Startups

6 reasons why you shouldn’t join an accelerator • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in accelerators, Column, EC Column, EC venture capital, startup accelerators, Startups, TechStars, VentureNo Comments

Saba Karim is director of the startup pipeline at Techstars. As the head of startup pipeline at Techstars, I’ve been getting on calls with founders, attending events, speaking on stages like ZebethMedia’s Disrupt and hosting countless Twitter Spaces. Each time, I’ve been telling founders why they should join an accelerator. Now, I am changing things up and going to lay out six reasons you shouldn’t join an accelerator. If you only need funding You’re better off going to VCs, angel investors, crowdfunding, applying for grants or seeking venture debt. Accelerators usually take more (equity), because they provide more than just money. They give you funding and fundraising opportunities, mentorship and networks, workshops and usually a place to work. If you don’t need any of that, then you don’t need an accelerator. Accelerators are great because they’re a forcing mechanism to reach your most desired outcome by the end of the program, but no one is going to drag you out of bed every morning. Keep in mind that funding will solve your money problems, but it won’t solve everything else. 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. Do you just need funding? Lucky you. For crowdfunding, you can’t go wrong with Republic or WeFunder. For venture debt options, check out SVB or Mercury, and OpenGrants for, well, grants. To do customer development Customer development, also known as customer discovery or idea validation, is the notion of validating your startup idea. You don’t need an accelerator to tell you to talk to your customers. You should be doing it anyway. Otherwise, why are you building the thing you want to build? Yes, many accelerators accept companies at the idea stage, but it’s usually on the premise that primary or secondary research has been conducted to show you’re building something people have said they would use and/or pay for.

Topline Pro grabs $5M to help home service businesses scale online • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in bonfire ventures, Commerce, home service business, Nick Ornitz, Startups, Topline ProNo Comments

Like many “solopreneurs,” home service professionals have to balance doing the work while also managing a business. Topline Pro wants to take some of that burden off the shoulders of professionals so they can concentrate on customers. New York-based Topline Pro, formerly ProPhone, does this by leveraging generative artificial intelligence to provide a way for these businesses to get discovered, build trust among customers and generate repeat customers. The interface creates a custom website with search-engine optimization that can go live the same day. It showcases the professional’s business, including collecting online reviews, scheduling bookings and accepting payments. Meanwhile, the AI generates additional content, including local listings and automating social media content. Nick Ornitz, co-founder and CEO, started the company with Shannon Kay after meeting in business school. Inspiration for Topline Pro came from Ornitz’s siblings who are among the 5 million people running service-based companies, from landscaping to painting to cleaning and general contracting. In talking with them and home improvement retailers that he previously worked with, he and Kay realized just how much these businesses were relying on pen and paper. Topline Pro co-founders Shannon Kay and Nick Ornitz. Image Credits: Topline Pro “When you talk to a homeowner they were disappointed or frustrated by the experience and when you talk to the business owner, they’re trying their best to do the work, but also run the business,” Ornitz told ZebethMedia. “That just seemed like a really big opportunity.” Their initial idea, then called ProPhone, connected plumbers with homeowners over video chat. The co-founders even went through Y Combinator as part of the Winter 2021 batch. However, while accelerating the business, many of ProPhone’s plumber customers were saying that they like the video calls, but needed more jobs and they didn’t know how to grow their business beyond word-of-mouth. That’s when Ornitz and Kay pivoted to Topline Pro. They launched the current subscription product, which starts at $75 per month, in January of 2022. In 10 months, the company has generated more than $25 million in job requests across more than 1,000 monthly subscriber businesses in nearly all 50 states, Ornitz said. Topline is not alone in helping professionals manage their businesses digitally. In fact, this is becoming a hot area for startups to play in and for investors to flock. For example, in July, Finli, which developed a mobile-first payment management system for businesses, raised $6 million. Earlier this year, Zuper, a provider of productivity tools for field service management and customer engagement, raised $13 million. Before that, Fuzey raised $4.5 million in seed funding for its “digital one-stop shop” for small businesses and independent contractors, while Puls Technologies raised $15 million for its mobile app connecting tradespeople with on-demand home repair services. Ornitz says his company is different in a few ways, it is utilizing GPT-3 to automate unlimited multipage websites and administrative tasks. It is also not a marketplace and so its customers are able to be discovered directly by homeowners online so that they can own the relationships without that middle layer. Meanwhile, today Topline Pro announced $5 million in seed funding, led by Bonfire Ventures, and including TMV, BBG Ventures and a group of angel investors, like Squire co-founder Songe LaRon. Plans for the new capital include developing additional applications for the generative AI; for example, applications that help professionals with their SEO, content and blog updates as well as helping pros with their marketing. Ornitz also expects to add to the company’s 12 employees in the areas of engineering, product and customer success. “We want to make sure that the pro is being discovered by as many people as possible,” he added. “Once you’ve found that pro we want to make sure that the homeowner has an easier process to book with them and also pay with them. We know that word of mouth is still the strongest form of marketing, and we want to augment that.”

Invygo raises $10M to make long-term car subscription a breeze • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in car rental, car subscription, Saudi Arabia, Startups, Transportation, UAENo Comments

Invygo, a startup operating in UAE and Saudi Arabia, has raised $10 million in its Series A funding led by MEVP as it works to scale its car rental service in the region. The Middle East-based startup, founded by Eslam Ahmed Hussein and Pulkit Ganjoo in 2019, has raised $14.3 million to date. Al Rajhi Partners, Arab Bank, Amana Capital and Palm Drive Capital and existing backers Signal Peak Ventures and Knollwood Investment Advisory also participated in the new round. Car subscription offerings Invygo offers three kinds of rental services. The short-term rental allows individuals to rent a car for one, three, six, or nine months. The long-term leasing enables renting of a car for 12, 24 or 36 months. And then there is the subscribe-to-own model — which offers brand-new or semi-used — cars on a 24 or 36-month rental period with a start fee that’s much less than the traditional down payment offered at the dealership, the startup says. Users looking for a short-term rental can go to the website, look at the available cars, and book a rental. On the platform, the company provides car details like model number, year of the make, and kilometers the car has clocked. They can also filter the results by car type, fuel type, transmission type, and color. Image Credits: Invygo Invygo also offers a range of value adds such as doorstep delivery, replacement of car, maintenance, regular insurance, and a round-the-clock helpline. At the end of the leasing period in the subscribe-to-own model, the customer can pay whatever amount is left to own the car — this amount is specified while making the booking — to purchase the vehicle outright. Founders said that it is working with different financial institutions to provide different options like loans to pay off the last bit of the ballooning amount. “We’ve split the full payment of the car into three. Normally, you have a massive downpayment of around 20% and then your monthly installments with no way to get out of that commitment. Our starting fee is around 5% and you have the option to cancel your plan at any time without any penalty,” Ganjoo said in a call with ZebethMedia. Invygo takes a cut from the subscription price, but the company didn’t specify how much. It is not profitable yet, the startup said. Roughly 200 cars are available for subscription in Saudi Arabia and 100 in UAE on the platform on a typical day. The startup works with partners including local car rental services and dealerships to source the cars, it said. Growing subscribe-to-own service Ahmed Hussein said that the Invygo’s focus right now is to grow the subscribe-to-own program that it launched in Saudi Arabia earlier this year. “Currently, subscribe-to-own represents 10% of our overall business. Over time we are aiming to grow it to represent 50% of our business. In Saudi Arabia in particular, we anticipate subscribe-to-own will become 70% of our business there as people want to own an asset and have it in their name, “he said. The most attractive part about the subscribe-to-own plan is that customers are not obliged to pay a balloon payment to own the car, the startup said. They can cancel the plan at any time without any penalty. What’s more, it is creating an alternative credit score for people based on driver behavior and payment patterns. The startup is using this score to provide financing for the remaining payments themselves or through a network of banks. Competition and the road ahead There are a few startups in the region that provide competitive monthly rental options. There is Ekar, which last raised $17.5 in its series B funding in 2019, and Swapp, which has partnered with Uber-owned Careem to offer flexible car rentals on the super app. Invygo believes that its offering is different as they are focusing more on long-term subscriptions and potential ownership of the car. The founders think that their competitors are traditional institutes that provide car financing. “What we do is to provide you financing in a more accessible way without making any commitment,” they said. In the next 12 months, Invygo wants to expand its subscriber base in both markets. It also wants to keep an eye out for expansion in markets like Qatar, Egypt, or Pakistan if it sees a substantial opportunity.

Nigerian proptech SmallSmall raises $3M to provide flexible living solutions for customers • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in rentsmallsmall, StartupsNo Comments

Inefficiencies have marred Nigeria’s rental system for years, thus affecting how landlords and renters transact. Most landlords collect rent one to two years upfront, while renters struggle to find apartments as they deal with uncharitable agents. Several proptech startups are addressing such problems by providing better options to both stakeholders. One such platform is Lagos-based SmallSmall which gives renters access to monthly rent payments and offers landlords a way to vet tenants, increase their income and manage properties. The platform is announcing that it has raised $3 million ($2 million equity and $1 million debt) in seed funding, money it plans to use for expansion into other main cities in Nigeria, including Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Jos, before the end of Q1 2023. Tunde Balogun co-founded the startup, formerly RentSmallSmall, with Naomi Olaghere and Pidah Tnadah in 2018 after returning to Nigeria from the U.K. and finding it tough to get an apartment where he could pay monthly. CEO Balogun told ZebethMedia in an interview that this experience pushed him to research how to create solutions for the market and upon conversations with landlords, he soon discovered that doing so was a two-way street. “We started by understanding the pain points of landlords. Even though they collected rent one year upfront, the default rate of the yearly system is very high because when people’s finances take a hit, they might not be able to pay subsequent rent,” he said. “The legal process of evicting tenants where they’ll have to wait six to 12 months is also not supportive of the landlords.” The chief executive argues that with Smallsmall’s monthly model, landlords can speed up that process pending when they give notice. But that’s only part of the package to them. SmallSmall also lets landlords access quality tenants and curb defaults by receiving monthly payments where they receive extra margins of about 10-15%, Balogun added. For tenants, it’s the comfort of managing their finances better by paying monthly rent and the respite that comes with not transacting with housing agents that SmallSmall provides. Balogun also mentioned that when customers pay their rent on time, they build their credit profiles on the platform, allowing them to access financing should they sometimes default. Some of SmallSmall’s competitors include Spleet, Kwaba and Muster. “Our market is for young professionals with an average age of around 28 years. It’s a huge market,” said the CEO on the potential of monthly rentals in Nigeria. “We surveyed almost 3,000 people last year in Lagos, which showed that 80% of them wanted to pay their rent monthly. So that tells you how much adoption the monthly space would have if the markets eventually opened up.” Demand and supply rarely converge in Nigeria’s real estate proptech market in that there’s a housing deficit where demand dramatically outstrips supply; it also doesn’t help that house prices and inflation keep rising simultaneously. SmallSmall, for instance, has had over 476,000 people register on its platform since 2018. While 80,000 of that number are on its waiting list, the company has only served almost 1,500 people. “That shows how huge demand is, relative to the supply, which is very slim,” Balogun added. SmallSmall founders (L-R: Pidah Tnadah, Tunde Balogun and Naomi Olaghere). To increase the supply pool and create options for customers, Smallsmall rebranded from RentSmallSmall in July. The latter is now one of three product lines, including BuySmallSmall and StaySmallSmall. RentSmallSmall allows users to rent housing and pay monthly. BuySmallSmall identifies newly built properties by reputable developers that meet the company’s market demand: studio apartments, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments — and packages them as investment opportunities for young professionals looking to invest in real estate. When purchased, these owners turn to landlords and list their properties on RentSmallSmall so they can earn passive income when other users pay rent. StaySmallSmall, on the other hand, lets users book furnished bed spaces starting at $4 per night. “Supply was our bottleneck in a way, and we needed to be able to control quality because many properties were in bad shape. We also wanted to provide a channel where customers can invest in real estate and work toward owning homes,” said the chief executive about the BuySmallSmall product, which is based on the platform’s proprietary data. “We’re encouraging young people to own homes and invest in properties by paying as little as 20% down payment while we help them finance the remaining. That’s one of the reasons we raise debt financing.” SmallSmall participated in the Techstars Toronto Accelerator Program in 2021 and was the first African proptech startup to get into the program, receiving $120,000 as part of its pre-seed round. Sunil Sharma, the managing director of Techstars, speaking on the investment, said, “Techstars Toronto was proud to be an early investor in SmallSmall as we saw enormous inefficiencies in the experience that renters face when getting accommodation in Africa. With the early traction and multi-aspect business model, Techstars decided to make a follow-on investment and join the latest funding round.” The seed round welcomed participation from other investors like Oyster VC, Asymmetry Ventures, Vivaz, and Niche Capital. Meanwhile, individual angels such as Sean Fannan of Chartboost, Adam Meghji of Universe, Jimmy Ku of Flutterwave, Samir Goel and Wemimo Abbey of Esusu, Jason Njoku of Iroko and Tunde Kara of Vendease participated. SmallSmall has processed over 25,000 monthly stays across Lagos and Abuja, meaning a typical SmallSmall user stays an average of 17 months on the platform. The proptech claims to have had less than a 7% rent default rate, saving property owners over $1.5 million in damages and tenants over $1.2 million in broker fees. Having generated over $5 million in its first three years and turning a profit last year, SmallSmall wants to use this new investment to support its vision of “providing flexible, quality housing solutions and financing to intending home buyers.” In addition, the startup will continue building its technology and partnerships with landlords, developers, property and asset managers, and other

How to effectively manage a remote team during wartime • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 31, 2022Posted in Column, EC Column, EC Europe, remote work, russia-ukraine war, Startups, Ukraine startupsNo Comments

Alex Fedorov is CEO and founder at OBRIO, an IT company with Ukrainian roots that develops products in mobile applications, web products and SaaS. Business owners always say that each company has to live through a real crisis before it becomes a real business. All big companies we know have experienced a few big crises during their lifetimes, and they are still in the game. There are a lot of studies about crisis management on the web, but none of them tell us how to manage a company during times of war. Our company had never seen a real crisis before February 2022. However, even before we did, I always told my team: “Every company has its time in the sun and a time of crisis.” When the Russo-Ukrainian War began on February 24, all Ukrainian businesses faced a crisis. I’ll use our example to explain how we dealt with it. Here are six tips for effectively managing a team during a war. Establish an emergency communication channel In such times of upheaval, people will require a lot of up-to-date information about what is happening. When people don’t know what’s happening, there arises a vacuum that can be filled with rumors or distorted news. To avoid this, you must establish a special communication channel that’s active around the clock. Slack notifications, for example, can be automatically turned off outside of working hours, so make sure you utilize a channel that your team uses most often so they are less likely to miss important notifications. This might seem like an easy and pretty obvious step, but it is the most efficient way to help your team when they’re feeling lost or disoriented, which is only natural when there’s a war raging around them. Communicate with your team twice as often Training to manage stress, anxiety and personal finance will help your employees build the needed knowledge and respond to tough situations. Great leaders communicate with their people, and we must all remember that “overcommunication is good communication.” For us, this saying has never been more correct. Communicate as frequently as there are updates on the issue but not less than twice a day. Additionally, follow your usual rules for team communication: Be honest, empathetic and humane. Finally, when there’s a serious crisis, most people’s critical thinking faculties can be hindered. In such situations, you may have to over-explain things to your team more than usual. Do not shirk this responsibility. If your team needs its hand held, be there to hold it. It’ll pay off in the long term and help you stay in control from the early days of the crisis until things calm down. Stop investing in R&D and get people back to work ASAP As a leader, you must save your business, as it is something people rely on in times of uncertainty. The first thing to do here is to save as much cash as you can in order to stay in business as long as you can. That often means cutting back on non-essential spending. This can be a tough decision, but it is a sacrifice you may have to make. After our team was in safe locations, the best way forward was to get them back to work and help them calm down. It sounds strange, but this is the best way to direct the anxieties and nervous energy of war. At work, where everything is known, prescribed and straightforward, people find calmness and a continued sense of purpose. In my experience, the first wave of crisis is the most difficult because of the high levels of uncertainty. However, once you get over that phase, there will be fewer variables, which is when you return to investing activities if they are still feasible. Use your standard remote-work policy When the war broke out, it was very difficult to manage the team and reestablish our business processes. So we waited to do it after our team was evacuated and relocated safely. Proven remote policies were a lifesaver when our employees were not in their usual environments. Nobody discounts the value of team spirit, so invest in it more since people will need each other’s support at a much greater degree during times of great strife. Among online team building activities, AR activities proved to be an amazing mood enhancer. Conduct special training to support your team Crises, thankfully, are rare, but that also means people often do not have enough knowledge to handle the loads of unusual information they’re bombarded with in such situations. In such situations, you should: Educate people by conducting special training with the help of experts. Training to manage stress, anxiety and personal finance will help your employees build the needed knowledge and respond to tough situations. The Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications has created a guide titled “Psychological support during the war,” explaining how to spot and assist with mental health problems. Invite successful and respected people to share positive thoughts on the situation and perhaps explain how they’ve faced especially tough times. Authority bias is real and it works as a morale booster when a team needs direction and a sense that things will turn out to be fine. Share relevant positive news to cheer up your team and create a vision of a better future. Tie business goals to social initiatives When war broke out, people wanted to help. This was good, but we realized it can affect focus on work and could eventually lead the business to an even more profound crisis. In such times, put your over-explanation tool from Step 1 to work and educate people on how your company’s success benefits society. As a result of what your team accomplishes at work, your company can invest more resources in charity initiatives when growth or profitability is maintained or improved. As a consequence, your team can do more and have more resources to do something significant for society. This should have no effect on your existing

3 founders discuss how to navigate the nuances of early-stage fundraising • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 30, 2022Posted in Alloy Automation, EC TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, EC venture capital, fiveable, fundraising, Parthean, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Fundraising isn’t a monolithic event but rather a series of meetings and pleasantries, each with their own vibe and nuance. Yet many pieces of fundraising advice to founders paint the process with a broad brush. We heard from three founders at ZebethMedia Disrupt last week: Amanda DoAmaral, co-founder and CEO of Fiveable; Arman Hezarkhani, founder of Parthean; and Sarah Du, co-founder of Alloy Automation, each of whom has raised in the extreme highs and lows of last 18 months. They spoke about navigating the process, what worked (and what didn’t) and how to customize your pitch to navigate the many subtleties of fundraising. For DoAmaral, it was important to spend time researching which investors may actually back her company. She said she’s had investors take meetings with her due to a warm intro despite having no actual intention to invest. “My co-founder and I got in a car and drove down to Tennessee thinking we’re gonna get this check. And this guy didn’t even trust me to like, be an attendee at this event. They’re not writing the check,” DoAmaral recalled. “People are not going to take me seriously if they’re not going to see me as someone that is their equal at all.” Du added that performing due diligence on potential backers beforehand is helpful, not only to find out whether they might actually invest in the company, but also if they will be good to work with. This is especially true for founders raising at the early stages who are looking at a long relationship ahead.

Elon Musk completes Twitter purchase, Meta’s in trouble and it’s time to admit self-driving cars ain’t gonna happen • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in Apple, Argo AI, Elon Musk, meta, Startups, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, folks, welcome back to another edition of ZebethMedia Week in Review, the place where we point you to the hottest stories of the past sevenish days. I’m stepping in front of the laptop for Greg Kumparak this week, but don’t fret, he will be back soon. If you want this goodness in your inbox every Saturday, head on over here to sign up. Now, let’s get to it. most read (Elon edition, somewhat) Elon did it: He bought Twitter. The $44 billion acquisition closed this week and on day 1, the platform’s new owner “cleaned house,” Taylor and Amanda write, firing CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde. The purchase capped off months of ups and downs, and this week was no different. Darrell rounded up some highlights. Elon’s layoff about-face: While Elon Musk immediately fired some folks at the top, earlier this week in a reversal from his layoff declaration last week, he said he won’t actually lay off 75% of Twitter’s staff — or 5,600 people — writes Rebecca, citing a Bloomberg report. Apple’s Elon problem: Darrell’s headline says it all, really: “Twitter’s Elon problem could soon become Apple’s Elon problem, too.” At issue is that Apple updated its developer guidelines this week, one of which “seeks rent on revenue made by social networks around promoted posts.” Argo AI shutdown: Autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI, flush at launch in 2017 with $1 billion, has shut down. Its parts, writes Kirsten Korosec, are “being absorbed into its two main backers: Ford and VW.” Speaking of autonomous vehicles: After the Argo AI news hit, Darrell took to the site to explore the fact that, no, autonomous vehicles just aren’t going to happen. MrBeast’s worth: Amanda asks if MrBeast, or 24-year-old YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, is worth the $1.5 billion he’s valuing his business at. Meta is in trouble: That’s the headline. Meta reported its third-quarter results this week and they weren’t great. As Taylor writes: “With the Instagram portion of the business not looking so hot lately, Meta has quintupled down on the metaverse without examining if it even knows what users want at all these days. And after changing the name of the company while ruining a perfectly fine word in the process, there are no easy take-backs.” Meta really was a perfectly fine word. Google Pixel 7’s “dumb” flaw: Haje took a picture through an airplane window and noticed a reflection caused by the reflective chrome surrounding the phone’s camera lens. “It’s a pretty common use case for most photography applications, which makes it all the harder to grok why Google went out of its way to make that experience worse.” audio roundup On Equity this week, we share with you one of Natasha Mascarenhas’s Disrupt panels. She talked to Chief co-founders Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers about the future of their private membership club for women in leadership positions. This week on Found, Darrell and Jordan sat down with Shanthi Rajan from construction management software company Linarc to discuss breaking into a slow-changing industry, building a team with talent across the globe and working with customers to build the most useful product possible. And on Chain Reaction, Anita and Jacquelyn chat about Apple’s new App Store guidelines, Reddit’s foray into the NFT space and whether the U.K.’s new prime minister will live up to the hype he’s received from the crypto community. techcrunch+ 5 tips for launching in a crowded web3 gaming market. Contributor Corey Wilton explains the steps that will set you apart when looking for capital. Pitch Deck Teardown: Palau Project. Haje usually passes on tearing down pre-seed rounds, but he went for it this week with the Palau Project, which was founded by professional kite-surfer Jerome Cloetens, who is taking on climate change.

Venture capital will soon be brimming with ghosts • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 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. “There’s more dry powder powder than ever before.” “There’s never been a better time to start a startup.” “Discipline is the new scale.” (OK, OK, I made that last one up, but didn’t you kind of believe it?). The tech industry loves generalizations — and don’t worry, I enjoy my fair share too — but as the downturn continues to play out, it’s increasingly important to think about the structural changes that may be forming in the venture capital landscape. Venture firms, unlike unicorns, often don’t have hundreds of employees to cut. Instead, venture firms cut costs in quieter ways. At ZebethMedia Disrupt last week, General Catalyst’s Niko Bonatsos said that venture firms have to go through natural selection cycles and that it will be “survival of the fittest.” “It’s a very painful activity for anyone who has gone through that stuff,” Bonatsos said on stage with Coatue’s Caryn Marooney. He talked about how the hundreds of new VC firms will either decide to merge with each other to “build a more enduring franchise,” saying some will leave the VC profession and others will lose senior partners to retirement and have tp figure out what the future of their firms will look like. Tracking personnel activity in venture land offers a few examples. For example, Initialized Capital’s co-founder Garry Tan is leaving the firm to join Y Combinator as president. Tan’s exit is shaking up the firm he helped found. He held down the fort after the firm’s other co-founder, Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian, stepped away in 2020. Another team that has had its fair share of internal changes over the pandemic is Backstage Capital. The firm cut the majority of staff four months ago, impacting nine of the 12-person team. The layoff comes nearly three months after Backstage Capital narrowed its investment strategy to only participate in follow-on rounds of existing portfolios. This workforce reduction further underscores that the venture capital firm is struggling to grow, both externally due to its lack of dry powder and internally. Marooney, a GP at Coatue, says that firms “have to earn the right” to survive. “There was the path where you did some investments and made money. It’s like, no, you’ve got to earn the right and not everybody is going to earn that right … and I think that is healthy,” the investor said. I’ll end with a term we’ve been dancing around all through the intro, which is “quiet quitting.” Bloomberg Beta investor Roy E. Bahat posted a thread describing how seasoned venture capitalists may be quietly going into “easy mode,” aka, becoming a less active, minimum viable player of the team. Maybe their name helps the firm close new funds with LPs, and maybe their calendar doesn’t need to be busy with a ton of introduction calls, just annual investor meetings. If we combine quiet quitting with natural selection cycles and the difficulty of tracking just how active a venture capitalist is, we experience a confusing, fragmented landscape. No one is incentivized to say that they aren’t doing business as usual, which creates a landscape of extremes. Sure, there are natural career cycles, but I imagine it is getting harder to track who is doing what and how often in a remote world where a partner at a VC firm has been diluted to mean many, many things. Today, there are the investors doing the ghosting due to the sheer deal flow out there, and there are the investors who are becoming ghosts themselves. Ha. Just something to keep in mind. In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk about Clubhouse, the latest in tech layoffs and why $1 billion in capital can’t save AV tech. If you like this newsletter, do me a quick favor? Forward it to a friend, share it on Twitter, and follow my personal blog for more content. Clubhouse and the bird app One of my favorite interviews from ZebethMedia Disrupt last week was with Clubhouse CEO and co-founder Paul Davison. We jumped on the TC+ stage to talk about competition and, of course, what happens when the beginning of your company is defined by hype and celebrities. Here’s why it’s important: Davison addressed his competition, namely Twitter Spaces, and how Clubhouse views its differentiation long term. As you’ll read in the piece, he’s bullish on a more private version of social audio — a space he thinks will only be won by an app solely committed to the medium instead of committed to a suite of different services. The tide is shifting on tech’s layoff wave. Kind of. Over 780 companies cut a portion of their staff this year according to data tracker layoffs.fyi. The workforce reductions have impacted at least 92,558 known people. The real figure is likely higher given reporting delays. Here’s why it’s important: The same data source suggests that the tide is somewhat shifting on the cadence of tech layoffs. Nearly 70% of people who have been laid off this year lost their jobs during May, June, July and August. Since the summertime of sadness, staff cuts have decreased. September had half the number of layoff events than August, and in October, new layoff events slowed while people impacted slightly inched upward from August. Read more about how the tide is shifting in my latest for ZebethMedia. Argo AI says bye bye Transportation editor and one of my favorites Kirsten Korosec broke major news this week: Argo AI, backed by Ford and Volkswagen, is shutting down. The autonomous vehicle startup raised $1 billion after launching in 2017. Here’s why it’s important via Korosec: Commercializing AV tech has always been a capitally intensive game, meaning the barrier to entry is more like a wall than a speed bump. The winds have shifted over the past two years toward driver assistance

Should early-stage startups join in on the cloud marketplace fun? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in cloud marketplaces, Enterprise, enterprise software, 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. From the future of cloud management to cloud spend in the age of machine learning, our latest cloud investor survey has given me lots of food for thought. It once again came to mind when I read a new report on cloud marketplaces. These have consolidated as a new revenue avenue, but is it ever too early for startups to go that route? Let’s look into it. — Anna Where the money’s at The sky’s the limit for the cloud market. If Alphabet’s earnings missed expectations in Q3, it is certainly not because of Google Cloud, whose revenue grew 37.64% year on year last quarter, from $4.990 billion to $6.868 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s “Azure and other cloud services” grew 35%. One of the key factors that make cloud revenue resilient even in a more morose macroeconomic context is committed spend. This creates tailwinds not just for AWS and its competitors, but also for independent software vendors selling through their marketplaces.

What if your startup doesn’t take off overnight? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in babylist, Halogen Ventures, jesse draper, Startups, TechCrunch Live, techcrunch live announcementNo Comments

Natalie Gordon founded Babylist in 2011, and today it’s a leading marketplace for baby gift registries. But it didn’t take off at first. It took several years for Gordon to spin the startup into its current trajectory and several more for users to follow. This is normal! And we’re excited to have Jesse Draper join the conversation. She invested in Babylist as a General Partner at Halogen Ventures. This ZebethMedia Live event opens on November 2 at 11:30 a.m. PDT/2:30 p.m. EDT with networking. The interview begins at 12:00 p.m. PDT followed by the TCL Pitch Practice at 12:30 p.m. PDT. Apply for TCL Pitch Practice by completing this application. If you haven’t joined us before on Grip — our TCL online platform — click here to register for free and gain access to all ZebethMedia Live events, including ZebethMedia Live, City Spotlight, Startup Pitch Practice, Networking and other ZebethMedia community events, with just one registration. Already part of the ZebethMedia Live on Grip community? Click this link to add this session to your agenda! ZebethMedia Live records weekly on Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. PDT/2:30 p.m. EDT. Join us!