Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Disrupt Berlin is right around the corner. And there is plenty to look forward to.

Join us December 11 and December 12 to hear from industry leaders, investors and bright stars in the startup world. We’ll sit down with CEOs from big-name companies such as UIPath, Samsung, and Naspers, as well as leading investors from Atomico, SoftBank and Index.

On the Extra Crunch stage, panelists will discuss important trends in the startup world, and deliver actionable insights to founders looking to scale their business, from product management to raising money to building a brand.

And, of course, we can never forget the legendary Startup Battlefield competition, where companies pitch their startups onstage for the first time in front of a panel of expert judges. Only one walks away victorious, with USD$50,000, the Disrupt Cup and eternal glory.

We can’t wait to see you there! Tickets are available right here!

Wednesday, December 11

Morning

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Creating a Global Payment Network with Hiroki Takeuchi (GoCardless)

GoCardless has a shot at becoming a global leader when it comes to payments via direct debit. And now, all eyes are on the company’s next challenge — becoming the best way to collect recurring payments, globally. The startup’s CEO will join us to talk about how GoCardless plans to replace cash, cheques and even card payments at a global scale. Main Stage @ 10:05AM

How to Build Sustainability as a Business with Benjamina Bollag (Higher Steaks) and Pierre Paslier (Notpla) 

As climate change and the impacts of a warming world become more important for the consumers who are exposed to it, hear from a developer of lab grown meat and a biodegradable packaging technology developer on how to build sustainability as a business. Extra Crunch Stage @ 10:05AM

How Station F is Boosting the French Tech Ecosystem with Roxanne Varza (Station F)

Three years after unveiling Station F at Disrupt, its Director Roxanne Varza is back to give us an update on the world’s biggest startup campus. Station F has become a cornerstone of the French tech ecosystem and a signal for the international tech community. There are now 1,000 startups working from Station F in Paris. Station F’s director will join us to talk about what’s next for Station F and the French tech ecosystem. Main Stage @ 10:25AM

What Does It Take to Raise a Series A with Jessica Holzbach (Penta), Lousie Dahlborn Samet (Blossom Capital) and Hannah Seal (Index Ventures)

Venture capital funds have boomed this decade, but raising money is still hard for young companies. What are investors today looking for in teams, metrics and products? Extra Crunch Stage @ 10:45AM

Fireside Chat with Atomico with Sophia Bendz, Siraj Khaliq, Hiro Tamura and Niall Wass (Atomico)

From a single London base a few years ago, Atomico has now spread to the US and Asia. Hear from key partners about this global VC’s strategy going forward. Main Stage @10:45AM

Startup Battlefield Competition – Session 1 

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $50,000. Main Stage @ 11:15AM

The Top Three Immigration Mistakes Startups Make with Sophie Alcorn (Alcorn Immigration Law)

Learn how to troubleshoot the many snags that can affect startups trying to bring international talent into their organizations, with top Silicon Valley immigration expert Sophie Alcorn. Extra Crunch Stage  @ 11:25AM

How to Iterate Your Product with Andrew Bowell (Unity) and Georgina Smallwood (N26) 

Building something that’s used by millions is an exhilarating feat, but the real challenge is understanding how to iterate your product so that it can scale to a bigger audience with a bigger impact. We’ve assembled the product chiefs from some of the most influential tech companies in the world to dive into the details of what every product manager and product chief needs to know. Extra Crunch Stage  @ 11:45AM

Afternoon

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Startup Battlefield Competition – Session 2 

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $50,000. Main Stage @ 1:15PM

Lessons Learned from Serial Founders with Zoe Adamovicz (Neufund), Thibaud Elziere (eFounders) and Christian Reber (Pitch) 

What would you do differently if you were crazy enough to start another company? Hear what these leaders learned from the first time(s) around — and why they’re back at it again. Extra Crunch Stage @ 1:20PM

How to Build for the Virtual Economy with Paul Murphy (Northzone) 

Gaming platforms ranging from Second Life and Eve Online to Fortnite and Roblox offer virtual worlds where our avatars can create and trade virtual goods like digital clothing, weapons, vehicles, and buildings with other players for real-world value. With rapidly growing mainstream participation in these virtual economies and announcements of new worlds in development like Facebook’s Horizon, where are there biggest opportunities for entrepreneurs? Extra Crunch Stage @ 2:00PM

Investing and Operating in Growth Markets with Michal Borkowski (Brainly) and Bob van Dijk (Prosus and Naspers)

Naspers’ tech holdings Prosus became Europe’s largest consumer internet company when it listed earlier this year on Euronext in Amsterdam. Its interests include food delivery, payments and fintech, classifieds, travel, retail, media, social platforms — not to mention a huge stake in Tencent. It also has a dedicated and very active ventures team. Come hear from one of its portfolio companies, the ed-tech startup Brainly, whose CEO will be on stage with Prosus CEO Bob van Dijk talking about how to scale a startup, the challenges of knowing when to hold and when to fold, and more. Main Stage @ 2:15PM

How to Scale Your Startup Globally with Sophie Alcorn (Alcorn Immigration Law), Karoli Hindriks (Jobbatical), Holger Seim (Blinkist)

Global expansion is critical to building the next unicorn, but what’s the right approach to maximize growth with limited resources? Join Holger Seim, founder and CEO of audio startup Blinkist, Karoli Hindriks, founder and CEO of Jobbatical, and prominent Silicon Valley immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn as we discuss the opportunities – and pitfalls – of expanding outside your local market. Extra Crunch Stage @ 2:25PM

Fireside Chat with Sebastian Siemiatkowski (Klarna)

Klarna was once a small Stockholm-based outfit looking to offer payment services for online shops. Today, it’s tackling physical stores and looking to storm the U.S. It has plenty of support, including that of early investor Sequoia Capital. In fact, it has amassed more funding and a higher valuation than almost any other privately held company in the world. Can it live up to expectations?  We’ll talk with co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski about the company’s ride so far, and where it goes next in this must-see sit-down. Main Stage @ 2:40PM

AI Chips with Everything? — Nigel Toon (Graphcore)

In this fireside chat with Nigel Toon, founder of Graphcore, we’ll discuss the race between chip giants and startups to build AI chips, how next-gen chipsets are pushing the boundaries of software innovation, and what happens once AI chips are everywhere. Main Stage @ 3:00PM

How To Win Customers and Influence Markets with Colette Ballou (Ballou PR), Joanna Kirk, (Joanna Kirk PR) and Katy Turner (Multiple) 

Every startup is a story and the best stories can change the world. Some of Europe’s finest alchemists of allusion will share their tips on how to be a signal in a world of noise. Extra Crunch Stage @ 3:05PM

Are We There Yet? Inside the Tech that Will Help AVs be Better Chauffeurs with Clare Jones (What3Words) and Eran Shir (Nexar)

Clare Jones, chief commercial officer of what3words, and Eran Shir, CEO of Nexar will talk about the role of mapping and geolocation in autonomous vehicles and how this tech is already rolling out in human driven cars. Main Stage @ 3:20PM

Will We Pay For Social Media? with Hovhannes Avoyan (PicsArt)

PicsArt has reached 120 million users for its photo editor by asking people to pay for its creative tools. We’ll talk to CEO Hovhannes Avoyan about why free isn’t always the answer and how top social networks will embrace subscription pricing. Main Stage @ 3:45PM

How to Brexit as a Startup with Volker Hirsh (Amadeus Capital Partners), Bindi Karia (bindi ventures) and Glenn Shoosmith (JRNI)

The turbulence of Brexit has left both UK and European startups alike wondering about the best path forward. Hear from from both the investor and entrepreneur perspective on how best to deal with this thorny subject. Extra Crunch Stage @ 4:05PM

Opening Up VC with Matt Penneycard and Francesca Warner (Ada Ventures)

VC has been historically bad at backing under-represented founders. ‘Old boys networks’ and unconscious biases abound. VC needs a systemic change. Check Warner and Matt Penneycard of Ada Ventures have previously pioneered industry initiatives to address this and will discuss what new techniques VCs can use to support overlooked founders. Main Stage @ 4:05PM

Startup Battlefield Competition – Session 3 

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $50,000. Main Stage @ 4:25PM

Pitch Deck Teardown with Russ Heddleston (DocSend), Karen Stafford (Intel Capital), and Sitar Teli (Connect Ventures)

Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with investors Sitar Teli and Karen Stafford, plus insights from DocSend’s Russ Heddleston, as they go through submitted pitches live on stage. Extra Crunch Stage @ 4:45PM

Thursday, December 12

Morning

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Delivery-as-a-service with Oscar Pierre (Glovo) and Charity Stafford (Uber Eats)

On this panel we’ll sit down with Oscar Pierre, CEO of Glovo, and Charity Safford of UberEats to talk ops and logistics of scaling on-demand delivery, plus delve into what the model means for suppliers and partners, and consider regulatory headwinds. Main Stage @ 9:30AM

How to Build a Billion Dollar SaaS Company with Christoph Janz (Point Nine Capital), Matthew Prince (Cloudflare) and Laura Urquizu (Red Points) 

Scaling a SaaS company is anything but easy. In this session, we’ll talk about everything from how (and when) to charge for your product, when to make crucial hires, how to sell into the enterprise and when it’s time to consider an exit.Extra Crunch Stage @ 9:50AM

Scaling Ethereum and Beyond with Justin Drake (Ethereum Foundation)

The Ethereum vision has always been to create a world computer. But its scalability remains an issue. Ethereum Researcher Justin Drake will discuss the road ahead. Main Stage @ 9:55AM

Unnatural Language Processing with Emily Foges (Luminance) and Sofie Quidenus-Wahlforss (omni:us)

Legal contracts and insurance policies can be difficult even for experts to decipher – hear how the founders of Luminance and omni:us are using AI to take on jargon and save everyone some time. Main Stage @ 10:15AM

How to Raise Your First Euros with Nic Brisbourne (Forward Partners), Russ Heddleston (DocSend), and Malin Holmberg (Target Global)

The process of securing your very first check isn’t an easy one. To make it a little bit easier, we’ve invited DocSend founder Russ Heddleston, Forward Partners managing partner Nic Brisbourne, and Target Global partner Malin Holmberg to the stage to offer their best tips and tricks to aspiring or current founders. Extra Crunch Stage @ 10:30AM

Investing in 2020 with Carolina Brochado (SoftBank Vision Fund) 

Nothing changes quite as rapidly as investment trends. Brochado and Hulme will offer perspectives from their experience both on the ground in Europe and from 50,000 feet to talk about what 2020 has in store for startups. Main Stage @ 10:40AM

Succeeding in the Streaming Era with Efe Cakarel (MUBI)

MUBI has been in the streaming business since before Netflix, and has successfully built a service that caters to specific needs in a useful, novel way. The company’s CEO will join us to talk about the maturation of the streaming market, and what it takes to build a lasting business in an increasingly crowded space. Main Stage @ 11:05AM

The New New Shop with Maria Raga (Depop)

As shopping has moved from the web to apps, Depop has caught the Gen Z wave. We’ll hear from the CEO who is nurturing this “eBay for the 21st Century.” Main Stage @ 11:25AM

Oh the Places You’ll Go! Disrupting Travel with Johannes Reck (GetYourGuide)

Travel is perhaps the last bastion of the on-demand economy to be colonised. GetYourGuide founder Reck will unpack how, after raising a total of $654.5 million, he plans to expand across the globe. Main Stage @ 11:45AM

Afternoon

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How to Fit Blockchain into Your Startup Strategy with Justin Drake (Ethereum Foundation), Ash Egan (Accomplice VC) and Ashley Tyson (Web3 Foundation)

Chances are, you keep hearing about this ‘blockchain’ thing all the time — and maybe you’re ignoring it but deep down, you know you should probably think about how it could help your startup. To help you with that and maybe demystify blockchain a bit, too, we’ll be joined by three panelists who all have deep roots in the blockchain community: Ethereum Foundation Researcher Justin Drake, Accomplice VC’s Ash Egan and Web3 Foundation Co-founder and Director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives Ashley Tyson. Extra Crunch Stage @ 12:55PM

Investing in Africa’s Tech Talent with Jeremy Johnson (Andela) and Lila Preston (Generation Investment Management) 

Generation Investment Management, the firm co-founded by former U.S Vice President Al Gore, was built on the premise of backing sustainable startups. The fund’s lead Lila Preston brings their portfolio company Andela to discuss how they have harnessed the booming talent in Africa to solve global outsourcing issues and what’s next in building sustainable companies. Main Stage @ 1:00PM

Mobilizing Emerging Markets with Sujay Tyle (Frontier Car Group)

As the mobility industry evolves rapidly, a huge opportunity lies in emerging markets. Sujay Tyle, serial entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Frontier Car Group, is looking to capitalize on that opportunity with its investments in used-car marketplaces. Main Stage @ 1:25PM

Startup Battlefield Alumni Updates

Battlefield startups from the past return to the stage to tell us what they’ve been up to since they competed for the Disrupt Cup. Main Stage @ 1:45PM

Startup Battlefield Final Competition

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $50,000. Main Stage @ 2:00PM

Growth Marketing with Asher King Abramson (Demand Curve) 

Learn about the right ways and wrong ways to create great assets for paid channels, landing pages and more in this teardown workshop with Asher King Abramson, a top growth marketer who works with hundreds of successful startups. Submit your landing page and ads beforehand for a chance to receive feedback live on stage. Extra Crunch Stage @ 2:05PM

How to Radically Change Finance Through Fintech Startups with Yoni Assia (eToro) and Charlie Delingpole (ComplyAdvantage)

Few areas of investment have been as white hot as fintech these past few years, but how can startups radically transform the finance industry both for financial institutions but also for consumers? Join Charlie Delingpole, founder and CEO of ComplyAdvantage and Yoni Assia, founder and CEO of eToro, as we discuss how startups can compete in this fast-moving industry. Extra Crunch Stage @ 2:45PM

Democratizing Robots with Daniel Dines (UiPath)

Robotics is a hotbed of investment and activity, but how does the average person access the benefits of automation? UiPath CEO and founder Daniel Dines will explain how we can expand access to the benefits of robotics, for companies and individual workers alike. Main Stage @ 3:15PM

Hackathon Finals 

Everybody loves a Hackathon! Hear from developers about what they built in 24 hours. Extra Crunch Stage @ 3:25PM

TravelTech Opportunities with Andrew Reed (Sequoia Capital) and Julian Stiefel (Tourlane)

Berlin-based Tourlane has raised $81 million for multi-day travel booking. Co-founder Julian Stiefel and his investor Sequoia’s Andrew Reed will discuss what products still need to be built in travel, and how startups can do something unique enough to avoid getting steamrolled by tech giants. Main Stage @ 3:35PM

Igniting Innovation with Young Sohn (Samsung)

As the President and Chief Strategy Officer for Samsung Electronics, Young Sohn oversees critical aspects involving global innovation, investment and business creation. Hear how Sohn views the opportunities for Samsung and startups in the European market. Main Stage @ 4:00PM

From Startup Battlefield to IPO with Matthew Prince (Cloudflare)

In 2010, Cloudflare participated in one of the very first Disrupt Battlefields and a few months ago, the company made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange. In this conversation with co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince, we’ll talk about Cloudflare’s path to an IPO, the unique challenges it faced, and what’s next for the company. Main Stage @ 4:20PM

Startup Battlefield Closing Awards Ceremony

Watch the crowning of the latest winner of Startup Battlefield. Main Stage @ 4:40PM

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Tickets to Disrupt Berlin, which runs December 11 and 12, are available right here. Snatch one up for yourself before it’s too late!

As Amazon moves further into the healthcare market, the company today is rolling out a medication management feature for Alexa owners. The feature will allow customers to set up their own medication reminders and request voice refills using their prescription information. At launch, these capabilities are only available to customers of Giant Eagle Pharmacy, a regional retailer in the Midwest and East Coast.

That being said, there are obvious ties to Amazon’s larger plans with regard to prescription management and healthcare. Amazon has now acquired two health startups, first with online pharmacy PillPack in 2018 for slightly less than $1 billion. This was followed by last month’s acquisition of Health Navigator, which will become a part of Amazon’s pilot healthcare service program for its employees, the recently launched Amazon Care.

The new Alexa features seem to be custom designed for integrations with both Amazon Care and PillPack prescription ordering, even though neither of the two services are referenced today as part of Amazon’s current or future plans with the Alexa features.

Asked about this, an Amazon spokesperson said only that the company would not “comment or speculate on the future.”

Instead, Amazon says it has teamed up with medication management solution and adherence tool provider Ominicell to enable the new features, which were inspired by how people were already using Alexa’s reminders system and other feedback.

For example, some customers said they would like to set time frames for reminders like “twice a day.”

To use the new Alexa medication management, customers will first need to enable the Giant Eagle Pharmacy skill and link their accounts. They’ll also need to create an Alexa voice profile, which helps Alexa to verify the person who is speaking, and they’ll need to create a personal passcode for an extra layer of security. Amazon notes that it had already rolled out a way for developers to build HIPAA-compliant skills using its platform, which not only includes the added authentication steps, but also redacts users’ interactions with the skill from the Alexa app for further privacy.

In addition, Amazon had also recently added a way for customers to view and delete recordings at any time, including from the Privacy Settings page, in the Alexa app, or by voice.

Once their account is set up, the customer can then say “Alexa, manage my medication” to get started setting up their reminders. Alexa will help the customer to review their current prescriptions and set up reminders based on when they prefer to take each medication.

When the reminders go off, customers can ask “Alexa, what medication am I supposed to take right now?”

When it’s time, customers can also use Alexa to request refills from the pharmacy by saying “Alexa, refill my prescription.”

The features, though limited to one regional pharmacy for the time being, offer a view into how Amazon envisions voice-ordering for prescriptions will work for its customer base, and how such a system could be integrated with its own health care program at some later date, perhaps.

“Voice has proven to be beneficial for a variety of use cases because it removes barriers, and simplifies daily tasks. We believe this new Alexa feature will help simplify the way people manage their medication by removing the need to continuously think about what medications they’ve taken that day or what they need to take,” noted Rachel Jiang, Head of Alexa Health & Wellness, in an announcement about the new features.

“We want to make it easy for people to get the information they need and to manage their healthcare needs at home while maintaining the privacy and security of their information, and hope this feature is a step toward that vision,” she added.

 

 

Coralogix, a startup that wants to bring automation and intelligence to logging, announced a $10 million Series A investment today.

The round was led by Aleph with participation from StageOne Ventures, Janvest Capital Partners and 2B Angels. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $16.2 million, according to the company.

CEO and co-founder Ariel Assaraf says his company focuses on two main areas: logging and analysis. The startup has been doing traditional applications performance monitoring up until now, but today, it also announced it was getting into security logging, where it tracks logs for anomalies and shares this information with security information and event management (SEIM) tools.

“We do standard log analytics in terms of ingesting, parsing, visualizing, alerting and searching for log data at scale using scaled, secure infrastructure,” Assaraf said. In addition, the company has developed a set of algorithms to analyze the data, and begin to understand patterns of expected behavior, and how to make use of that data to recognize and solve problems in an automated fashion.

“So the idea is to generally monitor a system automatically for customers plus giving them the tools to quickly drill down into data, understand how it behaves and get context to the issues that they see,” he said.

For instance, the tool could recognize that a certain sequence of events like a user logging in, authenticating that user and redirecting him or her to the application or website. All of those events happen every time, so if there is something different, the system will recognize that and share the information with DevOps team that something is amiss.

The company, which has offices in Tel Aviv, San Francisco and Kiev, was founded in 2015. It already has 1500 customers including Postman, Fiverr, KFC and Caesars Palace. They’ve been able to build the company with just 30 people to this point, but want to expand the sales and marketing team to help build it out the customer base further. The new money should help in that regard.

Vivun, a startup that wants to help companies keep better track of pre-sales data announced a $3 million seed round today led by Unusual Ventures, the venture firm run by Harness CEO Jyoti Bansal.

Vivun founder and CEO Matt Darrow says that pre-sales team works more closely with the customer than anyone else, delivering demos and proof of concepts, and generally helping sales get over the finish line. While sales has CRM to store knowledge about the customer, pre-sales has been lacking a tool to track info about their interactions with customers, and that’s what his company built.

“The main problem that we solve is we give technology to those pre-sales leaders to run and operate their teams, but then take those insights from the group that knows more about the technology and the customer than anybody else, and we deliver that across the organization to the product team, sales team and executive staff,” Darrow explained.

Darrow is a Zuora alumni, and his story is similar to that company’s founder Tien Tzuo, who built the first billing system for Salesforce, then founded Zuroa to build a subscription billing system for everyone else. Similarly, Darrow built a pre-sales tool for Zuroa after finding there wasn’t anything else out there that was devoted specifically to tracking that kind of information.

“At Zuora, I had to build everything from scratch. After the IPO, I realized that this is something that every tech company can take advantage of because every technology company will really need this role to be of high value and impact,” he said.

The company not only tracks information via a mobile app and browser tool, it also has a reporting dashboard to help companies understand and share the information the pre-sales team is hearing from the customer. For example, they might know that x number of customers have been asking for a certain feature, and this information can be organized and passed onto other parts of the company.

Bansal, who was previously CEO and co-founder at AppDynamics, a company he sold to Cisco for $3.7 billion just before its IPO in 2017, saw a company filling a big hole in the enterprise software ecosystem. He is not just an investor, he’s also a customer.

“To be successful, a technology company needs to understand three things: where it will be in five years, what its customers need right now, and what the market wants that it’s not currently providing. Pre-sales has answers to all three questions and is a strategically important department that needs management, analytics, and tools for accelerating deals. Yet, no one was making software for this critical department until Vivun,” he said in a statement.

The company was founded in 2018 and has been bootstrapped until now. It spent the first year building out the product. Today, the company has 20 customers including SignalFx (acquired by Splunk in August for $1.05 billion) and Harness.

Indian ride-hailing giant Ola said today it will begin operations in London “in the coming weeks,” a day after the local authority revoked Uber’s license to operate in the city.

The Indian firm, which entered portions of the UK two years ago, said it has started to sign up drivers in London ahead of the launch in the city. It aims to on-board 50,000 drivers in London.

More to follow…

The International Space Station is crewed by more than astronauts these days – NASA activated a free-floating autonomous robot called ‘Bumble’ earlier this year, and now Bumble has a new companion called Honey. Both are Astrobee robots, cube-like “robotic teammates” for ISS astronauts, which ar designed to help with experiments, day-to-day activities and more.

These two robots are alike in all regards, though Honey features yellow accents while Bumble has blue fo the sake of visual identification. Honey will still need to undergo testing before it’s fully ready to start its work in earnest, but it’s going to benefit from its similarity to Bumble – the earlier robot has already mapped the interior of the Space Station’s Kibo module, which means that Honey won’t be starting from scratch since it’s received that mapping data via a software update.

This robotic duo will soon become a trio, since a third Astrobee called ‘Queen’ was delivered to the ISS in July and will go online after Honey is up and running. This is hardly the only example of space-based autonomous robotics in use, but it is an interesting example because these robots are designed to work alongside human astronauts and share their space while operating on their own, untethered in a zero gravity environment.

Eventually, NASA hopes that robots like these will be able to not only make astronauts more efficient in their work by providing additional assistance and managing a portion of their current workload, but also be entrusted with the maintenance of spacecraft and stations when there’s no one on board at all. Astrobee, and its eventual successors, could be the key to establishing more permanent human presences in orbit around the Moon and beyond.

Pricefx, the Munich-founded startup that offers cloud-based pricing software, has raised €23 million in additional funding as part of its earlier Series B round.

The new investment is led by Digital+ Partners, the European B2B technology growth investor, and management consulting firm Bain & Company. Talis Capital, Pricefx’s Series A investor, also followed on, while its brings the Series B as a whole to €48 million.

“This new funding will allow us to further expand our platform capabilities, add new functionality and introduce several new, game-changing products to the market in 2020,” said Marcin Cichon, CEO and co-founder of Pricefx, in a statement.

“We anticipate continued global expansion through both organic and partner-enabled growth, as well as strategic projects. Our investors are excited about our path forward, and this subsequent investment helps to secure their positions ahead of our further expansion.”

I understand those “strategic projects” include planned M&A activity, as Pricefx looks to expand its offering within the broader pricing intelligence space.

The company also says its valuation has tripled in the last 12 months but isn’t specifying the actual figure.

It is also worth noting that Pricefx has resolved recent legal wrangling over some of its IP, which feels potentially related to both the new Series B tranche and an increased valuation.

According to a press release put out by Pricefx in September, the litigation between Pricefx and Vendavo began when Vendavo filed a complaint in California federal court in December 2017. The case then expanded to include several counterclaims by Pricefx against Vendavo for trade secret misappropriation, as well as an ancillary suit in Illinois federal court, and challenges by Pricefx to Vendavo’s patents in the U.S. Patent Office.

Founded in 2011, Munich-based Pricefx provides a modular SaaS solution for price optimisation management (PO&M) and configure-price-quote (CPQ) for enterprises of any size.

Pricing optimisation software typically helps companies accurately define the price of goods across a vast and constantly changing spectrum of data and variables. This can include things like customer survey data and segments, competitor data, operating costs, inventories, and historic prices and sales.

CPQ software aggregates these variables, thus enabling companies to configure products or services in the most optimal way (i.e. bundling, up-sells, etc.), and price them according to costs, competition and local economic factors.

“We are experiencing great momentum, particularly in the United States. This funding allows us to more than double our investment in sales and marketing in 2020,” adds Tom Fencl, CFO of Pricefx, in a statement. “As we grow, we are also beginning to look at potential acquisitions to expand our functional footprint in the area of optimization and artificial intelligence as well as offer higher value to our customers through specialized industry knowhow and expertise.”

Nigerian founder Sim Shagaya is back with a new startup —  uLesson — that has raised a $3.1 million seed round led by TLcom Capital.

The venture is integrating mobile platforms, SD cards, culture-specific curriculum and a network of tutors to bridge educational gaps for secondary school students in Nigeria and broader Africa.

Founded in 2019 by Shagaya — who also founded Nigerian e-commerce startup Konga and ad venture E-Motion — uLesson is headquartered in Lagos with a production studio in Jos.

The startup has been in development phase and plans to go to market in February 2020 in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Gambia — Shagaya told TechCrunch on a call.

“We’re targeting Anglophone West Africa…for a market of effectively 300 million people,” he said.

On product demand, Shagaya notes the priority placed on education across West African households vs. structural deficiencies — such as student teacher ratios as high as 1:70 in countries such as Nigeria.

“We have this massive gap…We’re adding more babies in this country nominally than all of Western Europe…Even if the [Nigerian] government was super efficient, it couldn’t catch up with the educational needs of the young people that are coming up,” Shagaya said.

To address this, uLesson will offer an app-based home education kit for students with an up-front yearly subscription price of around $70 and the option to pay as you go. The startup’s product pack will contain a dongle, SD card, and a set of headphones to connect to Android devices.

Curriculum on the uLesson program will include practice tests and tailored content around math, physics, chemistry, and biology. The venture has already created 3000 animated videos for core subjects, according to Shagaya.

To leverage high android mobile penetration in Africa — and minimize data-streaming costs — uLesson content and performance assessment will come via a combination of streaming and SD cards.

Parents and students can connect online temporarily to update the app and sync curriculum and results, while operating off-line for the bulk of lessons.

Shagaya likened the use of SD cards to the old Netflix model of sending and returning DVD’s by mail, prior to faster and more affordable internet service in the U.S.

The uLesson program will also package a human component. The startup plans to deploy a network of counselors in major distribution areas to instruct on how to use app and follow lesson plans.

uLesson is to be a supplement to secondary school education and a more affordable and effective alternative to private tutors, explained Shagaya.

After taking uLesson to market in Africa’s most populous nation — Nigeria — and other countries in the region, Shagaya and team plan to adapt the product for a future East Africa launch.

In both Nigeria and Kenya uLesson will face competition from existing ventures. Edtech in Africa doesn’t have as many companies (or as much VC funding) as leading startup sectors fintech and e-commerce, but there are a number of players.

Nigeria has online edu startups, such as Tuteria. Feature phone based student learning company Eneza Education has scaled in Kenya and expanded to Ghana.

uLesson could count having Shagaya as CEO as one of its advantages in the edtech space. The venture marks the founder’s return to the startup scene after a hiatus. Shagaya earned a Harvard MBA and worked for Google before repatriating to Nigeria to found several digital companies.

His best known venture, Konga, went head to head with online retailer Jumia in pioneering e-commerce for Nigeria and Africa. Konga was sold in a distressed acquisition in 2018.

Shagaya successfully exited his digital advertising venture E-Motion this year, after it was purchased by Loatsad Promedia.

The Nigerian tech entrepreneur confirmed he’s redirected some of that windfall into uLesson’s $3.1 million seed-round.  As part of TLcom’s lead on the investment, partners Omobola Johnson and Ido Sum will join uLesson’s board, Sum confirmed to TechCrunch.

For his part, Sim Shagaya underscores the for-profit status of his new startup, while noting it carries greater meaning for him than past commercial endeavors.

“If you drill down to it all, all our problems in Africa are tied this problem of education…If we do this right, our impact will be huge. For me this is probably the most important work I’ll do,” he said.

In some corners, the smartphone market is showing its first signs of life in some time.

Recent figures from Canalys indicate a small but notable uptick in the European market as shipments grew 3%, year-over-year in Q3.

The analyst firm put global growth at 1% globally in another recent report. Generally, such numbers wouldn’t warrant much celebration, but the way the market has been going, most manufacturers will take what they can get.

New numbers out this morning from Gartner paint a less rosy picture, with sales numbers declining 0.4%. It’s not a huge discrepancy between shipping and sales figures, but it’s the difference between being in the red and being in the black for the quarter.

Leavy.co, the Paris-born startup that offers a travel app for millennials to help them travel more without getting into further debt, has quietly raised $14 million in funding.

The investment — which is pegged as a seed round and actually closed in January! — is led by Dutch investor Prime Ventures, with participation from angel investor Dominique Vidal (who is also a partner at Index Ventures). Pieter Welten, a partner at Prime Ventures, has taken a seat on Leavy’s board.

Founded in 2017 by CEO Aziza Chaouachi, who at the time was studying law and traveling a lot, and later joined by co-founders Yassine Ben Romdhane (COO) and Mario Moinet (Chief Strategy Officer), the Leavy.co app is described as a “travel community and marketplace” that wants to help millennials travel (more) for less.

At the heart of its offering is a way for travellers (dubbed “Happy Leavers”) to rent out their room or apartment when they are away to help fund their trip. Other members (dubbed “Hosts on Demand”) then get paid to act as a local host and manage the Leavy booking. The idea, explained Chaouachi on a call yesterday evening, is to scale the community model that she first developed informally amongst friends and via her use of Airbnb when she was a student.

The killer feature — and undoubtedly where things get more interesting — is that Leavy gives members cash up front when they make their space available prior to traveling, regardless of whether or not a booking takes place. The exact price offered is dynamic and factors in various data, including how much notice is given.

Chaouachi declined to talk about the range of margin Leavy expects to generate, but, unlike most marketplaces, the startup is taking on most of the risk. If it fails to rent out a space while a member is away, it loses money. On the other hand, if its algorithm works well, it should be quite lucrative.

However, Chaouachi stressed that its algorithm and everything the startup does is being optimised for member satisfaction. If the pricing doesn’t work for all sides of the marketplace — renters, guests and hosts — Leavy’s network will stop growing and that’s the bottom line for a community-driven business that is incredibly reliant on network effects.

“We are the first pure-scale marketplace that takes a risk for its users,” she told me in an email prior to our call. “As network orchestrators, we generate profit with dynamic pricing. Our tech is obsessed with finding the optimal point of satisfaction for every user”.

Additionally, the Leavy.co app rewards members with travel credit — called Leavy Coins – when they invite friends to join and share travel tips and recommendations, or when posting photos to the app. They can then spend Leavy Coins on various travel-related products.

More broadly, the problem that Chaouachi is passionate about solving is that millennials are typically saddled with debt, often through buying an education or high accommodation costs, and that the desire and need to travel can often push them into further debt.

“As millennials, we go broke the second we decide to get an education or a credit card,” she says. “Buying a house like our parents is not an option, so we crave that weekend trip to Lisbon to lift our spirits before we go back to work on Monday. Once our outrageous rents have been paid out, it is the only air we can afford and — most of all — post about. The travel industry is the second-fastest-growing sector… and it is so at our expense, since we are its largest spenders”.

To that end, Leavy.co says its community network has grown to more than 65,000 millennials, of whom 60% are women. The young company already has 100 employees across 6 markets, with offices in Paris, Amsterdam, London, Madrid, Rome, and Lisbon. The plan is to open up in the U.S. by the end of this year.

“We are a brand new actor within the travel space, the next generation of OTA (online travel agency),” adds Chaouachi. “But unlike other OTAs such as traditional search engines like Booking.com, or short-term rental platforms like Airbnb, we don’t offer yet another item the Instagram-generation will never be able to buy: we actually boost their buying power instead”.