Author: azeeadmin

After Apple acquired Dark Sky in March of 2020, we all knew the super-granular weather app was probably headed for shutdown. But while the company announced that the Android app would go dark in July of the same year, things were left a bit more open-ended for the iOS app. There would be “no changes” for Dark Sky on iOS, they said, “at this time.”

A year later, a small update to the Dark Sky blog (as pointed out by 9to5mac) seems to be putting a new expiration date on the Dark Sky iOS App, API, and website. Writes co-founder Adam Grossman:

Support for the Dark Sky API service for existing customers will continue until the end of 2022. The iOS app and Dark Sky website will also be available until the end of 2022.

It’s worth noting that there’s a little room for interpretation there, in that they don’t explicitly say it will shut down at the end of 2022 — just that they’re committing to running it until the end of 2022, perhaps suggesting its fate after that is in flux. We’ve reached out to Apple for clarification on that point — but until we hear back, we’re taking this as a heads up that shutdown is on the horizon.

On the upside, this is actually an extension for the API and the Dark Sky website. The website was previously scheduled to shutdown in August of 2020; the API, meanwhile, was scheduled to be shuttered at the end of 2021.

This news comes just a few days after Apple announced an overhaul to iOS’ built-in Weather app during WWDC.

Amid a recent tear in residential real estate investment, venture capitalists are looking to get a piece of homebuying startup Flyhomes.

The five-year-old startup announced today that they’ve closed a $150 million Series C co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Battery Ventures. Fifth Wall, Camber Creek, Balyasny Asset Management, Zillow’s Spencer Rascoff, and existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Canvas Partners also participated in the round. Norwest’s Lisa Wu and Battery’s Roger Lee are joining Flyhomes’ board as part of the deal.

The end-to-end residential real estate startup says they handle “every step of the homebuying process, from brokerage to mortgage,” building financial tools that customers need throughout the process. The company has now raised some $310 million in total.

The startup is well-positioned during a historic run-up of home prices in the US that has made deals more competitive than ever for prospective buyers. A recent report by Redfin notes that more than half of US homes are selling above their asking price right now, up from 1 in 4 a year ago. A Zillow report notes that nearly half of US homes are selling within one week of going on the market.

Flyhomes’s Cash Offer lending product allows consumers purchasing homes to make more attractive all-cash offers to sellers, with the company noting that even if a buyer ends up backing out of the deal, Flyhomes will still buy the home themselves. Central to the startup’s business is sellers being more amenable to all-cash offers, allowing consumers making them to win deals even when they aren’t the highest bidders.

The company says it has bought and sold more than $2.5 billion worth of homes since launching in 2016.

On Earth Day, April 22, SOSV published the SOSV Climate Tech 100, a list of the best startups that we’ve supported from their earliest stages to address climate change. There are always valuable insights embedded in a list like the 100. A TechCrunch story captured the investment perspective, and an SOSV post went deeper into the companies’ category breakdown and founder profiles.

But what can founders learn from the list about climate tech investors? In other words, who invested in the Climate Tech 100? We dug into the “who’s who” of the list, which had more than 500 investors, and here’s what we found.

An active but fragmented landscape

If you think 500 investors in 100 companies is a lot of investors, you’re right. There are clearly a lot of investors interested in climate tech, and most are generalists just testing the waters. For the Climate Tech 100, about 10% of investors put their money in more than one startup and only seven (less than 2%) wrote a check to four or more. These included Blue Horizon, CPT Capital, EF, Fifty Years, Hemisphere Ventures and Horizons Ventures.

That pattern tracks well with data from PwC, which found that 2,700 unique investors had backed 1,200 startups in its State of Climate Tech 2020 report covering the 2013-2019 period. The report found that only 10 firms out of 2,700 made four or more climate tech deals per year, on average, over the 2013-2019 period. The most active firms are listed in the table below.

Image Credits: PwC, 2020; additional research by SOSV

There is reason to believe that the fragmentation will diminish with the launch of more funds focused on climate tech. Four funds worth more than a billion dollars each have launched since 2020 that fit the description (see chart below).

It’s also encouraging to see that capital deployed in climate tech grew at five times the venture capital overall growth rate over the 2013-2019 period.

Even so, climate tech still only represented 6% of total venture capital deployed in 2019, so there is plenty of room to grow.

You may have heard of payments startup Paddle which has raised $93.3m or perhaps Heroes which raised $65M to become the “Thrasio of Europe” but you might not have heard so much about a backer of these startups, Fuel Ventures, at least not yet.

That’s about to change as Fuel Ventures comes out of the door with a new £45million / $63.6 million early-stage focused VC fund, aiming at 60 UK tech startups over the next 12 months. This is quite the pace for an early-stage fund, but Fuel’s founder and managing partner Mark Pearson told me at length how he is confident of making it one of the most prolific early-stage investors in the UK.

Since launching in 2015, Fuel has raised £80m in capital to invest in seed and series A founders, and the VC will also be aiming for pre-seed ventures with the new fund.

In the last 12 months Fuel says its founders have raised over £180m in follow-on funding. Notable investments include: OnBuy (eCommerce marketplace), Capdesk (equity management platform), OutFund (alternative finance provider), Heroes (scaling Amazon businesses), Moot Group (homeware and furnishing ecommerce business).

Mark Pearson, founder and managing partner of Fuel Ventures, said: “Since we launched our first fund five years ago the country’s tech ecosystem has gone from strength to strength and evolved into an ecosystem that’s the envy of many around the world. Now is not the time to take the foot of the pedal and say job done. We have a responsibility to invest in the future of the UK tech landscape and build on the strong work done so far. This, for us, means making sure we are providing capital for forward-thinking entrepreneurs and their innovative early-stage businesses – even if that means just having an idea or MVP.”

In addition to the new £45million fund, Fuel is also opening up a workspace in central London to serve its portfolio.

Speaking to me over a call, Pearson, who cut his teeth of a startup called MyVoucherCodes, said: “I exited that successfully and left it with about 10 million in revenues. I then started to be a pretty active angel investor, such as in Paddle. When I sold my company I decided to do this full time and found there weren’t many entrepreneurial investors with startup experience themselves, compared to what you see in the US. So I put my entrepreneur hat on, trying to be as founder-friendly as possible. That was five years ago when Fuel Ventures started.”

He told me: “I still think there’s a funding gap between the seed and the Series A. We have always sat in the seed stage. We wanted to just write a decent check to allow these companies what it takes to hire the best talent, build out their product at scale and get them into the institutional funds. We can help you, we will roll up our sleeves, and we’re going to build the business with you. Our network of investors and LPS tend to be entrepreneur types as it is.”

This spring, Facebook confirmed it was testing Venmo-like QR codes for person-to-person payments inside its app in the U.S. Today, the company announced those codes are now launching publicly to all U.S. users, allowing anyone to send or request money through Facebook Pay — even if they’re not Facebook friends.

The QR codes work similarly to those found in other payment apps, like Venmo.

The feature can be found under the “Facebook Pay” section in Messenger’s settings, accessed by tapping on your profile icon at the top left of the screen. Here, you’ll be presented with your personalized QR code which looks much like a regular QR code except that it features your profile icon in the middle.

Underneath, you’ll be shown your personal Facebook Pay UR which is in the format of “https://m.me/pay/UserName.” This can also be copied and sent to other users when you’re requesting a payment.

Facebook notes that the codes will work between any U.S. Messenger users, and won’t require a separate payment app or any sort of contact entry or upload process to get started.

Users who want to be able to send and receive money in Messenger have to be at least 18 years old, and will have to have a Visa or Mastercard debit card, a PayPal account or one of the supported prepaid cards or government-issued cards, in order to use the payments feature. They’ll also need to set their preferred currency to U.S. dollars in the app.

After setup is complete, you can choose which payment method you want as your default and optionally protect payments behind a PIN code of your choosing.

The QR code is also available from the Facebook Pay section of the main Facebook app, in a carousel at the top of the screen.

Facebook Pay first launched in November 2019, as a way to establish a payment system that extends across the company’s apps for not just person-to-person payments, but also other features, like donations, Stars, and e-commerce, among other things. Though the QR codes take cues from Venmo and others, the service as it stands today is not necessarily a rival to payment apps because Facebook partners with PayPal as one of the supported payment methods.

However, although the payments experience is separate from Facebook’s cryptocurrency wallet, Novi, that’s something that could perhaps change in the future.

Image Credits: Facebook

The feature was introduced alongside a few other Messenger updates, including a new Quick Reply bar that makes it easier to respond to a photo or video without having to return to the main chat thread. Facebook also added new chat themes including one for Olivia Rodrigo fans, another for World Oceans Day, and one that promotes the new F9 movie.

Jumpcut founder Kartik Hosanagar is a professor at the Wharton School, but about ten years ago, he spent his summer in an unlikely way: he wrote a screenplay. Set in India, his script garnered some interest from producers, but no one took the plunge to fund a film by a first-time Indian director.

Now, films featuring diverse casts are gaining traction – this year, Chloé Zhao became the first woman of color, and only the second woman ever, to win the Academy Award for Best Director. At the previous ceremony, Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” became the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Still, according to a recent report from McKinsey & Company, Hollywood leaves $10 billion on the table each year due to the industry’s lack of diversity.

“How do you make a bet on underrepresented voices or underrepresented stories?” asked Hosanagar. “While there’s awareness, there’s no action, because nobody knows how to do it. So that’s what got me into Jumpcut. It’s this rare company where 20 years of my work on data science and entrepreneurship meets with who I am outside of my work.”

At Wharton, Hosanagar is the Faculty Lead for the AI for Business program. He was a founder of Yodle, which was acquired by web.com for $340 million in 2016. But for this next venture, he wanted to tackle Hollywood’s homogeneity hands-on by using his experience with data science to de-risk media projects from underrepresented creators.

“The vision is to create a more inclusive era of global content creation,” he said to TechCrunch.

Hosanagar started working on Jumpcut in 2019, but today, the Atomic-backed company launches out of stealth as the first data science-driven studio working to elevate underrepresented voices in film. Already the studio has 12 TV and film projects in the works with partners like 36-time Academy Award nominee Lawrence Bender (“Pulp Fiction,” “Good Will Hunting”), Emmy Award-winning producer Shelby Stone (“Bessie,” “The Chi”), and showrunner Scott Rosenbaum (“Chuck,” “The Shield”).

Jumpcut models itself after Y-Combinator in its approach, pairing emerging talent with buyers and producers. First, Jumpcut uses an algorithm to scan hundreds of thousands of videos from platforms like YouTube, Reddit, and Wattpad to find promising talent. The algorithm narrows down the extensive field to locate creators who are consistently finding new audiences and increasing their engagement. Then, the Jumpcut team – including advisors and veterans from Netflix, Buzzfeed, CBS, Sony, and WarnerMedia – identifies who to connect with.

In one example of the algorithm’s success, Hosanagar pointed to Anna Hopkins, an actress who has appeared on shows like “The Expanse” and “Shadowhunters.” Though Hopkins has found some success in front of the camera, she also wants to write.

“We discovered some of her short films, and the algorithm identified it because people had strong emotional reactions in the comments, like, ‘heartwarming but in a positive way,’ or ‘give me a tissue,'” Hosanagar explained. Since Hopkins isn’t publicly known as a writer, she assumed that Jumpcut found her through a television network she had pitched a script to, but that wasn’t the case. “We said, ‘no, our algorithms found you.'”

Once a creator is identified by Jumpcut, they can A/B test their ideas with audiences of over 100,000 potential viewers, which helps the company prove to funders through data science that these ideas can sell.

“The idea there is that we don’t wait for creators to get discovered by the traditional Hollywood agencies, because that requires the creators to have access to the top agents, and that again brings you back to the old boys club,” Hosanagar said. “We’re automating a lot of that process and discovering these people who are creating great stories that are resonating with audiences, not waiting for some Hollywood agency to discover them.”

Once the creators have an idea that tests well with a wide audience, they’re invited to Jumpcut Collective, an incubator program that helps artists develop an idea from a concept to a pitch in 6 weeks. Then, Jumpcut helps match projects with producing partners and buyers.

So far, Jumpcut has hosted three incubator programs. Out of the twelve Jumpcut projects currently underway, Hosanagar says that nine or ten of them came out of the incubator. One project, for example, is now being developed in partnership with Disney’s Asia Pacific Division.

Jumpcut isn’t disclosing the amount raised in this round of seed funding, but confirms that Atomic is the only investor in their seed round.

Hosanagar is joined on the project by Dilip Rajan, his former student and a former product manager at BuzzFeed, and Winnie Kemp, a former SVP of Originals at Super Deluxe and CBS. There, she developed and executive produced “Chambers,” the first show with a Native American lead, and “This Close,” the first show with deaf creators and cast. Most of their funding will go toward payroll, which includes engineers, data scientists, and product managers on the product side of the company, as well as development executives on the creative side, who run the incubator.

The global economy’s transition to widespread electrification has increased the demand for longer-lasting and faster-charging batteries across industries including transportation, consumer electronics, medical devices and residential energy storage. While the benefits of this transition are well understood, the reality is that battery innovation hasn’t kept pace with society’s ambitions.

With reports forecasting a 40% chance that the world’s temperature will rise over the next five years beyond the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius laid out in the Paris climate agreement, it is clear that there’s little time to waste when it comes to creating next-generation batteries, which can easily take another 10 years to fully commercialize.

To meet the increasing pressures to electrify, a completely novel approach to building batteries is the only way to scale rechargeable batteries quickly enough to curb greenhouse-gas emissions globally and avoid the worst-case scenario for the climate crisis.

The challenges to battery innovation

Over the last few decades, battery experts, automakers, Tier 1 suppliers, investors and others looking to electrify have spent billions of dollars globally on creating next-generation batteries by focusing predominantly on battery chemistry. Yet the industry is still grappling with two major fundamental technical challenges that are stunting the proliferation of batteries:

1. Energy/power tradeoff: All batteries manufactured today face an energy-to-power tradeoff. Batteries can store more energy or they can charge/discharge more quickly. In terms of electric vehicles, this means no single battery can provide both long range and fast charging.
2. Anode-cathode mismatch: Today’s most promising battery technologies maximize the energy density of anodes, the negative electrode of the pair of electrodes that make up every lithium-ion battery cell. However, anodes already have greater energy density than their positive counterpart, the cathode. Cathode energy density needs to eventually match that of the anode in order to get the most energy storage capacity out of a certain battery size. Without breakthroughs in increasing cathode energy density, many of today’s most exciting battery technologies will not be able to deliver on their full potential. As it currently stands, the most commonly used lithium-ion battery cannot meet the needs of the wide-ranging applications of an all-electric future. Many companies have tried to address these demands through new battery chemistries to optimize the high-power-to-energy-density ratio to varying degrees of success, but very few are close to achieving the performance metrics required for mass scale and commercialization.

Are solid-state batteries the holy grail?

Battery researchers have championed the solid-state battery as the holy grail of battery technology due to its ability to achieve high energy density and increased safety. However, until recently, the technology has fallen short in practice.

Solid-state batteries have significantly higher energy density and are potentially safer because they do not use flammable liquid electrolytes. However, the technology is still nascent and has a long way to go to achieve commercialization. The manufacturing process for solid-state batteries has to be improved to lower costs, especially for an automotive industry that aims to achieve aggressive cost reductions as low as $50/kWh in the coming years.

The other substantial challenge to implementing solid-state technology is the limitation of total energy density that can be stored in the cathodes per unit of volume. The obvious solution to this dilemma would be to have batteries with thicker cathodes. However, a thicker cathode would reduce the mechanical and thermal stability of the battery. That instability leads to delamination (a mode of failure where a material fractures into layers), cracks and separation — all of which cause premature battery failure. In addition, thicker cathodes limit diffusion and decrease power. The result is that there is a practical limit to the thickness of cathodes, which restricts the power of anodes.

New takes on materials with silicon

In most cases, companies that are developing silicon-based batteries are mixing up to 30% silicon with graphite to boost energy density. The batteries made by Sila Nanotechnologies are an illustrative example of using a silicon mix to increase energy density. Another approach is to use 100% pure silicon anodes, which are limited by very thin electrodes and high production costs, to generate even higher energy density, like Amprius’ approach.

While silicon provides considerably greater energy density, there is a significant drawback that has limited its adoption until now: The material undergoes volume expansion and shrinkage while charging and discharging, limiting battery life and performance. This leads to degradation issues that manufacturers need to solve before commercial adoption. Despite those challenges, some silicon-based batteries are already being deployed commercially, including in the automotive sector, where Tesla leads in silicon adoption for EVs.

The imperative for electrification requires a new focus on battery design

Advances to battery architecture and cell design show significant promise for unlocking improvements with existing and emerging battery chemistries.

Probably the most notable from a mainstream perspective is Tesla’s “biscuit tin” battery cell that the company unveiled at its 2020 Battery Day. It’s still using lithium-ion chemistry, but the company removed the tabs in the cell that act as the positive and negative connection points between the anode and cathode and the battery casing, and instead use a shingled design within the cell. This change in design helps reduce manufacturing costs while boosting driving range and removes many of the thermal barriers that a cell can encounter when fast-charging with DC electricity.

Transitioning away from a traditional 2D electrode structure to a 3D structure is another approach that is gaining traction in the industry. The 3D structure yields high energy and high power performance in both the anode and cathode for every battery chemistry.

Although still in the R&D and testing phases, 3D electrodes have achieved two times higher accessible capacity, 50% less charging time and 150% longer lifetime for high-performance products at market-competitive prices. Therefore, in order to advance battery capabilities to unlock the full potential of energy storage for a range of applications, it is critical to develop solutions that emphasize altering the physical structure of batteries.

Winning the battery race

It’s not just performance improvements that will win the battery race, but perfecting production and cost reduction as well. To capture a considerable share of the ballooning battery market that is projected to reach $279.7 billion by 2027, countries around the world must find ways to achieve low-cost battery manufacturing at scale. Prioritizing “drop-in” solutions and innovative production methods that can be incorporated with existing assembly lines and materials will be key.

The Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan highlights the importance of domestic battery production to the country’s goal of being a leader in electrification while meeting ambitious carbon reduction targets. Commitments like these will play a key role in establishing who can maintain a critical competitive edge in the battery space and take the largest share of the $162 billion global EV market.

Ultimately, the winning technologies in the race toward total electrification will be the ones that have the most significant impact on performance, lowered costs and compatibility with existing manufacturing infrastructure. By taking a holistic approach and focusing more on innovating cell design while also fine-tuning leading chemistries, we can achieve the next steps in battery performance and rapid commercialization that the world desperately needs.

If the pandemic achieved anything good, it was putting health front and center in the minds of the general public, elected officials, investors and innovators. Cityblock has been working on solutions for bringing together the healthcare industry and communities since long before now, but it raised a total of $372 million spanning December through March, so it’s definitely seeing the impact of the visibility of its mission in light of a worldwide healthcare crisis.

On June 30 at noon PT/3PM ET, Cityblock co-founder and CEO Iyah Romm will join us for an episode of Extra Crunch Live, along with Cityblock investor and Maverick Ventures managing partner Ambar Bhattacharyya. We’ll talk about the process of fundraising for this critical area in urgent need of innovation, and what it’s like trying to manage that process when the business you’re in is experiencing one of its busiest and most fraught times ever. Register here for free.

Romm and Bhattacharyya will also be providing live feedback to participants in our weekly Extra Crunch Live pitch-off, which you can apply to join live during the event.

But we’ve talked about Cityblock a bit, let’s take a step back and look at our guests.

Iyah Romm co-founded Cityblock in 2017 and has been its chief executive ever since. Before that, he was entrepreneur in residence at Sidewalk Labs, from which Cityblock spun out. He has a long history in public health and private care, including as chief transformation officer at Commonwealth Care Alliance, and a stint at the Health Policy Commission and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Bhattacharyya has spent more than a decade in VC, including at Bessemer and Bain, as well as in his current role at Maverick Ventures. His track record includes investments in companies that have had a total of 11 exists via IPO and acquisition, including four public market unicorns. His specific focus has been on early and growth-stage healthcare companies, so it’s a space he knows very well.

Maverick participated in Cityblock’s Series A, as well as its Series B and both the C and C extension rounds from this past year.

The episode goes down at noon PT/3PM ET on June 30 and is free to all who want to check it out live. On-demand access to the content is reserved for Extra Crunch members only. Register to come hang out with us here.

Listen up, all you budget-conscious early-stage founders. That sound you hear is the countdown clock for serious savings to TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising on July 8-9. You have just two days left to score early-bird savings and keep $100 in your wallet. Want loads of opportunity for less money? Beat the deadline and register here before Friday, June 11 at 11:59 p.m. (PT).

We’ve packed this two-day virtual event with more than a dozen (and counting) presentations by leading startup experts holding forth on a range of topics every startup founder needs to master — or at least understand enough to outsource wisely. We’re talking essentials like product-market fit, paid marketing strategies and, every founder’s favorite topic, fundraising.

But this isn’t a one-way situation. Nope, these are highly interactive sessions, and you’ll have plenty of time to get answers to your most pressing questions. Check the event agenda and start planning your schedule.

Here’s just a taste of the topics on tap.

How to Line Up Your Growth with Your Goals: Unlike giant brands, startups need to use their marketing spend wisely and efficiently. Sound Ventures’ Susan Su is a growth marketing expert and will share how to define growth based on your startup’s goals, and how to take a framework-based approach to growth, rather than relying on old playbooks that aren’t relevant.

How to Navigate the Ever-Changing World of Early-Stage VC: With over 25 personal investments, AngelList Venture CEO Avlok Kohli knows a thing or two about early-stage fundraising. At Early Stage, Kohli will explain the landscape of the early-stage fundraising market and how to take advantage of the changes in the VC world over the past year.

Nail the Narrative: Storytelling is a critical skill for startups. Coatue Management partner Caryn Marooney, formerly head of comms for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus, will share how to frame the narrative for a startup depending on the audience and ensure that when you’re talking about your company, people are not only listening, but they want to learn more.

Pro Tip: Your pass includes access to video-on-demand. With VOD flexibility, you can watch sessions you missed and/or review sessions you attended to absorb the details on a cellular level.

Still on the fence? Here’s what Ashley Barrington, founder of MarketPearl, told us about her experience at Early Stage 2020:

I recommend going to Early Stage. The virtual aspect helps in terms of scheduling, it offers community-building through networking, and it gives early-stage founders a framework for navigating the startup ecosystem. This is the stage where founders need more support, especially if they haven’t done this before.

TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising takes place on July 8-9, but the clock is ticking. If you want to save $100, buy your pass before Friday, June 11 at 11:59 p.m. (PT). Find loads of opportunity for less money. It’s the TechCrunch way!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Early Stage 2021 – Marketing & Fundraising? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

New regulations are making it easier to invest in alternative assets via crowdfunding, and the recent explosion of crypto and NFTs means that investors are more diversified than ever. 

Keeping up with such a variety of investments may prove difficult to those who want to handle managing their investment portfolios on their own. Money Minx, a new San Diego-based startup co-founded by husband and wife team Hussein and Jessica Yahfoufi, wants to help with that.

Put simply, Money Minx aims to build a “Personal Finance OS” for every household. The platform is designed to help people track all of their investments — yes, including crypto and NFTs — in one place, in whatever currency. The company claims that its AI can also go a step further, and help people spot opportunities in their portfolio as well as catch potential risks.

“We built Money Minx to help people cover all their bases, better understand their personal balance sheet and grow their net worth,” Hussein said. “No financial advisor needed.”

Money Minx also aims to provide people with easy-to-use tools to create dashboards and reports. In its “soft launch” phase, the startup has been growing rapidly — from $15 million in assets tracked at the end of March to $107 million by mid-May. Its user base is growing by 40% month over month.

As many founders do, Hussein says he and Jessica developed the platform to meet a need of their own.

“We built this because we needed it as ‘do it yourself investors,’ said Hussein, who previously started crowdfunding site appsplit and works as a CTO at a San Diego-based fintech company. “I didn’t want to hire a financial advisor and spend 1% of my portfolio every year for them to tell me what to do. So I started to do it on my own on a spreadsheet and then started building this tool last year.”

Hussein talked to other investors and realized that many were also managing their own finances and had also moved into investing outside the stock market.

Image Credits: Money Minx co-founders Jessica and Hussein Yahfoufi / Money Minx

“Everyday investors are preferring to invest more in crowdfunding sites and alternative assets than the traditional stock market,” he said. 

This shift has created a gap in the market for an easy way to track investments across multiple platforms, the Yahfoufis believe. 

Money Minx operates as a SaaS business and charges a monthly subscription fee across three different plans ranging from $10 to $30 a month. Looking ahead, Hussein is considering building out a white-glove service.

Although Money Minx has been approached by interested VCs, Hussein says the company prefers to stay bootstrapped — for now.

Indeed, VCs are pouring money into the space. Just last week, personal finance startup Truebill announced it had raised a $45 million Series D funding round led by Accel.