Indulge us as we paraphrase the song, Anything You Can Do from the movie, “Annie Get Your Gun.” Anything you can code, I can code better. I can code anything better than you.

If that describes your skills and attitude, it’s time — as we say in the States — to put up or shut up. We’re calling all code slingers to take part in the TC Hackathon at Disrupt Berlin 2019. We’re limiting participation to 500 people, so don’t wait. Apply here today.

Oh, and it doesn’t cost anything to apply or participate. In fact, we give you a free Innovator pass to attend the show.

What’s at stake? Along with your reputation, you have a shot at winning a $5,000 prize from TechCrunch for the best overall hack. Plus, you and your team (either the one you bring or the one you find onsite) will choose one of several sponsored challenges — each one offering its own cash and prizes.

We’ll make an official announcement about specific sponsors and contests, but last year’s sponsored contests, prizes and winners will give you a sense of the kind of projects to expect.

Teams have just 36 hours to design, create and code a working solution to a real-world problem. It’s not easy — you’ll be tired, stressed out and probably a tad cranky. But we’ll keep you fed, watered and hopped up on caffeine for the duration.

The first round of judging will no doubt remind you of your high school science fair…only with bigger stakes. Judges will select just 10 teams to move into the finals, which take place on day two. Those teams will have just two sleep-deprived minutes to present and pitch their project on the Extra Crunch Stage.

After the judges confer, the individual sponsors will announce their winners and award their prizes. Then TechCrunch will select its choice for best overall hack — and award that team one of those oversized checks for $5,000.

TC Hackathon takes place during Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December. Don’t miss your chance to strut your stuff, build something amazing and take home some serious ka-ching. Apply to the Hackathon today.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Compete in the TC Hackathon at Disrupt Berlin 2019

Koru Kids, the London-based startup that helps you find and manage childcare, has raised £10 million in new funding to scale its platform.

The Series A round is led by Atomico, with Atomico Partner Niall Wass joining the company’s board. Also participating are previous investors AlbionVC, Forward Partners, Samos, JamJar, Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital, and 7Percent. It brings the total amount raised by Koru Kids to £14.1 million.

“Childcare is exhausting and difficult to arrange: for many families it’s hard to find the right thing at all, and for nearly everyone it’s excruciatingly expensive,” says Koru Kids founder and CEO Rachel Carrell (who has a doctorate from Oxford and previously worked at McKinsey!).

“Parents need affordable, flexible childcare to allow us to carry on in our careers but it’s very hard to find. Nurseries close early, childminders are in short supply and neither option copes well with parents finishing at 5pm one day and 10pm the next. Once I realised that there were so many people struggling with the same issues it gave me the impetus to quit my job and to create Koru Kids”.

The resulting childcare platform is described by Carrell as a “full stack” product that sees Koru Kids recruit, train, match, and provide on-going support and training to its nannies. At its core it aims to simplify the lives of working parents.

“Our platform takes care of taxes, payroll, pension, holiday, nanny communications, activity ideas, and a dozen other things that can come up when you’re dealing with nannies,” she tells me. “We also help parents share nannies, so one nanny takes care of children from two different families at once. That brings down the cost for families, the nanny gets paid more, and the children have a friend to play with”.

More broadly, Carrell says society should think of childcare as essential infrastructure for modern living. “If a third of London didn’t have water or roads, we’d consider that a major failing of essential infrastructure,” she argues. “As it turns out, one third of London schools don’t have an after-school club. We need to start respecting childcare as the essential infrastructure that it is”.

Typical Koru Kids customers are described as working parents with children aged 4-10 years old who may not have access to a suitable after-school club or want to provide a broader range of after school activities for their kids.

“Before Koru Kids, the only option for these people was a full time nanny — which is incredibly expensive — or an au pair, which many people don’t have an extra bedroom for or don’t want in their house,” says Carrell.

Exact competitors are hard to pin down as Koru Kids incorporates several different services, each with specific competitors. They include payroll agencies, training businesses, nanny agencies, after-school clubs, Gumtree and other listings sites.

“The key difference is that none of them provide a seamless service as we do,” claims the Koru Kids founder. “We train our nannies ourselves which is completely unique in the market; we do all the payroll, pension and other paperwork as well as the recruitment of nannies, and we are tech-led, using our own software which means we can be more efficient”.

Meanwhile, Koru Kids revenue model sees the company take commission per hour. Rather than the large upfront fees a nanny agency typically charges, Carrell says she has deliberately tried to align the startup’s interests with that of parents using the platform.

“If a match doesn’t last very long, Koru Kids is out of pocket; I think that’s as it should be,” she tells me. “We should only win when the parents win. That incentive structure means that every day our team comes to work and thinks about how to make the best possible matches, and what product to build to help our nannies get better and better each day”.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Koru Kids raises £10M Series A for its childcare platform

Residently, the U.K.-based ‘proptech’ startup that is building a rental platform to improve the rental experience, has picked up £7 million in seed funding. Backing comes from Felix Capital, LocalGlobe, and A/O PropTech, along with a number of the startup’s existing angel investors.

The new funding will be used to grow the startup’s engineering and product teams, and to continue building out Residently’s rental portfolio in London and New York. On the product side, a number of extra services will also be added to the company’s “Living” platform, which offers things like cleaning and ironing, storage, contents insurance, and furniture rental.

“Residently is building the world’s rental brand with a platform for rental properties designed around the needs of the renter,” says co-founder and CEO Tom Allason, who previously founded and exited Shutl to eBay.

“Residents enjoy a seamless digital rental experience, can choose their move in date, a furniture package, cleaning service and move seamlessly from property to property within the network. Property owners benefit from reduced void periods and lower fees than traditional agents”.

At the heart of Residently is a mission to “digitise” the rental experience through clever use of technology, coupled with a consumer-friendly mindset, in order to upgrade the experience of renting.

The platform lets renters search for properties, arrange viewings, take virtual tours, fill in forms and submit references, and pay deposits via a mobile app. Broadband and other utilities are set up in advance and the startup promises flexible move in dates. Residently’s add-on services include help with moving, storage, furniture rental, cleaning and digital locks — again, all managed via the app.

For landlords, Residently offers a property management service for viewings, paperwork, property maintenance and renewals. As part of its marketing package, Residently will individually style and furnish a property to help potential renters visualise “exactly how their home could look,” says the company.

“We compete for supply with estate agents (e.g. Foxtons, Savills, Countrywide) as well as to a lesser extent serviced apartment providers who are taking residential properties off market,” says Allason. “We look at the renter as our customer rather and seek to develop that relationship over multiple tenancies and properties which we can monetise with services”.

Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Residently raises £7M to digitise the rental experience