Author : zebethcontrol

Global VC Flourish launches Madica, an Africa-focused program to back pre-seed stage startups • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 24, 2022Posted in africa, Flourish Ventures, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Access to funding and lack of support systems are some of the greatest challenges faced by startup founders in sub-Saharan Africa. And while venture capital and founder support programs within the continent are growing, a lot still remains to be done to meet the financing, technology and social capital needs of the especially marginalized groups like women founders. It is these gaps that continue to inspire the development of new programs like Madica by US-based venture capital firm Flourish Ventures, which hopes to lessen the burdens of building startups. Launched today, Madica is a pan-African investment program that aims to offer funding, technology support, and mentorship to underrepresented founders across the continent. The sector-agnostic program targets technology startups in the pre-seed stage, which is where most ideas fail. The program has set aside $6 million for investment in up to 30 African startups, each receiving up to $200,000 in exchange for equity, availing the much needed funding. The initial investment phase will run for three years. “Although investment is booming on the continent, funds are often disproportionately targeted at a few well-networked entrepreneurs and skewed towards the more prominent tech hubs… Madica is sector-agnostic and intends to double down on providing hands-on support, extensive resources, access to networks and more. This is why in addition to $6M of investment capital, we have reserved an equal amount for programmatic support,” said Manica’s head, Emmanuel Adegboye. “We encourage founders across the continent to apply for our program. We believe Africans have an unmatched entrepreneurial spirit, and one of Madica’s core goals is to ensure a level playing field for every African founder,” he said. Madica said it is also keen on reaching underserved markets in the continent, outside the well-established hubs of Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. This is part of its push to ensure a pan-African reach by supporting local, and women founders. To qualify for the program, founders need to be working on their idea full-time, have a minimum viable product, and should have received little or no institutional funding. Application and admission to the program will be on a rolling basis. Madica is also partnering with AfriLabs, Pariti, Africa Early Stage Investor Summit, CELO foundation, and Rising Tide to identify entrepreneurs to support. Participating founders will be matched with mentors including Isis Nyong’o, the Asphalt & Ink partner; Ceviant Finance co-founder, Idris Saliu, and Wendy Hoffman, the Capital Legal Counsel at The Delta. “Madica is an investment in the African venture ecosystem, with the audacious goal of creating a broader systemic shift. Through Madica, we intend to develop a cadre of mentors, create world-class programming, crowd-in follow-on capital and leverage Flourish’s global presence to extend the reach of local networks. These will eventually benefit other participants in the ecosystem – startups, investors, and policymakers,” said Ameya Upadhyay, the venture partner at Flourish Ventures, an early-stage fintech VC whose portfolio includes Nigeria’s Flutterwave and Paga. “We hope that Madica can help change the narrative around African startups – lower the perception of risk, attract more capital, inspire more founders, and garner more media attention,” said Upadhyay.

Africa’s tech talent accelerators attract students, VC funding as Big Tech comes calling • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 23, 2022Posted in africa, developers, EC Africa, EC Future of Work, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Tech giants are increasingly looking for tech talent in Africa, where the number of developers reached 716,000 last year, up 3.8% from 2020, according to Google. In the last six months, Microsoft and Amazon have been on a recruitment drive that came along with enticing offers including relocation to their hubs in the U.S. and Europe, endearing themselves to the small but growing talent pool amid tough competition from other tech giants like Google, as well as startups. This demand for African developers is expected to continue, buoyed by the effects of the Great Resignation, which led employers to search for new talent elsewhere, and as tech behemoths like Google, Oracle and Visa expand their operations in Africa. Yet as demand rises, the number of new developers entering the market is disproportionately small, mainly because traditional education institutions in most African countries have been slow to revamp their courses to keep up with job market demands and the fast-evolving world of technology. On the other hand, the gap between demand and supply has unequivocally steered the launch of new developer schools and propelled the growth of existing ones in recent months, many of which are gaining the attention of global venture capitalists.

Why Q3’s median valuations actually make perfect sense • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 23, 2022Posted in EC venture capital, PitchBook Data, startup valuations, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Valuations have been top of mind for the entire venture industry this year as many VCs try to navigate their overvalued portfolios and founders scramble to conserve cash and grow into their lofty valuations. So one might have predicted that valuations would fall off a cliff this year. But that hasn’t happened because venture investing just isn’t that simple. First, let’s look at the numbers: According to PitchBook data, the median seed deal pre-money valuation in the United States was $10.5 million, up from $9 million last year. The median early-stage valuation through the third quarter of this year was $55 million, up from $44 million last year. The median late-stage valuation was $91 million, down from $100 million in 2021. It might seem silly that valuations are continuing to climb for some stages — especially after investors made it seem like they were crazy for coming in at last year’s prices, and, of course, in some ways, it is — but it also makes a lot of sense. Kyle Stanford, a senior venture capital analyst at PitchBook, told ZebethMedia that for one, we can’t forget about those record levels of dry powder. “There has been such growth over the past few years of the multi-stage investors or Andreessen [Horowitz] and Sequoia that have billion-dollar funds investing in early stage,” Stanford said. “The amount of capital that is still available for early stage is still really high and a lot of investors are still willing to put top dollars into deals.”

Post-Disrupt notes • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 23, 2022Posted in FintechNo Comments

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. — Mary Ann Hellooo! I am writing this newsletter on the plane back to my home in Austin after being at Disrupt in San Francisco this week. It was my first IRL Disrupt, and even though I am on the team and was aware of all the planning and preparation behind the scenes, I was still blown away by how incredibly professional and well done it was. We had about 10,000 attendees, tons of great panels and speakers, engaged audiences and the super exciting Battlefield competition, among other things. But I am tired, so be warned this newsletter may be a bit abbreviated. 🙂 I had the honor of kicking off the entire show recording the Equity podcast LIVE with Alex Wilhelm and Natasha Mascarenhas, where we shared some interesting new news about Domm Holland, co-founder of the now-defunct, one-click checkout startup Fast. We had an absolute blast recording in person instead of looking at each other on Zoom. Thanks to all who attended so early that morning! Then on Wednesday, I moderated a panel titled “How to compete without losing your mind and runway.” Ramp CEO Eric Glyman and Airbase founder Thejo Kote were good sports and joined the amazing Ruth Foxe Blader of Anthemis to talk about what it’s like competing in this current environment. Despite being competitors in the spend management space, Eric and Thejo kept it chill and no fights broke out onstage. Meanwhile, Ruth shared some insight from the investor side. I’ll have a story with more details about what they discussed that will publish sometime in the next couple of weeks. Also on Wednesday, I moderated a fireside chat with Brex co-CEO and co-founder Henrique Dubugras and YC continuity managing director (and early Brex investor) Anu Hariharan. It was standing room only and Dubugras spoke candidly on a number of topics such as just how much the company spent on that billboard campaign, what really led to its decision to stop working with SMBs and the lessons learned after that decision caused a bit of an uproar in the startup community. He also revealed some new customers for the company’s Empower software product: Coinbase, SeatGeek, SuperHuman, ScaleAi and Medical Genomics. Again, I’ll be writing up a story with more details about what we discussed that will publish sometime in the next couple of weeks. And finally, on Thursday, I interviewed Rippling CEO and co-founder Parker Conrad. He discussed what he describes as “the biggest launch” of his career — the company’s new global payroll product, which he is not shy about saying will directly compete with the likes of Deel. You can read more about that here. He also discussed some takeaways from his experience at Zenefits, saying that he was taking compliance “very seriously” at his new company. Rippling’s move into the payroll space comes about one month after it announced an expansion into spend management, which puts it in direct competition with the likes of Brex, Ramp, Airbase, TripActions and many others in the space. Image Credits: ZebethMedia Weekly News As the Fintech Fund’s Nik Milanović (who also spoke at Disrupt about community) noted in this tweet, “The @plaid team has been busy in the last week: Faster digital onboarding More fraud controls Privacy Controls suite Crypto wallet onboard Meanwhile, payments infrastructure provider Finix revealed another way it’s going head-to-head with Stripe. In a blog post, the startup said: “Finix is further expanding its In-Person Payment offerings, rolling out more software development kits and APIs to pair with a suite of point-of-sale payment terminals from multiple manufacturers. The best part? Only a single integration is required.” As reported by TC’s Catherine Shu: Cross-border payments startup Thunes is partnering with Visa in a move that will add more than 1.5 billion new endpoints to Visa Direct’s digital payments network. This enables many more consumers and small businesses to send funds to markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where digital wallets are often the default payment methods. Fellow fintech enthusiast and newsletter writer Marcel van Oost is launching a new fintech community. You can learn more here. Finally, Cardless and Simon® Launch Premium Retail Credit Card on American Express Network. Fundings and M&A Landis grabs $40M to turn renters into homeowners Enable lands $94M to help B2B companies manage their rebate programs Achieve aims to fuel digital personal finance transformation with new $225M in fully committed debt capital Bookkeep raises $6.6M in seed funding Mexican buy now, pay later app Nelo lands $100M credit line Capital on Tap Gets $110M Credit Facility to Build Central Finance Hub Well, I had a wonderful time at Disrupt meeting my wonderful colleagues (we genuinely respect and like each other!) and so many of you. Already looking forward to next year. Oh, and a heads-up that I’ll be out all of next week, taking a much needed break, so you won’t be getting the Interchange in your inbox on October 30. But I’ll be back the following week! That’s it for this week. See you again in two weeks! Until then, take good care. — xoxoxo, Mary Ann

India’s Wire retracts reports on Meta citing discrepancies • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 23, 2022Posted in Facebook, india, Media & Entertainment, meta, SocialNo Comments

Wire has retracted its reports on Meta after discovering “certain discrepancies” in its news pieces, the Indian outlet said Sunday, marking what should be an end to the high-profile drama with the social juggernaut that captured the interest of newsrooms and tech companies globally for two weeks. The move follows Wire, a small but gutsy Indian news outlet, setting up an internal review process to evaluate its reporting earlier this week after Meta, the subject of the original story, and the independent sources it relied on vehemently denied the newsroom’s reports. “Our investigation, which is ongoing, does not as yet allow us to take a conclusive view about the authenticity and bona fides of the sources with whom a member of our reporting team says he has been in touch over an extended period of time,” Wire said in a statement. Wire reported earlier this month that Meta gave the governing party BJP’s top digital operative an unchecked ability to remove content from Instagram and ran a series of follow-ups, asserting Meta was insincere in its public denials of the reporting. In one of the stories, Wire cited what it claimed was an internal email from Meta comms Andy Stone. In another, it cited testimonies from independent security researchers vouching for the authenticity of Stone’s email to Wire. (Both Meta and security researchers have disputed the reports.) The Indian news organization said Sunday that “certain discrepancies have emerged in the material used.” “These include the inability of our investigators to authenticate both the email purportedly sent from a*****@fb.com as well as the email purportedly received from Ujjwal Kumar (an expert cited in the reporting as having endorsed one of the findings, but who has, in fact, categorically denied sending such an email). As a result, The Wire believes it is appropriate to retract the stories.” (More to follow)

Kanye agrees to buy Parler, Elon Musk reportedly plans mass layoffs at Twitter, and Netflix gets into cloud gaming • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 22, 2022Posted in Startups, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, where every Saturday we recap a handful of the top ZebethMedia stories from the past seven days. Want it in your inbox? Get it here! This week marked the in-person return of ZebethMedia Disrupt, with our team taking the show back into the real world after two years fully virtual. It was one helluva show, with appearances from people like tennis legend (turned investor) Serena Williams, comedian (also turned investor!) Kevin Hart, Lyft co-founder John Zimmer, and Figma CEO Dylan Field. Congrats to Minerva Lithium for winning the Startup Battlefield competition! most read Google’s Ping-Pong robot: “As if it weren’t enough to have AI tanning humanity’s hide (figuratively for now) at every board game in existence,” writes Devin, “Google AI has got one working to destroy us all at Ping-Pong as well.” Elon expects huge Twitter layoffs: Musk reportedly wants to cut up to 75% of Twitter’s workforce — roughly 5,600 jobs — if/when his acquisition of the company goes through. That number seems pretty absurd. Even much smaller layoffs have compounding effects on things like team morale and productivity — just imagine the amount of knowledge/insight that disappears if the majority of a company is let go. Kanye West is buying Parler: Well, that’s a headline I never, ever, ever would’ve predicted. “Kanye West, the rapper who also goes by the name Ye, has reached an agreement to buy ‘uncancelable free speech platform’ Parler,” writes Manish, “in a move [the involved parties say] will help individuals express their conservative opinions freely.” Stability AI raises $101 million: The company behind the AI-powered image generator Stable Diffusion and music-generating system Dance Diffusion has raised $101 million at a reported valuation of $1 billion. Netflix explores cloud gaming: Just as Google gives up on its cloud gaming efforts, Netflix is diving in. At Disrupt this week, Netflix’s VP of Gaming said the company is “seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering,” saying that Google’s shuttered effort was a “technical success” with “issues with the business model.” audio roundup Here’s what’s up in TC podcast land this week: Equity was live and in person! After years in pandemic mode, the Equity crew (Alex, Natasha, and Mary Ann) kicked off Disrupt by recording a show face-to-face for the first time. On Found, Darrell and Jordan caught up with Jerrica Kirkley and Matthew Wetschler and learned the story of Plume, their telehealth company that focuses on transgender care. techcrunch+ What were TC+ members reading most behind the paywall? Here’s a peek: 2023 VC predictions: After a wild few years of ups and downs, what will venture capital look like in 2023? Contrary Capital founder Eric Tarczynski weighs in. Ron explores Celonis and its $13 billion valuation: Celonis might not be a name that everyone recognizes…but the 11-year-old data-processing company has managed to raise billions of dollars in the last few years alone. What are they doing so right? Ron Miller takes us on a deep dive.

Overheard at ZebethMedia Disrupt 2022 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 22, 2022Posted in EC Newsletter, Startups, Startups WeeklyNo Comments

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As far as weeks go, this one was as disruptive as they come. ZebethMedia Disrupt 2022 has officially come to a close after an iconic three days of interviews, startup pitches and “Oh my god I know you from Twitter” moments. I think I can speak for my co-workers when I say we are all exhausted and refreshed, somehow, at the same damn time. So, let’s do something a little different for Startups Weekly. This week, instead of running through our usual digest of news, I want to honor some of the best moments, on stage and off, of the conference. Below you’ll find some hilarious, witty and nuanced quotes linked with a related story if available. If you want more than just the excerpt, don’t fret. Here’s a live transcription of all the panels, and make sure to check out ZebethMedia and ZebethMedia+ for further context on news that broke on stage. As always you can follow me on Twitter and forward this newsletter to a friend. But only if you want. Enjoy, and we’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming next week. Overheard at ZebethMedia Disrupt 2022 “Would I pick this? If I had a magic wand to design a health care system that leaves people behind desperately, every single day? A health care system that says that someone like me, who looks like me, just by virtue of my race has a three to six times more likely chance of dying in pregnancy because of systemic factors because of completely unchecked racism in our system and our society and our health care system because of stigma? Because of lack of equitable access to services? Absolutely not,” Cityblock Health co-founder and CEO Toyin Ajayi. Full story here. “Social products tend not to invent new behaviors. They tend to take things that we are wired to do as humans that we have fundamentally shown we enjoy doing, and they just make it dramatically easier to do it with anyone in the world,” Clubhouse co-founder and CEO Paul Davison. “ZebethMedia? That sounds like a candy bar,” “Chic woman in the elevator.” “We’re past COVID, I again, argue, and we’re now looking at a potential recession. And in a recession, transportation historically is always stable; it’s a necessary thing that people need. And $30 salads on food delivery is not stable in a recession,” Lyft co-founder John Zimmer on why he’s not getting into the food delivery business. Full story here. “I was told you folks did not talk about hydrogen over happy hour quite as much last night as you were supposed to. So they brought me back so we can really kind of r-emphasize it a bit here.” Advanced Ionics founder and CEO Chad Mason. Full story here. “Make sure you say it again; I’m not being paid for this,” Comedian and investor Kevin Hart. Full story here. “Trust is consistency over time,” Figma CEO Dylan Field. Full story here. “Just to clarify, you extract lithium from brine and produce battery grade lithium and drinkable water?” ZebethMedia Editor-in-Chief Matthew Panzarino to the co-founders of Minerva Lithium (and this year’s winner of Startup Battlefield). Full story here. “The way I think about fundraising is it’s theater for toddlers,” Metafy CEO Josh Fabian. “We actually bought most of the billboards in San Francisco for three months for $300,000. Which, you know, may seem like a lot of money but we had raised around $60 million at the time so it wasn’t huge for us. It was massively successful. We definitely got way more than that in revenue in the first month than we spent on billboards,” Henrique Dubugras, founder and co-CEO of Brex. “I don’t need to BeReal because I’m real every day,” ZebethMedia audience development manager Alyssa Stringer. “If taking super glue from a founder to fix a broken acrylic nail crisis is the worst choice I make at Disrupt then I think I will have succeeded,” ZebethMedia senior reporter Amanda Silberling. “What’s your podcast?” Golden State Warriors player Draymond Green to ZebethMedia hardware editor Brian Heater. Full story here. “I’m gonna show up and probably be beat up by security guards or something. [I’ll tell them] she said I could play,” ZebethMedia Deputy Editor Jordan Crook on playing tennis with tennis legend and venture capitalist Serena Williams. And in response: “I said you could watch,” tennis legend and venture capitalist Serena Williams. Full story here. “There’s a new issue that we have with doing Equity on stage. I haven’t worn makeup for like four years and I touch my face a lot. So now I have makeup all over my hand. So if you see me, don’t let me hug you because you’ll get a weird shaped handprint,” ZebethMedia+ Editor-in-Chief Alex Wilhelm. Full podcast here. Chat next week, N

Pantheon Design alleviates supply chain uncertainty with factory-grade 3D printing • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 22, 2022Posted in 3d printing, Battlefield 200, Disrupt, Hardware, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022No Comments

In the midst of the pandemic, Pantheon Design, a maker of industrial 3D printers from Vancouver, BC, suddenly found itself getting orders from factories in the Midwest, the center of heavy industries. The reason? These manufacturers were having a hard time getting parts out of China as COVID-19 restrictions in the country squeezed global supply chains. One of Pantheon Design’s e-mobility customers waited 18 months before its injection molds, which are used for producing parts, arrived from China. If your electric vehicle or home appliance order is taking longer to arrive, chances are port closures and lockdowns in the factory of the world are messing up your supplier’s production timeline. For a long time, 3D printers were too expensive, slow, and short-lived to be economically viable for manufacturers, observes Bob Cao, co-founder and CEO of Pantheon Design, as he speaks to ZebethMedia as one of the Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200 companies. Many of the 3D printing startups that secure big VC checks are run by smart people who have never been in a real factory, which is hot and smelly, says the entrepreneur. “So their machines break down all the time.” “They make the product for prototyping, but they try to sell the idea for manufacturing,” he adds. Cao’s founder story follows a familiar pattern seen among engineers: five years ago, he and his co-founders bought a bunch of 3D printers to build products for industrial customers, but the third-party devices weren’t meeting their expectations, so they set out to build their own. Parts created by Pantheon’s 3d printer. The result is the HS3 3D printer, which is a sleek-looking cube measuring 300mm on each side and weighing 46.7 kilograms, featuring black anodized aluminum, which has been treated to achieve a durable finish. The device is able to print carbon fiber parts that are as sturdy as metal and 5-10 times faster than other options on the market thanks to the startup’s patented methods, according to Cao. Moreover, it’s able to do it at a competitive cost even in comparison to Chinese suppliers. The startup has sold 40 HS3 units — all assembled in-house in Vancouver with parts manufactured in Canada — since starting shipping the machine nine months ago. Each printer costs $15,000, but the bigger chunk of the company’s revenues comes from selling filaments. Also called the “ink” for 3D printers, filaments range from $50-150 a kilo, which brings a nice 90% profit margin, and most of the company’s customers spend about $500-800 a month on them. Pantheon Design has raised $800,000 in funding from a mix of investors in Canada and the U.S., including the Boston-based accelerator Techstars. The company is also buoyed by revenues it generated from its previous business of printing products and prototypes for clients, and two of its proudest moments include printing entire concept motorcycles for Honda and all the sci-fi props in the Netflix film The Adam Project.

Could machine learning refresh the cloud debate? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 22, 2022Posted in cloud infrastructure, expensify, Robotics & AI, Startups, TechCrunch Exchange newsletter, The ExchangeNo Comments

Welcome to The ZebethMedia Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily ZebethMedia+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Should early-stage founders ignore the never-ending debate on server infrastructure? Up to a point, yes: Investors we talked to are giving entrepreneurs their blessing not to give too much thought to cloud spend in their early days. But the rise of machine learning makes us suspect that answers might soon change. — Anna Bare metal, rehashed If you had a sense of déjà vu this week when David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) announced that Basecamp’s and Hey’s parent company 37signals was leaving the cloud, you are not alone: The debate on the pros and cons of cloud infrastructure sometimes seems stuck on an infinite loop. It is certainly not the first time that I heard 37signals’ core argument: That “renting computers is (mostly) a bad deal for medium-sized companies like ours with stable growth.” In fact, both DHH’s rationale and its detractors strongly reminded me of the years-old discussion that expense management company Expensify ignited when it defended its choice to go bare metal — that is, to run its own servers. However, it would be wrong to think that the parameters of the cloud versus on-premise debate have remained unchanged. As Boldstart Ventures partner Shomik Ghosh noted in our cloud investor survey, there’s more to on-prem these days than running your own servers. Debate aside, I think most of us can agree that bare metal is not for everyone, which is why it’s interesting to see a middle ground emerge. “In terms of terminology,” Ghosh said, “I think on-prem should also be called ‘modern on-prem,’ which Replicated coined, as it addresses not just bare metal self-managed servers but also virtual private clouds, etc.”

VCs continue to pour millions into independent beverage startups • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 22, 2022Posted in beverages, Commerce, EC Ecommerce and D2C, EC venture capital, eCommerce, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

After seeing a ton of venture capital investment flow into independent beverage startups recently, it was time to take a step back and see if this kind of company actually made sense as a venture investment. For one, the competition for space on grocery store shelves is fierce, eclipsed only by the fact people are finicky. The U.S. Beverage Manufacturing and Filling Locations Database contains nearly 2,500 alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage manufacturers making everything from beer and soft drinks to coffee and 10,000 flavors of fizzy water. Within the whole beverage sector, functional beverages grew in popularity over the past five years as consumers sought out better-for-you drinks. Most of them include add-ins like vitamins, probiotics and electrolytes and boast lower sugar content and more natural ingredients. This market is also growing fast: Precedence Research estimated the global functional beverages market was valued at $129.3 billion in 2021 and would grow nearly 9% annually through 2030, when it’s forecast to be worth $279.4 billion. These companies don’t usually go public, but often sell to another entity, perhaps a soda conglomerate or even an alcoholic beverage company looking to get into the nonalcoholic space. Opening a fresh can of capital If the amount of capital going into this area is any indication, investment into the sector makes sense. Venture capital firms pumped over $170 million into functional beverage companies in 2018, up $111 million from 2017, according to PitchBook.