Category: TECHNOLOGY
A touch-up for Glambook’s bank balance, as it aims to be Airbnb for beauty professionals
In the world of beauty, independent professionals often end up renting a chair in a salon. Glambook reckons that market is ripe for some tech-forward disruption, not dissimilar from renting a chair in someone’s car (Uber) a desk in someone’s office (WeWork), or a room with a view in someone’s house (Airbnb). The company raised $2.5 million at a $12 million valuation.
The new investment will be used to grow the company’s existing customer base and support the nascent infrastructure. The company is opening beauty co-working spaces across London for starters, and is eyeing international expansion. In addition to its own real estate, the company is already hosting 20,000 freelance professionals across 50 European cities, for at-home, at-office, or in-salon appointments.
“A new generation of consumers view beauty brands as entities they can access through a variety of points of intersection, including physical and digital. They expect the same quality of service in-store, on the website, and on social media, so Glambook becomes a bridge between beauty makers and customers,” says Alex Tomchenko, CEO of Glambook.
Glambook is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
How a Romanian MedTech startup helped US doctors treat refugee Ukrainian cancer patients
An innovative new medical startup in Romania helped doctors from three countries collaborate to treat Ukrainian cancer patients made refugees after Russia’s brutal invasion.
The “Tumor Board” project was initiated by doctors from the US, Romania and Moldova to provide life saving treatments for displaced Ukrainians with cancer.
A collaboration of Heal 21 Association and Blue Heron Foundation, the Board used a platform provided by Romanian startup Medicai to connect doctors, share medical files, and provide a platform to discuss treatment plans, as well as allow the patients to track their own progress.
Starting in April, imaging of the cancer patients from Ukraine was uploaded (those who had it) and the new imaging from Moldava were translated from Ukrainian to Romanian/English, and reports were prepared for each patient.
Medicai, which has raised €1.2M in venture funding to date, says its web based HIPAA-compliant platform hopes to become a sort of “Miro for health”, allowing healthcare professionals to collaborate over patient documents and records.
The problem Medicai is solving sounds familiar. For example, to this day, patients go into a $1 million MRI machine and – generally speaking – walk out with a CD disk with an image of their knee or some other part of their body. It’s just one example of how data can be siloed and how patients are usually locked into large, centralized systems. This means medical professionals can’t easily collaborate with specialists outside of their hospitals.
Established corporates selling these centralized systems include BoxDICOM, Ambra Health and amongst the startups there is EnvoyAI and Collective Minds Radiology (raised $6.7M), among others.
Medicai founder Mircea Popa’s journey in healthcare started in 2011 when, with a friend of his, he co-founded a company that is now called SkinVision, a skin cancer screening app that detects melanoma (skin cancer) through ML algorithms applied on images taken with smartphones. SkinVision reached 1.2 million downloads and raised a total of $15 million in total. Medicai Co-founder Alexandru Artimon (CTO) previously co-founded software company Atta Systems.
Popa told me via email: “One lesson we’ve learned lately about healthcare is that we desperately need flexibility. With the Tumor Board project we’ve shown that Medicai can set up infrastructure in a matter of days to provide access to expertise across 2 continents: US & Canada to Romania and Moldavia – and this was done in less than ideal conditions.”
“Through the Tumor Board project we were able to touch the lives of oncological patients that would have had no other option in seeking treatment and we’re really proud to be a part of that,” he added.
So far Medicai says it has reached 29 paying clinics/hospitals, with 2,434 doctors accounts and 1400 patients accounts. It’s also claimed a strategic partnership with Microsoft and pharmaceutical companies.
Investors to date include D Moonshots, Cleverage Venture Capital, Roca X and Gapminder VC.
Meanwhile the Tumor Board project continues. If there are the predicted four million Ukrainian refugees arriving in the coming months, there could be between 13,000 and 16,000 new patients with cancer per …read more
Salesforce shutters Hong Kong office, leans on Alibaba in China
Salesforce is repositioning itself in China as it looks to expand the reach of its customer relationship management software in the country.
The company is “accelerating” its strategic partnership with Alibaba, a Salesforce spokesperson told TechCrunch. In 2019, Alibaba became the exclusive provider of the American giant’s software across Greater China.
As a result of its tightened partnership with Alibaba, Salesforce is “optimizing our business structure to better serve the Greater China Region” and “opening new roles while eliminating some others,” the spokesperson said.
The company’s career page shows it’s currently hiring a product management director and a senior software engineer in the southern Chinese city Guangzhou, where it placed its tech team.
It’s unclear what positions Salesforce is cutting in China, but the spokesperson confirmed that the firm is closing its office space in Hong Kong, which has historically been a springboard for multinationals to enter China. Many roles at Salesforce’s Hong Kong office are in sales and account management, LinkedIn profiles show.
It’s also unclear how exactly its relationship with Alibaba is evolving. Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Salesforce’s interest in China lies in serving international businesses localizing in China, but it can’t do it alone due to the country’s intricate regulatory restrictions.
As China introduced new rules to control data handling across borders over the past few years, international tech giants have scaled back their presence in China or exited the market completelyLinkedIn, Yahoo, and Airbnb, to name a few.
Last year, Salesforce and Alibaba launched a joint product to help brands scale up their social commerce presence in China. The use of social networks such as WeChat to drive e-commerce sales, dubbed social commerce, has become a norm in China.
“Salesforce Social Commerce is intended to be built and hosted in China on Alibaba Cloud, one of the world’s top three cloud providers and the largest in APAC, to help support the level of scalability needed for China’s ever-growing commerce ecosystem and to help customers address local data residency regulations and compliance concerns,” Salesforce said at the time.
Salesforce could also potentially woo China’s e-commerce exporters who are fleeing centralized marketplaces like Amazon for self-hosted stores. But it has not shown visible effort to attract this crowd, while its competitor Oracle offers a one-stop shop for export-led sellers to handle data analytics, digital payments, and more. That said, Shopify is an affordable go-to solution for most sellers seeking independence from Amazon.
A report by Chinese business publication Ebrun reported on Wednesday that Salesforce has “disbanded” its China unit, which oversees the firm’s business in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Alibaba will be taking over the firm’s sales in mainland China and Hong Kong, while Taiwan will fall under the management of its Singapore office, the report said.
When asked to verify these claims, Salesforce’s spokesperson pointed to the statement provided to …read more
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/03/salesforce-china-alibaba-cloud/
Human cyborgs, passion economy and more — check out these Disrupt roundtable winners
Roundtable discussions are a huge and popular part of TechCrunch Disrupt, and this year, we asked you to vote for the topics you want to learn about most. We’ve already announced the first and the second groups of winners from our Audience Choice vote-a-thon, and we’re back with a third wave of exciting topics.
If you’re not familiar with them, roundtables are 30-minute, expert-led discussions designed for up to 20 attendees who share an interest in a particular subject. The format allows for deeper conversation, questions and answers and time for attendees to connect and explore collaborative opportunities.
Of course, if you want to participate in any of these awesome discussions, you’ll need a pass. Hot tip: You can save more than $1,000 — if you buy your pass to Disrupt before prices go up on Friday, August 5 at 11:59 pm PT.
These five roundtables represent a diverse range of topics, including why having genuine passion for your industry gives you a competitive edge, how to use flat wins to overcome obstacles, how to scale products that have never existed, how to price for competitive advantage and the challenge of raising up-front capital to build as-yet proven technology.
Love What You Do: Lessons from the passion economy
Speaker: Robin Åström, the co-founder and CEO at Wehype
In this roundtable session, Robin Åström, co-founder and CEO of Wehype, an influencer marketing platform and agency, will lead a discussion on how the passion economy has democratized the ability to make money from creativity — and at scale. He’ll also talk about why it’s important that startup founders operate within industries they are genuinely, deeply passionate about.
Robin will draw on his experience of turning his gaming obsession into a competitive edge. He identified and filled a gap in the gaming influencer market with co-founders he met playing Counter-Strike as a teenager.
Their love of gaming gave them the extra motivation to overcome challenges, allowing them to build Wehype into a rapidly growing and profitable business working with some of the world’s biggest brands, including EA, Microsoft and Ubisoft.
The value of flat wins
Speaker: Alex Hersham, the co-founder and CEO at Zencargo
Founding a business can be one of the most rewarding and gratifying things a person does, but there will always be difficult challenges to overcome. By adopting the concept of flat wins — celebrating when you find a solution and returning to where you started after a period of difficulty — within your operations, you can stay on track and push through the obstacles you face.
In this roundtable session, Zencargo’s Alex Hersham will lead a discussion about how flat wins have shaped his mentality and created resilience in his mindset as a founder. Hersham’s touch points will include:
- Defining flat wins and examining the psychology behind them
- Examples of how flat wins shaped both his career and the success of his company
- How flat wins can create resilience not just in founders, but across entire …read more
Uber turns the corner, generates massive pile of free cash flow in Q2
The question of whether Uber would be able to self-support was at least partially answered Tuesday with the company’s second quarter earnings report.
In its Q2 digest, the American ride-hailing and food delivery giant reported positive free cash flow, indicating that it can now self-fund, putting to rest — at least in today’s market — lingering concerns that it would one day run out of cash.
The former unicorn and present-day public company traded sharply higher in pre-market trading after reporting its second-quarter financial performance. Shares are now up 14.4% as of 10:30 a.m. EDT.
That Uber was able to generate free cash flow in the second quarter should not be entirely surprising; the company’s first quarter numbers included positive operating cash flow and sharply less negative free cash flow. Operating cash flow indicates how much a business’s operations consumed, or generated cash, while free cash flow is the same metric, less capital expenses.
Free cash flow is not profitability in traditional terms, as other expenses, including the non-cash cost of share-based employee compensation and changes in the value of equity investments, come into play.
Uber was unprofitable in net income terms in the second quarter. Still, positive free cash flow and other signs of health were more than enough to put wind in Uber’s sails — gas in its tank? electrons in its battery?
Let’s talk about the results.
Uber’s second quarter
In the three months ending June 30, Uber’s gross bookings — the value of all commerce executed on its platform — rose 33% to $29.1 billion from $21.9 billion in the year-ago Q2. From that total volume, Uber generated revenues of $8.1 billion, up 105% from its year-ago revenues of $3.9 billion in the same period.
The company’s revenue growth was impacted, the company notes, by “a change in the business model for our U.K. Mobility business and the acquisition of Transplace by Uber Freight,” so we should read the percentage-growth figure for Uber’s top line with a grain of salt.
Regardless, the company’s gross bookings expansion and resulting revenue lift provided operating leverage. Uber’s adjusted EBITDA rose from -$509 million in Q2 2021 to $364 million in Q2 2022. Similarly, Uber’s free cash flow rose from -$398 million in the year-ago quarter to $382 million in the second quarter of 2022.
Ride-hailing vs. delivery
Notably Uber’s growth engine has once again flipped. Before the pandemic, Uber’s ride-hailing business was its leading unit. However, during early COVID-19-impacted quarters, Uber’s food delivery business took over as its growth driver.
Now with the pandemic waning in economic terms, the company’s expansion driver has once again changed hands, with ride-hailing gross bookings rising 120% in the second quarter on a year-over-year basis, and its food delivery gross bookings rising a more modest 7%.
Delivery still hung on as the unit leader, in terms of gross bookings, a smidge ahead of ride-hailing and far beyond its Freight …read more
I’m so over customer experience surveys
I’m sick and tired of being surveyed after every interaction with anyone these days, whether it’s my dentist, an airline or Home Depot.
A few weeks ago, I bought a spray nozzle for $5. I got an email survey from Home Depot asking how my experience was.
It was life-changing: I went into my local store, found my way to the garden center, looked at the selection and chose one. I went to the register and paid, and then I drove home. I was glowing for days. It was the best big box experience of my life.
It’s worth noting that Home Depot sees value in sending out these surveys. “We want to give customers every opportunity to share feedback on their experiences with us. Customers can always opt out, but by asking questions directly, even about small purchases, we can gain insights that make our shopping experience more seamless and convenient,” spokesperson George Lane told TechCrunch.
While businesses are hungry for feedback, I’m not the only one who is tired of this endless stream of surveys. Just about everyone seems to be right there with me. There is a constant onslaught of this stuff, and people are definitely feeling the survey fatigue. It seems that by constantly asking about our experience, they are creating a bad one.
They seem to come from everywhere: My dentist queried me after my last visit asking how they did. (I’ve never had cleaner teeth.) Wingstop, a chicken wing chain, queries customers after every order, but at least the company offers you free fries next time in exchange for your feedback.
Many companies are hungry for feedback. Image Credits: TechCrunch
The idea behind this approach is well intentioned. Companies want to understand how they are doing, but when you ask over and over, people get numb and stop paying attention. What makes it worse is that, in some cases, it’s not clear if anyone actually cares or looks at the survey, or does anything about it, whether the feedback is positive or negative.
I recently had an experience with an airline (not the one cited in the image above) — those of you who follow me on social media know which one I’m talking about. The no good, horrible, terribly bad experience started with booking — and the airline sent me a survey at every step of the way. The problem? It didn’t seem to actually be paying attention to what I was saying.
I tried to change my seats online to pay extra for more legroom. I got a message on the website saying I needed to call customer service. You want to talk about an easy place to reduce call volume and improve my experience? How about making it simple for customers to make changes on the website. Then when you call, there’s a message stating you could save time by using the website. Um, yeah, I wish I could.
You want to talk about a terrible experience? I paid extra for a changeable ticket. When I actually …read more
https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/02/im-so-over-customer-experience-surveys/
TikTok-style dating app Desti filters matches by date destinations
A new video-focused dating app Desti just launched over the weekend to give users a chance to find potential matches based on a preferred date destination. Users who live in the app’s debut market of Austin, Texas, can scroll through a vertical feed where profiles highlight what destinations (aka “destis”) they want to experience on a first date — whether that’s wake surfing at Lake Travis, trying a new sushi place or even going to a beer garden that allows dogs. The “destis” are discovered by swiping through in-house TikTok-style videos that show off the Austin area.
What also makes Desti different than other dating apps such as Tinder or Bumble is that it doesn’t have a “like” feature, so people are forced to start conversations. Users can send a message to the person, and the receiver can accept or reject the message. They can only see one at a time and must pass or reply to the message to move on to the next.
The app is initially available for iOS device users in the Austin area. It will be available on Android devices in the coming weeks. The startup plans on expanding to other areas down the road, it says.
The example below shows a video of the destination at the forefront, with the profile picture in the bottom left corner.
When setting up a profile, the user must pick three “destis,” selecting from categories like Breweries, Rooftops, Live Music, Food Trucks, Dog Dates, etc. There are also hundreds of prompts to choose from alongside the video such as “Someone teach me … ,” “The CDC recommends … ” or “Tonight we should … ” To complete their profile, the user uploads four photos and creates a bio.
Since so many millennials and Gen Z users turn to TikTok or Instagram to discover restaurants and new things to do in their area, Desti uses the same idea for its destination-based dating app.
“We decided to bet on short-form video being the future,” Nick Dominguez, COO and lead designer/developer of Desti told TechCrunch.
The company isn’t the only dating app to have TikTok-style videos as the focus. Snack, for instance, allows users to post videos to a feed and swipe on videos from potential matches. French app Feels had a similar idea.
When asked if each destination would have the address or descriptions, the company said this was something it was working on. Desti wants to build a more robust Discovery tab to allow users to browse different locations, venues, restaurants, events and local businesses.
Other features in the works include a subscription plan and paid features that will remove limitations such as daily message limits. Currently, users can …read more
Uber plans to sell 7.8% stake in Indian food delivery firm Zomato
Uber plans to sell its 7.8% holding in Indian food delivery firm Zomato as early as Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The ride-hailing giant, which acquired a stake in the Indian firm when it sold its local Uber Eats business to Zomato in early 2021, plans to sell its stake through a block deal of over $350 million, for which it is working with Bank of America Securities, the source said, requesting anonymity as the details are private.
The U.S. firm, which reported a net loss of $2.6 billion for the second quarter, said Tuesday that it assumed an unrealized loss of $707 million on its Zomato investment in the first half of this year and the quarter that ended in June 30, 2022.
Uber sold its food delivery business in India to the local rival Zomato for $206 million, following years of aggressive attempts to compete with local food giants Zomato and Swiggy. As part of the deal, Uber acquired a 9.99% stake in the loss-making Indian food delivery startup. Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shares of Zomato have been performing poorly throughout this year and tumbled to an all-time low last week after the end of the lock-in period of investors who had stakes in the company prior to the initial public offering.
The stock closed at 55.55 Indian rupees (72 cents) apiece Tuesday, giving the company a market cap of $5.5 billion, far below the $13.2 billion valuation it accrued on its debut day a year ago. Zomato said on Tuesday that it aims to reach EBIDTA break-even by the Q4 of next year and it had downgraded its investment in quick commerce Blinkit from $400 million to $320 million.
Spread eyes strawberries and alternative meat following Series A raise
Over the past decade and a half, Spread has become the most recognizable name in Japan’s vertical framing ecosystem. The Kyoto-based firm opened its first farm in 2007 and six years later claimed to be the first company in the space to achieve profitability. That’s no mean feat, given the considerable overhead that goes into launching a fully automated indoor farm and the extremely low ROI per head of lettuce.
Spread has also been pushing to bring down the cost of its produce over the past decade. Vertical farming may be a novelty with its own built-in advantages (less water and land use, no pesticides, etc.), but being truly competitive on the grocery store shelves means — at very least — matching the price of existing produce.
While the company is fairly mature in terms of timeline and indoor farm automation, further accelerating its technology and properly marketing its store brand Vegetus still requires some substantial funding at this stage. This week, Spread announced that it has raise a 4 billion yen (~$30.5 million) Series A aimed and leveling the offerings up.
The company notes,
Since its establishment, Spread has always strived to create a sustainable society where future generations can attain peace of mind. Currently Spread works toward its 2030 goal of 100 tons of lettuce daily production domestically. To answer the world’s growing needs of food supply, Spread is widening its product range by working on fruits and alternative meat, and is looking to expand globally in the future.
Currently Spread specializes in lettuce, but it’s working on joining a handful of fellow indoor farming companies with the release of vertically grown strawberries. It also has alternative meats on the roadmap, though there’s no indication how far off those might be.
As a sector, vertical farming has grown rapidly in Japan. The 2011 tsunami that led to the Fukushima power plant disaster has been viewed by many as a major driver in interest around alternative methods of growing. The country’s aging population has impacted its agricultural industry as well, putting the average age of a Japanese farm at around 67 years old.
Aurora Hydrogen raises $10M, but will its process decarbonize or facilitate tar sand exploitation?
A number of startups have cropped up to tackle the challenge of making hydrogen cheap and accessible for industrial users, including the latest, Aurora Hydrogen.
The startup announced a $10 million Series A yesterday led by Energy Innovation Capital and joined by Williams Companies, Shell Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures and the George Kaiser Family Foundation.
Aurora said its microwave-based approach can make hydrogen using 80% less electricity than the cleanest form of hydrogen production and with less carbon emissions than the cheapest.