TechCrunch Startup News

There are few things certain in our world except for the uplifting tendencies of technology. I’ve spent the past few years trying to prove this to myself, at least, by interviewing hundreds of thinkers on the topic. I’ve come to a singular conclusion: when tech moves into a city, be it an iOS dev shop or a robotic facility for making widgets, things change primarily for the better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Selling equity to buy Facebook and Google ads is a bad deal for startups. Clearbanc offers a fundraising alternative. For fast-growing businesses reliably earning sales from their marketing spend, Clearbanc offers funding from $5,000 to $10 million in exchange for a steady revenue share of their earnings until it’s paid back plus a 6 percent fee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lime, the well-funded startup known for its fleet of brightly colored dockless bicycles and electric scooters, has a new way for its customers to get around: cars. Beginning this week, Lime users in Seattle will be able to reserve a “LimePod,” a Lime-branded 2018 Fiat 500, within the Lime mobile app. There will be 50 cars available to start as part of the company’s initial rollout. Lime plans to increase that number at the end of the month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Wellness app Calm has today announced a $3 million equity investment in XpresSpa Group, a fast-spa service you may have noticed in your local airport. Calm sees the investment as a way to expand its offline presence, growing awareness of the app as well as its retail products like Sleep Mist and the Calm Book. Calm subscribers will have access to a variety of in-store benefits and treatments at one of 52 XpresSpa locations in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and New York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SAP agrees to buy Qualtrics for $8B in cash, just before the survey software company’s IPO Enterprise software giant SAP announced today that it has agreed to acquire Qualtrics for $8 billion in cash, just before the survey and research software company was set to go public. The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2019. Qualtrics last round of venture capital funding in 2016 raised $180 million at a $2.5 billion valuation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The kids in Madrid’s El Retiro Park are loving their new on-demand joyriding toys. Lime launched its scooters in the Spanish capital this summer. Spending a weekend in the city center last month the craze was impossible to miss. Scooters parked in clusters vying for pay-to-play time. Sometimes lined up tidily. All too often not. The bright Lime rides really stood out, though it’s not the only brand in town. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Another day, another exit scam. This time it comes to us from South Korea where an exchange, Pure Bit, has completely shut down after raising $2.8 million in Ethereum from investors. The exchange, which promised to deliver something call Pure Coin, was live yesterday and today is completely shut down after posting “Sorry” and “Thanks” to their communications channels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fifteen startups have spent the day presenting on-stage in Sao Paulo, Brazil. For the finalists, that meant presenting twice — once in the initial rounds, then again for our finalist judges. This was all part of Startup Battlefield Latin America, an event that we put on in partnership with Facebook’s FB Start program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The scooter startups are taking over the world — or trying to. Earlier this week, Bird debuted its electric scooters in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park; today, Lime is announcing its foray into the land down under with the launch of a three-month scooter pilot atMonash University in Melbourne, Australia. Lime has also released several hundred of its dockless electric bikes in Sydney and plans to introduce its scooters there, aswell as in Brisbane, soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are experimenting with new content forms at TechCrunch. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the authors: Danny at [email protected] or Arman at [email protected] if you like or hate something here. Ignoring the midterm hysteria, we continue our obsession with SoftBank today by looking at the group’s IPO of its telecom unit, but first, some thoughts about Form Ds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Automakers invest in Transit, the app that helps people get around without a car Transit, a company that built a mobile app designed to help people in cities live without cars, has raised $17.5 million from two automakers in a Series B round. The round wasled by RenaultNissan-Mitsubishi’s joint investment arm Alliance Ventures.InMotion Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund, also joined the round, as well as two past investors, Accel and Real Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exactly one year to the day since it launchedits line of men’s health products, HIMS is announcing its foray into women’s wellness. The company is using its mountain of venture capital to support the new brand, called HERS. In September, HIMS raised another $50 million in a round led by IVP. The financing valued the startup, which has brought in $97 million to date, at $500 million, according to PitchBook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

VICIS has closed its Series B on $28.5 million, with participation from NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers via Rx3 Ventures. Rodgers joins a list of other pro footballers to back the helmet startup, includingRogerStaubach, JerryRice, Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin. VICIS is known for its $950 Zero1 football helmet designed for adult players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brex, the corporate card built for startups, unveiled its new rewards program today. The billion-dollar company, which announced its $125 million Series C three weeks ago, has partnered with Amazon Web Services, WeWork, Instacart, Google Ads, SendGrid, Salesforce Essentials, Twilio, Zendesk, Caviar, HubSpot, Orrick, Snap, Clerky and DoorDash to give entrepreneurs the ability to accrue and spend points on services and products they use regularly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After four months “on the beach,” per his LinkedIn profile, Uber’s former global head of business and corporate development has a new gig. Lime has hired David Richter (pictured) as its first-ever chief business officer and interim chief financial officer. Based in San Francisco, Richter will be overseeing the bike- and e-scooter-sharing startup’s business operations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To get an edge on the market, investors must look beyond traditional financial info like revenue and profits. Our every online activity generates data exhaust like web traffic, Twitter mentions, app downloads, and search trends. It’s the ability to overlay the old and new data sets to spot surprising trends that will set the best traders apart. Sentieo wants to be their tool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are few things more irritating than a canceled flight, whether it’s on your way to a friend’s wedding, a conference or to celebrate a holiday back home. Wouldn’t it be nifty if technology could put an end to our travel woes? Freebird, a travel rebooking service, has raised an $8 million Series A to do just that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Airware desperately sought cash for 18 months before running out of money and shutting down last month, leaving about 120 employees without jobs after the startup had burned $118 million in funding. Bandaid strategic investments from construction company Caterpillar and others kept Airware alive as it looked for a $15 million round, according to a former employee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Keith McCarty couldn’t stay out of the booming weed business for long. The co-founder and former chief executive officer of the well-funded marijuana delivery startup Eaze has launched WAYV, a B2B cannabis logistics and compliance platform that delivers inventory to cannabis retailers. Today, the company is announcing its first round of funding, a $5 million seed round led by David Sacks at Craft Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We couldn’t put together a conference in Berlin without inviting Valentin Stalf from N26, the co-founder and CEO of one of Europe's most promising startups. A few years ago, few people would have bet on a startup creating a bank from scratch. N26 now has over 1.5 million clients and a ton of funding. N26 originally launched at TechCrunch Disrupt London back in 2014. The company didn't win the Startup Battlefield. At the time, the company was called Number26 and they had 0 client. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Founders Fund has led the $6 million Series A for Summersalt, an early-stage e-commerce startup embracing the next-gen consumer’s penchant for inclusivity and affordability. Headquartered in St. Louis, the 1-year old company sells swimsuits designed in-house with eco-friendly fabrics directly to consumers. Like other D2C brands, Summersalt cuts out the middlemen to give its customers access to its swimsuits for $95 or less. What sets it apart is its data-focused fit system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ShopRunner chief executive Sam Yagan conquered the online dating world. Can he conquer the e-commerceworld, too? Hot off the heels of its first profitable year, ShopRunner is announcing its first infusion of venture funding under Yagan, an acquisition of the shopping app Spring and, sources tell TechCrunch, it’s readying a major overhaul to its mobile app, signaling what could be a new era for the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here: 1. Tesla earns its first profit in two years Tesla reported a profit in the third quarter, reversing seven consecutive quarters of losses. This is only the third time in the company’s history that it has achieved this milestone. The turnaround was driven by sales of the Model 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If your Instagram followers aren’t aware that you’ve voted, did you really even vote? In 2018, the act of voting is great social media fodder. People want their friends to know they’ve registered to vote, or that they’ve just mailed in their absentee ballot or even that they’ve bought some sort of “look, I voted” t-shirt.These announcements are being shared across social platforms like it’s a required part of the voting process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Startup Battlefield Africa is set for December 11 in Lagos and investor Marieme Diop and ICT expert Shikoh Gitau will be there to lend their perspective and expertise.The Lagos TechCrunch event is a return to Africa for the Startup Battlefield series after its debut on the continent in Nairobi, Kenya. Shikoh Gitau Diop — who is a VC investor in early-stage African startups at Orange Digital Ventures— will speak on venture capital in Africa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a war brewing to become the cloud pharmacy for men’s health. Roman, which launched last year offering erectile dysfunctional medication and recently added a ‘quit smoking’ kit, is taking on $97 million-funded Hims for the hair loss market. Today, Roman launched four new products it hopes to cross-sell to users through a unified telemedicine subscription and pill delivery app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tier, one of a number of electric scooter rental startups based in Berlin, has raised a chunky €25 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is VC fund Northzone, with participation from existing investors Speedinvest, and Point Nine. The investment marks the biggest financial backing for a European company in the space, and, according to my sources, signals the beginning of a pending VC war to create the “Bird or Lime of Europe”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How can Lime differentiate its scooters and bikes from the piles of Birds and Spins filling Los Angeles sidewalks? Apparently with a physical storefront where it can convince customers of the wonders of on-demand mobility. According to a job listing from Lime seeking a “Retail Store Manager”, the startup plans to open a “lifestyle brand store in Santa Monica” that “will place heavy importance on brand experience and customer engagement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

WhenTrackR raised $50 million from investors that included Amazon a year ago, the Santa Baraba startup made a big splash in the growing market for small connected dongles that you could attach to “dumb” objects like keys to keep tabs on their location. But times for the company have been challenging since then. It’s weatheredlayoffs; a succession of natural disasters; and its co-founders stepping away from exec roles asCEO and president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had the Three Excellent Friends (Connie Loizos, Danny Chrichton, and Alex Wilhelm) on hand to kick things about with Scale Venture Partner’s own Rory O’Driscoll. As I’ve written the last few weeks, what a pile of news we’ve had recently. And like the last few episodes, we had to pick and choose what to drill into. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Want to pitch a venture capitalist? You’ll need a “warm introduction” first. At least that’s what most in the business will advise. Find a person, typically a man, who made the VC you’re interested in pitching a whole bunch of money at some point and have them introduce you. Why? Because VCs love people who’ve made them money; naturally, they’ll be willing to hear you out if you’ve got at least one money maker on your side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the first time, Uber will make contextual, personalized suggestions about the best way to get from point A to point B. The startup offers more than just cars now, and it’s starting to understand the tradeoffs between price, speed, convenience, and comfort amidst its multi-modal fleet. Most noticeably, you’ll now see JUMP bikes get premier billing right alongside Uber’s other vehicles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When we first started writing about startups at TechCrunch the idea of a startup – a small business with global ambitions – was a pipe dream. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Doug Pepper Contributor Doug Pepper is a managing director at Shasta Ventures. More posts by this contributor A New Revolution Modernizes The Revenue Supply Chain With Adobe’s acquisition of Marketo, I have been reflecting on what an amazing and pioneering company Marketo has been since it was founded in 2006. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today’s world of Slack, email and a gazillion other web apps and services, it’s become increasingly hard to search for information. Did your boss Slack you or email you that information about your bonus? Or did they share it via a Google Doc? Who knows? Clearly not you, but Journal knows. Journal, a machine learning and natural language processing-powered platform designed to search across all your web services and tools, today announced a $1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch Disrupt is the world’s biggest and most impactful tech startup conference, and we can’t wait to bring the hype to Berlin. We’re very proud of the show we’ve put together and are thrilled to give you a look at what’s in store. Editor’s Note: Not all of our speakers are included on this agenda as we like to keep a couple tricks up our sleeves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Readdle might not be a familiar name, but chances are you’ve been using some of their mobile apps. The Ukrainian company is a bootstrapped success story with 100 million downloads, 135 employees and a profitable business. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Readdle Vice President Denys Zhadanov is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to talk about this remarkable journey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The app for hiking enthusiasts just secured a big round of capital that will help it map more trails worldwide. AllTrailshas raised $75 million, led by Spectrum Equity, which has taken a majority stake in the company in the process. Founded in 2010, AllTrails raised a small amount of capital years ago from investors, including 2020 Ventures and 500 Startups. It was also part ofAngelPad’s inauguralaccelerator class. This is its first sizeable round of equity financing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With $50M in fresh funding, Allbirds will open new stores in the US, UK and Asia The quintessential venture capitalist’s uniform consists of a pair of designer jeans, a Patagonia fleece vest and $95 wool sneakers. The company behind the shoes, Allbirds, entered the unicorn club this morning with the announcement of a $50 million Series C from late-stage players T. Rowe Price, which led the round, Tiger Global and Fidelity Investments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CAVU Venture Partners has led the $20 million Series B for Once Upon a Farm, which sells organic, cold-pressed baby food in 8,500 grocery stores in the U.S. The Berkeley-based startup was originally founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs Rohan Oza and Clayton Christopher. Today, it lists actress Jennifer Garner and former General Mills presidentJohn Foraker as co-founders, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the latest additions to the on-demand economy is Papa, a mobile app that connects college students with adults over 60 in need of support and companionship. The recent graduate of Y Combinator’s accelerator program has raised a $2.4 million round of funding to expand its service throughout Florida and to five additional states next year, beginning with Pennsylvania. Initialized Capital led the round, with participation from Sound Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“I’ve always believed the web is for everyone,” wrote Tim Berners-Lee, the well-known (and knighted) creator of the World Wide Web. “The web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas,” he added. “Today, I believe we’ve reached a critical tipping point, and that powerful change for the better is possible — and necessary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Women-focused co-working space The Wing has made its way to California, opening its first of two planned locations in the state this morning. On Sansome Street in San Francisco’s Financial District, The Wing hopes to attract professional women able to shell out $215 per month for access to its 8,000-square-foot workspace, which is complete with conference rooms, a cafe, a library stocked with books on feminist theory, a lactation room and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SoftBank may soon own up to 50 percent of WeWork, a well-funded provider of co-working spaces headquartered in New York, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. SoftBank is reportedly weighing an investment between $15 billion and $20 billion, which would come from its $92 billion Vision Fund, a super-sized venture fund led by Japanese entrepreneur and investor Masayoshi Son. WeWork declined to comment. SoftBank already owns some 20 percent of WeWork. The firm invested $4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So many new unicorns valued at $1 billion-plus, countless$100 million venture financings, an explosion of giant funds— it’s no surprise 2018 is shaping up to be a banner year for venture capital investment in U.S.-based companies. There are more than 2.5 months remaining in 2018 and already U.S. companies have raised $84.1 billion — more than all of 2017 — across 6,583 VC deals as of Sept. 30, 2018, according to data from PitchBook’s 3Q Venture Monitor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SoundCloud moves painfully slow for a tech company, and no one feels that pain more than musicians who are popular on the site but don’t get paid. 10 years since SoundCloud first launched, and four years since it opened an invite-only program allowing just the very biggest artists to earn a cut of the ad and premium subscription revenue generated by their listeners, SoundCloud is rolling out monetization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Faraday Future investor Evergrande Health now says the troubled startup is trying to back out of deal Evergrande Health, the investor that bailed out besieged electric vehicle startup Faraday Future in a deal worth $2 billion this summer, is now accusing it ofattempting to break an agreement it made with previous backer Season Smart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

RankScience closes $1.8M seed — and now only wants to replace human SEO staff if you don’t have any A couple of years ago YC-backed RankScience, which offers AI-enhanced SEO split-testing, put a few SEO experts’ noses out of joint when the fledgling startup brashly talked about replacing human expertise with automation. Two years on its pitch has mellowed, with the team saying their self-service platform is “augmenting human SEO ability rather than replacing them”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Flutterwave and Ventures Platform CEOs will join us at Startup Battlefield Africa Startup Battlefield is returning to Africa this December. TechCrunch will be hitting Lagos, Nigeria, bringing with it our Battlefield competition and a day’s worth of panel discussions, focused on topics facing the city’s startup scene. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

JFrog wants to change the way we deal with software updates. Instead of large numbered updates you have to manually download, it sees a future of continuous delivery where software is delivered as binaries and updated in the background. Investors must like that vision very much because they showered the company with a $165 million Series D investment today, which the company reports pushes its valuation past the billion dollar mark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices