Month: September 2020

Your window to untold opportunity slams shut tonight. I’m looking at you, early-stage startup founders. Don’t miss your last chance to exhibit your tech and talent to thousands of Disrupt 2020 attendees around the world.

A Disrupt Digital Startup Alley Package is one of the most cost-effective ways to create brand awareness, attract new customers, catch the eyes of eager investors and garner invaluable media coverage. And this year, you don’t even have to get off the couch.

What the heck are you waiting for? Buy your Digital Startup Alley Package today before11:59 p.m. (PT).

Let’s review what it means to exhibit in Startup Alley. The price — which covers three people from your company — includes everything in the Digital Pass Pro pass plus TechCrunch creates a deck with information about all exhibiting startups and makes it available exclusively to investors attending Disrupt 2020.

In a classic but-wait-there’s-more moment, you’ll have access to content we created exclusively for exhibitors. We recorded these events, which aired live in July and August, and you can access them anytime on-demand after you register for your exhibitor pass.

• The Dos and Don’ts of Working with the Press
• COVID-19’s Impact on the Startup World
• Fundraising and Hiring Best Practices
• Ask Me Anything (Startup Alley Edition)

Exhibiting is a networking dream come true. CrunchMatch, our AI-powered networking platform, helps you find and connect with investors, founders and other startup influencers. Create your custom profile, and the platform searches for and connects you with like-minded people. You’ll save time by networking only with people who can move your business forward.

Here’s what one founder has to say about her Startup Alley experience.

“The CrunchMatch networking app is such a smart, useful tool. It lets you see who’s there, find the right people and reach out for a meeting. I scheduled five or six appointments in one day. The meetings were small, intimate and very informative.” — Felicia Jackson, inventor and founder of CPRWrap.

Disrupt 2020 is mere days away, but your chance to exhibit in Startup Alley, to stand in the path of thousands of attendees, ends just hours from now at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Again, what the heck are you waiting for? Go buy your pass right now.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact the sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

The final countdown to early-bird savings is in play, and you have mere hours left to save $100 on passes to TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 (October 6-7). The early-bird offer expires — and prices go up — today, September 11 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Why pay more than necessary? Buy your pass now and keep more money in your wallet.

Whether you’re already part of the mobility revolution or just exploring the possibilities within this rapidly changing industry, Mobility 2020 is designed with you in mind.

“I’m a serial entrepreneur with two mobility companies, and TC Sessions: Mobility was the perfect place to explore opportunities for both. We attended to connect with potential clients who need mobile applications for their businesses. And we also went to learn more about the micromobility landscape in the U.S.” — Parug Demircioglu, CEO at Invemo and partner at Nito Bikes.

You’ll hear from and engage with some of the industry’s leading voices. The visionaries, makers and investors building the future and changing the way we move everything around the world. Check out the agenda here.

“TC Sessions: Mobility exceeded my expectations in terms of useful content. Every panel discussion I attended, every interaction I had was relevant to my work or to my daily life — because we don’t stop living at 5 p.m.” — Jens Lehmann, technical lead and product manager, SAP.

You’ll spend two days diving deep into mobility and transportation tech, trends and regulatory realities. Explore and connect with more than 40 early-stage mobility startups exhibiting in our virtual expo. And — because no one goes far alone — CrunchMatch, our AI-powered platform, helps you expand and strengthen your network with people who align with your business goals.

“The networking at TC Sessions: Mobility is terrific. Our company’s building momentum in the U.S. market, and the opportunity to meet and talk with all the players is very important. The CrunchMatch platform made it easy to connect, and I used it to schedule 22 meetings.” — Melika Jahangiri, vice president at Wunder Mobility.

And then there’s the newest addition to TC Sessions: Mobility — Pitch Night, which kicks off the evening of October 5. Read the details here, and if you’re interested in participating, submit an application here by September 15.

So many outstanding reasons to attend TC Sessions: Mobility 2020, and one compelling reason to beat the deadline. Buy your pass before 11:59 p.m. (PT) tonight, and you’ll save $100.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Elon Musk has previously touted the ‘Bioweapon Defense Mode’ boasted by Tesla’s vehicles, which are designed to provide excellent air quality inside the car even in the face of disastrous conditions without, thanks in part to high-efficiency HEPA air filtration. Now, Musk has said on Twitter that he hopes to one day provide similar air filtration along with home HVAC systems.

Tesla, while primarily an automaker, is also already in the business of home energy and power generation, thanks to its acquisition of SolarCity, its current production of solar roofing products, and its business building Tesla batteries for storage of power generated from green sources at home. While it hasn’t yet seemed to make any moves to enter into any other parts of home building or infrastructure, HVAC systems actually would be a logical extension of its business, since they represent a significant part of the overall energy consumption of a home, depending on its heating and cooling sources.

Boosting home HVAC efficiency would have the added benefit of making Tesla’s other home energy products more appealing to consumers, since it would presumably help make it easier to achieve true off-grid (or near off-grid) self-sufficiency.

As for the company’s HEPA filtration, despite the jokey name, Tesla actually takes ‘Bioweapon Defense Mode’ very seriously. In a blog post in 2016, it detailed what went into the system’s design, along with testing data to back up its claims of a HEPA filter that’s “ten times more efficient than standard automotive filters.” While Tesla doesn’t cited wildfires in that post, it does list “California freeways during rush hour, smelly marshes, cow pastures in the Central Valley of California, and major cities in China” in terms of challenges it wanted it to to be able to handle.

Many experts are predicting that the wildfires we’re currently seeing devastating large portions of the west coast of the U.S. will only get worse as environmental conditions continue to suffer the impact of climate change. Given that, and given Tesla’s larger business goals of offering a range of products that neutralize or reduce the ecological impact of its customers, more efficient and effective home HVAC products don’t seem that far outside its operational expertise.

The UK’s long delayed coronavirus contact tracing app finally has a release date: The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced today that the app will launch in England and Wales on September 24.

The other regions of the country, Scotland and Northern Ireland, already have their own COVID-19 contacts tracing apps — the latter launching an app this summer. While the Protect Scotland app was released yesterday, where it went on to clock up more than 600,000 downloads in a matter of hours.

England and Wales have had a far lengthy-than-expected wait for an app after a false start back in May, when government ministers had suggested in daily coronavirus briefings that an app would be landing shortly.

Instead the launch was delayed, and DHSC took over development of the NHS COVID-19 app from the National Health Service’s digital division, NHSX, after it ran into problems related to the choice of a centralized app architecture — which triggered privacy concerns and saw the test app plagued by technical issues around iPhones device detection.

The government pivoted the app to a decentralized architecture which means it’s able to make use of exposure notification APIs offered by Apple and Google for official COVID-19 contacts tracing apps, avoiding the technical issues associated with iOS background Bluetooth detection.

Another element that’s been added to the NHS COVID-19 app is a check-in feature for venues via scannable QR codes. The government is encouraging businesses and locations where people may congregate, such as pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, libraries and so on, to print out and display a QR code that app users can scan to check into the venue.

This check-in data will be held locally on the device, taking the same privacy-preserving approach as for contacts data generated when devices come into proximity and swap ephemeral IDs.

Venue check-in data will be retained on device for 21 days, per the DHSC. If an outbreak is identified at a location its venue ID will be broadcast to all devices running the app — and those that contain recent check-ins will generate an on-device match.

The DHSC says such a match may generate an alert and advice to the app user on what to do (e.g. whether to quarantine) — “based on the level of risk”.

The government says trials of the reformulated app on the Isle of Wight and with NHS Volunteer Responders have shown it to be “highly effective” when used in conjunction with traditional contact tracing to identify contacts of those who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

It had previously suggested there were issues related to limitations in Apple’s and Google’s APIs which made it difficult to effectively estimate the distance between devices which it said was needed to generate exposure notifications.

Talking up the impending launch of the app, health and social care secretary Matt Hancock suggested that the scannable venue codes will provide “an easy and simple way to collect contact details to support the NHS Test and Trace system”. Although businesses will need a fall-back system to collect data from patrons who do not have the app.

“We need to use every tool at our disposal to control the spread of the virus including cutting-edge technology. The launch of the app later this month across England and Wales is a defining moment and will aid our ability to contain the virus at a critical time,” Hancock added.

UK businesses are being invited to download a QR code to display at their premise via gov.uk/create-coronavirus-qr-poster.

Reports last month in UK national press that suggested the app would abandon automatic contact tracing altogether appear to have been wide of the mark.

No matter how amazing the speaker lineup is at Disrupt 2020 next week — and believe you me, it’s pretty fuckin’ amazing — there is nothing more powerful than the connections people make at our show. Whether it’s an investor, a future cofounder, an interesting startup, or a new friend, networking is a critical aspect of Disrupt.

For the first time ever, Disrupt is going totally virtual. But just because you can’t get 10,000 steps in in the Startup Alley doesn’t mean you can’t make powerful connections at the show. In fact, there are perhaps more ways to meet people at Disrupt 2020 than there has ever been.

If you’ll allow, let me count the ways:

CrunchMatch

CrunchMatch has been a staple of TechCrunch events for a long time now, but it’s gotten smarter! The platform uses machine learning to match you with the right people based on your interests. Not only will you get suggestions for people you should meet with, but you can also search for people at the conference based on topic or the type of person, like a fellow entrepreneur or investor.

Random Matching:

But maybe you’re looking for something more serendipitous. At Disrupt, we’ll have a networking platform that will allow you to jump into video chat with other attendees at the conference at random. After a few minutes, you’ll be thrown into a new conversation with the next attendee in the queue. Contact info for these people will be stored in your account so you can hit them up later.

Chat:

The chat function at the show is flexible. If you’re in the main reception section of the show, you’ll be able to chat to all attendees. When you head into the Disrupt stage section, the chat flexes to show only the chatter from the Disrupt Stage. The same applies to the Extra Crunch Stage, individual breakout sessions, etc.

Take a look:

 

It’s not too late to join in on the action but to take part in all of this fun stuff, you’ll need to grab a Disrupt Digital Pro Pass or a Digital Startup Alley Exhibitor Package (today’s the last day to exhibit!). We hope to see you there!

Brooklyn-based EV startup Taform unveiled its Luna electric motorcycle in New York last week—a model designed for an audience that may not actually like motorcycles.

Tarform’s first street legal entrant, the Luna, starts at $24,000, does 0-60 mph in 3.8 seconds, has a city range of 120 miles, top-speed of 120 mph, and charges to 80% in 50 minutes—according to company specs.

The model was hatched out of the company’s mission to meld aesthetic design and craftsmanship to environmental sustainability in two-wheeled electric vehicles.

To that end, the Luna incorporates a number of unique, eco-design features. The bodywork is made from a flax seed weave and the overall motorcycle engineering avoids use of plastics. The Luna’s seat upholstery is made out of biodegradable vegan leather. Tarform is also testing methods to avoid paints and primers on its motorcycles, instead using a mono-material infused with algae and iron based metallic pigments.

The company was founded by Swede Taras Kravtchouk—an industrial design specialist, former startup head, and passionate motorcyclist. The Luna launch follows the debut of two concept e-motos in 2018.

On Tarform’s target market, he explained the startup hopes to attract those who may be turned off by the very things that have turned people on to motorcycling over the last 50 years—namely gas, chrome, noise, and fumes.

“It’s more for people who want a custom bike and the techies: people who wanted to have a motorcycle but didn’t want to be associated with the whole stigmatized motorcycle lifestyle,” Kravtchouk told TechCrunch.

Tarform enters the EV arena with competition from several e-moto startups—and on OEM—that are attempting to convert gas riders to electric and attract a younger generation to motorcycling.

One of the leaders is California company Zero Motorcycles, with 200 dealers worldwide. Zero introduced a its $19,000 SR/F in 2019, with a 161-mile city range, one-hour charge capability and a top speed of 124 mph. Italy’s Energica is expanding distribution of its high-performance e-motos in the U.S.

In 2020, Harley Davidson became the first of the big gas manufacturers to offer a street-legal e-motorcycle for sale in the U.S., the $29,000 LiveWire.

And Canadian startup Damon Motors debuted its 200 mph, $24,000 Hypersport this year, which offers proprietary safety and ergonomics tech for adjustable riding positions and blind-spot detection.

On how Tarform plans to compete with these e-motorcycle players, Kravtchouk explained that’s not the company’s priority. “We’re not even close in production to Zero or the other big guys, but that’s not our intention. Think of the [Luna] as a custom production bike,” he said.

“We did not set out to build a bike that is fastest or has the longest range,” Kravtchouk added. “We set out to build a bike that completely revises the manufacturing and supply chain of e-motorcycles in a way where we ethically source our materials and create an ethical supply-chain.”

For this mission, Tarform has obtained funding from several family offices and angel investors, including LA based M13. The Brooklyn based e-motorcycle company is taking pre-orders on its new Luna and pursuing a Series-A funding round for 2021, according to CEO Taras Kravtchouk.

A few weeks back, The Exchange looked into the pace of edtech exits, noting that over time, the sector has delivered rising exit volume. All startup verticals want to demonstrate a history of liquidity, so you might imagine that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, edtech fundraising was rising due to its improving exit profile.

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The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

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And dollars invested into edtech startups did increase, with 2018 and 2019 recording historically-elevated results concerning edtech venture capital deals and venture capital dollars invested.

However, with COVID-19 pushing more students to learn from home and forcing schools to invest in new tooling and other digital capabilities that support remote-learning, a strengthening exit market and a market shift towards edtech services has led to an explosion in venture capital investment in the sector.

According to CBInsight’s data concerning the state of edtech venture capital activity, startups in the sector have already surpassed their 2019 venture capital dollar tally and are on-track to set a new record in 2020, besting even 2018’s elevated result. Whether more total edtech deals will be closed in 2020 is less clear, but if current pace holds, 2020 should come somewhat close to 2018’s edtech deal count.

What’s driving the huge boom in edtech’s venture capital results? Let’s dig into just that.

An edtech boom

The data is pretty clear, as the following chart details. 2018 and 2019 were amazing, and 2020 is looking super hot as well:

Driving 2020’s huge VC totals in terms of dollars invested are a grip of mega-rounds — venture deals of $100 million or more. According to CBInsights data, 13 deals of $100 million or more have been raised by edtech startups thus far in 2020, worth billions of dollars as a group. Indeed, the huge rounds from Yuandudao and Zuoyebang were worth $1.75 billion as a pair.

The high concentration of big rounds is also part of the reason why edtech startups are prepping to set a venture capital dollar record, if not a venture capital deal volume record, in 2020.

But don’t think that it is all over for early-stage edtech rounds. Per the same dataset, a historically-normal 50% of edtech deals recorded through August of 2020 were seed or angel investments. These transactions are worth a far-smaller fraction of dollars-raised by definition, but the number of very early bets into the edtech space implies that there is still lots of room to build. We’ve covered a number of early-stage financings such as Edsight’s $1.6 million round and Learn In’s $3.5 million round. Gaps around inclusivity, efficacy, outcomes and back-end support still remain and are ripe territory for new startups to innovate within. Plus, data shows that there’s a good pipeline of future deals for the later-stage investors that have already demonstrated an interest in writing big edtech checks.

A geographic focus

The CBInsights data also shows that 8 of the 10 top-funded edtech startups are in China, and a chunk of those are focused on English-learning education. China’s edtech scene has historically been bigger than other regions because of a high population, consumer spending patterns and a cultural focus on education. It was growing much before the pandemic; when venture investing dropped in China Q1 2019, edtech grew year over year and brought in $1.86 billion.

In the past couple of months, edtech startups have closed strategic capital to expand into the gold mine that is China. Labster, for example, recently brought on $9 million in capital and GGV’s Jenny Lee, who is based in Shanghai, to break into China. Duolingo similarly took a $10 million check to welcome on an investor with knowledge of Asian markets, General Atlantic.

Byju’s, coming out of India, is one of the other top-funded edtech startups. The personalized learning startup, already the most valued edtech startup in the world, got a $500 million check from Silver Lake earlier this week. It has doubled its revenue during the pandemic as it added more than 20 million new students to its platform. The company also acquired 18-month old White Hat Jr for $300 million. And the venture capital firm that invested in both Byju’s and White Hat Jr? Owl Ventures, which has raised a $565 million pair of funds to invest in edtech. 

The unicorn’s growth during the pandemic is hard to get your head around (although we tried to) but sums up how boggling growth can be.

That growth is part of why edtech’s venture capital results are as strong as they are. Now the challenge for the sector will be keeping its growth alive in 2021, showing investors that their 2020 bets were not merely wagers made during a single, overheated year, but bets placed in a startup niche that will keep getting hotter for years to come.

WildType, the startup making lab-grown salmon, is opening up a pre-order list for select chefs.

Although the company is as much as five years out from commercial production, according to founders, the company is looking to partner with select chefs around the country who want to incorporate their sushi-grade salmon product into their menus.

“We’re not launching right now. We’re releasing the news that we have the next iteration of the product,” said co-founder Justin Kolbeck, a former US diplomat who launched the company to address issues of food insecurity he’d seen firsthand while stationed in Afghanistan.

“[It’s] sushi or nigiri or sashimi that you would order at a sushi restaurant,” he said. So the product that WildType hopes to ship will be equivalent to the saku blocks of fish meat that sushi chefs carve to prepare salmon. “Chefs will take a fish apart into saku blocks which are ten to fourteen ounces of fish,” said Kolbeck. “They’ll cut out bits that go on nigiri and the bits that are left over are made into rolls. We’ve designed an initial product release that can serve all three of those form factors.”

The process is more difficult than simply culturing cells. According to Kolbeck and WildType’s other co-founder Arye Elfenbein, the company has developed its own technology for developing the scaffolding on which both the muscle tissue and fats can grow to replicate the taste and texture of wild caught salmon.

“We’re developing the cell lines ourselves, we’re developing the scaffolding, and we’re developing the nutrients that we need to grow and we’re developing the cultivators that the cells need to grow in,” said Kolbeck.

For the cultivated meat industry to reach its full potential, companies may need to differentiate their businesses to focus on a single element of the supply chain going forward, the founders said.

Already, companies like Future Fields are raising money to focus on specific examples of the cultivated food supply chain, and WildType considered going down that road itself, according to Elfenbein.

“What we’ve created is special in its ability to provide cells with the right signals to organize and mature,” said Elfenbein. “This is applicable to other species than the salmon that we have worked on… we basically create a scaffold that provides the right guidance in different places for cells to take up fats in different places or become more striated.”

Already WildType has created sushi-grade salmon that achieves equivalence when it comes to nutrition and when it comes to the healthy omega 3 fats that make salmon a healthier option for consumers.

WildType is already working with restaurants in San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle and is looking for chefs in other parts of the country.

Kolbeck thinks the timing is right for the company’s cultivated product. Consumers right now are coming to the realization that the supply chain for seafood is broken even as more shoppers are gravitating from the meat aisle to seafood in greater numbers.

From mislabeling of fish to the problems associated with factory fish farming, aquaculture and environmental degradation — along with the risks of chemically contaminated fish — shoppers who want seafood are also increasingly looking for more information about the provenance of the food they’re eating.

“The news is that we’re placing our bet on sushi as an industry where we can launch and make a big splash… pun intended,” said Kolbeck.

Poland is becoming an important European tech ecosystem after experiencing record levels of investment and growth in recent years.

It’s the largest economy in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), is known for its technical talent and has now nurtured a number of large startups that have raised multiple rounds of funding. In 2019, investment in Poland’s startups — with Warsaw being the biggest startup hub in the country — grew eight times year-on-year to reach €294 million. This was more than the combined amounts of the nine years prior. While investment has slowed due to the pandemic, it has not stopped. And of course, COVID-19 has only accelerated the pace of digital adoption inside the country itself.

A July 2020 report by Dealroom found over 2,400 Polish early- and later-stage startups, 97 venture capital funds and cataloged over 1,600 funding rounds in 2019. The country has over 401,000 engineers (twice that of Romania at 139,000). It also had twice the number of venture capital rounds in the region (823 compared to Estonia’s 477).

Polish startups are on a funding roll, as the average cheque size for pre-Seed-stage investments has almost tripled since 2013. At the same time, it’s attracting foreign investors. Codility and Nomagic were two startup investments that stood out this year so far. Nomagic, a smart “pick and place” robotic solution, attracted investment from the U.K.’s Hoxton Ventures and Khosla Ventures in the U.S.

Key, later-stage startups include Booksy, Brainly and Docplanner, while significant recent exits include Fibaro, PizzaPortal and Frisco. Poland has a sophisticated banking system, meaning there is an increasing number of fintech startups in the space.

Meanwhile, the startup ecosystem has, in recent years, been spreading outward from the capital, Warsaw, to Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław and Gdansk.

The country has also developed into a leading video game exporter. CD Projekt’s Witcher series was a big hit, based as it was on a series of best-selling Polish books, which were also the basis for a Netflix show.

According to data from PwC, Poland’s video game and esports market was worth $664 million in 2019 — up from $400 million in 2014 — and is predicted to climb to nearly $850 million over the next four years.

We asked 10 investors, principally based in Warsaw, to give us their take on where things are right now.

• Bryony Cooper, managing partner, Arkley Brinc VC
• Anna Wnuk-Błażejczyk, investor relations manager, Experior.vc
• Rafał Roszak, investment director, YouNick Mint
• Michal Mroczkowski, partner, Market One Capital
• Marcus Erken, partner, Sunfish Partners
• Borys Musielak, partner, SMOK Ventures
• Mathias Åsberg, partner, Nextgrid
• Kuba Dudek, SpeedUp Venture Capital Group
• Marcin Laczynski, partner, Next Road Ventures
• Michał Rokosz, partner, Inovo Venture Partners

Bryony Cooper, managing partner, Arkley Brinc VC

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
Deep tech topics including food and agritech, industrial IoT, media tech, cybersecurity and energy tech.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
We just closed a follow-on round in CyberHeaven sp. Z o.o., bringing the total investment to 4 million PLN ($1 million). Together with their partner company UseCrypt, they’re setting a new standard in data security with a complete ecosystem of tools to ensure the highest possible level of encryption. Trusted by major corporations, military and government organisations, they are soon to announce a partnership with a major TV network.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
I had a funny conversation with a friend the other day; we wondered how come cats and dogs can get a simple, six-month treatment to protect against ticks and fleas, but no such solution exists for humans?!
Many food and bio tech startups we see are in early/MVP stage; we’d like to see more in pilot stage, trialling/testing with customers.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
We’re looking for experienced founders who have demonstrated their ability to execute and succeed in business, with beneficial strategic partnerships/network in place and a viable exit strategy. We’re particularly interested in deep tech startups with a physical/hardware aspect, at pilot stage.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?
I’ve seen so many B2C home food growing/urban farming startups (hydroponics) — a nice idea, but I don’t believe it will take off. I’m also weary of consumer electronics and wearables that don’t deliver real value and are rather a gimmick.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
We focus heavily on Poland (our local ecosystem), especially because our fund was created with the PFR Starter FIZ program from PFR Ventures (the Polish Development Fund). However we can invest into startups from any European country, and we review applications Europe-wide.

Which industries in your city and region seem well-positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
Of course COVID-19 has altered the answer to this question. Regardless of region, industries that are not affected by (or are benefiting from) the pandemic are best-positioned to thrive. That includes health and medtech, certain mobility sectors, remote work tools! As for Poland, there’s a strong resource pool for software and hardware capabilities at very competitive rates, so a wide range of industries can thrive here.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
In Warsaw and Poland, many new VC funds have been set up over the last 1-2 years, so there’s a lot of competition to find great startups. We differentiate ourselves by focusing on deep tech and hardware-related sectors (many others only invest into software/SaaS). Many Polish VCs are optimistic, but are focusing only on the current situation of companies — not thinking long term (i.e., exit strategy). I would definitely say the startup ecosystem in Poland is growing and should be considered as “one to watch” by global investors.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
Yes, I do believe it is becoming less important to be located in a major city. More and more companies are making remote work possible, with more tools available for remote work and communication. Therefore location is no longer paramount to successful networking and meetings. The world is going virtual.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
Many industries that require manufacturing of hardware or physical products have been affected by factory closures, putting time delays on production. Also, B2B food tech companies have struggled with the downturn in restaurant business, with supply chains and distribution channels affected. They have to rethink their business models. Whereas ordering take-out food and any on-demand/home delivery services are on the rise, opening up new opportunities (though this trend began years ago).

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
The main concerns are about delays in production, or that B2B customers are less open to making new investments/purchases at the moment with so much economic uncertainty. Some of our portfolio companies (such as Cyberheaven, mentioned above) are going full speed ahead. The global discussions on data privacy raised by health-tracking apps have opened up many opportunities for them, as more corporations and individuals are prioritising protecting personal data.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
We see some acceleration, some slowing down but no stopping!

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
Seeing our team consistently keep up momentum and adapt so quickly to remote work has given me hope. Also seeing our portfolio companies assess and adapt to “the new normal” with total confidence in achieving their goals.

Any other thoughts you want to share with TechCrunch readers?
Startups should not lose faith due to COVID-19. Consumers and businesses still have needs to be fulfilled. Opportunities may change, but there are still plenty out there. And let’s not forget the importance of fighting climate change and the UN Sustainable Development goals! We’re happy with how our Q4 pipeline is looking :)

Glasgow, Scotland-based video interview startup Willo has scored a £250,000 (~$320k) seed round of funding after watching demand for its asynchronous Q&A style video platform leap up during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Guernsey-based VC firm 1818 Venture Capital is investing in the seed round, with Willo board members Steve Perry, Stefan Ciecierski and Peter Preston also kicking in a smaller chunk of the capital.

The 2018-founded startup says usage of its SaaS platform has grown at least 80% each month since April, after the UK went into a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Customers have also been finding new uses for the product beyond video interviews — such as for reviews, training, and learning and development — as remote working has been supercharged by the pandemic.

“We have over 1,000 users in 60+ countries — growing 2x faster this month than previous months!” says CEO and founder, Euan Cameron. “Core industries are recruitment, customer research, learning and development and non-profits for volunteers etc.”

The seed funding will be put towards accelerating Willo’s international growth — with a recruitment drive that will add 24 members of staff planned, in addition to spending on further product development.

Cameron confirms it’s working on adding real-time video to the platform, when we ask — so it’s gunning to go after a slice of Zoom (et al)’s lunch.

“Our core product offering is simple, affordable async video communication. However, we are currently in development of a realtime (Live) interviewing option so that organisations can seamlessly flip from an asynchronous video into a realtime one,” he says.

Currently Willo offers an interface that let employers pose questions for candidates/staff to respond to by recording a video response. The platform stores all videos in a dashboard for easy reviewing and sharing.

For the recruitment use-case it also offers a question bank — letting employers choose from “hundreds” of pre-written questions to shave a little friction off the recruitment process.

Expanding on some of the additional uses customers have been finding for the platform during the pandemic, Cameron tells TechCrunch: “We have an education charity in the UK (Worktree) who use Willo to ask people in successful careers around the world about their job and their career path. Worktree then provides these videos to kids in schools to help them make career choices.

“A business in Europe uses Willo to identify niche influencers who have potential and bring them on board a training and development program.”

Another example he gives is a university in India that’s using it to find and enrol software engineers for a degree course. Businesses are also using it to obtain customer testimonials and for customer research. And of course Willo’s own VC investor is a user — having adopted the platform for all new business pitches.

“Every new business must go through Willo as part of what they have branded their ‘Ten Minute Pitch’. They connect Willo to Calendy to automate this workflow which is cool,” he notes, adding: “What is most interesting is that all of these examples previously used to rely on face-to-face meetings or video calls, but they had to adapt.”

Willo is also putting a tentative toe into the waters of artificial intelligence for the hiring use-case, although he says its roadmap has shifted to focus more on chasing growth as a result of the pandemic lockdown effect.

Its website trails an “AI-powered” beta feature that’s doing keyword analysis with the aim of identifying personality and behavioral traits, based on how candidates speak.

Asked about this, Cameron says: “Currently, our AI which is in beta is purely focused on the transcription of the audio, we are working hard on not only transcribing accurately but also creating keyword trends. For example, if you are an analytical person we can identify that and call it out to the organisation by looking at common words and themes within your interview.”

“This is very much in its infancy as COVID-19 has pushed us to focus on delivering what we already do at scale and for the many additional use cases [mentioned previously],” he adds.

Applying algorithms to automate elements of the hiring process is something a growing number of startups have been dabbling in in recent years. Although there can be legal risks around bias/discrimination when applying such tools — given the varied and often complex patchworks of applicable laws in different jurisdictions. (In the UK, for example, equality, employment and data protection law may all need to be considered.)

Asked how Willo is avoiding the risk of AI-powered keyword analysis leading to unfair/unequal effects for interview candidates, Cameron says: “Regarding UK equality law we have been working with organisations on a 1-to-1 basis around training and development of their own staff to ensure that they are using Willo as a tool for good. We believe that the same bias and discrimination would occur in a face-to-face or live video interview so it is a case of eradicating that from the individuals through training. We partner with an HR consultancy to help deliver this training when requested.”

“We are working with an incredibly experienced data and compliance expert to ensure we introduce AI effectively, legally and to the benefit of both interviewer and interviewee,” he adds.

“Our core values are always to be transparent and ensure that we are adding value for all users. One of the challenges with AI at Willo is to ensure that we continue to enhance the human interactions at scale — the number one piece of feedback we receive from users is that they loved seeing and hearing from people — so we never want to automate that out of the product.”

On the competitive front, Cameron lists Sparkhire, Vidcruiter and Recright as “key” competitors though he notes that Willo, which offers a freemium tier, is positioning itself to be accessible for a wider range of users.

“They all focus primarily on recruitment and are prohibitively expensive for most SMEs and start-ups. I believe that video interviewing should benefit everyone, not just large multinationals,” he adds.