Author : zebethcontrol

Ghost Robotics fires back against ‘baseless’ Boston Dynamics lawsuit • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in boston dynamics, ghost robotics, Hardware, Robotics & AINo Comments

A legal dispute over robotic patents is devolving into a war of words, as Ghost Robotics fires back against Boston Dynamics. The Philadelphia firm calls the suit both “obstructive and baseless” in a statement sent to ZebethMedia. It notes, in part, Ghost Robotics’ success has not gone unnoticed by Boston Dynamics. Rather than compete on a level playing field, the company chose to file an obstructive and baseless lawsuit on November 11th in an attempt to halt the newcomer’s progress. Boston Dynamics is drawing on their considerably larger resources to litigate instead of innovate. Ghost’s statement, in which it refers to itself as “the number one supplier of legged robots to US and Allied Governments,” follows press reports of a lengthy suit filed by Boston Dynamics in a Delaware court. It adds that the company has its roots in its own legged robotic research, writing, “Ghost Robotics was born out of the PhD research of CTO Avik De and CEO Gavin Kenneally, under the tutelage of the esteemed Prof. Dan Koditschek at The University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Koditschek is a pioneer in the field of legged robots and holds the patent (jointly with his former students, Martin Buehler and Uluc Saranli) for the first battery-powered, dynamic legged robot, RHex (US6481513B2, filed March 14, 2001).” On Tuesday, Spot’s maker told ZebethMedia that it doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits, but added, Innovation is the lifeblood of Boston Dynamics, and our roboticists have successfully filed approximately 500 patents and patent applications worldwide. We welcome competition in the emerging mobile robotics market, but we expect all companies to respect intellectual property rights, and we will take action when those rights are violated. In the suit, Boston Dynamics cites multiple letters, including cease and desists, calling on Ghost to suspend the manufacture of its own four-legged dog robots over several alleged patent violations. It’s not the first time to two companies have butted heads. Ghost made national headlines after images surfaced of one of its dog robots sporting a SWORD Defense Systems Special Purpose Unmanned Rifle (SPUR). A drawing from Boston Dynamics’ suit The company’s then-CEO Jiren Parikh (who passed away in March of this year) told ZebethMedia at the time, We don’t make the payloads. Are we going to promote and advertise any of these weapon systems? Probably not. That’s a tough one to answer. Because we’re selling to the military, we don’t know what they do with them. We’re not going to dictate to our government customers how they use the robots. We do draw the line on where they’re sold. We only sell to U.S. and allied governments. We don’t even sell our robots to enterprise customers in adversarial markets. We get lots of inquiries about our robots in Russia and China. We don’t ship there, even for our enterprise customers. Last month Boston Dynamics joined a number of follow robotics firms in an open letter condemning the practice of weaponizing robotics. The letter notes, in part, We believe that adding weapons to robots that are remotely or autonomously operated, widely available to the public, and capable of navigating to previously inaccessible locations where people live and work, raises new risks of harm and serious ethical issues. Weaponized applications of these newly-capable robots will also harm public trust in the technology in ways that damage the tremendous benefits they will bring to society. Boston Dynamics is seeking unspecified damages in its suit.

Sateliot’s $11.4M Series A deck • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in EC Pitch Deck Teardowns, IoT, pitch deck, Pitch Deck Teardown, StartupsNo Comments

You know what really sucks? Your IoT devices not being able to phone home. Rarely a problem when you’re in the center of a well-populated urban center with oodles of cell towers, but think of that water temperature buoy floating around in the Atlantic, an autonomous drone flying above the rain forest or a glacier-creep measuring sonde high up in the mountains. The fact is that about 90% of the planet has no cell coverage at all, and Sateliot raised a €10 million ($11.4 million) round of funding to change that. The company shared its pitch deck with us to take a deeper look, and so we will! Here’s the good and the bad of this high-flying space deck. We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to tear down, so if you want to submit your own, here’s how you can do that. Slides in this deck Sateliot’s deck consists of 18 slides and is almost as pitched; the company redacted some of the info that goes into depth about how its tech works. Cover slide “90% of the world has no cellular coverage” — problem slide Team slide “To connect all NB-IOT devices from space under 5G standard” — solution slide “Near real-time connectivity” — value proposition slide “Standard protocol” — product slide “Sateliot is the #1 satellite operator” — “why us?” slide Market size slide Competition slide Business model slide “MNOs engaged and technical integrations ongoing” — traction slide “Early adopters program” — go-to-market slide Interstitial slide Benefit slide Progress slide NGO program slide Slogan slide Closing slide Three things to love It’s always interesting to see companies that are trying to have an enormous impact on the space they operate in. Sateliot is making space for an incredible opportunity, essentially removing the need for infrastructure to make IoT solutions work from pretty much anywhere in the world with a clear view of the sky. It’s a story that could be told in so many ways, and I was excited to see how the company launched into things. Clear vision of the opportunity [Slide 2] Crisp and easy. Image Credits: SateliotI love a deck that very clearly states the problem it is solving, especially if it’s also able to highlight the advantage of solving that problem. Sateliot does that fantastically on its second slide — 90% of the world has no cell coverage, and this company is promising to change that. There’s not an investor in the world that won’t be able to see the benefit and financial potential of that. As a startup, if you can distill your problem, solution and opportunity this elegantly, you’ve got yourself a great launchpad to start weaving your narrative for your pitch. “Why us?” This is why… [Slide 7] Being the right team for the job is a crucial aspect of pitching. This is hella compelling. Image Credits: Sateliot If you have some reason why nobody else can truly solve the problem as well as you can, shout about it. It makes you a far more tempting investment target. One of the big questions an investor will be asking themselves is whether a particular company is well positioned to take charge of a market. In other words: Is there something about this team or company that gives them an unfair advantage over the competitors? This slide is labeled as “value proposition,” which is a little confusing. The slide doesn’t describe a value prop but a competitive advantage. It describes the “number of contributions to the 3GPP Standard,” but it doesn’t say what that means. Wikipedia has an answer that seems to indicate that this is very relevant, but I’d love for the company to have contextualized it on this slide. Those caveats aside: If it turns out that contributions to the standard are directly relevant to the company’s success and show that it’s particularly well positioned to corner this market, this absolute design disaster and word soup of a slide might actually be a powerful storytelling device. Scanning down the lists of companies that have made more and fewer contributions, there are a lot of big-name vendors. Seeing Sateliot in the top 25 or so — ahead of many other well-known companies — could suggest that there’s a significant moat in place. I wish the company had connected the dots for me, but if this slide means what I suspect it means, it makes up for the distinctly subpar “team” slide (which we’ll discuss in a bit). As a startup, what you can learn here is that if you have a moat, or some reason why nobody else can truly solve the problem at hand as well as you can, shout about it loudly — it makes you a far more tempting investment target. Strong social mission [Slide 14] Having a social mission component can help give investors the warm-and-fuzzies. Image Credits: SateliotSome investors have a social responsibility mandate as part of their investment theses. That could go in your favor if your company is in alignment with doing good in addition to doing well. But what is also true is that all investors are human beings, and it can never harm to have a heart-forward aspect to your story. Sateliot explains that once its satellites are up and running, there is almost no marginal cost to being able to offer its services to certain customer groups. In other words: If you want to GPS-track rhinos, you can do so for almost no money. As I said, that doesn’t matter to all investors, but in this case, you’re creating a win-win. Zero marginal cost means that there’s no real downside to offering the company’s services to causes that improve the planet and plenty of potential upsides. In addition to making the world a better place, there are PR opportunities, ESG advantages and secondary benefits to the company. Sateliot could very easily not have included this in its story, but it makes me happier that they did. The lesson here is

Discord users can now link their Crunchyroll accounts • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in crunchyroll, discord, Media & Entertainment, streaming serviceNo Comments

Anime streaming service Crunchyroll has partnered with Discord. Starting today, users will be able to display the movie or TV show they’re currently watching on their Discord profile. Crunchyroll is the latest media company to add “Rich Presence,” the “Now Playing” functionality that automatically displays the video you’re watching, the game you’re playing, the song you’re listening to, etc. Discord users can also link their accounts for Reddit, Steam, TikTok, Twitter, Spotify, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, PlayStation Network and Xbox, among others. The new integration is rolling out to users throughout the day in over 200 countries and territories. Note that some regional content restrictions will apply since Crunchyroll isn’t available in Japan and has a limited streaming library in some parts of Asia. To link accounts, Crunchyroll subscribers go to Discord on the web or desktop app, navigate to “User Settings,” click “Connections,” and select the Crunchyroll logo. It will be available on mobile devices soon, a Crunchyroll spokesperson told ZebethMedia. Once Rich Presence is enabled, the anime title you’re watching will appear as a small icon with an image of the series, the season and the episode. Users can watch along with their friends directly from their profile pop-out. There’s also a button directing users to the anime streaming service. “Anime is an adventure, and Crunchyroll’s Rich Presence on Discord will allow our fans to take their journey together,” said Kaliel Roberts, Chief Product Officer, Crunchyroll, in the announcement. “The Crunchyroll community loves to share their favorite anime with their friends, and now on Discord, fans have another avenue to celebrate their favorite series, discover new shows, and build deeper connections through the content they love.” Crunchyroll launched its official Discord server last month, which it uses to announce new events and activations. On November 2, Crunchyroll subscribers received a one-month code for Discord Nitro, a monthly subscription service that unlocks various perks like custom emojis and stickers, HD video streaming and more. Similarly, Discord Nitro users were offered one month of Crunchyroll’s $9.99/month subscription, “Mega Fan.” Crunchyroll has a free ad-supported plan and three paid tiers.

Facebook is removing several information fields from profiles, including religious and political views • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Apps, Facebook, meta, SocialNo Comments

Facebook is notifying users that it will remove four information fields from profiles starting next month. These fields include religious views, political views, addresses and the “Interested in” field, which indicates a user’s sexual orientation. The change will go into effect on December 1. A spokesperson for the company told ZebethMedia in an email that the reason behind the change is to make the social network easier to use. “As part of our efforts to make Facebook easier to navigate and use, we’re removing a handful of profile fields: Interested In, Religious Views, Political Views, and Address,” the the spokesperson said in a statement. “We’re sending notifications to people who have these fields filled out, letting them know these fields will be removed. This change doesn’t affect anyone’s ability to share this information about themselves elsewhere on Facebook.” The change was first spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra, who tweeted a screenshot of the notice being sent to users who have these fields filled out. The notice indicates that users’ other information will remain on their profiles, along with the rest of their contact and basic information. Facebook’s decision to get rid of these specific profile fields is part of its efforts to streamline its platform, which currently consists of several features that are somewhat outdated. It’s worth noting that the information fields that Facebook is choosing to remove are ones that other major social networks don’t offer. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have simple bios that let users share a little bit about themselves without going to specific details, such as political or religious views. In the past, people may have been interested in filling out their profiles with additional information, but as privacy infringements have come to light, users may no longer want to share extra details about themselves online. The news comes as Meta laid off 11,000 workers, which is about 13% of its workforce last week. The layoffs came amid a tough time for Meta, which provided lukewarm guidance last month October regarding its upcoming fourth-quarter earnings. The layoffs marked the most significant job cuts in the tech giant’s history.

Dept. of the Air Force’s Frank Calvelli talks startups and the military at TC Sessions: Space • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Space, TC Sessions: Space 2022No Comments

The success of the commercial space sector, in both significantly reducing the cost of technology and massively increasing its capabilities, has captured the attention of the U.S. military. That attention translates into growing interest in startups and how they might secure the space domain for the U.S. and its allies. Frank Calvelli, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisitions and Integration, is charged with bridging the gap between commercial and defense space operations. We are thrilled to announce that Cavelli will join us onstage for a one-on-one conversation at TC Sessions: Space on December 6 in Los Angeles. The U.S. military has signaled that it intends to deepen its relationships with the startup sector — in the space domain in particular. Just one example of projects integrating private space startups and the military is the Air Force’s Rocket Cargo project, which explores using commercial space rocket technology to provide fast, low-cost deliveries for the military. While an Air Force C-17 aircraft can transport 100 tons of cargo across the planet, it can take days, whereas a rocket can do it in 90 minutes. It’s worth noting that the Air Force included $47.9 million for rocket cargo research alone in its fiscal 2022 budget. We’re interested in learning how Cavelli defines the ideal relationship between the U.S. defense apparatus and the startups and private vendors it taps. We’ll also ask him what problems they want their commercial partners to solve, how startups can apply for funding, and the best way to work with the Air Force acquisitions engine he oversees. We reckon this is an essential conversation for startups eager to learn more about collaborative opportunities within the growing commercial-military space sector. Frank Calvelli is responsible for all architecture and integration with respect to acquisition of space systems and programs in the armed forces. He chairs the Space Acquisition Council, where he oversees and directs the space acquisition centers in the Department of the Air Force. He also serves as the DAF service acquisition executive for Space Systems and Programs. Calvelli has more than 34 years of experience in national security space acquisitions, operations and leadership in the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the Central Intelligence Agency. Prior to joining the Department of the Air Force, Calvelli served for eight years as the principal deputy director of the NRO, where he managed the day-to-day operations of the more than 3,500 people. TC Sessions: Space takes place on December 6 in Los Angeles. Buy your pass today, join us to learn about the latest trends in commercial-military space collaboration, see cutting-edge technology, and network for opportunities to help you build a better, stronger startup. Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Space? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

‘I’m worried about the overall lack of LP appetite going forward.’ • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Crypto, Double Down, Dragonfly Capital, FTX, Magdalena Kala, TechCrunch Sessions: Crypto 2022, Tom Schmidt, VentureNo Comments

During an unprecedented bull run, crypto-focused investors raised, and deployed, billions of dollars in capital. But now, not only are VCs operating in a bearish crypto market, they are navigating the fallout of the FTX collapse and the potential impact it will have on their investment strategies moving forward. Double Down founder and general partner Magdalena “Mags” Kala and Dragonfly general partner Tom Schmidt shared their views at ZebethMedia’s crypto conference in Miami on Thursday on what’s next in crypto in the wake of the FTX drama. Luckily, the pair each closed their respective funds this year — Schmidt’s firm closing on an “oversubscribed” $650 million vehicle — and Kala’s Double Down just one week before all the FTX goings-on went down. Both say they had already planned to proceed cautiously in deploying their capital, but now even more so. “I am worried about contagion risk and for the other shoes to drop,” said Schmidt, who counts a number of exchanges in his firm’s portfolio. “We’re still holding our breaths and taking a pause to reevaluate what we will do in the coming year.” “I’m more worried about builders not entering the space, builders leaving the space and the overall lack of LP appetite going forward,” he admitted. Kala said she feels fortunate to be sitting on dry powder in light of the current macro environment. “A lot of those who raised last year don’t want to have to raise again in 2023,” she said. “And so I think we will see a slowdown and higher bar for projects.” Schmidt said he has been “very slowly” deploying out of his firm’s third fund. “I have a reputation for being critical, and going deep to understand what’s happening,” he said. “Our long-term thesis is to use technology to create a new set of financial services, a financial substrate. And what we’re looking for are companies that fit that idea…at the same level of diligence.” A lack of diligence has been cited with regards to the FTX debacle, with many wondering how the crypto exchange managed to raise so much money despite what Schmidt called “red flags.” “The thing about FTX and Alameda is that it was so unbelievable when you heard it,” he said. “We were never fans. This was supposed to be blue chip and have blue chip investors backing them but the numbers never made sense. If you looked at how much they were making and how much they were spending on stadium sponsorships and donations, nothing really made sense.” In Kala’s view, the whole debacle highlights that “decentralization is actually needed.” But she is not surprised that many investors may have overlooked so-called red flags. “From a diligence standpoint, it can be that you see what you want to see,” Kala said. “In the moment you can be so taken by the narrative.” Schmidt believes that the past few years represented an “anomaly” in diligence and the traditional venture process. He recalls meetings with crossover funds backing a company, in some cases deploying 20x more capital than him, where the investor clearly did not have a fundamental understanding of what the company was doing. Overall, he does believe that regulation played a role in the FTX saga. “Certainly regulation could have helped. It was this certain environment that pushed them offshore,” Schmidt said. “I expect we’ll see more of an attitude adjustment…I’d like to see the U.S. be a leader on this front.” For Mala, “nothing has changed” with regard to the core fundamentals of crypto. She described FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s efforts when it came to regulation being “more like a dog and pony show.” “The real change is happening with real players,” she said. “But also the other thing that we see with VCs is that slowly we are having this change of guard who are actually knowledgeable [about crypto.]”

With $8.6M in seed funding, Nx wants to take monorepos mainstream • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Bazel, developers, Enterprise, funding, NX, StartupsNo Comments

Narwhal, the company behind the popular monorepo-focused open source Nx build system for JavaScript code, today announced that it has raised an $8.6 million seed funding round co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and Andreesen Horowitz. A number of angel investors, including GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, also participated in this round. Founded by two former Google employees on the Angular team, Jeff Cross (CEO) and Victor Savkin (CTO), Narwahl actually started out as an Angular consulting shop, helping large banks, airlines and other enterprises — the kind of companies that typically use Angular. As Cross told me, it was working with Capital One that actually pushed the team to pursue Nx and turn that into the company’s main product. At that point, the concept of monorepos was already very familiar to them, thanks to their work at Google, which uses one of the world’s largest monorepos to manage its codebase. Image Credits: Nx “They had their login team,” Cross explained. “If you logged in to CapitalOne.com, it’s seven lines of business building one unified app — and it was split across so many repositories, they couldn’t coordinate on deploys, they couldn’t coordinate really on anything. And they really needed a monorepo. And so we built Nx for their use case and then made it work with every other client we were working with, which was most of these large companies.” Cross believes that monorepos are inherently easier to manage for large teams. The founders, he said, were spoiled at Google because thanks to the monorepo, any developer could build any part of Google’s codebase with minimal effort. Everything, after all, used the same tool chain and testing infrastructure. Meanwhile, having many teams work on different repositories creates a lot of friction, given that the teams then have to build a common API — and create a new repository for it, create the integration process and figure out how to publish that. “And with publishing, inevitably every company adds versioning to the publishing. So it’s never ‘we publish every commit and it’s immediately updated in the repository.’ It’s more like: ‘we publish it, we use somewhere to say if this a breaking change, a minor one, or is this a patch? And what that ends up happening in most companies is that they never get the time to actually update it,” Cross said. So the idea behind Nx is to give every company the tools to manage their JavaScript monorepos — and migrate them to one if necessary. As Cross explained it, the open-source Nx project and Nx Cloud help companies organize their code in these massive repositories, using Nx’s concept of project graphs. It’s worth noting that Nx was great inspired by Google’s Bazel build and test system, so it includes some familiar features like the ability to distribute computation and task execution across multiple machines. Cross cited one major retail giant the company is currently working with that made the move to Nx’s enterprise product and now saves over 40,000 hours of compute time a month thanks to its distributed caching system. One of the nice features of Nx (and also Bazel, to be fair), is that it knows when two developers are trying to run the same tasks and checks if there is already a cached version. Narwhal/Nx is already a bit ahead of most open-source companies at the seed stage in that it already has a hosted service (Nx Cloud) and an enterprise version as its main products. Given the kind of large enterprise customers Nx works with, it’s no surprise that Nx offers them the ability to run the service in their private instances and isolated from external APIs. The company currently has just over 30 employees on its team, which is mostly remote. Of those, 25 are engineers. Most recently, Narwhal also took over the stewardship of Lerna.js, a popular open-source JavaScript monorepo tool that had previously remained somewhat unmaintained. Narwhal will now provide critical bug fixes and security updates for it. “Monorepo adoption is exploding worldwide, driven by advantages like ease of collaboration, shared codebase visibility, dependency management, and refactoring,” said Abhishek Sharma, managing director at Nexus Venture Partners. “However, as monorepos scale, robust tooling becomes essential to managing them, and Build Time becomes a critical factor. This is where Nx shines. We were drawn to Nx because of its world-class team, category leadership, strong developer community, and massive global adoption: from startups to Fortune 500 companies. We’re grateful to Jeff and Victor for choosing us as their partner in this journey.”

Zulu banks $5M for its LatAm digital wallet amid shaky ground for crypto • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Cadenza Ventures, Crypto, Esteban Villegas, Fintech, Venture, zuluNo Comments

With new information coming to light about the FTX saga every day, it’s certainly an interesting time for cryptocurrency. Just ask our ZebethMedia colleagues at TC Sessions: Crypto today. As we figure out if any of this has damaged trust in the industry and funding for startups, adoption of crypto in Latin America continues to grow — Chainalysis puts the adoption growth number at 40%. In addition, the region represents “a 9.1% share of the global crypto value received in 2022 with remittances and high inflation the highest drivers of adoption.” Even venture capitalists believe Latin America’s thirst for crypto. For example, former Binance executives created a fund earlier this year to pump $100 million into this region and others. VCs even believe this might be one of the regions that could stay red hot despite a crypto winter. That’s a good indication as to why we continue to see investment going into Latin America-focused startups offering a crypto feature. Today, Colombia-based Zulu, a digital wallet for Latin America consumers, is the latest company to bring in new funding. The $5 million seed round was led by Cadenza Ventures, which was joined by Nexo Ventures, Simplex, CMT Digital, Gaingels, and a group of startup founders, including Caterine Castillo of Neivor; Jose Jair Bonilla, Carolina García and Oscar Sarria of Chiper; Andrew Chang, former COO and Advisor of Paxos; and Man Hei Lou of Treinta. Here’s how it works: its platform enables Android and iOS users to save in secure digital dollars and send cross-border payments at no cost. In addition, it protects users from the currency devaluations that often occur in countries like Colombia, Venezuela and Peru, the company said. “Zulu is a decentralized wallet where each user holds their own keys and personally custodies their assets within a great user experience and with tools that are typically provided by centralized exchanges,” Esteban Villegas, co-founder and CEO told ZebethMedia via email. “Blockchain technology needs to be easier for the individual user to navigate and can help leapfrog Latin America to being one of the most financially democratized regions in the world.” Villegas and co-founders Jaime Varela and Julian Delgado started the company in March 2022 after meeting while students at Universidad de Los Andes. Their goal was to bring web3 services to the population of Latin Americans who are traditionally overlooked by banks. The company said it has approximately 500,000 users across Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico and has plans to expand into other LatAm countries and the U.S. in 2023. Speaking to the ongoing challenges in the cryptocurrency world today and what it might mean for companies in Latin America trying to get funding, Villegas remains optimistic that funding will continue to flow into these kinds of companies that have demonstrated a clear path to success. “Fundraising will be harder within our industry, but this is net-positive,” he added. “Companies and projects that had no clear roadmap or product-market fit will be removed from the scene, and companies with clear use-cases and real impact will be moved to the front of the stage.” Zulu joins companies that have also taken in funding recently, including Ping’s $15 million seed round, a fairly large raise in the current VC environment, to continue developing a digital payment tool that facilitates international payments for remote workers, contractors and freelancers in both their local currency and in fiat and cryptocurrency. And in September, DolarApp announced $5 million in seed funding for its platform for users to open a bank account and move from pesos to dollar dominated stablecoin USD Coin (USDc) and back in seconds. As to whether this could affect crypto regulation in Latin American countries, Villegas said consumers do need to be protected from fraud, but any regulations shouldn’t ultimately “stifle the type of innovation that will eventually level a playing field into the region.” “Crypto regulation is necessary in Latin America to remove bad players, but it should be flexible enough to allow for new players who are working to create a positive impact, but are not heavily financed, to thrive,” he added.

WhatsApp broadens in-app features to help users browse and find businesses • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Apps, Commerce, eCommerce, meta, Social, WhatsApp, whatsapp businessNo Comments

WhatsApp is introducing new Yellow Pages-like features to help users find businesses from within the instant messaging app, part of the Meta-owned platform’s growing attempts to make deeper inroads with e-commerce. The encrypted messaging service, used by over 2 billion users worldwide, said on Thursday that it’s expanding a feature called ‘Directory’ to all users in the key overseas market of Brazil to help them browse and discover local small businesses in their neighborhoods. The nationwide rollout follows WhatsApp testing the directory feature in Sao Paulo last year. WhatsApp is also introducing the ability to find larger businesses from within the app. The feature – rolling out in several markets (Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico and the U.K.), a spokesperson told ZebethMedia – will allow users to browse businesses by category such as banking, food and drink and travel as well as by their names. The feature, called ‘Business Search,’ aims to help individuals avoid having to spend time looking for phone numbers of businesses from their websites and keying in and saving those details to their phone contacts, the company said at a WhatsApp-focused business summit in Brazil. The new features underscore WhatsApp’s growing attempts to turn the behemoth messaging app into a commerce engine, one of its largest bets to generate revenue from the otherwise free service. The company disclosed in the quarterly earnings last month that the click-to-WhatsApp ads business had grown 80% year-over-year and was on track to generate $1.5 billion in annual revenue. “We want to make it easier for people to get more done on WhatsApp,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the summit. “Part of that is building better ways to engage with businesses. And while millions of businesses in Brazil use it for chat, we haven’t made it easy to discover businesses or buy from them, so people end up having to use work-arounds. The ultimate goal here is to make it so you can find, message and buy from a business all in the same WhatsApp chat.” Brazil, the most populous nation in Latin America, is a key region for WhatsApp. The platform, which has amassed over 120 million users in Brazil, has chosen the South American market for testing several new business offerings. WhatsApp last year introduced a payments-to-merchant service in Brazil, in what was briefly a world-first feature for WhatsApp. It rolled back the functionality shortly afterwards following the local central bank stating that adequate risk and regulatory tests were needed to be undertaken first. Brazil’s monetary authority said at the time that its decision would “preserve an adequate competitive environment, that ensures the functioning of a payment system that’s interchangeable, fast, secure, transparent, open and cheap.” The encrypted messaging platform, which received the approval to operate peer-to-peer payments in the nation last year, said it’s still waiting for the regulatory clearance on merchant payments. But that’s not stopping it from continuing some development work. Payments giant Cielo, multinational Fiserv, merchants acquirer Getnet, payments platform Mercado Pago and credit and debit cards player Rede have built the technical integration with WhatsApp and many of them are participating in production testing, Meta-owned unit said. “If you run a business in Brazil, that means people will be able to find you, contact you and purchase from you all in one WhatsApp chat, and we’re working to bring this experience to more countries in the coming months too,” Zuckerberg said. “This is the next step for business messaging and I’m looking forward to hearing about the opportunities this unlocks for all of you.”

SaaS startups that ignored VC advice to cut sales and marketing better off this year

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Capchase, EC News Analysis, EC venture capital, Growth, SaaS, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Venture-backed startups have had to make myriad spending cuts this year in an attempt to either live up to a high valuation, minimize their burn rate or both. But new data from fintech Capchase shows that many startups — especially venture-backed ones — seem to be getting the wrong advice concerning where to downsize. Capchase, which lends non-dilutive capital to SaaS startups, looked at how more than 500 SaaS startups fared in a number of areas including revenue, runway and growth between August and December 2021 and between April and August 2022. One big takeaway was that companies that didn’t cut spending on sales and marketing were in a better financial and growth position now than those that did when the market started to dip in 2022. Miguel Fernandez, the co-founder and CEO of Capchase, said he was initially surprised by this finding because that doesn’t line up with the advice many VCs are giving their portfolio companies — at least on Twitter. However, the results do align with the fact that Capchase also found that most bootstrapped software companies were performing better than VC-backed ones this year — but more on that later.