Month: September 2020

A number of top app makers have banded together to fight against Apple’s control of its App Store and, to a lesser extent, Google’s control of the Play Store — a topic of increased regulatory scrutiny in recent months. Today, 13 app publishers, including Epic Games, Deezer, Basecamp, Tile, Spotify and others, have launched the Coalition for App Fairness. The new organization formalizes efforts the companies already have underway that focus on either forcing app store providers to change their policies, or ultimately forcing the app stores into regulation.

Epic Games, for example, is currently involved in a lawsuit against Apple over the App Store’s commission guidelines. Basecamp’s launch of its Hey email app led to a public battle between the two after Apple blocked the app’s updates for its decision to not use Apple’s own in-app purchase platform. Other app makers in the group have through public statements previously spoken out against Apple’s practices, and some have also communicated their complaints to Congress.

Included in the new group of app makers are Basecamp, Blix, Blockchain.com, Deezer, Epic Games, the European Publishers Council, Match Group, News Media Europe, Prepear, Protonmail, SkyDemon, Spotify and Tile.

On the coalition’s website, the group details its key issues, which include anti-competitive practices, like the app stores’ 30% commission structure, and the inability to distribute software to billions of Apple devices through any other means but the App Store, which the group sees as an affront to personal freedom.

Google allows apps to be side-loaded, so it’s not as much of a target on this front. In fact, much of the focus of the coalition’s efforts have to do with Apple’s business, given its stricter guidelines.

Of course, much of Apple’s success in the app economy can be attributed to its tight controls over how apps are created, designed, reviewed and distributed. Its App Store is purged of junk and spam more often and app reviews are handled largely by humans, not automated tech. Apple app developers also have to abide by guidelines that control how their app should look and feel, what sort of content is allowed and how those apps should behave. Its rules around in-app purchases have also led to a customer experience where making purchases inside an app are as simple as pressing down your thumb or clicking a button, then looking at your phone to complete a transaction.

On the flip side, however, Apple’s guidelines don’t offer much freedom to businesses that have no need to rely on the App Store for things like customer acquisition, search ads or the handling of payments. They may also be capable of hosting their own app and services and their own infrastructure, but have no choice but to use Apple’s platform to reach iOS customers.

“As enforcers, regulators, and legislators around the world investigate Apple for its anti-competitive behavior, The Coalition for App Fairness will be the voice of app and game developers in the effort to protect consumer choice and create a level playing field for all,” said Horacio Gutierrez, head of Global Affairs and chief legal officer at Spotify, in a statement issued by the group on Thursday.

The group has also published a list of 10 “App Store Principles” it would like to see enacted industry-wide. These include the ability to distribute apps outside of app stores, protections from having their own data used against them to compete, timely access to developer documentation, the right to communicate with users through its app for legitimate business purposes, no requirements to use the app store’s payment systems, no requirements to pay unfair fees and more.

The members have also issued individual statements, which are available on the group’s website and, perhaps mostly importantly, they’ve launched a mechanism to recruit new members. App makers who feel similarly oppressed by Apple’s practices are able to fill out a form to request to join.

The organization says this represents “an open call to all developers, big and small, to join us.”

Apple didn’t directly comment on the group’s launch, but it did today release new resources, including a redesign of its About the App Store page that details its benefits, the addition of a page that focused specifically on developer benefits, an overview of the advantages provided by its app developer program and a new site that explains its Apple Video Partner program and how to apply.

Apple tends to not be transparent about some of its programs. Instead, it tends to brief press on background when its rules change (or it say, launches new websites…), instead of issuing public statements, writing blog posts, or issuing press releases. When reached for comment over App Store issues, Apple rarely goes on record.

But the company’s inner operations were revealed during the recent antitrust hearings, which brought to light how it cut a special deal with Amazon, how it determined which apps to commission and how it handled complex decisions — like banning an entire category of apps by claiming they were now a privacy threat, instead of offering an alternative path to remain in business.

The backlash over this behavior has been bubbling up for years and is now coming to a head thanks to the regulator investigations. Not all the companies fighting Apple are necessarily in it to save the little guy, however. Had Apple quietly cut special deals with Epic or Spotify too, you may have never heard from them about App Store abuses.

Twitter’s experiment to get people to actually read the content they’re sharing is going so well the company plans to expand it to the platform at large “very soon.”

In June, Twitter introduced a test feature on Android to promote “informed discussion” on the platform — something social media’s staccato conversational bursts are rarely conducive to.

The experimental prompt appeared for users who went to retweet an article they hadn’t clicked to open, and suggested they read before they retweet.

Twitter prompt

Twitter says the prompts worked, and users opened articles before sharing them 40% more often than they did without the nudge. Users in the test group apparently opened an article and then retweeted it 33% more than they did without the test prompt.

“It’s easy for articles to go viral on Twitter. At times, this can be great for sharing information, but can also be detrimental for discourse, especially if people haven’t read what they’re Tweeting,” Twitter Director of Product Management Suzanne Xie said.

It seems like a small product change, but steps like this — and ideally much bigger ones — could be key to shifting the social media landscape to something less toxic and reactionary. Other test prompts on Twitter and Instagram warn users before they share content that could be harmful or offensive.

After building platforms tuned to get users sharing and engaging as much as possible, introducing friction to that experience seems counterintuitive. But inspiring even just a moment of pause in user behavior might address a number of deeply entrenched social media woes.

Ridding platforms of their problems won’t be easy, particularly for companies that are seldom motivated to make meaningful changes. But reprogramming user behavior away from impulsivity could help undermine the virality of misinformation, harassment, hyper-polarization and other systemic issues that we’re now seeing seep across the thin barrier between online and offline life.

At an online event today, Daniel Ek, the founder of Spotify, said he would invest 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of his personal fortune in deeptech “moonshot projects”, spread across the next 10 years.

Ek indicated that he was referring to machine learning, biotechnology, materials sciences and energy as the sectors he’d like to invest in.

“I want to do my part; we all know that one of the greatest challenges is access to capital,” Ek said, adding he wanted to achieve a “new European dream”.

“I get really frustrated when I see European entrepreneurs giving up on their amazing visions selling early on to non-European companies, or when some of the most promising tech talent in Europe leaves because they don’t feel valued here,” Ek said. “We need more super companies that raise the bar and can act as an inspiration.”

According to Forbes, Ek is worth $3.6 billion, which would suggest he’s putting aside roughly a third of his own wealth for the investments.

And it would appear his personal cash will be deployed with the help of a close confidant of Ek’s. He retweeted a post by Shakhil Khan, one of the first investors in Spotify, who said “it’s time to come out of retirement then.”

During a fireside chat held by the Slush conference, he said: “We all know that one of the greatest challenges is access to capital. And that is why I’m sharing today that I will devote €1bn of my personal resources to enable the ecosystem of builders.” He said he would do this by “funding so-called moonshots focusing on the deep technology necessary to make a significant positive dent, and work with scientists, entrepreneurs, investors and governments to do so.”

He expressed his desire to level-up Europe against the US I terms of tech unicorns: “Europe needs more super companies, both for the ecosystem to develop and thrive. But I think more importantly if we’re going to have any chance to tackle the infinitely complex problems that our societies are dealing with at the moment, we need different stakeholders, including companies, governments, academic institutions, non-profits and investors of all kinds to work together.”

He also expressed his frustration at seeing “European entrepreneurs, giving up on their amazing visions by selling very early in the process… We need more super companies to raise the bar and can act as an inspiration… There’s lots and lots of really exciting areas where there are tons of scientists and entrepreneurs right now around Europe.”

Ek said he will work with scientists, investors, and governments to deploy his funds. A $1.2 billion fund would see him competing with other large European VCs such as Atomico, Balderton Capital, Accel, Index Ventures and Northzone.

Ek has been previously known for his interest in deeptech. He has invested in €16m in Swedish telemedicine startup Kry. He’s also put €3m into HJN Sverige, an artificial intelligence company in the health tech arena.

Book clubs can be magical. Bring together a group of friends, tear apart a book and all of a sudden the words have a second, paperless, life.

But what if the author could join in the banter? Imagine riffing with Roxane Gay, debating with Ta-Nehisi Coates and eavesdropping on Jhumpa Lahiri. The experience would resemble that of an epilogue, but one reserved exclusively for your friend group.

For those intrigued, a new Salt Lake City startup wants to talk. BookClub launched today to bring author-led book clubs to readers. The platform will allow authors to join personal book groups, share exclusive video-based interviews and engage in questions you might have (including cliffhanger complaints).

The startup is founded by some familiar names: Degreed co-founders David Blake and Eric Sharp, as well as early product leader at Degreed, Emily Campbell.

“When you think of Instagram Stories and TikTok, the mainstream social media movement is mostly video-based,” Blake said. “But the book world has not yet caught up. If you think of Goodreads, it’s kind of like the internet, circa 2010.” BookClub, he hopes, will lead to more modern experiences with authors that are, at the same time, easily scalable.

To better picture the experience, see how BookClub produced a video based on the novel “The Suspect,” by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen.

Image Credits: David Blake

Readers can also request an author to join their club.

Image Credits: BookClub

BookClub is taking a MasterClass approach to education and entertainment. MasterClass, which raised $100 million in May, sells celebrity-taught classes with a big focus on production. For a subscription fee, MasterClass users can learn how to cook from Gordon Ramsay or how to play tennis from Serena Williams.

Blake wants to offer a similar experience, but with authors.

“MasterClass has authors already on their platform, but they are all 100% teaching the skill of how to be a good writer,” Blake said. “Our platform is being built from the ground up, exclusively for this use case — and will be feature rich with things that can help tag, explore, discuss by characters, themes, questions.”

He did not share any big author names that BookClub has secured just yet, although those partnerships will be vital to BookClub’s success.

Blake declined to share specific details on pricing, but said that it will be a consumer subscription business with shared economic benefits for authors and moderators.

Although the product is pre-launch, Blake is clear about what BookClub is not.

“Rather than doing what’s easiest or most accessible, we’re trying to step back and say ‘what will it take to unlock the power of a great book?’ ” he said. “We’re giving [the book] the justice it deserves, rather than being Zoom for authors.”

One benefit of going with Zoom is that it is already a household name and millions of people have downloaded the client. BookClub will live as a media platform, not a downloaded client, and is going mobile-first. The decision to go mobile before desktop was driven by the fact that most people don’t want to hold a laptop during their book clubs. Instead, BookClub wants to recreate a FaceTime-like experience with an author.

It has been a busy pandemic for the co-founders of Degreed, which raised over $32 million in June. In April, the duo founded Learn In, a venture that plugs into company HR software to help decisionmakers manage sabbaticals for their employees. The startup raised $3.5 million from Album, GSV and Firework Ventures. BookClub will be their third company in the edtech space, and second startup launched within five months.

When asked how he’s handling juggling all of the startups, Blake simply said that he was “travelling 200 days a year, and got all that time back.” He added that he is now only at Degreed at an operational capacity, so will be evenly splitting his time between Learn In and BookClub. Still, leading two startups at the same time is a challenge, since most people can’t even handle one.

BookClub tells TechCrunch that it successfully secured funding. The startup has raised $6 million in a seed round led by Maveron . Other investors include Signal Peak Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners, Mike Levinthal and GSV (a firm that has invested in all three of Blake’s ventures).

The money will be used for video production costs.

“Unless the author has been on Oprah’s book club, this will be the highest video treatment that an author will have ever received,” he said. “We’re trying to do Hollywood cinematic levels.”

Join the waitlist here.

As the world reopens and revenue teams are unleashed to meet growth targets, many B2B sellers and marketers are wondering how they can best prioritize prospect accounts. Everyone ultimately wants to achieve predictable revenue growth, but in uncertain times — and with shrinking budgets — it can feel like a pipe dream.

Slimmer budgets likely mean you’ll need more accurate targeting and higher win rates. The good news is your revenue team is likely already gathering tons of prospect data to help you improve account targeting, so it’s time to put that data to work with artificial intelligence. Using big data and four essential AI-based models, you can understand what your prospects want and successfully predict revenue opportunities.

Big data and CDPs are first steps to capturing account insights

Capturing and processing big data is essential in order to know everything about prospects and best position your solution. Accurately targeting your campaigns and buyer journeys necessitates more data than ever before.

Marketers today rely on customer data platforms (CDPs) to handle this slew of information from disparate sources. CDPs let us mash together and clean up data to get a single source of normalized data. We can then use AI to extract meaningful insights and trends to drive revenue planning.

That single source of truth also lets marketers dive into the ocean of accounts and segment them by similar attributes. You can break them down into industry, location, buying stage, intent, engagement — any combination of factors. When it’s time to introduce prospects to your cadence, you’ll have segment-specific insights to guide your campaigns.

AI realizes data-based insights

You might find that your data ocean is much deeper than you expected. While transforming all that data into a single source to drive actionable insights, you’ll also need the right resources and solutions to convert raw data into highly targeted prospect outreach.

This is where AI shines. AI and machine learning enable revenue teams to analyze data for historical and behavioral patterns, pluck out the most relevant intent data, and predict what will move prospects through the buyer journey.

Several electric vehicle startups, including Canoo, Fisker Inc., Lordstown Motors and Nikola Corp., have gone public this year by merging with a special purpose acquisition company. Now, an electric vehicle charging company is joining the growing list of SPACs.

ChargePoint, an electric vehicle charging network, has struck a deal to merge with special-purpose acquisition company Switchback Energy Acquisition Corporation, with a market valuation of $3 billion. ChargePoint will continue to be led by President and CEO Pasquale Romano and the existing management team. The combined company will be named ChargePoint Holdings Inc. and will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company expects the transaction will close by the end of the year.

ChargePoint said it was able to raise $225 million in private investment in public equity, or PIPE, led by institutional investors including Baillie Gifford and funds managed by Neuberger Berman Alternatives Advisors. ChargePoint will have about $683 million in cash. The cash proceeds raised in the transaction will be used to repay debt, fund operations, support growth and for general corporate purposes.

“The EV charging industry is accelerating and it is expected that charging infrastructure investment will be $190 billion by 2030,” Switchback CEO, CFO and director Scott McNeill said in a statement, adding that ChargePoint is well positioned to deliver the infrastructure that will be needed.

ChargePoint designs, develops and manufactures hardware and accompanying software, as well as a cloud subscription platform, for electric vehicles. The company might be best known for its branded public and semi-public charging spots that consumers use to charge their personal electric cars and SUVs, as well as its home chargers. However, ChargePoint also has a commercial-focused business that provides hardware and software to help fleet operators manage their delivery vans, buses and cars. In all, the company has more than 115,000 charging spots globally. ChargePoint also offers access to an additional 133,000 public places to charge through network roaming integrations across North America and Europe.

The company, which was founded in 2007, said it plans to use this new capital to expanding North America and Europe, improve its technology portfolio and significantly scale its commercial, fleet and residential businesses.

The SPAC merger comes just a month after ChargePoint raised $127 million in funding from a mix of existing investors from the oil and gas, utilities and venture industries, including American Electric Power, Chevron Technology Ventures, Clearvision and Quantum Energy Partners.

For many of us, learning to ask questions was a matter of the five W’s: who, what, where, when, why (and how).

As I interviewed founders about the most valuable learning resources that allowed them to grow into the leaders they are today, I realized that many of them leaned heavily on carefully crafted approaches to asking questions. In all the interviews, inquiry was by far the most cited learning process. I found these founders to be incredibly methodical, brave, curious, disciplined and efficient in their pursuit of learning.  

Founders showed incredible discipline by approaching information gathering as a structured process. Some founders have a highly systematic approach in how they target their outreach:

I learned by being systematic about talking to people smarter than myself. I needed to know hundreds of people and know what they know. I made a table matrix of who I talk to and for what topic. For example, Eric Schmidt is one of six experts I turn to on establishing management OKRs.

— Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

And in how they catalog/store information about who is an expert …

2020 has been a year of social upheaval. Around the world, society is identifying different problems in our culture and pushing for widespread change. While there are notable steps we can all take, from altering exclusionary company policies to signing action-oriented petitions, the VC and investment world has another, often overlooked option: Investing in change-the-world startups.

Increasingly, angel investors and institutional funds have begun allocating a portion of their funds to startups focused on diversity and social good, whether focused on democratized access to healthcare and education, or larger scale issues like climate change.

Initially, shifting funds to empower social good may seem like a hefty feat, however investors can embrace this mindshift in three simple steps: (1) redistributing stagnant investments; (2) leveraging democratized access to change-making startups; and (3) identifying founders tracking toward success.

Allocating more investments to foster change

Most of the world’s money is tied up in stagnant places. Whether invested in real estate, bonds or other traditional vehicles, this capital typically often shows conservative returns to investors — and has negligible impact on society. The intent isn’t malicious.

Most family offices and private wealth managers strive to minimize losses and these sorts of uniformed portfolios are safe. Even the most seasoned investors should incorporate more variety into their portfolios, determining where they can make profitable investments that yield higher returns while advancing societal good. Investors can take small steps to get more confident in expanding their strategies.

To start, reframe your thinking into seeing the potential opportunity rather than the risk. A good way to do this: Look at how high-risk public equities performed over the last five years and compare it to ventures within tech. Investors will see a significant disparity and the opportunity to make different returns.

The idea is not to put an entire profile in a single venture. Rather, an investor should take a portion of their portfolio in a high-risk investment sector, like public equities or fund structures, and put it in a similar risk profile with a better return. Gradually increasing these increments, starting at 15% and slowly scaling up, can help investors to see outsized returns while making a difference in the process.

A world of passion at your fingertips

For startups of all sizes, democratized access to investors will accelerate the use of capital for social good. Until recently, only the world’s wealthiest people had exposure to premium capital, but crowdfunding and accelerator programs have ushered in new opportunities, forging connections that might not have otherwise been possible.

These avenues have opened new doors for investors and startups. Access to developed networks or innovation hubs like Silicon Valley are no longer make-or-breaks for those looking to raise capital. Extended global opportunity for startups also means investors have more options to find promising ventures that align with their values, regardless of their location.

But while crowdfunding and accelerators have made the world more accessible, they come with sizable challenges. Despite making early-stage investment more obtainable, crowdfunding often does not bring the most valuable investors to the table.

Crowdfunding also inundates platforms with poor-quality deal flow, making it more strenuous for investors to connect with fruitful opportunities. Meanwhile, various accelerators and incubation platforms have emerged, which have advanced global connection, but tend to be quite noisy.

To succeed, entrepreneurs need more than capital. Rather, they need strategic support from experienced investors who can help them make decisions and scale in an impactful way. With a world of ideas at their fingertips, investors should take time to sift through their options and find the ideas that move them the most, prioritizing quality deals and looking toward platforms that curate promising connections.

Empowering entrepreneurs poised for success

Now is the right time to invest in startups. People who innovate during the pandemic have triple the hustle of those who build in safer economies. But while the timing is right, it’s equally important that the fit is right. I’m a big believer in investing in potential: Ambition, unwavering tenacity and empathy are desirable qualities that can help bring game-changing ideas to fruition.

If an investor funds a passionate leader with a strong vision and ability to attract talent, then the groundwork is laid to build something meaningful. When considering the change-makers to invest in, ask: Is this the right person to be building this company? Do they have the ability to attract and lead talent? Is the market big enough, and is there a significant enough problem to build a company around?

If the answer isn’t yes to all of these questions, it’s important to gauge if you can see a theoretical exit, or if the company is pre-seed or Series A, if they have the ability to scale to a decent size.

Despite this, investing in startups, no matter how good their intentions, can scare investors. One way to overcome trepidation is to invest in larger-stage startups that seem less risky and then wade into earlier-stage startups at your own pace. Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are also becoming an interesting investment option.

SPACs are corporations formed for the sole purpose of raising investment capital through an IPO. The proceeds are then used to buy one or more existing companies, an option that could decrease anxiety for risk-averse investors looking to expand their comfort zone.

Any strategy an investor chooses to embrace social good is a step in the right direction. Capital is a tangible way to fuel innovation and bring about impactful change.

Democratized access to startups yields more opportunity for investors to find ventures that align with their values while diversifying their profiles can provide tremendous results. And when that return means disrupting the status quo and empowering societal change? Everyone wins.

More Spotify podcasts could soon become TV shows or movies thanks to a new, multi-year partnership announced today between the streaming music provider and film and television production company, Chernin Entertainment. The agreement will allow Chernin to identify and adapt film and TV shows from Spotify’s library of over 250 original podcast series, totaling thousands of hours of content.

The two companies, by way of Spotify-owned Gimlet Media, were already working together in collaboration with Pineapple Street Media on the forthcoming adaptation of the podcast series, The Clearing, about serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards. Those efforts will continue, while the deal opens up Spotify’s larger podcast library of shows from around the world to Chernin.

Image Credits: Spotify screenshot via TechCrunch

The production company is known today for movies like Ford v Ferrari, The Planet of the Apes Trilogy, The Greatest Showman, and Hidden Figures as well as TV shows like New Girl and Apple TV+’s See and Truth Be Told. This spring, it signed a first-look deal for feature films with Netflix, after losing a previous first-look deal with 20th Century Fox that ended when Disney acquired Fox’s feature film operations.

Those and other industry changes have put Chernin on the path to seek out new sources for IP that can be translated into movies, TV, and other sorts of digital video.

Meanwhile, the growth in podcasting has made audio programming a viable new source for original content that can be translated into other media, like film and TV. This podcasting market is also one Spotify has heavily invested in, with its acquisitions of podcast companies, like Gimlet and The Ringer, as well as podcasting tools that allow more people to become creators, like Anchor.

“Audio is by far the fastest-growing medium in the entertainment business, and with over 250 originals and thousands of hours of content, Spotify has one of the largest libraries of unattached IP that exists in the world today and that library is being added to daily,” said Chernin Entertainment Chairman and CEO Peter Chernin, in a statement. “This treasure trove of content plus the acceleration of new voices and stories provides an enormous opportunity to transform these addictive stories and IP into content for the screen,” he said.

Spotify tells TechCrunch the deal doesn’t include any commitment to adapt a certain number of podcasts into video projects, but it believes the volume will be high. Specific deal terms were also not being disclosed, including any possible revenue-sharing details. However, the deal doesn’t prevent Spotify from working with other production companies on programs Chernin decides to pass on. It also doesn’t specify any marketing or promotional commitments. Those will be handled on a project-by-project basis, Spotify says.

Spotify’s library of 250 original shows, as well as those it continues to release in the weeks and months ahead, will remain at the center of this agreement, but there may be scenarios where the companies also collaborate on adaptations beyond that group, Spotify tells us.

The aim is to discover what sorts of programs translate well into movies and TV. On this front, Spotify says it believes its diversity of content, ability to analyze data, and creator access will be to its advantage.

The Spotify original podcast library today includes popular shows across a variety of genres, which is a key asset in this deal. In addition, Spotify will be able to tap into data on how well shows are performing thanks to its prior development of specialized tools for analytics.

For example, Spotify currently allows podcasters to track their own show’s performance and other anonymized audience data through the Spotify for Podcasters service. Now, the company will be able to use this same data set to help identify possible adaptations that would do well. And because Spotify also owns several of the podcast production companies, it can also help work to identify creators with vision who may be better-suited to help with larger adaptations of this nature.

This is not the first time Spotify’s podcast content has been turned into movies or TV. The company today has nearly a dozen projects in various stages of completion, including the adaptation of Homecoming for Amazon Prime Video, plus upcoming projects like The Two Princes for HBO Max and The Horror of Dolores Roach for Prime Video.

Spotify and Chernin aren’t announcing any of the first projects that will result from this deal today but, given standard development and production timelines, 2021 would be the very earliest that such content would make its debut.

“At Spotify, we believe that the extraordinary growth of audio will continue to attract the world’s great creators and make podcasts a premier destination for original IP,” said Spotify Chief Content and Advertising Business Officer Dawn Ostroff, in an announcement. “As we continue to expand our content ambitions, we are thrilled to collaborate with Peter Chernin, who, along with his exceptional team, are the perfect partners to help us share these stories with audiences across mediums and around the world. Together, we can usher in a new era for podcasts as source material,” she said.

Greenlight Financial Technology, the fintech company that pitches parents on kid-friendly bank accounts, has raised $215 million in a new round of funding.

The round gives the Atlanta-based startup a $1.2 billion valuation thanks to backing from Canapi Ventures, TTV  Capital, BOND, DST Global, Goodwater Capital and Fin VC.

It’s a huge win for the Canadian-based venture investor Relay Ventures .

Since it launched its debit cards for kids in 2017, the company has managed to set up accounts for more than 2 million parents and children, who have saved more than $50 million through the app.

“Greenlight’s rapid growth is a testament to the value they bring to millions of parents and kids every day. My wife and I trust Greenlight to give us the modern tools to teach our children how to manage money,” said Gardiner Garrard, Founding Partner at TTV Capital, in a statement. “TTV Capital is thrilled to provide continued investment to help the company empower more parents.”

The company pitches itself as more than just a debit card, with apps that give parents the ability to deposit money in accounts and pay for allowance, manage chores and set flexible controls on how much kids can spend.

It’s a potentially massive business that can lock in a whole generation to a financial services platform, which is likely one reason why a whole slew of companies have launched with a similar thesis. There’s Kard, Step, and Current which are pitching similar businesses in the U.S. and Mozper recently launched from Y Combinator to bring the model to Latin America.

“Greenlight’s smart debit card is transforming the way parents teach their kids about responsible money management and financial literacy,” said Noah Knauf, general partner at BOND. “Having achieved phenomenal growth year-over-year, this is a company on the fast-track to becoming a household name. We look forward to working alongside the Greenlight team to support their continued growth.”