Author: azeeadmin

Mumbai-based Eruditus, which works with top universities globally to offer more than 100 executive-level courses to students in over 80 nations, said on Thursday it has raised $650 million in a new financing round led by Accel and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

The new financing round — which includes both primary and secondary transactions — values the Indian startup at $3.2 billion, up from about $700 million a year ago. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board also participated in the new round.

Eruditus, which counts Chan Zuckerberg Initiative among its backers, maintains a tie-up with over 30 top-tier universities, including MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, UC Berkeley, IIT, IIM and NUS. The universities and Eruditus work to develop courses that are aimed at offering higher education to students. These courses cost anything between $5,000 to $40,000.

The new fundraise comes at a time when Indian startups are raising record capital from high-profile investors. India, which is the world’s second largest internet market, has produced over 23 unicorns this year (Eruditus is the 23rd), up from 11 last year and 6 in 2019. Some investors have also doubled down on the South Asian market after China, one of the other rare big growth markets, enforced a series of regulatory changes that has wiped hundreds of billions of dollars in recent weeks.

Eruditus is SoftBank’s second major bet on India’s edtech market. The Japanese investment firm has also backed Unacademy.

UpGrad, a Bangalore-based startup that specializes in higher education and upskilling courses, joined the unicorn club earlier this week. VerSe Innovation, which operates news aggregator service Dailyhunt and short video apps Josh, said early Thursday that it has raised over $450 million in a new financing round.

This is a developing story. More to follow…

VerSe Innovation, the parent firm of popular news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video app Josh, said on Thursday it has raised over $450 million in a new financing round, just five months after securing $200 million, as the Indian startup looks to expand its offerings to international markets.

Siguler Guff, Baillie Gifford, affiliates of Carlyle Asia Partners Growth II and others financed VerSe Innovation’s Series I round, while existing investors Sofina Group, Qatar Investment Authority and BCap participated.

VerSe Innovation said in a statement that its valuation has more than doubled in the past five months without disclosing a precise figure. The startup was valued at over $1 billion in its Series H financing round.

The Google and Microsoft-backed startup claimed that Josh, which has amassed over 115 million monthly active users, 56 million of whom use the app each day. Dailyhunt, the startup said, has amassed over 300 million monthly active users.

This is a developing story. More to follow…

AppWorks, the Taipei-based venture capital firm focused on Taiwan and Southeast Asia, announced today it has closed its oversubscribed third fund, raising $150 million. AppWorks Fund III’s limited partners include Taiwan Mobile, Axiom Asia Private Capital, Fubon Life, TransGlobe Life, Hongtai Group, Wistron, Cathay Life, Phison Electronics and Taiwan’s National Development Fund. Many of these LPs also participated in AppWorks’ $50 million second fund in 2014.

AppWorks’ total assets under management (AUM) is now $212 million. As part of Fund III’s close, AppWorks is recruiting new investment associates and analysts, especially ones who will focus on sourcing deals throughout Southeast Asia.

Jamie Lin, the firm’s chairman and founding partner, told TechCrunch that Fund III had an initial target of $100 million, but surpassed it because of the strong performance of AppWorks’ second fund.

Fund II’s portfolio includes Lalamove and 91APP, and at the end of July 2021, its total value to paid-in (TVPI), or the return multiple net of fees, reached 3.3x. By comparison, the top quartile of global VC and private equity funds launched around the same time have a TVPI of 2.4x, according to data from Cambridge Associates. Fund II also achieved internal rate of return (IRR) of 34.7%, compared to 26.1% for the other funds.

Founded in 2009, AppWorks started its accelerator program before launching a $11 million debut fund in 2012. AppWorks’ ecosystem now includes 414 active startups that have collectively raised $4.3 billion, and have an aggregate valuation of $17.4 billion. Over the next 10 years, AppWorks’ goal is to increase that to 1,000 active startups with a collective value of more than $100 billion.

Lin said AppWorks has a strong incoming pipeline because many startups in its ecosystem, including ones run by accelerator alumni and its mentor network of about 100 seasoned entrepreneurs, have reached product-market fit, are scalable and need to raise funding to accelerate growth.

Fund III is earmarked for a portfolio of about 40 startups, split evenly between investments starting at $2 million in Series A to Series C rounds, and seed-stage investments. Seed-stage checks can range in size from about $50,000 to $200,000, depending on a startup’s needs. Part of the fund’s capital will also go toward AppWorks’ current portfolio companies as they reach maturation.

AppWorks’ three main investment themes are Southeast Asia, blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Lin said that many of AppWorks accelerator graduates over the past three to five years are from Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and, increasingly, Indonesia and the Philippines. (AppWorks also serves as an LP in about 15 seed funds across Southeast Asia, which helped it maintain strong deal flow despite pandemic travel restrictions).

AppWorks’ current blockchain investments include Dapper Labs, Animoca Brands and Splinterlands. Lin is especially keen on NFTs and their “ability to bridge the physical world and digital world,” plus blockchain’s potential to change how people game (for example, the play-to-earn model Splinterlands is known for).

Investing in a mix of seed- and growth-stage deals means Fund III’s schedule will be more evenly spread out. The approach is “better for LPs, but also mostly comes from our philosophy of putting founders front and center,” Lin said. “A lot of our accelerator alumni startups are by first-time founders, so they need help all the way from seed stage. Many of our mentors have already raised seed or Series A rounds, and they come to us when they need someone to lead a Series B of $10, $15 or $20 million. It stems from our particular deal flow, since we’re mainly supporting our alumni founders and mentors, so we have two very different types of deal flows.”

Fund III has already backed AppWorks accelerator alumni like Pickone, WeMo Scooter, Omnichat, XREX, Blocto, SoopahGenius and Docosan. Investments from its mentor network include Carousell, Dapper Labs, Tiki, Dcard, Yummy Corp and Animoca Brands.

Sydney, Australia-based Fable Food is the latest plant-based food startup to announce funding. The company, which uses mushrooms in its meat alternatives, has raised $6.5 million AUD (about $4.8 million USD) in a seed round led by Blackbird Ventures, the Australian venture capital firm whose portfolio also includes Canva, Culture Amp and SafetyCulture. Other participants included agriculture and food tech venture firm AgFunder, sustainability-focused Aera VC and Better Bite Ventures, along with Singapore-based produce importer Ban Choon Marketing and former Sequoia Capital partner Warren Hogarth.

Fable is preparing to launch in the United States by the end of this year. In Australia, its products are available at retailers like Woolworths, Coles and Harris Farm Markets, along with restaurants including Grill’d, which recently started serving its Meaty Mushroom Burger Pattie at 136 locations. Fable’s products are also available at restaurants in Singapore and the United Kingdom.

The startup was founded in 2019 by fine dining chef turned chemical engineer and mycologist (mushroom scientist) Jim Fuller, organic mushroom farmer Chris McLoghlin and Michael Fox, whose previous startup was Shoes of Prey.

Fox, Fable’s chief executive officer, told TechCrunch in an email that after being a vegetarian for six years, he recently became a vegan “for a mix of health, environmental and ethical reasons.”

“Talking to my friends and family, a lot of people want to reduce their meat consumption for the same reasons but they find it challenging because they love the taste and texture of meat and giving it up is hard,” Fox said. He wanted to find a way to make it easier for people to transition to plant-based foods, and spoke to several chefs who suggested using mushrooms as a base ingredient. Then Fox met Fuller and McLoghlin, who were in the process of developing meat alternatives using mushrooms.

“When we met, we realized we shared the same values and goals and had complementary skill sets,” said Fox. “We shared a common desire to help end industrial agriculture and wanted to make our food system more ethical, healthy, sustainable and lower its greenhouse gas emissions.”

Fable’s first products include a substitute for pulled pork, braised beef and beef brisket (Fuller grew up in Texas eating slow-cooked meats and wanted to recreate the experience), along with a line of ready-made meals. The company uses shiitake mushrooms, which Fox explained are “very flavorful with their natural umami flavors, they are a slow-growing mushroom so they naturally have the fleshy fibers that give the meaty bite you typically get from animal proteins, and have the right chemical composition that when cooked allow us to taste flavors that are found in animal products.”

Fable’s ready-made meals. Image Credits: Fable

Fuller serves as Fable’s chief science officer and the startup leverages his experience as a chef/chemical engineer/mycologist to create the right combinations of flavor, aroma and texture while keeping processing and ingredients to a minimum. For example, its braised beef alternative is made with shiitake mushrooms, seven other ingredients and salt and pepper.

Fable also announced today it has appointed Dan Joyce, who was previously safety and compliance software company SafetyCulture’s general manager of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as chief growth officer to head global sales and marketing. It will launch in the U.S. through a combination of partnerships with restaurants and meal kit companies.

Other startups that use mushrooms as basis for meat alternatives include Meati and AtLast. Fox said a main difference is that those two startups ferment mycelium, or the root structure of fungi, instead of using mushrooms, which are the fruiting body of fungi.

Fable’s new funding will be used for research and development, expanding its production and manufacturing capacity in Australia and other countries. The company is keeping its product pipeline under wraps for now, but Fox said it plans to develop mushroom-based substitutes for pork, chicken, lamb and other animal proteins.

Over the last year, Tinder has experimented with creative ways for people to connect beyond just swiping right. Pandemic or not, it’s hard to make the first move — so why not break the ice by weathering a virtual apocalypse with a potential date? Today, Tinder announced that it will launch its second “Swipe Night” series after its first installment garnered engagement from over 20 million users.

Tinder launched Swipe Night in 2019 as an interactive “choose your own adventure” story at a time when the app had experienced a decline in one of its user engagement metrics and saw a dip in quarterly revenue. In the months since, COVID slowed Tinder’s revenue further, but more recently, it’s been rebounding.

Noting that its user base was half Gen Z (ages 18-25), Tinder hired now 25-year-old director Karena Evans, who has also directed music videos for Drake, as well as the premiere of HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl” reboot. The Swipe Night story invited users to choose what they would do in the apocalypse, swiping left or right to indicate their decisions as a character in the story. Based on how they swiped, users would get matched with other Swipe Night participants, and their choices would appear on their Tinder profile.

“All of this new information will make for plenty of material for post-apocalyptic banter,” the company had said.

Skeptics might find this to be an inorganic way to boost user engagement and matches, but on Swipe Nights, there was a 26% increase in matches compared with a typical Sunday night, Tinder now reports. The interactive video series was even recognized at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

The next installment for Swipe Night will be a “Gen Z whodunnit,” Tinder announced today.

The upcoming series will utilize Tinder’s “Fast Chat,” the quick chat feature that powers Tinder’s new “Hot Takes” experience where users can talk before matching. On Swipe Night, Fast Chat will allow users to analyze clues and work together to solve the mystery, even if they haven’t already matched.

Tinder says Swipe Night will debut in the app’s “Explore” section, which is a newer part of the Tinder app that gives members different ways to meet beyond just swiping. The section was announced last month as part of a group of features targeting Gen Z users, along with Hot Takes and video profiles.

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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for August 11, 2021. If you are a Twitter user, today has proven to be a divisive day, thanks to some design changes. We also have hardware news, mobility news, a few very neat funding rounds and even some startup media news. It’s a great day for a roundup. Also, if you are in the United States, you may have noticed a missive from FEMA today. FEMA is the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, and it just ran a test of its emergency alert system, or EAS. Given that the world appears to be constantly on fire, sick or underwater, it’s a good time for such an endeavor.

Before we go on, Disrupt is hosting some of the most interesting founders in health tech, and we’ll have some pretty darn cool breakout sessions to boot. Disrupt is going to rock. — Alex

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Twitter’s redesign turns heads: That Twitter is in the midst of something akin to a product renaissance is well known, with the social media provider working on a host of projects at once. Hell, Twitter is even working on TweetDeck. Today, however, Twitter stirred the pot with a web and mobile redesign that included a new font. Quelle horreur ! No, but really, people are mad.
• Here’s everything that Samsung announced today: As expected, Samsung held a hardware event today. What did the hardware giant show off? The Galaxy Watch 4, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 (the folding smartphone affair), the Galaxy Z Flip 2 (a smaller folding smartphone) and new headphones. If you are not into the iOS ecosystem, this is for you.
• China’s regulatory shakeup not harming venture investment. Yet. After the Chinese government started a wide-ranging crackdown on a host of domestic industries that it either found too powerful, too unregulated or too monopolistic, what impact the changes would have on startups and venture capital have been open questions. Early Q3 data indicates that things haven’t changed too much, yet. But with SoftBank potentially pausing Chinese deals, larger startup investment could suffer.

Startups/VC

Before we get into our usual digest of the latest and greatest funding rounds from the worlds of venture capital and high-growth startups, two product-related notes.

First, Airtable just bought something! Yes, Airtable, the roughly $5.8 billion spreadsheet of the future is making deals. Well, one. The company bought Bayes, what TechCrunch called an “early-stage visualization startup” that also features a no-code focus. If you love Airtable, this could be good news.

Second, Medium is shaking up its business model yet again. Again. Yes, one more time. This time, the company is changing its partner program. Now writers on Medium can drive their own subscriptions, snagging half the long-term revenue net of fees. This feels a little Substack-y, but not in a bad way. Despite Medium’s inability to decide what it is, I remain modestly hopeful for the company thanks to my profession of getting paid to make words appear on the internet.

Now, some funding rounds for your enjoyment!

• $40M for construction-focused computer vision: That’s the headline from Doxel’s latest round, led by Insight Partners. The Series B brings the company’s total raised capital to just over $56 million. Doxel uses computer vision to track the progress of construction sites. It’s a neat model, and, per the company, it still has its full Series A in the bank thanks to “growth and bookings traction” of sufficient size that it has been “cash flow neutral” since its last raise. Why would Doxel raise if it didn’t need money? Because it could pad its accounts at a new, higher price implying minimal dilution. And you always want to raise when you don’t need to. It’s far cheaper than waiting for a cash crunch.
• Cart.com raises $98 million: Does the name Cart.com sound familiar? It might. Why? Because the Houston-based e-commerce tooling company has now raised three times this year. So you may recall it from the other two times it put capital onto its balance sheet in 2021. The company has now raised $143 million in total.
• Everstage raises $1.7M for sales commissions software: The old startup adage of build software to replace manual spreadsheet processes is alive and well, it turns out. Everstage wants to take sales commissions, today “calculated on spreadsheets by finance teams” that provide limited visibility to salespeople, and turn them into highly limpid software. Salespeople will dig this, given how complex commissions can be and how critical they are to sales comp totals.
• Finally, Pave raises $16M to help companies “benchmark, plan and communicate compensation to their employees.” Akin to how sales commissions can be Gordian in their heft, employee comp is a knotty issue. Pave wants to provide more data to companies so that they can make better — and, we hope, more equitable — compensation decisions and generally improve employee lives. We dig this.

The gray revolution: Fundraising within the older adult space

Although older adults are one of the fastest-growing demographics, they’re quite underserved when it comes to consumer tech.

The global population of people older than 65 will reach 1.5 billion by 2050, and members of this cohort — who are leading longer, active lives — have money to spend.

Still, most startups persist in releasing products aimed at serving younger users, says Lawrence Kosick, co-founder of GetSetUp, an edtech company that targets 50+ learners.

“If you can provide a valuable, scalable service for the older adult market, there’s a lot of opportunity to drive growth through partnerships.”

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

Big Tech Inc.

All right, listen, public tech companies were more than busy today. So, we’re going to be brief so that we can cram as much news in here as we can:

• NortonLifeLock is combining with Avast in an $8.1B deal: This is big news for the cybersecurity space. TechCrunch called this the third-largest cybersecurity acquisition of all time.
• Android 12 reaches “platform stability” in its fourth beta: That means developers can build for the new Android without worrying about changing code. My real question: When was the last time that you or I got excited about a new mobile OS iteration? Frankly, Windows 11 is more exciting than anything Android or iOS has dropped lately.
• And then there was a whole mess of transport news. TechCrunch has a review of the new hybrid F-150 truck, if you are into moving things. We also have news that Hyzon Motors has started shipping hydrogen fuel cell trucks, which is pretty cool. Amazon’s $1.5 billion cargo hub is now up and running, which means faster package deliveries so that you don’t have to walk to buy razors. And Joby Aviation has completed its SPAC combination, meaning that the VTOL taxi company is now public.
• One more: I am excited to read this dive into Singapore’s startup scene!

TechCrunch Experts: Growth Marketing

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

TechCrunch wants you to recommend growth marketers who have expertise in SEO, social, content writing and more! If you’re a growth marketer, pass this survey along to your clients; we’d like to hear about why they loved working with you.

If you’re curious about how these surveys are shaping our coverage, check out this interview Eric Eldon did with Julian Shapiro, “The art of startup storytelling with Julian Shapiro.”

The beleaguered EV startup Lordstown Motors is on track to begin production of its flagship electric truck Endurance, but only select customers will begin to receive vehicles early next year, executives said during a second quarter earnings call.

Executives struck a cautious tone in the second-quarter earnings call as they tried to assuage shareholder concerns and address the near-term realities of bringing its first vehicle to market without any revenue to offset its costs. Lordstown’s approach, at least this quarter, was to try and reduce operating costs from the previous quarter, helping it offset its increase in capital expenditures.

Lordstown reported a net loss of $108 million, a 13.7% improvement from the first quarter loss of $125 million. Its net losses are more than tenfold higher than the -$7.9 million it reported in the same period last year.

Lordstown cut research and development spending by 17% from the previous quarter to $76.5 million.

Meanwhile, it increased its capital expenditures to $121 million from $53 million in the first quarter. Lordstown also increased its capital expenditure guidance for the year, from $250 million to $275 million to a $375 million to $400 million range, a spike related to its need to prepay for equipment.

Image Credits: Lordstown Motors (opens in a new window)

The decline in R&D expenses was due to declines in purchases of vehicle components, as many of those were acquired in prior quarters, Lordstown interim CFO Becky Long said during an investor call. However, legal expenses were $9 million higher than last quarter, due to costs related to a special committee and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation over whether Lordstown exaggerated pre-sales. (The fun doesn’t stop there — the company is also under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.)

Lordstown was thrown a life vest earlier this summer, when investment firm Yorkville Advisors agreed to purchase up to $400 million of Lordstown’s shares. The company is “now exploring a variety of other financing options, including non-dilutive private strategic investments and debt,” interim CEO Angela Strand said during an investor call. The company is also still pursuing a loan with the U.S. Department of Energy, Long said during the call.

Although the company said it was still on track to begin production of the Endurance at the end of September, only “select early customers” will begin to receive vehicles in the first quarter of 2022, followed by commercial deliveries in the second quarter. Strand said this deployment plan is to allow fleet customers time to build out charging infrastructure and to manage supply chain challenges.

One thing that distinguishes the company from some of its competitors is its manufacturing plant — a 6.2 million square foot former General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio. It’s now looking like the company is exploring different ways to turn a profit off this asset. Strand said “serious discussions” were underway with potential partners to use Lordstown’s facility to manufacture their products, suggesting the company is eager to find additional sources of revenue to offset its mounting expenses. “This is a critical strategic pivot for us, a decision that we believe will lead to significant new revenue opportunities for Lordstown,” she said.

“We are exploring multiple partnership constructs,” she added. “That includes contract manufacturing, that includes licensing, in addition to producing our own vehicles,” she added.

The Lordstown executive team has not had a smooth summer. The company announced in June the resignations of both CEO Steve Burns and CFO Julio Rodriguez, who were replaced in an interim capacity by Strand and Roof respectively. Lordstown was founded as an offshoot of Burns’ company Workhorse Group — the same company that said it had sold 11.9 million shares, or nearly three-quarters of its stake, since the beginning of July. The company is actively searching for a CEO and CFO, Strand said.

Lordstown was riding high in late 2020, when it announced its SPAC merger with a value of $1.6 billion. Its shares soared to $31.80 apiece at their 52-week highs. They’ve since plummeted to $5.94.

“We still plan to be first to market, particularly in the commercial fleet space,” Strand said.

As part of its earnings call this week, Desktop Metal announced plans to acquire ExOne. The Pennsylvania-based firm creates a variety of different industrial 3D printers for industries like aerospace, automotive, medical and defense. More recently, we wrote about the company’s portable 3D printing factories, which are effectively mobile additive manufacturing stations built inside of shipping containers.

We wrote about ExOne back in February, when the company was granted $1.6 million from the DoD, in hopes of taking the systems out into the field. Each unit contains a 3D scanning station with computer and a variety of different ruggedized industrial machines, including a metal and ceramic printer, curing oven, fiber-reinforced plastic printer and a compression modeling station.

“Over the last two years, we’ve really focused on providing our technology into government-type applications: DoD, NASA, DoE,” ExOne’s CEO John Hartner told TechCrunch when that news broke. “Sometimes people talk about disrupting the supply chain and getting decentralized manufacturing. This is decentralized and forward-deployed, if you will. Be it an emergency, humanitarian mission or frontlines for a war fighter.”

Today’s transaction, which is valued at $575 million, finds Desktop Metal purchasing all of ExOne’s common stock.

“We are thrilled to bring ExOne into the DM family to create the leading additive manufacturing portfolio for mass production,” Desktop Metal CEO Ric Fulop said in a release. “We believe this acquisition will provide customers with more choice as we leverage our complementary technologies and go-to-market efforts to drive continued growth. This transaction is a big step in delivering on our vision of accelerating the adoption of additive manufacturing 2.0.”

Desktop Metal has been actively pursuing acquisitions to grow out its 3D printing portfolio since it announced plans to go public via SPAC last August. In January, it acquired EnvisionTEC for $300 million.

“We are excited to join forces with Desktop Metal to deliver a more sustainable future through our shared vision of additive manufacturing at high production volumes,” Hartner said of today’s announcement. “We believe our complementary platforms will better serve customers, accelerate adoption of green technologies, and drive increased shareholder value. Most importantly, our technologies will help drive important innovations at meaningful production volumes that can improve the world.”

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

I want to extend an offer to an engineer who has been working in the U.S. on an H-1B for almost five years. Her current employer is sponsoring her for an EB-2 green card, and our startup wants to hire her as a senior engineer.

What happens to her green card process? Can we take it over?

— Recruiting in Richmond

Dear Recruiting,

Congrats on finding the right candidate for your role. Your startup’s ability to take over the EB-2 green card process for this candidate — or whether you have to start the green card process from the beginning — depends on where she is in the green card process and whether the position you are offering is similar to her current role.

Take a listen to my podcast in which my colleague, Gilberto Orozco Jr., an associate attorney at my firm, and I discuss the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act — or AC21 — including “green card portability.”

Enacted in 2000, AC21 gives international talent in certain situations the flexibility to change jobs during the green card process and the ability to extend an H-1B visa beyond the six-year limit to avoid having to leave the United States while waiting for a green card. I recommend discussing your situation and goals with an experienced immigration attorney to determine your options.

Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)

The process for EB-2 green cards

As I mentioned earlier, what happens to the green card process if your candidate changes jobs depends on where she is in the EB-2 green card process. There are two types of EB-2 green cards that have slightly different processes:

• EB-2 green card for advanced degree professionals
• EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver) for persons of exceptional ability

The EB-2 green card requires an employer sponsor and has a three-step process:

1. Getting PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor.
2. Submitting a green card petition (Form I-140) to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for approval.
3. Getting USCIS approval after filing an adjustment of status to permanent residence application (Form I-485), which can be filed along with Form I-140 depending on whether an EB-2 green card number is available based on the candidate’s country of birth, and being interviewed by a USCIS officer or obtaining a green card abroad through consular processing and the State Department.

Archer Aviation is seeking $1 billion in damages from Wisk Aero, according to court filings Tuesday, significantly escalating the ongoing legal battle between the two air taxi rivals.

Wisk “deployed a knowingly false extra-judicial smear campaign that projected stand-alone defamatory statements about Archer to the world,” the filing says. On this basis, Archer claims that this “smear campaign” has negatively impacted its ability to access capital and has impaired business relationships, resulting in damages “likely to exceed $1 billion.”

The two companies have been locked in a heated legal battle for much of this year. The dispute started in April, when Wisk filed a suit with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claiming that Archer had misappropriated its trade secrets related to Wisk’s debut eVTOL aircraft, Cora. Wisk further alleged that a former employee, Jing Xue, downloaded thousands of proprietary files from his work computer prior to joining Archer.

This is not the first time that Archer has hit back against the accusations in court. First it filed a motion to dismiss the suit in early June, and later that month alleged in a separate court document that Archer’s design was well-established prior to Wisk’s having filed any patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Archer unveiled a prototype of its Maker aircraft in February, the same month that it announced (to much fanfare) it was going public via a merger with blank-check firm Atlas Crest Investment Corp. for a pro-forma enterprise value of $2.7 billion. Late last month Archer slashed its valuation by $1 billion in a “strategic reset” of the transaction terms with the SPAC. While this is the same amount Archer is seeking in damages, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch that is just coincidental.

In addition, the spokesperson added that the planned merger remains on track. Speaking to the suit, they said, “We have no plans to drop our counter-claim regardless of any moves Wisk may make.”

A Wisk spokesperson said “Archer’s counterclaim is ludicrous and its troubles are purely self-inflicted,” and characterized the filing as “full of distortions and distractions from the serious patent and trade secret misappropriation claims it faces.” The spokesperson added that Wisk intends to continue its case against Archer.