Browsing Tag: Startups

    Startups

    Ashton Kutcher, Ann Miura-Ko and Mamoon Hamid are coming to Disrupt!

    September 4, 2019

    The Disrupt Battlefield is one of the best parts of the conference. Twenty+ startups step on to the Disrupt Main Stage with a product, a pitch and a dream. They have six minutes to convey how they’re going to fundamentally disrupt their industry, and six minutes of Q&A with world-renowned judges from the VC world.

    Pride. Anxiety. Despair. Glory. Anything could happen on that stage, particularly with judges that are at the top of their game and can smell bullshit from a mile away.

    This year, at Disrupt SF 2019, we’ll be joined by Ashton Kutcher, Ann Miura-Ko and Mamoon Hamid in the final round of the Battlefield. And we couldn’t be more excited!

    This won’t be Kutcher’s first time at Disrupt. He’s hung out with us a couple of times to discuss his investment strategy for Sound Ventures, and previously, A-Grade investments. This will be his first time as a Finals Judge for the Battlefield, however, and it’ll be fascinating to see the superstar investor work in real time on the Main Stage.

    Ann Miura-Ko, co-founding partner at Floodgate, will be returning as a Battlefield judge. Miura-Ko is a repeat member of the Forbes Midas List, The New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists Worldwide, and has been called the most powerful woman in startups. Her portfolio includes Lyft, which went public this year, as well as Refinery29, Xamarin and Thinkful.

    Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid will also be judging the Battlefield Finals. Hamid was a co-founder at Social Capital and a partner at US Venture Partners before joining Kleiner Perkins, and has invested in companies like Slack, Yammer, Box and Figma.

    We’re amped to have such amazing VCs join us for the final round of the Startup Battlefield competition. Join us at Disrupt SF, which runs October 2 to 4 at the Moscone Center. Tickets are still available at an early-bird rate, but that ends this week.

    See you there!

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    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Ashton Kutcher, Ann Miura-Ko and Mamoon Hamid are coming to Disrupt!

    Startups

    Why Walmart’s Flipkart is betting heavily on Hindi

    September 4, 2019

    Flipkart, the largest e-commerce platform in India, said Tuesday it has concluded the roll-out of a range of features to its shopping app in what is its biggest update in recent years.

    Chief among these new features is access to Flipkart in Hindi language. Prior to the revamp of the app, Flipkart was available only in English, a language spoken by 10% of India’s 1.3 billion population.

    Flipkart says it is hoping that the new features, which includes a video streaming service, would help it reach the next 200 million users in India.

    The major bet on Hindi, a language spoken by more than 500 million people in India, illustrates a growing push from local and international companies operating in the country as they adapt their services and business models to go beyond the urban cities.

    And that’s where much of the opportunity, which countless startups and companies have trumpeted to investors to successfully raise hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and venture capital in recent years, lies in the nation.


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Why Walmart’s Flipkart is betting heavily on Hindi

    Startups

    ‘Mental fitness’ startup Elevate Labs launches a personalized meditation app called Balance

    September 4, 2019

    While investors are already writing big checks for meditation startups, Elevate Labs founder and CEO Jesse Pickard said that none of the existing meditation apps can replace the experience of working with a human coach.

    “This experience where you have somebody that meets with you is wildly better than any digital product that’s out there,” Pickard said. “The problem is, it’s not affordable to 99% of the planet.”

    So Elevate Labs is launching a new mobile app today called Balance, which is designed to replicate the experience of working with a live meditation coach.

    “Even with meditation increasingly getting into the mainstream, it’s a fairly difficult practice to adhere to,” Pickard said. “We take away a lot of that indecision and present you with a path that is unique to you … People live all sorts of different lives: Some people care about stress, some people care about sleep, some people care about focus. But when you and I go into any of the other major apps, we’re getting the exact same recording.”

    With Balance, on the other hand, you’re not just browsing through a library of prerecorded content. Instead, the app starts out by asking you about your goals, your meditation experience and more. You’ll then get a set of introductory meditations that may look familiar, but Pickard said that each meditation is actually “a combination of dozens and dozens of clips woven together that’s personalized to you.”

    For example, I told the app that I already had experience with meditation, and that my top goal was to stay focused. As a result, my first meditation skipped most of the introductory explanations, and the main exercise was designed to help me focus on the sound of my breath.

    Pickard said the app will continue to ask you questions about your experience over time, which in turn will lead to more personalization. The meditations are narrated by coach Leah Santa Cruz, who’s also involved in writing the content, and there are other meditation experts on the Balance team.

    The app’s initial 10-day course is free. After that, to get access to additional meditations, you’ll need to pay $11.99 per month, $49.99 per year or $199.99 for a lifetime subscription. In addition to the meditations, Balance also includes a guided activity designed to help people sleep.

    On top of launching a new app, Elevate Labs is also announcing that it has raised a $7.1 million Series B led by Keesing Media Group, with participation from Oakhouse Partners.

    Under its old name MindSnacks, the company built language-learning games before shifting focus to Elevate, a “brain training” app that has supposedly been downloaded 25 million times and won Apple’s App of the Year Award in 2014. Pickard (who, thanks to the magic of Craigslist, was my roommate for about a year when I was first starting at TechCrunch) said that unlike most of the other apps that are marketed as improving your mind, Elevate focuses on trainable skills like reading, writing and math — rather than, say, improving your memory.

    “We’ve been extremely careful about [not] venturing into untrainable skills — things like improving your attention span, those activities are not as provenly teachable,” he said.

    It’s been a while since the company has raised outside funding — seven years since MindSnacks announced a Series A from Sequoia. Pickard said the company actually raised another bridge round in 2015, then “buckled down for a number of years and really just had to build a business that actually was sustainable.”

    Apparently that’s paid off — he said Elevate Labs was cash-flow positive last year. With a total of $17.1 million in funding, the plan now is to continue supporting and growing Elevate while also launching Balance and building a whole line of related apps.

    “We think there’s a really huge brand to be built around mental fitness,” Pickard said.


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | ‘Mental fitness’ startup Elevate Labs launches a personalized meditation app called Balance

    Startups

    Endurance events startup Let’s Do This raises seed cash from Serena Williams, Usain Bolt

    September 4, 2019

    Let’s Do This is a Y Combinator alumni startup from 2018 which is a marketplace for endurance events, from a 5K fun run to an Ironman triathlon. It has now raised a $5 million seed round, with Serena Williams and Usain Bolt participating. The round was led by Pete Flint (partner at NFX, formerly of Trulia and LastMinute).

    Other investors include Y Combinator, Shasta, Index and FJ Labs. Other angels were Paul Buchheit (YC, Gmail), Yuri Sagalov (YC, AeroFS), Simon Nixon (MoneySupermarket), Tim Thackrah (Elmsleigh), Paula Radcliffe (marathon world-record holder) and Andy Philips (Booking.com).

    The platform lists 30,000 races of all distances and disciplines and claims to be the largest marketplace for endurance events in the world, offering key information about the races and exclusive booking perks for members, such as free cancellation protection.

    They have recently agreed to a partnership with Hearst to power all race listings across Runner’s World, Men’s Health and Women’s Health in the U.S. and the U.K.

    Serena Williams, the 22-time Grand Slam Champion, said in a statement: “I’ve seen first-hand the incredible impact these events can have on making people fitter, healthier and happier. I love that Let’s Do This is not only making events like these more accessible but also helping to support athletes of all different fitness levels. Women are especially less likely to participate in marathons and obstacle races, so it’s really important there’s a platform encouraging people to step out of their comfort zones and make a positive difference in their lives.”

    In a statement Flint said: “This is a $30bn global market with enormous growth potential and already 100 million people crossing a finish line in the US each year. In just 18 months they’ve gone from launch to building the world’s best online marketplace to find, learn about, and book your next race. With over 30,000 events across the US, UK, and Australasia, this team is just getting started.”

    Usain Bolt, world-record holder in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m, said: “Throughout my career I’ve been lucky enough to inspire people to follow their dreams, get off the couch and get exercising. That’s what attracted me to Let’s Do This. It’s a company that is totally committed to changing the world and inspiring more people to get out there. Like me, their team doesn’t believe in limits and is totally committed to being the best in the world. It’s a really natural fit with what I care about and what I believe in so I am very happy to be supporting their mission to inspire more people to have epic experiences.”

    The company was founded by childhood friends Alex Rose and Sam Browne, who got into the space at university. Their team consists of people from Facebook, Google, Oracle, Deliveroo and SkyScanner.


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Endurance events startup Let’s Do This raises seed cash from Serena Williams, Usain Bolt

    Startups

    We Company adds a director, ditches its $5.9 million naming deal with its CEO, remains a governance nightmare

    September 4, 2019

    The company formerly known as WeWork, in an amendment to the S-1 that launched dozens of critical headlines, says it has added a new director to its board and unwound the $5.9 million payout to chief executive Adam Neumann over the name “We.” 

    The new board member is Frances Frei, a professor of technology and operations management at Harvard Business School and a consultant to the company since March 2019.

    Frei’s previous claim to fame was rehabilitating the executive and managerial team at Uber Technologies in the wake of a series of fiascos that ultimately brought down the company’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick.

    Frei becomes the first woman on the We Company’s board of directors — repairing an oversight which the company received criticism for when it first filed for its initial public offering. Shareholder advocacy groups have pressed for greater diversity on corporate boards as a means to improve company performance and offer a broader range of strategic guidance.

    As part of the amended filing, The We Company also committed to add a director to the board that will increase the company’s gender and ethnic diversity.

    In the same amendment, the company said that it was unwinding the $5.9 million transaction between itself and a holding company — WE Holdings LLC, which held the trademark for the “We” brand and was owned by We Company’s chief executive, Adam Neumann.

    “[At] Adam’s direction, the issuance to WE Holdings LLC of the partnership interests was unwound and the partnership interests were returned to the We Company Partnership,” the company said in a statement.

    To clarify: The chief executive officer of a company agreed to unwind an agreement with himself that paid him nearly $6 million so that the company he ran could use the trademark “We.” It also added a new “independent” director to its board who had been a paid consultant of the company for months before joining the board of directors.

    All of this comes after the same chief executive cashed out of $700 million through company stock and loan agreements.

    No wonder people are calling the company a “corporate governance nightmare.”


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | We Company adds a director, ditches its .9 million naming deal with its CEO, remains a governance nightmare

    Startups

    Betaworks’ next startup camp is focused on audio

    September 4, 2019

    Startup studio Betaworks is putting out a call for audio-focused startups.

    Specifically, it’s announcing Audiocamp, the latest in its “camp” programs, where it backs a handful of early-stage startups, all working in a specific area. (The last one was focused on synthetic media.)

    “When we make these calls for a camp around a theme, what we’re trying to do is see everything that’s out there in a short period of time,” said Danika Laszuk, the head of Betaworks Camp. “We use that to help us understand what are the more innovative things, and where are 57 companies trying to build essentially the same thing?”

    The startups, meanwhile, get a “pre-seed” investment from Betaworks, as well as three months to work out of the firm’s office in New York City, where they can learn from and collaborate with each other.

    Why focus on audio now? Laszuk said the firm has been interested in this area for a long time — it was an early investor in podcasting startups Gimlet and Anchor, which Spotify acquired earlier this year. The current interest in audio isn’t just driven by the podcast boom, but also the opportunities around smart speakers and what Lazsuk said will be “the next wave of innovation,” building “audio-first” services for people who are wearing AirPods and other wireless headphones all the time.

    She acknowledged that this “always-in” behavior isn’t necessarily a good thing, since it can lead people to become increasingly oblivious to the world around them, but she said that’s been an ongoing worry since the first iPod (and maybe even before that).

    “I’m not sure we will single-handedly break people of that addiction, but there’s so much more awareness around that, and maybe I could have this more thoughtful, context-aware, mobile-appropriate experience,” she said.

    And that’s just one of the categories that Betaworks said it’s looking at for Audiocamp. The others are: Social audio experiences, synthetic/generative audio and music, audio utilities, natural language tools for audio, content discovery and monetization, augmented reality for audio and voice-first applications for smart speakers.

    As a podcaster myself, I was particularly interested in Laszuk’s thoughts on discovery and monetization. On the discovery side, she predicted we’ll see AI-powered tools that “help us all find the gems in the long tail.”

    As for monetization, she noted that some companies have already had success with subscriptions and listener-supported models. So while she isn’t sure what comes next, she’s “really interested in things that are not ad-based — or if they are ad-based, they’re more innovative and thoughtful than just new ad networks.”

    The first application deadline is October 15. Interested startups can read more in Laszuk’s blog post and apply here.


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Betaworks’ next startup camp is focused on audio

    Startups

    Only 3 days left on early-bird pricing to Disrupt SF 2019

    September 4, 2019

    The early-bird countdown clock just keeps spinning, folks, and once it ticks over to 11:59 p.m. (PST) on September 6, your chance to save up to $1,300 on passes to Disrupt SF 2019 disappears once and for all. Save your money to feather your nest; buy your early-bird passes right now.

    Our flagship Disrupt kicks off in less than one month (on October 2), and we can’t wait. More than 10,000 people will descend on Moscone North to focus on anything and everything related to early-stage startups. This is prime networking territory people, and we have just the tool to help you save time and find only the people who can help move your business forward.

    Disrupt attendees with Innovator, Founder or Investor passes can use CrunchMatch, our free business match-making platform. Powered by Brella, it’s a curated, automated way to search for suitable prospects — based on profiles each user submits. CrunchMatch suggests people to meet and lets you send, accept or decline meeting requests. And you can use the service to reserve dedicated meeting spaces.

    You’ll be the model of networking efficiency as you work your way through hundreds of exhibiting startups in Startup Alley. Get a jump on researching who to meet by exploring our directory of exhibiting startups.

    Startup Alley is also home to our TC Top Picks — a hand-picked cadre of 45 companies representing the best early-stage startups in these categories: AI/Machine Learning, Biotech/Healthtech, Blockchain, Fintech, Mobility, Privacy/Security, Retail/E-commerce, Robotics/IoT/Hardware, SaaS and Social Impact & Education.

    Networking is a huge part of the Disrupt experience, but you’ll find plenty of other fascinating people and events. Like the always-epic Startup Battlefield pitch competition, where a $100,000 prize is on the line.

    Take a good long look at the Disrupt SF agenda featuring top-notch speakers and presentations. You’ll find great programming across four distinct areas: the Main Stage, the Extra Crunch Stage, Q&A sessions and the Showcase Stage.

    Check out (or compete in) the TC Hackathon, a high-pressure marathon where hundreds of skilled coders, UX designers and other innovative makers build working solutions to real-world challenges in less than 24 hours.

    So much to do and so little time left to score early-bird pricing on your pass to Disrupt SF 2019. Don’t let the clock run out — the savings expire in just three days at 11:59 p.m. (PST) on September 6. Buy your early-bird passes… and save up to $1,300.

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


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Only 3 days left on early-bird pricing to Disrupt SF 2019

    Startups

    Fleet Space Technologies raises $7.35M for its space-based IoT tech

    September 4, 2019

    Australian satellite startup Fleet Space Technologies has raised a $7.35 million round of funding to help launch its next generation of nanosatellites, extremely small satellites it employs to deliver Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity to customers globally.

    Fleet’s satellites are roughly the size of shoe boxes, which are much cheaper and easier to launch than traditional geocommnications satellites, and the company intends to use a globe-spanning constellation of these in order to serve needs like tracking construction equipment assets, monitoring pipelines and other utility infrastructure and more.

    Already, Fleet has launched four of its nanosatellites to orbit on a number of different rockets, including an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) rocket, a Rocket Lab launch and via SpaceX . Its existing fleet is only a very small part of its planned constellation, but already the startup says it has witnessed “unprecedented demand” from more than three million compatible devices registered to join their network.

    Connected IoT in industrial applications is a huge potential market, and could be made up of more than 14 billion low-power devices by 2025, Fleet Space says, based on IDC estimates. That’s a lot of hardware that needs to be able to effectively connect to, and communicate with, central hubs. Edge computing is a huge trend right now, where a lot of these previously fairly rudimentary on-device sensors and monitors are able to do more processing on-site, but at some point the value of a network of IoT devices is that the resulting data can be collected, analyzed, turned into product improvements and redeployed.

    Fleet’s nanosatellite (dog for scale). Image courtesy of Fleet.

    Fleet’s tech is the connective tissue that can bind all these devices in a way that’s much more scalable and affordable for commercial and industrial clients large and small. Satellite-based network coverage works in tandem with ground-based networks, which helps ensure there aren’t any blind spots in industries where communication can be hard to come by, like agriculture, forestry and mining.

    This round of funding includes investment from Momenta Ventures and Horizon Ventures, and adds to the previous $5 million AUD ($3.4 million USD) that Fleet raised previously from Blackbird Ventures and Grok Ventures, with contribution from the South Australian government.


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Fleet Space Technologies raises .35M for its space-based IoT tech

    Startups

    Cowboy recruits Sunrise co-founder Jeremy Le Van as VP of Product

    September 4, 2019

    Electric-bike maker Cowboy has recruited a well-known name when it comes to mobile app design. Jeremy Le Van co-founded Sunrise, a well-designed calendar app that was acquired by Microsoft back in 2015. Le Van will become VP of Product and lead the development of Cowboy’s mobile app.

    Following Sunrise’s acquisition, Le Van worked for Microsoft. Sunrise has been the foundation for the calendar feature of the Outlook mobile app.

    “I am incredibly excited to join the Cowboy team and bring my insights into how we can transform the smart bicycle market to make it more appealing to the mobile-first generation,” he said in a statement.

    Of course, Cowboy is a hardware company, as it designs and sells an e-bike. The company wants to make e-bikes more efficient. It features an automatic transmission — motor assistance kicks in automatically when you need it the most, such as when you start pedaling, you accelerate or you go uphill.

    Cowboy bikes also feature integrated lights (with a rear light that flashes when you break), a rubber and glass fiber belt and a removable battery. Like VanMoof bikes, it has built-in GPS tracking and an integrated SIM card — you unlock the bike with your phone.

    But the mobile app is also an essential part of the experience. You can configure the lights, check the battery and get stats from the app. Let’s see how it evolves with today’s appointment.

    Cowboy is currently available in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. The startup has raised a €10 million Series A funding round from Tiger Global, Index Ventures, Hardware Club and others.


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Cowboy recruits Sunrise co-founder Jeremy Le Van as VP of Product

    Startups

    Ginger, an MIT spin-out providing app-based mental health coaching to workers, raises $35M

    September 4, 2019

    Mental health issues are thought to impact one in every five people in the U.S., and the stress of working life can be an exacerbating factor. Now, one of the startups that’s using technology to build ways to support this population has raised a significant round of funding to expand its platform to aid in getting them the help they need.

    Ginger, a startup that works with organizations and their healthcare providers to provide employees with an app-based way to connect with coaches to talk through their issues and suggest ways forward, is today announcing that it has raised $35 million in a Series C round of funding, money that it will use both to expand the data science behind its therapy programs and the variety of its clinical programs, as well in terms of its business opportunities. The plan is to grow its service internationally and to more touch points beyond the employer channel, including those who access healthcare through health plans (which might include, potentially, countries with nationalised health services).

    The funding is a Series C being led by WP Global Partners (an investment firm that backs companies — for example, it also is an investor in Postmates — as well as other funds), with participation from some of a number of other new and previous high-profile investors that include City Light Capital, Nimble Ventures, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Khosla Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures and Kapor Capital.

    “As the global mental health crisis intensifies and access challenges increase, employers are searching for solutions to address the shortage of affordable, available providers,” said Russell Glass, CEO of Ginger, in a statement. “In building the world’s first virtual behavioral health system, we are reinventing the approach with instant access to care. This latest round of funding accelerates our ability to expand high-quality care — any time of day or night — to millions of people around the world.”

    It brings the total raised by Ginger to $63 million; the company is not disclosing valuation (we’re asking), but it has been growing at a very steady clip and says that more than 200,000 people are able to access the service by way of their employers’ Ginger plans. Ginger says that customers include CBS, Netflix, Pinterest, Sephora, Twilio, Yelp and BuzzFeed, and it’s now active in 25 countries outside the U.S., including major markets like the U.K., Japan, Australia, Canada and India.

    Founded nearly a decade ago as a spin-out from the MIT Media Lab, Ginger started life initially with a platform that would monitor a user’s smartphone interactions to detect potential mental health issues and help connect that user with someone to talk to. This lean-forward approach appears to have been retired in favor of a service that relies on the users themselves making the first move.

    That first move comes in the form of a text message, which an employee can send 24/7 and receive an immediate response. That in itself is notable: The traditional way of going about speaking to a counselor or therapist that you might get through your work’s health insurance can take up to 25 days for your first appointment, Ginger notes, by which point the problem that got you interested in speaking to someone in the first place may have become significantly worse.

    While some users keep their coaching — this is the word used by Ginger itself, and I think the reason is because it helps to differentiate this from in-person, more classic therapy sessions, and because the people who are trained to work with you might not actually be doctors — to texts, others may get referred up the ladder to other mediums, such as video therapy and video psychiatry with licensed clinicians.

    The latter is a route that applies to some 8% of Ginger’s users, the company says, with the rest resolving issues through the text-based coaching. Time with clinicians is guaranteed to be provided within a 72-hour window.

    On the other side of the issue of getting to speak to someone, Ginger also offers options for people to reach out and book coaching and therapy sessions outside of work hours (which presumably is a bonus both to the employer as well as to employees who are less keen to disrupt work or keep their therapy to themselves).

    The approach seems to work: Ginger says that some 70% of members surveyed that have used Ginger reported “a significant reduction in symptoms of depression within 12 weeks.”

    Overall, app-based and other health services that do not require a person to physically be in the same room as his/her therapist still face a perennial problem that is a hallmark of many a mental health service: They still require a person to “turn up” so to speak — that is, a person at some point needs to make the proactive effort to reach out for help, and usually continue to work on resolving the problem on a persistent and regular basis.

    Teletherapy solutions have both an advantage and disadvantage: being something you can pick up wherever and whenever makes it something that maybe we are more likely to use; but the lack of physical presence may well make it much easier for problems to be less apparent. In a sense, the mandate is even more on the likely vulnerable patient to be even more proactive as a result.

    But the cost to employers of rolling out wide-scale, physical programs with licensed clinicians, as well as of having too many people off work due to mental health issues, are the rock and hard place that will likely continue to fuel significantly more development of services like Ginger’s and those of its competitors.

    And that list is a long one, with other startups like Lyra Health (founded by the former CFO of Facebook Dave Ebersman), Unmind, Pacifica, Huddle, Modern Health and Eliza all also closing in on the challenge.

    Ginger’s investors believe in the mission and that its horse is one that will run the course.

    “We have significant experience investing in healthcare and believe that technology is the key to solving the global mental health crisis,” said Donald Phillips, chairman and CEO of WP Global Partners, in a statement. “As we looked to expand our portfolio, it became clear to us that there is no other company in the world that provides emotional and mental health support as quickly and effectively as Ginger does.”


    Source: Tech Crunch Startups | Ginger, an MIT spin-out providing app-based mental health coaching to workers, raises M