Category: UNCATEGORIZED

PandaDoc, the startup that provides a fully digital sales document workflow from proposal to electronic signature to collecting payment, announced a $30 million Series B extension today, making it the the second such extension the company has taken since taking its original $15 million Series B in 2017. The total for the three B investments is $50 million.

Company co-founder and CEO Mikita Mikado says that he took this approach, taking the original money in 2017, then $5 million last year along with the money announced today because it made more sense financially for the company than taking a huge chunk of money all at once.

“Basically when we do little chunks of cash frequently, [we found that] you dilute yourself less,” Mikado told TechCrunch. He said that they’ve grown comfortable with this approach because the business became more predictable once it passed 10,000 customers. In fact today it has 20,000.

“With a high velocity in-bound sales model, you can predict what’s going to happen next month or [say] six months out. So you kind of have this luxury of raising as much money as you need when you need it, minimizing dilution just like public companies do,” he said.

While he wouldn’t discuss specifics in terms of valuations he did say that the B1 had 2x the valuation of the original B round and the B2 had double the valuation of the B1.

For this round, One Peak led the investment with participation from Microsoft’s Venture Fund (M12), Savano Capital Partners, Rembrandt Venture Partners and EBRD Venture Capital Investment Programme.

Part of the company’s growth strategy is using their eSignature tool to move people to the platform. They made that tool free in March just as the pandemic was hitting hard in the U.S., and it has proven to be what Mikado called “a lead magnet” to get more people familiar with the company.

Once they do that he says, they start to look at the broader set of tools and they can become paying customers. “This launch helped us validate that businesses need a broader workflow solution. Businesses used to think of the eSignature as the holy grail in getting a deal done. Now they are realizing that eSignature is just a moment in time. The full value is what happens before, during and after the eSignature in order to get deals done,” Mikado said.

The company currently has 334 employees with plans to hit 380 by year’s end and is aiming for 470 by next year. With the office in San Francisco, Belarus and Manila, it has geographic diversity built in, but Mikado says it’s something they are still working at and includes anti-bias programs and training and leadership programs to give more people a chance to be hired or promoted into management.

When it came to shutting down offices and working from home, Mikado admits it was a challenge, especially since some of the geographies they operate in might not have access to a good internet connection at home or face other challenges, but overall he says it has worked out in terms of maintaining productivity across the company. And he points out being geographically diverse, they have had to deal with online communications for some time.

Three months ago, Jump’s bright red bikes and scooters had disappeared from city streets after Uber unloaded the micromobility company to Lime as part of a complex $170 million fundraising round. When the Jump bikes were finally spotted it was in a recycling yard, where more than 20,000 of them laid in piles, awaiting their demise.

The Jump brand wasn’t erased completely. New, unused Lime bikes were tucked away in storage. Lime has started to add those Jump bikes to cities like Denver, London, Paris, Seattle and Washington D.C. But they were only available through the Uber app. Now, the Jump bikes will show up on the Lime app — as red, not green bike icons. This is the first time since Lime acquired Jump’s assets that the bikes have been integrated into its app.

Image Credits: Lime

Lime said Wednesday that Jump  bikes will now be available exclusively through the Lime app for the next few weeks. Once it has integrated Jump’s software, the bikes will be available through both the Uber and Lime apps.

Lime plans to add Jump bikes to more cities, starting with Rochester, Minnesota. More will follow in the coming weeks.

The addition of Jump bikes to Lime’s app has cleared up some speculation of what would happen to the brand post acquisition. But it hasn’t answered every question.

Jump engineers had been working on and ready to scale its newest version of Jump bikes, called the 5.8, when the acquisition occurred and they all lost their jobs. Numerous former Jump employees who have spoken to TechCrunch said the new tech-forward 5.8 versions were weeks away from heading to cities. However, they have yet to appear on city streets.

In a sign of the growing importance and value of digital healthcare in the world of medicine, two of the industry’s publicly traded companies have agreed to a whopping $18.5 billion merger.

The union of Teladoc Health, a provider of virtual care services, and Livongo, which has made a name for itself by integrating hardware and software to monitor and manage chronic conditions like diabetes, will create a giant in the emerging field of telemedicine and virtual care.

“By expanding the reach of Livongo’s pioneering Applied Health Signals platform and building on Teladoc Health’s end-to-end virtual care platform, we’ll empower more people to live better and healthier lives,” said Glen Tullman, Livongo Founder and Executive Chairman. “This transaction recognizes Livongo’s significant progress and will enable Livongo shareholders to benefit from long-term upside as the combined company is positioned to serve an even larger addressable market with a truly unmatched offering.”

Under the terms of the agreement, each share of Livongo will be exchanged for 0.5920 shares of Teladoc health plus a cash payment of $11.33 for each share. The deal, based on Teladoc’s closing price on August 4, 2020, is roughly $18.5 billion. It’s an eye-popping figure for a company that was, at one point, trading below $16 per-share.

But the new reality of healthcare delivery in the era of COVID-19 rapidly accelerated the adoption of digital and remote care services like those Livongo was selling to its customers — and investor came calling as a result.

The combined company is expected to have pro forma revenue of $1.3 billion representing 85 percent year on year growth, on a pro forma basis. For 2020, the combined company expects adjusted EBITDA to reach $120 million.

“This merger firmly establishes Teladoc Health at the forefront of the next-generation of healthcare,” said Jason Gorevic, the chief executive officer of Teladoc Health, in a statement. “Livongo is a world-class innovator we deeply admire and has demonstrated success improving the lives of people living with chronic conditions. Together, we will further transform the healthcare experience from preventive care to the most complex cases, bringing ‘whole person’ health to consumers and greater value to our clients and shareholders as a result.”

The companies emphasized their combined ability to engage with patients and monitor and manage their conditions using technology. Teladoc Health’s flywheel approach to continued member engagement combined with Livongo’s proven track record of using data science to build consumer trust will accelerate the combined company’s development of longitudinal consumer and provider relationships, the companies said in a statement.

Teladoc currently counts 70 million customers in the United States with an access to Medicare and Medicaid patients that Livongo’s services could reach. The combined company also pitched the operational efficiencies that could be created through the merger. Teladoc estimated that there would be “revenue synergies” of $100 million two years from the close of the deal, reaching $500 million on a run rate basis by 2025, according to a statement. 

Gorevic will run the combined company and David Snow will serve as the chair of the new board — which will be comprised of eight current Teladoc board members and five members of the Livongo board.

The company expects the deal to close by the end of the fourth quarter, subject to regulatory approvals. Lazard advised Teladoc on the transaction while Morgan Stanley served as the financial advisor to Livongo. 

Samsung promised five “power devices” for its virtually-only Unpacked event. We already know about the Note 20, Galaxy Watch 3, Tab S7 and Buds Live — so what’s left? We speculated based on an earlier news that the company would debuting a new foldable — the biggest question, however, is whether it would be a rehash of the recently announced Galaxy Z Flip 5G or something else entirely.

Turns out the company is releasing the sequel to its first foldable, the…troubled Galaxy Fold. After a false start or two, the company says it sold one million units of the innovative but overly fragile handset. Announced earlier this year, however, the clamshell-styled Flip was better received, and frankly the foldable Samsung ought to have released in the first place.

With all of that in mind, what lessons has the company applied to the new version of the Fold? For starters, the front displays seemed like something of an afterthought on the original Fold. For the Galaxy Z Fold 2, it expands significantly to 6.2 inches, in addition to the main (foldable) 7.6-inch screen.

Details are still forthcoming, including how reinforced this version is. The company notes in the press material, “After releasing two foldable devices and listening to user feedback on the most requested upgrades and new features, Samsung unveils the Galaxy Z Fold 2 with meaningful innovations that offer users enhanced refinements and unique foldable user experiences.”

Developing…

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.”

“Dear Sophie” columns are accessible for Extra Crunch subscribers; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie:

A very bright and promising foreign national who graduated from a U.S. university has been working for our firm and just received a STEM OPT extension. We would like to keep her on after her STEM OPT ends. We registered her in this year’s H-1B lottery, but unfortunately, she wasn’t selected.

Given the challenges of getting an H-1B through the lottery and the #h1bvisaban, how can we bypass the H-1B and potentially sponsor her for a green card?

— Eager in Emeryville

Dear Eager,

Happy to hear you’re willing to sponsor a promising graduate from an American university for a green card. Sounds like you’re interested in exploring the EB-2 or EB-3 green card with the PERM process. For additional resources, feel free to check out my recent podcast on PERM.

Just because U.S. immigration policy often runs counter to retaining the best and the brightest college graduates in the U.S. doesn’t mean there isn’t hope. Some options exist for these talented folks and the companies that want to hire them, even though many employment-based green cards require candidates who are outstanding in their field. Recent graduates often haven’t yet built up their work experience and credentials, but there can be paths forward.

Although it may present some immigration risks to the candidate that should be weighed carefully in collaboration with an experienced business immigration attorney, many employers have been doing as you suggested: sidestepping the H-1B visa and directly pursuing a green card. This is often due to the extremely competitive H-1B lottery and high denial rates for initial H-1B petitions and extensions. Also, a moratorium on all green cards, H-1B, H-2B, J and L visas for individuals currently outside the U.S. is in effect until the end of this year. This now makes it nearly impossible for most employers to sponsor individuals to come to the U.S. unless their work is in the national interest or essential to the U.S. food supply chain.

So, many people are seeking solutions. First, the basics: Because your STEM OPT employee is already in the U.S., and the H-1B lottery now only costs $10 to register a candidate, I suggest that your company continue to enter her in the lottery as a backup option in case her F-1 STEM OPT status ends before you can secure her a green card.

The green cards for which most recent graduates would be eligible require the sponsoring employer to go through the PERM labor certification process before filing a green card petition. Separately there are other green cards for extraordinary ability which I’ve also written about.

PERM, which stands for Program Electronic Review Management, is the system used for applying for labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor . Please speak with an attorney about the timing of this process and consider any risks to your employee’s personal immigration situation given her current F-1 nonimmigrant status.

Labor certification must be submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) with EB-2 and EB-3 green card petitions. Labor certification confirms that no U.S. workers are qualified and available to accept the job offered to the green card candidate and employing the green card candidate won’t adversely affect the wages and working conditions of American workers.

Without knowing more about your STEM OPT employee’s background and qualifications, I would surmise that she might be able to qualify for one of these employment-based green cards:

• EB-2 Green Cards for Members of the Professions Holding Advanced Degrees
• EB-3 Green Cards for Skilled Workers, Professionals, and Other Workers

Both of these green card categories require the employer sponsor to go through the PERM labor certification process. Because PERM is a complex process and will determine if you can proceed with sponsoring your employee for a green card, I recommend that you work with an experienced immigration attorney.

In general, PERM requires employers to take these steps:

• Determine in detail the duties and minimum requirements of the position
• File a prevailing wage request
• Go through an extensive recruitment process
• Get a certification

The duties and requirements of the position should be detailed and typical for your company — not tailored to the green card candidate. These duties and requirements will be used for job posting during the recruitment process.

In more detail, employers must file a prevailing wage request to the National Prevailing Wage Center of the Labor Department. The prevailing wage is determined based on the position, the geographical location of the position and economic conditions. The employer must pay the prevailing wage or higher for the position to ensure that hiring a foreign national would not adversely affect the wages of U.S. workers in similar positions. This process can take a few months.

The most time-consuming of these steps is the recruitment process to determine whether qualified U.S. workers are available for the position. To do that, an employer must advertise the job in two Sunday editions of a local newspaper, submit a job order with the state workforce agency (CalJOBS in California) and file an internal company notice of the filing. Plan ahead with your legal team to consider running some things in parallel to decrease the overall time.

For professional positions, employers need to use three additional recruitment methods, such as using a job recruiting website, an employment firm, a job fair, a posting at a career placement center at a local university or college, or incentives for employee referrals.

The job order with the state workforce agency must run for at least 30 consecutive days. The internal job posting must be up for 10 consecutive business days. Employers must allow 30 days for candidates to apply and interview U.S. workers who apply.

Generally, if there are no qualified applicants, employers then file ETA Form 9089 to the Labor Department. No supporting documents need to be submitted with the form, but the documents must be maintained for five years, especially as there could be an audit. The Labor Department will send a verification email to the employer along with a sponsorship questionnaire, which the employer should fill out within a week of receiving it. It’s important to not miss this email!

The PERM process can take anywhere from three to eight months as long as the Labor Department does not audit your case. The Labor Department conducts two types of audit: random audits and targeted audits. Random audits are done to make sure employers are following the PERM procedure.

Some common reasons for targeted audits could include:

• The employer recently laid-off employees
• The candidate appears unqualified for the position
• The job does not require a bachelor’s degree
• A company executive is related to the candidate

The Labor Department usually issues an audit notice within six months of receiving the labor certification application, and the employer must respond within 30 days. An audit does not mean an employer’s PERM will not be approved. However, it can add nine to 18 months to the process. If an employer does not respond to the audit notice, the Labor Department will deem the case abandoned, and for any future PERM applications, the employer may be required to conduct supervised recruitment.

Once the Labor Department approves the PERM Labor Certification for that position, you must file the green card petition to USCIS within 180 days. If your employee was born in any country other than China or India and you are sponsoring her for an EB-2 green card, you can file the I-140 green card petition and the I-485 adjustment of status from F-1 STEM OPT to EB-2 at the same time, assuming the “priority date” is still current.

If eligible, your STEM OPT employee could also enter the diversity green card lottery in the fall to increase her chances of getting a green card. Each year, 50,000 green cards are reserved for individuals born in countries that have low rates of immigration to the U.S.

Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck!

— Sophie

Have a question? Ask it here. We reserve the right to edit your submission for clarity and/or space. The information provided in “Dear Sophie” is general information and not legal advice. For more information on the limitations of “Dear Sophie,” please view our full disclaimer here. You can contact Sophie directly at Alcorn Immigration Law.

Sophie’s podcast, Immigration Law for Tech Startups, is available on all major podcast platforms. If you’d like to be a guest, she’s accepting applications!

Wealthfront was one of the earliest and remains one of the most formidable companies in the so-called robo-advisor space — algorithmic apps that manage and optimize your savings and investments. Since its debut, the platform has skyrocketed in popularity, taking in more than $200 million in venture capital according to Crunchbase, including a recent $75 million round led by Tiger Global in 2018 when the company had just shy of $10 billion in assets under management. Since then, it’s added additional banking services such as high-interest checking accounts and other products.

Wealthfront’s product expansion mirrors the broader landscape of fintech, which has seen massive growth in investor enthusiasm over the past decade. From managing student loans and investment products, to lowering barriers to trading stocks, to creating new APIs to extend financial services across more businesses, fintech has been one of the hottest sectors for founders and investors.

That’s why we’re thrilled to bring Andy Rachleff, CEO and co-founder of Wealthfront, on to Extra Crunch Live this coming August 11th at 1pm EDT / 10am PDT / 5pm GMT. Login details are below for Extra Crunch members.

Before he started and built up Wealthfront, Rachleff spent nearly a decade as a general partner at early-stage VC firm Benchmark, where he invested in a myriad of industries.

We’re excited for him to bring both the investor and operator hats to bear on some of the most pressing questions going on in fintech and wealth management today. As banks increasingly reposition themselves as digital-native, how can startups compete with such large incumbents? Saving rates have jumped the past few months — what does that portend for the future of wealth management and banking? And will greater concerns about ESG in finance change the way financial apps approach the market going forward?

This is an open conversation, and we will be taking questions from the audience as well. So come prepared with some interesting ones covering the gamut of what’s going on in finance today.

Join us August 11th — we look forward to seeing you there.

Details:

Google’s plans to wind down its Google Play Music service in favor of the company’s newer YouTube Music have been known for some time. But Google this week has given users a deadline on making the switch. The company says YouTube Music will fully replace Google Play Music in December 2020, at which point Google Play Music users will no longer be able to stream from or otherwise use the Google Play Music app.

Though December is the final deadline for being able to export from the Google Play Music app, your ability to stream from the Google Play Music app will end before then.

In September 2020, users in New Zealand and South Africa will be the first to lose access to stream or use the Google Play Music app. The rest of the world will lose their access in October.

However, Google will continue to make your content available for export through December. Through the transfer tool released in May, Google Play Music users will be able to export their playlists, uploads, purchases, likes and more to YouTube Music. Alternately, users can use the Google Takeout service to export their data and download their purchased and uploaded music.

For those considering making a switch to a rival streaming service, like Spotify, there aren’t official tools available, but there are third-party options, like Soundiiz, TuneMyMusic, MusConv, and others.

Google says it will also be making changes to the Google Play store and Music Manager.

Starting this month, users will no longer be able to make purchases or pre-order music from Google Play Music through Music Manager, nor will they be able to upload and download music.

The company has been preparing YouTube Music in advance of this shift to address complaints Google Play Music users had with earlier versions of the service. This year, Google increased playlist length from 1,000 to 5,000 songs and added support for uploads (up to 100K tracks — 50K more than on Google Play Music). It has also rolled out offline listening, lyrics, and Explore tab for discovery, and a tool for transferring podcast subscriptions and episode progress to Google Podcasts.

YouTube Music offers a variety of playlist options now, too, including collaborative playlists built with friends and new programmed playlists built by editors. Assistive technology now also make personalized suggestions of what to add when you’re building a YouTube Music playlist.

YouTube Music service has expanded its reach across platforms, as well, with support for Android TV, Google Maps (for music while navigating), and via Google Assistant in recent days.

For any user who doesn’t opt to move to YouTube Music, Google says subscriptions will be automatically canceled.

Google’s strategy with music has been overly complicated for some time (not unlike its strategy with messaging and communication apps). When users signed up for YouTube Premium (previously YouTube Red), they’d automatically receive access to Google Play Music, and vice versa. And Google continued to sell YouTube Music as a separate subscription. In other words, Google created a world where it wasn’t only competing against big streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora, it was also competing against itself.

Now it’s hoping to shift its streamers to YouTube Music. The idea came about because YouTube for a long time has been a way to access free music, thanks to a deep catalog of officially licensed music videos, live performances and other music content. So why not upsell YouTube’s freeloading music fans on an ad-free, upgraded music experience? That strategy may have worked to some extent, but it’s more recently being challenged. Last week, Facebook announced deals with record labels to make music videos free on its platform, as well. If user behavior shifts as a result, YouTube’s ability to funnel free music fans into a premium product could be impacted, too.

Reading headlines here and there, one might assume that venture capital interest in fintech startups is setting records every quarter.

After all: didn’t Robinhood raise $280 million and $320 million more this year? Stripe raised $600 million just a few minutes ago, and wasn’t it Monzo that raised £60 million a few weeks back? Oh, and Hippo raised $150 million the other day.

And what about that huge Plaid exit earlier in the year and Chime’s jillion dollars that came right before 2019 ended?

That’s how it has felt to me, at least. And with good reason: new data from CB Insights indicates that fintech startups raised a record number of so-called “mega-rounds,” financings worth $100 million and more, in the second quarter of 2020.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

So the vibe in fintech that huge rounds have been landing quite often is correct. But underneath the big deals, there was early-stage weakness in the market that makes for a surprising contrast.

The same CB Insights report details a key “tailwind” factor for many fintech startups, namely that e-commerce is booming in the COVID-19 era, rising from about 16% of total U.S. commerce to around 27% through Q2 of this year.

So, let’s start by taking a quick look at Square’s earnings that leaked yesterday, and some notes from Shopify’s recent results to decipher just how fast the economy is heading online before examining what happened in Q2 VC for fintech startups as a cohort.

We’ll keep this as numbers-light as we can, and fun as we can — I promise. Let’s go!

Digital commerce is growing like a weed

You might think that Square, a company most famous for its IRL payment terminals and ability to turn any person into a micro-company would suffer while COVID-19 slowed in-person business. But, despite slowing gross payment volume (GPV), as expected, Square’s revenue exploded in Q2, growing from $1.17 billion in Q2 2019 to $1.92 billion in the most recent period.

It’s safe to say that no one could have predicted how this year’s fundraising marketplace was going to shape up. The beginning of the year saw us trending toward a blockbuster start, similar to 2018, rather than the steady burn of 2019. But after March there was no clear road map for how VCs and founders were going to react.

We’ve been tracking three key data metrics from the 2020 DocSend Startup Index to show us real-time trends in the fundraising marketplace. Using aggregate and anonymous data pulled from thousands of pitch deck interactions across the DocSend platform, we’re able to track the supply and demand in the marketplace, as well as the quality of pitch deck interactions.

The main two metrics are Pitch Deck Interest and Founder Links Created. These are leading indicators for how the fundraising marketplace is shaping up as it measures the activity happening around the pitch deck. As that interest peaks, we expect the amount of funds deployed to increase in the months after. Pitch Deck Interest is measured by the average number of pitch deck interactions for each founder happening on our platform per week, and is a great proxy for demand.

Founder Links Created is how many unique links a founder is creating to their deck each week; because each person you send a document to in DocSend gets a unique link, we can use this as a proxy for supply by looking at how many investors a founder is sharing their deck with per week.

Here’s what we saw in Q2 and how that will affect the rest of the year.

VCs are shopping

VC interest has been at an all-time high over the last quarter. Interest rebounded over the course of a few weeks after the pandemic was declared and shelter-in-place orders were given. But once interest rebounded to pre-pandemic levels it did something surprising. It kept climbing. In fact, the top 10 weeks for VC interest this year were all in Q2. Overall, interest was up 21.6% QoQ and 26% YoY. This means we’re looking at VCs viewing more pitch decks than they have any time in the last two years.

This is in spite of VC interest traditionally declining from late spring into summer, before bottoming out during the last two weeks of August. After the initial peak in the spring, VC interest typically doesn’t rebound until October.

Image Credits: DocSend (opens in a new window)

But not only can we see that VCs are interacting with a lot of decks, we also can determine the quality of those interactions. We measure how long a VC spends reading each deck. From our previous research we know that the average pitch deck interaction is less than 3.5 minutes. But the amount of time VCs spent reading each deck in Q2 steadily declined, going below two minutes toward the end of the quarter. This tells us VCs are speeding through decks. That means they either know what they’re looking for and aren’t wasting time, or they’re scrutinizing decks less, opting for a Zoom call to hear more from a founder.

Image Credits: DocSend (opens in a new window)

For founders, this means having a tight deck is even more important than before. Don’t have more than 20 slides, don’t send your appendix in your send-ahead deck and keep your slides concise and thoughtful (read our guide on how to put together a send-ahead deck here).

If you’re still not able to get a meeting with a VC during this intense shopping season, you may want to consider changing your fundraising strategy.

Founder timelines have changed

We can see over the last quarter that there have been clear spikes in the amount of links founders are sending out. Founders sent out 11% more deck links in Q2 than they did in Q1, but what’s interesting is that the number of links created actually dropped below 2019 levels on three separate occasions. So while founders might have been rushing to send their deck out during unstable times, there were plenty of weeks where founders were hanging back.

This conflicting story can tell us several things. First, founders have most likely condensed their fundraising efforts. According to our research earlier this year, the average pre-seed round takes longer than three months to complete. For those fundraising during a pandemic, three months can seem like a lifetime. This is not only due to the logistics of setting meetings with VCs who have packed calendars, but also the iteration process of receiving feedback from a potential investor, working on your deck, then sending it out to new targets. With global uncertainty, many founders likely decided to shorten their time away from their business by reducing their fundraising efforts to just a few weeks.

Second, due to aggressive cost cutting at the beginning of the pandemic, many founders found themselves with more runway than they expected. In fact, according to a recent survey we did, nearly 50% of founders changed their fundraising timeline by either moving it forward or delaying it. Founders that could afford to decided to avoid the volatile fundraising marketplace in an effort to preserve their valuations.

Image Credits: DocSend (opens in a new window)

We’re looking at more than displaced interest from March

While it was easy during April and early May to think the fundraising marketplace was experiencing delayed activity due to the crash in March, the sustained interest makes it hard to believe that’s still the case, especially taking into account seasonality. The last week of the quarter saw a 37% increase in interest over 2019 and an 18% increase over 2018. With that level of activity, we’ve clearly entered a new normal for fundraising.

While valuations might be fluctuating, it’s quite clear VCs are shopping. To figure out why, you don’t have to look any further than the 2008 financial crisis. The businesses born out of crises tend to address real, systemic problems that require big, bold fixes. And the pandemic has certainly laid bare many societal issues that are worth addressing.

What Q3 and Q4 could look like based on current trends

If it’s clear that VCs are shopping, and it’s clear that this isn’t displaced interest from earlier this year, what does that mean for the future? We would normally see an increase in founder activity starting in late summer, leading to peak VC interest in the fall. Founder activity has been up and down, and VC interest has been steadily rising, which tells us there’s still pent-up demand to deploy capital. We should also see many founders who delayed their fundraising efforts enter the marketplace in the next few months. If pandemic conditions worsen, we might also see founders who had decided to push their fundraising efforts to next year moving their timelines forward.

If the current level of interest represents the new normal for VCs, we expect it to only increase as we enter the fall. And with more founders coming online in early to late fall, that pent-up demand should result in an increasingly active market. If you’re a founder, I would recommend kicking off your fundraise now in order to capitalize on the increased interest from investors and decreased competition for at least the first pitch meeting.

With the high possibility of an extremely active fundraising marketplace for the rest of the year, founders need to know how to take advantage of it. As you can see from the DocSend Pitch Deck Interest Metrics, spikes in the marketplace previously have resulted in some pretty specific behaviors by VCs.

Here are some tips on how to use the increasing levels of VC interest to your advantage.

VCs are spending less time on your deck, so get to the point

We’re seeing record low time spent per pitch deck. We know from previous research that VCs spend on average 3.5 minutes per pitch deck. But over the last quarter that time has dipped below three minutes. That can actually be a good and a bad thing. It implies that VCs are streamlining their process of looking at decks, which means they most likely know what they want. The downside of this is if you break a few cardinal rules right now your deck could end up in the reject pile.

From our research, VCs expect a deck to be around 20 pages. They expect a straightforward narrative that starts with your problem, leading to the solution, and then your product and business model. Our data found that VCs respond best to 35-50 words per slide (too few words per slide is also an issue; you want to offer enough context for your deck to make sense without you presenting it). The only place you can increase your word count is on your Team page. Our data shows the average number of words on a successful Team slide is 80. This gives you room to highlight the founding team’s relevant experience and show how you’re uniquely suited to build your business.

You have to include a “why now” slide and it should mention COVID-19

We already know that investors respond well to a Why Now slide. Our research shows that 54% of successful pitch decks included a Why Now slide, where only 38% of failed decks included it. That slide now has to work twice as hard. We’re hearing from investors that they expect to see information in your pitch deck about how your business has been affected by COVID-19 and how you plan to manage that impact moving forward. Even if the pandemic has had no material effect on your business, the investor will still have the question. Get out in front of it with a well-formed response near the beginning of your deck.