Startups – Page 9

GoFreight raises $28M to become the “Shopify of freight forwarding” • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Asia, Freight Forwarding, GoFreight, logistics, Startups, taiwanNo Comments

Unicorn Flexport is revolutionizing the world of logistics, serving as a freight forwarder with software that enables customers to manage their shipments. But there are still thousands of smaller freight forwarders, many running on outdated ERP software or spreadsheets. A startup called GoFreight wants to help them compete by providing the “Shopify of freight forwarding,” with backend software that makes their operations run more smoothly, and a frontend that lets them set up a storefront and provide quotes in a few minutes. The Los Angeles and Taipei-based startup has raised $23 million in Series A funding, co-led by Flex Capital and Headline. The round included participation from LFX Venture Partners, Palm Drive Capital and returning investors Mucker Capital, Cornerstone Ventures and Red Building Capital. GoFreight, which currently has about 1,000 customers, helps manage transportation of goods through ocean, air and land routes. It also lets them set up online storefronts with a few clicks. Potential customers can connect to freight forwarders by sending them an inquiry through storefront and getting a quotation within a few minutes, instead of the 24 to 48 hours usually necessary. Once a freight forwarding job is underway, shipments can be tracked with an EDI-integrated, real-time tool, so freight forwarders and customers know exactly where their shipment containers are. Tracking software also integrates with accounting tools on GoFreight’s platform, so users know how the performance of shipments is impacting their earnings. Co-founder and CEO Trenton Chen earned his Masters and PhD in the United States before returning to Taiwan to join TSMC. At that time, AppWorks and other startup programs were getting a lot of attention, and Chen decided he wanted to become an entrepreneur. He left TSMC (“it was a tough decision, because no one agreed with that,” he told ZebethMedia), and gave himself six months to find a viable idea. During that time, one of his co-founders was living in Los Angeles, working as an importer for a family business. “When I was in the States, I knew a lot of people in this industry as well. So many of our good friends asked us to go there and see how bad the software is. So in the last month of my six month period, I decided to give it an opportunity, bought a ticket for three months to go to LA and spend time with the first 10 freight forwarders, learning how they do business with software. We founded GoFreight after the first week we were there,” Chen said. Even though Chen says the global freight forwarding market is worth about $280 billion dollars, almost all the software it runs on is outdated. GoFreight’s goal is to empower traditional freight forwarders to stay competitive with the same quality of technology that Flexport has. “A freight forwarding business is about how to ship cargo from point A to point B. Software can really help, but that’s not their main business. The service itself is the main business and software cannot help minimize the shipping costs or get it there faster. But it can certainly help provide additional valuable information to customers, importers and exporters,” Chen said, adding, “We try to empower incumbents to compete with Flexport. That’s an approach to make this entire industry better and faster.” Chen says GoFreight differentiates from other freight forwarding software startups because most of them are trying to create new ERP system, or integrate with existing ones. This is challenging to do because many freight forwarders use ERP systems that are out of date, and it’s a fragmented market. Some don’t even use ERP systems; instead, they work off of spreadsheets or pen-and-paper systems. On the backend, GoFreight’s software has sales, operating and accounting tools, so when customers have an inquiry, freight forwarders can enter it into their system and then come back with a quotation. Once a job is confirmed, GoFreight manages bookings, real-time shipments and any necessary electronic filings. They can also generate and send invoices through GoFreight. “Very importantly, we’re trying to become the Shopify of the space, so in one-click they can open an online store, and their importers can use the online web portal to send an inquiry and it just pops up in the system, automatically with pricing and they can book their tickets online,” said Chen. “So the front end application is so important and we provide visibility solutions as well.” A major challenge that GoFreight wants to solve is the process of generating quotes, which can take a couple days since freight forwarding orders are complex. For example, if a customer wants to ship three containers from Shanghai to Los Angeles, freight forwarders need to check with overseas agents who are also freight forwarders. They also need to arrange trucking and warehouses. Another thing to consider is spot rates versus contract rates, since spot rates can be much lower. Most of this work is done through emails, phone calls and text messages, but a centralized customer-facing app means freight forwarders can complete the entire process, including checking with overseas agents, through GoFreight’s integrations, which Chen says reduces the process from two days to about 10 or 20 seconds. GoFreight is currently working with partners to build a network that connects customers with freight forwarders, and freight forwarders with carriers. GoFreight also provides a digital payment solution, since most payments were done by paper checks. This means freight forwarders can issue a link to customers, and once they click on that they are taken to GoFreight’s website, where they can decide what invoices to pay with credit cards or bank accounts. Then that information goes back into GoFreight’s ERP system. Analytics provided by GoFreight can help freight forwarders make more money, Chen said. For example, if they book a 40-foot container, GoFreight will record how much they paid for it and how much customers were charged. The system analyzes performance for top customers and overseas agents, uncovering hidden fees so freight forwarders have a better understanding of the real cost

The dilemma of Chinese startups going global • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in Government & Policy, Startups, VentureNo Comments

One day in 2020, I published an article about a Chinese hardware maker which would have otherwise been a typical funding story. Instead, I got a complaint from its PR asking me to remove all mentions of “China” from the piece. The startup wanted to be called “American” on the basis of its having a small office in California. I declined, insisting on our duty to uncover relevant facts for readers. I never heard from the company again. That turned out to be just the beginning of a trend in my interaction with Chinese startups that are expanding abroad. “We don’t want to be seen as Chinese,” many of them tell me. My attitude has over time gone from disappointment at companies’ lack of respect for journalistic independence to a growing concern that my portrayal of them might unfairly prejudice their growth. By putting the Chinese label on them, these firms might lose business partners, get stricter oversight by app stores, and receive more scrutiny from local regulators. What used to be a no-brainer geographic categorization of a company — “it is Chinese/based in China” — has become politically charged. Five years ago, a Chinese firm would be boasting its “successful entry into Europe” as a Chinese firm. These days, with rising tensions between China and the West, many globalizing Chinese companies choose to bury their origin. They worry that their links to home — however it is defined — can be viewed as a national security threat to the foreign market they serve. “We are going from longing China to longing Chinese, like Eric Yuan.” As startups build increasingly distributed teams, it’s also become harder to put a geographic pin on them. The world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, which started out in China, famously doesn’t have a headquarters. “If you look at companies such as Tiktok, Binance, Grab…these startups all started from day one with a global market in mind and built with teams located in multiple jurisdictions. It is really difficult to label them as from a certain country” said Ron Cao, who’s an early investor in Pinduoduo and founder of Sky9 Capital, an early-stage VC with a presence in China, Singapore, and the U.S. But Chinese startups aren’t just concealing their origin. Many of them are in effect moving legally and operationally to distance themselves from their homeland to reassure foreign authorities that they aren’t beholden to Beijing. The upside of decoupling is companies end up investing more in localization, which is always conducive to overseas expansion. But in the process, they also risk losing some of the advantages of being Chinese. The journey of becoming less “Chinese” is long and complicated, and the extent to which companies choose to reduce their ties to home is playing out differently across sectors and the stage of their business. But there’s one overarching sentiment shared by the dozen entrepreneurs I spoke to: They have never felt more confident about competing with international rivals, thanks to the talent and knowledge they have accumulated at home. But they are also increasingly daunted by — and weary of the geopolitical uncertainty they face in the process. Decoupling from home U.S.-China relations sharply deteriorated under former President Trump’s reign from 2017 to 2021, and President Biden seems to be staying the course, taking a firm stance on China with a sweeping chip ban. Having seen how U.S. sanctions have kneecapped Huawei’s supply chains and the spate of regulatory scrutiny on TikTok in the West, startups fear that they might be the next to get caught between the two superpowers. Companies play down their Chinese association as a result. In the past, startups might get a pass by simply claiming they are Singapore or San Francisco-based without actually having a meaningful operation in those places. Shein, for example, used to bill itself as being “founded in L.A.” when in reality it started out in Nanjing and Guangzhou as a typical Chinese e-commerce exporter leveraging the country’s robust supply chains. But scrutiny by foreign politicians and the press are driving Chinese firms to ramp up their overseas footprint, especially when they reach a critical size. Recently, Shein announced plans to open major warehouses in North America. The company has moved most of its assets to Singapore and made the island nation — which is widely regarded as politically neutral — its headquarters. Sky Xu, the founder and CEO of Shein, is also reportedly seeking Singaporean citizenship. Several entrepreneurs told me that top VC firms in China now provide passport shopping as part of their post-investment service for founders targeting overseas markets in response to a new rule on offshore IPOs: last December, China’s securities authority proposed that a company, regardless of where it’s incorporated, must go through a filing process with the Chinese government if its main management mostly consists of Chinese nationals or executives who live in China, and whose main business operation is in China. “If you look at companies such as Tiktok, Binance, Grab…these startups all started from day one with a global market in mind and built with teams located in multiple jurisdictions. It is really difficult to label them as from a certain country.” Getting the overseas legal setup is just the first step. The greater challenge lies in winning the trust of local regulators and customers. The founder of a productivity app that is targeting the U.S. market told me that “everything we use at work is non-Chinese,” so all of its data, internally or those of its end users, are kept offshore. Rather than ByteDance’s Lark and Alibaba’s Dingtalk, the startup uses Notion and Slack for internal communication, AWS for data hosting, and Stripe for payments. The company was founded in Shenzhen but is in the process of setting up a Singaporean company to be its holding entity. For enterprise software providers, the need to localize is even more pressing. While consumer app developers might gain traction without having to leave their China office, as they can

Citi backs Indian SaaS startup Lentra as it plans to expand internationally • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in citi ventures, Fintech, india, SaaS, StartupsNo Comments

India initially made its name in the tech world years ago when it staked out reputation as a key hub for business process outsourcing. Now that legacy has taken a very different turn in fintech with outsourcing of a very different kind, with the emergence of embedded finance technology. In the latest development, Lentra, an Indian embedded AI-based finance startup, has raised $60 million — a Series B that values the startup at “over $400 million,” D Venkatesh, the founder and CEO of the startup, told ZebethMedia in an interview. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Susquehanna International Group (SIG) led the round with strategic participation also from Citi Ventures, a subsidiary of the New York-based investment banking giant Citigroup. This is Citi Ventures’ first investment in a fintech out of India, and that and this round overall underscores how far the fintech and embedded finance ecosystem have come along in recent years. Lentra, which is profitable, has been growing at a very fast clip. In 2019, its first year of operations, it registered $1 million from its “annual consumption rate” — this term relates to the amount of revenue Lentra makes based on usage of its APIs. As of this year, that figure is up to $10 million, and it is projected to hit $100 million in 2024. The Mumbai-based startup works with commercial banks to power their digital loan services. HDFC Bank, Federal Bank, Standard Chartered and IDFC First Bank are some of its key customers. Overall, Lentra has more than 50 clients and has processed over 13 billion transactions and $21 billion worth of loans since its launch. Venkatesh said the startup achieved all this growth without hiring a single sales executive until April this year. The company’s mission is not unlike that of a number of other fintechs that have thrown their hats into the ring to work with — rather than completely upend and disrupt — legacy financial services providers, which have found themselves unable to keep up with innovation from faster moving, tech based competitors. “We want to help and empower the banks, who are our clients, to lend better, lend completely on a digital platform and improve on all parameters,” said Venkatesh. Those parameters are the same for banks the world over. Yes, banks want to lend more, and to be more accessible to more potential borrowers — hence moving to digital platforms to help them scale and compete better against digital-first offerings. But banks have had their feet burned many a time already: they don’t want to take on a load of bad debt in the process of scaling, so they need better tech to improve how they vet borrowers, and also to have a better grip on forecasting what they might expect to get in returns (and losses) as a result. The four-year-old fintech helps them do this through a variety of loan tools. Lentra Lending Cloud, which gives ready-to-use third-party API connectors to various data sources, as well as a Loan Management System (LMS) and a no-code Business rules engine (BREx) with modules for clients to use out-of-the-box. The startup also has a platform called GoNoGo in its catalog that helps banks ascertain whether a loan should be given to a customer once they get their application. Venkatesh said that in India, 90% of lending frauds occur by way of ID proof thefts, where bad actors impersonate someone with a better credit record to get a loan quickly. Lentra uses AI to triangulate data to identify potential fraud attempts. “If you solve ID theft fraud, you minimize the approach or the stance that the bank will have towards a non-performing asset or bad loan,” the founder said. He claimed while banks had only been able to whittle down the loan process — applying, processing and approving or denying applications — to between six and seven days, Lentra’s technology has reduced that turnaround to a few seconds. Even though a number of startups are trying to ease lending for banks, interestingly Lentra sees Salesforce as one of its biggest competitors when it comes to loan origination. “Our number one target is anyone who’s using Salesforce for loan origination. We go, latch on to them, and then we convert them,” Venkatesh said. Citi is not just interested in tapping more into India’s tech ecosystem, but to leverage it for its own global growth, too. “Lentra is our first fintech investment in India, and we are very excited about the team’s ability to develop and scale low-friction software solutions for lenders,” said Everett Leonidas, Director & APAC Lead Investor for Citi Ventures, in a statement. “As a global bank, we look forward to Lentra scaling their products and platform internationally.” Venkatesh told ZebethMedia that Lentra plans to utilize the funding to continue updating its platform, add new features and make it more robust and faster. The startup is also set to expand beyond India and establish its business outside the country, starting with three economies in Asia: Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Post the initial expansion, the startup plans to go beyond Asia and enter the U.S. Offices in the three new Asian countries will become operational starting as early as January, the founder said. Lentra already has its presence in Singapore since it acquired an AI startup TheDataTeam in June this year that had an office in the Lion City. Venkatesh said that the office in Singapore would become the vehicle for the startup to go into the ASEAN economies. Alongside improving the offering and expanding the business, Lentra has plans to acquire complementary businesses. The founder told ZebethMedia that its acquisition plans focus on three areas — robotic process automation, payment systems or solutions that are not regulated entities and teams working on statistical modeling or building heuristics model within statistics. “Lentra is empowering lenders to fuel the dreams of millions with effective financial inclusion and credit decisioning,” said Vishal Gupta, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “We were really impressed with

The power pendulum is swinging back to employers, isn’t it? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 13, 2022Posted in Carta, EC Future of Work, Layoffs, meta, Startups, Twitter, VentureNo Comments

Tech layoffs may get worse before they get better — which means that the next few months will be full of companies trying to pivot their way to survival during this extended downturn. At least that’s what entrepreneur Nolan Church, who helped lead Carta’s 2020 layoffs as its chief people officer, thinks. He estimates that another 30,000 to 40,000 tech employees around the world will be laid off in Q1 2023 — a number that follows the more than 100,000 layoffs so far in 2022, according to layoffs.fyi data. Church chatted with me on Equity this past week about how his experience in the people operations world, at both Carta and DoorDash, has influenced his perspective on the best playbook for layoffs. He’s also building Continuum, a venture-backed startup that wants to match executive talent with startups for full-time and fractional opportunities. Unsurprisingly, his vision for a more flexible workforce fits well into the fact that tens of thousands of employees are now looking for work after just this week’s layoff stampede alone. My entire conversation with Church lives now wherever you find podcasts, so take a listen if you haven’t yet. Below, we extracted four key excerpts from the interview, from canned CEO statements to how he’s thinking about Twitter’s workforce reduction. The conversation Let’s talk about Twitter and ownership. We saw Jack Dorsey tweet a few days after the layoff that he ultimately owns responsibility for the fact that Twitter overhired. That delay in his response created a lot of attention, which made me wonder if the bar is getting higher when it comes to the way that employees expect CEOs to take responsibility for large-scale layoffs. Over the last 12 years, the pendulum between who has power between employees and employers has drastically swung toward employees. Now we’re in a moment where the pendulum is swinging back. If I predict where the next five to 10 years are going, the best talent is ultimately always going to be sought after. And I think employees now will continue to hold more power as they go forward. And they will remember how companies handle this moment. To your point around Jack, very candidly, I thought [his statement] was so weak. He waited to say anything; he sent out like two sentences. As somebody who has followed Jack and has been a fan of Jack for a very long time, I thought that this was the definition of weak leadership. And I would have expected more from him. And if I was an employee thinking about working for Jack in the future, I would think twice about it.

What goes up must come down • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 13, 2022Posted in Fintech, Layoffs, Startups, The InterchangeNo 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 Like many of you, I’m sure, I was caught up last week watching the downfall of FTX unfold. It was a startling development in the world of crypto, and while I don’t cover the space directly, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the goings-on — and not in a good way. For more on that debacle, check out our crypto-focused Chain Reaction podcast here and our general coverage here. I also couldn’t help watching the train wreck of Elon Musk taking over Twitter and Meta’s letting go of 11,000 people. But I digress. Last week, I ended the newsletter saying I hoped this week would come with more uplifting news. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Real estate fintech Redfin announced on November 9 that it was laying off 13% of its staff, or 862 people, in response to the continued slowing of the housing market. This followed Opendoor’s layoff of 550 people, or 18% of its workforce, the week before and Zillow’s cuts of 300 in late October. It also follows Redfin’s letting go of 470 employees in June. Notably, Redfin also said it is shuttering RedfinNow, its iBuying division. To that end, CEO Glenn Kelman wrote in an all-hands email: “One problem is that the share gains we could attribute to iBuying have become less certain as we rolled it out more broadly, especially now that our offers are so low…And the second problem is that iBuying is a staggering amount of money and risk for a now-uncertain benefit. We’ve tied up hundreds of millions of dollars in houses that you yourself wouldn’t want to own right now.” Kelman went on to say that the company’s June layoff was in response to Redfin’s expectation that it would sell fewer houses in 2022. The latest layoff “assumes the downturn will last at least through 2023.” Redfin’s, Zillow’s and Opendoor’s layoffs aren’t the only ones in the industry. Digital mortgage lender Better.com conducted yet another layoff or two in the past couple of weeks. One source told me 240 employees were let go on November 4. And San Francisco Business Times reporter Alex Barreira tweeted on November 11 that dozens more workers were let go, sharing colorful details of the company’s WARN notice, in which Better.com said it was not able to provide notification earlier as the separations were the result of a “dramatic deterioration” in the company’s business. When I reached out to the company about the layoffs, a spokesperson wrote via email: “Better is focused on making prudent decisions that account for current market dynamics.” Okay, back to Redfin. One thing that stood out most to me with regard to that company’s latest round of layoffs was Kelman’s candor as he addressed employees. In his email, he said: “To every departing employee who put your faith in Redfin, thank you. I’m sorry that we don’t have enough sales to keep paying you.” Interestingly, Kelman appears to be putting his own personal bets into real estate markets outside the U.S. In September, he co-invested in a Seattle startup called Far Homes that was founded by Redfin alums and is focused on “buying and selling real estate in foreign markets,” as reported by GeekWire. CEOs as of late have been particularly remorseful as their companies either deteriorate or lay off staff. Besides Kelman, other examples this week include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitting he overestimated how long the post-pandemic revenue surge would last, saying: “I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.” Also last week, FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried admitted he “fucked up” and “should have done better” right before FTX declared bankruptcy and he stepped down from his role. This is after the crypto exchange was valued at $32 BILLION earlier this year. In Early August, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev took responsibility for the company’s letting go of 23% of its staff, saying: “This is on me.” Even Better.com CEO Vishal Garg admitted at one point that he had not been disciplined over the previous 18 months, telling employees: “We made $250 million last year, and you know what, we probably pissed away $200 million.” What does this tell us? CEOs are human, yes. Flawed humans just like the rest of us. In some cases, decisions such as over-hiring were made out of genuine (or foolish) belief that the people hired would be needed in years to come. In other cases, decisions were less honorable and more about furthering the executive’s own agenda. Unfortunately, either way, thousands of employees are paying the price. Image Credits: Kuzma / Getty Images Weekly News Months after acquiring gamified finance mobile app startup Long Game, Truist Financial Corporation has introduced the Truist Foundry, an innovation division that it says “will function as a startup within the bank.” The goal will be to deliver “game-changing projects” and serve the bank’s lines of business. A spokesperson told me via email that specifically, the Truist Foundry will work on “building software solutions that drive value and market leadership for the bank.” In other words, it looks like one of the United States’ largest banks is getting even more serious about its digital efforts. Instacart has tapped Dutch payments giant Adyen to serve as “an additional payments processing partner.” As part of the new partnership, the

Why not both? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 12, 2022Posted in Enterprise, openview, pricing model, product-led growth, SaaS, Startups, 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. The recent OpenView-Chargebee 2022 report had SaaS benchmarks as its focus, but also touched in passing on a topic I’ve been curious about: reverse trials, a pricing model that offers SaaS companies a middle ground between freemium and free trials. Let’s explore. — Anna A binary choice? As more SaaS companies adopt product-led growth (PLG), a sales method in which user conversions are driven by the product itself rather than a sales team, founders are often faced with a pricing model dilemma. If their startup opts for a freemium model, most users will never get a taste of the premium features reserved for paying users. But if the company offers a time-limited free trial, users who don’t become customers at the end of that period might be gone forever. There are many other pros and cons to freemium and free trials. As OpenView partner Kyle Poyar told me, “freemium models tend to drive more acquisition and more signups to your product, for example, while free trials have fewer signups but have a higher conversion rate from free to paid.” As a result, founders often think they are facing a binary choice, Poyar said. In an interview, Airtable head of growth Lauryn Isford told him that these two choices are often thought of as prioritizing user growth (with freemium) or revenue growth (with free trials.) Poyar, however, doesn’t think freemium versus free trials is the only alternative. For companies to “get the best of both worlds,” he and OpenView advocate for the reverse trial model, exemplified by Airtable. But what are reverse trials all about, and are they for everyone? Psychology 101

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried quits as crypto exchange files for bankruptcy • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

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. Hoooo boy. As Alex would say: This week has been a long year. You just know it has been a pretty wild ride when Meta can lay off 13% of its staff, and it isn’t even really in the top 10 of crazy things that happened. Gmail no longer lets you use the old interface, you retro-loving nerd, you. Salesforce did a round of layoffs, the DOJ seized $3.36 billion worth of Silk Road crypto, Binance said it would buy FTX, then backed out, causing Sequoia to write off its entire FTX investment. Theranos’s founder Elizabeth Holmes will find out her lot next week, while Peloton’s founder gave up on exercise equipment and is selling rugs now. Then there was a wall of Twitter drama, including utter chaos with Twitter’s new “verified” system after it laid off half of its staff, before quickly making moves to hire some of them back. Oh, and we’re all #RatVerified 4lyf now, I guess. May next week be slightly more chill for you. It will be for Haje, who’s buggering off to go do some scuba diving for a week, and possibly trusting Apple with his life in the process. As he left for the day, he could be overheard muttering, “I hope there’s a bit of internet left when I come back.” Take a breather, you can always implode with stress next week instead. — Christine and Haje. The ZebethMedia Top 3 Only the beginning, we fear: If you’ve been following the whole FTX company drama, then no doubt you have a take on today’s big story that the crypto exchange founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and also resigned his position. This comes after SBF thought there was a chance to save the company through other methods, like a tie-up with Binance and then some liquidity. This has been so much that Jacquelyn said on CNBC this morning that everyone should put their crypto in their own private keys. All that back-and-forth is hurting our neck: We fear that Twitter developers have spent much of their 84-hour workweek flipping the “official badge” switch on and off to appease Elon Musk’s constantly flip-flopping ideas. Natasha L has more on what’s happening. Potato, potahto, let’s call the whole thing off (and on again): Ivan has the best headline all week — “Have you tried turning it off and on again, Elon?” We’re still waiting for that answer. Startups and VC Our entire news team are flopped over in their respective sofas, slightly shell shocked after one of the wildest news weeks we’ve seen. You know, we’re so exhausted, we’re not even gonna write a proper intro. Here, make yourself a cup of tea and click through these. Or don’t. You’re the master of your own destiny. Pitch Deck Teardown: Syneroid’s $500K seed deck Image Credits: GPC Smart Tags (opens in a new window) Stolen-vehicle recovery systems have been available for decades, but a lost pet has higher emotional stakes. According to Syneroid, a startup that makes smart tags, 10 million pets are lost each year in the United States, but “less than 30% are returned home.” After raising a $500,000 seed round, the company’s founders shared their 12-slide pitch deck with ZebethMedia for a review. According to Haje Jan Kamps, “no information has been redacted or omitted.” 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. Brian visited Amazon’s BOS27 robotics facility and not only watched cute robots line up, but also learned about the delivery giant’s plans for global domination. If you can’t tell by now, it involves robotics and how Amazon aims to improve the world of last-mile delivery. Need more entertainment? Here’s five more:

H-1B worker advice, managing remote teams, pitch deck teardown • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in capital gains, EC roundup, Pitch Deck Teardown, revenue-based financing, Startups, VentureNo Comments

According to layoffs.fyi, more than 23,000 tech workers have been laid off so far this month. For comparison, the site tracked 12,463 layoffs in October. Facebook’s parent company Meta announced the first major job cuts in its history this week, eliminating 11,000 jobs. Like Twitter, Stripe, Brex, Lyft, Netflix and other tech firms based in the Bay Area, many of the employees impacted are immigrants here on worker visas. An unexpected layoff introduces an element of chaos into anyone’s life, but when an H-1B worker loses their job, a very loud clock starts clicking: unless they can land a new position or change their immigration status within 60 days, they’ll need to leave the country. And because tech companies at every size are enacting hiring freezes and planning more cuts, their ability to live and work in the U.S. is suddenly in question. Earlier today, I hosted a Q&A with immigration lawyer Sophie Alcorn for H-1B workers who have been laid off (or think they might be). “You either get a new job, you leave, or you figure out some other way to legally stay in the United States, but you have to take some action within those 60 days.” Start looking now for new opportunities, she advised, as it will take new employers time to submit paperwork to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Full ZebethMedia+ articles are only available to membersUse discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription “The best-case scenario would be that this new company files your new change of employer petition and USCIS receives the paperwork on or before the 59th day since your last day of employment,” said Alcorn. “It takes at least three weeks to prepare everything,” which means candidates and employers must move quickly as the days count down. “You probably need a signed offer around day 33,” she said. A lot of the information Alcorn provided was just as relevant for hiring managers as it was for workers who’ve been laid off: any number of factors can combine to further complicate a process that’s already hard to puzzle out. For example, what happens to H-1B workers who get laid off while they’re out of the country? Can getting married actually solve an immigration problem? (Definitely not!) Because so many people have been laid off during a season when it’s traditionally hard to land a new position, I asked Alcorn whether she thought the layoffs would cause an exodus of tech talent from Silicon Valley. “The American Dream is still really important to immigrants,” she said. “A lot of people are going to fight to find a way to stay here, even if it’s not necessarily in the in the Bay Area with the high cost of living. They still want what America represents and they’re going to reevaluate their relationship with Big Tech and the nature of work.” 3 tips for managing a remote engineering team Image Credits: Inok (opens in a new window) / Getty Images I once managed an office where the CEO and I were the only two people who weren’t on the engineering team. We occupied a pod in a co-working space, so we all sat around one large table. Outside of our group lunches, the developers rarely spoke to each other, as most communication took place via Slack, Jira and GitHub. Today, that team works remotely. In a post for TC+, entrepreneur and angel investor Kuan Wei (Greg) Soh shared his top suggestions for managing distributed engineering teams, which includes mandatory standups and at least three hours each day when everyone is available to chat. “We expect Slack messages to be replied to within an hour, that everyone be reachable if we call them, and that we would work responsibly with our assigned partners,” he says. Use IRS Code Section 1202 to sell your multimillion-dollar startup tax-free Image Credits: BrianAJackson (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Founding teams usually select a corporate structure like an LLC or S-Corp, but those who hope to exit for $10 million for more should consider starting up as a Qualified Small Business (QSB) C-Corporation, advises tax attorney Vincent Aiello. Under IRS Code Section 1202, founders who hold QSB stock for five years or longer will be exempt from paying capital gains tax after a sale. “It constitutes a significant tax savings benefit for entrepreneurs and small business investors,” Aiello says. “However, the effect of the exclusion ultimately depends on when the stock was acquired, the trade or business being operated, and various other factors.” Revenue-based financing: A new playbook for startup fundraising Image Credits: Cocoon / Getty Images (Image has been modified) Revenue-based financing can make early-stage startups less dependent on investors so they can hold onto more equity. With terms that usually range from 12-24 months, many teams use these funds for short-term projects, like sales and marketing campaigns. “Because the return on these activities may be higher than the cost of revenue-based financing, startups should use revenue-based financing to fund initiatives that will bear fruit soon,” advises Miguel Fernandez, CEO and co-founder of Capchase. Pitch Deck Teardown: Syneroid’s $500K seed deck Image Credits: GPC Smart Tags (opens in a new window) Stolen-vehicle recovery systems have been available for decades, but a lost pet has higher emotional stakes. According to Syneroid, a startup that makes smart tags, 10 million pets are lost each year in the United States, but “less than 30% are returned home.” After raising a $500,000 seed round at a a $3.9 million valuation, the company’s founders shared their 12-slide pitch deck with ZebethMedia for a review. “No information has been redacted or omitted,” writes Haje Jan Kamps.

Answers for H-1B workers who’ve been laid off (or think they might be) • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in Dear Sophie, EC Future of Work, H-1B visa, immigration law, Layoffs, Sophie Alcorn, StartupsNo Comments

According to layoffs.fyi, more than 23,000 tech workers have been laid off so far this month. For comparison, the site tracked 12,463 layoffs in October. Facebook’s parent company Meta announced the first major job cuts in its history this week, eliminating 11,000 jobs. Like Twitter, Stripe, Brex, Lyft, Netflix and other tech firms based in the Bay Area, many of the employees impacted are immigrants on worker visas. An unexpected layoff introduces an element of chaos into anyone’s life, but when an H-1B worker loses their job, a loud clock starts clicking: unless they can land a new position or change their immigration status within 60 days, they are required to leave the country. And because tech companies at every size are enacting hiring freezes and planning more cuts, their ability to live and work in the U.S. is suddenly in question. Earlier today, I hosted a Q&A for foreign tech workers who have been laid off (or think they might be) with Silicon Valley-based immigration lawyer Sophie Alcorn. Alcorn, who writes “Dear Sophie,” a weekly advice column for ZebethMedia+, shared general information for visa workers and hiring managers who are looking for talent. If you’re a visa holder who’s been laid off, your first priority is to “find a lawyer and figure out your last day of employment, because that’s when you need to start counting the 60-day grace period,” said Alcorn. “You either get a new job, you leave, or you figure out some other way to legally stay in the United States, but you have to take some action within those 60 days.” Start looking now for new opportunities, she advised, as it will take a new employer time to submit paperwork to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “The best-case scenario would be that this new company files your new change of employer petition and USCIS receives the paperwork on or before the 59th day since your last day of employment,” said Alcorn. “It takes at least three weeks to prepare everything,” which means candidates and employers must move quickly as the days count down. “You probably need a signed offer around day 33,” she said. Based on her experience, Alcorn estimated that 15% of the people laid off from Bay Area startups are immigrants, 90% of which are H-1B holders. Below, you’ll find answers to several of the questions we received [edited for space and clarity]. I was laid off while I was abroad, but my lawyer advised me to travel back on ESTA, which I did. Do the 60-day grace period still apply? Sophie Alcorn: If you’re in the United States on ESTA after being laid off while abroad, you’re not in H-1B status anymore. You need to leave the country to get a new H-1B and try to come back in and start working. You don’t have the 60-day grace period anymore; you’ve abandoned it. The only thing you can do to change or extend your status if you’re in the United States on the Visa Waiver Program for 90 days on ESTA is get married to a U.S. citizen and have them sponsor you for a green card. It needs to be a real, good-faith marriage. You have to intend to share a life together, you have to demonstrate that your families know each other, that you do romantic comedy things together and have the photos to prove it. And the government’s going to check in two years to see if you’re still married. I am currently on an OPT and have an H-1B approved, but not activated. Can I change employers without going through the lottery right away? Or would my H-1B need to be activated first? You can actually change employers without [doing so]. When you’re interviewing for jobs, you need to make it very clear to the HR person that you think you are eligible for an H-1B change of employer, and you really need their immigration lawyers to take a close look, because essentially, what you will need is a change of status from F-1 or OPT to H-1B within the United States, as well as a change of employer.

Amid record dry powder, VCs are determined to fund anything but you

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in EC News Analysis, EC venture capital, fundraising, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Seriously, anything If you had to sum up the 2022 venture capital market in one word, that word could be contradictions. Venture funds have record dry powder — deployable capital on hand — and yet funding continues to steadily decline. There is seemingly more talk of backing women and people of color in the industry than ever, and yet the numbers are headed in the opposite direction. VCs said publicly that they were focusing on companies on the path to profitability, but that wasn’t true for even a minute. So while many venture firms said they are largely sitting out investing this year as they wait for valuations to fall, it is, again, largely untrue. What does seem to be true, though, is that some VCs are using this year’s uncertainty as an excuse to avoid doing the work it takes to discuss valuations and assess TAM on potential investments into companies with real customer bases. Because they aren’t backing no one — they’re just backing everyone but you.