Category: TECHNOLOGY
ADHD startups are exploding, and now there even a dedicated browser
Was it the pandemic? Did everyone follow too many ADHD TikTokers? Have smartphones fried our brains? Whatever the case, there is a boom in ADHD tech solutions, from online drug deliveries to web sites and apps.
There’s definitely something going on out there. There were 139.84 million and 366.33 million ADHD affected adults in 2020, globally. Adults with ADHD are said to lose an average of 22 days of productivity per year. And between 2003-2011 the US faced a 42% growth in childhood ADHD diagnosis. And the mental health space (of which ADHD is a part) took off a couple of years ago. Venture capitalists put $1.4 billion into the European mental health sector in 2021, according to Dealroom data, but investment shrunk to $354 million last year as VCs took flight in the downturn, more generally.
However, there is still plenty of activity. London-based HelloSelf matches patients with licensed therapists and covers a range of of mental health conditions, including ADHD. Out of New York, Inflow, an app which supposedly helps members better manage ADHD through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) based support, raised an $11M Series A round led by Octopus Ventures. Centered is a desktop app that provides an AI voice coaches to help ADHD sufferers stay focused, (with Pomodoro timers, calendaring, etc.) and also has “Buddy Sessions” between members and for productivity and ADHD coaches. Ukrainian-originated startup Numo is an an app for adults with ADHD that gamifies daily tasks and get support.
Healios raised a £7 million ($9.9M) Series A round to expand its platform across the UK.
Now there is a Sidekick, who’s pitch is that it’s a “productivity browser”. Today it’s launching a host of features geared to ADHD sufferers and the attention distracted more generally.
Sidekick was a 2020 Y Combinator cohort member , and in March 2021 they raised $2M in a round led by Kleiner Perkins.
The company claims users with ADHD noticed a “significant improvement” after using the browser. The Chromium-based browser was founded by Dmitry Pushkarev (a Stanford Ph.D. in Molecular Biology), ex-Amazon exec and ADHDer)
So how does it work?
To nullify distractions, the browser incorporates AdBlock 2.0; a Focus Mode Timer disables all sounds, badges, and notifications for a selected time or indefinitely; a Task Manager organizes your day; and there’s a built-in Pomodoro timer; it also claims to run 3x faster than Chrome, which, apparently, is important for ADHD sufferers. Suffice it to say, it has a number of other distraction-killing features, however, I’m not going to list them all here.
CEO & Founder Dmitry Pushkarev said, in a statement, “Modern browsers are not designed for work, but for consuming web pages. This gap really hurts hundreds of millions of users. We are convinced that lowering web distraction reduces anxiety and increases the quality of people’s work and the quality of their lives.”
He says the startup plans to make money via corporate subscribers, who will pay to get their ADHD-afflicted workers into more a more productive mode.
Unfortunately for Sidekick, it has plenty of competitors in the attention reducing browser space, including Arc, Brave and Vivaldi.
With all that said, Sidekick’s attention (geddit?) to ADHD may win it a valuable niche, especially given the apparent pandemic of ADHD sufferers.
ADHD startups are exploding, and now there even a dedicated browser by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch
Growfin’s AI-based cash collection SaaS expands further to US and Asia
Intercom uses Growfin to automate and track its collection activities, integrating with NetSuite, Zuora and Salesforce and giving real-time visibility to finance leaders, Gopalan explained. “We helped them reduce their cash collection cycle from 91 days to 59 days in a span of 5 months, improving collection efficiency by 35%,” he said.
Locus, a logistics tech startup that uses Growfin to resolve invoice disputes to collect payments faster, claims it’s improved the productivity of their teams by 60% in ten months, Gopalan said.
Founded in 2021 by Gopalan and Raja Jayaram, the co-founders told TechCrunch they held meetings with more than 200 finance leaders worldwide when the product was still being developed to get more insights into the problems they typically face. The resounding message was that finance teams were unsatisfied with legacy systems that were based around spreadsheets and the expensive prospect of simply hiring more people as a solution to the time-consuming workload.
“Managing receivables and collecting payments are often complex and compound even more as companies grow. Despite the growth of ERPs and CRMs such as Salesforce and Netsuite, I’ve understood that 90% of finance teams still manage their AR (account receivables) processes outside these tools, typically on spreadsheets or in-house databases,” said Gopalan. “This collaboration-first approach will offer better efficiencies and greater transparency and build trusted relationships between customers and businesses towards collecting B2B payments faster.”
It employs 40 people and plans to double its headcount this year in the U.S., where most of its clients are based, as well as in Asia.
Growfin’s competitors include HighRadius, Upflow, Tesorio, YayPay and Gaviti. ERP service providers are an indirect rival, Gopalan said.
Cash management — tracking who needs to pay an invoice and whether it’s been done — can make or break a business. Now, a startup building SaaS software to help finance departments manage this more intelligently is announcing some funding to expand after seeing strong demand.
Growfin, a Singapore- and San Francisco–based fintech startup that provides SaaS for finance departments to track and collect payments and to help manage the accounts receivable process, has raised a $7.5 million Series A. The company plans to use this funding to continue expanding in the U.S. and Asia, and to double down on building more AI-based technology to expand its platform. Next up: a forecasting tool that predicts trends “based on past payment behavior and current receivables data through Growfin.”
Singapore’s SWC Global led the funding round with participation from existing backers 3one4 Capital and angel investors. The startup touts that the latest funding comes on the back of 8x growth in customer numbers over the last 12 months, during which Growfin has helped clients collect more than $1 billion in account receivables (AR). Growfin has now raised $9 million in total, and it’s not disclosing its valuation.
Growfin is tapping into a ripe market, not least because of the current economic climate and the pressures that it is putting on businesses of all sizes.
A recent report from Gartner found that 78% of CFOs have invested in automation and cash flow visibility technology. But while they are increasingly willing to pay for tools to help them plan for the future, when it comes to current accounts, many still rely on spreadsheets, exposing a gulf between having visibility of a company’s current financial state and knowing how that links up with what it might look like in a week, month or year.
Growfin’s initial product was an AI-powered finance CRM, which finance, sales and customer success teams could use to connect in one place to handle customer relationships during payment and cash-collecting processes, a clever bridging product that speaks to how the pull of accounts receivable departments might sometimes do better if they could join forces and knowledge with those who manage the majority of the customer relationship prior to that point. (And indeed, a smoother experience could lead to more sales in the future.)
Instead of building an AR automation product, the company made a finance CRM that not only automates finance accounts receivable workflows but also provides the right collaboration capabilities and real-time visibility to sales, customer success and customers themselves in one place (where they all see the same information).
That first push into more finance visibility caught on. Growfin’s primary users currently scale B2B tech companies in SaaS, adtech, logistics tech, and edtech, and it now has 25 customers, including Intercom, Fourkites, Mindtickle, LeadSquared, and Quick Dry Restoration, co-founder and CEO of Growfin, Aravind Gopalan, told TechCrunch. It sells primarily to clients who are finance teams, although as you might guess, revenue-generating teams like sales and customer success are also users of its service. The startup says it is now at $400,000 in annual recurring revenue since its launch 12 months ago.
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Image Credits: Growfin founders (L to R) Aravind Gopalan and Raja Jayaraman
Intercom uses Growfin to automate and track its collection activities, integrating with NetSuite, Zuora and Salesforce and giving real-time visibility to finance leaders, Gopalan explained. “We helped them reduce their cash collection cycle from 91 days to 59 days in a span of 5 months, improving collection efficiency by 35%,” he said.
Locus, a logistics tech startup that uses Growfin to resolve invoice disputes to collect payments faster, claims it’s improved the productivity of their teams by 60% in ten months, Gopalan said.
Founded in 2021 by Gopalan and Raja Jayaram, the co-founders told TechCrunch they held meetings with more than 200 finance leaders worldwide when the product was still being developed to get more insights into the problems they typically face. The resounding message was that finance teams were unsatisfied with legacy systems that were based around spreadsheets and the expensive prospect of simply hiring more people as a solution to the time-consuming workload.
“Managing receivables and collecting payments are often complex and compound even more as companies grow. Despite the growth of ERPs and CRMs such as Salesforce and Netsuite, I’ve understood that 90% of finance teams still manage their AR (account receivables) processes outside these tools, typically on spreadsheets or in-house databases,” said Gopalan. “This collaboration-first approach will offer better efficiencies and greater transparency and build trusted relationships between customers and businesses towards collecting B2B payments faster.”
It employs 40 people and plans to double its headcount this year in the U.S., where most of its clients are based, as well as in Asia.
Growfin’s competitors include HighRadius, Upflow, Tesorio, YayPay and Gaviti. ERP service providers are an indirect rival, Gopalan said.
“Growfin’s AI-powered system is poised to disrupt how businesses collect their invoice payments by sitting on top of ERP systems like Netsuite and Microsoft dynamics that dominate the industry,” says Tuck Lye Koh, founding partner of SWC Global. “Globally, they have over 100,000 customers, and now finance teams beholden to these systems will be able to plug in Growfin to get a deeper and wider eye into their financial well-being with real-time cash-flow efficiency and forecasting.”
Growfin’s AI-based cash collection SaaS expands further to US and Asia by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/growfin-for-cfos-and-finance-teams-to-the-cash-collection-cycle/
Atlassian cuts 5% of its workforce
Atlassian, the company behind tools like Jira, Confluence and Trello, today announced that, after a reorg a month ago, it is now laying off about 500 employees. That’s about 5% of its total workforce.
Atlassian co-founders and co-CEOs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar note in today’s announcement that this move shouldn’t be seen as a reflection of the company’s financial performance (though it’s worth noting that despite increasing its overall revenue in recent years, it continues to report net losses in its quarterly earnings releases). Instead, the co-founders are positioning this move as a “rebalancing” that will help the company prioritize the areas where it is growing.
“We’ve made hard calls to reduce our investment in specific areas, in order to reinvest in others,” to co-founders write. “This is different to a financially-driven reduction, where you would look to make ‘broad-based cuts’ – for example, a 10% cut equally distributed across every org within the company. This is not what is happening here.”
Specifically, Atlassian will cut employees in areas like talent acquisition, program management and what it calls “research and insights.”
In the terse language of the company’s SEC filing, the idea here is to “better position it to execute against its largest growth opportunities.” According to the co-founders, these opportunities are cloud migrations, IT service management (ITSM) and “serving our enterprise customers in the cloud.” It’s no secret that Atlassian’s focus in recent years has been on its cloud services and it looks like it’s doubling down on that, as well as products like Jira Service Management, the ITSM solution it
In what is a bit of an unusual move, laid-off employees will keep access to the company’s communications tools for the rest of this week — though users with access to sensitive data will get locked out of their laptops (though they will still be able to access tools like Confluence, Slack, Zoom and Gmail on other previously enrolled devices).
Atlassian cuts 5% of its workforce by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/atlassian-cuts-5-of-its-workforce/
Meet UniUni, Shein’s last-mile solution delivered by gig drivers
When we talk about e-commerce logistics, we think of an industry controlled by entrenched players like Amazon, FedEx and national postal systems. At the start of the pandemic in 2019, a brave startup from Vancouver, British Columbia, decided to take on the incumbents with a new model — last-mile delivery using an Uber-esque network.
During the pandemic, the company, UniUni, managed to grow its business into the biggest last-mile delivery provider for fast-fashion juggernaut Shein across North America. Its rapid growth drew investors’ attention, and today, UniUni announced the closing of CAD$20 million ($15 million) for the first tranche of its Series B financing.
UniUni expects to raise three more tranches for its Series B round by the end of 2023, the firm’s founder and CEO Peter Lu tells TechCrunch in an interview. Lu declines to disclose the target amount for the entire round but says it will be a “substantial” amount. While the founder keeps a tight lip on the firm’s valuation, he says the goal is to hit the $1 billion unicorn status by 2025.
UniUni’s early-day momentum was a result of luck and grit. When COVID-19 hit and kept hundreds of millions of people at home, e-commerce sales soared, straining delivery networks around the world. At the time, UniUni was an underdog in the competitive restaurant delivery race. A logistics firm that shipped e-commerce products from China to Canada happened upon one of its contract vehicles in Vancouver and asked if the company wanted to help drop off a few parcels in the neighborhood. UniUni said yes, and before long, the one-off project grew into a long-term partnership.
From there, UniUni stumbled upon a new way of powering last-mile delivery. Traditionally, online retailers lean on courier express services and postal networks to transport goods from warehouses to customers’ doorsteps. The issue with the model, argues Lu, is that neither system is designed for the speed or volume of e-commerce. Consumers either have to wait two weeks or pay a steep price for faster delivery.
UniUni is offering what it claims to be faster, cheaper last-mile solutions through its pool of gig drivers, or in Lu’s words, “crowdsourced drivers.” When its first client approached it off the street of Vancouver, UniUni already had an existing network of contract drivers, so it didn’t take long for it to figure out the model had sustainable unit economics. Naturally, the startup pivoted from delivering meals to e-commerce purchases.
“The last-mile delivery market has imperfect competition, meaning there are barriers to entry,” says Lu, who studied computer science at Shanghai Jiaotong University and moved to Canada two decades ago. “We thought there were still opportunities in this space.”
Image Credits: UniUni
Today, UniUni boasts more than 6,000 drivers across Canada and a few hundred in the U.S., where it recently started operating. It has an ambitious goal to surpass 200,000 packages per day and generate $100 million in revenue in 2023. By the end of this year, the company aims to be profitable in Canada.
The founder is confident about his projections, as he sees clear advantages in UniUni. For one, using flexible workers rather than full-time staff greatly reduces labor costs. Compared to traditional courier services, the startup has a much denser network of distribution facilities, which helps shorten its delivery time. And because it’s platform-agnostic, UniUni can group orders from various clients — be it Amazon, Shein or the up-and-coming app Temu — to work out the most efficient delivery route and schedule for drivers.
The setup, Lu says, means UniUni is able to deliver as fast as DHL but for less than half its price. The company helped Shein shorten its delivery time from 10 to 14 days to just four to five days, the founder claims.
Lastly, the startup’s network in China is indispensable to its early-day development. In the e-commerce era, made-in-China goods continue to fill Western households, thanks to the rise of Chinese e-commerce sites serving overseas users and a streamlined cross-border logistics network that Chinese companies set up over the past decade. UniUni is working closely with some of the largest cross-border logistics solution providers, such as Yanwen Express and Zongteng Group, which both participated in the startup’s CAD$10 million ($7 million) Series A funding round.
For its Series B, UniUni focused on seeking financial rather than strategic investors. The lineup included GrubMarket investor Celtic House Venture Partners, BRV Aster, Freshwave Capital, Hat Trick Ventures and Vision Plus Capital. Proceeds from this new round will go toward its expansion to major U.S. cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Dallas and Miami. The company has a team of 250 employees, with a dozen of them in the U.S.
One must wonder how UniUni keeps its costs low in a state like California, where gig workers’ rights are under constant legislative debate. Lu stresses that the company fully complies with regulations in the areas where it operates, and while he admits the firm’s costs will indeed increase if drivers gain full employment status, he’s not too worried about the impact of the potential regulation.
“We know exactly how many parcels we are delivering per city,” he says. “It’s just a matter of when we break even. It might be three months before; now it will just have to be four months.”
The article was updated on March 6, 2023 to correct the funding and valuation figures.
Meet UniUni, Shein’s last-mile solution delivered by gig drivers by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/meet-uniuni-sheins-last-mile-solution-delivered-by-gig-drivers/
Upload Ventures, a SoftBank LatAm spinout, seeks to raise a $250M fund
Less than one year after Upload Ventures spun out of SoftBank’s investment arm, the Latin American–focused investment arm is seeking to raise a $250 million fund, filings show. TechCrunch reached out to Upload Ventures but did not hear back at time of publication.
Reports show that the Mexico- and Brazil-focused firm has already landed an anchor investor: TIM, a Brazilian telecommunications business. The entity has committed to investing $50 million in the growth-stage focused fund over the next two years. This comes after the firm invested through its starter capital of $75 million, per Valor Econômico, and announced its goal of raising $130 million by August 2022. Anchor aside, Upload Ventures still has a long way to go.
Upload Ventures was co-founded by Rodrigo Baer and Marco Camhaji, who, according to a spokesperson for Upload Ventures, left SoftBank to focus on early-stage investments. The duo has invested in 17 companies, only two of which are not in the early-stage space. That said, filings show that the new fund is dedicated to late-stage investments, a focus during the downturn that will be executed by partners Mario Moraes and Carlos Simonsen. Long story short? Upload started with a focus on early-stage investments, and now it’s adding in growth stage as an area of coverage.
The expanded investment capabilities are needed for the region. Data published in late 2022 shows that late-stage funding in Latin America — the area where Upload seeks to invest — has been largely impacted during the downturn. Volumes declined 93% in the third quarter of 2022 from a year earlier, the report asserts. And of the 290 investors focused on late-stage rounds in 2021, only three were active in the third quarter of 2022. The lack of available growth capital may be an opportunity for Upload Ventures, if it can convince more local and international LPs on its vision.
Baer and Camhaji and new venture partner Norberto Giangrande teamed up to create Upload. The team is now 13 people.
For those who recall, SoftBank had another set of departures from its LatAm team. Managing investment partners Paulo Passoni and Shu Nyatta also left SoftBank’s Latin America practice to start their own firm, dubbed Bicycle Capital. The firm is backing growth-stage companies.
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.
Upload Ventures, a SoftBank LatAm spinout, seeks to raise a $250M fund by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch
Daily Crunch: Game developer bans 6,700 cheaters and publishes their usernames
Remote teams have a lot of flexibility when it comes to when and how they work, but adding some structure can enhance productivity and transparency without sacrificing freedom.
“Ultimately, asynchronous work only serves you when you compartmentalize phases of work with your team,” says Stefanie Palomino, chief product officer and general manager at ROOM 3D.
This post offers several tips that can help managers deploy active listening techniques that foster engagement, improve communication, and ideally, reduce the number of meetings that take place.
Says Palomino: “The routines people create are negotiated over time, but it’s something we’ve come to take for granted.”
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here.
We hope you’re meeting the week with open arms, crunchers, and that the week loves you right back. Unrequited love from abstract conceptual measurements of time are so heartbreaking.
Let’s kick this off by reminding you there’s only 5 days left to save $1,000 on Disrupt passes! — Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Top 3
- No one likes a cheater: Definitely not Russian game developer Battlestate Games, which banned and doxed 6,700 cheaters from its Escape from Tarkov game. Lorenzo has more.
- You get a loan and you get a loan!Ingrid writes that U.K.-based open banking loans platform Abound secured $601 million in new funding to “supercharge” its consumer lending business that makes loans between £1,000 and £10,000 with some generous repayment options of up to five years.
- Microsoft’s next stop: Microsoft’s automation journey has the software giant making a pit stop in Business App Suite City to drop off AI-powered Copilot capabilities, Kyle reports.
Startups and VC
Also today, we are releasing the final episode of our Inside Startup Battlefield podcast miniseries, which is all about TechCrunch’s pitch competition. It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for — the winner is announced!
And we have five more for you:
- Board already: Vinod Khosla’s advice for top VCs is to not sit on their founders’ boards, Natasha M reports.
- Moar layoffsTage reports that Nigerian B2B e-commerce startup Alerzo cuts 15% of full-time staff in second round of layoffs.
- A summary of automotiveKirsten’s newsletter is always worth reading, but this week was particularly jam-packed with juicy info. “Another AV company hits the skids, Scout Motors picks a home and Tesla’s tepid investor day” gives you a taster — go read the full thing.
- Ruh-rohTage reports that alleged security breach leaves millions of dollars missing from Flutterwave accounts.
- Gotta stay focused: At TC+, Haje is eager to remind you that if you have more than one business model, you don’t really have a business model.
Creating remote work rituals that stick
Image Credits: peepo (opens in a new window) / Getty Images (Image has been modified)
Remote teams have a lot of flexibility when it comes to when and how they work, but adding some structure can enhance productivity and transparency without sacrificing freedom.
“Ultimately, asynchronous work only serves you when you compartmentalize phases of work with your team,” says Stefanie Palomino, chief product officer and general manager at ROOM 3D.
This post offers several tips that can help managers deploy active listening techniques that foster engagement, improve communication, and ideally, reduce the number of meetings that take place.
Says Palomino: “The routines people create are negotiated over time, but it’s something we’ve come to take for granted.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
- The heat is on, but the pressure is off: Valuation pressure on software startups is easing, reports Alex.
- The risk of brandingNatasha M digs into the oh-so-biased branding risk in venture capital.
- The highs and the lows: Enterprise SaaS companies continue to navigate a complex economic environment, report Ron and Alex.
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.
Natasha L has the latest on what’s up with WhatsApp. The Meta-owned messaging platform agrees to clean up its user messaging in the European Union so that its terms of service on users is more transparent.
European and U.S. police organizations arrest suspected members of the DoppelPaymer ransomware gang. Carly writes that this particular gang targeted at least 601 companies worldwide, with one of its most serious attacks targeting the University Hospital in Düsseldorf that resulted in the death of a patient.
More for your Monday:
- Slashing prices again: If you have your eye on a Tesla, do we have a deal for you — Tesla lowered prices for Model S and Model X in the U.S., Rebecca writes.
- More layoffs: This time the bad news is over at satellite radio company SiriusXM, which is laying off 8% of its workforce, or 475 people, Sarah reports.
- Let’s make a deal: Qualtrics reported it has a $12 billion offer on the table to go private. Ron has more.
- Twitter broke down: Twitter images and links broke today, Aisha writes. Also, Ivan reports on Elon Musk’s latest musing that Twitter may roll out encrypted DMs this month.
- The rhythm is gonna get you: SoundCloud is testing a TikTok-like feed for music discovery, Ivan writes.
Daily Crunch: Game developer bans 6,700 cheaters and publishes their usernames by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch
Max Q: About that ‘for sale’ sign on a ULA Atlas V
Hello and welcome back to Max Q!
In this issue:
- The Chinese subsidiaries of U.S. VC firms investing in space tech
- ispace eyes April lunar landing
- News from Rocket Lab, United Launch Alliance and more
As tensions build, Silicon Valley’s Chinese affiliates invest in sensitive space tech
Over at TC+, I have a new story about some outbound U.S. space investing. According to data reviewed by TechCrunch, Chinese subsidiaries of American venture capital firms are investing money from U.S.-based funds into Chinese space startups, even as the Pentagon warns of Beijing’s growing activity in the space arena.
The data, collected by PitchBook, includes information on past limited partners and investments of the Chinese units of Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Space industry investments represent a very small but notable portion of these firms’ portfolios, with Sequoia Capital China and Lightspeed China investing in two companies each and Matrix China investing in eight. Startups that have landed funding include companies working on launch, satellite manufacturing and Earth observation.
This is particularly interesting given that the White House is mulling a new order that would require firms to increase transparency and reporting around outbound investment in sensitive technologies, like semiconductors, to countries like China. One investor, who asked to remain anonymous, citing co-investments with Sequoia Capital, told TechCrunch that the stakes are high.
“The dividing line between what is an aerospace technology and what is a defense technology is even more blurry than in the case of semiconductors, which we need to drive our cars and use our phones,” the investor said.
BEIJING, CHINA – OCTOBER 25: Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at the podium during the unveiling of the Communist Party’s new Politburo Standing Committee at the Great Hall of the People on October 25, 2017 in Beijing, China. China’s ruling Communist Party today revealed the new Politburo Standing Committee after its 19th congress. (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Eyeing a new lunar economy, ispace plans to land on the moon at the end of April
Tokyo-based ispace said its Hakuto-R lunar lander is on track to reach the moon at the end of April.
Ispace launched the lander on board a Falcon 9 in December; since then, the spacecraft has traveled around 1,376 million kilometers, the farthest a privately funded, commercial operating spacecraft has ever journeyed into deep space. The company anticipates completing all deep space orbital maneuvers by mid-March, followed by insertion into lunar orbit in late-March.
The company is racing to be the first fully private entity to land on the moon. Ispace is betting big that resource extraction and payload delivery will be major revenue-drivers as access to the moon becomes further unlocked through programs like NASA’s Artemis initiative.
Image Credits: ispace (opens in a new window)
More news from TC and beyond
- Astra and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration concluded their investigation into the TROPICS 1 launch mishap, saying that it was caused by a thermal runaway event in the upper-stage engine. Astra said its next-gen Rocket 4 incorporates lessons learned from the mission. (Astra)
- China unveiled the lunar lander it wants to use to put taikonauts on the moon around 2030. (SpaceNews)
- NASA named Nicola Fox as its new associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate. She succeeds Thomas Zurbuchen. (NASA)
- Rocket Lab doubled its backlog to $503.6 million by the end of 2022 and unveiled a new, four-launch deal with synthetic aperture radar imagery provider Capella Space. Company CFO Adam Spice also said they were still on track to launch Neutron for the first time at the end of 2024. Interestingly, they’re also rethinking the helicopter catch method for reusing rocket boosters. (Rocket Lab/SpaceNews)
- SpaceX launched the first batch of next-gen Starlink satellites, a smaller version of the ones that will eventually fly on Starship. I connect the dots between the new argon Hall thrusters on the satellites and SpaceX’s acquisition of Swarm Technologies back in 2021. (TechCrunch)
- United Launch Alliance is up for sale, and a deal could close before the end of this year, Ars’ Eric Berger reports. (Ars Technica)
- Virgin Galactic aims to resume spaceflights in the second quarter of this year, though it still has some tests to conduct on its spacecraft and aircraft first. (CNBC)
Max Q is brought to you by me, Aria Alamalhodaei. If you enjoy reading Max Q, consider forwarding it to a friend.
Max Q: About that ‘for sale’ sign on a ULA Atlas V by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/max-q-about-that-for-sale-sign-on-a-ula-atlas-v/
Fire TV launches a new dedicated Oscars hub that lets users predict the winners
Amazon announced today the launch of a dedicated Oscars hub on Fire TV where movie buffs can get ready for the 2023 Academy Awards ceremony, including watching all the nominated movies and casting their votes for Oscar winners via the on-screen interactive voting experience, “Oscars predictions.”
The new Oscars hub will live on the Fire TV interface starting today, March 6, until March 20.
The most interesting feature is the voting experience, which will be available on March 7. It allows users to select their Oscar winner predictions in the seven major categories, including “Best Actor in a Leading Role,” “Best Actress in a Leading Role,” “Best Adapted Screenplay” and “Best Director,” among others.
Users can access the feature by speaking into their voice remote, “Alexa, vote for the Oscars.”
After the Oscars ceremony is over and the winners have been determined, Fire TV users will receive an accuracy score, which they can then brag about to their friends. The day of the ceremony, March 12, is the last day that users can put in their votes.
The voting feature will likely be fun for viewers to play around with. There’s even an option to share predictions on social media platforms or via text message. The company says this is the first time it’s launching an interactive experience that lets viewers fill out an Oscars ballot and share it on social.
In addition to the “Oscars predictions” experience, Fire TV is also giving viewers a single place to find all the 2023 Oscar-nominated films and where they are streaming. So, whether users want to watch “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which is streaming on Netflix, or “Top Gun: Maverick” on Paramount+, they’ll be able to select the streaming app that has their desired movie.
Also, Fire TV users get access to a collection of Oscar-nominated movies throughout history, including the ones from last year. Users can ask Alexa, “Take me to Fire TV’s Oscars Collection.”
Fire TV is also giving viewers the ability to watch free red carpet coverage, interviews and post-show analysis. And, of course, the dedicated hub will feature the live TV streaming services that are broadcasting the event, which includes Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, FuboTV and more.
The 2023 Academy Awards will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and be broadcast on ABC on March 12 at 8 p.m. ET.
Amazon received one Oscar nomination for its international film “Argentina, 1985.” The drama film “Women Talking” was also nominated, which was produced by the Amazon-owned studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
Fire TV launches a new dedicated Oscars hub that lets users predict the winners by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/amazon-fire-tv-dedicated-oscars-hub/
Catch founder says health benefits startup is shutting down
Catch co-founder Kristen Anderson tweeted Monday that the health and retirement benefits company she and co-founder Andrew Ambrosino started six years ago is shuttering.
Anderson and Ambrosino created Catch “with a crazy idea that our benefits shouldn’t be tied to traditional employment and a W2 form,” she explained in a Twitter thread and post on the company’s website.
“We were audacious enough to believe a trillion-dollar ecosystem built by corporations, the government, and our financial institutions over the last 75 years could be toppled by a startup turning everything on its head,” Anderson wrote. “Today? We still believe that. We just have to admit that we aren’t the ones to do it right now. We have made the difficult decision to shut Catch down.”
In the tweet, Anderson individually addressed Catch’s customers, investors, team, friends and those who she labeled “less-than-friends” about their support as Catch scaled its app to provide payroll and benefits for people who are self-employed.
Anderson previously spoke with me in 2021 when Catch raised $12 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Crosslink and included existing — and might I add high-profile — investors, including Khosla Ventures, NYCA Partners, Kindred Ventures and Urban Innovation Fund. In total, the company raised $18.1 million in venture-backed funding since it was started in 2019.
While it took the Catch team of 15 (in 2021) nearly two years to get approvals to sell its platform in 38 states on the federal marketplace, the company ultimately had insurance licenses with 47 states and the District of Columbia, according to its website.
Upon getting those insurance approvals, Catch became one of only eight companies at the time to reach that milestone, additionally becoming one of three approved to sell benefits to consumers, Anderson said.
Anderson, whose Twitter profile now reads “failed fintech founder,” received an outpouring of support to her tweet. Anderson didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Anderson doesn’t specifically mention why the company decided to shutter in the tweet, but in an email sent to Catch users, and obtained by TechCrunch, Anderson and Ambrosino write, “unfortunately, we aren’t able to continue operating in the current market…” and that all Catch accounts would be closed on April 6.
While talking about the Series A in the 2021, Anderson mentioned eventually going after a Series B round. However, in the last year, the fundraising environment has became stringent, especially for insurtech companies. As several of my colleagues have noted in recent stories, investment into the insurtech sector fell in the fourth quarter of 2022 to its “lowest level since Q1 2020,” while insurtech led in M&A exits in 2021.
“Our only hope at building a strong and successful middle class is to make it easy for a new type of worker to build assets and protect their families,” Anderson wrote in her tweet. “There are more iterations of these ideas to come, and we hope that our work and learnings have moved them forward.”
Catch founder says health benefits startup is shutting down by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/catch-insurtech-shutting-down/
Arbitrum co-founders see opportunity for continued layer-2 growth through DeFi, gaming
As we segue into March, the Ethereum layer-2 space is continuing to see strong demand: One of its largest scaling solutions, Arbitrum, is seeing renewed exponential growth through subsectors in the ecosystem.
While base blockchains (layer ones, or L1s in crypto-speak) remain the bedrock of the web3 landscape, technology built on top (layer two chains, or L2s) are exploding. Arbitrum recently surpassed the Ethereum chain that it is built on in terms of total transactions processed.
Arbitrum is an L2 Ethereum-focused scaling solution that aims to act like Ethereum but with transactions that cost way less and processing that’s way faster. It makes up about 54% of the market share on Ethereum and has about $3.38 billion total value locked, according to L2Beat data. The TVL, which is tracked through the amount of tokens locked in all escrow contracts for an L2, is near its highest point since May 2022, the data shows.
L2 scaling solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism, Immutable X, StarkWare and others are built on top of layer-1 blockchains like Ethereum. But L2s function in a faster, cheaper way and reduce the load on L1s by bundling up transactions and only recording final results on the main blockchain. That way it doesn’t clog up the network.
Arbitrum co-founders see opportunity for continued layer-2 growth through DeFi, gaming by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/06/arbitrum-ethereum-layer-2-growth/