Year: 2020

As edtech startups emerge and expand in India, millions of students in the country now have an additional option to choose from when they prepare for competitive exams.

But despite the proliferation of cheap Android handsets and availability of some of the world’s cheapest mobile data plans, online learning platforms in India are struggling to appeal to the masses because their offering is too expensive for many.

EduRev, a Y Combinator-backed startup (W20), thinks it can address this. The three-year-old startup offers an all-you-can watch catalog in a Netflix-esque fashion that costs between $20 to $50 a year — compared to anything between $300 to $4,000 that other platforms charge.

The startup has partnered with teachers around the country to make their classes — aimed at primary school to high-school and to students preparing for undergraduate-level course — available on the platform.

Students can come and consume some of this content — which includes notes, previous year exam papers, mock tests, and class videos — for no charge, but access to full-course and additional catalogs requires becoming a subscriber, explained Kunaal Satija, co-founder of EduRev, in an interview with TechCrunch.

“Most of the classes in India are not efficient. The vast majority of students are not really learning much. There is also a severe lack of good teachers in the country. And if offline to online transition did not already have a learning curve attached to it, it is also expensive,” he said.

To replicate the traditional learning experience, EduRev also has a social aspect to it. Students can follow their friends and track their progress and participate in helping other students clear their doubts and pose their own questions. These features are available to non-paying users as well.

The price and wider-catalog availability, Satija said, has helped the startup gain millions of users. The platform has amassed over 5 million registered users, more than 1.5 million of which come to the platform each month, he said.

He declined to share how many paying users EduRev currently has, but said the startup has been operationally profitable for last four months.

Renewed phones, laptops and tablets can be as much as 40% cheaper than their brand new cousins, working equally as well and, because they have been saved from the scrapheap, are therefore a great deal more environmentally friendly. Players in this space include
Back Market (raised €48M), Swappa (US) and Amazon Renew.

Refurbed, a marketplace for exactly these types of refurbished electronics plans to take advantage of this growing market, after raising a $17 million Series A round of funding led by Finland’s Evli Growth Partners. They have been joined in the round by Almaz Capital, Bonsai Partners, All Iron Ventures and FJ Labs as new investors. Existing investors Klaus Hofbauer and Inventure Partners also participated.

Refurbed is active in Austria, Germany, Poland and Italy, and now plans to use the capital to expand to additional markets in 2020, notably into the German market.

The startup’s refurbish devices are renewed through a 40-step process and come with a 12-month guarantee. Founded in 2017, it now has more than 150,000 customers throughout Europe with sales, its says, growing over five times in 2019. It claims to have also posted more than $45 million in gross merchandising volume.

Peter Windischhofer, co-founder of refurbed, said: “Our mission is to bring one refurbished product into every household in Europe and change the way we consume as a society,” , said. “This funding round is the next big step to reach our ambitious goal.”

But why is it that they think they can take on some of their larger competitors? “We only work with the best merchants across Europe with the highest quality and superior customer service. This leads to the highest customer satisfaction in the industry (e.g 4.8/5 on Trusted Shops),” Windischhofer told TechCrunch .

Riku Asikainen, managing partner of the lead investor Evli Growth Partners, added: “We admire the refurbed team that manages to have a positive impact on the world and is financially successful at the same time.”

At the Green Alley Award 2018 refurbed was ranked among the top 3 most sustainable tech startups in Europe, and took second place in the Climate Impact Battle 2018 at the Slush Festival.

GiveVision, the U.K. startup creating wearable technology to help “restore” sight to people with visual impairments, is partnering with Sony (via the Sony UK Technology Centre) to develop and manufacture its next generation device.

Specifically, GiveVision says it will be working with Sony UK Tec to help bring to market a new, lightweight version of the startup’s “SightPlus” device. This will including condensing its existing “vision enhancing” technology into a single pair of glasses. The idea is to make it a lot more practical and less socially awkward for the person wearing the device.

“The collaboration with Sony will add to the expertise of the existing GiveVision team, and provide world leading technology expertise around camera, display and smartphone innovation, as well as a global manufacturing footprint,” says GiveVision.

As part of the collaboration, GiveVision will be relocating its design office to the Sony UK Tec facility in Wales in the U.K. To date, GiveVision has received support from Telefonica, Pfizer and the NHS.

GiveVision CEO Stan Karpenko tells me that around 1 in 3 people lose their sight by the age of 65 to conditions such as age-related macular degeneration or diabetic retinopathy. And that for those affected, there is currently no cure and very few options to restore vision.

“Those that have been affected suffer immensely every single day,” he says. “But with better ‘tools’ we can make them suffer less. We can help them to be more independent which will improve their quality of life significantly.

“At GiveVision we have developed a pair of electronic glasses that helps patients with even the most severe cases of un-curable sight loss to see clearly again by projecting a video of real-world into the working part of the retina”.

To that end, a recent study by Moorfields Eye Hospital found that almost 70% of users of the SightPlus prototype device reported that their visual acuity was enhanced to 0.2 logMAR or better, which I’m told is close to a normal level of vision.

“59 out of the 60 trial participants (98%) found that SightPlus improved their visual acuity by an average of six lines on a sight test chart (31 EDTRS letters or 0.6 logMar),” says the startup.

However, one of the biggest challenges that needed to be overcome is distilling the tech down to something that is actually wearable and still works. Consumer VR headsets not only remain quite bulky and heavy but they don’t provide a wide enough field of view to enable a visually impaired person to see.

“This is why this partnership with Sony is so important,” adds Karpenko. “We can manufacture a medical device that has 100 degree-plus field of view, and that actually works for the visually impaired, while looking like a pair of designer shades!”.

Tesla said Monday it has started delivering the Model Y crossover to customers in the U.S., hitting a milestone one year after unveiling the prototype and six months ahead of schedule.

Reports of deliveries started last week. The tweet from Tesla, which included a video of the Model Y being assembled and then hitting the road, made it official.

Tesla announced in January that production of the Model Y had started with plans to begin the first deliveries of the all-electric compact crossover by the end of the first quarter. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the time that the company would initially produce a limited volume of the Model Y.

When Musk unveiled last March a prototype of the Model Y, he predicted the vehicle would hit the marketplace in fall 2020. At the time of the unveiling, the Model Y looked strikingly similar to the Model 3. Now that Tesla has started deliveries and released the owner’s manual to the Model Y, it’s easier to spot how its different or the same as the Model 3.

Here are some of the important features and differences between the Model Y and Model 3.

Model Y size

The owner’s manual shows the Model Y is 187 inches long, 75.6 inches wide excluding the mirrors and 63.9 inches high. The wheel base is 113.8 inches long and the ground clearance is 6.6 inches.

The Model Y is bigger and higher than the Model 3. Here’s how it stacks up. The Model Y is 2 inches longer, 2.8 inches wider (excluding the mirrors) and 7.1 inches taller than the Model 3. The wheelbase of the Model Y is 0.6 inch longer and the ground clearance is 1.1 inch higher. The Model Y also has a 2.2 inch wider track (using base wheels) and about 1.4 inch more of a front overhang.

Moving to the inside of the Model Y, customers will find a tiny bit more headroom — less than an inch. There’s about 5 inches more legroom in the backseat and a little under an inch less legroom in the front seat compared to the Model 3.

The Model Y is, as expected, heavier than the Model 3 by nearly 350 pounds.

Cargo

The Model Y has been described as a crossover, and so one would expect it to have more storage and the ability to tow things. The Model Y has the cargo space — a total of 68 cubic feet in all. However, these vehicles are not equipped for towing, according to the manual.

To maximize cargo space, each second row seat back can be folded fully forward to lay flat. There are a couple of ways to fold the seats flat. One way is by pulling and holding the handle, push the corresponding seat back fully forward, according to the manual. It’s also possible to use a quick release button located on the left side of the rear trunk area to fold the seats down. A 12-volt charger is located in the trunk area as well.

There’s also an option to push down the center section of the second row to allow for long items such as skis.

Curiously, while there’s more total cargo space, the recommended cargo capacity, in terms of weight, is 35 pounds less than the Model 3.

Model Y range and price

The long-range Model Y has a range of 315 miles and has a base price of $52,990. The standard range Model 3 has a range of 250 miles and a base price of $39,990, the long range version can travel 322 miles on a single charge and is priced at $48,990.

A little helper for cold climates

One interesting feature is that the Model Y has heat pump, which the owner’s manual says is used to maximize efficiency. The manual notes that the air conditioning compressor and external fan may run and make noise even when the outside temperature is cold.

The upshot: the heat pump is a means to a better range in colder climates.

Easter eggs

Just like the Model 3, customers can expect a variety of easter eggs, hidden games and features in the infotainment system, including Arcade, Santa mode and Mars, which gives a map that shows a Model Y as a rover on the Martian landscape.

 

Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank, is officially launching business bank accounts today, after an extensive trial period over the last 12 months that saw early access given to 2,500 business customers.

Perhaps surprisingly, right out of the gate Monzo is offering two versions of its business bank account — which is aimed at sold traders and SMEs — a free account and a premium paid-for account, confirming our scoop from last week.

The free Monzo business account is called “Business Lite” and has a feature-set similar to Monzo’s consumer account, in addition to providing web access not just mobile app-based banking. The paid business account is called “Business Pro” and costs £5 per month.

It has a host of business features, including “Tax Pots,” which lets businesses put aside a percentage of inbound payments in preparation for a future tax bill (a simple but fairly ingenious feature), integration with third-party accounting software, multi-user accounts, and in-app invoicing tools.

In a call with Monzo co-founder and CEO Tom Blomfield late last week, I asked him why the bank had decided to charge from the get-go, when others, such as rival challenger bank Starling, has so far kept business banking free (albeit it, heavily subsidised via state aid)

“Charging a small fee… allows us to invest more in power features,” he tells me. “So things like accounting integrations, multi-user access that that not all businesses need but cost us more to build. And so it seems fair to offer a free tier for people who don’t need that extra powerful functionality. And then a pro tier for people who do. I think for five pounds a month it’s fabulous value; the number of hours saved on bookkeeping through things like tax pots and integrations with Xero, will very, very quickly pay for that”.

Another noticeable aspect of Monzo’s business banking product is that it feels quite polished at launch. During its formative years, the upstart bank prioritised speed to market and an iterative product development process, which, for the most part, has served Monzo well. However, it also led to mishaps last year and at times the appearance of a ‘move fast, half bake things’ philosophy. With 4 million customers, Blomfield says the company is evolving its approach.

“Your point on polish is I think really apt,” he tells me. “I think In 2019, especially the first half of 2019, we tried to do too many things in parallel, and we spread ourselves too thin and launched too early. And I think we didn’t quite realise that we’re sort of a national brand now. YouGov named us the number one brand in the U.K. last year. And I think we were still operating a little bit like a scrappy startup rather than a mature bank. And so this year, and this is the first one, we will launch two or three things… [and] the level of polish and sort of maturity at launch will be much, much higher”.

Candidly, Blomfield acknowledges that this has required a different way of working, which he says the team has embraced. “I’m really really proud of this business product. It’s performing exceptionally well. The feedback so far has just been spectacular, so I’m really excited about it”.

Asked what assumptions proved correct and what was less obvious during the 12 months Monzo spent developing its business bank accounts, Blomfield says the team knew that multi-user access was going to be a big thing, and that instant notifications are a surprisingly useful for businesses as well. “If you’re a freelancer, knowing that your client has just paid you is really powerful,” he says.

In contrasts, web access became more important than the team had initially realised, leading Monzo to invest quite heavily in a web portal for business accounts. In addition, Blomfield frames tax pots as “a simple but such a powerful feature”.

“It’s similar to roundup functionality you have in a personal account,” he explains. “Basically, anytime you get paid, you want to set aside a percentage so you don’t have that unpleasant tax problem 9 to 12 months down the line. [It’s a feature] people have really, really loved from our feedback and surveys”.

As schools around the world close or move classes online to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, many parents and educators are scrambling for ideas. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has assembled an online guide with links to distance learning apps and other resources.

According to UNESCO, “an unprecedented number of children, youth and adults are not attending schools or universities because of COVID-19,” with governments in 100 countries having announced or implemented closures. In 85 countries, schools nationwide have been closed, affecting more than 776.7 million children.

In addition to a list of national learning portals, UNESCO is also updating a list of digital education tools, including digital learning management systems like ClassDojo and Google Classroom; apps designed for smart featurephones like KaiOS; and software with a strong offline component, including Can’t Wait to Learn, Kolibri, Rumie and Ustad Mobile.

The list also covers MOOCs, self-directed learning platforms, mobile reading apps, educational software development tools and live-video platforms like Dingtalk, Hangouts Meet and Zoom.

In an unprecedented move to reassure customers and flag the potential for misinformation about COVID-19 on their platforms, all of the major social media companies and their parent corporations issued a joint statement on their efforts.

“We invite other companies to join us as we work to keep our communities healthy and safe,” the statement read.

Last week, U.S Chief Technology Officer Michael Michael Kratsios held a remote meeting with representatives from major tech companies on how to coordinate various efforts related to COVID-19, including fighting disnformation. The Washington Post and Politico reported that the White House asked Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Cisco and Twitter for help.

The World Health Organization’s director-general said last month that disinformation is as dangerous as COVID-19. During an address at the Munich Security conference on Feb. 15, almost a month before the WHO officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous.”

But tech companies aren’t just battling the spread of questionable posts by the public. They also have to contend with misleading information in several of President Donald Trump’s public statements on COVID-19, including his tweets and Facebook posts.

TechCrunch has contacted each of the companies in the joint statement for more details, and will update this post as we hear back from them.

In response to an email, a LinkedIn spokesperson directed TechCrunch to a post published by the company on March 13, with links to information about finding trustworthy news sources and working remotely.

Facebook’s efforts to fight disinformation about COVID-19 have included information cards on Instagram and Facebook, that redirect to sources like the World Health Organization or local health authorities.

While companies might pay for a CEO coach, lower level employees often get stuck with lame skill-building worksheets or no mentorship at all. Not only does that limit their potential productivity, but it also makes them feel stagnated and undervalued, leading them to jump ship.

Therapy…err…executive coaching is finally becoming destigmatized as entrepreneurs and their teams realize that everyone can’t be crushing it all the time. Building a business is hard. It’s okay to cry sometimes. But the best thing you can do is be vulnerable and seek help.

Torch emerged from stealth last year with $18 million in funding to teach empathy to founders and C-suite execs. Since 2013, Everwise has raised $26 million from Sequoia and others for its peer-to-peer mentorship marketplace that makes workplace guidance accessible to rank-and-file staffers.  Tomorrow they’ll official announce their merger under the Torch name to become a full-stack career coach for every level of employee.

“As human beings, we face huge existential challenges in the form of pandemics, climate change, the threats coming down the pipe from automation and AI” says Torch co-founder and CEO Cameron Yarbrough. “We need to create leaders at every single level of an organization and ignite these people with tools and human support in order to level up in the world.”

Startup acquisitions and mergers can often be train wrecks because companies with different values but overlapping products are jammed together. But apparently it’s gone quite smoothly since the products are so complementary, with all 70 employees across the two companies keeping their jobs. “Everwise is much more bottom up whereas Torch is about the upper levels, and it just sort of made sense” says Garry Tan, partner and co-founder of Initialized Capital that funded Torch’s Series A and is also a client of its coaching.

How does each work? Torch goes deep, conducting extensive 360-interviews with an executive as well as their reports, employees, and peers to assess their empathy, communication, vision, conflict resolution, and collaboration.  clients’ executives do extensive 360-interviews. It establishes quantifiable goals that executives work towards through video call sessions with Torch’s coaches. They learn about setting healthy workplace boundaries, stay calm amidst arguments, motivating staff without seeming preachy, and managing their own ego.

This coaching can be exceedingly valuable for the leaders setting a company’s strategy and tone. But the one-on-one sessions are typically too expensive to buy for all levels of employees. That’s where Everwise comes in.

Everwise goes wide, offers a marketplace with 6000 mentors across different job levels and roles that can provider more affordable personal guidance or group sessions with 10 employees all learning from each other. It also provides a mentorship platform where bigger companies can let their more senior staffers teach junior employees exactly what it takes to succeed. That’s all stitched together with a curated and personalized curriculum of online learning materials. Meanwhile, a company’s HR team can track everyone’s progress and performance through its Academy Builder dashboard.

“We know Gen Z has grown up with mentors by their side from SAT prep” says Torch CMO Cari Jacobs. Everwise lets them stay mentored, even at early stages of their professional life. “As they advance through their career, they might notch up to more executive private coaching.” Post-merger, Torch can keep them sane and ambitious throughout the journey. 

“It really allows us to move up market without sacrificing all the traction we’ve built working with startups and mid-market companies” Yarbrough tells me. Clients have included Reddit and ZenDesk, but also giants like Best Buy, Genentech, and T-Mobile.

The question is whether Everwise’s materials are engaging enough to not become just another employee handbook buried on an HR site that no one ever reads. Otherwise, it could just feel like bloat tacked onto Torch. Meanwhile, scaling up to bigger clients pits Torch against long-standing pillars of the executive coaching industry like Aon and Korn Ferry that have been around for decades and have billions in revenue. Meanwhile, new mental health and coaching platforms are emerging like BetterUp and Sounding Board.

But the market is massive since so few people get great coaching right now. “No one goes to work and is like ‘man, I wish my boss was less mindful'” Tan jokes. When Yarbrough was his coach, the Torch CEO taught the investor that while many startup employees might think they thrive on flexibility, “people really want high love and high structure.” In essence, that’s what Torch is trying to deliver — a sense of emotional comradery mixed with a prod in the direction of fulfilling their destiny.

Event organizers were the first to be hit hard. As fear of the spread of Covid-19 began to sweep cities and countries around the world last month, one by one, large conferences with long uninterrupted histories —  Mobile World Congress, South by Southwest — began reluctantly pulling the plug on their plans. It wasn’t just a shock for these organizations; it will cost them and the vendors with which they work and surrounding service providers like hotels and car services millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Little wonder that many of those involved in the planning of such events are now testing the power of force majeure clauses, which are a typical provision in contracts that excuses a party’s performance of its obligations when confronted with circumstances beyond its control.

Yet they won’t be alone for long. With every passing day, it’s become clear that event organizers were just the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. As the world shuts down and people are urged to quarantine themselves, it seems no one will be spared from Covid-19 — not from its economic impact anyway. And that include startups and venture capital firms. Indeed, as the global markets tank, many of the institutions that fuel the venture capital industry are seeing their assets hammered. At some point, money flow could well become a problem.

Nate Cooper, a lawyer with Cooley’s 1100-attorney-strong firm, says it’s “mostly just clients right now, coming to us, anticipating this or that,” but he also says that because the “impact to the financial markets has obviously been significant,” there exists the “potential for disagreement about whether it’s enough to force [changes to] a financing agreement or suspend the timing of payment.”

Whether they can rely on force majeure clauses is less certain. Even for conference organizers or participants, he says, the “devil is in the details.” For one thing, most force majeure clauses enumerate as applicable acts of God or government actions, but there’s no precedent for whether a pandemic qualifies as an “act of God” unlike flash floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, where there is precedent.

Further, while some governments, as in Italy, have banned outright public gatherings, other governments are merely strongly “advising” populations not to gather in numbers. “Certainly, depending on the specific provision, there can be a lot of gray,” says Cooper.

As it pertains the startup industry, things aren’t bubbling up quite yet but Cooper notes you could “see a situation where you’re raising a round or it closed, and the investors no longer like the deal,” or where the “acquisition of capital is necessary to perform a contract, and there are concerns about that regarding the timing.”

Absent a market turnaround, we’ll invariably see more of the same soon. When we do, Cooper hopes people will try diplomacy first.

“You have the legal side of things, and the human side, and the more persuasive is the human side,” he says. “Everybody recognizes we’re in uncharted territory; everyone needs to be flexible.”

If you’re curious to learn more, Cooley is shooting out a client alert about the “applicability of force majeure and related doctrines in response to COVID-19” tomorrow to help its business customers understand better whether they can use it — and what its limitations are. We got a sneak peek and it’s worth a read, so we’ll link to it when it’s live.

For anyone wondering in the meantime if it might rescue them from either a financing round or a commitment to a venture fund, it seems possible but unlikely.

As says one section of the alert, “[I]n the aftermath of the 2008 financial crises, courts consistently concluded that market forces do not count as force majeure. While there were exceptions to this, it was generally because the specific force majeure clause contained nonstandard language (such as a reference to a ‘change in economic conditions’) that might apply to financial turmoil.”

The general rule, suggests the law firm, is that a crummy market — no matter how harrowing — doesn’t qualify as an unforeseeable circumstance that prevents someone from fulfilling a contract — even if what precipitated it was as hard as this one to imagine.

This week brings another batch of Democratic primaries, this time in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio. But a lot has changed since Super Tuesday. Lately, a lot changes every hour.

In a joint statement last Friday, top election officials from the four states with a primary scheduled on March 17 addressed concerns about COVID-19.

“Americans have participated in elections during challenging times in the past, and based on the best information we have from public health officials, we are confident that voters in our states can safely and securely cast their ballots in this election, and that otherwise healthy poll workers can and should carry out their patriotic duties on Tuesday,” they wrote.

Three days after Ohio’s top election official reassured voters that the primaries would continue as planned, the state’s situation seemed to be in flux. On Monday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine supported an eleventh hour lawsuit to push the state’s primary back.

“We cannot tell people to stay inside, but also tell them to go out and vote,” DeWine argued on Twitter.

 

On Monday evening, a state judge rejected the request. Judge Richard Frye ruled that it was too late to make changes to the Ohio primary and that there was no assurance that the risk posed by the novel coronavirus could still be present months later.

“The doctors giving briefings in the national media suggest it could be months before we get to the point where there is stability,” Frye said of the decision.

While Gov. DeWine requested that the primary be pushed back to June, an attorney for the Ohio Democratic Party requested that it be moved to April 28, the same day as Connecticut, New York and other states in the Northeast. But as of Monday night, Ohio’s primary will continue as planned.

In a Facebook post over the weekend, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, the state’s top election official, reassured voters that Ohio’s 88 county election boards have been working with the CDC and the Ohio Department of Health on safety practices to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“Voters should practice social distance in line, and though every effort is made to avoid it, some lines may be a bit longer, but none of this should discourage voters from participating,” LaRose said in a statement Sunday.

Ahead of its own Tuesday primary, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs issued some safety guidelines on Twitter.

In a statement, Hobbs said that the decision to continue with voting was “not made lightly” and that there might not be a safer time in the near future for voting to take place.

“My message to voters is, stay informed and make a decision that is right for you,” Hobbs said, mentioning curbside voting locations and drive-up ballot drop boxes.

On Twitter, Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee encouraged residents to vote early and reassured residents that the state is “aware of voters’ concerns over #COVID19.” In an op-ed, Lee also noted that voters in assisted living facilities will be allowed to vote “without public exposure.”

In some states, polling locations have been relocated to mitigate the risks of the coronavirus. In any state voting Tuesday, primary voters are encouraged to double check their polling location before heading out to vote.

The state of Louisiana was the first to postpone its primary, which was set for April 4. Now, voting will take place on June 20. Georgia pushed its primary back two months from March 24 to May 19. The state of Kentucky will delay its own voting from May 19 to June 23.