London VCs launch joint initiative to expand funding opportunities for underrepresented founders

A group of UK-based VCs have come together to create a new virtual pitching event designed to address the problems with the current startup ecosystem which can lead to inequalities and ‘warm intros’ made only between privileged classes and ethnicities.

Held on the 30th of September, “Access All” will be a new virtual event geared toward founders from underrepresented groups.

Participating founders will be invited to pitch their startups to a number of London’s leading VCs and companies, including Downing Ventures, Playfair Capital, SpeedInvest and SoftBank, as well as Microsoft, Amazon, Accenture and O2.

The joint initiative has been put together by initiated by Floww, Force Over Mass and Wayra UK, with the mission to create more opportunity for BAME founders, based on merit, reducing bias and addressing the problems of the “the old boys network” of venture capital deal flow.

According to some figures, startups with all-male founding teams raise 91% of the venture capital in the U.K., but the stats around ethnic minority founders are harder to find. In the US for example, 0.02% of venture capital is allocated to Black female founders.

Martijn de Wever, CEO and founder of Floww, which is coordinating the event, said: “With Access All, we rallied together in the startup community because we believe that the system needs change. Black, Asian and other ethnic minority founders, need to have fair access.”

Floww’s team of accountants and content writers will work with applicants for free to review their business plans and get them ready to pitch to the participating investors. TechCrunch and Forbes journalists will be joining the panel as judges.

Founders can register here.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/10/london-vcs-launch-new-joint-initiative-to-help-bame-founders-get-better-access-to-vc/

As it delists, Rocket Internet’s ill-fated experiment with public markets is over

It was all supposed to be so different. When Rocket Internet IPO’d in 2014 it was the largest tech company floatation in Europe for 7 years. A year later it had lost $46m and it’s valuation had dropped by 30%. Since then the German start-up factory behind internet companies such as Delivery Hero, Zalando and Jumia has languished, in part because the reason for it’s existence – to provide growth capital for ‘rocket-fuelled’ startups – has ebbed away, as the tech market was flooded with capital in recent years. Today the company said it was delisting its shares from the Frankfurt and Luxembourg Stock Exchanges for just that reason.

Rocket’s market value has fallen from its high of 6.7 billion euros ($8 billion) on the day of its IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to just 2.6 billion euros and is now offering investors 18.57 euros ($22.23) for each of their shares, lower than Monday’s closing price of 18.95 euros.

The company said it was “better positioned as a company not listed on a stock exchange” as this would allow it to focus on long-term bets.

In a statement, the company said: “The use of public capital markets as a financing source as essential [sic.] parameter for maintaining a stock exchange listing is no longer required and adequate access to capital is secured outside the stock exchange. Outside a capital markets environment, the Company will be able to focus on a long-term development irrespective of temporary circumstances capital markets tend to put emphasis on.”

Delisting, it said, will also reduce operational complexity when setting up new companies, “freeing up administrative and management capacity and reducing costs”.

Its investment division, Global Founders Capital, and CEO Oliver Samwer, will retain their stakes of 45.11% and 4.53% respectively, meaning the virtual shareholder meeting on Sept. 24 ask for shareholder approval to delist will be largely a formality. It has also launched a separate buyback program to secure 8.84% of its shares from the stock market. Although the decision to de-list makes sense, smaller shareholders will be burned, especially as Rocket is using its own cash for the buy-back.

The bets Rocket took, however, have of course paid off. For some. According to Forbes, Samwer and his brothers and co-founders Alexander and Marc are worth at least $1.2 billion each.

The Berlin-based firm became quickly known as a “clone factory” after Samwer famously conceded during his PHD that Silicon Valley had got innovation wrong by comping up with new ideas, and the ‘innovation’ would simply be to make existing models more efficient. The fact those existing models were usually dreamt up by other people never seemed to phase him.

Almost like clockwork Rocket produce clones of various guess for Amazon, Uber, Uber Eats and Airbnb. Its defence for this rapacious strategy was that it was simply adapting proven models for other markets.

Rocket would say it was merely adapting proven models for untapped local markets. Of course, the kicker was usually that the company would either scale faster globally than the original US-based startup, thus forcing some kind of acquisition, or that it would have its clones IPO faster. It did however produce some big, global, companies, even if they were not particularly original, including e-commerce firm Zalando, food delivery service Delivery Hero and meal-kit provider HelloFresh.

There have been successes. Jumia, the African e-commerce company, listed in April last year and when Rocket sold its stake earlier this year, it contributed tp Rocket’s net cash position of €1.9bn at the end of April.

But it has not benefitted from the recent stock market rally for tech companies, as it is overly exposed to e-commerce rather than pandemic-proof companies like Zoom.

For nostalgia sakes, here’s that interview I did with Oliver Samwer in 2015, just one more time.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/01/as-it-delists-rocket-internets-ill-fated-experiment-with-public-markets-is-over/

Startup launches innovative new product that pays Amazon marketplace sellers daily

Third-party sellers are the dominant driver of sales on Amazon’s marketplace, accounting for 58% of its total and growing. We know that the pandemic, ironically, has been good for Amazon, which has reported net sales in Q1, up by 26% year-over-year, given that much of the world has reverted to ordering online. However, the payment terms offered are far from convenient. Amazon pays sellers approximately every two weeks and reserves a significant amount for possible refunds. Unfortunately, this hinders the ability of small companies to invest in growth and purchase more inventory. But of course, Amazon holds the keys to this particular car.

Payability is one such startup that provides financing to suppliers in Amazon’s marketplace although its fees are computed on gross sales, not net receivables from Amazon.

InstaPay is a startup that has launched a new product that pays Amazon sellers on a daily basis. The new offering comes at a time when Amazon sellers are experiencing an enormous load due to the pandemic, but the Amazon marketplace terms have not sped up to allow them to meet demand.

The current two-week lag time creates a gap in cash-flow – because sellers usually have to pay their vendors in advance. InstaPay’s new product potentially solves this problem, allowing sellers to be able to earn more, even with the added InstaPay fees.

The service funds 50% to 80% of sales and charges 1% to 2% of sales volume per funding. When Amazon pays the vendor, InstaPay automatically deducts the outstanding balance. This means small companies can invest in growth and purchase more inventory.

Sam Bokher, COO, said in a statement: “Due to the global lockdown, people have ramped up online purchases and more companies have flocked to Amazon and other eCommerce platforms to sell online. We launched this new service to provide businesses with an opportunity to grow simultaneously with the marketplace, rather than with a two-week delay.”

The product was inspired by an unlikely industry. Prior to this, InstaPay had been providing transportation and trucking companies with working capital, with flat-rate accounts receivable financing and same-day payment.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/16/startup-launches-innovative-new-product-that-pays-amazon-marketplace-sellers-daily/

Marketing data platform Adverity raises $30M Series C led by Sapphire Ventures

In the time many of us live in now, we all know our online media consumption is — to state the obvious — going through the roof. Subsequently, the amount of data pertaining to online marketing is, equally, reaching stratospheric heights and in recent years tech companies like Datorama and Funnel.io, SuperMetrics and Adverity have appeared to give marketeers a data intelligence platform to deal with the welter of spreadsheets and reports necessary to track everything.

Last year, Vienna HQ’d Adverity closed an €11 million Series B funding round for its AI-driven platform to produce actionable insights in real-time for marketers.

Today it’s announcing a Series C financing round of $30 million, bringing the total amount it has raised to $50 million. The latest funding round is led by Valley-based Sapphire Ventures. Also participating is Mangrove Capital Partners, Felix Capital, SAP.iO and aws Gründerfonds who have all re-invested in this latest round. 

The Series C funding will be used to accelerate Adverity’s business growth, office network and R&D. Adverity’s clients include IKEA, Red Bull, Unilever, MediaCom and IPG Mediabrands.

Alexander Igelsböck, CEO and co-founder of Adverity, said in a statement: “Our platform plays a crucial role in helping enterprises become agile, empowering digital teams with intelligent insights. It is imperative we invest in evolving and developing new solutions, improving access and quality, and tackle the challenges of data complexity.”

Nino Marakovic, CEO and managing director at Sapphire Ventures commented that Adverity has “the opportunity to help all companies become more data-driven in their marketing.”

In an interview with TechCrunch, long-time Adverity investor Frederic Court of Felix Capital said: “We backed them as marketing is becoming a science with increasing complexity, we see this across all our consumer investments. Take Farfetch, where there is a dedicated team just for marketing. Adverity enables brands and ad agencies to aggregate their marketing data and extract intelligence automatically. I describe it as having a data scientist in a box, where a brand can understand its marketing data and get smart insights effortlessly. Their technology is very strong and their sales have taken off strongly.”

Speaking to this latest round of investment, he told me: “We were not fundraising but Sapphire was a very compelling partner. Post COVID-19, e-commerce is going to grow even faster (as we see with Shopify, Amazon and across our portfolio) and the company can benefit from this accelerated transition to e-commerce.”

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/marketing-data-platform-adverity-raises-30m-series-c-led-by-sapphire-ventures/

Refurbished electronics startup Refurbed raises $17M round, led by Evli Growth Partners

Renewed phones, laptops and tablets can be as much as 40% cheaper than their brand new cousins, working equally as well and, because they have been saved from the scrapheap, are therefore a great deal more environmentally friendly. Players in this space include
Back Market (raised €48M), Swappa (US) and Amazon Renew.

Refurbed, a marketplace for exactly these types of refurbished electronics plans to take advantage of this growing market, after raising a $17 million Series A round of funding led by Finland’s Evli Growth Partners. They have been joined in the round by Almaz Capital, Bonsai Partners, All Iron Ventures and FJ Labs as new investors. Existing investors Klaus Hofbauer and Inventure Partners also participated.

Refurbed is active in Austria, Germany, Poland and Italy, and now plans to use the capital to expand to additional markets in 2020, notably into the German market.

The startup’s refurbish devices are renewed through a 40-step process and come with a 12-month guarantee. Founded in 2017, it now has more than 150,000 customers throughout Europe with sales, its says, growing over five times in 2019. It claims to have also posted more than $45 million in gross merchandising volume.

Peter Windischhofer, co-founder of refurbed, said: “Our mission is to bring one refurbished product into every household in Europe and change the way we consume as a society,” , said. “This funding round is the next big step to reach our ambitious goal.”

But why is it that they think they can take on some of their larger competitors? “We only work with the best merchants across Europe with the highest quality and superior customer service. This leads to the highest customer satisfaction in the industry (e.g 4.8/5 on Trusted Shops),” Windischhofer told TechCrunch.

Riku Asikainen, managing partner of the lead investor Evli Growth Partners, added: “We admire the refurbed team that manages to have a positive impact on the world and is financially successful at the same time.”

At the Green Alley Award 2018 refurbed was ranked among the top 3 most sustainable tech startups in Europe, and took second place in the Climate Impact Battle 2018 at the Slush Festival.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/refurbished-electronics-startup-refurbed-raises-17m-round-led-by-evli-growth-partners/

Is Knotel poised to turn WeWork from a Unicorn into an Icarus?

The day of reckoning for the ‘flexible office space as a startup’ is coming, and it’s coming up fast. WeWork’s IPO filing has fired the starting gun on the race to become the game-changer both in the future of property and real estate but also the future of how we live and work. As Churchill once said, ‘we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us’.

Until recently WeWork was the ruler by which other flexible space startups were measured, but questions are now being asked if it deserves its valuation. The profitable IWG plc, formerly Regus, has been a business providing serviced offices, virtual offices, meeting rooms, and the rest, for years and yet WeWork is valued by ten times more.

That’s not to mention how it exposes landlords to $40 billion in rent commitments, something which a few of them are starting to feel rather nervous about.

Some analysts even say WeWork’s IPO is a ‘masterpiece of obfuscation’

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/23/is-knotel-poised-to-turn-wework-from-a-unicorn-into-an-icarus/

Tiny UK startup takes on Google’s Wing in the race to a drone traffic control system

A future where drones can easily and cheaply do many useful things such as deliver packages, undertake search and rescue missions, deliver urgent medical supplies, not to mention unclogging our roads with flying taxis seems like a future worth shooting for. But before all this can happen, we need to make sure the thousands of drones in the sky are operating safely. A drone needs to be able to automatically detect when entering into the flight path of another drone, manned aircraft or restricted area and to alter its course accordingly to safely continue its journey. The alternative is the chaos and danger of the recent incidences of drones buzzing major airports, for instance.

There is a race on to produce just such a system. Wing LLC, an offshoot of the Alphabet / Google-owned X company, has announced a platform it calls OpenSky that it hopes will become the basis for a full-fledged air-traffic control system for drones. So far, it’s only been approved to manage drone flights in Australia, although it is also working on demonstration programs with the US Federal Aviation Administration.

But this week Altitude Angel a UK-based startup backed by Seraphim Capital and with $4.9M in funding has launched it’s own UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management) system.

Its ‘Conflict Resolution System’ (anti-collision) system is basically an automatic collision avoidance technology. This means that any drone flying beyond the line of sight, will remain safe in the sky and not cross existing flight plans or into restricted areas. By being automated, Altitude Angel says this technology will prevent any mid-air collisions, simply because by knowing where everything else is in the sky, there’ll be no surprises.

Altitude Angel’s CRS has both ‘Strategic’ and ‘Tactical’ aspects.

The Strategic part happens during the planning stages of a flight, i.e. when someone is submitting flight plans and requesting airspace permission. The system analyses the proposed route and cross-references it with any other flight plans that have been submitted, along with any restricted areas on the ground, to then propose a reroute to eliminate any flight plan conflicts. Eventually, what happens is that a drone operator does this from an app on their phone, and the approval to flight is automated.

The next stage is Tactical. This happens while the drone is actually in-flight. The dynamic system continuously monitors the airspace around the aircraft both for other aircraft or for changes in the airspace (such as a temporary flight restriction around police incident) and automatically adjusts the route.

The key aspect of this CRS is that drones and drone pilots can store flight plans with a globally-distributed service without needing to exchange private or potentially sensitive data with each other while benefiting from an immediate pre-flight conflict resolution advice.

Richard Parker, Altitude Angel, CEO and founder says: “The ability for drones and automated aircraft to strategically plan flights, be made aware of potential conflict, and alter their route accordingly is critical in ensuring safety in our skies. This first step is all about pre-flight coordination, between drone pilots, fleet operators and other UTM companies. Being able to predict and resolve conflict mid-flight by providing appropriate and timely guidance will revolutionize automated flight. CRS is one of the critical building blocks on which the drone and automated flight industries will grow.”

Altitude Angel wone be the last to unveil a CRS of this type, but it’s instructive that there are startups confident of taking on the mighty Google and Amazon – which also has similar drone delivery plans – to achieve this type of platform.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/19/tiny-uk-startup-takes-on-googles-wing-in-the-race-to-a-drone-traffic-control-system/

As measles returns, Indiegogo joins other tech platforms in banning Anti-Vaccine campaigns

The last year has been the worst on record in the US for measles outbreaks since the disease was declared ‘eradicated’ in 2000. Even though vaccination rates across the country are still high, (according to the CDC) there remains some communities where disinformation campaigns which claim that ‘vaccines are dangerous’ (often called ‘anti-vaxx’ campaigns) have led to parents refusing to vaccinate their children. Sadly, this can lead to a deadly outbreak when members of the public are exposed to someone who has picked up the disease, often overseas. Measles is highly contagious and can be fatal, especially amongst children.

And despite President Trump telling Americans to “get their shots”, 45 has previously appeared to link vaccines and autism. Public health experts say there is no link.

At the same time, over half a million children in Britain have been left unprotected against measles in the past decade and Unicef has called for a renewed focus on immunization.

It’s with this background that some tech companies are starting to realize they may have been part of the problem.

Yesterday Crowdfunding site Indiegogo said it would no longer allow anti-vaccine fundraisers or similarly unscientific, so-called “health campaigns”, to use its platform.

The move came after $86,543 was raised for a documentary, called Vaxxed II, based on the false claim that vaccines cause autism. Although the organization behind it, The People’s Truth, will still get their cash, minus the site’s 5% fee, Indiegogo said it was now planning a new policy to keep similar anti-vaccine projects off its site, a company spokesperson told BuzzFeed News Friday.

The fundraiser did not violate IndieGoGo’s existing policies on untruthful campaigns, but Indiegogo never promoted it on its site, said a company spokesperson. Executive directors of the “documentary”, Polly Tommey and Brian Burrowes, have criticized tech companies’ ‘de-platforming’ of their film as “censorship”.

Indiegogo is the latest in a line of tech companies coming round to the idea of cutting off the oxygen of publicity and cash to such campaigns.

Last month, Facebook said it would be removing anti-vaxx groups from ads and recommendations and making it harder for users to find anti-vaxx pages and posts using Facebook search. Instagram (owned by Facebook) said it would also do something similar to stop recommending inaccurate information about vaccines on its hashtags and in search. YouTube has also reiterated a previous pledge to stop anti-vaxx content from generating advertising cash on its platform.

Meanwhile, Amazon has looked to remove books promoting an unscientific connection made between vaccines and autism, and anti-vaccine documentaries like Vaxxed. Furthermore, GoFundMe has banned fundraising campaigns from anti-vaxxers.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/27/as-measles-returns-indiegogo-joins-other-tech-platforms-in-banning-anti-vaccine-campaigns/

Tradeshift says it’s seen a ‘huge drop’ in UK transactions amid Brexit uncertainty

The UK is experiencing a significant and drastic fall in the volume of business-to-business transactions, according to the CEO of one of the world’s largest B2B payments and supply chain logistics platforms.
In an exclusive interview with TechCrunch at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Tradeshift CEO and co-founder Christian Lanng said: “We see the numbers. There has been a huge drop in the purchase orders in the UK in December last year. Especially in retail. But it’s cross-sector. It’s manufacturing, retail, logistics.”
Tradeshift is a cloud platform for supply chain payments, marketplaces and apps which is one of Europe’s tech unicorns and has raised over $432M to date.
He said Tradeshift works with a “major manufacturer” in the UK which has “one hour of inventory” feeding its production line. He declined to name the firm.
Speaking about the effects of Brexit on supply chains, he said: “If you add 10 minutes of custom checks to every truck feeding that production line you create a traffic jam that cannot be resolved. It would last a week before it would get sorted out. They literally cannot operate the factory,” he said.
“Forget about the politics. This is just a very technical thing that’s going to happen. People don’t understand the facts. You can discuss it in a very abstract level but literally, it’s just like that.”
“People forget about the practices or realities of the supply chains across the channel and nobody is engaging really in any serious way with the people who know how that stuff works, because [Brexit] is like a circus, right?”
Speaking about Tradeshift’s recent acquisition of Bableway, a cloud integration technology platform, Lanng said the combined companies will process “more than trillion dollars of payments.” “That’s twice as large as PayPal and three times as large as Amazon in just payment volumes,” he said. “Between us we’ll have a bigger chunk of the world economy in terms of B2B, not B2C.”
Does Laang think there will be a global slowdown, as some are predicting?
“Our view is pretty simple. China freaked everybody out about how fast they moved with technology such as on health care, renewable energy, electric cars, AI, and financial services. And they’re now starting to push “Made in China” by 2025.”
“So [the West] is losing the global leadership. We have been slow to adapt to electric, or renewable energy. It was described as a hippie thing, but now it’s the future of the world. Countries using tariffs [to slow down China] it’s not going to work. We’re very bullish on Asia and any country in the world that’s ‘leaning in’ to technology.”

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/24/tradeshift-says-its-seen-a-huge-drop-in-uk-transactions-amid-brexit-uncertainty/

Committed to privacy, Snips founder wants to take on Alexa and Google, with blockchain

Earlier this year we saw the headlines of how the users of popular voice assistants like Alexa and Siri and continue to face issues when their private data is compromised, or even sent to random people. In May it was reported that Amazon’s Alexa recorded a private conversation and sent it to a random contact. Amazon insists its Echo devices aren’t always recording, but it did confirm the audio was sent.

The story could be a harbinger of things to come when voice becomes more and more ubiquitous. After all, Amazon announced the launch of Alexa for Hospitality, its Alexa system for hotels, in June. News stories like this simply reinforce the idea that voice control is seeping into our daily lives.

The French startup Snips thinks it might have an answer to the issue of security and data privacy. Its built its software to run 100% on-device, independently from the cloud. As a result, user data is processed on the device itself, acting as a potentially stronger guarantor of privacy. Unlike centralized assistants like Alexa and Google, Snips knows nothing about its users.

Its approach is convincing investors. To date, Snips has raised €22 million in funding from investors like Korelya Capital, MAIF Avenir, BPI France and Eniac Ventures. Created in 2013 by 3 PhDs, and now employing more than 60 people in Paris and New York, Snips offers its voice assistant technology as a white-labelled solution for enterprise device manufacturers.

It’s tested its theories about voice by releasing the result of a consumer poll. The survey of 410 people found that 66% of respondents said they would be apprehensive of using a voice assistant in a hotel room, because of concerns over privacy, 90% said they would like to control the ways corporations use their data, even if it meant sacrificing convenience.

“Сonsumers are increasingly aware of the privacy concerns with voice assistants that rely on cloud storage — and that these concerns will actually impact their usage,” says Dr Rand Hindi, co-founder and CEO at Snips. “However, emerging technologies like blockchain are helping us to create safer and fairer alternatives for voice assistants.”

Indeed, blockchain is very much part of Snip’s future. As Hindi told TechCrunch in May, the company will release a new set of consumer devices independent of its enterprise business. The idea is to create a consumer business that will prompt further enterprise development. At the same time, they will issue a cryptographic token via an ICO to incentivize developers to improve the Snips platform, as an alternative to using data from consumers. The theory goes that this will put it at odds with the approach used by Google and Amazon, who are constantly criticised for invading our private lives merely to improve their platforms.

As a result Hindi believes that as voice-controlled devices become an increasingly common sight in public spaces, there could be a significant shift in public opinion about how their privacy is being protected.

In an interview conducted last month with TechCrunch, Hindi told me the company’s plans for its new consumer product are well advanced, and will be designed from the beginning to be improved over time using a combination of decentralized machine learning and cryptography.

By using blockchain technology to share data, they will be able to train the network “without ever anybody sending unencrypted data anywhere,” he told me.

And ‘training the network” is where it gets interesting. By issuing a cryptographic token for developers to use, Hindi says they will incentivize devs to work on their platform and process data in a decentralized fashion. They are starting from a good place. He claims they already have 14,000 developers on the platform who will be further incentivized by a token economy.

“Otherwise people have no incentive to process that data in a decentralized fashion, right?” he says.

“We got into blockchain because we’re trying to find a way to get people to participate in decentralized machine learning. We’ve been wanting to get into consumer [devices] for a couple of years but didn’t really figure out the end goal because we had always had this missing element which was: how do you keep making it better over time.”

“This is the main argument for Google and Amazon to pretend that you need to send your data to them, to make the service better. If we can fix this [by using blockchain] then we can offer a real alternative to Alexa that guarantees Privacy by Design,” he says.

“We now have over 14000 developers building for us and that’s really completely organic growth, zero marketing, purely word of mouth, which is really nice because it shows that there’s a very big demand for decentralized voice assistance, effectively.”

It could be a high-risk strategy. Launching a voice-controlled device is one thing. Layering it with applications produced by developed supposedly incentivized by tokens, especially when crypto prices have crashed, is quite another.

It does definitely feel like a moonshot idea, however, and we’ll really only know if Snips can live up to such lofty ideals after the launch.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/18/committed-to-privacy-snips-founder-wants-to-take-on-alexa-and-google-with-blockchain/