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Rapyd Ventures backs Indian fintech-as-a-service startup Decentro • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Fintech, india, rapyd, Startups, Y CombinatorNo Comments on Rapyd Ventures backs Indian fintech-as-a-service startup Decentro • ZebethMedia

India’s Decentro, the Y Combinator-backed startup that helps companies enter the fintech market by deploying its APIs, has raised $4.7 million in a Series A round. The Bengaluru-based startup offers banking and payments APIs that allow development of fintech products such as banking, payment cards, neobanking and collections and payout services in a short period of time. Decentro has partnered with scores of industry players including Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, Visa, RuPay, Quickwork, Equifax, Aadhaar and National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) to offer solutions for prepaid payment instruments, no-code workflows, conversational banking via WhatsApp and enable document verification and KYC process. “Whenever a fintech startup or a company wants to launch a new product in the market, it takes them a minimum of a few months to launch. And it purely has to do with the bank processes, the way the bank runs the process, as well as the tech of the bank. It’s not so great. That’s essentially the problem we are solving,” said Rohit Taneja, co-founder and CEO, Decentro, in an interview with ZebethMedia. Taneja, who has previously co-founded social payments platform Mypoolin, which was acquired by Cupertino-based financial services company Wibmo, and spent eight years in the fintech market, co-founded Decentro with Pratik Daukhane in 2020 — after personally facing all the problems he wants to address. He considers Cashfree and PineLabs-owned Setu among the key competitors for the startup but believes that it’s differentiating with “solution-driven enterprise customer base” and “superior” product experience. The startup has already amassed over 250 customers in commerce and fintech sectors. Some of these include Freo, Mobile Premier League, FamPay, CreditWise, Uni Cards and BharatX. Decentro, which has a headcount of over 40 people, offers products to let companies create virtual, business and escrow accounts, enable payments and provide lending. The available products comply with all the latest regulations in the country, the startup said. The Series A round of Decentro is led by Rapyd Ventures, the venture arm of the UK fintech-as-a-service giant, along with participation from Leonis VC and Uncorrelated Ventures. Indian angel investors including CRED founder Kunal Shah, Groww co-founder and CEO Lalit Keshre, Gupshup co-founder and CEO Beerud Sheth and former CBO of BharatPe Pratekk Agarwaal also participated in the funding round. Taneja told ZebethMedia that the startup aims to utilize the fresh funding to go deeper into its partnership with banks and enter categories including large enterprises. It also plans to acquire licenses and launch in Singapore to expand beyond India eventually. “Building their innovation layer in India first gives Decentro a great base to build scalable innovations that can be expanded as other emerging markets modernize their own infrastructure. We’re excited to support Decentro as they scale and expand,” said Joel Yarbrough, MD of Rapyd Ventures and Rapyd’s VP of Asia Pacific, in a prepared statement. Before the latest funding round, Decentro had raised a total of $1.7 million in seed and angel rounds. The seed round, which closed in October 2020, included investments from Y Combinator and FundersClub. Since then, the startup claims its valuation has increased by 3.3X and revenues have grown by more than 35X. Taneja, however, did not reveal any specifics about the valuation. Dcentro’s API transactional volumes have also been growing by 50 to 70% every quarter since early 2021, with an average of 70 million annualized API transactions recorded over the last 12 months, it said. The startup is also profitable, the co-founder said.

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Shopify acquires Remix to bolster its storefront design tools • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in acquisition, Apps, Commerce, Dev, react, Spotify, Startups, web developmentNo Comments on Shopify acquires Remix to bolster its storefront design tools • ZebethMedia

Remix, a startup developing an open source web framework similar to Next.js, has been acquired by Shopify, the companies announced in a joint statement today. The financial terms weren’t disclosed, but in a blog post, Remix CEO Michael Jackson said that Remix will receive “long-term backing and support” from Shopify that will allow it to “grow faster” and “sharpen its focus on performance and scalability.” “You’ll be seeing a lot more [of the Remix framework] in the wild, powering some of the largest commercial sites on the web,” Jackson said. “In addition, Shopify itself will use Remix across many projects, and you can expect to see more of Shopify’s developer platform include first-class support for Remix over time.” Remix was co-founded by Jackson — an ex-Twitter engineer — and Ryan Florence in 2020. The two worked together for years creating open source tools around React, a JavaScript library for building app UIs, before deciding to launch the eponymous Remix framework. One of Jackson’s and Florence’s best-known projects is React Router, a library for React, which has been downloaded almost a billion times. Not coincidentally, Shopify originally used React Router to architect Hydrogen, the company’s front-end web development framework for building custom Shopify storefronts. As for Remix, it’s a full-stack web framework that’s designed to leverage distributed systems and native browser features while abstracting away back-end server tasks. Compatible with public cloud environments, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Netlify, Vercel and Cloudflare Workers, one of Remix’s key features is prefetching — the framework can prefetch elements of a web page in parallel, including buttons and forms, before a user clicks on a link to minimize page loading. Prior to the Shopify acquisition, Remix had raised $3 million in seed capital from OSS Capital and angel investors Naval Ravikant, Ram Shriram and Sahil Lavingia. In a post on the Shopify Engineering blog, Dion Almaer, VP of engineering at Shopify, said that the purchase of Remix will benefit both Shopify developers and merchants by bringing improvements to Hydrogen. “Remix will continue to be an independent and open-source framework,” Almaer said. “Remix will tackle challenges that developers building on Hydrogen have encountered around data loading, routing, and error handling … Shopify will use Remix across many projects where it makes sense, and you can expect to see more of our developer platform with first-class Remix support over time.” Remix is Shopify’s first acquisition since Deliverr, the fulfillment tech provider that the e-commerce giant purchased in May for $2.1 billion. Earlier in the year, Shopify snatched up Dovetail, which helps brands manage influencer marketing campaigns. The company also recently invested in Single, a music and video app used by many businesses on Shopify, following equity pledges in CMS developer Sanity and marketing automation startup Klaviyo. After a rocky Q2, there are signs that Shopify is beginning to better weather the economic downturn. The company posted smaller-than-expected Q3 losses last week, leading shares to jump as high as 17%.

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ispace wants to stake its claim to the moon with November launch • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in ispace, lunar lander, Space, StartupsNo Comments on ispace wants to stake its claim to the moon with November launch • ZebethMedia

Tokyo-based startup ispace’s lunar ambitions will soon be put to the test, as the company gears up for its first launch at the end of this month. The startup will attempt to send its “Hakuto-R” lander to the moon’s surface, kicking off an ambitious lunar exploration program of the same name. Founded in 2010, ispace is one of many emerging companies that want to foster new markets on and around the moon; on its website, it describes its goal as becoming “a gateway for private sector companies to bring their business to the moon.” Being the middle- and last-mile delivery partner of the moon could prove to be lucrative, given the intensifying interest from both government space agencies and private companies in lunar exploration. But there’s more than far-off revenues at stake in this first launch; recent reporting suggested that ispace is preparing to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange as early as this fiscal year. While the company was previously targeting a launch window of November 9-15, ispace said Monday it was now aiming to launch no earlier than November 22. The new date was chosen “in careful coordination” with launch partner SpaceX, the startup said in a statement. Ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada confirmed that the lander had arrived in Cape Canaveral, Florida, via cargo plane in advance of launch. ispace’s lander being loaded onto the cargo plane. Image Credits: ispace “This mission will be a historic first not only for our company, but also for the development of the cislunar economy,” Hakamada said. If all goes to plan, the Hakuto-R will carry multiple payloads to the surface of the moon. Those include a 22-pound rover for the United Arab Emirates’ Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre, a lunar robot for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and several more payloads from commercial and government customers. After launch, the mission will be monitored from the company’s mission control center in Tokyo.

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SpaceX set to launch two spacecraft tomorrow aboard Falcon Heavy rocket • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments on SpaceX set to launch two spacecraft tomorrow aboard Falcon Heavy rocket • ZebethMedia

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Last week was a hell of a week in startup news, and Henry wrote a particularly good summary of everything that went down, including Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase, Meta’s troubles, and a minute of silence for self-driving cars. — Christine and Haje The ZebethMedia Top 3 Flying chonk goes wheeeeeee: While we were all distracted by Elon Musk’s other pet project, SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time in three years. Aria has more. Swipe right for utter chaos: Glitch or not, Instagram has some ‘splaining to do. A number of users woke up this morning to suspended accounts. We adore Aisha’s headline, “Instagram is giving Twitter a run for its money as the most chaotic social network today.” We concur. Circle of friends: Egyptian fintech Money Fellows banked $31 million in new funding to, what Tage describes as, “digitizing money circles,” which is where people essentially save and borrow together as a group. Startups and VC Politician turned venture capitalist Bradley Tusk recently spoke at a ZebethMedia Live event on how startups should approach regulation, in a session called “How to launch a startup into a regulated market.” Dibbs CEO and co-founder Evan Vandenberg joined Tusk in the conversation. The event is embedded here and is both free and very worth watching. Invygo, a startup operating in UAE and Saudi Arabia, has raised $10 million in its Series A funding as it works to scale its car rental service in the region. The Middle East–based startup has raised $14.3 million to date, Ivan reports. And, as ever, there’s a handful of additional stories. Just 4 this time — there were 5, but then a PR person decided to move the embargo for a story that was already published, and Haje got all salty and grumpy about it. 6 reasons why you shouldn’t join an accelerator Image Credits: Richard Drury (opens in a new window) / Getty Images As director of Techstars’ startup pipeline, Saba Karim devotes much of his time touting the many ways entrepreneurs can benefit by joining an accelerator. But is it the right choice for every founder? “Keep in mind that funding will solve your money problems, but it won’t solve everything else,” he says. “You’ll still need to figure out how to acquire customers, find the best talent, build an incredible product, assemble a great advisory board and get to product-market fit.” Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. Darrell writing that Mark Zuckerberg should drop all that metaverse nonsense and “make a new Twitter” makes us want to respond with “bite your tongue!” But really, as he puts it, “Cloning the features of its rivals” is something Meta is good at, plus it has the best chance at also replicating user base and monetary worth. It’s unlikely Zuck will take the bait, but never say never. It’s indeed a Twitter world, and we just live in it. First, Devin writes that Elon Musk just dissolved Twitter’s board of directors, making him now the sole owner; then Ron followed up with what Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor can do now that he isn’t on the board. Sarah reports on Twitter Blue’s troubles, namely that the subscription service is feeling blue that it is not bringing in more green. Meanwhile, Amanda writes about what happens if Twitter starts charging for that little blue checkmark, and Natasha L reports that Musk might be trying to bring back Vine. Over the weekend, Rebecca wrote about layoffs at the company. Don’t worry, there was plenty of other news: Mind cleanse: To get all that Twitter out of your mind, try your hand at Google’s new doodle game. Have you ever watched your child play Snake.io and wondered, “Will I like that?” Well, Google got into the Halloween spirit with today’s doodle, where you get to be a ghost and collect spirit flames while playing with friends or random people, Aisha writes. The heat is on: Amazon to delist top seller Appario on India marketplace after some retailers allege that sellers got preferential treatment, Manish reports. We’ve got a ticket to ride: WhatsApp users in Bengaluru can now buy train tickets via QR code, Jagmeet reports. Bed, Bath & Breach: Bed, Bath & Beyond confirms a data breach that happened when a hacker gained access to an employee’s hard drive, Carly writes. Query that data: Ron reports on Pinecone’s new vector database that can handle hybrid keyword-semantic searches.

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Arnica raises $7M to improve software supply chain security • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Arnica, Enterprise, First Rays Venture Partners, funding, Security, startup, StartupsNo Comments on Arnica raises $7M to improve software supply chain security • ZebethMedia

Everybody wants to talk about software supply chain risks these days, whether that’s security teams, developers or government officials. It’s no surprise then, that VCs, despite the current economic climate, continue to fund startups in this space, too. One of the newest members in this club is Arnica, a startup that takes a somewhat broader view of supply chain security than most of its competitors and helps companies. The company today announced that it has raised a $7 million seed round. The round was led by Joule Ventures and First Rays Venture Partners. A number of angel investors, including Avi Shua (co-founder & CEO of Orca Security), Dror Davidoff (co-founder & CEO of Aqua Security) and Baruch Sadogursky (head of Developer Relations at JFrog), also participated in this round. Arnica founding team. Image Credits: Arnica “As a former buyer of application security products, I tested more than a dozen solutions for securing my previous company’s software supply chain but reached a dead end. Most products were expensive visibility dashboards driven by varying definitions of “best practices,” said Arnica CEO and co-founder Nir Valtman. “We decided to provide this visibility for free, for unlimited users, forever. We went further though and developed a comprehensive solution to not only identify risks based on historical and anomalous behavior but also to mitigate them. We do this by using automated workflows with single-click mitigations that empower developers to own security from within the tools they already use.” The team argues that supply chain attacks succeed because of inefficient developer access management or the inability to detect anomalous identity or code behavior. So that’s where Arnica comes in. Its behavior-based approach combines access management and a service that can detect anomalous developer behavior that could be the result of a breach. “Each of our machine learning algorithms have thousands of features that identify whether it was actually the developer who wrote the pushed code,” explained Valtman. “When an anomaly is detected, it kicks off an immediate workflow to validate it with the developer in a simple and secure way. It is not only good for the company, but also good for developers.” There’s also secret detection to avoid leaking those, a service that continuously monitors security and compliance and tools for identifying the open source libraries used across an organization, which can also compile a full software bill of materials (SBOM). The company plans to use the new funding to accelerate its go-to-market and R&D efforts, with a focus on expanding its automated workflows and mitigation capabilities. “In a market full of security solutions adding only incremental value, Arnica’s instant resolution-oriented approach is a game changer for enterprise dev teams,” said Brian Rosenzweig, partner at Joule Ventures. “Arnica goes beyond just flagging security problems — every issue that is identified can be immediately addressed with a provided one-click fix. This allows businesses to quickly protect their software supply chain from attacks, while behavior-based detection ensures it remains secure in the long term. Arnica’s pragmatic approach and advanced technology enable companies to avoid costly breaches without compromising on agility.”

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Digital assets marketplace Creative Fabrica launches generative AI tool • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in AI art, Creative Fabrica, Creators, Generative AI, StartupsNo Comments on Digital assets marketplace Creative Fabrica launches generative AI tool • ZebethMedia

Creative Fabrica, a marketplace for digital files like print-on-demand assets, fonts and graphics, announced today it will launch its own generative AI tool. Called CF Spark, it’s already seen three million prompts generated, and more than 500,000 published by Creative Fabrica creators over the past three weeks. Like other digital assets on the platform, users can put up their generative AI files for paid use by other members, which Creative Fabrica says makes it the first generative AI that also allows creators to make money. Backed by investors like Felix Capital, FJ Labs and Peak Capital, Creative Fabrica has an agreement with Stable Diffusion, the image-generating AI system by Stability AI and is working on a partnership with OpenAI to include Dalle 2 in its ecosystem. CF Spark also uses the Dreamstudio API. Creative Fabrica CEO Roemie Hillenaar said this mix allows users to get different results and covers a broader range of styles. Creative Spark started building CF Spark before Stable Diffusion was released open source, Hillenaar told ZebethMedia. “We saw that DALLE and MidJourney where opening up their gates towards more beta users and we took the bet that OpenAI (make DALLE) will open up their API at any time. At the time we were betting towards the end of this year and we thought to build already the product as if the API would be available,” he added. But in the middle of that, Stability AI released Stable Diffusion open source and since Creative Fabrica was already in the process of developing CF Spark, it allowed it to take the new tool live more quickly. To use CF Spark, creators enter a prompt, which generates four images that they can chose to publish on their page. Other Creative Fabrica users can re-prompt the AI images to get different results and upload images of what they create with AI-generated art (for example, a T-shirt). CF Spark is available to Creative Fabrica’s four million users for free. In total, the platform has a library of almost six million fonts and graphics.

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Contract lifecycle management vendor Icertis secures $150M in debt to stave off rivals • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in contract lifecycle management, Enterprise, Fintech, Icertis, silicon valley bank, StartupsNo Comments on Contract lifecycle management vendor Icertis secures $150M in debt to stave off rivals • ZebethMedia

It’s Halloween. And, if you’re contract management software company Icertis, it’s payday. After raising $115 million in 2019, Icertis today secured $150 million — $75 million in convertible debt and a $75 million revolving credit facility — in a combined tranche from Silicon Valley Bank that brings the company’s total capital raised to $520 million. By going the debt route, Icertis avoids having to answer the tricky question of valuation in an especially challenging economic environment. (Icertis was valued at $2.8 billion as of March 2021 and reportedly as high as $5 billion earlier this year, but valuations in tech are on a steep downswing.) Convertible debt allows Icertis to pay its loan obligation with equity or stocks, while the credit facility lets it borrow and repay on an ongoing basis. CEO Samir Bodas was rather vague about the plans for the new cash, but told ZebethMedia in an interview that it would involve “accelerating the application of transformational technologies like artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning and blockchain to deliver material, unique and consequential value to customers.” That’s all rather ambitious (and, truth be told, a little buzzwordy), but Bodas asserted that Icertis is well-positioned to fend off rival startups in the cutthroat contract management space. “Industry analysts like Gartner and Forrester refer to our category as contract lifecycle management (CLM), but Icertis differentiates from traditional CLM vendors,” Bodas said. “We not only deliver efficiencies in contract creation and negotiation, but we use AI and natural language processing to structure contract information into on-demand data and connect that data to operational systems … to automate processes, maximize contract value and ensure compliance.” Founded in 2009 by Bodas (a veteran of Microsoft and Aztecsoft) and Monish Darda (previously an executive at BladeLogic), Icertis provides cloud-hosted tools for managing procurement, sales and corporate contracts — including tools that can read and analyze contracts to deliver risk management reports and automatic obligation tracking. The platform systemizes contracts and the associated documentation, extracting data like contact information and clauses to figure out contractual commitments and monitor them to ensure compliance. Ingested contracts can be used to model commercial relationships in Icertis, letting users identify contracts missing clauses necessary to complying with regulations like GDPR. Bodas claims the AI systems powering this and other features of the Icertis platform are among the most capable of their kind, able to process over 7,000 different types of contracts across 11 verticals. Icertis’ contract management software, which runs in the cloud. Image Credits: Icertis “We are forging and leading a new category of technology — contract intelligence — which uses AI to automate processes and deliver insights with structured, connected contract data to digitally memorialize the purpose of every commercial relationship and ensure the intent of those agreements is fully realized,” Bodas said. That’s a bold statement. But it’s true Bellevue, Washington-based Icertis is already one of the larger and more successful contract management software vendors to emerge in recent years. Bodas says that the company exited 2021 with an annual recurring revenue north of $100 million and recently surpassed $200 million in recurring revenue. He declined to disclose the size of Icertis’ customer base, but he noted that current clients include Microsoft, Boeing, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Mercedes-Benz and Qantas and unnamed public sector agencies. This year, Icertis announced a partnership with SAP to make Icertis the CLM solution of choice for SAP customers. (Alongside SoftBank, SAP holds a minority stake in Icertis.) Bodas says it’ll create a contract management “ecosystem” for SAP clients through integrations with SAP solutions like Ariba, Fieldglass, S/4HANA and SuccessFactors. “In this economic downturn, we believe contracts, which govern every dollar in and out of the enterprise, will emerge as the go-to asset because they are an untapped source of invaluable business value to reduce costs, manage risk, ensure compliance and drive revenue,” Bodas said. “We are bullish that contract intelligence will emerge from this downturn as the fifth system of record in the enterprise, and that Icertis is positioned to lead it for the long term.” Investors see promise in contract management legal technology for procurement, sales, finance, legal and HR like Icertis’ — perhaps because of the enormous addressable market. The contract management lifecycle market is expected to grow from $1.5 billion in 2019 to $2.9 billion by 2024, according to Markets and Markets. The early adoption metrics certainly have been promising, with one recent Bloomberg Law survey showing that more than half of in-house lawyers were using contract management programs in 2020. Bodas says that Icertis’ platform alone has handled more than 10 million contracts worth over $1 trillion in more than 40 languages and over 90 countries. “Contracts are an invaluable source of original data — documenting and governing the entitlements and obligations between a company and its suppliers, customers and employees. In other words, contracts provide a single source of truth for commercial relationships,” Bodas said. He gave an example: “Recently, customers have been turning to Icertis to help them navigate inflation as best they can. Do their contracts have clauses that enable them to adjust prices in the event of inflation, how often can they raise prices, and by how much? We deliver these insights instantly, so every entitlement within a company’s contracts can be realized for maximum value.” Among Icertis’ competitors are ContractPodAI and SirionLabs, which raised $55 million in July and $85 million in May, respectively, for their automation-fueled contract management software. Another formidable rival is LinkSquares, which landed $100 million in April to grow its platform that combines legal analysis with contract lifecycle capabilities. For what it’s worth, Icertis dwarfs them in size, with more than 2,000 employees spread across its offices in New Jersey, Chicago and elsewhere.

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Twitter is a startup again, I guess • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Equity Monday, Equity podcast, Startups, twitter elon musk, VentureNo Comments on Twitter is a startup again, I guess • ZebethMedia

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Stocks are mixed around the world, notably lower in China on the back of some negative economic data, and down in the United States ahead of what is expected to be another rise in interest rates thanks to the Federal Reserve. Crypto prices have held onto recent gains. A busy weekend of Twitter leaks lead the news cycle. Precisely if, and if yes, how much, Twitter can charge for verified accounts to keep their badge is now a point of conversation. Other reports of development deadlines with termination held as a threat if they are not met are likely doing great things for staffer morale. It turns out that self-driving cars are still far away. I am crying. Startups Zebra Labs and Invygo raised money, showing that the global startup investment market has not frozen, and that there is still funding for more future-facing efforts like Zebra in the metaverse. Finally, we’re keeping close tabs on the Q4 venture capital cycle. If we don’t see a rebound soon, how many unicorns die? And that’s our show! More Wednesday! Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday and Wednesday, and at 6 a.m. PT on Fridays, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, one that details how our stories come together, and more!

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How to launch a startup into a regulated market, according to Bradley Tusk • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Bradley Tusk, dibbs, Startups, Tusk VenturesNo Comments on How to launch a startup into a regulated market, according to Bradley Tusk • ZebethMedia

Politician turned venture capitalist Bradley Tusk recently spoke at a ZebethMedia Live event on how startups should approach regulation. Dibbs CEO and co-founder Evan Vandenberg joined Tusk in the conversation. The event is embedded below, and it’s free to watch. Throughout the talk, the two guests expressed their firm stance on the power of utilizing regulations to build trust and utility. Tusk admits he’s known as the regulation guy — and for a good reason, too. Before starting his VC firm, Tusk was instrumental in Uber and Bird’s early days, helping the two companies bring their services to new markets in slash-and-burn style. Evan and his team’s attention to regulatory details lead to Tusk Ventures’s investment in the company’s Series A. As Tusk puts it during the event, he seldom hears startup founders like Vandenberg and Dibbs’ proactive approach to regulations. “Part of what our firm does is we invest but then we take on the regulatory communication challenges of our portfolio companies, and we work on them,” Tusk said. “And that’s because of my and my team’s background in politics. So the idea of ‘Here’s a company that’s proactively interested in new forms of regulations.’ That’s the kind of nerdy stuff my team, and I geek out about, so it was cool to have a founder like Vandenberg, too.” Tusk advises startups to answer the following questions when launching into a regulated market. What are the laws on the books? It may be that your thing is completely legal, allowed, or somewhere gray. So, for example, Bird when we launched Bird, in most markets, we didn’t ask for permission to come in because it wasn’t illegal, right? We tried to be nice about it, but electric scooters were banned in Illinois and New York. And we had to pass legislation in Springfield and Albany; once we did that, the scooters came in. So the first thing is what’s allowed because you may have a huge problem, you may have no problem, or it may be most likely somewhere in the middle. Who are you pissing off? Who are you going to be fighting with politically? Are you disrupting an entrenched interest? And if so, what’s their relative political power in that particular jurisdiction that you want to launch in? Or is it whitespace like what [Evan Vandenberg and Dibbs] are doing where no one’s ever done this stuff before? So the good news is, you don’t have pushback from the taxis or the casinos. The bad news is that nobody knows what to do. What relative strengths do you bring to the fight? For example, with Uber, the way we beat taxis in every market was to marshal our customers and have them directly reach out to their city council member, state senator, or mayor and say, ‘Don’t take this thing away from me.’ And because a couple of million people engaged in that for a couple of years, we went everywhere. How do you get elected officials on your side? Elected officials appoint regulators, and 99% of elected officials are desperately self-loathing, insecure people. And 100% of elected officials make every decision solely based on the next election and nothing else… So if politicians only care about re-election, what do you have to offer them that makes them think that legalizing your product will help them get reelected, or failure to do so will decrease their chance of reelected? Once you can convey that sentiment to the politician who appoints the regulator, the regulator will be told what to do.    

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