Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Yesterday, a fitness equipment maker called Echelon Fitness announced its latest product, the so-called Prime Bike. At $500, it’s nearly a clone of Peloton’s $1,900 product. The company said it had developed the bike “in collaboration with Amazon”. Amazon is now saying that’s not true and has removed the product from its site and issued statements distancing itself from Echelon. The press release announcing the product is now removed from most listings, too.

“This bike is not an Amazon product or related to Amazon Prime,” Amazon said in a released statement. “Echelon does not have a formal partnership with Amazon. We are working with Echelon to clarify this in its communications, stop the sale of the product, and change the product branding.”

This comes the day after Echelon Fitness announced the product, touting the partnership that resulted in “[Amazon’s] first-ever connected fitness product”. The $500 bike certainly looked the part as a Peloton knock-off. Despite weighing 45 lbs less than Peloton’s original, Echelon’s Prime Bike had the same color scheme, design, and features minus a large video monitor.

At this time, the bike is unavailable from Amazon. If the retailer’s statement above is any indication, the product will eventually be re-listed and available for sale under different branding. Or buyers can look to Walmart where it’s available under a different name for the same price.

After operating in stealth mode for about two years, First Resonance, a company founded by former SpaceX engineers, is finally showing the world their software toolkit designed to let manufacturers make things using the processes employed by their former boss.

It’s a suite of software products that can allow for more flexible manufacturing processes and one that can handle the pressures of remote monitoring for companies making hardware in the age of social distancing brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our first few customers really grew using [the software] and facilitating that at home factory workflow,” said First Resonance co-founder Karan Talati. 

The software that First Resonance has developed allows manufacturers to coordinate their workflow processes. “This is really driven off of us being in that driver’s seat at SpaceX and working with our counterparts in manufacturing and refurb,” Talati said. “Underlying it all is a data platform that allows these companies to make use of insights to improve their designs as well as their manufacturing processes.”

On the process side, that means reducing waste, and making the manufacturing of goods more efficient. But the software — and the information it’s collecting from manufacturing — can be used to inform better design decisions and the upstream product development process, Talati said.

Already the company’s tech is being used by a crew of cutting edge manufacturers including Phase Four, Joby Aviation and Iron Ox.

Admittedly, the software works best for companies that are building new manufacturing processes and capabilities and don’t have a lot of legacy infrastructure to start with. Part of the reason that Tesla and SpaceX have been able to achieve the cost reductions they have is by redesigning systems to operate more flexibly and adapt to information that’s coming off of the product line, Talati said. “That’s how we were able to achieve the order of magnitude cost reduction that is the Falcon 9… applying data upstream and feeding that data back and embracing that chaos.”

Talati said that many manufacturers rely on processes that are overly rigid and need to be untangled. Already, big aerospace, defense, and auto manufacturers are acquiring or partnering with newer manufacturing startups to take advantage of the expertise and flexibility these companies offer. Talati pointed to Millennium Space System’s acquisition by Boeing and the contract that Hermeus received to design a hypersonic Air Force 1 jet. “We really evolve through enabling that new culture of agile manufacturing,” Talati said.

The company currently has six customers (with the bulk of them signing on in June and July) and charges per-seat in a traditional software as a service model.

To date, First Resonance has raised under $2 million from local Los Angeles investors including Fika Ventures, Wavemaker, Stage Venture Partners and Village Global. 

The Los Angeles-based company harvested talent from SpaceX, NASA, Lexus, and other aerospace and car manufacturers and is tackling an emerging market for industrial software that could reach $14.9 billion, according to research from the analytics firm Markets and Markets provided by the company. 

Much of that demand is being driven by the diaspora of SpaceX talent into the broader aerospace and defense and manufacturing ecosystem, said Talati. That’s also a great selling point for the company when it makes its pitch, he said.

“That makes it quite easy for us… there’s a very easy way for us to say, ‘That thing we were working on together… Well… We’re doing it at the kind of unit economics where you don’t need a billionaire CEO to finance it.'”

The lessons from SpaceX around empowering individuals and giving them connectivity into the system, enables the company to continue to innovate on its iterative products, Talati said. And First Resonance is providing a toolkit other companies can use to bring that mindset into their own manufacturing.

“We invested in First Resonance because the founders Karan and Neal are uniquely qualified to build this company thanks to their experience at SpaceX and Uptake Technologies,” said Mikal Khoso, Associate, Wavemaker Partners, in a statement. “The digitization of manufacturing is a long-overdue revolution in an industry full of outdated technology and methods. First Resonance is building the factory operating system for modern manufacturing, helping hardware companies build 21st-century products in a 21st-century fashion.”

Zoom was never created to be a consumer product. Nonetheless, the video-conferencing company’s accessibility made it the answer to every social situation threatened by the pandemic, from happy hours to meetings.

Months later, we’re realizing that force-feeding social experiences into an enterprise software company isn’t a perfect solution. Zoom School is a perfect example of what’s not working: Remote education is a hot mess for students, teachers and parents. Instructors, who could once engage a classroom through whiteboard activities, mini-group presentations and one-on-one discussions, are now stuck to one screen.

Well more than six months into a global pandemic, former Blackboard CEO and former PrecisionHawk CEO Michael Chasen is daring to dream: What if we didn’t assume Zoom was a Band-Aid fix for schools? What if someone created a Zoom experience that was designed, not just marketed, for classrooms?

“If I told you that the majority of classes being held online today, teachers couldn’t take attendance, hand out assignments, give a test or a quiz, grade anything or talk one on one with students, you would say how is teaching and learning even happening?” he told TechCrunch.

Chasen is launching a new company, ClassEDU, with a first product that isn’t too shy about its ambitions, named Class for Zoom. Although the name might convince you that it’s a third-party add-on to Zoom, it’s an entirely independently owned company. And it’s built for teachers who need to find a way to create more-engaging, live-synchronous learning.

When a teacher logs into the Zoom call, they’ll be brought to a screen that looks like this:

As you can see, they can toggle between the classroom, assignments, tests and quizzes, or the whiteboard. Instead of unorganized tab time, the teacher can take the video call as a one-stop shop for their entire lesson, from syncing materials from the CMS system to polling students on their thoughts to grading the quiz they just took. It’s a full-suite solution, and an ambitious one at that.

The best way to break down Class for Zoom’s features is by separating them into two buckets: instruction tools and management tools.

On the instruction side, Class for Zoom helps teachers launch live assignments, quizzes, and tests, which can be completed by students in real time. Students can also be polled to motivate engagement. Instructors can be granted access to unmute a class or mute a class during appropriate times.

The marquee feature of the instruction tools is that teachers and students can talk privately without leaving the Zoom call if there’s a question. This is key for shy students who might not want to speak up, inspired by Chasen’s daughter, who struggled to share in front of an entire classroom.

On the management side, tools range from attendance trackers to features that allow a teacher to see how much time a student is participating in activities. Chasen, who founded Blackboard when he was in college, also gave a nod to his prior company by allowing teachers to integrate CMS systems right into the Zoom classroom.

Less popular, Chasen jokes, is Class for Zoom’s ability to give teachers intel on if a student has Zoom as the primary app in use on their screen. The attention-tracking feature is not new, but it is oversight some people might not be okay with. Students can disable the ability to track focus, but administrators can make it mandatory. The platform also allows teachers to monitor a student’s desktop during an exam to limit cheating.

Class for Zoom’s access to a student’s personal computer could make some users uncomfortable. Zoom has been banned from some school districts due to security concerns, and a wave of Zoombombing attacks, where an unwanted participant hacks into a call and streams inappropriate or offensive content. In response, the video conferencing company has put in security measures, such as verification tools and waiting rooms.

Chasen says that Class for Zoom is balancing its access to information by giving students the option to opt into tracking features versus forcing them to.

Class for Zoom isn’t the only startup trying to make Zoom a better experience. A number of tools built atop Zoom have launched in the past few months, partially because the price of Zoom’s SDK is $0. Macro raised $4.3 million to add depth and analysis to Zoom calls, with an interface that tracks metrics like speaker time and notes. It has more than 25,000 users. Mmhmm got buzz in July for its creative demo that lets users create a broadcast-style video-conferencing experience atop their videoconferencing platform of choice.

Somewhat predictably, Zoom launched a competing feature with Mmhmm that calls into question whether the startups that layer atop incumbents look more like features instead of full-fledged platforms.

Of course, one threat to any of these products is Zoom’s mood. If Zoom tweaks its policy on SDK and API, it could completely wipe out Class for Zoom. But Chasen has reason to be optimistic that this won’t happen.

Today, Class for Zoom announced that it has raised a $16 million seed round, pre-launch, from a cohort of investors, including some of Zoom’s earliest backers such as Santi Subotovsky, a current Zoom board member from Emergence Capital; Jim Scheinman of Maven Partners, an early investor in Zoom and the person who is credited with naming Zoom; and Bill Tai, who is Zoom’s first committed backer. Other investors include Deborah Quazzo, partner from GSV Ventures, and Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and CEO of Revolution.

When asked if the Zoom investor involvement works as “insurance” to protect the startup, Chasen said he didn’t view it like that. Instead, the founder thinks that Zoom is focused more on scale than in-depth specialization. In other words, Zoom isn’t going to pull a Twitter, but instead likens the platform’s developer friendliness to that of Salesforce, which has tons of tools built atop of it. Second, Class for Zoom is a certified Zoom reseller, and makes money off of commission when a district buys Zoom through them. The informal and formal partnerships are enough glue, it seems, for Chasen to bet on stability.

As for whether the technology will stay exclusive to Zoom, Chasen says that it’s the main focus because Zoom is the “de facto industry standard in education.” If other platforms pick up speed, Chasen says they are open to experimenting with different software.

Chasen declined to share exact numbers around pricing, but said that it is a work in progress to find a price point that districts can afford. It’s unclear whether the company will charge per seat, but the founder said that it will charge some type of subscription service fee.

Accessibility in edtech solutions often relies on the medium that the technology and instruction lives on. For example, even if a product is free to use, if it needs high-speed internet and a Mac to work then it might not be accessible to the average home in America. The digital divide is why products often test usability on Chromebooks, low-cost computers that low-income students, teachers and school districts employ.

In Class for Zoom’s case, the first iteration of the product is being rolled out for teachers with Macintosh computers, which could leave out some key demographics due to expense. It’s worth noting that while students can still participate in a class being run on Class for Zoom without the software, the view, tracking and engagement software will be missing.

Thankfully, the new financing will be used to help ClassEDU build software that is usable on low-cost computers such as Chromebooks, as well as Windows, Android or iPhones. When that happens, teachers and students can both benefit from a more engaging view.

Chasen said that the idea for the startup began brewing just weeks into quarantine, when his three kids began learning from home. Months later, Class for Zoom is finally set to launch its beta version and is opening up its waitlist today. By January, Chasen hopes, it will be accessible to any school that wants it.

Facebook’s head of global policy has denied the tech giant could close its service to Europeans if local regulators order it to suspend data transfers to the US following a landmark Court of Justice ruling in July that has cemented the schism between US surveillance laws and EU privacy rights.

Press reports emerged this week of a Dublin court filing by Facebook, which is seeking a stay to a preliminary suspension order on its EU-US data transfers, that suggested the tech giant could pull out of the region if regulators enforce a ban against its use of a data transfer mechanism known as Standard Contractual Clauses.

The court filing is attached to Facebook’s application for a judicial review of a preliminary suspension order from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission earlier this month, as Facebook’s lead EU data supervisor responded to the implications of the CJEU ruling.

“We of course won’t [shut down in Europe] — and the reason we won’t of course is precisely because we want to continue to serve customer and small and medium sized businesses in Europe,” said Facebook VP Nick Clegg during a livestreamed EU policy debate yesterday.

However he also warned of “profound effects” on scores of digital businesses if a way is not found by lawmakers on both sides of the pond to resolve the legal uncertainty around US data transfers — making a pitch to politicians to come up with a new legal ‘sticking plaster’ for EU-US data transfers now that a flagship arrangement, called Privacy Shield, is dead.

“We have a major issue — which is that for various complex, legal, political and other reasons question marks are being raised about the current legal basis under which data transfers occur. If those legal means of data transfer are removed — not by us, but by regulators — then of course that will have a profound effect on how, not just our services, but countless other companies operate. We’re trying to avoid that.”

The Facebook VP was speaking during an EBS panel debate on rebooting the regional economy “towards a green, digital and resilient union” — which included the EU’s commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni, and others.

Discussing the Dublin legal filing, Clegg suggested that an overenthusiastic reporter “slightly overwrote” in their interpretation of the document. “We’ve taken legal action in the Dublin courts to — in a sense — to try to send a signal that this is a really big issue for the whole European economy, for all small and large companies that rely on data transfers,” he said.

Clegg went on to claim that while Facebook being forced to suspend data transfers from the EU to the US “would of course be very bad for Facebook” the impact of such an order “would be absolutely disastrous for the economy as a whole”.

“What is at stake here is quite a big issue that in the end can only be resolved politically between a continued negotiation between the US and the EU that clearly is not going to happen until there’s a new US administration in place after the transition period in the early part of next year,” he said, indicating Facebook is using Ireland’s courts to try to buy time for a political fix.

“We need the time and the space for the political process between the EU and the US to work out so that companies can have confidence going fwd that they’re able to transfer data going forward,” he added.

Clegg also sought to present Facebook’s platform as a vital component of any regional economy recovery — talking up its utility to European SMEs for reaching customers.

Some 25M European companies use its apps and tools, he said — impressing that the “vast majority” do so for free and further claiming activity on Facebook’s ad platform could be linked to sales of 208BN, and 3M+ jobs, per independent estimates.

“In terms of the economic recovery, our most important role is to continue to provide that extraordinary capacity for small businesses to do something which in the past only big businesses could do,” he said. “In the past only big businesses had the fancy marketing budgets and could take out bill boards and television and radio ads. The transformational effect of social media and Facebook in part economically speaking is that it’s levelled the playing field.”

Clegg went further on this point — linking the mass exploitation of Internet users’ personal data to the economic value generated by regional businesses via what he badged “personalized advertising” — aka “Facebook’s business model”.

“The personalized advertising model allows us to do that — allows us to level the playing field,” he claimed.

The tech giant’s processing of Europeans’ personal data remains under investigation on multiple fronts by EU regulators — meaning that as well as the clear threat to its US transfers Facebook’s core business model risks being unpicked by regulators if it faces enforcement action over multiple claimed data protection violations in future.

“I’m acutely aware that it is a business model that has plenty of criticism aimed at it and there’s a totally legitimate debate which rages in Brussels and elsewhere about how Facebook gathers, stores and monetizes data — and that is a totally legitimate and ongoing debate — but I hope people will not overlook that that business model has one ingenious benefit, amongst others, which is that it allows small businesses to operate on the same basis as big businesses in reaching their customers,” he said.

Never one to waste a lobbying opportunity, Clegg argued the pandemic has made this capacity “even more important” with EU populations under lockdown and fewer opportunities for businesses to engage in face to face selling.

Taxing times

The knotty issue of digital tax reform also came up during the debate.

Gentiloni reiterated the Commission position that it wants to see global agreement on reforming tax rules to take account of the shift to online business but he said the bloc is willing to go ahead with a European digital tax if that effort fails.

“We can’t remain with the model of the previous century,” he said, before going on to flesh out the challenges facing global accord on the issue. “We don’t want to be the one breaking this OECD process. To be honest, there was a lot of progress in this thing that we call ‘inclusive framework’ — more than dozens of countries working together and reaching something like an agreement on a new form of digital tax but then one single country — but a very important one — is not agreeing with this solution, is proposing a different one. But this different solution, the so called ‘Safe Harbor’, appears a little bit like an optional solution and it’s a bit difficult to conceive of an optional solution because of course you don’t pay ‘optional taxes’, I don’t think so. But we are still committed towards the end of this year to try to find this solution.

“My absolute preferred solution would be a global one. For many reasons — for avoiding tensions among different countries, and for facilitating for business the payment of taxes — but I want to say very clearly that we have a second best solution which is a European digital taxation because the alternative to this would be to have, as we already have in legislation, a French one, an Italian one, a Spanish one and I don’t think this is a good solution for Facebook or other companies. So we’re working for global but if global is not possible we will go European.”

Facebook’s Clegg said the company “will pay the taxes that are due under the rules that operate”, adding that if there is a European digital tax it will “of course” abide by it. But he too said Facebook’s preference is for a global arrangement.

The pitch for Berlin-based Endel is pretty straightforward, according to its co-founder and CEO Oleg Stavitsky.

“The way I usually describe Endel is: This is a technology that is built to help you focus, relax and sleep,” Stavitsky told me. “Of course, the way we do that is a little more complicated than that.”

The startup is announcing today that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Kevin Rose of True Ventures, with participation from SleepScore Ventures, Techstars Ventures (Endel was part of the Techstars Music Accelerator), Impulse Ventures, Plus 8 Equity Partners, Waverley Capital, Amazon Alexa Fund, Target Global and various angel investors.

Stavitsky said that the team prevously worked together on children’s app company Bubl. After selling Bubl, Stavitsky said they began to explore the opportunities around sound — after all, he noticed the growth of playlists designed to help with things like sleep and focus, as well as the growth in mindfulness apps.

“When we started, we said, ‘Let’s just build this machine that can generate ambient music,'” he recalled. But he said that as the team did more research, they realized, “It has to be personalized. It cannot just be one song or one playlist or one soundscape. It really depends on the space you’re in.”

So that’s essentially what Endel has built. The startup says its Endel Pacific technology creates “sound environments” designed for your needs — whether that’s focusing, sleeping, relaxing or just when you’re on-the-go. Those environments are shaped, in part, by things like the time of day and the weather, as well as the user’s heart rate and motion.

Rose said he was excited by “this idea of the closed loop system that uses real-time feedback to manipulate and change the body in a very positive way.” And he emphasized that Endel is “backed by science.”

Stavitsky said Endel’s approach draws a several areas of science, including research around circadian rhythms (so that it complements where you are in your daily sleep cycle), the pentatonic scale (so that its sounds are pleasant) and sound masking (so that you’re less likely to hear anything distracting).

The company is working with partners to do more to validate the science behind its approach, but it says it’s already applied the experience sampling method developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who developed and wrote the book on the concept of flow) to show that its sound environments can lead to a 6.3x increase in concentration and a 3.6x decrease in anxiety.

I tried it out myself, listening to Endel’s mix of soothing music and white noise as I working yesterday (including, of course, as I was writing this post). I won’t claim that I felt a dramatic increase in energy or focus, but as time went on, I noticed was working for a longer period of time than I normally do without getting distracted.

The startup has released apps for iOS, Apple Watch, macOS, Amazon Alexa, and Android, and it has been downloaded nearly 2 million times. A subscription costs $29.99 per year.

Stavitsky said Endel is also building a significant business around partnerships, for example by working with Japan’s ANA Airlines to feature its technology on planes, and there are supposedly deals with automakers and smart speaker manufacturers as well.

The startup has also signed a deal with Warner Music to algorithmically create songs and albums. Stavitsky said he’s hoping to do more work with musicians, so that when they release new music, there can be a traditional album but also “a functional, adaptive album that is available to you as a soundscape when you have to work, when you want to go to sleep.”

“The big vision is to ultimately go beyond sound,” he added — starting with an Apple TV app due later this year that incorporates video.

Endel has now raised a total of $7.1 million.

As traditional brands grapple with a new world where selling online is as much or perhaps even more important than how you are positioned in a physical store, a startup that helps them get all their inventory, marketing and selling strategies all on one page has raised a significant round of funding.

Salsify, which provides brands and the companies behind them a single place to track product inventories, manage how they are described and sold across a disparate array of online and offline locations, and then run analytics on the data to figure out what next steps to take, has closed $155 million in a Series E round of financing led by Warburg Pincus, with other unnamed investors participating.

The funding is coming on the back of a big 2020 for Salsify, which, like a lot of other companies working in the wider area of e-commerce, has seen strong tailwinds resulting from Covid-19. Specifically, with many continuing to comply with social distancing rules, there has been a big shift for shopping and browsing for goods online.

“Companies realize they need a strong digital footprint,” Jason Purcell, the CEO and co-founder, said simply in an interview. “Whether it’s Amazon or another marketplace, or their own site, what Covid has done is give many brands a fraction of the thought process: if we don’t have a strong digital footprint, we won’t be able to engage.”

The company is tackling a very fundamental (but I guess “happy”) problem in the world of online commerce. It’s an extremely fragmented landscape, with a huge number of potential ways for a brand to connect with potential customers: their own sites, those of other retailers, larger marketplaces, social channels, direct sales using messaging or email, and much more. And that’s before you factor in the offline channels that are still very much in use, despite the turn to online shopping for many of us.

Salsify counts a lot of big names like Coca Cola, Rubbermaid and Mars among them. In all, it has some 800 customers on its books with 225 of them pulling in more than $1 billion in revenues, and since its last round, a Series D in 2018, the company has seen a boom in business, with a 120%+ net revenue retention rate.

Purcell said that his company plans to use the funding in two main areas. First, it plans to continue expanding its product stack, currently based around the company’s CommerceXM (for “experience management”) platform, which includes features for managing product information, digital assets, and managing how products are sold through a brand’s own site, marketplaces, online and offline retailers and social channels and more.

Second, the company has its sights set on expanding internationally. The company is based out of Boston, and a couple of years ago it opened its first international headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal. Right now some 40 of its customers are based overseas, and the plan will be to double down on more expansion both serving them, as well as their US customers abroad, as well as picking up new business.

Purcell, who co-founded the company with Jeremy Redburn (chief data officer) and Rob Gonzalez (CMO), said the company would not be disclosing its valuation but only confirmed that it was a “significant proud” compared to Salsify’s valuation in its last fundraise, which was $308 million, according to data from PitchBook.

Prior to today Salsify had raised around $96 million, from investors including Matrix Partners, Venrock, North Bridge Venture Partners.

Purcell also added that the round and the choice of lead investor was very much in line with the company’s ambition to eventually go public.

“This is pointing us on the path to an IPO,” he said. “The intent is to build a company that can operate as a public company. It’s about how we hold ourselves against public companies, while making sure we can operate the same from a growth perspective. Warburg Pincus has taken 150 companies public, and we are building with that in mind.”

Warburg Pincus has been a pretty prolific growth-stage investor whose involvement indeed points not to existing scale and success, but wider ambition. Other companies it has backed include CrowdStrike, Avalara, Samsara, Ant Group, Privitar, Trax and Gojek.

“Salsify is a clear market leader, serving some of the largest and most discerning global brands and retailers. The company’s strong track record, paired with a talented leadership team has positioned it well for the increase in demand for digital shelf solutions,” said Vishnu Menon, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus, in a statement.

“We are excited to partner with Salsify in their mission to help brands develop better and longer lasting relationships with consumers online,” said Michael Ding, Vice President, Warburg Pincus.

It used to be the case that in order to scale glocally, European companies needed to spend big on launching in the US to achieve the kind of growth they wanted. That usually meant re-locating large swathes of the team to the San Francisco / Bay Area, or New York. New research suggests that is no longer the case, as the US has become more expensive, and as the opportunity in Europe has improved. This means European startups are committing much less of their team and resources to a US launch, but still getting decent results. That said, European startups will still look to the US for exits, as European corporates remain laggards in innovation.

New research by Index Ventures today reveals that less than 1 in 5 (50 out of 275) European tech firms are choosing to relocate their engineering base as they expand to the US, in stark contrast with the general strategy 10 years ago.
 Instead, says Index, Europe’s top tech start-ups are managing to get the growth gains they need about of the US with much smaller ‘on the ground’ footprint.

The survey of 275 European startups over the last decade (including an in-depth survey of over 100 firms) indicates that creating US-based engineering, tech and R&D teams has fallen out of favor, and they are staying in Europe for longer, taking advantage of Europe’s much-improved availability of talent and funding. 

Between 2008-2014 almost two thirds (59%) of European start-ups expanded, or moved entirely, to the US ahead of  Series A funding rounds. However, between 2015-2019 this number decreased to a third (33%). 

This chimes with research from StackOverflow which has found that the European tech scene has lifted, with more than 6 million professional developers residing in Europe, compared to just 4.3 million in the US. Tightened US immigration rules, and demand outstripping supply have inflated US tech salaries, which are 42% higher in San Francisco compared to London, making it more expensive and less cost efficient for European startups to double down in the US. Especially when they can achieve similar growth from home.

European founders are also now raising more, with rounds growing from $15.3bn to $34.3bn over the past four years.

Danny Rimer, Partner at Index Ventures said in a statement: “While for some founders, and certainly once a business reaches certain milestones, establishing a US base is a good decision, it is becoming increasingly costly and challenging.”

At the same time, however, Index found that European corporates invest three quarters (76%) less than their US counterparts on software, and this is normally on compliance rather than innovation. This means European startups are likely to continue to look to the US for exits to corporates.

The research findings are revealed in ‘Expanding to the US’, Index Ventures’ third handbook for tech founders seeking domestic and international growth. It also includes a ‘personality test’ for startups to figure out at what stage they need to prepare for a US launch.

As well as analysis of 353 European (275) and Israeli (78) VC-backed startups that have expanded into the US over the last 10 years it includes US expansion strategies and interviews with founders who’ve done it.

Freeletics, the “AI-powered” fitness coaching app, has closed $25 million in Series B funding. Leading the round is U.S.-based JAZZ Venture Partners and Causeway Media Partners, with support from KKCG.

The fresh injection of capital follows $45 million in Series A funding in late 2018. It will be used by the company to develop new tech, further expand globally and launch new business verticals.

Founded in 2013 and well-established in Europe, Freeletics has been steadily trying to conquer America since its Series A (the company was impressively bootstrapped until then). The Munich, Germany-founded company’s self-described mission is to “challenge and inspire people to become the greatest version of themselves, both mentally and physically.”

The Freeletics app offers AI-powered fitness and mindset coaching, and has 48 million users in more than 160 countries, claiming to be the No. 1 fitness app in Europe with more than 600,000 paid-for subscriptions. The “personal trainer in your pocket” aims to help you train anytime, anywhere, with personalised training plans and workouts. Its algorithms learn from the app’s millions of users and the individual feedback they provide, with the goal of developing “smart” training journeys uniquely designed to suit different users in different contexts.

“While a relatively new player in the U.S., Freeletics is a clear global leader in at-home fitness and we believe they are perfectly positioned to continue leading the fitness industry into the future post-COVID-19 in the U.S. market,” said John Spinale, managing partner at JAZZ Venture Partners. “In an ocean of unpersonalized fitness streaming concepts, they offer a sophisticated and adaptive personal coach for every aspect of performance and well-being — whether mental or physical. This is a promising indication of what is still to come.”

“We want to give anyone the right plan and guidance to reach their goals, on their terms, and ultimately lead to a long-term behavior change so they can continue leading that lifestyle for the rest of their lives,” Freeletics CEO Daniel Sobhani tells TechCrunch. “Not everything the fitness industry has been telling us for the last 30 years has been setting people up for success, so we want to put an end to that and be clear and honest about the work it takes to reach your goals, while making real, sustainable results accessible to as many people as possible. And those goals don’t have to be just losing weight. Whatever the finish line looks like, we want to get people there in the most efficient, sustainable and enjoyable way.

Sobhani says Freeletics’ AI provides “hyper-personalized” fitness coaching, paired with mindset training for a more holistic experience. “The AI-powered coach curates the workouts best suited to every single user, so that they are always super efficient and effective, making it easier to work towards your goal,” he explains. “We focus so much on personalization because, in the end, there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to health and fitness. We then pair this technology with our efforts in the product to reduce the everyday hurdles people face when it comes to working out regularly — time, space, equipment, knowledge, money, confidence and so on.”

The idea is that Freeletics lets you work out on your own terms, in terms of how, when and where you want. For each day of your training plan, the AI coach can draw from 3.5 million options. So, for example, you may want a quiet workout plan without equipment that fits with your small city apartment and that won’t disturb the neighbours. Or one that only requires 15 minutes. Or perhaps you want to lift weights instead. Based on these and a plethora of other criteria, Freeletics promises to adapt to your needs accordingly.

“For the finishing touch, we combine this personalized training experience with the mental component — audio coaching, which aims to educate, motivate and bring more mindfulness to the whole experience,” adds Sobhani. “This mindset coaching builds the sustainable basis for our users to make life-long improvements to their lifestyles, aiming to help them build healthy habits and better understand their journey, all while putting more emphasis on mindfulness and meditation for better long-term results across the board.”

Meanwhile, Freeletics operates a classic freemium model. The app is free to download and use to a certain extent, but for more personal coaching you’ll need to pay for a subscription. This sees the company offer different options with combinations of training, nutrition and mindset coaching for different subscription periods, from one to 12 months.

“Users can get a digital personal coach for less than a cup of coffee a week, which is the more attractive option for most if you compare that with the cost of a personal trainer at the gym,” says the Freeletics CEO. “And on top of that, the app also works to remove any other financial hurdles associated with working out, like gym memberships, equipment, etc. Over the last year we have managed to double our paying subscriber base to over 600,000, which is a real industry benchmark if you look at similar companies.”

Servify, a Mumbai-headquartered startup that operates a device lifecycle management platform and works deeply with brands including Apple and Samsung in a number of geographies, has raised $23 million in a new financing round.

The Series C financing round for the five-year-old startup was led by existing investor Iron Pillar, and other existing investors including Blume Ventures, Beenext, and Tetrao SPF participated in the round. The new round pushes Servify’s to-date raise to $48 million.

Servify works with enterprises such as Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Nokia, Motorola, and Airtel and handles device protection, exchange, and trade-in programs for its partners, explained Sreevathsa Prabhakar, founder and chief executive of the startup, in an interview with TechCrunch.

The startup, which offers its services through a whitelabel arrangement, works with over 50 brands and has reach in over 50 markets.

The new round, which was oversubscribed, will help the startup expand its expertise in many new product categories and deepen its reach in international markets, said Prabhakar.

“We are keenly interested in unique businesses addressing hard problems in very large and global markets and are excited to continue to back the company in its next phase of growth. Stellar execution by Servify’s team combined with its differentiated technology platform have led to the company’s impressive growth this year despite Covid-19 related challenges,” said Anand Prasanna, Managing Partner at Iron Pillar, in a statement.

More to follow…

The Traton Group, Volkswagen AG’s heavy-truck business, has taken a minority stake in TuSimple as part of an agreement between the two companies to develop self-driving trucks.

Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the partnership or the percentage of the minority stake. Traton did make a direct capital investment into TuSimple, according to one unnamed source familiar with the deal. It’s unclear if it also included in-kind contributions.

Traton’s investment is not part of TuSimple’s recent effort to raise $250 million in a Series E round. raton Group does have an option to participate in the round.

The two companies outlined Wednesday plans to launch a development program that will use Traton’s Scania trucks equipped with TuSimple’s automated vehicle technology. The companies said testing will begin with a route between Södertälje to Jönköping in Sweden. The trucking manufacturer ultimately wants to test driverless truck fleets on roads throughout Sweden, Germany and other countries.

The companies didn’t provide details on the scope of the program or timelines, beyond plans to “work closely” to develop Level 4 autonomous systems for trucks of the Traton brands. Specifically, Traton said the aim is for these trucks to have Level 4 capabilities, which they define as being able to “achieve full automation without human intervention under defined driving conditions and applied in all markets.”

Traton said this could serve as a means of counteracting the increasing lack of drivers in the medium term. The first cases of deployment could be conducted outside of the specially demarcated areas, particularly for highly frequented hub-to-hub routes, Traton said in its announcement.

The partnership will expand TuSimple’s autonomous vehicle operations beyond the U.S. and China to Europe. The startup, which is backed by Sina, Nvidia, UPS and Tier 1 supplier Mando Corporation, operates a fleet of 40 self-driving trucks in the U.S. that are used for testing and to carry freight between Arizona and Texas. The company, which launched in 2015 and has operations in China, San Diego and Tucson, Arizona.

The partnership also tightens the connection between Traton, TuSimple and Navistar. In July, TuSimple announced plans to develop and begin producing autonomous semi trucks by 2024 in partnership with Navistar. The plan is to move away from retrofitting the Navistar International commercial trucks that TuSimple currently uses and instead develop semi trucks specifically designed for autonomous operations. The strategic partnership included Navistar taking an undisclosed stake in startup TuSimple.

Meanwhile, Traton holds a 16.6% stake in Navistar, which it acquired by buying $256 million worth of shares in September 2016. The two companies could end up getting closer. In January, Traton made an unsolicited bid to buy the remaining Navistar stock that it doesn’t own for $35 share. Traton upped its offer this month to $43 a share, or about $3.9 billion, Bloomberg reported earlier this monthh.