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Fortify raises a $20M Series B for its composite manufacturing 3D printer
There’s been quite a bit of movement in the additive manufacturing space in recent months. If I had to pinpoint a reason, I would say that — much like robotics (another space I follow fairly closely) — the category has gotten a boost in interest from the pandemic. Medical applications are understandably of interest lately, as is alternative manufacturing.
Desktop Metal, Markforged and new-comer Mantel have all made pretty big announcements in recent weeks, and now Fortify is making the round with a significant raise. The Boston-based startup announced a $20 million Series B equity round, led by Cota Capital with additional participation from Accel Partners, Neotribe Ventures and Prelude Ventures.
Fortify is attempting to stake out a claim in material deposits. Using digital light processing (DLP) tech, the company can mix and print in a variety of different materials, with a wide range of properties. The list includes some useful traits, including electromagnetic and thermal.
Like Mantel, the company looks to be targeting manufacturing tools, including injection molding.
“Fortify has been focused on proving the viability of our product and market opportunity over the past 18+ months, and exceeded our goals set at the beginning of 2020,” CEO Josh Martin said in a release. “This next round will expand our go-to-market footprint in key verticals such as injection mold tooling while enabling us to capture market share in end-use electronic devices.”
Recent months have also found the company enlisting other 3D printing vets. Paul Dresens (ex Desktop Metal) signed on as VP of Engineering, while former GrabCad (a Stratasys acquisition) market exec Rob Stevens has signed on as an advisor.
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Last-mile delivery robotics company Refraction AI raises $4.2M
Ann Arbor-based Refraction AI announced today that it has raised a $4.2 million seed round. The startup, which debuted on the TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility stage back in 2019, was founded by a pair of University of Michigan professors (Matthew Johnson-Roberson — now CTO — and Ram Vasudevan) seeking to solve a number of issues posed by many delivery robots.
With an initial prototype built on a bicycle foundation, the company’s REV-1 robot is designed to operate in bike lanes and roads, rather than the standard sidewalk ‘bot. The different approach allows the robot to travel at higher speeds (topping out at 15 miles per hour) and removes some of the messy pedestrian-dodging issues that come with sidewalk use (while introducing some new ones on that narrow sliver of asphalt shared by cyclists).
Refraction is currently testing a small fleet in its native Ann Arbor. The seed round, led by Pillar VC, will be used for R&D, expanding the company’s reach and recruiting more customers, with a focus on grocery store and restaurant deliveries. Other investors include, eLab Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, Trucks Venture Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Chad Laurans and Invest Michigan.
Another key differentiator is the use of cameras, versus LIDAR. The decision comes with some technological trade-offs, but benefits include a lower price point and the ability for the company to more quickly scale its fleet. The technology is also not easily districted by weather conditions encountered in the upper midwest, though it has limitations, too. As the company puts it, if you’re not comfortable walking out in it, the robot probably won’t be, either.
“Our platform uses technology that exists today in an innovative way, to get people the things they need, when they need them, where they live,” CEO Luke Schneider said in a release tied to the news. “And we’re doing so in a way that reduces business’ costs, makes roads less congested, and eliminates carbon emissions.”
With this new funding, the company plans to expand operations beyond its native Ann Arbor, though no additional test markets have been announced.
Early Stage is the premier ‘how-to’ event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. You’ll hear first-hand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. We’ll cover every aspect of company-building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, product market fit, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built-in – there’s ample time included for audience questions and discussion.
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OnePlus recruits Hasselblad for 3-year smartphone imaging deal
Imaging has long been the primary battlefield on which the smartphone battles are waged. It makes sense. The thing about smartphones in 2021 is that they’re mostly very good. Sure, there are differentiators, but if you spend a decent amount on a device from any major manufacturer, you’re probably going to get a pretty good device.
But there’s still plenty of opportunity to continually bridge the gap between smartphone imaging and devoted camera systems. Today OnePlus takes a potentially key step in that direction by announcing a partnership with Hasselblad. The DJI-owned Swedish camera maker has signed onto a three-year partnership with OnePlus.
According to a release tied to the news, the pair plan to spend $150 million over the course of the deal, in an attempt to vault OnePlus to the front of the pack. Hasselblad has dipped its toes in the mobile market, including a Moto Z attachment, and has created cameras for DJI drones, but this represents a pretty big move for the 180-year-old camera company.
The first fruits of the partnership will arrive on the OnePlus 9, a new handset set to launch on March 23. The companies promise a “revamped camera system.” The phone will feature a Sony IMX789 sensor, coupled with HDR video and the ability to capture 4K at 120 FPS and 8K at 30 FPS.
Per the release:
The partnership will continuously develop over the next three years, starting with software improvements including color tuning and sensor calibration, and extending to more dimensions in the future. The two parties will jointly define the technology standards of the mobile camera experience and develop innovative imaging technologies, continuing to improve the Hasselblad Camera for Mobile. Both companies are committed to delivering immediate benefit for OnePlus users, while continuously collaborating to further improve the user experience and quality for the long term.
The deal includes the development of four global labs, including U.S. and Japan locations and:
Pioneering new areas of smartphone imaging technology for future OnePlus camera systems, such as a panoramic camera with a 140-degree field of view, T-lens technology for lightning-fast focus in the front-facing camera, and a freeform lens — to be first introduced on the OnePlus 9 Series — that practically eliminates edge distortion in ultrawide photos.
It will be interesting to see how a company like Hasselblad will take to mobile imaging, though such a deal could be a secret weapon as OnePlus looks to keep on the flagship end of the mobile spectrum against the likes of Apple and Samsung.
Early Stage is the premier ‘how-to’ event for startup entrepreneurs and investors. You’ll hear firsthand how some of the most successful founders and VCs build their businesses, raise money and manage their portfolios. We’ll cover every aspect of company building: Fundraising, recruiting, sales, product-market fit, PR, marketing and brand building. Each session also has audience participation built in – there’s ample time included for audience questions and discussion.
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Cashify raises $15 million for its second-hand smartphone business in India
Tens of millions of people each year purchase a second-hand smartphone in India, the world’s second-largest market. Phone makers and giant online sellers such as Amazon and Flipkart are aware of it, but it’s too much of a hassle for them to inspect, repair and resell used phones. But these firms also know that customers are more likely to buy a smartphone if they are offered the ability to trade-in their existing handsets.
A startup that is helping these firms tackle this challenge said on Thursday it has raised $15 million in a new financing round. New York-based Olympus Capital Asia made the investment through Asia Environmental Partners, a fund dedicated to the environmental sector. The five-year-old startup, which counts Blume Ventures among its early investors, has raised $42 million to date.
Cashify operates an eponymous platform — both online and physical stores and kiosks — for users to sell and buy used smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, laptops, desktops and gaming consoles. But 90% of its business today surrounds the smartphone category, explained Mandeep Manocha, founder and chief executive of Cashify, in an interview with TechCrunch.
“For consumers, our proposition is that we make it easy for you to sell your devices. You come to our site or app, answer questions to objectively evaluate the condition of your device, and we give you an estimate of how much your gadget is worth,” he said. “If you like the price, we pick it up from your doorstep and give you instant cash.”
A few years ago, I wrote about the struggle e-commerce firms face globally in handling returned items. There are many liability challenges — such as having to ensure that the innards in a returned smartphone haven’t been tempered with — as well as overhead costs in reversing an order.
Manocha said that phone makers and e-commerce firms have found better ways to handle returned items in recent years, but they still lose a significant amount of money on them. These challenges have created a big opportunity for startups such as Cashify.
In fact, Cashify says it’s the market leader in its category in India. The startup has partnerships with “nearly every OEM,” including Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, Oppo, Xiaomi, Vivo and HP. “If you walk into an Apple store today, they use our platform.” For consumers in India, if they opted for the trade-in program, Apple.com also uses Cashify’s trading platform, he said.
The startup also works with top e-commerce firms in India — Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm Mall. The firms use Cashify’s trading and exchange software, and also rely on the startup for liquidation of devices. The startup then repairs these gadgets and sells the refurbished units to customers.
“Essentially, whether you come directly to us, or go to popular e-commerce firms or phone OEMs, we are handling the majority of the trading,” he said. Even if a customer trades in the device to OEMs, or e-commerce firms, these companies sell the device to players like Cashify, which serves over 2 million customers in more than 1,500 cities.
The startup plans to deploy part of the fresh capital to expand its presence in the offline market. Manocha said Cashify currently has dozens of offline stores and kiosks at shopping malls across the country and it has already proven immensely effective in brand awareness among customers.
The startup also plans to expand outside of India, hire more talent and invest more in getting the word out about its offerings. Manocha said the team is also working on expanding its expertise to more hardware categories such as cameras.
“The management team at Cashify has an excellent track record in building a strong consumer-facing franchise and building relationships with OEMs, e-commerce companies and electronic product retailers to be present across all touch points for the consumer,” said Pankaj Ghai, managing director of Asia Environmental Partners, in a statement.
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Jiobit launches an improved version of its kid (or pet) tracker, the Jiobit Next
A Chicago-based startup, Jiobit, wanted to make a better child location tracker than the bulky smartwatches and other insecurely designed products already on the market. So in 2018, it launched its own modular kid tracker — a small dongle of sorts that could be tied to shoelaces, belt loops or school backpacks, for example. Today, the company is out with a new generation of this device, the Jiobit Next, which aims to improve accuracy, battery life, reliability and more.
The company says it took its two years’ of learning and customer feedback into account when developing the new design, which is today used not only by parents, but also by pet owners.
The updated version of the Jiobit, now $129.99, is a small device that weighs less than four quarter coins, and includes a combination of radios — Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular and GPS — as well as sensors, including an accelerometer/pedometer, temperature sensor and barometer.
Image Credits: Jiobit
The upgraded version now includes a new antenna system designed to increase performance inside schools, stores, high rises and other challenging signal environments, the company claims.
It also leverages the reach of low-power, wide-area (LPWA) wireless networks in order to better serve rural regions where cellular coverage is limited and spotty. This allows the device to still be tracked when outside of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth mesh networks.
The new Jiobit is also waterproof (IPX8) up to five feet of water for up to 30 minutes and includes an alert button that instantly notifies loved ones that the user is lost or in danger. This button can be customized through the Jiobit app as to which family members will receive the alert, or it can even be turned off — which may be useful if the child is too young to understand how to use it.
Jiobit owners can continue to monitor the device through the app or now, a web app that includes alerting and notification controls. This opens up the service to more than just families — it could be used by organizations to deploy Jiobit into the field.
Like some software-based tracking apps, the device supports features like “Trusted Places,” which are geofenced areas where you expect the device to be at certain times, like school or maybe a doggie day care. When the device is not in a Trusted Place, you can enable “Live Mode” to watch its movement in real time.
Image Credits: Jiobit
Another improvement focuses on battery life. The upgraded version offers 50% longer battery life than the prior version, the company says. Under typical use cases, the Jiobit will last up to 10 days between charges, though it lasts longer when on standby and not in active use. (That may be why pet owners are seeing slightly longer battery life of 10-20 days, for instance.)
The original idea for Jiobit had come about because founder John Renaldi, a previous VP at Motorola, was shocked to find that most child trackers on the market were storing their certificate keys in the clear and were hackable. He wanted to build a more secure alternative, and brought on co-founder and CTO Roger Ady, a previous director of engineering at Motorola, to help.
Today, the Jiobit has its own dedicated security chip to communicate with the company’s servers, and uses its AES-256 “Jiobit TrustChip” technology to encrypt data both at rest and in transit with TLS1.2 encryption. It also refuses to download any software that’s not cryptographically signed by Jiobit in order to prevent malware or other “rogue” software from being installed.
Image Credits: Jiobit
The service itself, meanwhile, is compliant with U.S. children’s privacy regulations (COPPA).
The new Jiobit Next will work only within the U.S., while the first generation works internationally across 146 countries. But both will continue to be supported by way of subscriptions. Users can choose between a two-year subscription plan ($8.99/month), a six-month subscription plan ($12.99/month) or a month-to-month subscription plan ($14.99/month). These don’t require a cellular plan or SIM card from your existing carrier, like other child trackers and smartwatches.
To date, the startup says it’s raised $12 million in outside investment, including from Netgear and other Midwest VC firms. Jiobit isn’t disclosing how many devices it has sold to date, specifically, but says it’s in the “mid-five-figure range.”
The new device is on pre-order starting today and will be sold later this month on its website, and then Amazon, Chewy and Target. It has also partnered with family tracking app Life360 to offer special pricing.
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Biden Commerce nominee Raimondo sees no reason to remove Huawei from entity list
Huawei’s status in the U.S. has been one of many question marks hovering over the newly minted Biden administration. The smartphone maker was one of a number of Chinese companies added to the Department of Commerce’s “entity list” during Trump’s four years in office.
Gina Raimondo, Joe Biden’s nominee for Commerce secretary, has offered what is potentially one of the clearest looks so far at how Huawei’s status might (or might not) evolve under a new administration. Responding to questions from Senate Republicans, former Rhode Island Governor Raimondo indicated that the Biden administration likely would not be in any hurry to remove Huawei from the blacklist.
Republican House members had previously raised concerns over Raimondo’s position on companies like Huawei, a stance she had yet to clarify. “We urge those Senators who have a history of calling for Huawei to remain on the Entity List to stick to their principles and place a hold on Ms. Raimondo’s confirmation until the Biden Administration clarifies their intentions for Huawei and on export control policies for a country that is carrying out genocide and threatening our national security,” they wrote.
Raimondo has since responded.
“I understand that parties are placed on the Entity List and the Military End User List generally because they pose a risk to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests,” the politician said, in a note reported by Bloomberg. “I currently have no reason to believe that entities on those lists should not be there. If confirmed, I look forward to a briefing on these entities and others of concern.”
The statement isn’t definitive in either direction (as is perhaps to be expected for a Cabinet nominee), but it certainly doesn’t point to a radical change from Trump’s position on the issue. The smartphone marker was added to the list in 2019, following longtime accusations over security and spying concerns. The company has also variously been tied to the Chinese government.
The DoC noted at the time:
Huawei was added to the Entity List after the Department concluded that the company is engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interests, including alleged violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), conspiracy to violate IEEPA by providing prohibited financial services to Iran, and obstruction of justice in connection with the investigation of those alleged violations of U.S. sanctions, among other illicit activities.
The Trump administration proved especially aggressive in regards to blacklisting Chinese tech companies, a fact that has already had a profound impact on Huawei’s bottom line. Drone giant DJI and AI company SenseTime have been added to the DoC list, while Xiaomi made a separate military blacklist in the waning days of the administration.
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Metalenz reimagines the camera in 2D and raises $10M to ship it
As impressive as the cameras in our smartphones are, they’re fundamentally limited by the physical necessities of lenses and sensors. Metalenz skips over that part with a camera made of a single “metasurface” that could save precious space and battery life in phones and other devices… and they’re about to ship it.
The concept is similar to, but not descended from, the “metamaterials” that gave rise to flat beam-forming radar and lidar of Lumotive and Echodyne. The idea is to take a complex 3D structure and accomplish what it does using a precisely engineered “2D” surface — not actually two-dimensional, of course, but usually a plane with features measured in microns.
In the case of a camera, the main components are of course a lens (these days it’s usually several stacked), which corrals the light, and an image sensor, which senses and measures that light. The problem faced by cameras now, particularly in smartphones, is that the lenses can’t be made much smaller without seriously affecting the clarity of the image. Likewise sensors are nearly at the limit of how much light they can work with. Consequently, most of the photography advancements of the last few years have been done on the computational side.
Using an engineered surface that does away with the need for complex optics and other camera systems has been a goal for years. Back in 2016 I wrote about a NASA project that took inspiration from moth eyes to create a 2D camera of sorts. It’s harder than it sounds, though — usable imagery has been generated in labs, but it’s not the kind of thing that you take to Apple or Samsung.
Metalenz aims to change that. The company’s tech is built on the work of Harvard’s Federico Capasso, who has been publishing on the science behind metasurfaces for years. He and Rob Devlin, who did his doctorate work in Capasso’s lab, co-founded the company to commercialize their efforts.
“Early demos were extremely inefficient,” said Devlin of the field’s first entrants. “You had light scattering all over the place, the materials and processes were non-standard, the designs weren’t able to handle the demands that a real world throws at you. Making one that works and publishing a paper on it is one thing, making 10 million and making sure they all do the same thing is another.”
Their breakthrough — if years of hard work and research can be called that — is the ability not just to make a metasurface camera that produces decent images, but to do it without exotic components or manufacturing processes.
“We’re really using all standard semiconductor processes and materials here, the exact same equipment — but with lenses instead of electronics,” said Devlin. “We can already make a million lenses a day with our foundry partners.”
The thing at the bottom is the chip where the image processor and logic would be, but the meta-optic could also integrate with that. The top is a pinhole. Image Credits: Metalenz
The first challenge is more or less contained in the fact that incoming light, without lenses to bend and direct it, hits the metasurface in a much more chaotic way. Devlin’s own PhD work was concerned with taming this chaos.
“Light on a macro [i.e. conventional scale, not close-focusing] lens is controlled on the macro scale, you’re relying on the curvature to bend the light. There’s only so much you can do with it,” he explained. “But here you have features a thousand times smaller than a human hair, which gives us very fine control over the light that hits the lens.”
Those features, as you can see in this extreme close-up of the metasurface, are precisely tuned cylinders, “almost like little nano-scale Coke cans,” Devlin suggested. Like other metamaterials, these structures, far smaller than a visible or near-infrared light ray’s wavelength, manipulate the radiation by means that take a few years of study to understand.
Image Credits: Metalenz
The result is a camera with extremely small proportions and vastly less complexity than the compact camera stacks found in consumer and industrial devices. To be clear, Metalenz isn’t looking to replace the main camera on your iPhone — for conventional photography purposes the conventional lens and sensor are still the way to go. But there are other applications that play to the chip-style lens’s strengths.
Something like the FaceID assembly, for instance, presents an opportunity. “That module is a very complex one for the cell phone world — it’s almost like a Rube Goldberg machine,” said Devlin. Likewise the miniature lidar sensor.
At this scale, the priorities are different, and by subtracting the lens from the equation the amount of light that reaches the sensor is significantly increased. That means it can potentially be smaller in every dimension while performing better and drawing less power.
Image (of a very small test board) from a traditional camera, left, and metasurface camera, right. Beyond the vignetting it’s not really easy to tell what’s different, which is kind of the point. Image Credits: Metalenz
Lest you think this is still a lab-bound “wouldn’t it be nice if” type device, Metalenz is well on its way to commercial availability. The $10 million Series A they just raised was led by 3M Ventures, Applied Ventures LLC, Intel Capital, M Ventures and TDK Ventures, along with Tsingyuan Ventures and Braemar Energy Ventures — a lot of suppliers in there.
Unlike many other hardware startups, Metalenz isn’t starting with a short run of boutique demo devices but going big out of the gate.
“Because we’re using traditional fabrication techniques, it allows us to scale really quickly. We’re not building factories or foundries, we don’t have to raise hundreds of mils; we can use what’s already there,” said Devlin. “But it means we have to look at applications that are high volume. We need the units to be in that tens of millions range for our foundry partners to see it making sense.”
Although Devlin declined to get specific, he did say that their first partner is “active in 3D sensing” and that a consumer device, though not a phone, would be shipping with Metalenz cameras in early 2022 — and later in 2022 will see a phone-based solution shipping as well.
In other words, while Metalenz is indeed a startup just coming out of stealth and raising its A round… it already has shipments planned on the order of tens of millions. The $10 million isn’t a bridge to commercial viability but short-term cash to hire and cover upfront costs associated with such a serious endeavor. It’s doubtful anyone on that list of investors harbors any serious doubts on ROI.
The 3D sensing thing is Metalenz’s first major application, but the company is already working on others. The potential to reduce complex lab equipment to handheld electronics that can be fielded easily is one, and improving the benchtop versions of tools with more light-gathering ability or quicker operation is another.
Though a device you use may in a few years have a Metalenz component in it, it’s likely you won’t know — the phone manufacturer will probably take all the credit for the improved performance or slimmer form factor. Nevertheless, it may show up in teardowns and bills of material, at which point you’ll know this particular university spin-out has made it to the big leagues.
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Global smartphone shipments expected to rebound 11% this year
Like countless other industries, mobile phone sales got hit hard in 2020. The industry hit a 10.5% decline for the year, as COVID-19 first decimated the supply and later consumer demand for devices. It was the latest in a rough couple of years for manufacturers, but 2020 hit significantly harder than most.
New numbers from Gartner point to a rebound to pre-2020 levels. The firm is forecasting 1.5 billion devices shipped globally for 2021, amounting to an 11.4% increase across the board. We certainly saw the beginnings of that rebound arrive in Q4 for last year, as declines continued to slow, thanks in no small part to a record quarter for iPhone sales.
That points to the beginnings of a so-called “supercycle” for Apple, which hits a sort of perfect storm. The last few years have seen consumers slow down upgrades, as device prices increased, features were generally less compelling and their existing devices were perfectly fine so as not to warrant a standard two to three year upgrade pattern.
Analysts pointed to 5G as a clear conduit for righting slipping sales numbers early last year, but a global pandemic very much threw a wrench in all of that. If anything, however, the iPhone’s COVID-19-related delay actually contributed to a stellar quarter for the company, both in time for holiday sales and the arrival of multiple vaccines that pointed to some potential return to normalcy.
The long-awaited 5G bump will continue in 2021, according to the new numbers, coupled with a quick push to offer next-gen wireless at an accessible price.
“The growing availability of 5G networks coupled with a higher variety of 5G smartphones starting at $200 will steer demand in mature markets and China,” the firm notes. “Demand in emerging countries will be driven by buyers looking for a smartphone with better specifications and a 5G connectivity as an optional feature. Gartner forecasts sales of 5G smartphones will total 539 million units worldwide in 2021, which will represent 35% of total smartphone sales in that year.”
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Omnispace raises $60M to fuse satellites and 5G into one ubiquitous network
5G has been on a tear the last few years as wireless operators and smartphone manufacturers have made a marketing push touting higher bandwidth and lower latency for users. Yet, for all the attention that 5G gets from consumers, some of the most important new applications for the next-generation wireless technology are actually on the enterprise side. The canonical example is self-driving cars, which will presumably rely on a combination of edge computing, low latency and high bandwidth in order to work.
Yet, there are far more applications that are perhaps even more interesting and more readily deployable today than AVs. On farms, connectivity can help with managing equipment, monitoring livestock and analyzing water usage to optimize plant growth. Logistics companies need to monitor global supply chains, tracking shipping containers as they wend their way around the world from port to port.
There’s just one problem: 5G wireless is hard to implement in rural areas where base stations are unprofitable to deploy and therefore few and far between. On the oceans of course, there are no wireless base stations at all.
DC-based Omnispace wants to offer ubiquitous 5G-compliant connectivity for enterprise users using a hybrid of wireless ground technology and satellites. The idea is that by integrating these two different modes — terrestrial and space — into one cohesive package, end users like agriculture and logistics companies wouldn’t have to transition their IoT connectivity between different types of technologies in order to secure the promise of 5G.
Today, the company announced a $60 million equity investment led by Joshua Pack of Fortress Investment Group, who serves as the burgeoning firm’s head of credit investing and also co-leads one of the firm’s SPACs, Fortress Value Acquisition. Existing investors Columbia Capital, Greenspring Associates, TDF Ventures and Telcom Ventures also participated in the round.
Omnispace started in 2012 as a holding company for wireless spectrum assets, particularly around the 2Ghz “S band” spectrum, which were purchased from the remnants of ICO Global, a satellite-based provider that had previously gone into bankruptcy. CEO Ram Viswanathan, who joined Omnispace in early 2016, said that the company started looking at how to use a technology layer to integrate its various assets together, eventually identifying an opportunity around global 5G connectivity with specific applications in IoT.
“The 5G rollout is going to be gated by the scope and rollout of mobile operators,” Viswanathan said. “Neither all of the landmass or customers are going to be covered” using traditional ground-based wireless technology. “Satellite’s main utility is really extending the reach of the network into more remote and rural areas.”
Viswanathan has spent decades in the satellite and wireless market, most recently as the co-founder of Devas Multimedia, an India-focused connectivity startup that has been embroiled in a long-running legal spat with the government there over the cancelation of the firm’s satellite launch, with U.S. courts recently ordering a government-affiliated commercialization business to pay Devas $1.2 billion in compensation.
While there is perhaps an easy comparable with SpaceX’s Starlink project, Omnispace is not focused on the consumer broadband market, but rather enterprise and IoT use cases. Furthermore, Omnispace is a hybrid network using a mix of different technologies, whereas Starlink is focused only on space deployment.
Omnispace is using its new capital from Fortress to flesh out its services and finish up pilot trials with some mobile operators and prepare the network for commercial usage starting in 2023, with the network ready in 2022. Viswanathan said that “our aim is to provide the service globally” with “a footprint that covers everywhere.”
Omnispace has contracted with Thales Alenia, part of the French space and defense conglomerate Thales Group, to execute on its space strategy. On the terrestrial side, it is tying together its spectrum assets and piloting with several mobile operators to bring out a cohesive solution, with early strength in Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
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Extra Crunch roundup: Edtech VC survey, 5 founder mistakes, fintech liquidity, more
Edtech is so widespread, we already need more consumer-friendly nomenclature to describe the products, services and tools it encompasses.
I know someone who reads stories to their grandchildren on two continents via Zoom each weekend. Is that “edtech?”
Similarly, many Netflix subscribers sought out online chess instructors after watching “The Queen’s Gambit,” but I doubt if they all ran searches for “remote learning” first.
Edtech needs to reach beyond underfunded public school systems to become more sustainable, which is why more investors and founders are focusing on lifelong learning.
Besides serving traditional students with field trips and art classes, a maturing sector is now branching out to offer software tutors, cooking classes and singing lessons.
For our latest investor survey, Natasha Mascarenhas polled 13 edtech VCs to learn more about how “employer-led up-skilling and a renewed interest in self-improvement” is expanding the sector’s TAM.
Here’s who she spoke to:
- Deborah Quazzo, managing partner, GSV Ventures
- Ashley Bittner, founding partner, Firework Ventures (a future of work fund with portfolio companies LearnIn and TransfrVR)
- Jomayra Herrera, principal, Cowboy Ventures (a generalist fund with portfolio companies Hone and Guild Education)
- John Danner, managing partner, Dunce Capital (an edtech and future of work fund with portfolio companies Lambda School and Outschool)
- Mercedes Bent and Bradley Twohig, partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners (a multistage generalist fund with investments including Forage, Clever and Outschool)
- Ian Chiu, managing director, Owl Ventures (a large edtech-focused fund backing highly valued companies including Byju’s, Newsela and Masterclass)
- Jan Lynn-Matern, founder and partner, Emerge Education (a leading edtech seed fund in Europe with portfolio companies like Aula, Unibuddy and BibliU)
- Benoit Wirz, partner, Brighteye Ventures (an active edtech-focused venture capital fund in Europe that backs YouSchool, Lightneer and Aula)
- Charles Birnbaum, partner, Bessemer Venture Partners (a generalist fund with portfolio companies including Guild Education and Brightwheel)
- Daniel Pianko, co-founder and managing director, University Ventures (a higher ed and future of work fund that is backing Imbellus and Admithub)
- Rebecca Kaden, managing partner, Union Square Ventures (a generalist fund with portfolio companies including TopHat, Quizlet, Duolingo)
- Andreata Muforo, partner, TLCom Capital (a generalist fund backing uLesson)
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Thanks very much for reading! I hope you have a fantastic weekend — we’ve all earned it.
Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist
13 investors say lifelong learning is taking edtech mainstream
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin
Rising African venture investment powers fintech, clean tech bets in 2020
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
After falling into yesterday’s wild news cycle, Alex Wilhelm returned to The Exchange this morning with a close look at venture capital activity across Africa in 2020.
“Comparing aggregate 2020 figures to 2019 results, it appears that last year was a somewhat robust year for African startups, albeit one with fewer large rounds,” he found.
For more context, he interviewed Dario Giuliani, the director of research firm Briter Bridges, which focuses on emerging markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Talent and capital are shifting cybersecurity investors’ focus away from Silicon Valley
Image Credits: MCCAIG (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
New cybersecurity ecosystems are popping up in different parts of the world.
Some of of that growth has been fueled by an exodus from the Bay Area, but many early-stage security startups already have deep roots in East Coast cities like Boston and New York.
In the United Kingdom and Europe, government innovation programs have helped entrepreneurs close higher numbers of Series A and B rounds.
Investor interest and expertise is migrating out of Silicon Valley: This post will help you understand where it’s going.
Will Apple’s spectacular iPhone 12 sales figures boost the smartphone industry in 2021?
Image Credits: NurPhoto (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Today’s smartphones are unfathomably feature-rich and durable, so it’s logical that sales have slowed.
A phone purchased 18 months ago is probably “good enough” for many consumers, especially in times of economic uncertainty.
Then again, of the record $111.4 billion in revenue Apple earned last quarter, $65.68 billion came from phone sales, largely driven by the release of the iPhone 12.
Even though “Apple’s success this quarter was kind of a perfect storm,” writes Hardware Editor Brian Heater, “it’s safe to project a rebound for the industry at large in 2021.”
The 5 biggest mistakes I made as a first-time startup founder
Image Credits: Randy Faris (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Finmark co-founder and CEO Rami Essaid wrote a post for Extra Crunch that candidly describes the traps he laid for himself that made him a less-effective entrepreneur.
As someone who’s worked closely with founders at several startups, each of the points he raised resonated deeply with me.
In my experience, many founders have a hard time delegating, which can quickly create cultural and operational problems. Rami’s experience bears this out:
“I became a human GPS: People could follow my directions, but they struggled to find the way themselves. Independent thinking suffered.”
Dear Sophie: How can I sponsor my mom and stepdad for green cards?
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch
Dear Sophie:
I just got my U.S. citizenship! My husband and I want to bring my mom and her husband to the U.S. to help us take care of our preschooler and toddler.
My biological dad passed away several years ago when I was an adult and my mom has since remarried.
— Appreciative in Aptos
Check out the amazing speakers joining us on Extra Crunch Live in February
Next month, Extra Crunch Live returns with a lineup of guests who are extremely well-qualified to discuss early-stage startups.
Each Wednesday at noon PPST/3 p.m. EST, join a conversation with founders and the investors who backed their companies:
February 3:
Gaurav Gupta (Lightspeed Venture Partners) + Raj Dutt (Grafana Labs)
February 10:
Aydin Senkut (Felicis Ventures) + Kevin Busque (Guideline)
February 17:
Steve Loughlin (Accel) + Jason Boehmig (Ironclad)
February 24:
Matt Harris (Bain Capital) + Isaac Oates (Justworks)
Also, we’re adding a new feature to Extra Crunch Live — our guests will offer advice and feedback on pitch decks submitted by Extra Crunch members in the audience!
10 VCs say interactivity, regulation and independent creators will reshape digital media in 2021
Image Credits: Aleksandar Nakic (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Since the pandemic disrupted the social rhythms of work and school, many of us have compensated by changing our relationship to digital media.
For instance, I purchased a new sofa and thicker living room curtains several months ago when I realized we have no idea when movie theaters will reopen.
Last year, podcast sponsors spent almost $800 million to reach listeners, but ad revenue is estimated to surpass $1 billion this year. Clearly, I’m not the only person who used a discount code to buy a new product in 2020.
At this point, I can scarcely keep track of the multiple streaming platforms I’m subscribed to, but a new voice-activated remote control that comes with my basic cable plan makes it easier to browse my options.
Media reporter Anthony Ha spoke to10 VCs who invest in media startups to learn more about where they see digital media heading in the months ahead. For starters, how much longer can we expect traditional advertising models to persist?
And in a world with hundreds of channels, how are creators supposed to compete for our attention? What sort of discovery tools can we expect to help us navigate between a police procedural set in a Scandinavian village and a 90s sitcom reboot?
Here’s who Anthony interviewed:
- Daniel Gulati, founding partner, Forecast Fund
- Alex Gurevich, managing director, Javelin Venture Partners
- Matthew Hartman, partner, Betaworks Ventures
- Jerry Lu, senior associate, Maveron
- Jana Messerschmidt, partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
- Michael Palank, general partner, MaC Venture Capital (with additional commentary from MaC’s Marlon Nichols)
- Pär-Jörgen Pärson, general partner, Northzone
- M.G. Siegler, general partner, GV
- Laurel Touby, managing director, Supernode Ventures
- Hans Tung, managing partner, GGV Capital
Normally, we list each investor’s responses separately, but for this survey, we grouped their responses by question. Some readers say they use our surveys to study up on an individual VC before pitching them, so let us know which format you prefer.
Does a $27 billion or $29 billion valuation make sense for Databricks?
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
Data analytics platform Databricks is reportedly raising new capital that could value the company between $27 billion and $29 billion.
By the end of Q3 2020, Databricks had surpassed a $350 million run rate — a $150 million YoY increase, reports Alex Wilhelm.
At the time, he described the company as “an obvious IPO candidate” with “broad private-market options.”
Which begs the question: “Can we come up with a set of numbers that help make sense of Databricks at $27 billion?”
End-to-end operators are the next generation of consumer business
Image Credits: Natalia Timchenko (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Rapid shifts in the way we buy goods and services disrupted old-school marketplaces like local newspapers and the Yellow Pages.
Today, I can use my phone to summon a plumber, a week’s worth of groceries or a ride to a doctor’s office.
End-to-end operators like Netflix, Peloton and Lemonade take a lot of time and energy to reach scale, but “the additional capital required is often outweighed by the value captured from owning the entire experience.”
Unpacking Chamath Palihapitiya’s SPAC deals for Latch and Sunlight Financial
Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)
On January 25, Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya tweeted that he was making two blank-check deals.
Enterprise SaaS company Latch makes keyless entry systems; Sunlight Financial helps consumers finance residential solar power installations.
“There are nearly 300 SPACs in the market today looking for deals,” noted Alex Wilhelm, who unpacked both transactions.
“There’s no escaping SPACs for a bit, so if you are tired of watching blind pools rip private companies into the public markets, you are not going to have a very good next few months.”
Fintechs could see $100 billion of liquidity in 2021
Image Credits: dan tarradellas (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
On Monday, we published the Matrix Fintech Index, a three-part study that weighs liquidity, public markets and e-commerce trends to create a snapshot of an industry in perpetual flux.
For four years running, the S&P 500 and incumbent financial services companies have been outperformed by companies like Afterpay, Square and Bill.com.
In light of steady VC investment, increasing consumer adoption and a crowded IPO pipeline, “fintech represents one of the most exciting major innovation cycles of this decade.”
Drupal’s journey from dorm-room project to billion-dollar exit
Image Credits: Acquia
On January 15, 2001, then-college student Dries Buytaert released Drupal 1.0.0, an open-source content-management platform. At the time, about 7% of the world’s population was online.
After raising more than $180 million, Buytaert exited to Vista Equity Partners for $1 billion in 2019.
Enterprise reporter Ron Miller interviewed Buytaert to learn more about his 18-year journey.
“His story is compelling, but it also offers lessons for startup founders who also want to build something big,” says Ron.
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