Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Grab Financial Group said today it has raised more than $300 million in Series A funding, led by South Korean firm Hanhwa Asset Management, with participation from K3 Ventures, GGV Capital, Arbor Ventures and Flourish Ventures.

The Financial Times reports that the funding values Grab Financial, a subsidiary of ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab, at $3 billion. Both K3 Ventures and GGV Capital were early investors in Grab, which was founded in 2012.

Back in February 2020, Grab announced it had raised $856 million in funding to grow its payment and financial services. That news came during speculation that Grab and Gojek, one of it top rivals, were finally getting closer to a merger after lengthy discussions.

But the Grab-Gojek talks stalled, and Gojek is now reportedly in talks to merge with Indonesia e-commerce platform Tokopedia instead. According to Bloomberg, the combined company would be worth $18 billion, making it a more formidable rival to Grab.

In its funding announcement, Grab Financial Group said its total revenues grew more than 40% in 2020, compared to 2019. This driven by strong consumer adoption of services like AutoInvest, an investment platform that allows users to invest small amounts of money at a time through the Grab app and insurance products. Grab Financial announced the launch of several financial products for consumers and SMEs in August 2020.

Usagea of digital financial services by consumers and SMEs in Southeast Asia increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a report published by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company in November, usage of banking apps and online payments, remittances, insurance products and robo-advisor investment platforms all grew in 2020, and the region’s financial services market may be reach $60 billion in revenue by 2025.

A consortium between Grab-Singtel was also among several firms awarded a full digital-banking license by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in December 2020.

In a press statement, Hanhwa Asset Management chief executive officer Yong Hyun Kim said, “We expect GFG to continue its expontential growth on the back of an innovative business model which supports the changing broader lifestyle of consumers, as well as its highly synergistic relationship with Grab, the largest Southeast Asian unicorn.”

Sennder, a large digital road freight forwarder based out of Germany, has raised $160m in Series D financing. The round was led by an unnamed party, but round participants included Accel, Lakestar, HV Capital, Project A and Scania. To date, Sennder has raised more than $260m, allowing it to lay claim to a potential $1bn valuation.

Sennder directly connects enterprise shippers with trucking companies, thus disintermediating the traditional freight model. It says it will move over 1 million truckloads this year. So far it’s concentrated on the lucrative European market. In June 2020 it merged with French competitor Everoad and acquired Uber Freight’s European business last September. The European logistics and freight sector has a market size of $427bn.

Sennder competes with large incumbents like Wincanton and CH Robinson as well as other startups such as OnTrac in Spin, and Instafreight.

The whole digital freight forwarding market is booming. Only last November, Germany’s Forto, a digital freight forwarder raised another $50 million in funding taking its total raised to $103 million. And in 2018 FreightHub, another European digital freight forwarder, raised $30 million in Series B financing.

Sennder’s new investment will mean it can expand in European markets. It already partners with Poste Italiane in Italy, as well as Scania and Siemens, and is now supplying transport services to over 10 organizations listed in the German DAX 30, and 11 companies comprising the Euro Stoxx 50.

Since its founding in 2015 by David Nothacker, Julius Köhler and Nicolaus Schefenacker, the company has grown to 800 employees and seven international offices.

David Nothacker, CEO and Co-Founder of Sennder, said: “We are now an established industry player on equal terms with other more traditional sector pioneers, but have maintained our founding spirit. As a data-driven company, we contribute to making the logistics industry fit for a sustainable future; ensuring transparency, flexibility and efficiency in the distribution of goods. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of a digitalized logistics industry.

Sonali De Rycker, Partner at Accel commented: “It is always fantastic to see a portfolio company reach such a significant milestone. 2020 highlighted the value that Sennder’s innovative digital offering brings to the freight industry.”

Sennder, a large digital road freight forwarder based out of Germany, has raised $160m in Series D financing. The round was led by an unnamed party, but round participants included Accel, Lakestar, HV Capital, Project A and Scania. To date, Sennder has raised more than $260m, allowing it to lay claim to a potential $1bn valuation.

Sennder directly connects enterprise shippers with trucking companies, thus disintermediating the traditional freight model. It says it will move over 1 million truckloads this year. So far it’s concentrated on the lucrative European market. In June 2020 it merged with French competitor Everoad and acquired Uber Freight’s European business last September. The European logistics and freight sector has a market size of $427bn.

Sennder competes with large incumbents like Wincanton and CH Robinson as well as other startups such as OnTrac in Spin, and Instafreight.

The whole digital freight forwarding market is booming. Only last November, Germany’s Forto, a digital freight forwarder raised another $50 million in funding taking its total raised to $103 million. And in 2018 FreightHub, another European digital freight forwarder, raised $30 million in Series B financing.

Sennder’s new investment will mean it can expand in European markets. It already partners with Poste Italiane in Italy, as well as Scania and Siemens, and is now supplying transport services to over 10 organizations listed in the German DAX 30, and 11 companies comprising the Euro Stoxx 50.

Since its founding in 2015 by David Nothacker, Julius Köhler and Nicolaus Schefenacker, the company has grown to 800 employees and seven international offices.

David Nothacker, CEO and Co-Founder of Sennder, said: “We are now an established industry player on equal terms with other more traditional sector pioneers, but have maintained our founding spirit. As a data-driven company, we contribute to making the logistics industry fit for a sustainable future; ensuring transparency, flexibility and efficiency in the distribution of goods. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of a digitalized logistics industry.

Sonali De Rycker, Partner at Accel commented: “It is always fantastic to see a portfolio company reach such a significant milestone. 2020 highlighted the value that Sennder’s innovative digital offering brings to the freight industry.”

Fresh off the announcement of more than $500 million in new capital across two new funds, Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group has announced that they’re adding Anu Sharma and Daniel Li to the team’s list of Partners.

The firm, which in recent years has paid particularly close attention to enterprise software bets, invests heavily in the early-stage Pacific Northwest startup scene.

Both Li and Sharma are stepping into the Partner role after some time at the firm. Li has been with Madrona for five years while Sharma joined the team in 2020. Prior to joining Madrona, Sharma led product management teams at Amazon Web Services, worked as a software developer at Oracle and had a stint in VC as an associate at SoftBank China & India. Li previously worked at the Boston Consulting Group.

I got the chance to catch up with Li who notes that the promotion won’t necessarily mean a big shift in his day-to-day responsibilities — “At Madrona, you’re not promoted until you’re working in the next role anyway,” he says — but that he appreciates “how much trust the firm places in junior investors.”

Asked about leveling up his venture career during a time when public and private markets seem particularly flush with cash, Li acknowledges some looming challenges.

“On one hand, it’s just been an amazing five years to join venture capital because things have just been up and to the right with lots of things that work; it’s just a super exciting time,” Li says. “On the other hand, from a macro perspective, you know that there’s more capital flowing into VC as an asset class than ever before. And just from that pure macro perspective, you know that that means returns are going to be lower in the next 10 years as valuations are higher.”

Nevertheless, Li is plenty bullish on internet companies claiming larger swaths of the global GDP and hopes to invest specifically in “low code platforms, next-gen productivity, and online communities,” Madrona notes in their announcement, while Sharma plans to continue looking at to “distributed systems, data infrastructure, machine learning, and security.”

TechCrunch recently talked to Li and his Madrona colleague Hope Cochran about some of the top trends in social gaming and how investors were approaching new opportunities across the gaming industry.

Quite a bit has happened since Snapchat announced last week that it was indefinitely locking President Trump’s Snapchat account. After temporary bans from his Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts as well as a permanent ban from Twitter, Snap has decided that it will also be making its ban of the President’s Snapchat account permanent.

Thought Trump’s social media preferences as a user are clear, Snapchat gave the Trump campaign a particularly effective platform to target young users who are active on the service. A permanent ban will undoubtedly complicate his future business and political ambitions as he finds himself removed from most mainstream social platforms.

Snap says it made the decision in light of repeated attempted violations of the company’s community guidelines that had been made over the past several months by the President’s account.

“Last week we announced an indefinite suspension of President Trump’s Snapchat account, and have been assessing what long term action is in the best interest of our Snapchat community. In the interest of public safety, and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence, which are clear violations of our guidelines, we have made the decision to permanently terminate his account,” a Snap spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Snap’s decision to permanently ban the President was first reported by Axios.

Following a comprehensive ban from Twitter and a number of other online services following last week’s assault on the Capitol by his followers, President Trump managed to put out a tweet in the form of a video address touching on the “calamity at the Capitol”… and, of course, his deplatforming.

In the video, Trump instructs his followers to shun violence, calling it un-American. “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence,” he said, days after calling rioters “great patriots” and telling them “we love you, you’re very special” as they despoiled the House and Senate.

He pivoted after a few minutes to the topic that, after his historic second impeachment, is almost certainly foremost on his mind: being banned from his chief instrument of governance, Twitter.

“I also want to say a few words about the unprecedented assault on free speech we have seen in recent days,” he said, although the bans and other actions are all due to documented breaches of the platforms’ rules. “The efforts to censor, cancel and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong, and they are dangerous. What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another.”

After having his @realdonaldtrump handle suspended by Twitter, Trump attempted to sockpuppet a few other prominent accounts of allies, but was swiftly shut down. What everyone assumed must be plans to join Parler were scuttled along with the social network itself, which has warned it may be permanently taken offline after Amazon and other internet infrastructure companies refused to host it.

In case you’re wondering how Trump was able to slip this one past Twitter’s pretty decisive ban to begin with, we were curious too.

Twitter tells TechCrunch:

This Tweet is not in violation of the Twitter Rules. As we previously made clear, other official administration accounts, including @WhiteHouse, are permitted to Tweet as long as they do not demonstrably engage in ban evasion or share content that otherwise violates the Twitter Rules.

In other words, while Trump the person was banned, Trump the head of the Executive branch may still have some right, in the remaining week he holds the office, to utilize Twitter as a way of communicating matters of importance to the American people.

This gives a somewhat unfortunate impression of a power move, as Twitter has put itself in the position of determining what is a worthwhile transmission and what is a rabble-rousing incitement to violence. I’ve asked the company to clarify how it is determined whether what Trump does on this account is considered ban evasion.

Meanwhile, almost simultaneous with Trump’s surprise tweet, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey unloaded 13 tweets worth of thoughts about the situation:

I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.

That said, having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications. While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation. And a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.

Jack neither reaches any real conclusions nor illuminates any new plans, but it’s clear he is thinking real hard about this. As he notes, however, it’ll take a lot of work to establish the “one humanity working together” he envisions as a sort of stretch goal for Twitter and the internet in general.

Following a comprehensive ban from Twitter and a number of other online services following last week’s assault on the Capitol by his followers, President Trump managed to put out a tweet in the form of a video address touching on the “calamity at the Capitol”… and, of course, his deplatforming.

In the video, Trump instructs his followers to shun violence, calling it un-American. “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence,” he said, days after calling rioters “great patriots” and telling them “we love you, you’re very special” as they despoiled the House and Senate.

He pivoted after a few minutes to the topic that, after his historic second impeachment, is almost certainly foremost on his mind: being banned from his chief instrument of governance, Twitter.

“I also want to say a few words about the unprecedented assault on free speech we have seen in recent days,” he said, although the bans and other actions are all due to documented breaches of the platforms’ rules. “The efforts to censor, cancel and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong, and they are dangerous. What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another.”

After having his @realdonaldtrump handle suspended by Twitter, Trump attempted to sockpuppet a few other prominent accounts of allies, but was swiftly shut down. What everyone assumed must be plans to join Parler were scuttled along with the social network itself, which has warned it may be permanently taken offline after Amazon and other internet infrastructure companies refused to host it.

In case you’re wondering how Trump was able to slip this one past Twitter’s pretty decisive ban to begin with, we were curious too.

Twitter tells TechCrunch:

This Tweet is not in violation of the Twitter Rules. As we previously made clear, other official administration accounts, including @WhiteHouse, are permitted to Tweet as long as they do not demonstrably engage in ban evasion or share content that otherwise violates the Twitter Rules.

In other words, while Trump the person was banned, Trump the head of the Executive branch may still have some right, in the remaining week he holds the office, to utilize Twitter as a way of communicating matters of importance to the American people.

This gives a somewhat unfortunate impression of a power move, as Twitter has put itself in the position of determining what is a worthwhile transmission and what is a rabble-rousing incitement to violence. I’ve asked the company to clarify how it is determined whether what Trump does on this account is considered ban evasion.

Meanwhile, almost simultaneous with Trump’s surprise tweet, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey unloaded 13 tweets worth of thoughts about the situation:

I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.

That said, having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications. While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation. And a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.

Jack neither reaches any real conclusions nor illuminates any new plans, but it’s clear he is thinking real hard about this. As he notes, however, it’ll take a lot of work to establish the “one humanity working together” he envisions as a sort of stretch goal for Twitter and the internet in general.

U.S. safety regulators have asked Tesla to recall 158,000 vehicles over media control unit failures that cause the touchscreen displays to stop working, following a months-long investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The Office of Defects Investigation unit of the agency determined that the failure of the media control unit is a safety issue since functions like the backup camera and defogging and defrosting setting controls stop working as well as audible chimes, which are used when the turn signal indicator is activated and to alert drivers while the vehicle’s Autopilot advanced driver assistance system is engaged. Reports of the MCUs suddenly failing have been a topic for years in Tesla forums.

The failure is caused when the memory storage in a flash drive used in the used in these vehicles reaches capacity, investigators concluded. The only solution is to replace the physical piece of hardware. Vehicles affected include Model S sedans built between 2012 and 2018 as well as Model X SUVs in 2016 through 2018.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. However, the company did provide information to NHTSA, which is contained in the report. Tesla confirmed to NHTSA that all units will inevitably fail given the memory device’s finite storage capacity. Tesla provided its own statistical model showing the number of projected weekly MCU repairs from 2020 to 2028. The automaker estimated that replacement rates for MCU failures will peak in early 2022 and gradually decline until (near) full part turnover has been accomplished in 2028, according to the report.

These vehicles are equipped with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor with an integrated 8GB eMMC NAND flash memory device. Part of this 8GB storage capacity is used each time the vehicle is started. The eMMC NAND cell hardware fails when the storage capacity is reached, resulting in failure of the MCU, the agency said.

The eMMC NAND flash device’s lifespan based upon the number of program/erase cycles, after which the MCU fails due to memory wear-out. Investigators determined that the expected usage life rating for the 8GB eMMC NAND flash memory device is about 3,000 Program-Erase cycles, after which the eMMC NAND flash memory device would become fully consumed and no longer be operational. At a daily cycle usage rate of 1.4 per block, accumulation of 3,000 P/E cycles would take only 5 to 6 years, the agency said.

The agency has officially requested that Tesla initiate a recall to notify all owners, purchasers, and dealers of the subject vehicles of this safety defect and provide a remedy.

Tokyo-based SODA, which runs sneaker reselling platform SNKRDUNK, has raised a $22 million Series B led by SoftBank Ventures Asia. Investors also included basepartners, Colopl Next, THE GUILD and other strategic partners. Part of the funding will be used to expand into other Asian countries. Most of SNKRDUNK’s transactions are within Japan now, but it plans to become a cross-border marketplace.

Along SODA’s $3 million Series A last year, this brings the startup’s total funding so far to $25 million.

While the COVID-19 pandemic was initially expected to put a damper on the sneaker resell market, C2C marketplaces have actually seen their business increase. For example, StockX, one of the biggest sneaker resell platforms in the world (which hit a valuation of $2.8 billion after its recent Series E), said May and June 2020 were its biggest months for sales ever.

SNKRDUNK’s sales also grew last year, and in December 2020, it recorded a 3,000% year-over-year increase in monthly gross merchandise value. Chief executive officer Yuta Uchiyama told TechCrunch this was because demand for sneakers remained high, while more people also started buying things online.

Launched in 2018, SNKRDUNK now has 2.5 million monthly users, which it says makes it the largest C2C sneaker marketplace in Japan. The Series B will allow it to speed up the pace of its international expansion, add more categories and expand its authentication facilities.

Like StockX and GOAT, SNKRDUNK’s user fees cover authentication holds before sneakers are sent to buyers. The company partners with FAKE BUSTERS, an authentication service based in Japan, to check sneakers before they are sent to buyers.

In addition to its marketplace, SNKRDUNK also runs a sneaker news site and an online community.

SODA plans to work with other companies in SoftBank Venture Asia’s portfolio that develop AI-based tech to help automate its operations, including logistics, payment, customer service and counterfeit inspection.

One in five people have a mental health illness. Pace, a new startup founded by Pinterest and Affirm executives, wants to pay attention to the other four in that statistic.

“Nobody is perfectly mentally healthy all the time,” said Jack Chou, Pace co-founder. “It’s a non-existent idea, everyone is sort of swimming in between being clinically mentally unhealthy and perfectly mentally happy.”

While diagnosable mental health conditions might get an individual medication or therapy, those that live in a grey space might still need resources to stay afloat. After Chou experienced the detrimental effects of burnout while working for Pinterest and Affirm, and co-founder Cat Lee, formerly of Pinterest and Maveron, experienced a personal travesty, the former colleagues realized there needed to be a way to help people who didn’t fit squarely into one bucket.

So Pace, which launched out of private beta today, wants to address this fallacy by creating small-group training classes for people interested in taking care of their emotional and mental health. It is launching with $1.9 million in seed funding. Investors include Nellie and Max Levchin, Jeff Weiner, Emilie Choi, Ben Silbermann, Box Group, and SV Angel.

The core of the product is a 90-minute live video group session once a week, delivered through Pace’s platform. The video component integrates with Twilio and Agora (and interestingly, not Zoom, because its SDK lacks personalization options). Users can attend the sessions on Web, iOS or Android.

Pace forms cohorts of eight to 10 people around shared interest or identities, such as a founder group or parent group. Then, Pace interviews a new user for 15 to 30 minutes to learn about what they hope to get out of the experience.

Once a group is formed, they meet weekly with a facilitator at the helm. While it’s not trying to be a therapy replacement, the startup is looking for facilitators who are licensed in mental health practice. To help them do this, Pace secured two founding members who are psychologists: Dr. Kerry Makin-Byrd and Dr. Vivian Oberling.

When users sign on, they are prompted to pick three words that describe themselves from dozens of options. Those words show up under their video as they talk, and help skip some small talk in the beginning of the sessions.

The group talks about a variety of topics, from how to manage stress to how to adapt to a remote world. There is no formal curriculum, but each class has a takeaway for participants to leave with.

Pace doesn’t follow any specific curriculum during the meetings, but instead uses the time for people to talk through their feelings. Facilitators are licensed mental health clinicians, with the majority of the leaders being part-time or freelancers. It plans to introduce asynchronous ways for group members to chat and stay in touch beyond the weekly class, as well as spend time building out a product that feels beyond a Zoom call.

Mental health software startups are on a tear right now. Last month, Lyra Health raised $175 million at a $2.25 billion valuation to connect employees to therapists and mental health services. Another telehealth provider, Talkspace, announced today that it was going public through a SPAC. There’s also Calm, last valued at $2 billion, and Headspace, its biggest competitor in the mindfulness app space.

Pace’s focus is more similar to the latter than the former: It’s avoiding the telehealth label and positioning itself more as supplementary to formal health services.

“Our hope is that as [therapists] have individual patients who they’d like to incorporate some group work, or need a next thing, that we’re here for that too,” says Chou.

One of Pace’s closest competitors is Coa, which launched with $3 million in seed funding in October 2020. The startup is similarly using small-group fitness culture and applying it to mental health. It mixes lecture-style teaching with breakout sessions to breed conversation.

Pace wouldn’t expand on how it differentiates from Coa beyond alluding to upcoming product features and community investments. Coa charges $25 for drop-in classes (sticking to that fitness class theme) while Pace charges $45 per week for the same group to meet for months at a time. While Coa has licensed therapists, Pace has licensed mental health clinicians.

Coa co-founders Alexa Meyer and Dr. Emily Anhalt say their service is unique from Pace in a curriculum perspective.

“Although all of Coa’s classes are facilitated by licensed therapists, Coa’s classes are different from group therapy,” Meyer said. Coa uses Anhalt’s research around mental happiness to create programming. Both companies are still pre-launch, but Coa says it has 6,000 people on its waitlist.

For both startups, the hurdles ahead are common for any startup: customer acquisition, effectiveness in tracking outcomes and scaling an innately emotional and personalized experience. As Homebrew’s Hunter Walk pointed out in a recent blog post, vulnerable populations being exposed to venture-level risk is a difficult phenomenon. Startups fail often, and in this case, that could mean leaving without once-critical support people who are depending on group therapy.

Going forward, the real winner in the mental health fitness space will come down to a thoughtful curriculum and a user experience that brings out vulnerability in people even over a virtual setting. Regardless, innovation pouring into the sector couldn’t come at a better time.