The rise of ChatGPT has fuelled growth in the public awareness of AI, as well as the growing discourse around AI ethics. How should AI be used? What are its implications for society, not just business?

The inherent bias within AI applications — remember, it’s not just how the algorithm is built and by whom, it’s also about how the model itself is built — means we should be treading carefully in this brave new AI wold.

After all, there have been very public examples of political and gender bias exhibited by AI platforms. OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, admitted only last month that ChatGPT has “shortcomings around bias.” But those biases and faults can have far-reaching effects when applied to areas like insurance platforms or drug discovery, where the implications of getting decisions wrong could be massive.

MLOps (a mashup of “Machine learning” and DevOps) is a set of practices that seeks to deploy and maintain machine learning models in production reliably and efficiently, and monitor those biases. Put simply, MLOps practices are used by Data Scientists, DevOps, and Machine Learning engineers to transition an AI algorithm into every-day, working production models. The idea here is to improve the model’s automation while also keeping an eye on business and regulatory requirements around bias, as well as other aspects of AI. Improving efficiency also has a positive environmental impact.

Seldon is a U.K. startup that specializes in this rarified world of development tools to optimize machine learning models. It has competitors in the shape of Arise, Fiddler ($45.2 million in funding), Dataiku ($846.8 million in funding) and DataRobot ($1 billion in funding).

Seldon’s cloud-agnostic machine learning deployment platform secured a £7.1M Series A from AlbionVC and Cambridge Innovation Capital back in 2020.

It’s now raised a $20M Series B funding round led by new investor Bright Pixel (formerly Sonae IM). Also participating were existing investors AlbionVC, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and Amadeus Capital Partners. 

Founders Alex Housley (CEO) Clive Cox (CTO) claim to have achieved a 400% YoY growth rate for Seldon’s open source frameworks since its series A in November 2020. That’s important, because it’s open source network allows it to distribute its proprietary solutions far more efficiently and cost effectively.

“Seldon has differentiated itself by presenting a unique solution that is able to reduce the friction for users deploying and explaining ML models across any industry. This means more productivity for its clients, faster time-to-value combined with governance, risk and compliance capabilities,” said Pedro Carreira, Director at Bright Pixel in a statement.

Current Seldon customers include PayPal, Johnson & Johnson, Audi and Experian, among others.  

In an interview, Alex Housley, Seldon’s Founder and CEO told me: “AI is in everything, and Seldon is uniquely positioned. “We already have a strong position in our open source distribution, and what we’ve just validated is a new concept in data centric MLOps, with a tight integration around data streams and production. Put simply, you can improve an AI model via its algorithm, but that has small improvements. Alternatively – and this is our approach – you can squeeze out much more performance by improving the production of the data quality. That’s what we’ve been working with Cambridge University, with significant success.”

According to Run:ai’s ‘State of AI Infrastucture Survey, 2023’, in 88% of companies more than half of these models never make it to production. Why? Because projects stall, or there’s duplication of efforts across business silos.

Seldon claims it can help teams collaborate better to speed up the deployment time by an average of 84%. This could be important, given there is a lot more regulation coming to AI (such as via the EU AI ACT, and US EEOC). Seldon — and its competitors — are racing to help enterprises remain compliant with those regulations, but improve these AI models internally.

The company has collaborated closely with Neil Lawrence, the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge.

MLOps platform Seldon raises £20M Series B to improve the productions of AI models by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/mlops-platform-seldon-raises-20m-series-b-to-improve-the-productions-of-ai-models/

The World Economic Forum says that so-called ‘Scope 3 emissions,’ – or CO2 in supply chains  – can make up as much as 90% of a company’s carbon footprint and worldwide more than half of all emissions can be traced back to only a handful of supply chains. Tracking and reducing these emissions are easier said than done; and if you can’t track it, you can’t improve it. Berlin-Based startup, The Climate Choice closed a $2 million round to help companies cut a chunk of their carbon out of that part of their emissions, too.

“In 2014 I experienced the problem firsthand when I attempted to reduce the climate impact of my first company, Resmio, by sourcing products from climate-friendly suppliers. The task proved impossible for someone who was not a climate expert,” explains The Climate Choice CEO and Co-Founder, Yasha Tarani. “Following the sale of Resmio, I took a sabbatical and witnessed the catastrophic effects of climate change first hand. In Delhi I arrived to 122-degree temperatures with people sleeping on the streets, in Thailand my hut was lost to floods, and in New Zealand I saw the glow of bushfires on the horizon. I decided then to dedicate my life’s work to reversing the degradation of our planet.”

Tarani combined forces with co-founder Lara Obst, who had built what she refers to as the EU’s leading climate innovation program. Together, they decided to focus on decarbonizing corporate supply chains, along with a third partner – data scientist Dr. Rey Farhan, who had most recently been working on data-heavy products for the financial industry.

The $2 million equity financing round was led by Gutter Capital.

“We believe the world is at a turning point. Starting in 2024, approximately 49,000 companies will be required to disclose Scope 3 emissions data in compliance with the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. We believe that The Climate Choice is positioned to be the partner of choice to help these companies rise to the moment,” explains Tarani. “We have already seen the success of our platform with our customers in simplifying data collection and collaboration with suppliers, and we are excited to empower companies around the world to make climate-relevant procurement decisions.”

The company has built a platform that helps companies understand the emissions of their suppliers, acquire audit-ready data, and take actions to decarbonize the supply chain. The product is currently in use by several early customers, including O2 Telefonica and HiPP. The company says it is actively monitoring thousands of suppliers.

“Our mission is to empower every company to be a climate champion. We believe that now more than ever that mission is in reach. Today about half of European companies have a climate transition plan in place, but less than 5% of those companies show the readiness required to achieve those plans. We believe that TCC will fundamentally change this,” says Tarani. “Ten years from now our platform will automate supplier engagement for the world’s largest companies, and all companies will have access to real-time supplier data to empower informed decision making.”

The company is adamant that it isn’t a carbon accounting platform, but something different altogether.

“Traditional carbon accounting practices rely on averages and assumptions to calculate supplier emissions. This approach is helpful to infer a rough carbon footprint and understand hotspots, but because every supplier within a category looks the same, it is useless for actually making choices to decarbonize,” Tarani explains. “TCC starts where the carbon accounting typically ends. Our platform automates supplier outreach and generates real primary data profiles on supplier emissions and practices. Supplier profiles are shared openly within our network, so that work is not duplicated across firms. Armed with comprehensive supplier data, companies can compare suppliers, and make informed procurement decisions to decarbonize their supply chain.”

The Climate Choice wants to make supply chain emissions more visible and more green by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/the-climate-choice/

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week sent ripples in startup ecosystems around the world, and it is emerging that millions of dollars held by African startups and venture capital funds at the bank were at stake, until the U.S. Federal Reserve acted to save the day.

In the wake of the bank’s collapse, founders in Africa have been forced to review their banking options to cushion their startups from such eventualities. Nala, a U.K.-based and Africa-focused mobile money transfer startup that managed to pull its funds out of SVB before it collapsed, told TechCrunch it’s exploring partnerships with new large corporate banks, while the Pan-African fund Future Africa, which suffered “minimal exposure” also hinted that it was keen on opening an account with a global banking institution.

“We’ve gotten inbound outreach by several banks…but you know banks always like to know a lot of information about companies, their revenue, the amount of cash the company would hold with them, and so on to bring them on board,” said Nala CEO, Benjamin Fernandez.

The impact of the collapse has been far-reaching that even unaffected entities are exploring more safeguards. Jumba, a Kenyan construction tech startup, is looking to diversify its deposit holdings, with co-founder Kagure Wamunyu telling TechCrunch the startup is opening an additional account with a “bigger bank” in the U.S. This comes as more startups increasingly prefer holding their funds in multiple bank accounts in big financial institutions, which are generally perceived to be safer.

African startups impacted by SVB collapse

It is not yet clear how many African startups and VCs were affected by SVB’s collapse. A widely circulated report from the due diligence company Castle Hall showed that several funding vehicles for African startups, including 4DX Ventures, banked with SVB before it went bust; it’s unclear if they were affected.

Meanwhile African fintech unicorn Chipper Cash was also among several startups that could not access a portion of their funds. TechCrunch also learned of a Dutch wealth manager offering Egyptian startups investment banking and corporate services, including opening an SVB account; according to this report, about 50 tech firms were affected.

A significant amount of venture capital that African startups raise comes from US-based investors, who mandate that these startups domicile the funds in U.S. bank accounts. They have until now recommended SVB because of its history with tech businesses and the incentives and benefits the bank provides to startups that are hard to find in other financial institutions.

Fernandez said the bank provided cash management features alongside better interests on deposits and cheaper wire transfer fees than its counterparts – services that would be costlier for an African startup to access in bigger institutions.

The lender also provided loans, which many startups are unable to get in conventional banking institutions owing to their high-risk profile.

Just last year, SVB was a strategic partner of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and US-based fund manager Partners for Growth (PFG), entities that provide debt capital to early- to mid-stage companies in emerging markets.

Such incentives for high-risk businesses are among the reasons startups domiciled in other parts of the world held accounts at SVB, according to Deepak Dave, an analyst at Toronto-based Riverside Advisory.

“We don’t have (in Africa) a financial system that is remotely mature enough to deal with startup financing. The reason that SVB can do loans in the U.S. is that the range of assets that has value in those countries is very different from ours, assets like half-created IP can even have a valuation to it. That is simply out of the question over here. First of all, almost certainly, the IP won’t even be licensed to the startup; it will have been licensed to an offshore vehicle controlled by the VC investors,” said Dave.

“Not only do we not have banks that are mature enough to do it, but we also don’t have a regulator who will understand what this type of lending is. They won’t have as deep a financial relationship with institutions here. But they can have a transactional relationship in institutions based here,” said Dave.

However, according to founders who spoke to TechCrunch, including those who even got accepted into accelerators like Techstars and Y Combinator, setting up an SVB bank account for their startups wasn’t a walk in the park. They cited reasons ranging from not meeting specific criteria such as SSN and proof of address in the U.S. to citizenship status and lack of SVB operations in Africa. As such, they turned to platforms such as Brex and Mercury, which recently expanded its FDIC insurance to $3 million, to carry out banking transactions.

“If you want US-based banking, which does instill credibility (still) with investors, those are your options,” said Stephen Deng, co-founder and managing partner at Africa-focused early-stage VC firm DFS Lab. “I think what changes is that founders must know how they manage counterparty risk. Sweep networks, and treasury management, are all top of mind.”

For an African startup, banking with such platforms is dicey as they can be unpredictable. Last year, Mercury restricted accounts linked to African tech startups, including those backed by Y Combinator. An event like this comes down to regulatory grey zones where banking-as-a-service platforms are beholden to KYC/KYB requirements of their partner banks and transactions from emerging markets are viewed as “high-risk.”

Founders say this event – which frequently occurred last year – and the SVB fiasco have reinforced the need to build homegrown solutions (Float is an example.) But that itself comes with its challenges, said Deng. “The further you move away from the service provider, the harder it becomes to have nuance around risk related to ‘Africa.’ The deposit base resulting from African tech is likely not large enough for those bank providers to make modifications to their KYC/KYB controls.” 

SVB collapse forces African startups to rethink their banking options by Annie Njanja originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/svb-collapse-forces-african-startups-to-rethink-their-banking-options/

Microsoft’s Bing is enjoying the spotlight for the first time in a decade after it released a GPT-powered interface last month. But the tech giant has so far been cautious about the pace at which it is making the new Bing offering — powered by  OpenAI’s GPT-4 tech — available to users. But it appears, Bing is bringing those walls down.

Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI, appears to have lifted the waitlist from the new Bing, ostensibly allowing anyone to gain instant access to the new experience. Windows Central, which first spotted this change, said users don’t have to wait to try out the new Bing anymore. TechCrunch tested this with a few email IDs (both new and old) and got access instantly. However, not all email IDs we tested got access instantly.

While the new Bing’s landing page still shows the typical “Join the Waitlist” button, you can sign in and get access instantly. We have asked Microsoft for a comment and will update the story if we hear back.

Microsoft is holding an event called “reinvent productivity with AI” later Thursday at 11 am ET. While today’s agenda is limited to introducing AI-powered tools for Microsoft 356 (Office) and Dynamic 365 — the company’s Salesforce competitor — it won’t be surprising if there is an announcement related to Bing as well.

The Seattle-based company is racing to integrate the AI-powered chatbot into many of its services. Last month, Microsoft introduced the GPT-4 powered bot to Windows 11’s taskbar. Earlier this week, Edge browser’s stable version got the Bing AI chatbot feature.

The OpenAI’s tech is proving to be a hit for Bing, which recently reported reaching 100 million daily active users. This is expected given the hype around AI-powered chatbots and how it has attracted tens of millions of users who wish to give it a whirl. After people were able to “jailbreak” the chatbot into saying problematic things, Microsoft started testing various restrictions on the conversations. Earlier this week it raised the limit to 15 turns in a conversation and 150 messages per day.

Bing said to remove waitlist for its GPT-4 powered chat by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/bing-said-to-remove-waitlist-for-its-gpt-4-powered-chat/

Deeploi, a Germany-based startup that is building an IT-as-a-Service platform, today announced that it has raised a €3 million seed funding round led by Berlin’s Cherry Ventures, with participation from a group of angels that includes the founders of Taktile, Moss, Vay and sennder.

The company was founded by Julian Luebke and Philipp Hoffmann. Luebke got his start at Rocket Internet and then later joined real estate startup McMakler as its first employee, focusing on operations. Hoffmann, meanwhile, founded an IT company ten years ago, which started out as a traditional IT service provider and then moved toward becoming a managed service provider with a focus on Apple’s platforms. For that, Hoffmann also created the company’s own mobile device management system (MDM).

“I thought it might be a very cool thing to connect everything — to have everything in one platform and automate everything,” Hoffmann explained. “Then I met Julian and I realized that this could work very, very well. I had the idea. I had the expertise — and we have Julian for scaling the business.”

The founders, who started the company late last year, describe Deeploi as an all-in-one IT platform that combines standard IT functions and the company’s premium support with IT agents to answer support calls. The team will cover everything from onboarding, support, endpoint management, network management and offboarding. For its security offering, Deeploi will partner with a cybersecurity company.

“The main difference to a lot of the existing business models is that we offer the companies IT as a service,” explained Luebke. “The companies don’t have to build up an IT department by themselves. We can take these functions over completely — or we can boost existing setups if they actually have already set up an IT department. They can use our platform and they can also use our premium support, for example, and we can take over easy, repetitive, redundant tasks for them.”

Because Deeploi can pull in data from existing systems (say HR) and then integrate this into its platform, it can also help businesses automate a lot of functions. When a new employee gets onboarded in an HR system, for example, the company can then automatically send out a new Macbook to them and set up access to certain SaaS tools.

Luebke noted that modern, cloud-native companies with modern tech stacks are Deeploi’s ideal customers, including brand agencies, marketing firms and D2C companies. For the time being, the company plans to focus on the Western European market, where it is now starting to test its service with a select number of users. The plan is to launch the platform to a wider audience in June.

“Once we have established market dominance in Western Europe and have really built out our product then we don’t really see any limiting factors of going to the US,” said Luebke.

IT-as-a-Service startup Deeploi raises €3M by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/it-as-a-service-startup-deeploi-raises-e3m/

The Federal Trade Commission slammed Epic Games with $245 million in fines this week, ordering the Fortnite developer to compensate consumers who made unwitting purchases in its digital store. The settlement, first announced back in December, is now finalized.

“Fortnite’s counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button,” the FTC wrote in the announcement. The complaint also criticized Epic for allowing underage players to make frictionless, unauthorized purchases without sign off from their parents.

The $245 million settlement — a huge number but one that doesn’t top the regulator’s $5 billion fine against Facebook in 2019 — will go toward refunding customers. The FTC order will also require Epic to discontinue its use of “digital design tricks” like dark pattern design, obtain affirmative consent for digital purchases and it will block the company from locking the accounts of customers who dispute charges for digital goods and services.

The latest settlement, now finalized, follows another massive $275 million in fines that the agency proposed in December over the company’s handling of accounts for Fortnite players under the age of 13. The FTC alleged that Epic ran afoul of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting full names and contact information from children without parental consent. That settlement also cited Epic’s decision to launch Fortnite without parental controls and special protections for the young users who comprise a large swath of its player base.

“The Justice Department takes very seriously its mission to protect consumers’ data privacy rights,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta previously said of the dual settlements. “This proposed order sends a message to all online providers that collecting children’s personal information without parental consent will not be tolerated.”

In early December, just prior to the FTC announcement, Epic announced that it would introduce a new account type designed to protect younger players. That feature, called “cabined accounts,” was added into Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys — three popular online multiplayer titles from the game maker.

“All players globally will be asked to provide their date of birth at log in,” Epic wrote in a blog post at the time. “If someone indicates they are under 13 or their country’s age of digital consent, whichever is higher, their account will be a Cabined Account and they will be asked to provide a parent or guardian’s email address to begin the parental consent process.” Until they obtain parental consent, chat, digital purchases and some other features are disabled for cabined accounts.

Protections relying on users self-reporting their own age are an imperfect solution at best. But gaming and social media companies alike have yet to craft systems that concerns over kids’ safety (and the ensuing regulatory risks) while still allowing young users access to the online virtual spaces where they will inevitably wind up spending time.

Epic games like Fortnite are already well established among young users, but the company is apparently doubling down on the youngest subset of those players. Last year, Epic announced a partnership with LEGO to build “an immersive, creatively inspiring and engaging digital experience for kids of all ages to enjoy together” — a metaverse collaboration that could give rival Roblox a run for its money.

The FTC finalizes Epic’s $245 million settlement over sketchy Fortnite purchases by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/ftc-fortnite-epic-games-purchases-settlement/

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

TechCrunch+ members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

I lived and worked in the United States on an L-1B for a year, and then changed to an H-1B for 2.5 years before I moved back to India (where I’m a citizen) and founded a startup.

Now I want to return to the U.S. to raise funds for my startup. What are my options for returning to the U.S. as a founder?

— Fast-Moving Founder

Dear Fast-Moving,

Congratulations on launching your own venture and making the move to jump back to the States to expand your startup and secure investors! I recommend working with an immigration attorney to determine the best options based on your long-term goals, as well as a corporate attorney to discuss the best structure for your startup’s U.S. entity to make it attractive to investors. Most U.S. investors prefer to invest in a parent company based in the U.S. that’s a Delaware C corporation.

Depending on which non-immigrant visa you pursue, you may be able to avoid having to go through an in-person consular interview through the end of this year since you went through the interview process for your L-1B intracompany transferee specialized knowledge worker visa. The U.S. Department of State extended the visa interview waiver program until the end of this year. Consular officers have the discretion to waive the visa interview requirement for certain work visas like the O-1A and H-1B if the beneficiary was previously issued a visa and has never been refused one. Unfortunately, the interview cannot be waived for the L-1 visa.

You have a few visa options to return to the U.S. as a founder, so let’s dive in!

B-1 visa

If you want to set up your startup’s U.S. entity, find office space, or meet with prospective investors, you can do that on a B-1 visitor visa for business. The B-1 will enable you to enter the U.S. and stay for up to six months. However, you cannot do any work while on a B-1. Your immigration attorney can tell you what activities are allowed.

When you arrive in the U.S., be prepared that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the airport may ask you what business activities you intend to do during your stay.

While you’re in the U.S. on a B-1 you can change your status to one of the visas below without leaving the U.S.

Dear Sophie: How can I return to the United States as a founder? by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/dear-sophie-how-can-i-return-to-the-united-states-as-a-founder/

It’s too early to determine whether SVB’s downfall heralds a new era for venture capital, but based on anecdotal evidence, off-the-record discussions and chats with co-workers, it seems like we’re back to business as usual where pre-revenue startup fundraising is concerned.

Not a scientific sampling, but several investors signaled this week on Twitter that they remain interested in talking to founders who are still at the idea stage. My hot take: With contagion contained, the VC community feels good about writing smallish checks for pre-revenue startups, but Series A and up? Más o menos.

As long as this downturn persists, this investor Q&A will be a monthly TC+ column. If you’re a recently laid-off worker considering striking out on your own, an H-1B employee who’s had it up to here, or just looking for tips and advice that can help you connect with early-stage investors, please read and share.

Thanks very much to all of the investors who took the time to answer these questions in such detail! If you’re an early-stage investor who wants to be included in future columns, email guestcolumns@techcrunch.com with “How to pitch me” in the subject line.

Here’s who participated:

• Brian Backeen, general partner, Lightship Capital
• Masha Bucher, founder and general partner, Day One Ventures
• Rebecca Liu-Doyle, managing director, Insight
• Clelia Warburg Peters, managing partner, Era Ventures
• Nick Adams, managing partner and co-founder, Differential Ventures
• Lisa Lambert, founder and president, National Grid Partners
• Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and general partner, Hustle Fund

Brian Backeen

What kind of investment opportunities are you looking for in March 2023?

Like many investors, we are bullish on AI. We made two AI-related investments in April and continue to look for opportunities in that space.

How do you prefer to be approached by a founder with their initial pitch: a cold email, a warm intro or another method?

We have an online portal at lightship.capital that founders can use to apply for investment. We do that to prevent an issue with VC investors called “network bias.” Founders should apply on our portal, and follow on Twitter.

What’s one traditional fundraising tactic that founders should remove from their toolkit — something that no longer works, but is still a common practice?

Asking for warm intros and trying to “build a relationship” with investors. Spend your time building a great business and you will gain investment. I don’t need new friends.

Tell us about the best pitch you’ve received recently. When during their presentation did you realize you were going to invest?

I was pitched by a firm called MuseTax recently. Excellent founders, subject matter experts; the real deal. They made me want to invest in the first 10 minutes. They are in diligence now.

Can you share one piece of advice that can help a first-time founder stand out?

Don’t focus on investment; focus on design. Don’t let your engineers build you an ugly product with a great password reset function but limited user value.

Don’t let the engineers tell you it’s not ready; it is. Push it out and learn.

Design it well and users or investors will follow. Engineer the first version well and you will end up with lots of engineering bills and no progress.

What are you reading/watching/listening to right now?

I keep rewatching season 1 of “Billions.” You know, before it got weird . Great show.

Masha Bucher

What kind of investment opportunities are you looking for in March 2023?

During a healthy fundraising environment, the founders that do the best often lean into their storytelling prowess and can convince investors with their charisma. They’re the ones who are naturally good speakers and are articulate with their vision.

There’s a second type of founder with a different background. They’re often heads-down, scrappy and resource-oriented. I call them “survivors.” Survivors are often immigrant founders, people of color, women or others from underrepresented backgrounds.

I believe the survivors are the types of founders to back during a downturn. They’ve been pushed to be scrappy and survive their whole lives; they’re especially equipped to handle what the current times demand of them. They’re good at making something out of nothing and are extremely cost-efficient.

I’m looking for paths to monetization, business models and avenues to profitability. Investors are paying much more attention to numbers, business models and how well founders manage finances. Expect many more questions challenging the business model.

I’m looking at how much revenue comes from product quality versus marketing. Founders who generate virality based on the product’s quality show they can make money with little marketing spend.

We love companies with high EBITDA. We love companies like Quinn, which grew to millions in revenue in just a year from launch with viral, zero-cost marketing on TikTok.

How do you prefer to be approached by a founder with their initial pitch: a cold email, a warm intro or another method?

Cold email works great, but it’s surprising how few people can do it right. In a cold email, every single sentence should be convincing me to take a meeting. With every word and every sentence, you need to create the desire for an investor to meet you in person. You have to show a clear reason why they need to meet you now, not next month.

How to pitch me: 7 investors discuss what they’re looking for in March 2023 by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/how-to-pitch-me-7-investors-discuss-what-theyre-looking-for-in-march-2023/

Klaviyo, an e-commerce marketing automation platform, has laid off 140 of its staff across all teams, including engineering and design, TechCrunch has learned from a number of sources. 

Klaviyo’s director of public relations, Lacey Berrien, confirmed the workforce reduction over email, adding that their “focus is supporting the departing Klaviyos who made meaningful contributions to the company.” Using publicly available figures on Klaviyo’s staff size, the layoff has impacted roughly 10% of staff. TechCrunch obtained correspondence sent from leadership to impacted employees which stated, “after careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to reduce our overall workforce in an effort to reduce redundancy and recalibrate Klaviyo’s areas of investment for the future.”

Now, unfortunately, Klaviyo is joining the long list of tech companies that have had mass layoffs in 2023. In January, HubSpot, another Boston-based marketing giant, announced its plans to cut 7% of its workforce. 

TechCrunch extensively profiled the Boston-based business’ history of growth and goal to rebuild owned marketing outside of the pandemic. The business, at its core, helps other businesses better capture its customer’s cash with email triggers, product recommendations and predictive analytics. To date, it has landed more than 100,000 users, it claims, including the likes of Unilever and Living Proof. The heavily venture-backed business last received a $100 million strategic investment from Shopify, per SEC filings. Months later, the business made its first acquisition ever by scooping up Napkin.io, a tool that gives developers a more seamless way to deploy code from their browsers.

Today, though, the picture of clear growth is challenged, or at the very least, set in new context. It’s unclear if the company is going to instill a hiring freeze as well, but it still has 65 open job listings on its careers page.

If you have a juicy tip or lead about happenings in the venture world, you can reach Natasha Mascarenhas on Twitter @nmasc_ or on Signal at +1 925 271 0912. Anonymity requests will be respected. 

Klaviyo conducts company-wide layoffs by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/klaviyo-conducts-company-wide-layoffs/

Image Credits: Getty Images

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Hellooooo, and welcome to the Wednesday Crunch!

SVB’s new CEO Tim Mayopoulos has had a lot to say in the 24 hours since he joined the bank on Monday. In a private Zoom meeting run by SVB for a select number of LPs and investors, he asked clients to return deposits to the institution, Natasha M reports.

With much love from Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Mint-y acquisition: The big news for today is that T-Mobile is acquiring Mint Mobile’s parent company — you know, the company that Ryan Reynolds has a stake in — in a deal valued at $1.35 billion. Aisha notes that this “move indicates that T-Mobile is looking to boost its prepaid offerings.”
• I know you are, but what am I?: Well, if you ask OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, GPT-4 isn’t perfect, but neither are you, Kyle writes. Ouch.
• Talk about timing: On the back of OpenAI announcing its new GPT-4 model, Quora announces Poe, its own chatbot offering, which is launching subscriptions to let you chat with a GPT-4-powered bot, Ivan reports.

Startups and VC

There’s no shortage of startups attempting to put drones to work. There is, however, a long-standing question around the efficacy of such plans. Drones — especially the smaller variety — are impressive pieces of technology, but their functionality is relatively limited. A small quadcopter probably isn’t going to prune your trees or walk your dog anytime soon, Brian writes. One thing they can do exceptionally well, however, is imaging. Verity raises $32 million as Ikea stores deploy its inventory drones.

To celebrate Wednesday, here are some alluring alliterations:

• Ride-share roll-upRomain reports that BlaBlaCar is to acquire Klaxit, a ride-sharing service for daily commutes.
• Scam security show-off: Once scammed for ten grand, this VC is building a crypto security vault, reports Rita.
• Watching wildfire worriesBrian reports that Torch is building solar-powered outdoor sensors to spot wildfires early.
• Hiring healthcare helpersPaul reports that Medwing, a recruitment marketplace for Europe’s healthcare workforce, raises $47 million.
• Assisting AI archetypesKyle writes that OpenAI hopes to crowdsource AI model testing with Evals.

Zero-based budgeting: A proven framework for extending runway

It’s critical to extend runway in this environment, but pulling back too much in the wrong places can reduce momentum across your entire organization.

Instead of simply trimming a little off the top, more startups are turning to zero-based budgeting, an aggressive tactic where founders return to Square One “every budget period to verify all of the line items are relevant and cost-effective,” writes FP&A analyst Healy Jones.

“The best founders look for a framework to strategically cut burn while keeping their startup’s value drivers functioning.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

• You can’t stop the robots: AI’s ascendance seems unfazed by SVB mess by Alex.
• We need a minute: “Trust is a hard thing to earn”SVB’s closure could disproportionately affect Black founders, writes Dominic-Madori.
• From chaos, orderJacquelyn writes that chaos in U.S. banks could push the crypto industry toward decentralization.

TechCrunch+ 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.

Today’s Big Tech theme seems to be “ways to do something easier.” First up is GitHub, which created its own set of guidelines around setting up open source program offices. Paul writes that companies trying to stay on top of open source compliance, security, and so on, will soon find this is a challenge, hence the open source program office “emerging as a staple part of the modern corporation, formalizing what might previously have been a loose collective of employees spanning myriad departments and roles.”

Next we go over to Waze. If you have an electric vehicle, you are going to want to come closer. Ivan reports that Waze has a new feature that tells EV owners where compatible charging points are along their route.

And we have five more for you:

• Crackberry on the big screenMatt is bringing us all back to the late 1990s with a look at the trailer for the new “BlackBerry” movie.
• Sarcasm clouds ahead: If you like your weather with a dose of insults, Carrot Weather’s new chatbot with a ChatGPT update will deliver, Lauren reports.
• Signal lost: Carly writes that two weeks later, Dish customers are still looking for answers as the satellite company’s ransomware fallout continues.
• Buckle up: A European court delivered another blow to Meta, ruling that Facebook’s behavioral ads lacked legal basis. Natasha L has more.
• We don’t need no stinkin’ solar panels: Tesla’s new home battery now comes without the solar panels, Harri writes.

Daily Crunch: T-Mobile buys Mint Mobile’s parent company in a deal worth up to $1.35B by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/15/daily-crunch-t-mobile-buys-mint-mobiles-parent-company-in-a-deal-worth-up-to-1-35b/