Year: 2019

Africa focused tech talent accelerator Andela will cut 400 junior engineers across Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria, CEO Jeremy Johnson told TechCrunch.

The layoffs come as the startup released first time income figures indicating it will surpass $50 million in annual revenues for 2019.

Yes, the news seems a bit disjointed. Not everything moves in the same direction in the business of startups.

On the staff cuts, “they are due to market demand for more senior engineering talent,” Andela said in a company release.

“We’ve seen shifts in the market and what our customers are looking for…toward more experienced engineers,” Johnson said on a call.

For those who may not know Andela’s business, the startup’s client-base is over 200 companies around the world that pay for the African developers Andela selects and trains to work on projects.

Founded in 2014, Andela has offices in New York and five African countries: Nigeria, Kenya,  Rwanda, Uganda, and Egypt. The Series D tech-venture is one of Africa’s most visible (by press volume) and best funded ― backed by $181 million in VC from investors that include the Chan Zuckerberg initiative.

Andela selects a roster of developers each year who come on staff for a salary (similar to a management consulting firm) and are encouraged to continue working and living in their home markets in Africa.

By pre-layoff numbers, Andela had 1575 engineers on board. Big job cuts usually point to financial distress and decreasing demand for a company’s goods or services. That’s not the case with Andela’s personnel move, according to Johnson, who describes the layoffs more as a result of misreading the market. 

“We’re actually actively and intensely growing, the mid and senior developer populations and next year we’re going to bring in 500 more developers,” he said.

“We’ve hired more junior developers than we are able to place in remote roles.” 

The departing Andela software-engineers will gain severance packages and placement assistance, according to Johnson. The company is working with partners such as CcHub and iHub to connect the developers to new opportunities.

“Many of these people will rapidly get jobs in the local ecosystem and some day may come back and work at Andela again,” he said.

On Andela’s $50 million in 2019 projected income, “It’s the first time we’ve ever confirmed anything on revenue,” said Johnson ― who acknowledged the venture is still not profitable.

He wouldn’t say why the company released those figures now, but one can speculate it is to soften concerns about  Andela’s financial performance in light of major staff cuts.

Johnson flagged the revenue significance in a global startup context. “What it means is the world needs what we do. Very few companies have gotten to a $50 million run rate in under five years.”

If that’s rare in developed markets, its even more scarce in Africa’s tech scene — where startups releasing any financial stats is scarce overall. Only one VC backed digital company has revealed revenues between $50 and $100 million. That’s e-commerce startup Jumia, that listed in an NYSE IPO earlier this year.

The release of 400 developers may be welcome in Africa’s most active tech hubs, such as Nigeria and Kenya, where rapid startup formation and funding is starting to outpace software engineering talent  — according to a number of founders.

Job-placement will partially depend on whether local tech companies can offer competitive packages to incentivize the Andela alums.

If they do, the net effect of Andela’s layoffs could be more software-engineering capacity for Africa’s tech ecosystem ― so long as most of the developers remain in Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holidu, the Munich-headquartered holiday rentals search engine that is now active in 21 country markets, has raised €40 million in Series C funding.

The round was led by Prime Ventures, with participation from coparion and MairDuMont Ventures. Existing investors, including EQT Ventures, Venture Stars, Senovo and business angel Chris Hitchen, also followed on.

Founded in 2014 by siblings Johannes and Michael Siebers after they say they had a frustrating experience trying to book a vacation rental for a surfing trip in Portugal, Holidu’s search engine lets you easily search for and book holiday accommodation.

Claiming to use proprietary image recognition technology, Holidu compares the prices of more than 15 million rental properties across 600 different websites including Airbnb, Booking.com and Homeaway. This enables users to save “up to 55%” on their booking by automatically spotting price differences for the same property across various listings.

“Many of the sites offer the same rentals but at different prices,” Holidu co-founder and CEO Johannes Siebers told TechCrunch back in 2016. “Also, there is a large rate of rejected bookings as the different sites don’t synchronize calendars with each other and properties get double-booked. For consumers it is impossible to gain a transparent overview”.

To help solve this, Holidu has also developed a service for holiday property owners. Dubbed “Bookiply,” it offers a single interface to list properties on the largest travel websites, including synchronizing calendars, creating multilingual descriptions and sourcing professional photography. In addition, Bookiply’s team handles traveler communication.

Holidu says that Bookiply already manages 5,000 properties and claims it is the market leader in several European leisure destinations. “The focus is on property owners who are not yet online or whose digital presence can be optimised,” says the company.

Meanwhile, to boost growth, last year Holidu acquired its Spanish competitor Hundredrooms. The startup now claims 10 million visitors per month and says it will use the Series C funding for product development (both the Holidu website and the Bookiply software). It will also grow its Holidu partners and sign up more property owners to Bookiply. To achieve this, the company says it plans to open multiple regional offices.

Google said on Tuesday it is bringing a set of new features to Android TVs to improve the experience of users who rely on mobile hotspots to connect their giant devices to the internet. The features, developed by Google’s Next Billion Users team, will be first rolled out to users in India and then in other countries, the company said.

Ahead of its yearly event in New Delhi on Thursday, where the company is expected to make a number of announcements, Google said it has identified and addressed a problem faced by millions of users: Their TVs are not connected to the internet through Wi-Fi or wired/ethernet line.

Instead these users rely on hotspots (local network) created through their smartphones or tablets. “But that presents problems,” wrote Joris van Mens, Product Manager at Google’s Next Billion Users team, in a blog post. “Watching HD TV on a mobile data connection can quickly drain your daily data plan.”

To address this, Google says it is introducing a feature called ‘data saver’ to Android TVs that would reduce the data usage on mobile connections by up to three times, thereby allowing users to consume more content on their TVs. It is also introducing a ‘data alerts’ feature to help users better monitor how much data they have consumed watching TV.

Another feature dubbed ‘hotspot guide’ will allow users to set up their TV with their mobile hotspot. And last, Google is introducing the ability in its Files app to allow users to cast video files locally stored on their phones to the TV without using internet data. Files app, which Google launched two years ago, allows users to easily free up content on their phones. The company said last month that Files app had amassed over 100 million users.

These four features will roll-out to Android TV devices starting with those manufactured by Xiaomi, TCL, and Marq by Flipkart, Google said. The company expects to rollout the features globally soon.

At an event in Bangalore on Tuesday, Xiaomi unveiled a new lineup of TVs that will support Netflix and Prime Video. The Chinese electronics giant, which is the top smartphone vendor in India, confirmed that its new TV models will support Google’s ‘data saver’ feature.

Later this week, Google is expected to make a number of announcements around its payments app and other services in its yearly Google for India event. Indian newspaper Economic Times reported this week that one of those announcements could be the launch of Kormo, a job discovery app that is currently available in select developing markets, in India.

Missed the deadline to apply for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt Berlin 2019? We get it. Founder life is tough. Well guess what, we’re extending applications by one week. The extension ends September 27th at 11:59pm (PT). It’s time to buckle down and apply to the Startup Battlefield right now!

It’s easy and free to apply. Add your startup name to the mix to see if you are one of the chosen few to launch on the prestigious TechCrunch Disrupt Stage – equity free price money, global exposure and the best place to launch your startup this December. Selected teams will receive intensive pitch coaching from TechCrunch editors and the Startup Battlefield team. They’ll train you, grill you and get you ready for the big competition. All selected teams will gain access to private VIP events, participation in CrunchMatch: TechCrunch’s investor startup matching program, and complimentary exhibition space with event passes. Companies will pitch on stage for six minutes followed by a six minute Q&A in front of a panel of elite judges.

The judges then select the top few companies to compete in a final round where companies will pitch to a new set of judges, followed by an even more intense Q&A. One team will win the coveted Disrupt Cup trophy, the attention of international press and investors and, of course, a $50,000 in equity-free cash prize money..

The Startup Battlefield is one of the best platforms for launching your early-stage startup to the world’s “technorati.” We live-stream the entire event on TechCrunch.com, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Plus, it’s available later on-demand.

Need more convincing? Consider these stats and you’ll see it’s not hyperbole, people. In 12 years of Battlefields, 857 companies have competed and form the Startup Battlefield alumni community. Those startups, including the likes of JukeDeck, N26, Vurb, Dropbox, Mint, Yammer and more, have collectively raised more than $8.9 billion in funding and generated 112 exits.

Don’t miss out on this reprieve! Apply to the Startup Battlefield before the new deadline expires on September 27th at 11:59pm.

While you’re in application mode, why not apply for our TC Top Picks program, too? TC Top Pick designees receive a free Startup Alley Exhibitor Package, VIP treatment and plenty of media and investor exposure.

Fieldwire, which makes task management software for construction teams that helps organize everyone involved in a project so things don’t fall through the figurative (or literal) cracks, has raised $33.5 million in Series C funding led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from Brick & Mortar Ventures, Hilti Group, and Formation 8.

It isn’t a huge amount of money. Still, the traction Fieldwire is enjoying might give the folks at Autodesk some pause, given the growing threat it presents to PlanGrid — a rival that Autodesk acquired last year for $875 million.

Already, six-year-old Fieldwire has 65 employees, with 45 of them in San Francisco and the rest in Phoenix, plus a smaller outpost in France. And founder and CEO Yves Frinault says the company expects to have closer to 150 employees by next summer.

Fieldwire is also “cash profitable,” he says, “meaning our bank account goes up every month, even though we started going fast.” To underscore his point, he notes that when we last talked with him in 2015, the company’s platform was hosting 35,000 projects; it has since hosted half a million altogether, with more than 2,000 unique paying customers on the platform. Many of them pack a punch, too, like Clark Construction Group, a 113-year-old, Maryland-based construction firm that reported more than $5 billion in revenue last year and that began using Fieldwire across all of its projects this past summer. (Clark employs 4,200 people.)

Because Fieldwire grows from the bottom up, meaning it targets teams who then use it for projects that are then run by numerous enterprises that work on various projects with other teams that can then also adopt the software, it has spread particularly quickly throughout North America, which counts for 70 percent of its volume. Fieldwire is also making inroads in Europe, where 15 percent of its revenue is coming and, to a lesser but growing extent, Australia.

Altogether, its software is localized in 13 languages.

It employs a freemium model. Small teams with five members or less can use a significant portion of the product for free. But more users requires more storage typically, and that’s where Fieldwire starts charging — typically between $30 and $50 per user per month, though bigger companies tend to pay the company by the year or based on the scope of a particular project versus on a per-license basis.

Fieldwire’s two main types of customers are general contractors and subcontractors. GCs will usually use the company’s software as a way to track quality and progress. Subcontractors tend to use the software internally to run their own crews.

As for what’s on its roadmap, Fieldwire — which already enables users to look at floor plans in real time, message with one another, track punch lists, schedule jobs and file reports —  suggests it’s zeroing in on 3D architectural drawings, which puts it in more direct competition with PlanGrid.

PlanGrid also makes construction productivity software, and fueled by parent company Autodesk, it also now offers users the ability to access building information modeling data, in either 2D or 3D. Fieldwire doesn’t seem terribly daunted by this. Instead, Frinault calls it a “product challenge to make a 3D product model consumable, so we’re working on it right now.”

With its newest round of funding, Fieldwire has now raised $40.4 million altogether.

Computer scientist and open software advocate Richard Stallman said he has resigned from his position as a visiting scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) after describing a victim of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein as “entirely willing” in emails sent to a department list. Stallman has also stepped down from his roles as president and board director at the Free Software Foundation, the nonprofit he founded in 1985.

Last week, the Daily Beast reported that Stallman had also called for the legalization of child pornography and abolishment of age of consent laws on his personal blog in multiple posts published over the course of 15 years.

In his MIT CSAIL resignation, also posted to his personal blog, Stallman wrote: “To the MIT Community, I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT. I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings.”

MIT has been under scrutiny for its ties to Epstein, who a New Yorker investigation found had secured $7.5 million in donations for the MIT Media Lab, far more than what was previously disclosed. As a result, its director, Joi Ito, resigned last week and MIT ordered an investigation into the Media Lab’s ties to Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell last month while awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.

As part of its preliminary findings, MIT president Rafael Reif admitted that the law firm conducting the investigation had uncovered a letter he wrote to thank Epstein for a donation in 2012, four years after Epstein had already pled guilty to procuring for prostitution a girl under 18. “I apparently signed this letter on August 16, 2012, about six weeks into my presidency,” Reif wrote. “Although I do not recall it, it does bear my signature.”

Stallman’s emails were first made public last week by mechanical engineer and MIT alum Selam Jie Gano (the entire thread was later published by Vice). In an email sent to a MIT CSAIL mailing list earlier this month, Stallman wrote that Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s sex trafficking victims, who testified that she had been ordered to have sex with late MIT professor Marvin Minsky during a trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands when she was 17, had likely “presented herself to him as entirely willing.” He also wrote that “I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term ‘sexual assault’ in an accusation.”

Gano also published an email that Stallman sent to another CSAIL list that included undergraduate students. In it, he said “I think it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”

 

Aspect Ventures, an early-stage, San Francisco-based venture firm founded five years ago very notably by two veteran VCs who happen to be women, is splitting up. Cofounders Jennifer Fonstad, formerly of DFJ, and Theresia Gouw, formerly of Accel, are launching separate firms, a source confirms.

The WSJ reported the news earlier today.

Fonstad tells the outlet that the split owes to “different leadership styles and different ways of operating at the portfolio level.”

Going forward, she plans to operate under the brand Owl Capital and to invest in growth deals, including in enterprise software, which has been a major focus area for Aspect, though it has occasionally backed consumer startups, including newly public TheRealReal and a direct-to-consumer jewelry brand called Baublebar.

Gouw, who is appearing in several weeks at our TechCrunch Disrupt event to talk about industry trends, declined to comment. But some members of Aspect’s team are joining her at new firm, aCrew, including Lauen Kolodny, who joined Aspect five years ago and was promoted from principal to partner in 2017; and Vishal Lugani, who joined Aspect as a principal in 2016 after spending 3.5 years as a senior associate with Greycroft and whose LinkedIn bio now identifies him as a founding partner with aCrew.

Team members who are meanwhile joining Fonstad include Chad Herrin, a former SuccessFactors VP who has been a venture partner with Aspect since lsat year, and Rebecca Hu, who spent a year with Earlybird Venture Capital before joining Aspect roughly one year ago as an investor.

Aspect had raised $150 million for its debut fund and a second $181 million fund at the start of 2018. Gouw, Fonstad and the rest of their Aspect colleagues will continue managing out these investments, though they will be making all new investments out of their respective new vehicles, presumably as they are locking down capital commitments.

According to the WSJ, aCrew is targeting $175 million for its debut fund, while Owl is shooting for $125 million in capital commitments.

The firm is far from the first to split over clashing management styles. Most recently, Social Capital drastically changed shape, with cofounder Mamoon Hamid heading over to help recharge Kleiner Perkins, and numerous other early members of the firm leaving to found Tribe Capital.

The We Company, parent company of the short-term real estate property management and development company WeWork and other We-related subsidiaries, is reportedly shelving its plans for an initial public offering.

The company’s plans for a public offering have been hampered by questions about its corporate governance and the ultimate value of a company that private investors once thought was worth nearly $50 billion.

Public investors were balking at that sky-high valuation and the company’s questionable governance practices under chief executive officer and co-founder, Adam Neumann, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news that The We Company would put its offering on hold. 

Over the past few weeks, The We Company has made several moves to allay investors’ concerns. The company unwound some particularly egregious transactions with Neumann and added new directors. It also moved to limit Neumann’s power at the company.

Last week, the company amended its prospectus to include the appointment of an independent lead director. It also slashed the strength of Class B and Class C shares so Neumann would not have 20 times the voting power of other shareholders, and removed Neumann’s wife from succession planning at the company.

Even these steps were not enough to comfort Wall Street investors, apparently. Not even the attempts to slash the company’s valuation to below $10 billion could attract enough investor interest to the public offering. And the opacity of The We Company’s reporting and metrics likely did nothing to help matters in the eyes of the investing public.

Now that The We Company is likely to pull its public offering… and with Uber and Lyft underperforming in their first year as public companies, perhaps venture capital firms will rethink the sky-high valuations they’d placed on their portfolio companies. Perhaps it’s time to relearn the lesson that greed may not actually be good.

We have reached out to The We Company for comment and will update with their response.

This story is developing. 

 

 

Waymo transported 6,266 passengers in self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans in its first month participating in a robotaxi pilot program in California, according to a quarterly report the company filed with the California Public Utilities Commission.

In all, the company completed 4,678 passenger trips in July — plus another 12 trips for educational purposes. It’s a noteworthy figure for an inaugural effort that pencils out to an average of 156 trips every day that month.  And it demonstrates that Waymo has the resources, staff and vehicles to operate a robotaxi pilot while continuing to test its technology in multiple cities and ramp up its Waymo One ride-hailing service in Arizona.

But Waymo’s data — along with quarterly reports from three other companies that hold permits with the CPUC — provides just a hint at what demand could be for commercial robotaxis and how these services might reshape cities.

Waymo’s pilot program, for instance, isn’t open to the public. Waymo or Alphabet employees and their guests can take rides within its geofenced South Bay territory, which currently includes Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. This is only a few of the cities where Waymo is currently testing in California.

And because companies in this pilot program cannot charge for rides, it’s difficult to determine what the demand will be for robotaxis, Dr. Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, noted in a recent interview.

Robotaxis and the CPUC

The CPUC authorized in May 2018 two pilot programs for transporting passengers in autonomous vehicles.  The first one, called the Drivered Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service Pilot program, allows companies to operate a ride-hailing service using autonomous vehicles as long as they follow specific rules. Companies are not allowed to charge for rides, a human safety driver must be behind the wheel and certain data must be reported quarterly.

The second CPUC pilot would allow driverless passenger service — although no company has yet to obtain that permit.

The CPUC programs shouldn’t be confused with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which regulates and issues permits for testing autonomous vehicles on public roads — always with a safety driver. The DMV has issued 63 autonomous vehicle testing permits since 2014. Companies that want to participate in the CPUC program must have a testing permit with DMV.

And for those companies that might want to someday get a permit from the CPUC for the driverless pilot, they must first obtain a driverless permit from the DMV. In 2018, the DMV issued rules to allow for autonomous vehicle driverless testing on roads.

Only Waymo holds a driverless testing permit from the DMV, although it does not have driverless vehicles on public roads in California yet.

AutoX, Pony.ai, Zoox and Waymo have received permits to participate in the CPUC’s Drivered Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service Pilot program. Zoox scored the first permit from the CPUC in December. Pony.ai and AutoX, which started as an autonomous delivery company, followed.

Last quarter’s numbers

But Waymo, which received its permit on July 2  — two months into the second quarter — is already the leader, in terms of rides.

Pony.ai didn’t provide any rides in the last quarter, according to its CPUC report. Zoox’s report indicates that its 10 vehicles transported 134 passengers on more than 70 trips last quarter. The Zoox fleet traveled 352 miles during those trips.

Meanwhile, Waymo’s fleet completed 4,678 trips and logged 59,886 miles during the final month of the quarter.

As impressive as the numbers are, Shaheen and others in the industry wonder if the data being collected will help state regulators and companies determine the value and challenges of commercial robotaxi services.

“Is this data they’re collecting actually helpful and how are they going to use it?” Shaheen asked.

Under the program, permit holders must submit anonymized data about each autonomous vehicle in operation. Waymo and other companies participating in the pilot have to provide total vehicle miles traveled during passenger service, as well as total miles in electric vehicles (if applicable) every quarter. Other data requirements for each quarter include miles traveled to the pickup point, idling time, vehicle occupancy and data about accessible rides.

The data is meant to help the CPUC develop a framework for full, permanent deployment of paid autonomous vehicles passenger service in California. And yet, the data might not fully capture what a commercial service might look like. For instance, Waymo’s total miles traveled from the vehicle’s starting location to a pickup point — a term known as deadhead miles — were 48,137 miles out of the total 59,916. Waymo notes in its report to the CPUC that it is continuously testing in between rides, implying that this could drive up the deadhead miles.

Autonomous vehicle companies have largely supported the CPUC’s two pilot programs. However, many companies, including Waymo as well as others such as Lyft and Cruise, which aren’t participating in the pilot, submitted written comments in 2018 arguing against some of the reporting requirements and in support of charging for rides.

Waymo has previously stated in public comments to the CPUC that tracking deadhead miles “would not appear to provide any valuable data” because the vehicles used for testing purposes will be vastly different and may not accurately reflect the efficiencies that can be gained through a more expansive fleet during full deployment.

Without the ability to charge for rides, companies are treating the pilot as another means to dial in their eventual commercial service.

AutoX is treating the pilot as one way to gain a better understanding of the consumer’s experience, including ordering and waiting for the ride, said Hugo Fozzati, AutoX’s director of business operations.

“Before we scale out and really deploy this, we want to make sure that we’re doing everything right,” Fozzati said.

Now, two questions remain: What will happen next and which agency will have the greatest influence in shaping future regulations? The CPUC and DMV are the most likely candidates, but the California Highway Patrol, which has historically been involved in some DMV rule-making, as well as the California Air Resources Board, could also play a role.

How do you keep your startup secure?

That’s the big question we explored at TC Sessions: Enterprise earlier this month. No matter the size, every startup is an enterprise. Every startup will grow in size as it builds out. But as a company expands, that rapid growth can lead to a distraction from the foundational principle of any modern company — keeping it secure.

Security isn’t just a buzzword. As some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley have shown, security can be difficult. From storing passwords in plaintext to data breaches galore, how can startups learn from some of the biggest security lapses in the tech industry’s history?

Our panel consisted of three of the brightest minds in enterprise security: Wendy Nather, head of advisory CISOs at Duo Security, is an enterprise security expert; Martin Casado, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, is a security and enterprise startup investor; and Emily Heath, United’s chief information security officer, oversees the security operations of the largest U.S. airlines.

This is what advice they had.

Security from the very start