Category: Tech news

Lisa Wu, a partner at Norwest with investments like Calm, Plaid, Opendoor and Grove Collaborative, has a message for founders: Think like a VC during your pitch presentation. After all, accepting capital isn’t simply adding more money to your balance sheet. It is about picking a venture partner who will be there with you through the highs and lows. Some even liken it to a marriage that you can’t divorce from.

No pressure, of course.

Don’t worry, we won’t leave you hanging: Wu is joining us at TechCrunch Early Stage, our annual event with content specifically tailored to first-time founders and investors, to talk about exactly this.

Before Norwest, Wu worked in Amazon’s corporate development team, Bessemer Venture Partners and founded BANZAI, which brought food focused on quality and nutrition to schools.

With experience on both sides of the investing table, Wu is going to talk about how founders can make the most out of each minute within a one-hour pitch presentation. She’ll discuss ways that founders can read the virtual room, how to take advice and how to talk big-picture ideas to convey market size and competition.

Wu joins a fantastic cast of top experts, discussing topics such as fundraising, operations and marketing. Her workshop is part of the two days of events that explore seed and Series A fundraising, recruiting and more for early-stage startups at TC Early Stage – Marketing and Fundraising on July 8 & 9. Grab your ticket now before prices increase tonight!

 

We’re less than a week away from TC Sessions: Justice 2021, a deep, day-long exploration of diversity, inclusion and equity in tech. On Wednesday, March 3, leading experts, founders and social justice warriors will discuss topics ranging from systemic bias, essential workers’ rights and formerly incarcerated people to accountability in social media and funding for underrepresented communities. And that’s just for starters.

Pause for a cause: Tickets to this event are just $5 — we want as many diverse voices at the table as possible. Secure your seat at this event today and join this essential conversation.

In addition to panel discussions and workshops (you’ll find the agenda here), don’t miss the smaller breakout sessions where you’ll have more opportunity to ask questions and share specific challenges with our speakers, editors and each other.

The smaller breakouts at every TC Sessions — regardless of their focus — lend themselves to deeper conversations, as noted by Karin Maake, senior director of communications at FlashParking, who attended TC Sessions: Mobility.

I enjoyed the big marquee speakers, but it was the individual presentations where you really started to get into the meat of the conversation.

There’s no shortage of fascinating presentations, but be sure to leave room in your day to dig a little deeper into these breakout sessions waiting for you at TC Sessions: Justice 2021.

Black Female Unicorns in the Making: With all of the economic and racial disparities that have become so pronounced, this timely session will unpack the skills, tools and networks required along every stage of this journey. We will also share insights on what role policy, philanthropy and civic organizations might play in helping to address the systemic challenges, roadblocks and obstacles that have historically served as barriers. Brought to you by Black Female Founders.

Latinx Founders Leading with Inclusion: Hear from Latinx founders who are leading with inclusion through diverse teams and/or supporting a diverse mission. Inclusion is a part of their DNA. Featuring William Falcon (Grid.ai), Fanny Grande and Nelson Grande (Avenida), Martha Hernandez (madeBOS), Jesse Martinez (Latinx Startup Alliance) and Federico Von Son (SOMOS). Brought to you by Latinx Founders Alliance.

The Impact of Out LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs: StartOut and Socos Lab are excited to speak at TechCrunch Justice, and cover the Inclusion Impact Indexes. Its first iteration; the StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index, quantifies the economic value of under-utilized LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs. The project looks at entrepreneurs’ economic impact in terms of job creation, patents, financings and exits in the U.S. Our agenda will be a brief introduction, a demo of the index and its current findings, and a Q&A discussion with the publishers of the index. Featuring Sarah Burgaud and Jessica Chin Foo (StartOut), and Dr. Vivienne Ming (Socos Labs). Brought to you by StartOut.

TC Include Founders Pitch Feedback Session: Join us for a pitch feedback session open to all startups exhibiting at TC Sessions: Justice 2021 moderated by TechCrunch staff.

Add your voice to the essential conversations taking place on March 3. Reserve your seat today and learn how to build a more diverse and just tech industry at TC Sessions: Justice 2021.

Aurora, the autonomous vehicle company that recently closed its acquisition of Uber’s self-driving subsidiary, has snapped up another startup. 

This time, Aurora is buying OURS Technology, the second lidar startup it has acquired in less than two years. Aurora acquired Blackmore, a Montana-based lidar startup, in May 2019. Aurora declined to disclose the acquisition price or other financial terms of the deal. OURS Technology, which was founded in 2017 by a team of University of California-Berkeley researchers and PhDs, employs 12 people. The entire team is heading to Aurora, according to the company.

“We are always on the lookout for how we can make progress as quickly as possible and OURS’s expertise in developing lidar chips adds to the expertise we already have and accelerates our work,” an Aurora spokesperson said.

Lidar, or light detection and ranging radar, is considered by most companies developing autonomous driving systems a critical and necessary sensor to safely deploy self-driving vehicles at scale. A future where millions of self-driving vehicles coursing through cities is still years — even decades some argue — away. But that hasn’t prevented dozens of lidar companies from launching, each one aiming to cash in on that eventual demand. 

The vast majority of the 70-odd companies that exist in the industry today are developing and trying to sell time-of-flight lidar sensors, which send out pulses of light outside the visible spectrum and then measure how long it takes for each of those pulses to return. As they come back, the direction of, and distance to, whatever those pulses hit are recorded as a point and eventually forms a 3D map.

Some lidar companies, including Blackmore and OURS Technology, are pursuing Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) lidar, which emits a low-power and continuous wave, or stream, of light. FMCW lidar developers tout two primary benefits of this technology. It can measure distance with a higher dynamic range and instant velocity, meaning it can gauge the speed of the objects coming to or moving away from them. It also doesn’t struggle with interference from the sun or other other sensors.

But FMCW is also complex. FMCW starts as a range finder on a chip. To make it a 3D lidar, many FMCW developers use big mirrors and other components to provide the field of view, which pushes up the size of the sensors. OURS Technology claims to be a lidar-on-a-chip company, which suggests that this four-year-old company has developed a way to combine everything into a solid-state scanning mechanism. This would allow the sensor to shrink in size, solving one of FMCW’s primary issues.

Aurora unveiled last summer its so-called FirstLight Lidar, a sensor based on Blackmore’s technology that was developed for its fleet of self-driving vehicles, namely long-haul trucks. Aurora is clearly interested in OURS’s speed of development, noting in its announcement that the startup been able to produce four generations of lidar in just three years and developed a solid-state scanning mechanism compatible with its technology.

The company plans to use the startup’s expertise and development know-how to make its sensor scalable. In short: Aurora hopes to use OURS’s team and their blueprint for key elements such as the solid-state scanning mechanism and development process to accelerate development.

“Now, as we look to expand our fleet and commercialize our driverless trucks, FirstLight lidar must be increasingly scalable — it needs to be smaller and less expensive, but just as powerful,” the company said.

The new Netflix animated series puts a new spin on old tales.

After several fake-outs, the cast of the movie finally (finally!) revealed the next installment’s title on Wednesday.

Exposing and fighting the problem requires drawing from reporters’ resources and reach.

Plus: The Ford heir, presidential briefings, and a sad day for gadget lovers.

Spending more time at home? Here is some budget- and eco-friendly gear—like a cup, period underwear, or reusable pads—to explore.

Losing any sense can be devastating, even if you never appreciated it before it was gone.

The Perseverance rover is positively packed with tech. We talk about the cameras, mics, and sensors bringing the sights and sounds of Mars back to us.

From nameless grayscale sprites in the ’70s to Spider-Man’s Miles Morales now, Black characters in games have come far. But is it enough?

The Grammy-winner’s Apple TV+ film The World’s a Little Blurry is radical in its transparency.

Singapore is quickly turning into a hub for food-tech startups, partly because of government initiatives supporting the development of meat alternatives. One of the newest entrants is Next Gen, which will launch its plant-based “chicken” brand, called TiNDLE, in Singaporean restaurants next month. The company announced today that it has raised $10 million in seed funding from investors including Temasek, K3 Ventures, EDB New Ventures (an investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board), NX-Food, FEBE Ventures and Blue Horizon.

Next Gen claims this is the largest seed round ever raised by a plant-based food tech company, based on data from PitchBook. This is the first time the startup has taken external investment, and the funding exceeded its original target of $7 million. Next Gen was launched last October by Timo Recker and Andre Menezes, with $2.2 million of founder capital.

Next Gen’s first product is called TiNDLE Thy, an alternative to chicken thighs. Its ingredients include water, soy, wheat, oat fiber, coconut oil and methylcellulose, a culinary binder, but the key to its chicken-like flavor is a proprietary blend of plant-based fats, like sunflower oil, and natural flavors that allows it to cook like chicken meat.

Menezes, Next Gen’s chief operating officer, told TechCrunch that the company’s goal is to be the global leader in plant-based chicken, the way Impossible and Beyond are known for their burgers.

“Consumers and chefs want texture in chicken, the taste and aroma, and that is largely related to chicken fat, which is why we started with thighs instead of breasts,” said Menezes. “We created a chicken fat made from a blend, called Lipi, to emulate the smell, aroma and browning when you cook.”

Both Recker and Menezes have years of experience in the food industry. Recker founded German-based LikeMeat, a plant-based meat producer acquired by the LIVEKINDLY Collective last year. Menezes’ food career started in Brazil at one of the world’s largest poultry exporters. He began working with plant-based meat after serving as general manager of Country Foods, a Singaporean importer and distributor that focuses on innovative, sustainable products.

“It was clear to me after I was inside the meat industry for so long that it was not going to be a sustainable business in the long run,” Menezes said.

Over the past few years, more consumers have started to feel the same way, and began looking for alternatives to animal products. UBS expects the global plant-based protein market to increase at a compounded annual growth rate of more than 30%, reaching about $50 billion by 2025, as more people, even those who aren’t vegans or vegetarians, seek healthier, humane sources of protein.

Millennial and Gen Z consumers, in particular, are willing to reduce their consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products as they become more aware of the environmental impact of industrial livestock production, said Menezes. “They understand the sustainability angle of it, and the health aspect, like the cholesterol or nutritional values, depending on what product you are talking about.”

Low in sodium and saturated fat, TiNDLE Thy has received the Healthier Choice Symbol, which is administered by Singapore’s Health Promotion Board. Next Gen’s new funding will be used to launch TiNDLE Thy, starting in popular Singaporean restaurants like Three Buns Quayside, the Prive Group, 28 HongKong Street, Bayswater Kitchen and The Goodburger.

Over the next year or two, Next Gen plans to raise its Series A round, launch more brands and products, and expand in its target markets: the United States (where it is currently recruiting a growth director to build a distribution network), China, Brazil and Europe. After working with restaurant partners, Next Gen also plans to make its products available to home cooks.

“The reason we started with chefs is because they are very hard to crack, and if chefs are happy with the product, then we’re very sure customers will be, too,” said Menezes.

ViacomCBS executives held a virtual investor event today where they outlined the strategy for Paramount+, the streaming service set to launch on March 4 that’s basically a rebranded, expanded version of CBS All Access.

In addition to launching in the United States, executives said the service will be available across Latin America and Canada on March 4, with a Nordic launch a few weeks later and an Australian launch also planned for this year.

And they said that Paramount+ will cost $4.99 per month with ads in the U.S. (less than the $5.99 charged for CBS All Access), or $9.99 without ads and with additional sports, news and live TV content. There are also plans to bundle this with the company’s premium subscriptions, such as Showtime.

Yes, it’s yet another streaming service with a plus in its name. But the company’s streaming president and CEO Tom Ryan said research has shown that ViacomCBS brands — not just Paramount and CBS, but Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and more — are well-known to viewers, and they’ll all be front-and-center in the new service. Plus, it’s worth noting that ViacomCBS already produces a number of hit streaming shows on other services, such as “13 Reasons Why,” “Emily in Paris” and “Jack Ryan.”

ViacomCBS executives also argued that Paramount+ will have a unique combination of live news, live sports and (to use a phrase repeated throughout the event) “a mountain of entertainment.” And from a product perspective, the service will offer originals in 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision, with easy downloads.

On the entertainment side, the service is supposed to have more than 30,000 TV show episodes and 2,500 movies. And the library will expand with new shows like a new version of “Frasier” with Kelsey Grammer returning to the role, as well as a “Halo” TV show that will now debut on Paramount+ instead of Showtime in early 2022. The service is also rebooting a variety of Paramount properties like “Love Story,” “Fatal Attraction” and “Flashdance.”

And like CBS All Access before it, Paramount+ will be home to new Star Trek shows — not just the already launched “Discovery,” “Picard” and “Lower Decks,” but also the upcoming “Strange New Worlds” and the kids animated series “Prodigy.”

On the movie side, Paramount CEO Jim Gianopulos said the company is still a big believer in the theatrical model, but it will be bringing some 2021 releases — including “A Quiet Place Part 2,” the first “Paw Patrol” movie and “Mission Impossible 7” — to Paramount+ in an accelerated fashion, 30 to 45 days after they come to theaters (a much less aggressive strategy than HBO Max, which will stream all Warner Bros. movies this year simultaneously with their theatrical release). And there will be new straight-to-streaming movies as well, starting with reboots of “Paranormal Activity” and “Pet Sematary.”

Through all of the last year’s lockdowns, venue closures and other social distancing measures that governments have enacted and people have followed to slow the spread of COVID-19, shopping — and specifically e-commerce — has remained a consistent and hugely important service. It’s not just something that we had to do; it’s been an important lifeline for many of us at a time when so little else has felt normal. Today, one of the startups that saw a big lift in its service as a result of that trend is announcing a major fundraise to fuel its growth.

Wallapop, a virtual marketplace based out of Barcelona, Spain that lets people resell their used items, or sell items like crafts that they make themselves, has raised €157 million ($191 million at current rates), money that it will use to continue growing the infrastructure that underpins its service, so that it can expand the number of people that use it.

Wallapop has confirmed that the funding is coming at a valuation of €690 million ($840 million) — a significant jump on the $570 million valuations sources close to the company gave us in 2016.

The funding is being led by Korelya Capital, a French VC fund backed by Korea’s Naver, with Accel, Insight Partners, 14W, GP Bullhound and Northzone — all previous backers of Wallapop — also participating.

The company currently has 15 million users — about half of Spain’s internet population, CEO Rob Cassedy pointed out to us in an interview earlier today, and has maintained a decent No. 4 ranking among Spain’s shopping apps, according to figures from App Annie.

The startup has also recently been building out shipping services, called Envios, to help people get the items they are selling to the buyers, which has expanded the range from local sales to those that can be made across the country. About 20% of goods go through Envios now, Cassedy said, and the plan is to continue doubling down on that and related services.

Naver itself is a strong player in e-commerce and apps — it’s the company behind Asian messaging giant Line, among other digital properties — and so this is in part a strategic investment. Wallapop will be leaning on Naver and its technology in its own R&D, and on Naver’s side it will give the company a foothold in the European market at a time when it has been sharpening its strategy in e-commerce.

The funding is an interesting turn for a company that has seen some notable fits and starts. Founded in 2013 in Spain, it quickly shot to the top of the charts in a market that has traditionally been slow to embrace e-commerce over more traditional brick-and-mortar retail.

By 2016, Wallapop was merging with a rival, LetGo, as part of a bigger strategy to crack the U.S. market (with more capital in tow).

But by 2018, that plan was quietly shelved, with Wallapop quietly selling its stake in the LetGo venture for $189 million. (LetGo raised $500 million more on its own around that time, but its fate was not to remain independent: it was eventually acquired by yet another competitor in the virtual classifieds space, OfferUp, in 2020, for an undisclosed sum.)

Wallapop has for the last two years focused mainly on growing in Spain rather than running after business further afield, and rather than growing the range of goods that it might sell on its platform — it doesn’t sell food, nor work with retailers in an Amazon-style marketplace play, nor does it have plans to do anything like move into video or selling other kinds of digital services — it has honed in specifically on trying to improve the experience that it does offer to users.

“I spent 12 years at eBay and saw the transition it made to new goods from used goods,” said Cassedy. “Let’s just say it wasn’t the direction I thought we should take for Wallapop. We are laser-focused on unique goods, with the vast majority of that secondhand with some artisan products. It is very different from big box.”

Wallapop’s growth in the past year is the result of some specific trends in the market that were in part fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

People spending more time in their homes have been focused on clearing out space and getting rid of things. Others are keen to buy new items now that they are spending more time at home, but want to spend less on them. In both cases, there has been a push for more sustainability, with people putting less waste into the world by recycling and upcycling goods instead.

At the same time, Facebook hasn’t really made big inroads in the country with its Marketplace, and Amazon has also not appeared as a threat to Wallapop, Cassedy noted.

All of these have had a huge impact on Wallapop’s business, but it wasn’t always this way. Cassedy said that the first lockdown in Spain saw business plummet, as people were restricted to leave their homes.

“It was a roller coaster for us,” he said. “We entered the year with incredible momentum, very strong.”

He noted that the drop started in March, when “not only did it become not okay to leave the house and trade locally but the post office stopped delivering parcels. Our business went off a cliff in March and April.”

Then when the restrictions were lifted in May, things started to bounce back more than ever before, nearly overnight, he said. “The economic uncertainty caused people to seek out more value, better deals, spending less money, and yes they were clearing out closets. We saw numbers bounce back 40-50% growth year-on-year in June.”

The big question was whether that growth was a blip or there to say. He said it has continued into 2021 so far. “It’s a validation of what we see as long-term trends driving the business.”

“The global demand for C2C and resale platforms is growing with renewed commitment in sustainable consumption, especially by younger millennials and Gen Z,” noted Seong-sook Han, CEO of Naver Corp., in a statement. “We agree with Wallapop’s philosophy of conscious consumption and are enthused to support their growth with our technology and develop international synergies.”

“Our economies are switching towards a more sustainable development model; after investing in Vestiaire Collective last year, wallapop is Korelya’s second investment in the circular economy, while COVID-19 is only strengthening that trend. It is Korelya’s mission to back tomorrow’s European tech champions and we believe that NAVER has a proven tech and product edge that will help the company reinforce its leading position in Europe,” added Fleur Pellerin, CEO of Korelya Capital.