchases B in shares

AutoX, the Hong Kong and San Jose, Calif.-based autonomous vehicle technology company, is pushing past its grocery delivery roots and into the AV supplier and robotaxi business.

And now, it’s taking its business to Europe.

AutoX has partnered with NEVS — the Swedish holding company and electric vehicle manufacturer that bought Saab’s assets out of bankruptcy — to deploy a robotaxi pilot service in Europe by the end of 2020. Under the exclusive partnership, AutoX will integrate its autonomous drive technology into a next-generation electric vehicle inspired by NEVS’s “InMotion” concept that was shown at CES Asia in 2017.

This next-generation vehicle is being developed by NEVS in Trollhättan, Sweden. Testing of the autonomous NEVs vehicles will begin in the third quarter of 2019. The vehicles will hit public roads in Europe next year, the companies said. 

AutoX founder and CEO Jianxiong Xiao, commonly referred to as Professor X, noted that this particular vehicle is ideal for an autonomous taxi service because it is purpose-built for this specific application, doesn’t produce tailpipe emissions, can be used 24 hours a day and can help reduce the number of vehicles in the streets.

The companies ultimately want to deploy a large fleet of robotaxis globally.

The partnership with NEVs is the latest sign that AutoX has broader ambitions for its autonomous vehicle technology than delivery services. AutoX launched in 2016 and was initially focused on using self-driving vehicles for delivering packages, namely groceries. Last August, the startup kicked off a grocery delivery and mobile store pilot in a limited area in San Jose in partnership with GrubMarket.com and local high-end grocery store DeMartini Orchard.

But more recently, the company, which has raised about $58 million from venture and strategic investors, has expanded its plans. The company now wants to supply manufacturers with autonomous vehicle technology and launch its own robotaxi service.

In June, AutoX became the second company to receive permission from California regulators to transport passengers in its robotaxis. AutoX is calling its California robotaxi service xTaxi.

The California Public Utilities Commission has also granted Pony.ai, Waymo and Zoox permits to participate in the state’s Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service pilot, which prohibits the companies from charging for these robotaxi rides.

Professor X has previously said his mission is to open up autonomous vehicles to everyone, and so this expansion shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s a goal the company contends can be reached using economical (and better) hardware. The company does use light detection and ranging radar, known as lidar. But instead of loading up its self-driving vehicles with numerous expensive lidar units, AutoX relies more on cameras, which it argues have better resolution. The company’s proprietary AI algorithms tie everything together.

For now, the xTaxi pilot in California will be rather limited. It will operate in the same operational design domain as the delivery service in San Jose, an area of about five square miles. But the company clearly has ambitions to expand both in size and geographic reach. AutoX has more than 115 employees, and plans to hire more than 50 people this year.

The company is also working with San Jose city government to launch another pilot downtown. It has yet to reveal details, although the pilot could launch as early as next month.

AutoX also has a permit to operate a robotaxi service in Shenzhen, China. It’s not clear whether the company will operate this service on its own or follow the model it set in Europe with NEVS. It’s possible AutoX will partner with BYD in China. AutoX is already working with the Chinese company to integrate its AV tech into BYD vehicles.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Self-driving startup AutoX expands beyond deliveries and sets its sights on Europe