Equity Monday: Startups run low on cash, and why some Internet tailwinds are fading

Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a jumpstart for your week.

Regular Equity episodes still drop each and every Friday morning, so if you’ve listened to the show over the years, don’t worry — we’re only adding to the mix. You can catch last week’s show with Danny Crichton and Natasha Mascarenhas right here if you haven’t yet.

Unlike some weeks when the weekend’s crop of news and thought runs fallow, our recent interlude was stuffed with things to talk about:

• Sequoia China and Starbucks are tying up, which is especially notable after the Luckin Coffee story came crashing back to Earth.
• A survey concerning UK startups showed cracks in the EU’s largest startup market, measured by VC activity.
• It’s earnings week, with everyone from Apple to Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Spotify and Tesla reporting. Strap in for the busy week. It’s going to be a lot, but should help us figure out what has been going on in the stock market.
• Codota raised $12 million, and we think that its product is neat.
• A new pre-seed/seed fund has raised €50 million in fresh capital, which is notable given the global economic slowdown.

And then, finally, this essay from Founder’s Fund John Luttig, which I encourage you to read. It’s something that everyone is reading, and thus you must even if you don’t want to. We chat about it on the show, but read it yourself anyways. If it’s right, we’re in for a sea change in the startup world. For good, or at least until there’s a new leap forward in tech or technology product distribution. (You can read more on the idea of a SaaS slowdown here.)

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 AM PT and Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/27/equity-monday-startups-run-low-on-cash-and-why-some-internet-tailwinds-are-fading/

Equity Monday: Startups run low on cash, and why some Internet tailwinds are fading

Good morning and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a jumpstart for your week.

Regular Equity episodes still drop each and every Friday morning, so if you’ve listened to the show over the years, don’t worry — we’re only adding to the mix. You can catch last week’s show with Danny Crichton and Natasha Mascarenhas right here if you haven’t yet.

Unlike some weeks when the weekend’s crop of news and thought runs fallow, our recent interlude was stuffed with things to talk about:

• Sequoia China and Starbucks are tying up, which is especially notable after the Luckin Coffee story came crashing back to Earth.
• A survey concerning UK startups showed cracks in the EU’s largest startup market, measured by VC activity.
• It’s earnings week, with everyone from Apple to Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Spotify and Tesla reporting. Strap in for the busy week. It’s going to be a lot, but should help us figure out what has been going on in the stock market.
• Codota raised $12 million, and we think that its product is neat.
• A new pre-seed/seed fund has raised €50 million in fresh capital, which is notable given the global economic slowdown.

And then, finally, this essay from Founder’s Fund John Luttig, which I encourage you to read. It’s something that everyone is reading, and thus you must even if you don’t want to. We chat about it on the show, but read it yourself anyways. If it’s right, we’re in for a sea change in the startup world. For good, or at least until there’s a new leap forward in tech or technology product distribution. (You can read more on the idea of a SaaS slowdown here.)

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 AM PT and Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

from Amazon – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/27/equity-monday-startups-run-low-on-cash-and-why-some-internet-tailwinds-are-fading/

Templafy raises $25M Series C led by Insight partners to deal with enterprise documents

Back in 2018 Templafy — which had come up with a way for enterprises to more easily make templates out of standard documents (yes, it’s a thing) — raised an additional $15 million from existing investors as an extension of its earlier Series B round taking it to $40.2 million raised. The company integrates with enterprise infrastructure to provide corporate content assets, document templates, and automatic validation of created documents for all kinds of clients. On this journey it has used its cash to acquire SlideProof in Berlin, then Veodin and iWRITER in 2019, and opened an office in NYC. 

It’s been quite a journey since they started in 2014, and today the journey continues with the news that it’s closed a $25 million Series C funding round led by Insight partners. With additional funding from Dawn Capital, Seed Capital and Damgaard Company, bringing the total external capital raised to almost $70 million.

Templafy plans to use this latest round to boost its M&A activity; advance its product roadmap; and double staff from 200 to 400 full-time employees.

Jesper Theill Eriksen, CEO of Templafy said in a statement: “We set out to establish a new market category and create a high return on investment for companies streamlining their document creation workflow through our platform.”

He says the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on remote working means “now more than ever, we see the need of global enterprises to support their distributed workforce with solutions that ensure productivity and compliance when documents are created.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, vice president at Insight Partners said: “Templafy’s software represents a unique nexus of both end-user productivity and document compliance. This is what allows its customers to see real efficiency gains across an entire employee base.”

Templafy says it has more than doubled its revenue in the past year and has now sold over 2 million Templafy licenses worldwide

The total addressable market for Templafy’s document assembly software, in theory, extends to anyone that has to use traditional desktop software. The company’s Microsoft integration, means there are north of 1 billion Microsoft Office users for which Templafy could be used.

Christian Lund, co-founder and CPO at Templafy explained over email to TechCrunch that: “Being a horizontal document production infrastructure, Templafy is agnostic to the type of business document created (presentations, reports, contracts, proposals, pitches, emails, internal / external etc.) This is a key reason why many of the world’s largest enterprises use the platform company-wide.”

Templafy has plenty of competition across all the vertical categories it covers – for example in Template Management (Litera); Creative Content (Frontify, Bynder), Sales Enablement (Showpad, Seismic),  Proposal management (Conga, PandaDoc), Email Signature Management (Exclaimer, Xink).

But Templify takes a horizontal approach rather than vertical approach.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/27/templafy-raises-25m-series-c-led-by-insight-partners-to-deal-with-enterprise-documents/

Bill Gates details how his foundation shifted focus “almost entirely” to addressing COVID-19

Microsoft founder Bill Gates spoke to the Financial Times (via Fast Company) about how the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has shifted “almost entirely” to working on addressing COVID-19, in the interest of making the post impact possible in the ongoing effort to contain and combat the global coronavirus pandemic. Gates told the FT that the spread of COVID-19 could have dire economic consequences which will result in more suffering globally than anyone could’ve anticipated, hence the need to address it with the full weight of the resources of one of the world’s most well-capitalized charitable organizations.

The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has been funding vaccine trials, clinical studies and basic research related to drug and therapy development for COVID-19 since basically the disease debuted on the world scene. It means that the exiting mandate of the foundation, which includes seeking to eradicate polio and AIDS worldwide, will be temporarily slowed or paused while the organization focuses its resources on the pandemic, but Gates’ decision to focus the group’s significant resources here should only emphasize the seriousness of the situation.

The foundation’s temporary shift is actually, long-term, the best way it can serve its core goals, since the global impact of the coronavirus crisis is likely to have repercussions for every aspect of human life, including access to medical care, testing and therapies, not to mention food and basic necessities. Curbing the disease’s spread early could have the most significant impact in economies ill-prepared to deal with the fallout, and any impact there will eventually result in better ability to work on eradicating those other diseases in a reasonable timeline, instead of undermining local infrastructure and allowing them a longer foothold.

In a 2015 TED talk, Gates predicted the coming of a global outbreak and urged global health organizations and governments to come together to prepare for what to do in case of a large, widespread contagion. Gates was working mostly from the perspective of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which exposed many of the existing gaps and flaws in the system, but his advice seems prescient in retrospect.

Unfortunately, Gates has been subject to a lot of spreading misinformation and bogus conspiracy theory nonsense owing to heightened paranoia and activity among groups that normally peddle in this kind of falsehood. Based on this interview, Gates seems to essentially expect that as something of a matter of course for high-profile individuals, however, and it doesn’t appear to be impacting the foundation’s ability to focus on potential fixes.

from Microsoft – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/27/bill-gates-details-how-his-foundation-shifted-focus-almost-entirely-to-addressing-covid-19/

And now, what’s next?

The last eight weeks have been like no other. An unfolding tragedy, unevenly distributed. An economic freeze. A media frenzy.

It’s easy to be exhausted, especially since there’s still quite a lot of slog left to go.

Is it too soon to wonder what’s next? And at the heart of it: how can you contribute?

Average work for average people is going to be worth less than ever before.

Typical employees doing typical work are going to be less respected and valued than ever before.

And just as expectations are being shifted, new opportunities will arise. They always do.

So what’s next? A commitment to learning and to possibility.

The pandemic demonstrated, among other things, that we all have access to each other digitally. That if you want to learn something, the chance is there. That internet connections can be powerful, and that leadership is priceless.

The industrial era, struggling for the last decade or two, is now officially being replaced by one based on connection and leadership and the opportunity to show up and make a difference.

That’s why we’ve run 40 sessions of the altMBA and why we’re going to run another one this summer. We’re not going to wait for everything to be back to normal, because it never will, and because the best time to contribute is right now.

When I launched this four years ago, I had no idea that the world would shift in this way and we’d need new voices and new leadership so much right now.

I hope you’ll check it out. Today’s the very best chance to level up.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/622522250/0/sethsblog~And-now-whats-next/

A Sunday book reading

Save With Stories is a community-driven fundraiser on Instagram. It features authors and others reading their books for kids on camera, all to raise money for @savethechildren and @nokidhungry.

Yesterday, they posted me reading V is For Vulnerable. You can find the video here.

It’s a book for adults, but it’s okay to share it with your kids as well.

This book was beautifully illustrated by the extraordinary @hughcards.

I hope it resonates. I still remember how powerful story time can be. And thanks for what you’re doing to contribute.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/622483052/0/sethsblog~A-Sunday-book-reading/

Bulletins vs bulletin boards

[Here’s a simple communications hack for small teams and organizations:]

When times are changing and you’re adjusting on the fly, it’s tempting to send another alert.

The rules at the farmer’s market, the latest schedule for a changing event, the status of a server…

When I was growing up in Buffalo, they used to announce school closings on the radio. Twice an hour, we’d huddle around and listen to an endless list of schools (mine started with a W), wasting everyone’s time and emotional energy.

The problem with alerts is that they don’t scale. They create noise. Every time you poke everyone with a bulletin, you’ve taken attention away with no hope of giving it back.

The alternative is the bulletin board.

Want to know how you did on the exam? Go look at the bulletin board. The grades will be posted when they’re ready.

Want to know the latest situation before you head out? Go look at the bulletin board.

Social media got everyone into the bulletin habit, but we left behind bulletin boards too quickly.

And in our digital world, you don’t need to be a computer programmer to have one. Simply create a shared Google doc. It’s free and it doesn’t crash and it’s low tech. (And yes, there are many alternatives that don’t come from big companies).

Give people the link to view the doc. Include it in your Facebook post or your last email on the topic. “Click here to see the latest updates.” Don’t worry about whether your tweet or post (a bulletin) moves down the screen, because everyone who cares already has the link to your bulletin board and you’ve trained them to check it when they want to know the status of your event or situation. It’s not a great choice for a high-traffic site, but if you’re trying to coordinate a few hundred people, it’s a lot easier than trusting social media.

And you can even share editing privileges with your core team, so there’s no bottleneck for updates. You don’t need to get a programmer out of bed in the middle of the night to update the school closing list. It’s a simple thing to update the bulletin board, to keep making it more up to date and complete as your situation changes.

Information on demand is way more useful than information that demands our attention at moments when we’re not interested.

       

from Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect https://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/622450988/0/sethsblog~Bulletins-vs-bulletin-boards/