One thing we have learned during the pandemic is that organizations need to find new ways to build stronger connections with their employees, and that’s precisely what Peakon provides. “Bringing Peakon into the Workday family will be very compelling to our customers — especially following an extraordinary past year that has magnified the importance of having a constant pulse on employee sentiment in order to keep people engaged and productive,” Workday co-founder and co-CEO Aneel Bhusri, said in a statement.

Without the ability to have face-to-face meetings with employees, managers have struggled throughout 2020 to understand how COVID, working from home and all the trials and tribulations of the last year have affected the workforce.

But this ability to check the pulse of employees goes beyond this crisis period. Managers of large organizations know that the bigger and more spread out your firm becomes, the more challenging it is to understand what’s happening across the company. The company uses weekly surveys to ask specific questions about the organization. For them it’s all about getting good data, and so far customers have used the platform to ask over 153 million questions since inception six years ago.

Peakon CEO and co-founder Phil Chambers sees Workday as a logical partner. “Workday excels at helping enable customers to leverage their data. Together, we’ll be able to help drive greater productivity, talent development and employee retention for our customers — and unify how employees interact with their organizations,” he said in a Workday blog post announcing the deal.

Peakon was founded in Copenhagen in 2014 and has raised $68 million along the way, according to Crunchbase data. Its most recent round was a $35 million Series B in March 2019. The deal is expected to close by the end of this quarter subject to typical regulatory review.

Typically, after the training phase, during which neural network algorithms are provided with a large volume of relevant target data to hone their inference capabilities, and rewarded for correct responses in order to optimize performance, they’re essentially fixed. But Hasani’s team developed a means by which his ‘liquid’ neural net can adapt the parameters for ‘success’ over time in response to new information, which means that if a neural net tasked with perception on a self-driving car goes from clear skies into heavy snow, for instance, it’s better able to deal with the shift in circumstances and maintain a high level of performance.

The main difference in the method introduced by Hasani and his collaborators is that it focuses on time-series adaptability, meaning that rather than being built on training data that is essentially made up of a number of snapshots, or static moments fixed in time, the liquid networks inherently considers time series data – or sequences of images rather than isolated slices.

Because of the way the system is designed, it’s actually also more open to observation and study by researchers, when compared to traditional neural networks. This kind of AI is typically referred to as a ‘black box,’ because while those developing the algorithms know the inputs and the the criteria for determining and encouraging successful behavior, they can’t typically determine what exactly is going on within the neural networks that leads to success. This ‘liquid’ model offers more transparency there, and it’s less costly when it comes to computing because it relies on fewer, but more sophisticated computing nodes.

Meanwhile, performance results indicate that it’s better than other alternatives for accuracy in predicting the future values of known data sets. Th next step for Hasani and his team are to determine how best to make the system even better, and ready it for use in actual practical applications.

Co-founder and CEO Girish Ramachandra told me that Shopalyst was created to allow for “one seamless journey for the shopper” across advertising and e-commerce — something he said current systems are not currently designed to support.

The startup’s first product was a “universal buy button,” and Ramanchandra said that has “naturally progressed” into a broader set of tools for cross-platform advertising, which Shopalyst has been beta testing for the past year.

The Discovery Commerce Cloud consists of five modules, which Ramanchandra said work best together but can also be purchased separately. That includes:

• a market intelligence product with information about what consumers are searching for and what’s popular on media and e-commerce platforms
• an audience intelligence product to target ads based on audience interest, behavior and purchase intent
• a Universal Ads Manager to deliver ads across Google Ads, DV360, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Ads, Twitter and TikTok
• a landing page builder that can support instant checkout on a brand’s own direct-to-consumer site, comparison shopping across e-commerce marketplaces, instant delivery or a physical store locator
• real-time metrics that measure the full customer funnel

Image Credits: Shopalyst

Ramachandra also noted that the ads created in the Universal Ads Builder optimized to each platform, with dynamically generated creative based on audience data. And by using the landing page builder, brands are also able to gather new data about the audience’s “shopping actions.”

“In the past, [brands] didn’t have shopping actions, because retailers don’t share that data back with them,” he said. “That is all changed. Now they’re able to acquire first-party data [from Shoplalyst], which will help them use the right advertising in future campaigns.”

Shopalyst customers include Unilever, Nestle, Diageo, Nivea, L’Oreal and Estee Lauder. And while the startup was initially focused on its home market of India, the platform is now available across 30 countries.

Shopalyst also says that in beta testing, campaigns run through the Discovery Commerce Cloud have seen up to a 3X improvement in targeting relevance, a 5X increase in audience attention and an 8X increase in ad-activated shopping trips.

Add in a pandemic that forced many to embrace remote learning overnight, and it makes sense that we have seen companies like Outschool and ClassDojo turn first profits while startups like Quizlet and ApplyBoard reached $1 billion valuations.

Last year brought a flurry of record-breaking venture capital to the sector. PitchBook data shows that edtech startups around the world raised $10.76 billion last year, compared to $4.7 billion in 2019. While reporting delays could change this total, VC dollars have more than doubled since the pandemic began. In the United States, edtech startups raised $1.78 billion in venture capital across 265 deals during 2020, compared to $1.32 billion the prior year.

In today’s survey, thirteen top edtech investors shared their thoughts on how growth of lifelong learning is reshaping the industry. Given the sudden extinction of snow days and yeast shortages brought on by student bakers in the early days of the pandemic, it’s easy to see how remote education extends beyond traditional school hours. As learners become more multi-layered and nuanced, so have the edtech companies that back them. 

This was a recurring theme in today’s survey, signaling a shift in how investors approach hybrid learning. The evolution of post-pandemic education will be complex, if not aggressively competitive among the growing cohort of well-capitalized edtech companies. While we asked investors about their post-pandemic tastebuds back in July, much has changed since. Higher education didn’t combust like some expected today, and today, many predict that K-12 students will return to pre-COVID formats after vaccinations are widespread. 

It puts startups in a difficult spot: if 2020 was about enabling video-based teaching, what might emerge from 2021? Integration between different edtech apps? New student collaboration tools? Are employer-led up-skilling and a renewed interest in self-improvement enlarging edtech’s TAM?

Here are the investors we spoke to, along with their areas of interest and expertise:

• Deborah Quazzo, managing partner, GSV Ventures (an education fund backing ClassDojo, Degreed, Clever)
• Ashley Bittner, founding partner of Firework Ventures (a future of work fund with portfolio companies LearnIn and TransfrVR)
• Jomayra Herrera, principal, Cowboy Ventures (a generalist fund with portfolio companies Hone and Guild Education)
• John Danner, managing partner, Dunce Capital (an edtech and future of work fund with portfolio companies Lambda School and Outschool)
• Mercedes Bent and Bradley Twohig, partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners (a multi-stage generalist fund with investments including Forage, Clever, and Outschool)
• Ian Chiu, managing director, Owl Ventures (a large edtech-focused fund backing highly-valued companies including Byju’s, Newsela, and Masterclass) 
• Jan Lynn-Matern, founder and partner, Emerge Education (a leading edtech seed fund in Europe with portfolio companies like Aula, Unibuddy, and BibliU) 
• Benoit Wirz, partner, Brighteye Ventures (an active edtech-focused venture capital fund in Europe that backs YouSchool, Lightneer, and Aula)
• Charles Birnbaum, partner, Bessemer Venture Partners (a generalist fund with portfolio companies including Guild Education and Brightwheel)
• Daniel Pianko, co-founder and managing director, University Ventures (a higher ed and future of work fund that is backing Imbellus and Admithub)
• Rebecca Kaden, managing partner, Union Square Ventures (a generalist fund with portfolio companies including TopHat, Quizlet, Duolingo)
• Andreata Muforo, partner, TLCom Capital (a generalist fund backing uLesson)

Deborah Quazzo, managing partner, GSV Ventures

What will edtech look like when students finally go back to school in person? Now that remote has become familiar, what are other concepts that you could see becoming popular?

For k12, use of digital products and platforms will now be very “normal” – companies like Lexia and Dreambox and Nearpod. Maybe this drives home usage of some products traditionally used only in schools like Lexia. Students of all ages are now very facile with zoom, this can pave the way for more zoom based synchronous learning offerings including extracurricular learning like music, dance etc. schools are now fully wired – maybe we will see schools implement home based learning programs – it’s where students spend half their time.

What are the biggest hurdles ahead for early-stage edtech startups looking to scale? What opportunities are fading as the space matures?

Edtech cos need to stay away from the me too solutions. We have seen 20 creator led learning platforms across “preK to Gray” learning in addition to incumbents like Teachable and very few have an ability to build a moat in my view. Unless someone has a very fresh take, I think that ship has sailed. Hopefully as white spaces fill with competitors, new white spaces will emerge. Emerging tech – AI/NLP/ML/VR – will continue to push the envelope. We are still not driving enough people to competency whether in prek12, higher ed or workforce so the opportunity remains vast.

How has edtech’s boom impacted your dealmaking? Has the new interest from generalist investors made valuations too bubbly, or is the market growth helping everyone?

We met on zoom with over 800 founding teams in covid all over the world. We invested in 14 new companies and are just finishing rounds in 2 more. Valuation pressures are across tech sectors. Id argue that education still lags average tech. the question for edtech is whether there is potential for a $100B company in the sector – will TAMs support it.

Ashley Bittner, founding partner, Firework Ventures

What will edtech look like when students finally go back to school in person? Now that remote has become familiar, what are other concepts that you could see becoming popular?

As it relates to our thesis, I believe that the role of employers is changing. Pre-COVID, it was estimated that as much as 1/3 of the US workforce would need to change jobs by 2030. Employers cite skills gaps as a top 3 business concern to stay competitive. Our thesis is that employers will take on more responsibility for reskilling their current workforce, and that training will become job-embeded (rather than only trying to hire to address the challenge.) Degreed was the first wave of this… Learn In is an example of the next step in this evolution. As employers look to provide more skills training (rather than compliance training), we believe that more will come from external sources (CEOs say they are unprepared to meet the reskilling challenge with existing internal resources) and that much of this training will be provided online and during work hours (to address the time barrier that is an equity issue.) I also see an opportunity for modalities like VR to become more popular as we shift to more digital and remote solutions (e.g TRANSFR.) Stats from McKinsey research.

What are the biggest hurdles ahead for early-stage edtech startups looking to scale? What opportunities are fading as the space matures? In US pre-K and K-12, high customer fragmentation (16,000 school districts, 100K+ schools…pre-K even more fragmented with little public investment), long sales cycles, budget, pedagogy, and regulation. TAM. Relatively low consumer spend on education relative to other markets. Opportunities – increasing access to broadband, increase in device penetration. In FOW, increased recognition that reskilling and upskilling is a business imperative, company culture matters for competitiveness, increased focus on DEI.

Jomayra Herrera, principal, Cowboy Ventures

What will edtech look like when students finally go back to school in person? Now that remote has become familiar, what are other concepts that you could see becoming popular?
I think activities that are fundamentally better in person will go back to [being] in person (e.g., sports, music and other enrichment activities). I think that new technology educators may have adopted during the pandemic that they have found to be helpful to their instruction will remain but all the “nice to haves” will likely fall to the wayside. We have a thesis at Cowboy that supplemental education (e.g., Juni Learning, Reconstruction or Outschool) will likely stay online, because parents will not have to worry about driving their kids to learning centers and these companies have the opportunity to make the learning fun.
What are the biggest hurdles ahead for early-stage edtech startups looking to scale? What opportunities are fading as the space matures?
For companies focused on K-12 students, it’s still really challenging to sell into schools and school districts because of the long sales cycle. This will likely become even harder, as local and state budgets tighten. In regard to what is fading, I think that tools that don’t solve a real need for educators, students and/or parents or don’t have demonstrated efficacy when it comes to student outcomes will start to fade. Consumers, especially after the pandemic, seem to be more aware of what technology has to offer and have lower tolerance for tools not having a demonstrable impact.For companies that are targeting adult learners, the biggest hurdle continues to be customer acquisition and building a brand that learners can actually trust. As the space starts to mature, consumers are getting more aware of the questions they should be asking (e.g., graduation and placement outcomes) and are less [fooled] by clever marketing.

What do you expect education to look like in five-plus years from now, when the pandemic is more of a memory?
I hope that in this pandemic we’ve realized how critical our educators are to our children’s success and we pay them more :) Incentivizing our best talent to get into and stay in teaching is a critical lever we can pull to improve education.
For K-12, I expect that there will be more comfort with technology in the classroom and that tech can be partnered with in-person instruction in a way that supercharges the educator with the data needed to personalize their instruction.
For higher ed, I expect that there will be an acceleration in online learning for adults as they continue to look to reskill or upskill. There will be more opportunities to do self-paced online learning that is effective and affordable.

John Danner, managing partner, Dunce Capital

What will edtech look like when students finally go back to school in person? Now that remote has become familiar, what are other concepts that you could see becoming popular?

In K-12, education will probably continue to look much like it did, because the majority of parents are clear that child care is the principal value for their kids being at school. That said, a minority of parents are certainly rethinking education after witnessing what their children were actually learning every day for a year. My opinion is that we will continue to see a disaggregation of this care function from academics. Here’s a piece I wrote about that, which has accelerated significantly this year.

What are the biggest hurdles ahead for early-stage edtech startups looking to scale? What opportunities are fading as the space matures?

For vocational schools with a “free until you get a job” model like Lambda or SV Academy, it’s all about job placement. Lambda has had a lot of success with their new fellowship model, which has allowed them to scale significantly. For a lot of early childhood and K-12 companies working online, it’s about new parent behaviors and whether you can develop a habit like Outschool has done. For senior learning like what GetSetUp does, finding the reimbursement models through healthcare is probably the key.

What do you expect education to look like in five-plus years from now, when the pandemic is more of a memory?

I think we are in a transition to more and more academics happening in the cloud. Right now, that’s all about live experiences and human in the loop. In five years, I think we will begin seeing a significant impact of AI replacing many human functions.

The Milan, Italy-based startup has picked up $48 million in funding, money that it will use to continue building the tech in its platform, scaling its service in Europe, and to begin working on efforts to break into the U.S.

The round was led by Fasanara Capital and also included Baleen Capital and Italian family office Ithaca Investments. This is the startup’s first significant funding since launching in 2019.

Scalapay’s service is based around a basic model involving a quick sign-up, and then an agreement to repay the full amount in three equal installments, debited from your bank account or a credit card.

Like others such as Affirm, Scalapay does not charge consumers interest or other fees: its business model is based around taking a commission from the merchants on each transaction, the argument being that offering an easy and quick BNPL service will increase conversions and shopping cart size.

The startup currently has around 1,000 merchants in Europe using its service in France, Italy and Germany, including well-known, mulitnational European retailers like Decathlon, Calzedonia, Bata, Aosom and Bricobravo. It claims to be the biggest provider of BNPL services in its home country.

It also inked a recent partnership with banking “marketplace” Raisin Bank, and through that, Scalapay will soon be able to offer its merchant customers the ability to offer BNPL services in any European country.

The plan will be to add on more originating countries, said CEO and co-founder Simone Mancini, as well as related payment features in areas like customer acquisition, conversion, retention and the back office tasks associated with taking and fulfilling and order.

For a start, on its own site, Scalapay lists merchants that offer its BNPL service, and the startup has found that these links are on average generating 1 million referrals each month. Mancini said the company is working on a way of building a product around this concept as part of its expansion.

There was a time when it was not that common to find installment-based payment options on sites, with BNPL a carryover from the world of brick and mortar where people might have in the past paid for items using layaway or other in-store finance options, in particular for more expensive items like televisions.

But the traction of older online services like privately-held Klarna (valued now at over $10 billion), as well as Affirm in the U.S. and Afterpay in Australia (both of which are publicly traded), have paved the way for more recent entrants like Scalapay (which was founded in 2019) and other newer players like Alma.

All of them have in part been lifted by the conditions that we are living under at the moment.

E-commerce usage has seen a huge surge of activity due to people staying away from physical stores (when those stores are even open) to help with social distancing. But at the same time, many consumers are in less financial stable situations as a result of the pandemic, so options to help them stretch out payments and remain more flexible with their money have grown in appeal.

This has also meant that the average price of the kinds of items that people are buying on installments is also changing. Mancini said the average sum people are paying on Scalapay currently is around €100. That underscores the value that people are not willing to pay up front, so from a microeconomics perspective it will be interesting to see how that figure rises or falls in the future.

The fact that the sums are not particularly high right now, meanwhile, might be one reason why Scalapay has seen some strong numbers in terms of defaults and approvals. Mancini said that “first purchase approval rates” are about 93% right now, higher or lower depending on the category. And its default rate is below 1.5%.

These are not bad, but also not markedly different from its competitors.

Going forward, the big challenges for a company like Scalapay, therefore, will not just the usual ones of building solid algorithms to ensure that they are not financing people who are likely to default on payments, making sure its system stays fraud-free, and so on. They will also include finding a way to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack of companies providing the same kinds of basic services.

Perhaps a small detail, but it’s notable to me that Scalapay’s site doesn’t look unlike Klarna’s. Both even lean heavily on pink as a color theme.

It’s also worth mentioning that Mancini moved to Italy from Australia (where his co-founder Johnny Mitrevski still lives and runs R&D) to start Scalapay because Australia, he said, was going to be too hard to break into because of the dominance of Afterpay.

“Australia is one of the most competitive markets, versus Italy being one of the most underdeveloped markets,” he said. “It was an easy pick, with heaps of opportunity here for BNPL.” The company’s focus on building more beyond basic BNPL should also help with building a profile and diversifying the business.

“I was impressed with the fast growth of the company and the underlying model,” said Francesco Filia, CEO of Fasanara Capital, in a statement. “They have shown resilience during a difficult period and I’m excited by where the company is headed.”

“Scalapay’s platform delights customers while driving dramatic results for merchants,” added Fang Li, Managing Partner of Baleen Capital, in a statement. “As a long-time investor in the BNPL industry, I have been beyond impressed by Scalapay’s team, execution, and product vision. I believe the company is on the way to building a valued and leading partner for European retailers.”

Robinhood, the popular consumer trading application, has restricted its users from making some popular investments and wagers, public reports indicate. Social media is awash with notes from individual Robinhood users indicating that some popular securities are now untradable, and the company reportedly sent out a note yesterday saying that it is “implementing certain restrictions for for GME [GameStop] and AMC [the theater chain] options trading.”

TechCrunch has multiple emails in to the company asking for clarification regarding what trades, and securities are banned in aggregate, and the reasoning behind the move, but we’ve yet to hear back at time of publication. User commentary thus far concerning Robinhood’s choice has been swift, and negative, however.

Robinhood’s decision comes after zero-cost trading platforms found themselves at the center of one of the public market’s more bizarre sagas, in which a horde of retail investors bid shares of heavily-shorted securities higher in an attempt to break the trades of professional investors; precisely who is making the bets, and what portion of the new wagers are from individual investors and not larger pools of capital following the trade is not clear.

Yesterday, after noting that some traditional online brokers had restricted some user access to certain securities, citing their volatility, TechCrunch asked Robinhood and a number of its peers if they were taking similar precautions.

One of the group added some protection, but most cited their focus on long-term shareholding over day trading; a fair position but one at odds with the fact that most free-trading apps generate revenue from consumer trade volume. And options and other more exotic trades generate more revenue for neo-brokers than trades executed in well-known stocks.

Robinhood’s latest move, then, will ding its revenues as it is no longer allowing for trading in some very popular securities and other market-based wagers.

This is not the first time that neo-brokers have come up against tension between their business model and user access to exotic investments. After a Robinhood user committed suicide after trading options and not understanding one of their trades, a tragedy, Robinhood worked to make options trading harder to get into. That was definitely the right call, but likely not great for its revenue in the short-term, we imagine, given how lucrative those trades have historically proven for the company.

Options volume is setting records. Trading volume is at historical highs. And at the time of writing, shares of GameStop are set to rally at the open yet again today. Let’s see what happens.

Notably, the company’s IPO price was harder to chase down than usual, with a formal press release in scarce supply. SEC filings indicate that the company “anticipate[s]” a price of $30 per share, and reports from media and IPO-watching entities cite the $30 figure as well.

TechCrunch has an email into the Qualtrics team asking to confirm the reports, which are sufficiently widespread and confident that we’re similarly comfortable with its final price.

At $30 per share, Qualtrics priced its IPO at $1 per share above its raised IPO range of $27 to $29 a share. TechCrunch anticipated that the company’s first IPO price interval was low; and this publication noted that we would not “fall over in shock if Qualtrics priced a dollar or two above [its] raised range.”

Quelle surprise.

At $30 per share, and with 511,138,997 shares outstanding after its debut per its most recent S-1/A, inclusive of its underwriters’ option, Qualtrics would be worth $15.3 billion. That’s just under double the $8 billion that the company was worth when it sold to SAP a few years ago. Of course, let’s wait until we get a formal, final share count before we lock in the company’s pre-trading value.

For SAP, then, the deal is a win. But it’s not alone in enjoying quick returns on Qualtrics. Silver Lake agreed to buy “15,018,484 shares at $21.64 per share” and “225 million of shares at the initial public offering price” back in December. So that means that the company has a paper gain of more than $125 million on the shares it bought for just under $22 apiece.

Not a bad trade. If Qualtrics’ gains in early trading, Silver Lake will do even better.

TechCrunch is talking to the company later today, and will have more notes on its performance and valuation when it begins to trade.

The “Archiving the Age of Mass incarceration” effort is being led by Kelly Lytle Hernandez, director of the university’s Bunche Center for African American Studies and creator of Million Dollar Hoods, another project documenting the human cost of incarceration in Los Angeles. The grant is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

“We may be at a turning point in American history — may be building something new,” Lytle Hernandez told me, citing a tumultuous but potentially transformative 2020. “If that’s the case we want to make sure we are preserving the record of what happened. What we want to do is retain the records, the memory, the experiences of people affected by mass incarceration, and where possible the records of the state, which would otherwise be destroyed.”

The core of this collection will be a cache of documents released to Lytle Hernandez by the LAPD as part of this 2019 settlement (shortly after she won a MacArthur fellowship) regarding public disclosures and communication. She described it as around 177 boxes of paper records from the 1980s to the early 2000s detailing the “war on drugs,” policing immigrants, and many other topics, with more to be provided later under an agreement with the department.

The idea would be to “counterbalance” these official documents, as she put it, with documentation and testimony from the other side of the equation.

“People who are disproportionately incarcerated or arrested — we often lose our records because we get evicted; because where we stored our records, we can’t make the payments and they’re seized; they’re seized when we’re arrested, etc.,” she explained. “If we need to undo generations of harm, we need to know, where did that harm happen? Who did it happen to? I see this archival project as part of that dismantlement effort.”

Over the next few years Lytle Hernandez will lead the effort to assemble the archive, which will involve such traditional work as scanning and indexing paper documents, but also visiting communities and collecting “carceral ephemera” such as receipts for bail bonds (which may be the only surviving record of a person’s brush with the justice system) and personal stories and media.

Getting records from police and state agencies is a difficult and sometimes legally or politically fraught process. It’s important to get as much information as possible, from as many sources as possible, as quickly as possible, she said. Other major turning points in the history of racial justice have been inadequately documented, for reasons both negligent and deliberate.

“What if the nation had sent out squads of oral historians and students to capture and preserve the record? Imagine what we could know about enslavement and its toll on all of us, what it meant to the making of this country, if we had talked to the people who had experienced it — what kind of archive that would have left us, to grapple with and to help us move away from its legacies,” said Lytle Hernandez. “But we’ve been able to forget the power and legacy of slavery because we didn’t do a good enough job. Same with native removal, internment, immigration.”

Now there is an opportunity — around the country, she was careful to point out, not just in LA — to do just that with the era of mass incarceration. Not only that but they can bring modern techniques to bear in ways that weren’t possible during, say, the Civil Rights movement.

Her experience with Million Dollar Hood has shown her that there is serious interest in turning the tables among communities that have historically been disenfranchised or targeted by racist and classist policies propped up by bogus data.

“When we have a meeting we have black and brown students crammed into the room and out into the hall to learn data analysis and data science,” she said. “Part of the project is opening up that door. When you bring the people into the room who are the most impacted, they see that data differently — they see different stories.”

The archive will be completely public, though the exact scope of what documents will be included and how they will be sorted, described, and so on is still being worked out. Regardless of the exact details, the archive should prove invaluable to students, researchers, and a curious public over the coming decades as the changes Lytle Hernandez hopes for begin to get underway.

The device joins a number of different robotic forklift solutions from various companies, including Toyota. Though Amazon’s own Kiva Systems-produced robots are likely still the best-known pallet moving robotics in the game.

The system was developed with Honeywell’s Intelligrated’s Momentum warehouse software. Fetch, of course, already offers a number of different warehouse robotic solutions, building out a kind of autonomous ecosystem. The company’s systems are notable for their relative flexibility over other full-scale solutions.

Per a press release, the new robot is designed to remove humans from the pallet-moving equation. Actions include,

• Cross-docking: the AMR can transport pallets directly from inbound to outbound shipment areas. After pallets are unloaded from the truck, the AMR carries pallets routed from the inbound trailers/containers directly to the respective outbound shipping area location.

• Returns: once inbound items are sorted based on product type or vendor, the AMR transports pallets to their appropriate return station (inventory, recycle, charity, etc.)

• Warehouse transport: after received products are unloaded and palletized, the AMR moves inventory to storage locations based on business needs

This product category was no doubt one of its most highly demanded, given the fairly common occurance of forklift-related accidents. Per numbers from OSHA, “forklifts cause about 85 fatal accidents per year; 34,900 accidents result in serious injury; and 61,800 are classified as non-serious.” That’s a pretty big source of workplace accidents. The agency adds if you assign one accident per machine, that means somewhere in the neighborhood or 11% of U.S. forklifts are involved in an accident.

In addition to these concerns, COVID-19 related shutdowns have no doubt made the move toward automated fulfillment systems all the more compelling over the past year.

The apps include messaging apps, a free video and file converter, several dating sites, and religion and prayer apps — each accounting for tens of millions of downloads to date, according to new research.

Sean O’Brien, principal researcher at ExpressVPN Digital Security Lab, and Esther Onfroy, co-founder of the Defensive Lab Agency, found close to 200 Android apps that at some point over the past year contained X-Mode tracking code.

Some of the apps were still sending location data to X-Mode as recently as December when Apple and Google told developers to remove X-Mode from their apps or face a ban from the app stores.

But weeks after the ban took effect, one popular U.S. transit map app that had been installed hundreds of thousands of times was still downloadable from Google Play even though it was still sending location data to X-Mode.

The new research, now published, is believed to be the broadest review to date of apps that collaborate with X-Mode, one of dozens of companies in a multibillion-dollar industry that buys and sells access to the location data collected from ordinary phone apps, often for the purposes of serving targeted advertising.

But X-Mode has faced greater scrutiny for its connections to government work, amid fresh reports that U.S. intelligence bought access to commercial location data to search for Americans’ past movements without first obtaining a warrant.

X-Mode pays app developers to include its tracking code, known as a software development kit, or SDK, in exchange for collecting and handing over the user’s location data. Users opt-in to this tracking by accepting the app’s terms of use and privacy policies. But not all apps that use X-Mode disclose to their users that their location data may end up with the data broker or is sold to military contractors.

X-Mode’s ties to military contractors (and by extension the U.S. military) was first disclosed by Motherboard, which first reported that a popular prayer app with more than 98 million downloads worldwide sent granular movement data to X-Mode.

In November, Motherboard found that another previously unreported Muslim prayer app called Qibla Compass sent data to X-Mode. O’Brien’s findings corroborate that and also point to several more Muslim-focused apps as containing X-Mode. By conducting network traffic analysis, Motherboard verified that at least three of those apps did at some point send location data to X-Mode, although none of the versions currently on Google Play do so. You can read Motherboard’s full story here.

X-Mode’s chief executive Josh Anton told CNN last year that the data broker tracks 25 million devices in the U.S., and told Motherboard its SDK had been used in about 400 apps.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Anton said:

“The ban on X-Mode’s SDK has broader ecosystem implications considering X-Mode collected similar mobile app data as most advertising SDKs. Apple and Google have set the precedent that they can determine private enterprises’ ability to collect and use mobile app data even when a majority of our publishers had secondary consent for the collection and use of location data.

We’ve recently sent a letter to Apple and Google to understand how we can best resolve this issue together so that we can both continue to use location data to save lives and continue to power the tech communities’ ability to build location-based products. We believe it’s important to ensure that Apple and Google hold X-Mode to the same standard they hold upon themselves when it comes to the collection and use of location data.”

The researchers also published new endpoints that apps using X-Mode’s SDK are known to communicate with, which O’Brien said he hoped would help others discover which apps are sending — or have historically sent — users’ location data to X-Mode.

“We hope consumers can identify if they’re the target of one of these location trackers and, more importantly, demand that this spying end. We want researchers to build off of our findings in the public interest, helping to shine light on these threats to privacy, security, and rights,” said O’Brien.

TechCrunch analyzed the network traffic on about two-dozen of the most downloaded Android apps in the researchers’ findings to look for apps that were communicating with any of the known X-Mode endpoints, and confirmed that several of the apps were at some point sending location data to X-Mode.

We also used the endpoints identified by the researchers to look for other popular apps that may have communicated with X-Mode.

At least one app identified by TechCrunch slipped through Google’s app store ban.

New York Subway in Google Play., until it was removed by Google. (Image: TechCrunch)

New York Subway, a popular app for navigating the New York City subway system that has been downloaded 250,000 times, according to data provided by Sensor Tower, was still listed in Google Play as of this week. But the app, which had not been updated since the app store bans were implemented, was still sending location data to X-Mode.

As soon as the app loads, a splash screen immediately asks for the user’s consent to send data to X-Mode for ads, analytics and market research, but the app did not mention X-Mode’s government work.

Desoline, the Israel-based app maker, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but removed references to X-Mode from its privacy policy a short while after we reached out. At the time of writing, the app has not returned to Google Play.

A Google spokesperson confirmed the company removed the app from Google Play.

Using the researchers’ list of apps, TechCrunch also found that previous versions of two highly popular apps, Moco and Video MP3 Converter, which account for more than 115 million downloads to date, are still sending user location data to X-Mode. That poses a privacy risk to users who install Android apps from outside Google Play, and those who are running older apps that are still sending data to X-Mode.

Neither app maker responded to a request for comment. Google would not say if it had removed any other apps for similar violations or what measures it would take, if any, to protect users running older app versions that are still sending location data to X-Mode.

None of the corresponding and namesake apps for Apple’s iOS that we tested appeared to communicate with X-Mode’s endpoints. When reached, Apple declined to say if it had blocked any apps after its ban went into effect.

“The sensors in smartphones provide rich data that can be exploited to limit our movements, our free expression, and our autonomy,” said O’Brien. “Location spying poses a serious threat to human rights because it peers into the most sensitive aspects of our lives and who we associate with.”

The newly published research is likely to bring fresh scrutiny to how ordinary smartphone apps are harvesting and selling vast amounts of personal data on millions of Americans, often without the user’s explicit consent.

Several federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and Homeland Security, are under investigation by government watchdogs for buying and using location data from various data brokers without first obtaining a warrant. Last week it emerged that intelligence analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency buy access to commercial databases of Americans’ location data.

Critics say the government is exploiting a loophole in a 2018 Supreme Court ruling, which stopped law enforcement from obtaining cell phone location data directly from the cell carriers without a warrant.

Now the government says it doesn’t believe it needs a warrant for what it can buy directly from brokers.

Sen. Ron Wyden, a vocal privacy critic whose office has been investigating the data broker industry, previously drafted legislation that would grant the Federal Trade Commission new powers to regulate and fine data brokers.

“Americans are sick of learning that their location data is being sold by data brokers to anyone with a credit card. Industry self-regulation clearly isn’t working — Congress needs to pass tough legislation, like my Mind Your Own Business Act, to give consumers effective tools to prevent their data being sold and to give the FTC the power to hold companies accountable when they violate Americans’ privacy,” said Wyden.

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Unlike its consumer-focused business in the U.S., which has been described as “Costco for millennials,” Boxed is exporting its nascent software-as-a-service solution to Aeon in Malaysia. As part of the tie-up, the American startup will create an end-to-end e-commerce solution to aid Aeon’s digital transformation, which includes a storefront platform and inventory-picking software. Boxed declined to disclose the value of the deal but said it’s in the “several tens of millions of dollars.”

Malaysia, which is home to more than 30 million people, is Boxed’s first stop in Asia and Aeon’s biggest market outside its home base of Japan. Aeon employs some 10,000 staff in Malaysia, where it has pledged to spur local employment amid the pandemic through its virtual mall.

With Boxed’s technology, Aeon customers will have the flexibility to pick their chosen number of items and have them shipped in a box to their doorstep. Boxed doesn’t intend to provide last-mile delivery in Asia but will instead tap local courier services. Grab, for instance, is a potential partner, Boxed co-founder and CEO Chieh Huang told TechCrunch in an interview.

Foray into Asia

Through a mutual friend, Huang got in touch with Aeon, which was established 263 years ago in Japan and today operates 21,000 locations, from clothing chains, convenience stores to general merchandise stores, across 14 countries.

Working with Aeon was challenging at first, Huang said, as there were differences not only in time zones but also in cultural norms due to Aeon’s colossal size. It took numerous in-person meetings and international calls to eventually bridge the gap.

The partners are also exploring opportunities to work together in other Southeast Asian markets. Boxed will keep its enterprise-facing angle by licensing software to local retailers rather than expanding its consumer business to the region, which is already crowded with established e-commerce players like Shopee, Lazada and Tokopedia.

Digitizing traditional retailers

An Aeon mall / Source: Aeon

Prior to the SaaS deal, Aeon was already an investor in Boxed. In 2018, it led the e-commerce startup’s $111 billion Series D funding round so it could tap Boxed’s intel in retail digitization. Huang believed his company was chosen because it was one of the few e-commerce operators alongside JD.com and Amazon that have full control over the supply chain and users’ purchasing experience.

Boxed builds its own warehouse robots as well because “we are able to do it much cheaper ourselves than buying the robots,” argued Huang. “Most of the robots are very advanced because they are not able to control the environment. We own the fulfillment center so we can delete a lot of the things that are expensive, such as Lidar.”

Furthermore, the startup’s “box” model helps flat out the costs of shipping with each incremental item delivered, giving the platform a price advantage, the founder said.

Future of Boxed

Founded in 2013, Boxed has accumulated over seven million registered users. With a staff of 500 employees across the U.S., it’s now generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

In all, Boxed has raised over $270 million. Since its last financing round in 2018, the company has had little publicity. During that time Boxed was focused on fine-tuning its retail software solution, which has become its second and more profitable line of business. The firm’s margin is improving every year and getting close to profitability in 2021, said Huang. And like other e-commerce companies, Boxed saw growth in user demand through the pandemic.

Going public is “always on our mind,” said Huang. “I think it will surprise a lot of people how close we are to profitability.”

Reuters reported in September that Boxed was weighing up “a sale or going public through a merger with a blank-check acquisition company that could value it at around $1 billion.” To that, the startup gave a somewhat indefinite response:

“As a result of the shift to online, we’ve also seen increased demand from many parties looking to partner with us to accelerate growth both in our marketplace and new SaaS business. We are thoughtfully considering these options when it comes to the long-term success of Boxed.”

Tercera, a new venture capital firm launching today wants to attack this problem by investing in companies that can act as helpers and consultants. In a world where venture capital tends to gravitate mostly towards software and hardware, this is a distinctly different investment thesis.

Chris Barbin, founder and CEO at Tercera knows quite a bit about this. He was one of the founders at Appirio, a consulting firm founded way back in 2006 when cloud computing as we know it today was just getting off the ground. His former company had the vision and the foresight to start a firm to help companies use new tools like Salesforce, Google, Workday and AWS. Wipro bought the company in 2016 for $500 million after it had raised over $117 million, according to Crunchbase data.

Barbin believes that today, the level of complexity has only increased, and there will be a growing need for what he calls this people power to make everything work, and that takes a specialized kind of investor. “There’s been a flurry of investment activity into professional services-based companies over the last couple of years, but there’s never been an investment firm that is exclusively focused on these types of businesses,” Barbin explained.

During the firm’s research phase, the founders identified key platform companies like Salesforce, Twilio, Snowflake, DataDog and Cloudflare, and they estimate that there are between 7500 and 10,000 consulting companies supporting companies like this. “The goal of the firm is to help create a kind of a powerhouse for those emerging [platforms], or a firm or two that actually has the collection of those [SaaS platforms] in their toolkit,” he said.

The company will be targeting established firms with revenue between $5 and $20 million with aspirations to grow into the hundreds of millions, and will be doling out investments of between $5 and 20 million of capital per bet.

The firm is just getting started, but plans to have 8 employees by mid-year. Barbin indicated at least one investment was already in the pipeline, but wasn’t ready to give details just yet.

It has raised a $2 million Seed funding round (£1.7M) via the Seedrs crowdfunding platform, with the round also including the institutional investor Forward Partners. Angel investors include Tom Singh (founder of New Look), Damian Bradfield (WeTransfer), Dhiraj Mukherjee (Shazam), Renee Elliot (Planet Organic), and celebrity investor Chris Smalling (an England and Manchester United professional footballer).

The funds will be used for customer growth and new product development, including soon-to-launch a ‘psychobiotic‘ probiotic aimed at cognition and mental health.

Customers first take a ‘brain health’ survey, then sign up for a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription.

Customers need only take two capsules a day, thus hugely decreasing the complexity of juggling regular vitamin taking.

The product fits through a letterbox and the unusual bottle was designed by the well-known product design agency Pentagram. A content and coaching program included in the subscription helps customers, and another brain health survey happens after a month. Heights claims that “93%” improve their brain health score within one month.

Heights is not alone in this new market for what some describe as ‘designer vitamins’ and the arena is already populated by the likes of Hims / Hers, Motion, Vitabiotics and Bulletproof.

These companies broadly fall into the “Nootropics” category — vitamins and minerals designed to improve cognitive function, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals. But the market is not small. The ‘self care’, ‘healthcare’, and ‘personal development’ market is worth over $1Trillion but supplements alone is worth at least $100BN+.

Heights founders Dan Murray-Serter and Joel Freeman, with adviser Dr. Tara Swart.

However, co-founder Dan Murray-Serter says Heights is aiming to do something different to the aforementioned players.

In a text-based interview, he said: “Nootropics as a category really focus on quick fixes, which is why we’re working on the category creation of ‘braincare’ because there are no ‘quick fixes’ in life, and that terminology and category have essentially set people up with the same false hopes as ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes do. We’re set up differently — aka, starting with scientifically researched articles and journal references.”

He said Heights will be positioned more like a skincare or haircare brand, “because people understand that the daily habit/practice is what creates the longevity and impact, not just a one-day miracle.”

Murray-Serter says there are 20 key nutrients science says our brains need to thrive, and these are mostly found in a combination of buying multivitamins, omega 3s, and ‘nootropics’. He says Heights has sourced the “highest quality” ingredients in the most ‘bioavailable form’ in a patented capsule which makes it easier to digest for the body.

“One of the most common reasons the habit of taking vitamins doesn’t stick for people is that the bottle goes into a cupboard and gets ignored. So we started with design alongside quality,” he says. The Heights vitamins come in a distinctive, recyclable bottle which Heights will also aven recycle if you send it back to them.

Murray-Serter, who previously founded the mobile startup Grabble, says he came up with the idea for the startup after a bout of chronic anxiety and a 6 month-long period of insomnia. The problem was solved by high-quality, high-density vitamins and supplements, as opposed to normal supplements which usually only have the lowest recommended daily levels of vitamins inside them.

After starting a newsletter on the subject of optimizing cognitive performance with cofounder Joel Freeman, the pair amassed a following of 60,000 readers www.yourheights.com/sundays

and then came up with the idea of launching the actual product.

The company now has a ‘Braincare‘ podcast that has reached 100,000 downloads, and the founders have also been joined by key team member Chief Science Officer, Dr Tara Swart (pictured).

Two things may help Heights. Firstly, in the era of Covid-19, public health authorities and governments around the world have recommended taking Vitamin D to boost the body’s immune system should someone fall prey to the disease. It’s not insignificant that two Heights capsules contain 400% of the ‘Nutrient Reference Value’ (formerly known as Recommended Daily Allowance) of Vitamin D3, as well as many other supplements. Theoretically, one could take four normal tablets of this, but the customer experience and other added vitamins in Heights will appeal to many. Secondly, the growing awareness of mental health and interest in maintaining good mental health is now a regular subject of public discourse. So Heights appears to be well-positioned to ride both those waves.

“We’ve gone from 12 million customers in 2019 to 34 million solely based on word of mouth,” said David Velez, the company’s co-founder and CEO. By September last year, the company was onboarding 41,000 new customers per day. NuBank prides itself on having a $0 customer acquisition cost. Velez said the startup spends what would be marketing money on “great salaries” and superior customer service, which in turn creates “fanatic” customers who share their love for the brand with others.

The new valuation places NuBank as the fourth most valuable financial institution in Latin America and the largest digital bank in the world by the number of customers and app downloads. 

The round was led by both private and public investors including Singapore’s GIC, Whale Rock, and Invesco. Current investors Tencent, Dragoneer, Ribbit Capital, and Sequoia also participated in the round. Velez is a former Sequoia partner and is originally from Colombia though he attended Stanford University and worked in the U.S. for many years.

NuBank, based in São Paulo — the financial capital of Latin America and home to 12.8 million people — has expanded to Colombia and Mexico and plans to use the new funding to flesh out its operations in those markets while continuing to build out its product offerings in Brazil.

What started as a credit card company now functions as a full-service bank, minus the cumbersome bank branches, which is one way the company has been able to allocate its funding primarily toward growth.

“People were really done with being mistreated and paying high fees,” said Velez, speaking to Brazil’s notoriously bureaucratic and dreadful banking experience (liken it to going to the DMV, but regularly). Historically, to pay your monthly bills in Brazil, you had to go to a bank branch and wait in line — often outside in the heat — until it was your turn. The lines wrapped around the block like that of an Apple Store upon the release of the latest iPhone.

“It’s like they are doing you a favor by opening an account for you and then charging you 450% interest rate per year,” said Velez. “Our bet was that people would really like to be treated like humans,” he added.

In 1994, when the Brazilian real currency was introduced, it was pegged at 1:1 with the U.S. dollar. However, in recent years, with the country’s largest corruption scandal in history which saw three consecutive presidents jailed, impeached, and incriminated, respectively, the economy has plummeted. And COVID-19 certainly hasn’t helped. The exchange rate is now 1 USD to 5.40 BRL. With low exchange rates in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, a $400 million USD investment creates a sizable runway, especially since Nubank’s Brazil operation has been cash-flow positive since 2018.

The company is known for reaching the unbanked population in Brazil, especially those who simply weren’t in the financial position to get a credit card. Traditional banks are present in about 80% of Brazilian municipalities, but considering that Nubank’s app-based product is location-agnostic, it’s able to reach 100% of the municipalities, the company said. In addition, it’s been helping Brazilians build credit. Its Barney-purple credit card starts at a monthly limit of $50 reals per month (roughly $10 USD). If a customer pays on time the first month, their credit continues to increase over the following months. 

Amongst its slew of products, Nubank also offers a debit card and savings account, and while it doesn’t have branches of its own, money can be withdrawn from network ATM’s, as is common in the U.S.

“Nubank was born out of the conviction that people deserved better, more transparent and human financial services that would allow them to be in control of their money and their future. We started seven years ago in Brazil, a country with one of the most concentrated banking sectors in the world, and we were able to free millions of people of the bureaucracy and the pain. Through technology and human customer service, we were able to have a positive impact on their daily lives,” said Velez.

“The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) hereby gives notice pursuant to paragraph (b) of the definition of ‘initial period’ in section 34ZA(3) of the [Enterprise] Act that it has sufficient information in relation to the completed acquisition by Facebook, Inc of Giphy, Inc, (the Merger) to enable it to begin an investigation for the purposes of deciding whether to make a reference for a Phase 2 investigation,” it writes.

“The initial period defined in section 34ZA(3) of the Act in relation to the Merger will therefore commence on the first working day after the date of this notice, ie on 29 January 2021. The end of the initial period and the deadline for the CMA to announce its decision whether to refer the Merger for a Phase 2 investigation is therefore 25 March 2021.”

The Competition and Markets Authority launched a probe of Facebook’s $400M acquisition of the GIF-sharing platform back in June 2020.

The investigation put a freeze on Facebook’s ability to continue activities related to integrating Giphy into its wider business empire — such as integrating products or teams or working on business deals or contracts together — despite having already been completed the acquisition.

Facebook confirmed its plan to acquire Giphy in May 2020 — when it also announced its plan to integrate the platform into its photo and video sharing app, Instagram.

But those plans remain on ice as a result of competition scrutiny in the UK. (Last June Facebook and Giphy confirmed they were complying with the CMA’s order to pause integration activity.)

It’s another sign of the growing regulatory friction that tech giants are facing when they seek to grow via acquisition. Last year, for example, European regulators also spent months eyeing Google’s Fitbit acquisition — although they did finally clear the deal in December. But only after obtaining a number of commitments from the tech giant related to how Fitbit data could be used and rivals’ access to APIs.

In the Facebook-Giphy case, the UK watchdog will make a decision in March on whether to open a deeper and broader Phase 2 investigation (after which it would need to issue a final decision).

It could also decide at that point that there is no ‘realistic prospect’ of a substantial lessening of competition as a result of Facebook acquiring Giphy and conclude its intervene — lifting the bar on continued integration between the pair.

The regulator also has discretion to choose not to open a Phase 2 investigation for other reasons, such as if it believes the market is not of sufficient importance to justify the deeper dive or that benefits to customers from a merger outweigh any negative competitive effects.

Given the acquired business in this case is a platform for swapping reaction GIFs it certainly seems possible the CMA may decide that a deeper dive isn’t merited. But we’ll know more in a couple of months.

Whatever happens, regulatory concern linked to Facebook’s grip on the social web has already delayed its plans for Giphy by well over half a year — and the probe may yet drag on for longer — impacting its ability to move fast (and break things).

In the latest move, a startup out of Germany called the Berlin Brands Group has announced that it plans to invest €250 million (about $302 million at today’s rates) to buy up smaller companies and bring them into its fold.

While a lot of the company’s would-be competitors in the consolidation race are focusing primarily on the Amazon Marketplace — leaning on fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to carry out the distribution and logistics — Peter Chaljawski, the founder and CEO, tells us that it’s a different story in its existing target market of Europe.

“In the M&A market, one big difference between the U.S. and Europe is that the latter is more fragmented,” he said. “In the U.S., D2C sellers do a lot on Amazon. In Europe, there are still lots of alternatives. And in some markets like France, consumers don’t even like Amazon.” This is in addition, of course, to selling directly to consumers and bypassing marketplaces altogether, an area that Chaljawski said will continue to be a big focus for BBG. In all, BBG today says it uses some 100 channels to sell its products.

BBG is not your typical e-commerce startup, in that up to now it’s managed to build a big and profitable business largely on its own steam. And despite being a big e-commerce player in Berlin, BBC has no connection to Rocket Internet, the famous incubator of e-commerce businesses founded in the city.

The $302 million earmarked for acquisitions is coming off the startup’s own balance sheet. And from what we understand, it’s also coming ahead of BBG raising a significant round of outside funding to continue its growth. Although BBG has raised money (of an undisclosed amount, per PitchBook) in the past, this would be its first significant equity round when it closes.

BBG itself has built its own profitable direct-to-consumer business from the ground up. Founded in 2005 first focused on audio equipment (Chaljawski had ambitions to be a DJ in a past life) it has some 14 brands today, covering 2,500 items, that it has hatched and grown itself, which it sells in 28 markets.

The conglomerate model that BBG has taken covers a variety of categories, mostly in consumer electronics (including audio gear, fitness equipment and home appliances), and are sold under a range of different brands like auna, Klarstein and Capital Sports. To date, it says it has sold more than 10 million products, and it is profitable, making €300 million (around $363 million) in revenues in 2020.

Its focus for new acquisitions will include more brands and products in garden, home and living goods, sports, electronics and household appliances, with targets generating anything from €500,000 to €30 million in revenues.

While BBG has mostly been about organic growth, it started taking its first foray into inorganic expansion last December, with the acquisition of home goods brand Sleepwise, which Chaljawski describes as making “a very nice blanket.”

The comfort of a nice blanket might come in handy. Despite its success to date, a number of challenges lie ahead for BBG.

First of these are competitors. BBG’s strategy shift and acquisition plans come at a time when consolidators in the space are starting to emerge, armed with fistfuls of dollars to consolidate smaller brands that have emerged with success on marketplaces like Amazon’s (in fact, primarily the Amazon marketplace) but perhaps without obvious paths to scaling.

They include the likes of Thrasio (which most recently raised $500 million in debt to use to buy companies), SellerX, Heyday, Heroes, Perch and more.

This story from December in the FT (before that most recent debt round of Thrasio’s) estimated that there has been at least $1 billion raised collectively by these companies to build out new online consumer empires based on this model.

The vision for all of them is very clear: they want to create the next Unilever, P&G, or Sony, and they are leveraging new economic models and technology to bring in manufacturing, logistics, economies of scale, sales analytics and new innovations in marketing to do it.

Another challenge is how successful and efficient a company, which has up to now taken a very deliberate and organic path, will be in integrating lots of new brands, with the cultures and business partnerships relationships that exist with those, in tow.

The third is the sourcing of quality brands themselves. As we’ve pointed out before, taking just Amazon as one example, there is a ton of junk sold there, including a whole industry of those who buy off wholesale sites and resell on Amazon, which is one reason why so many merchants sell what look like identical products in specific categories. These marketplace sellers leverage things like SEO and armies of reviews to get their products sifting to the top of huge piles of search results, and they can often sell well, even if they are not great buys for you the consumer. That means misleading signals for a potential consolidator looking for hot companies to snap up.

The balance between how marketplaces are leveraged versus how much brands and their owners try to build these things on their own will be an interesting one to watch in the coming years. Amazon and its ilk have only continued to grow and become more efficient, although this sometimes means they are too powerful rather than more useful for third parties:

On the other hand, we’re seeing another persistent theme to help them: the presence of startups and bigger companies continuing to make tools to help the smaller players stay in the game on their own terms. They include biggies like Shopify, but also newer players like GoSite, Shogun and Xentral.

The company said on Thursday that it now specifies guidance on gamified loyalty programs that are based on a qualified monetary transaction in an app and offer prizes of cash or other real-world cash equivalent perks.

Scores of apps run gamified loyalty programs in their apps to appease and win users. Last year, the company sent notices to several Indian startups including Paytm, Zomato, and Swiggy whose in-app gamifying techniques, the company said at the time, resembled gambling. Google had asked the firms to withdraw from engaging in such gamifying techniques. The new policy covers developers worldwide, the company said.

Paytm, which is India’s most valued startup, had alleged at the time that Google was preventing the startup from engaging in the very same set of practices that the company’s own app, Google Pay, was employing to win users in the country. Google had temporarily delisted Paytm app from the Play Store after the violation.

This back and forth between the two firms, as well as changes to Play Store commission in the following weeks, gave birth to a coalition of Indian startups that has sought government intervention to regulate the power Google holds in the country.

“App developers in India are actively building uniquely Indian features and services. One example is the use of mini games, quizzes and other gamification techniques to delight users and convert them into loyal customers. These experiences are often launched during important festivals and sporting events, and getting it right within the specific time window is critically important,” wrote Suzanne Frey, Vice President, Product, Android Security and Privacy, in a blog post.

The company still does not permit real gambling apps in India, but said developers globally now will have better clarity on rules so they can inform their strategies.

“This is one of the things we discussed when we spoke to several startup CEOs in India and around the world in the past few months. And, as part of the very first policy update of 2021 we are clarifying and simplifying the policies around loyalty programs and features,” wrote Frey.

A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company will be outlining the full guidelines later today.

As part of the update, the company said it is also launching How Google Play Works, a repository of useful information and best practices to help developers. “It also contains India-specific details on programs that local developers can leverage to find success and scale. For users, this site helps to demystify key aspects of the Google Play platform, and explains how user security and protection remains at the heart of everything we do,” wrote Frey.

In a virtual event on Thursday, Sameer Samat, VP of Android and Google Play at Google, said today’s update is the first of many the company plans to issue this year and it is committed to listening to more feedback from the industry.

More on Google and Jio Platform’s upcoming smartphones

In a wide-range discussion at the event organized by startup network TiE Delhi-NCR, Samat also talked about the efforts Google is putting into bringing Android-powered smartphones to more people in India. Last year, Google announced an investment of $4.5 billion into Indian telecom operator Jio Platforms. As part of the partnership, the two firms have said they will work on low-cost Android smartphones.

“While India is the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, there are a lack of devices priced in a certain range that prevents a number of consumers from purchasing,” he said. “We have been optimizing Android for entry level devices with Android Go. The point of that project is to enable Android to run on entry level hardware that hopefully brings the price down. There are more than 100 million Android Go smartphones in the market today, but we need to go further than that.”

Samat said the company is trying to bring the set of services that higher-end smartphones feature to “entry-level” handsets it is building with Jio Platforms. “More affordable phones cannot mean lower quality phones.” He suggested that these phones will have a different consumer interface that is directly aimed at users who have not previously used a smartphone.

The accelerator runs the flagship program annually and with a focus on Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Mexico and India, selected startups receive £80,000 (~$100,000) in grant capital, six months of support and connections with follow-on investors.

In 2020, all five countries had representatives in the accelerator. However, the selected six startups this year are from Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. These startups offer embedded finance solutions; Maelis Carraro, Catalyst Fund MD, explains the thought process behind this selection in a statement.

“Today, fintech is rapidly evolving to the point where it’s no longer a standalone vertical. Embedded finance offerings have the potential to improve the value of products in adjacent sectors significantly while finding new ways to better reach and serve low-income individuals via touchpoints they already know and trust,” she said.

Here are the startups in the 8th cohort. First off, from Kenya, Koa enables users to save and invest, gaining control over their finances. Lami is an insurance platform and API that enables more individuals and businesses to access insurance coverage. Power allows gig and salaried workers access to earned wages and other financial services, and contribute to savings via partner banks. 

From Nigeria, Indicina facilitates lending for individuals and small businesses through AI-powered digital credit infrastructure. Jetstream allows businesses to export goods across borders and access trade financing in Nigeria and Ghana.

Representing South Africa, Kandua connects skilled home service professionals with access to customers, professional tools and digital financial services.

What is interesting about the companies in this cohort is that they are predominantly led or co-founded by women as all startups except Kandua have a female founder.

“It was a conscious decision to make this cohort more inclusive for women given the gap in funding and support to women founders, particularly in emerging markets,” Carraro said to TechCrunch. “For example, founders in our previous cohort were all male. We are consciously making an effort to support as many women founders as we can going forward.”

According to an IFC report, only 11% of seed funding capital in emerging markets goes to companies with at least a woman on their founding team. The numbers are lower for later-stage funding despite evidence that investing in gender-diverse teams leads to more substantial business outcomes.

These startups will join the Catalyst Fund’s existing portfolio of 37 companies, which have raised over $122 million in follow-on funding since 2016.

Lami CEO Jihan Abass says her insurance company will use the investment to enhance its platform features, get more third-party integrations, and put data security and ISO certifications in place. For Indicina and CEO Yvonne Johnson, the capital from Catalyst Fund will enable the company to expand its platform, which will include new AI capabilities to improve credit in Africa.

This cohort, which is all-African, represents Catalyst Fund’s continued effort to support fintech startups on the continent. It adds to the growth of a sector that has consistently received most of the VC money coming into the continent. Last year, fintechs accounted for 31% of the total funding raised by African startups per Briter Bridges data.

Catalyst Fund has the backing to keep this going. Last year, it announced $15 million in additional funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and JPMorgan Chase & Co., to accelerate 30 new inclusive fintech startups by 2022. 

Since then, the fund has financed 12 startups and will need to add 18 between now and next year to achieve that objective. But having funded Chipper Cash, Turaco, Sokowatch, Cowrywise, which just closed a $3M pre-seed round, among others, the total number of startups in its portfolio sits at 43.

Nipun Mehra (a former executive of Flipkart in India), Alan Wong (who previously worked with Amazon), Derry Sakti (who oversaw consumer goods giant P&G’s operations in Indonesia), and Riky Tenggara (former Lazada and aCommerce), began to explore opportunities to address this in 2019.

“Much like India, much of the Indonesian retail market is unorganized. In the food and vegetable category, for instance, there are lots of farmers who sell to agents, who then sell to markets. From these markets, the inventory goes to small wholesalers, and so on. There are lots of players in the chain,” said Mehra, whose previous stints include working at Sequoia Capital India, in an interview with TechCrunch.

Mehra, Wong, Sakti and Tenggara co-founded Ula in January of 2020. With Ula, they are trying to organize this sourcing and supply chain for small retailers so that there is a one-stop shop for everybody.

Despite the pandemic, Ula made inroads in the Indonesian market last year and today serves more than 20,000 stores. And naturally, investors have noticed.

From left to right: Derry Sakti, Nipun Mehra (screen), Riky Tenggara, Ganesh Rengaswamy (screen), Alan Wong, and Dan Bertoli. Photo credit: Ula

On Thursday, Ula announced it has raised $20 million in a Series A financing round. The round was led by existing investor Quona Capital and B Capital Group. Other existing investors including Sequoia Capital India and Lightspeed — that financed Ula’s $10.5 million Seed round in June last year — have also participated in the Series A.

“If you look at the whole retail value chain, especially for essential goods, FMCG, staple, and fresh produce, it’s significantly fragmented,” said Ganesh Rengaswamy, Managing Partner at Quona Capital, in an interview. “Whereas the market has moved on in terms of being able to more efficiently consolidate, demand and supply. Ula is trying to redo the retail distribution ecosystem with a significant technology overlay. It’s connecting some of the largest players in the supply side to the smallest retailers and consumers.”

Additionally, Ula is providing these micro retailers, who usually operate from small shops that are extensions of their homes, with working capital so that they don’t have to wait to be paid by their customers to buy the new batch of inventory. (It’s a serious challenge that micro-retailers face in Asian markets. These shops have strong bonds with their customers, so often they sell them items without getting paid upfront. Collecting this payment often takes longer than it should.)

“Frictionless payment and offering credit to retailers so that they can more efficiently manage their cashflow are critical components of modern digital commerce,” said Rengaswamy. For Quona, which has backed several e-commerce and fintech startups in Asia, Ula checks both the boxes.

Mehra said last year was largely about expanding the Ula team and building the technology stack. The startup now plans to deploy the capital to reach more small retailers and expand within the nation.

Indonesia will remain Ula’s focus market. The opportunity in the region itself is very large. The retail spend is expected to surpass $0.5 trillion over the next 4 years, said Kabir Narang, Founding General Partner at B Capital Group, in a statement. Traditional in-store retail accounts for nearly 80% of the total retail market, according to some estimates.

Ula currently operates in the FMCG and food and vegetable spaces, but it intends to broaden its offerings to include apparel and eventually electronics.

A few more things from my notes:

• Like many other startups in Asia, Ula largely relies on feet-and-street sales people to spread the word out about its offerings and onboarding new shops. The key to growing, said Mehra, is to get a few retailers who are very happy with the services and see its value and then tell their friends about it. It’s a learning he credited to Indian business-to-business e-commerce platform Udaan co-founders Amod Malviya, Vaibhav Gupta and Sujeet Kumar, with whom he worked at Flipkart back in the day. Udaan co-founders have backed Ula.
• Electronics is a category that is very popular among B2C and B2B e-commerce platforms. Mehra said he has always known that the startup could expand to electronics, so it has chosen to focus on other categories first that test the supply chain network.
• Indonesia comprises of more than 17,000 islands, but only a handful of islands including Java and Sumatra contributes most to the GDP.
• I asked Quona’s Rengaswamy to draw parallels between e-commerce and payments markets of India and Indonesia. He said India has made more inroads with creating frictionless payments. But on the flip side, this has created potential for startups in Indonesia to solve additional challenges.

The new round was led by Sapphire Sport, the part of Sapphire Ventures that specializes in sports, media and lifestyle brands. Existing investors Global Founders Capital and Icebreaker.vc also returned, bringing Flowhaven’s total raise to date to $21.5 million.

Image Credits: Flowhaven

The idea to modernize the media licensing business comes from a founder who had direct experience in the industry.

Flowhaven CEO Kalle Törmä previously worked on licensing for the Angry Birds mobile game franchise while at Rovio, starting back in 2012. While there, he created the global blueprint for managing the merchandising side of the business, which later expanded to include partnerships for the Angry Birds Star Wars and Angry Birds Transformers games.

“It was evident that the workflows were very broken — from managing the commerce, or the agreements, the product approvals, and financials. The information was very siloed. Also, there were a lot of things that fell through the cracks,” explains Törmä.

In addition, it was time consuming and difficult to pull together data that would allow management to understand how the business was doing.

The challenges Törmä faced at Rovio led him to understand what would be needed to create a solution like Flowhaven — particularly, the difficulty of managing tricky licensing workflows and timetables through manual methods.

He left Rovio in 2016 and founded Flowhaven, where he’s joined by university pal and CCO Timo Olkkola, whose background is in sales.

Image Credits: Flowhaven

Today, the Flowhaven licensing management platform automates the brand licensing workflow process, including the planning and strategy, account and agreement management, content distribution, design approvals, royalty reporting, and more.

It also helps to keep teams on schedules that can often be tight in the media and entertainment businesses.

“There’s always a timeframe that they follow — whether it’s a film release or game release,” Törmä says. “There are lot of moving pieces in closing all the agreements and then moving the products through the approvals [so when], let’s say, a film comes out, a couple of months prior, the merchandise hits the retail shelves,” he says.

“If you don’t have the products approved and ready, then you didn’t really seize the momentum,” Törmä adds.

Image Credits: Flowhaven

Flowhaven pitches that its software isn’t just saving time, it also saves money. The company estimates that licensing professionals waste 50 hours per month at $70 per hour on work that could be automated. This equals approximately $42,000 per year wasted for a single professional.

As of its new funding, Flowhaven’s software-as-a-service platform has been adopted by close to 100 companies, ranging from smaller business to Fortune 100 companies in markets like media, entertainment, sports, fashion, and by corporate and consumer brands Though some customer names can’t be shared, Flowhaven says it’s working with Nintendo, LAIKA, Games Workshop, Acamar Films, and Crunchyroll.

Its pricing is based on how many users will be on the platform. This doesn’t include those with guest access outside the organization, who are always free of charge.

The company also reports 400% year-over-year growth and says it’s expecting that trend to continue, but declines to share its current revenue figures.

The additional funding will help Flowhaven fuel its growth, expand its product and platform, and aid in hiring, Törmä says. Today, the company’s staff is split between offices in Helsinki, London and L.A. but says it’s seeing the most growth in the latter two.

In terms of the product itself, the plan is to further develop Flowhaven’s analytics and speed up the process of exchanging information between the brand owners and their licensees.

Already in 2021, Flowhaven is growing. It began the year with a team of 30 and is now 43 people. Throughout the year, Törmä says the team will grow to nearly 100.