Year: 2021

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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 22, 2021. Today we have a lot of news for you, but with a notable twist. Normally we have lots of startup news and a few notes from Big Tech companies. Today we have a lot from both, so strap in.

Also, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is coming to Disrupt. Because TechCrunch covers the worlds of micromobility, mobility proper and the future of transit, we have a few questions for the man. — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Gopuff is raising again: TechCrunch broke the news today that Gopuff, the SoftBank-backed delivery company, is raising more capital. Our sources say $1 billion at around a $15 billion valuation. Axios confirmed the news. The potential funding will follow in the wake of lots of capital raised for instant-delivery grocery around the world.
• Canada’s venture capital market is hotter than the sun: TechCrunch’s exploration of the global, U.S, Indian, European and Latin American startup markets continued today with a look at North North America. It turns out that Canadian startups are enjoying one hell of a year when it comes to landing big venture rounds.
• The internet went down. Here’s why: Akamai’s DNS system hit a pothole today, taking down a pretty big chunk of the internet. Lots of stuff broke, including the Couchbase website right as your humble servant was prepping to chat with its CEO about its recent IPO (more here). Things are back to normal now, but don’t forget that the internet is not a series of tubes. It’s a series of leaky tubes held together with duct tape.

Startups/VC

Let’s talk about startups. Today we have everything from passwordless tech to new venture funds and a robotics roundup. But if you need even more, here’s Greylock’s Mike Duboe explaining how to define growth and build your team.

• Mindtech raises $3.25M for synthetic human watching: No really, that’s what it does. The U.K.-based company’s service wants to train CCTV cameras on digital humans, saving customers from knotty privacy issues. This is one of those times when venture capital dollars appear to be flowing to an actually kinda wild idea?
• Sendlane wants you to spend more: Sendlane, now flush with $20 million in new capital, wants to help its customers use data on their customers to help keep shoppers loyal and spend more. I would call this slightly creepy but then I would sound like the luddite that I am.
• All Raise launches virtual bootcamp for women and nonbinary founders: As venture funding races to new heights, it’s not landing everywhere equally. In fact, some data sources indicate that VC is actually getting less diverse this year. All Raise wants to push back on that by helping more founders other than folks who look like me raise capital. Good.
• Magic raises $27M to get rid of passwords: Magic, a startup that will spend its life trying to live up to its name, just raised a huge amount of money to pursue its vision of a less password-focused future. Its tech allows developers to “implement a variety of passwordless authentication methods with just a few lines of code,” TechCrunch reports.
• What has a five-letter name and 3 billion more dollars? Sadly, it’s not you or me. It’s Index! The venture capital firm has put together new funds worth just under $3 billion, a big chunk more money than it raised, er, a year ago. Hot Startup Summer is being made possible by Hot Zero Interest Rate Policy Decade, which in turn is helping fuel Hot Bored Cash Season, leading to every venture capital firm raising enough money to cause their GPs to lose sleep. Fun!

And for your robotics fans out there, TechCrunch has a new digest from the industry here. Enjoy!

Last-mile delivery in Latin America is ready to take off

Thanks to sprawling fulfillment centers, seamless logistics networks and ubiquitous internet access, consumers in many regions now order groceries and a new set of cookware during breakfast and can reasonably expect everything to arrive in time for dinner.

In Latin America, a lack of technology infrastructure makes delivery operations less complex — products are delivered from a retailer’s loading dock to a customer’s front door — but these supply chains are often managed with spreadsheets, paper and pen.

Algorithms that manage delivery routes or automatically dispatch drivers “are almost unheard of in the Latin America retail logistics sector,” says Bob Ma, an investor at WIND Ventures.

But thanks to growing consumer demand and expanding investment in last-mile delivery startups, Ma says the region is at a turning point.

Since Latin America’s middle class has grown 50% in the last decade and e-commerce constitutes just 6% of all retail, several unicorns have emerged in recent years, with more waiting in the wings.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

Let’s start with transportation news and then talk about the rest of Big Tech.

Daily Crunch asked TechCrunch transportation guru and generally sterling person Kirsten Korosec just why there was so much news today from her beat. “I have no idea why, just make it stop,” she joked, before adding that she “can say that with so many automakers making commitments to move to all electric lines, we can expect more announcements about how they plan to ensure they have battery capacity and other raw materials.”

Here’s the news:

• Rivian sets sights on second factory: Fresh off production delays, EV company Rivian is planning for the future in the form of another factory. The company admitted to being in the process of looking for a second plant. Our read? This electric car thing is not slowing down.
• Speaking of which, Tesla will source nickel directly from commodity production giant BHP. It’s going to be the Hunger Games out there for the raw materials needed for electric cars if the market evolves as it is expected to. Tesla wants to make sure it doesn’t lack supplies.
• How much demand are we talking about? Well, Mercedes is going to build eight — eight! — battery plants. Now that we’ve read the news, the idea makes sense, but it still made us sit up and consider its implications. The days of the internal combustion engine are coming to an end.
• Uber buys Transplace for $2.25B: Rounding out our mobility rundown, Uber is making moves with its checkbook, this time buying Transplace, a digital logistics company, for a few billion. The effort will fit into Uber’s larger freight aspirations. The company has said that it intends to reach adjusted profitability this year.
• Meanwhile, Waymo announced it is opening an office in Pittsburgh, where it will certainly put even more pressure on an already competitive talent recruiting process.

And from the rest of the world of giant tech companies:

• Spotify and Giphy team up: Er, have you wanted GIFs in your music player? Well, good news if so: Spotify has “a new partnership with online GIF database GIPHY to enable discovery of new music through GIFs.” Cool?
• Microsoft buys CloudKnox: Microsoft’s push to provide cash returns to every cybersecurity-focused venture capitalist continued today, with the Redmond-based software giant buying CloudKnox. It’s the fourth deal this year for a smaller cybersecurity-focused startup from Microsoft.
• Visa buys Currencycloud: Visa, likely still stinging slightly from its inability to buy fintech API provider Plaid, is busy buying other companies. This time it’s Currencycloud, which builds other fintech APIs. Jokes aside, the deal will bring the smaller company’s remittance and currency-transfer tech into Visa for just under $1 billion.

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

Image Credits: SEAN GLADWELL (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

We’re reaching out to startup founders to tell us who they turn to when they want the most up-to-date growth marketing practices. Fill out the survey here.

Read one of the testimonials we’ve received below!

Marketer: Adam DuVander, EveryDeveloper

Recommended by: Karl Hughes, Draft.dev

Testimonial: “In addition to writing a book on developer marketing, Adam draws from deep experience as a developer and developer advocate to make sure his clients set a winning strategy in motion.”

The global pandemic highlighted inefficiencies and inconsistencies in healthcare systems around the world. Even co-founders Mayank Banerjee, Matilde Giglio and Alessandro Ialongo say nowhere is this more evident than in India, especially after the COVID death toll reached 4 million this week.

The Bangalore-based company received a fresh cash infusion of $5 million in seed funding in a round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Founders Fund, Lachy Groom and a group of individuals including Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, CRED CEO Kunal Shah, Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath and DST Global partner Tom Stafford.

Even, a healthcare membership company, aims to cover what most insurance companies in the country don’t, including making going to a primary care doctor as easy and accessible as it is in other countries.

Banerjee grew up in India and said the country is similar to the United States in that it has government-run and private hospitals. Where the two differ is that private health insurance is a relatively new concept for India, he told TechCrunch. He estimates that less than 5% of people have it, and even though people are paying for the insurance, it mainly covers accidents and emergencies.

This means that routine primary care consultations, testings and scans outside of that are not covered. And, the policies are so confusing that many people don’t realize they are not covered until it is too late. That has led to people asking doctors to admit them into the hospital so their bills will be covered, Ialongo added.

Banerjee and Giglio were running another startup together when they began to see how complicated health insurance policies were. About 50 million Indians fall below the poverty line each year, and many become unable to pay their healthcare bills, Banerjee said.

They began researching the insurance industry and talking with hospital executives about claims. They found that one of the biggest issues was incentive misalignment — hospitals overcharged and overtreated patients. Instead, Even is taking a similar approach to Kaiser Permanente in that the company will act as a service provider, and therefore, can drive down the cost of care.

Even became operational in February and launched in June. It is gearing up to launch in the fourth quarter of this year with more than 5,000 people on the waitlist so far. Its health membership product will cost around $200 per year for a person aged 18 to 35 and covers everything: unlimited consultations with primary care doctors, diagnostics and scans. The membership will also follow as the person ages, Ialongo said.

The founders intend to use the new funding to build out their operational team, product and integration with hospitals. They are already working with 100 hospitals and secured a partnership with Narayana Hospital to deliver more than 2,000 COVID vaccinations so far, and more in a second round.

“It is going to take a while to scale,” Banerjee said. “For us, in theory, as we get better pricing, we will end up being cheaper than others. We have goals to cover the people the government cannot and find ways to reduce the statistics.”

Earlier this month, Cowboy Ventures’ Ted Wang joined us at TechCrunch Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising, where he spoke about executive coaching and why he encourages founders in his portfolio to have a CEO coach. Wang, who has an executive coach himself, sees coaching as a key way to drive sustained personal growth, a factor that he believes separates the middling CEOs from the best ones.

Why CEOs need coaching

Just like professional athletes at the top of their game still need coaching, executives can need external validation and comment on where they are and aren’t delivering, Wang says. These insights can be tough for executives to catch on their own and might require a level of honesty that can be challenging for a CEO to expect from anyone involved with their company.

Roger Federer — the famous tennis player who has won 20 Grand Slam events — he has a coach, but he doesn’t just have a coach, he has a coach for tennis. I’m pretty sure Roger knows the rules of the game and all the different strokes he needs to hit, so why would he have a coach? The answer is really that it’s about having a second set of eyes; when you’re in the moment … it’s hard to be able to see yourself and assess yourself. (Timestamp: 4:52)

Coaches can help entrepreneurs reflect and reframe the things being communicated with them.

A good example — you might be at a board meeting and one of your board members is being critical of your VP of marketing, and one way to think of that is “Oh, OK, here are some things we need to solve for this person,” but another point of view that a coach might open your eyes to, is actually maybe this person thinks you’re not hiring the right people. (Timestamp: 8:59)

While advisers can help startups navigate tactical situations, therapists may be more focused on helping clients navigate emotional states and improve themselves. Coaching exists in a very nebulous gray area between startup advisers and licensed therapists, Wang says, but coaching is more focused on improving yourself as a business leader rather than solving a particularly vexing startup issue.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, the world’s original and most epic conference dedicated to tech startups, takes place September 21-23. Are you ready to take full advantage of this opportunity-packed event? Start right now and buy a Disrupt pass for less than $100. But don’t wait — the early bird prices disappear on July 30 at 11:59 pm (PT).

Experience the full range of the global tech startup culture. Disrupt draws thousands of attendees from around the world, ready to learn, network, inspire and inform. You’ll hear from the leading voices across the tech spectrum — people like Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, Pear VC’s Mar Hershenson and Accel’s Arun Matthew. And even a few tech-savvy celebrity founders (we’re looking at you, Seth Rogan).

Head to the Disrupt Stage for compelling interviews, panel discussions and presentations. And if you’re hot for tips, strategies and advice you can put to work in your startup right away, head on over to the Extra Crunch Stage. Our virtual platform makes it easy to pop in and out as your schedule permits, and you’ll have three months of video-on-demand access to all presentations when the event ends. You won’t miss a thing.

Check out the Disrupt 2021 agenda and register here to get updates when we add new speakers, events and discounts.

Startup Alley, our legendary expo area, is already sold out. Do not miss this collection of innovative startups showcasing their impressive tech and talent. Stop by their virtual booths, schedule 1:1 video meeting, ask for a product demo. You might just find a new collaborator, the perfect solution to a nagging problem or a promising addition to your investment portfolio.

Pro Tip: Every Startup Alley exhibitor will take part in one of our pitch feedback breakout sessions. It’s not only an opportunity to learn about the company — the feedback they receive from the Team TechCrunch can help you improve your own pitch.

Of course, Startup Battlefield is where the best-of-the best take the virtual stage to pitch for glory, global exposure and, oh yeah, $100,000 in equity-free prizemoney. It’s the startup world’s best launch pad and, since its inception, 922 companies have collectively raised $9 billion and generated 117 exits. Here’s how Rachael Wilcox, a creative producer at Volvo Cars described watching Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2020.

“The Startup Battlefield translated easily to the virtual format. You could see the excitement, enthusiasm and possibility of the young founders, and I loved that. You could also ask questions through the chat feature, and you don’t always have time for questions at a live event.”

Tune in to watch this thrilling throwdown. You never know — this year’s cohort might produce a future unicorn or two.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23. Buy your Disrupt pass before July 30 at 11:59 pm (PT), and you’ll pay less than $100. Now that’s an opportunity worth grabbing.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Extra Crunch Live has taught us a lot. From how Retail Zipline’s Series A pitch deck ticked every box for Emergence Capital to how Coda perfected the growth fly wheel, much to the delight of Madrona’s S. Somasegar to Toast’s ongoing obsession with its customers, and why its investors are obsessed with Toast.

And that’s just the tip of the Extra Crunch Live iceberg.

But there’s plenty more where that came from.

Without further ado, here’s a look at what you can expect in August:

STARTUP ALLEY EDITION:
Edith Yeung (Race Capital) + Laela Sturdy (CapitalG)

August 4 – 12pm PT/3pm ET

REGISTER FOR RACE CAPITAL AND CAPITALG

Check out the Startup Alley companies that will exhibit at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 in an episode dedicated to the art of the pitch. Expert VCs will give their live feedback to quick elevator pitches. Hear about the hottest new startups and learn a thing or two about how to nail your own pitch.

Image Credits: Race Capital / CapitalG

Jory Bell (Playground Global) + Jen Nwankwo (1910 Genetics)

August 11 – 12pm PT/3pm ET

REGISTER FOR PLAYGROUND GLOBAL AND 1910 GENETICS

After the last year+, VC money has been pouring into biotech companies, and 1910 Genetics is no different. Hear from founder and CEO Jen Nwankwo and investor Jory Bell, from Playground Global, about how to fundraise in the bio/health tech sector and use that financing to your advantage.

Image Credits: Playground Global / 1910 Genetics

Stephanie Zhan (Sequoia Capital) + Nick Fajt (Rec Room)

August 18 – 12pm PT/3pm ET

REGISTER FOR SEQUOIA CAPITAL AND REC ROOM

Sequoia is one of, if not the, biggest names in VC. On this episode of ECL, hear from Sequoia partner Stephanie Zhan and Rec Room CEO Nick Fajt about how the two came together for the startup’s seed round, why Zhan also led the Series A and how it has gone on to raise nearly $150 million in funding.

Image Credits: Rec Room / Sequoia Capital

Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures) + Rachel Carlson (Guild Education)

August 25 – 12pm PT/3pm ET

REGISTER FOR COWBOY VENTURES AND GUILD EDUCATION

Aileen Lee is one of the most sought-after and well-respected VCs in the country. Hear the Cowboy Ventures founder and GP talk through her criteria for investment and how Guild Education’s Rachel Carlson met, and even exceeded, that criteria. The founder/investor duo will also give their live feedback on startup pitches from the audience.

Image Credits: Cowboy Ventures / Guild Education

As a reminder, Extra Crunch Live is all about helping founders build better venture-backed businesses. We do that by (duh!) talking to founders and the investors who finance them. Extra Crunch Live also features the ECL Pitch-off, where founders in the audience can come on our virtual stage to pitch their wares to our expert guests and learn how to crush their pitch.

Extra Crunch Live is accessible to anyone and everyone, but accessing the content on-demand is reserved exclusively for Extra Crunch members. If you aren’t yet a member, join here now!

Two Democratic senators introduced a bill Thursday that would strip away the liability shield that social media platforms hold dear when those companies are found to have boosted anti-vaccine conspiracies and other kinds of health misinformation.

The Health Misinformation Act, introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), would create a new carve-out in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to hold platforms liable for algorithmically-promoted health misinformation and conspiracies. Platforms rely on Section 230 to protect them from legal liability for the vast amount of user-created content they host.

“For far too long, online platforms have not done enough to protect the health of Americans,” Klobuchar said. “These are some of the biggest, richest companies in the world and they must do more to prevent the spread of deadly vaccine misinformation.”

The bill would specifically alter Section 230’s language to revoke liability protections in the case of “health misinformation that is created or developed through the interactive computer service” if that misinformation is amplified through an algorithm. The proposed exception would only kick in during a declared national public health crisis, like the advent of Covid-19, and wouldn’t apply in normal times.

“Features that are built into technology platforms have contributed to the spread of misinformation and disinformation, with social media platforms incentivizing individuals to share content to get likes, comments, and other positive signals of engagement, which rewards engagement rather than accuracy,” the bill reads.

The bill also makes mention of the “disinformation dozen” — just twelve people, including anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a grab bag of other conspiracy theorists, who account for a massive swath of the anti-vax misinformation ecosystem. Many of the individuals on the list still openly spread their messaging through social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.

Section 230’s defenders generally view the idea of new carve-outs to the law as dangerous. Because Section 230 is such a foundational piece of the modern internet, enabling everything from Yelp and Reddit to the comment section below this post, they argue that the potential for unforeseen second order effects means the law should be left intact.

But some members of Congress — both Democrats and Republicans — see Section 230 as a valuable lever in their quest to regulate major social media companies. While the White House is pursuing its own path to craft consequences for overgrown tech companies through the Justice Department and the FTC, Biden’s office said earlier this week that the president is “reviewing” Section 230 as well. But as Trump also discovered, weakening Section 230 is a task that only Congress is positioned to accomplish — and even that is still a long shot.

While the new Democratic bill is narrowly targeted as far as proposed changes to Section 230 go, it’s also unlikely to attract bipartisan support.

Republicans are also interest in stripping away some of Big Tech’s liability protections, but generally hold the view that platforms remove too much content rather than too little. Republicans are also more likely to sow misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccines themselves, framing vaccination as a partisan issue. Whether the bill goes anywhere or not, it’s clear that an alarming portion of Americans have no intention of getting vaccinated — even with a much more contagious variant on the rise and colder months on the horizon.

“As COVID-19 cases rise among the unvaccinated, so has the amount of misinformation surrounding vaccines on social media,” Luján said of the proposed changes to Section 230. “Lives are at stake.”

In the United States, same-day and next-day Amazon Prime deliveries have become the de facto standard in e-commerce. People want convenience and instant gratification, evidenced by the fact that an astonishing ~45% of U.S. consumers are Amazon Prime members.

Most major retailers are scrambling to catch up to Amazon by partnering with last-mile delivery startups. Walmart has become a major investor in Cruise for autonomous-vehicle deliveries, and Target acquired Shipt and Deliv last-mile delivery startups to increase its delivery speed. Costco partnered with Instacart for same-day deliveries, and even Domino’s Pizza has jumped in by partnering with Nuro for last-mile delivery using autonomous vehicles.

The holdout: Latin America

Venture capitalists have been investing heavily in last-mile delivery over the past five years on a global scale, but Latin America (LatAm) has lagged behind. Over $11 billion has been invested globally in last-mile logistics over the past decade, but Latin America only saw about $1 billion over the same period (Source: PitchBook and WIND Ventures research).

Within this, only about $300 million was in Spanish-speaking Latin America — a surprisingly small amount for a region that has 110 million more consumers than in the U.S.

Brazil-based Loggi accounts for about 60% of last-mile VC investment in Latin America, but it only operates in Brazil. That leaves major Spanish countries like Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Argentina without a leading independent last-mile logistics company.

In these countries, about 60% of the last-mile delivery market is dominated by small, informal companies or independent drivers using their own trucks. This results in inefficiencies due to a lack of technologies such as route optimization as well as a lack of operating scale. These issues are quickly becoming more pronounced as e-commerce in LatAm has taken off at a compound annual industry growth rate of 16% over the past five years.

Retailers are missing an opportunity to give customers what they want. Customers today expect free, reliable same- or next-day delivery — on-time, all the time, and without damage or theft. All of these are challenging in LatAm. Theft, in particular, is a significant problem, because unprofessional drivers often steal products out for delivery and then sell them for a profit. Cost is a problem, too, because free same- and next-day deliveries are simply not available in many places.

Operational and technological roadblocks abound

Why does Latin America lag when it comes to the last mile? First, traditional LatAm e-commerce delivery involves multiple time-consuming steps: Products are picked up from the retailer, delivered to a cross-dock, distributed to a warehouse, delivered to a second cross-dock, and then finally delivered to the customer.

By comparison, modern delivery operations are much simpler. Products are picked up from the retailer, delivered to a cross-dock, and then delivered directly to the customer. There’s no need for warehousing and an extra pre-warehouse cross-dock.

And those are just the operational challenges. Lack of technology also plays a significant role. Most delivery coordination and routing in LatAm are still done via a spreadsheet or pen and paper.

Dispatchers have to manually pick up a phone to call drivers and dispatch them. In the U.S., computerized optimization algorithms dramatically cut both delivery cost and time by automatically finding the most efficient route (e.g., packing the most deliveries possible on a truck along the route) and automatically dispatching the driver that can most efficiently complete the route based on current location, capacity and experience with the route. These algorithms are almost unheard of in the Latin America retail logistics sector.

Major retail brands are the last-mile catalyst

Waymo, Google’s former self-driving car project that’s now an independent business unit under Alphabet, is expanding its presence in the eastern U.S. The company said Thursday it would be opening offices in Pittsburgh, joining a growing suite of companies developing and testing autonomous vehicle technology in the Steel City.

The company will start by hiring around a dozen engineers, a source familiar with the move told TechCrunch, and they’ll co-locate in Google’s existing offices in the Bakery Square district. As of Thursday, only around three open positions for the Pittsburgh area were listed on Waymo’s website, but the company will be adding more roles soon.

Some of the new team will come from Pittsburgh-based RobotWits, a tech startup focused on autonomous vehicle decision-making. That includes RobotWits’ founder and CEO Maxim Likhachev, and other members of its engineering and technical team. While Waymo did not technically acquire the startup, it did acquire RobotWits’ IP rights, the source said.

There are no current plans to deploy the so-called Waymo Driver, its autonomous driving platform, in Pittsburgh, the source added. Instead, the new team will work on motion planning development, real-time route planning and developing Driver. Thus far, Driver has seen deployment in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area. Its Waymo Via trucking and cargo service will be deployed in a test run with trucking logistics company J.B. Hunt Transport Services in Texas.

AV tech rivals Aurora, Motional, Argo AI have already established offices in the city; combined with talent at Carnegie Melon University, the city has established itself as a bona fide hub for autonomous engineering development. Pittsburgh is also home to many smaller AV startups, including Locomation, which is working on autonomous trucks.

Waymo’s Pittsburgh location will join its network of offices in Mountain View, San Francisco, Phoenix, New York, Dallas, and Hyderabad, India.

Absci Corp., a Vancouver company behind a multi-faceted drug development platform, went public on Thursday. It’s another sign of snowballing interest in new approaches to drug development – a traditionally risky business. 

Absci focuses on speeding drug development in the preclinical stages. The company has developed and acquired a handful of tools that can predict drug candidates, identify potential therapeutic targets, and test therapeutic proteins on billions of cells and identify which ones are worth pursuing. 

“We are offering a fully-integrated end-to-end solution for pharmaceutical drug development,” Absci founder Sean McClain tells TechCrunch. “Think of this as the Google index search for protein drug discovery and biomanufacturing.” 

The IPO was initially priced at $16 per share, with a pre-money valuation of about $1.5 billion, per S-1 filings. The company is offering 12.5 million shares of common stock, with plans to raise $200 million. However, Absci stock has already ballooned to $21 per share as of writing. Common stock is trading under the ticker “ABSI.” 

The company has elected to go public now, McClain says, to increase the company’s ability to attract and retain new talent. “As we continue to rapidly grow and scale, we need access to the best talent, and the IPO gives us amazing visibility for talent acquisition and retention,” says McClain.

Absci was founded in 2011 with a focus on manufacturing proteins in E.Coli. By 2018, the company had launched its first commercial product called SoluPro – a biogeneered E.Coli system that can build complex proteins. In 2019, the company scaled this process up by implementing a “protein printing” platform.

Since its founding Absci has grown to 170 employees and raised $230 million – the most recent influx was a $125 million crossover financing round closed in June 2020 led by Casdin Capital and Redmile Group. But this year, two major acquisitions have rounded out Absci’s offerings from protein manufacturing and testing to AI-enabled drug development. 

In January 2021, Absci acquired Denovium, a company using deep learning AI to categorize and predict the behavior of proteins. Denovium’s “engine” had been trained on more than 100 million proteins. In June, the company also acquired Totient, a biotech company that analyzes the immune system’s response to certain diseases. At the time of Totient’s acquisition, the company had already reconstructed 4,500 antibodies gleaned from immune system data from 50,000 patients. 

Absci already had protein manufacturing, evaluation and screening capabilities, but the Totient acquisition allowed it to identify potential targets for new drugs. The Denovium acquisition added an AI-based engine to aid in protein discovery. 

“What we’re doing is now feeding [our own data] into deep learning models and so that is why we acquired Denovium. Prior to Totient we were doing drug discovery and cell line development. This [acquisition] allows us to go fully integrated where we can now do target discovery as well,” McClain says. 

These two acquisitions place Absci into a particularly active niche in the drug development world. 

To start with, there’s been some noteworthy fiscal interest in developing new approaches to drug development, even after decades of low returns on drug R&D. In the first half of 2021, Evaluate reported that new drug developers raised about $9 billion in IPOs on Western exchanges. This is despite the fact that drug development is traditionally high risk. R&D returns for biopharmaceuticals hit a record low of 1.6 percent in 2019, and have rebounded to only about 2.5 percent, a Deloitte 2021 report notes. 

Within the world of drug development, we’ve seen AI play an increasingly large role. That same Deloitte report notes that “most biopharma companies are attempting to integrate AI into drug discovery, and development processes.” And, drug discovery projects received the greatest amount of AI investment dollars in 2020, according to Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Index annual report. 

More recently, the outlook on the use of AI in drug development has been bolstered by companies that have moved a candidate through the stages of pre-clinical development. 

In June, Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong-based startup, announced that it had brought an A.I-identified drug candidate for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis through the preclinical testing stages – a feat that helped close a $255 million Series C round. Founder Alexander Zharaonkov told TechCrunch the PI drug would begin a clinical trial on the drug late this year or early next year. 

With a hand in AI and in protein manufacturing, Absci has already positioned itself in a crowded, but hype-filled space. But going forward, the company will still have to work out the details of its business model.  

Absci is pursuing a partnership business model with drug manufacturers. This means that the company doesn’t have plans to run clinical trials of its own. Rather, it expects to earn revenue through “milestone payments” (conditional upon reaching certain stages of the drug development process) or, if drugs are approved, royalties on sales. 

This does offer some advantages, says McClain. The company is able to sidestep the risk of drug candidates failing after millions of R&D cash is poured into testing and can invest in developing “hundreds” of drug candidates at once. 

At this point, Absci does have nine currently “active programs” with drugmakers. The company’s cell line manufacturing platforms are in use in drug testing programs at eight biopharma companies, including Merck, Astellas, and Alpha Cancer technologies (the rest are undisclosed). Five of these projects are in the preclinical stage, one is in Phase 1 clinical trials, one is in a Phase 3 clinical trial, and the last is focused on animal health, per the company’s S-1 filing. 

One company, Astellas, is currently using Absci’s discovery platforms. But McClain notes that Absci has only just rolled out its drug discovery capabilities this year. 

However, none of these partners have formally licensed any of Absci’s platforms for clinical or commercial use. McClain notes that the nine active programs have milestones and royalty “potentials” associated with them. 

The company does have some ground to make up when it comes to profitability. So far this year, Absci has generated about $4.8 million in total revenue – up from about $2.1 million in 2019. Still, the costs have remained high, and S-1 filings note that the company has incurred net losses in the past two years. In 2019, the company reported $6.6 million in net losses in 2019 and $14.4 million in net losses in 2020. 

The company’s S-1 chalks up these losses to expenditures related to cost of research and development, establishing an intellectual property portfolio, hiring personnel, raising capital and providing support for these activities. 

Absci has recently completed the construction of a 77,000 square foot facility, notes McClain. So going forward the company does foresee the potential to increase the scale of its operations. 

In the immediate future, the company plans to use money raised from the IPO to grow the number of programs using Absci’s technology, invest in R&D and continue to refine the company’s new AI-based products.