Gopuff launches scheduled deliveries, gifting and in-store pickup

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Rapid grocery deliver startups like Getir, Gopuff and Gorillas, once heralded as the next big thing in on-demand ordering, are running up against logistical challenges that might very well be insurmountable. Even faced with competition and sky-high operating costs, though, they’re taking what steps they can to stick around. Case in point, Gopuff today launched features aimed at eliminating some of the platform’s biggest pain points, like the inability to schedule orders ahead or pick up orders from nearby stockrooms.

Starting today, Gopuff customers can place an order when the Gopuff marketplace closes — the exact hours depend on the market — to have Gopuff deliver the order as soon as it reopens. (Needless to say, this doesn’t apply to locations where Gopuff delivers 24/7.) Alternatively, customers can schedule an order in advance for a specific date and time, similar to most major food delivery apps, or arrange for an order to be picked up where Gopuff offers retail and in-store shopping.

The in-store shopping experience remains rather limited. According to Gopuff, only in BevMo! outlets — recall that Gopuff acquired BevMo!, the alcohol retailer, for $350 million in 2020 — and locations in New York City is shopping in-store an option. Strictly pickup of online orders will be offered at “many” locations, however, Gopuff says (it’s unclear just how many), with the hours mirroring that of in-app ordering.

Gopuff is also introducing gifting, which will allow customers to add gifts to their cart for recipients both on and off the platform. Once they enter the recipient’s address, name and phone number and a gift message, both the gift recipient and the sender will receive a text message confirming a gift order is being prepared. The recipient will also receive SMS alerts when the order is close by, delivered or canceled.

Gopuff didn’t initially respond to TechCrunch’s question about whether gift recipients’ information are retained for marketing or other purposes. Gopuff, like many app-based products and services, collects a broad swath of personal information that it reserves the right to use for ad targeting and promoting its subscription services, as well as sharing with third parties including business partners and “affiliates and subsidiaries.”

In a follow-up email, a Gopuff spokesperson clarified that gift recipient info isn’t retained for use in these ways.

The new features are only available via the latest Gopuff app (version 8.1.0), the company notes, which began rolling out nationwide this morning.

Gopuff has had a rough go of it lately, no pun intended. Originally intending to IPO as soon as mid-2022 after tapping ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger as an advisor and investor, Gopuff this summer pulled out of Spain, one of its markets, to slash costs, and laid off 10% of its global workforce. Further cuts hit Gopuff in October — mainly affecting various customer service departments — as the startup reportedly looked to secure a credit line as high as $300 million to buffet against inflationary headwinds.

Gopuff launches scheduled deliveries, gifting and in-store pickup by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2445349

Elon Musk talked about laying off 75% of employees; he may have just gotten his wish

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When Peter Clowes last updated his LinkedIn profile, he listed his role as “Layoff Survivor” at Twitter. Yet Clowes, a senior software engineer who joined the company in the spring of 2020, is now gone, too. He quit yesterday, dispassionately explaining last night on Twitter that he decided to leave not because to hobble Twitter or because he hates its new owner, Elon Musk, but simply because he no longer had any incentive to stay.

It now appears that a significant percentage of Clowes’s colleagues felt the same way. While they weren’t part of the 50% of Twitter employees who lost their jobs at the end of October in an unprecedented layoff at the social media outfit, as its 3,700 remaining staffers, they were presented with an ultimatum this week by Musk. The choice that he presented to them: commit to a new “extremely hardcore” Twitter, “working long hours at high intensity,” or leave the company with three months of severance pay.

A Hobson’s choice, essentially, Musk was clearly hoping that some percentage of Twitter’s remaining employees — who are expensive and who he had no say in hiring —  would opt to leave the company. In fact, Musk reportedly told investors he might slash 75% of staff before taking over the company, so whether he’s in shock today or celebrating their mass exodus is only something Musk and his inner circle knows.

Certainly, the numbers are stunning to nearly everyone else. The New York Times reported earlier today that based on its sources’ internal estimates, at least 1,200 full-time employees just handed in their figurative key cards. Clowes, in a long series of tweets about his own departure, suggests the number could be even higher. Talking about his own “org,” he writes that “85%+” of his colleagues were laid off in October and that a stunning “80%” of those who remained opted out yesterday.

Indeed, what strikes us, reading Clowes’s explanation about why he left, isn’t that so many people walked out with him. It’s almost more astonishing that 100% of employees didn’t leave, raising questions about who Musk thought would stick around. If he wanted only those employees with no choice but to kill themselves for now, that seems . . . like a flawed business strategy.

Otherwise, if Musk was hoping to hold onto anyone else, one assumes a carrot would have been offered. Instead, as Clowes wrote yesterday, there were only sticks, and lots of them.

Clowes wrote, for example, that left because he “no longer knew what I was staying for. Previously I was staying for the people, the vision, and of course the money (lets all be honest). All of those were radically changed or uncertain.”

Clowes left because had he stayed he “would have been on-call constantly with little support for an indeterminate amount of time on several additional complex systems I had no experience in.”

He left because he saw no upside to Musk’s brash management style, which Clowes suggests he could have tolerated longer if he wasn’t operating wholly in the dark. Instead, by his telling, Musk still hasn’t shared a vision for the platform with employees. “No 5 year plan like at Tesla,” wrote Clowes. “Nothing more than what anyone can see on Twitter. It allegedly is coming for those who stayed, but the ask was blind faith and required signing away the severance offer before seeing it. Pure loyalty test.”

There has been so little communication from the top that rumors and speculation have run rampant, Clowes suggested. Among staffers’ apparent concerns: that not only would Twitter become subscription based but that possibly “adult content: could become a core component of subscription offerings, wrote Clowes. (Underscoring how little insiders have been told, Clowes then referred readers to a Wired story about a Washington Post story about Musk’s reported discussions with employees about monetizing adult content on Twitter.)

Last but not least, wrote Clowes, there was “no retention plan for those that stayed. No clear upside for sticking it through the storm on the horizon. Just ‘trust us’ style verbal promises.”

By yesterday, he was living in a world where his “friends are gone, the vision is murky, there is a storm coming and a no financial upside. What would you do?” he continued. “Would you sacrifice time with your kids over the holidays for vague assurances and the opportunity to make a rich person richer or would you take the out?”

You would take the out, which Musk surely expected.

The question is whether he can build back with who’s left before the whole thing caves in.

Elon Musk talked about laying off 75% of employees; he may have just gotten his wish by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2445673

Daily Crunch: Google upgrades Search, Shopping and Maps with more data, AR and accessibility

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Hello! You’ve got one more day of just me before I take a well-deserved Friday off and Kyle fills in, so I have decided to make an extra-large version of Daily Crunch. We hope many of you are hanging out with the cryptocurrency gang down in Miami for TC Sessions: Crypto. As you can see, a few stories have come out of it already and I’m sure there is more to come.

Oh, and if you have 30 minutes of downtime, I think you’ll enjoy Alex’s interview with some corporate comms experts on the ins and outs of working with startups and public companies. Also, check out Haje’s Pitch Deck Teardown of Sateliot, which has a lot going for it, but needs last names for its team members.

Let’s dig into today’s news! — Christine

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Feature dump: For those of you who love to use Google Maps, Google Search and Google Shopping, boy, does the company have some new features for you. Aisha breaks them down.
• Putting money where your mouth is: Index Ventures is betting that the economic downturn will inspire the creation of more startups and is putting $300 million on that horse to win, Mike writes.
• “A goal without a plan is just a wish”: Mozilla released its “State of Mozilla” report today, and Frederic has a look at how the Firefox maker sees its next chapter.

Startups and VC

More cybersecurity M&A happening here as Ingrid reports that Palo Alto Networks is buying Cider Security in a deal said to be valued at up to $300 million. This is a move that she writes has been rumored for a bit, but now some pieces have fallen into place, including telling investors, that make it more apt to be happening.

Mary Ann spoke with some crypto-focused venture capitalists who told her that they were already proceeding with caution when it came to deploying their funds into cryptocurrency but are now worried that fallout from FTX’s collapse may make it harder to get limited partners on board for future funds.

And we have six more for you:

• Driving more than deliveries: General Motors’ e-delivery van subsidiary BrightDrop says it is on the road to reaching $1 billion in revenue next year. Jaclyn has more.
• Adventure is out there!: Gravitics raises $20 million and wants to be the go-to source for standard parts that will enable us to live and work in space, Aria reports.
• Learn from someone who’s also been in the trenches: Mike was covering the Slush conference this week and writes up comments from Atomico CEO Niklas Zennström, who says it’s time for founders and VCs to be okay with down rounds.
• Don’t read anything into this: Contracts are the way of the world, but also a good way to make your head spin. Enter Terzo, which Kyle reports raised $16 million to extract key data from contracts so you can save the aspirin for another day.
• Bringing some pizzazz back to corporate retreats: Remote work got us all over the place, but BoomPop designs high-end offsites so that even the most far-flung employee can feel connected, Connie reports.
• Making history: In case you missed it, Christine wrote about how Upside Foods was the first cultivated meat company to essentially receive a blessing from the FDA and that its cell-cultured chicken production method was safe.

SaaS startups that ignored VC advice to cut sales and marketing were better off this year

Image Credits: Andriy Onufriyenko (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Many VCs advised founders to dial back their sales and marketing outlays to preserve runway this year. And, as it turns out, many VCs have been giving the wrong advice.

According to data from Capchase, a fintech that offers startups nondilutive capital, “companies that didn’t cut spending on sales and marketing were in a better financial and growth position now than those that did when the market started to dip in 2022,” reports Rebecca Szkutak.

Of the 500 companies surveyed, bootstrapped firms showed the strongest growth, said Miguel Fernandez, Capchase’s co-founder and CEO:

“What we have seen in this case, and what is most interesting, is the best companies have actually cut every other cost except sales and marketing.”

SaaS startups that ignored VC advice to cut sales and marketing were better off this year

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Overindulging in all that glory might have been your undoing: When someone gives you the chance to work on something big, you don’t question it. However, in FTX’s case, Alex writes that maybe the beleaguered company “was the real poster child for 2021’s startup excess.”
• Slow adoption: Service 1st Financial grabbed $20 million to sell homeowners on better ways to upgrade their HVAC systems. Tim has more.
• The aftermath: Jacquelyn examines how FTX’s collapse affected market makers and funds.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Please enjoy Brian’s extra-large Actuator newsletter today, where he breaks down Boston’s tech scene, going all over the city, talking to Tye Brady, getting in some work with robotics, and taking “a field trip to some of Boston’s best startups.”

For those of you who like to tweet in threads, Twitter is working on a feature for you that will divide long text into a thread automatically, Ivan reports. This move will reduce the need to break up all of your carefully curated word vomit into 280-character segments.

Meanwhile, over in Binance land, co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, spoke with Anita this morning at TC Sessions: Crypto, and Romain grabbed some of the highlights, including CZ’s thoughts on FTX: “We were the last straw that broke the camel’s back.” Then Manish pulled out some of CZ’s comments as they relate to Binance’s business viability in India. Namely, there is none.

Today, there are six more we thought you should read:

• On cloud nine: Apple’s iCloud website is a little different now with apps that look like widget-styled tiles instead of icons, Ivan writes.
• More layoffs: Roku says it is also cutting jobs, citing economic conditions for why 200 U.S. employees will be let go, Lauren writes.
• Controlling misinformation: PR software giant Cision acquired Factmata, which, if you don’t know, is fighting fake news, Ingrid reports.
• Car porn: Toyota’s new all-electric SUV concept has a sleek look and plant-based seating, Jaclyn reports.
• Surprise, surprise, surprise: Blizzard Activision shocked us all by suspending most of its games in China, citing expiration of licensing agreements with NetEase. Rita has more.
• Hello, my name is…: We’ve been following the Meta India departures, but now have some news that Meta appointed a new India head, Manish reports.

Daily Crunch: Google upgrades Search, Shopping and Maps with more data, AR and accessibility by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2444899

Daily Crunch: Nigerian startup that stored its ‘day-to-day operational budget’ on FTX announces staff cuts

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Hello, and welcome to the beginning of another week. As mentioned last Friday, Haje is off scuba diving, leaving the rest of us to pick up the Twitter and FTX pieces. No bother, we are here for you. Mary Ann starts us off by reporting on SoftBank writing down an almost $100 million investment into FTX. And with that, let’s dig in! — Christine

The TechCrunch Top 3

• This FTX business has wide reach: Tage reports on what happens to a young company that held some assets in FTX and now can’t access them due to, well, you know. In this instance, African web3 startup Nestcoin said it had to lay off employees as a result of not having that access.
• A true comparison: Now people in Europe can know the joy and wonder that is the Klarna price comparison tool, which Paul writes may just be a “credible alternative to Google and Amazon.”
• Oops: Bird, a micromobility company, told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it had included unpaid customer rides in its revenue, thus having overstated that particular number for two years. Jaclyn has more.

Startups and VC

At this point, we all expect our data to move pretty quickly, but there is so much of it that it’s still a headache. This is where Quix comes in, Mike writes. The real-time data startup grabbed $12.9 million in Series A funding, not to do this with ksqlDB, Java-based solutions or any of those fancy schmancy SQL-based analytics solutions. Oh no, Quix is developing event-driven applications with Python.

And we have five more for you:

• The show must go on: Just because FTX is having issues doesn’t mean other companies are shying away from association. Jacquelyn reports on the Joepegs NFT marketplace, which raised $5 million in a round co-led by FTX and Avalanche.
• “Adult friendships are fickle beasts”: Indeed they are, but have no fear, 222 will help you find that perfect friend who doesn’t care that you make more than they do or who “tends to be lazy,” if that’s what you’re into, Kyle writes.
• Singapore, get your exotic taste buds ready: Vow, an Australian-based cultured meat company, gobbled up $49.2 million in Series A funding to get its first cell-based meat product into Singapore restaurants, Christine writes.
• Spring into action: Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future signed a $350 million financing deal to hopefully get it out of its previous monetary challenges and to launch its first vehicle, Jaclyn reports.
• “The sun’s a ball of buttah”: Butter, now flush with $9 million in funding, led by Gradient Ventures, is helping smaller food distribution businesses comply with food safety rules, Catherine writes.

Preparing for fintech’s second decade: 4 moves your firm must make now

Image Credits: Emilija Manevska (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

According to consultant Grant Easterbrook, fintech startups that hope to succeed over the next few years must be prepared to go up against:

• Major banks and financial service providers with loyalty programs and “super apps.”
• Emerging DeFi protocols “that can offer financial products that involve real-world assets.”
• Banking, invoicing, lending, payments, accounting packaged as “embedded financial products.”
• Multiple countries issuing their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

“Your firm will need a very strong value proposition to compete with all four types of competitors,” writes Easterbrook, who shares his ideas for navigating the next decade of fintech in a TC+ guest post.

Preparing for fintech’s second decade: 4 moves your firm must make now

Two more from the TC+ team:

• See, Mom? Layoffs can teach us something: The big tech layoffs have not been great, but Natasha M writes that even though we could see more, entrepreneur Nolan Church, who helped lead Carta’s 2020 layoffs as its chief people officer, has some perspective on Twitter’s recent layoffs.
• If VCs aren’t investing in you, who are they investing in?: That’s what Becca discusses in her latest piece that looks at all the dry powder in the VC world, and why it’s not yet being deployed.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

And just like that, VLC’s download ban in India was lifted, Manish reports. Nine months ago, the country’s electronics and IT ministry instituted the ban on the popular media playback software, something VLC worked to try to reverse, stating that the ban had been “put into place without any prior notice” and didn’t allow VLC a chance for rebuttal.

Natasha L has more on our favorite social media channel, this time writing that “Twitter is no longer fulfilling key obligations required for it to claim Ireland as its “so-called main establishment under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.” Can’t wait to see where this goes.

And we have five more for you:

• If you’re wondering when you can edit your Twitter name…: Ingrid reports that organizations will soon get their verified accounts, while Twitter Blue sign-ups and name changes will come back this week. 
• If you’re wondering when your food will get here…: DoorDash has some new safety features for its delivery people, Aisha writes.
• If you’re wondering if it’s sweater weather…: Lauren reports that Hulu Live TV can now be that source of information, adding 14 channels, including Hallmark and the Weather Channel.
• If you’re wondering who unlocked your Android…: Zack writes that Google rewarded a security researcher with $70,000 after that person reported a lock screen bypass bug.
• If you’re wondering how Apple collects data…: Then you might want to pay close attention to this new lawsuit involving Apple and its data collection practices in first-party apps. Sarah has more.

Daily Crunch: Nigerian startup that stored its ‘day-to-day operational budget’ on FTX announces staff cuts  by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2442272

Daily Crunch: Sequoia Capital writes off its $210M investment in crypto exchange FTX

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Tech reporting is a lot of things, but it sure ain’t boring, as the chaos around Twitter, crypto, and layoffs continues. We’re just trying to hang on for dear life to try to make some sense of it all. We think we did a pretty decent job, and here, we’ve got a selection of what’s been happening in the past 24 hours of tech. — Christine and Haje.

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Another domino falls: It was probably already a fiasco, but Binance deciding to not buy FTX led Sequoia Capital to claim its minority stake in FTX as nothing more than some unrealized gains, Connie reports. Investor letter and everything.
• Meanwhile, over at our other favorite hot mess: Elon Musk was right when he tweeted that the company would be doing “lots of dumb things.” Darrell reports on one of its latest take-backs (because they seem to accumulate before we even have time to take a breath), where all of these accounts were promised that little blue checkmark in exchange for $8, but as you all know, when you make fake accounts, that means we can’t have nice things.
• More Twitter changes: Another group of top dogs at Twitter decided to leave the nest. This time it is chief information security officer Lea Kissner, followed by chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty and chief privacy officer Damien Kieran. The latter two have reportedly resigned today, according to Zack and Ingrid, who teamed up to chase down the details.

Startups and VC

Denver-based VC firm SpringTime Ventures is pivoting away from its original focus on its home state of Colorado, despite being the only local fund in two of the state’s 10 unicorn companies, Becca reports. It’s also now able to expand its team thanks to raising three times as much money for Fund II, giving SpringTime enough cash on hand to allow its partners to finally pay themselves “a real salary.”

New crypto startups forged ahead during Alliance DAO’s demo day on Wednesday amid the FTX implosion. The most recent cohort, known as All9, for Alliance DAO, a web3 accelerator and builder community, presented their ideas on Wednesday during a demo day, exclusively covered by Jacquelyn.

And here’s a smattering of other things that caught our beady little eyes today:

• If you’re only moderately broken, these startups can moderately fix you: Mike reports how “Self-therapy” startups are blooming in the “moderate mental health” space.
• We shall know you by your high five: With $7 million raised, Brian reports, Keyo launches a biometric palm verification network.
• Your Excel, up to the minute: Coefficient wants to bring live data into your existing spreadsheets, writes Kyle.
• Tracking pollution with sensors: Airly fights air pollution with a network of affordable sensors, Catherine reports.
• Subscriptions finding their groove: Ingrid reports that Ordergroove picks up $100 million to grow e-commerce subscriptions as a service.

Use IRS Code Section 1202 to sell your multimillion-dollar startup tax-free

Image Credits: BrianAJackson (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Founding teams usually select a corporate structure like an LLC or S-Corp, but those who hope to exit for $10 million or more should consider starting up as a Qualified Small Business (QSB) C-Corporation, advises tax attorney Vincent Aiello.

Under IRS Code Section 1202, founders who hold QSB stock for five years or longer will be exempt from paying capital gains tax after a sale.

“It constitutes a significant tax savings benefit for entrepreneurs and small business investors,” Aiello says. “However, the effect of the exclusion ultimately depends on when the stock was acquired, the trade or business being operated, and various other factors.”

Use IRS Code Section 1202 to sell your multimillion-dollar startup tax-free

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Smart dog collars, smart pitch deck?: Pitch Deck Teardown: Syneroid’s $500K seed deck, by Haje.
• Hitting rock bottom…maybe?: Alex wonders, As inflation slows, did we just see the bottom for tech stocks?
• In a crisis, don’t hide — double down!: Guest author Vadym Synegin writes that in times of crisis, fintech startups should take the long view instead of hibernating.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Elon Musk wants Twitter workers in the office and wants them battling spam. Those were some of the messages the new owner had for his social media staff, Ivan writes. Oh, he also told them to be ready for “difficult times ahead,” which is always something you want to hear from your leader with regard to the future of your job.

After the Binance deal fell through, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has some new focuses: winding down trading at Alameda Research and winding up his fundraising prowess, Manish reports.

We promise, no more FTX or Twitter below:

• Want to see a bin-picking robot?: You’re in luck! Meet the Amazon Sparrow. Brian has more.
• Ole, Ole Ole Ole: Starting November 20, FIFA World Cup fans will have an easier time following their favorite teams thanks to Google’s new cross-platform features, Ivan writes.
• Californians want more electric cars but don’t want to pay for them: One of the losers this week was Prop 30, a Lyft-backed plan that would have taxed California residents so that the price of electric cars and public charging stations could be subsidized, Harri reports.
• Arrested development: Police arrest suspected LockBit operator just as the ransomware gang leaks more data, Carly writes.
• Mute fast, mute often: Reddit users who don’t want to see a certain community can now mute it. Aisha has more.

Daily Crunch: Sequoia Capital writes off its $210M investment in crypto exchange FTX by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2440532

Alation bags $123M at a $1.7B valuation for its data-cataloging software

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There’s been an explosion of enterprise data in recent years, accelerated by pandemic-spurred digital transformations. An IDC report commissioned by Seagate projected companies would collect 42.2% more data by year-end 2022 than in 2020, amounting to multiple petabytes of data in total. While more data is generally a good thing, particularly where it concerns analytics, large volumes can be overwhelming to organize and govern — even for the savviest of organizations.

That’s why Satyen Sangani, a former Oracle VP, co-founded Redwood City–based Alation, a startup that helps crawl a company’s databases in order to build data search catalogs. After growing its customer base to over 450 brands and annual recurring revenue (ARR) to over $100 million, Alation has raised $123 million in a Series E round led by Thoma Bravo, Sanabil Investments, and Costanoa Ventures with participation from Databricks Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Icon Ventures, Queensland Investment Corporation, Riverwood Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and Union Grove, the company announced today.

The all-equity tranche values Alation at over $1.7 billion — an impressive 15 times higher than the company’s previous valuation in a challenging economic climate. In an interview with TechCrunch, Sangani said the new capital — which brings Alation’s total raised to $340 million — will be put toward investments in product development (including through acquisitions) and expanding Alation’s sales, engineering and marketing teams, with a focus on the public sector and corporations based in Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

“With the capital, we will continue to focus on engagement and adoption, collaboration, governance, lineage, and on APIs and SDKs to enable us to be open and extensible,” Sangani said via email. “We’re going to bring innovation to the market that will increase the number of data assets we cover and the people who will leverage and access Alation.”

With Alation, Sangani and his fellow co-founders — Aaron Kalb, Feng Niu and Venky Ganti — sought to build a service that enables data and analytics teams to capture and understand the full breadth of their data. The way Sangani sees it, most corporate leadership wants to build a “data-driven” culture but is stymied by tech hurdles and a lack of knowledge about what data they have, where it lives, whether it’s trustworthy and how to make the best use of it.

Alation’s platform organizes data across disparate systems. Image Credits: Alation

According to Forrester, somewhere between 60% and 73% of data produced by enterprises goes unused for analytics. And if a recent poll by Oracle is to be believed, 95% of people say they’re overwhelmed by the amount of data available to them in the workplace.

“With the astounding amount of data being produced today, it’s increasingly difficult for companies to collect, structure, and analyze the data they create,” Sangani said. “The modern enterprise relies on data intelligence and data integration solutions to provide access to valuable insights that feed critical business outcomes. Alation is foundational for driving digital transformation.”

Alation uses machine learning to automatically parse and organize data like technical metadata, user permissions and business descriptions from sources like Redshift, Hive, Presto, Spark and Teradata. Customers can visually track the usage of assets like business glossaries, data dictionaries and Wiki articles through the Alation platform’s reporting feature, or they can use Alation’s collaboration tools to create lists, annotations, comments and polls to organize data across different software and systems.

Alation also makes recommendations based on how information is being used and orchestrated. For example, the platform suggests ways customers can centrally manage their data and compliance policies through the use of integrations and data connectors.

“Alation’s machine learning contributes to data search, data stewardship, business glossary, and data lineage,” Sangani said. “More specifically, Alation’s behavioral analysis engine spots behavioral patterns and leverages AI and machine learning to make data more user-friendly. For example, search is simplified by highlighting the most popular assets; stewardship is eased by emphasizing the most active data sets; and governance becomes a part of workflow through flags and suggestions.”

According to IDC, the data integration and intelligence software market is valued at more than $7.9 billion and growing toward $11.6 billion over the next four years. But Alation isn’t the sole vendor. The startup’s competition includes incumbents like Informatica, IBM, SAP and Oracle, as well as newer rivals such as Collibra, Castor, Stemma, Data.World and Ataccama, all of whom offer tools for classifying and curating data at enterprise scale.

One of Alation’s advantages is sheer momentum, no doubt — its customer base includes heavyweights like Cisco, General Mills, Munich Re, Pfizer, Nasdaq and Salesforce, in addition to government agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and Australia’s Department of Defense. Alation counts more than 25% of the Fortune 100 as clients, touching verticals such as finance, healthcare, pharma, manufacturing, retail, insurance and tech.

In terms of revenue coming in, Sangani claims that Alation — which has more than 700 employees and expects to be at just under 800 by 2023 — is in a healthy position, pegging the firm’s cumulative-cash-burn-to-ARR ratio at around 1.5x. Despite the downturn, he asserts that customer spend is remaining strong as the demand for data catalog software grows; for the past five quarters, Alation’s ARR has increased year over year.

In another win for Alation, the investment from Databricks Ventures is strategic, Sangani says. It’ll see the two companies jointly develop engineering, data science and analytics applications that leverage both Databricks’ and Alations’ platforms.

“The most successful data intelligence platforms will be adopted by everyone. Vendors that are jack-of-all-trades, but masters of none, promise everything and succeed at little. Similarly, point products achieve limited success, but only serve to create data silos that our customers are trying to avoid. The future of data intelligence is about connectedness and integration,” Sangani said. “We know that and will continue to put our money behind our beliefs.”

Alation bags $123M at a $1.7B valuation for its data-cataloging software by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2434579

Elon Musk refutes Twitter layoff timing to affect year-end compensation

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Elon Musk, Chief Twit, has refuted claims from a New York Times report this weekend that states he plans to lay off employees before Tuesday, November 1, thus cutting staff off from receiving stock grants as part of their compensation.

In response to a tweet from Eric Umansky, deputy managing editor of ProPublica, that said Musk was “making sure to fire people at Twitter before part of their year-end compensation kicks in on Tuesday,” Musk said: “This is false.” He didn’t provide any clarification about what, specifically, was false.

This is false

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2022

Umansky’s tweet included a screenshot of a highlighted portion of the NYT story that also noted stock grants make up a significant portion of an employee’s pay, and by laying off workers before that date, Musk may avoid paying the grants.

Musk did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for clarification on whether the layoffs will affect stock compensation. He may very well have been refuting the entire NYT article, which stated Musk is said to have ordered job cuts across the company, citing “four people with knowledge of the matter.” But that seems unlikely, given the layoffs that are already underway.

Previous reports said Musk would layoff 75% of Twitter’s staff, but last week when the executive visited Twitter headquarters, he said those numbers weren’t correct. Still, reports have been surfacing about various layoffs at the social media company, including of top Twitter executives like CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde.

Musk’s $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter went through late on Thursday last week. The New York Stock Exchange stopped trading Twitter’s stock on Friday morning, where it had been listed since 2013. Twitter will officially be delisted from the stock exchange on November 8.

Current shareholders will be paid $54.20, Musks’s buying price, per share. It’s not clear how Twitter’s now-private status will affect current employees with stock grants.

Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

Elon Musk refutes Twitter layoff timing to affect year-end compensation by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2433619

GM pauses paid advertising on Twitter as Chief Twit Elon Musk takes ownership

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General Motors has temporarily paused paid advertising on Twitter, one day after billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk finalized a $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform.

CNBC was the first to report GM’s decision. TechCrunch confirmed the U.S. automaker’s decision.

“We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,” the company said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. “As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue.”

It’s unclear what percentage of GM’s total advertising budget is dedicated to Twitter.

Most, if not all, automakers have a presence on Twitter. Although not all of them opt for paid advertising.

Ford, GM, Stellantis, Porsche, VW and Volvo are just a handful of the established automakers along with newer companies like Rivian that have social media accounts on the platform. Fisker is still on Twitter even after its founder and CEO Henrik Fisker deleted his personal account in April following the announcement of the Musk-Twitter deal.

Musk tried to quell advertisers’ fear earlier this week with a note posted on his personal Twitter account about his intended approach to running the social media platform.

Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022

“There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising,” Musk wrote. “Most of it has been wrong.” He went on to write that he believes Twitter has the potential to be a “common digital town square,” and that the platform cannot be “a free-for-all hellscape.”

Musk’s promises might not be enough for GM as it seeks to compete and even surpass Tesla in EV sales.

GM pauses paid advertising on Twitter as Chief Twit Elon Musk takes ownership by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2433512

Daily Crunch: AI content developer Jasper now valued at $1.5B following capital infusion

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To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

The newsletter is a little later than usual today and for the next three days. Don’t worry, it’s for fun reasons: We want to be the first to tell you about the awesomeness that is our TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield companies. Find ’em in our special Battlefield section belooooow! And, this is the first time EVER, that we are writing Daily Crunch, sitting next to each other, IRL. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Someone’s having a good day: Jasper, which calls itself an “AI content” developer, raised its first round of funding ever — and a big one at that, at $125 million, to give it a $1.5 billion valuation, Kyle reports. It also comes as the company is in the process of acquiring a grammar- and style-checking platform, Outwrite.
• Turning renters into owners: Christine provides an update on Landis, which raised $40 million in Series B funding. The company buys homes on behalf of clients while also providing a patch for them to build up their credit and eventually get a mortgage on the home they rent.
• So, Apple had an event: Romain gives you a look at the new entry-level iPad that he says looks just like the iPad Pro. Alas, it’s also more expensive, but you get a larger screen. Priorities, amirite?

Startups and VC

Venture capital funds focusing on niche sectors are “in,” according to Connie, and Will Ventures is here for it. Christine reports that the low-flying, Boston-based venture outfit just tripled the size of its second fund to $150 million thanks to its approach of investing in sports technologies with the help of its community of athlete backers who help promote and grow the portfolio companies.

Turo, the peer-to-peer car-sharing platform that’s been described as the Airbnb for cars, will expand to Australia before the end of the year, Rebecca reports. Local car owners in all major cities, including Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane, can join the waitlist on Turo’s website.

Okay, fine, have a few more:

• Giving birth to a new startup: “She Matters” is the name and mission of a BIPOC-focused postpartum-care startup, Andrew reports.
• For you, special price: Kyle reports that Enable lands $94 million to help B2B companies manage their rebate programs.
• At the P&L, turn left: Drivetrain is the “Google Maps for business growth,” writes Catherine.
• E-shopping for the win: Kenzz, an Egyptian e-commerce platform for the mass market, grabs $3.5 million seed funding, writes Tage.
• Tap to spark: Matt reports that Jane Technologies launches its first iOS app for cannabis shopping.

News Drops from Disrupt

Crypto accelerator: Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon dishes to Anita about a “Crypto Startup School,” an inaugural accelerator program that will kick off next year in Los Angeles. He also provided more info on the firm’s recent giant investment in our favorite controversial founder, Adam Neumann.
Stealthy startup: Both Harri and Tim sat in on Ingrid‘s interview with Marc Lore, who disclosed a new sports ticketing startup that he is working on called Jump Platforms and provided some insight on the Diapers.com sale to Amazon, calling it a “forced transaction.”
On cloud nine: Netflix VP of Gaming Mike Verdu spoke to Amanda about opening a new gaming studio in SoCal and getting into cloud gaming.

Startup Battlefield

It’s Disruuuuuupt! We are so excited we can barely sit still. Here’s the first batch of Battlefield companies that pitched onstage on this fine California Tuesday — and if you’re curious, Neesha revealed the 20 companies that are presenting on the Disrupt Stage earlier today. Here’s the first batch that pitched today:

NXgenPort: A Saint Paul, Minnesota–based startup that’s looking to remotely monitor cancer patients in between doctor visits using a port catheter.

Omneky: Leverages OpenAI’s DALLE-2 and GPT-3 models to generate visuals and text that can be used in ads for social platforms.

Circular Genomics: Claims its new form of genetic testing can identify which medications will work for a patient in a fraction of that time.

Anthill: Connects frontline workers to company resources through text messaging.

AppMap: Was built on the simple idea that developers should be able to see the behavior of software as they write it so they can prevent problems when the software runs.

Mother Honestly: New commerce offering aims to give employees more freedom when it comes to caregiving spending.

Digest.ai: Beyond flash cards to create an AI dialogue assistant that we can all carry around on our phones.

Swap Robotics: Paving the way for electric solar vegetation cuts and sidewalk snow plowing.

Hormona: Hopes to encourage people with periods to do just that — add hormone-monitoring to their quantified health mix.

Staax: Thinks peer-to-peer payments can onboard a new generation of stock investors.

How to combine PLG and enterprise sales to improve the funnel and drive bottom-line growth

Image Credits: Richard Drury (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Products and services that sell themselves sound great, but product-led growth (PLG) startups still launch marketing campaigns and hire sales teams.

Combining PLG with traditional sales-led growth efforts can raise retention and acquisition to the next level, says Kate Ahlering, chief revenue officer at Calendly.

In this TC+ guest post, Ahlering lays out multiple strategies that will help teams implement a “hybrid GTM strategy,” which includes suggestions for leveraging PLG data and optimizing success metrics.

How to combine PLG and enterprise sales to improve your funnel

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Better fit, fewer returns: Advances in fit technology could minimize those onerous online returns, by Christine.
• Geez, Alex, downer much: Don’t let today’s software rally improve your mood, by Alex.
• Developers, developers, developers: Developers pour into crypto space despite stagnant markets, by Jacquelyn.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

We have even more for you from Apple’s surprise October event. Brian takes a look at the company’s new M2 iPad Pro, which got a refresh and arrives October 26. He talks about chips and inches, and a pencil…you get the picture.

Even more Apple for you to bite into:

• Lauren reports on the new Apple TV 4K, which is also getting a refresh with a performance upgrade and lower price.
• Aisha has information on some other product drops for October 24, including iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura.
• Kirsten writes about Apple bringing its Spatial Audio to cars and will start with Mercedes-Benz.

Since we have all the Battlefield companies for your reading pleasure, here are just a few more:

• Sales block: UK’s competition watchdog is not playing around anymore. It issued a final order to Meta for it to sell Giphy. Natasha L has more.
• Turned off: Sometimes experiments fail. In this case, YouTube was testing a premium subscription to watch 4K videos, and as Ivan writes, “the company has now ended this test — probably because of uproar from users.”
• Easy button: Adobe is tapping into artificial intelligence to make selecting and deleting objects in Photoshop and Lightroom easier, Frederic writes.
• What’s going on with Do Kwon: Manish has the latest on Terra’s Do Kwon, who has charges against him related to the $40 billion wipeout of his blockchain. Kwon is saying South Korea’s charges against him are not legitimate and “politically motivated.”

Daily Crunch: AI content developer Jasper now valued at $1.5B following capital infusion by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2427229

Meta announces legs, Hulu raises prices, and Microsoft embraces DALL-E 2

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Hi, friends! It’s time for another edition of Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly recap the most read TechCrunch stories from the past seven days.

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most read

LEGS: The company formerly known as Facebook held its Meta Connect conference this week, where it announced everything from a $1,500 VR headset to a work-focused partnership with Microsoft. Here’s the full roundup of all the news. The thing Zuckerberg seemed most excited about? His metaverse is getting legs.

Hulu’s price bump: Another year, another Hulu price hike. This week the ad-supported plan got bumped from $7 to $8 per month, while the ad-free plan went from $13 to $15 per month.

Microsoft x DALL-E: AI tools that can generate new images from text prompts are starting to go mainstream, with Microsoft announcing this week that it will integrate DALL-E 2 into at least two of its apps.

OG App gets KO’d: The “OG App” promised to provide an ad-free/suggestion-free Instagram experience more like that of yesteryear. Unfortunately, it didn’t have Instagram’s permission to do so. Instagram owner Meta quickly announced plans to take “all appropriate enforcement actions” against the app, which has now been pulled from both Google Play and the iOS App Store.

Google’s video calling booths get real: Last year, Google announced Project Starline, a wild, experimental “video-calling booth” that uses 3D imagery, depth sensors, and light field displays to make a video chat feel more like an in-person conversation. Until now, Starline booth prototypes were hidden away exclusively in Google’s offices; they’re now expanding that to include “the offices of various enterprise partners, including Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health.”

audio roundup

Been busy, and not the commuting/working out/doing housework kind of busy that lets you listen to podcasts while you get stuff done? Here’s what you missed in TC podcasts this week:

• On Equity, Natasha and Alex caught up with the incredibly insightful Sarah Guo, who recently launched a $100 million early-stage VC firm after being an investor/partner at Greylock for nearly a decade.
• Darrell and Jordan were joined on Found by Attabotics founder Scott Gravelle, who detailed how ant colonies inspired his approach to robotics.
• The Chain Reaction crew talked about why the SEC is investigating the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and what it could mean for the crypto ecosystem.

techcrunch+

Here’s what subscribers were reading most behind the TC+ member paywall this week:

Supliful’s seed deck: “This is one of the best decks I’ve ever seen, despite being butt-ugly and riddled with mistakes,” writes Haje in the latest installment of his popular Pitch Deck Teardown series.

Growth hacking is really just growth testing: 10+ years after the term “growth hacking” was coined, what does it really mean today? Growth marketing expert Jonathan Martinez shares his insights.

Meta announces legs, Hulu raises prices, and Microsoft embraces DALL-E 2 by Greg Kumparak originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2425509

Daily Crunch: Andreessen Horowitz backs Synonym’s development of ‘fermentation farms’

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To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Hot damn, it’s happening: A bunch of the TechCrunch team are on airplanes, aeroplanes and other spellings of flying vessels to come join us in San Francisco for Disrupt. To say that we are excited would be using altogether too few syllables. Lauren S made us a user’s guide to TechCrunch Disrupt along with a guide to all the receptions, parties and other cool extracurriculars. See you soon! — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• What’s another word for Synonym?: Ever heard of a “fermentation farm”? Well you have now. Christine covered Synonym Biotechnologies’ pre-seed round, with big backer Andreessen Horowitz, in which the company plans to build giant fermentation farms so nonpharmaceutical companies can mass-produce bioproducts like dairy proteins.
• A rose by any other name: “Ad,” “Sponsored,” whatever you want to call it, Google is making it so when you perform a mobile search, you will definitely know if it is some sponsored content or an organic search result. Ivan has more.
• Legless for a while longer: We were promised legs, but now Ivan writes that it could be another year for any Meta leg-equipped avatars to appear in Horizon Worlds.

Startups and VC

Even the largest landfills in Indonesia are at (or nearing) capacity, and the government has set an ambitious target of 30% waste reduction by 2025, reports Catherine.  Waste4Change is one of the companies that wants to help by increasing rates of recycling and enabling better waste management. The startup, which currently manages more than 8,000 tons of waste every year, announced today that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding, co-led by AC Ventures and PT Barito Mitra Investama.

And we have five more for you:

• What is this, a VC for ants ?: Connie reports that some new venture firms are so niche that, at first glance, it’s easy to laugh off their focus.
• Beyond jobs : Christine reports that Beyond Meat is cutting 19% of its workforce amid sales slump.
• The sweetest taboo : Haje gets all fanboy about Sugar Lab buying back its company from 3D Systems, to take 3D-printed foods mainstream.
• Runaway train, never coming back : Natasha M reports that Getaway launches a way for you to enjoy and own vacation homes.
• Put the Equity team in your ear-holes: We loved the newest Equity podcast and can’t wait to hear them live onstage at Disrupt next week!

DIY: 5 ways disruptive component startups can win over OEMs

 

Image Credits: Alan Rubio (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Ori Mor writes that hardware startup founders have a uniquely hard time. Only a small fraction of tech investors will even take meetings with them, and building product pipelines is often an irregular, even chaotic process.

Instead of relying on sales and marketing teams to build a customer base for his hardware components startup, Mor’s company started building devices that used his company’s tech.

“There’s no point rushing when building a hardware startup,” says Mor. “Instead, start by making just a single prototype that you can use to show OEMs.”

DIY: 5 ways disruptive component startups can win over OEMs

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Venture debt has downsides: Q3 data reminds us that venture debt is not a Hail Mary, by Becca.
• Just bouncing along: Is the venture market slowing or did crossover funds just bounce? by Alex.
• One of the best pitch decks Haje has ever seen: Pitch Deck Teardown: Supliful’s $1 million seed deck, by Haje.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Rebecca got the scoop on Sono Motors’ new Sion solar electric vehicle and some face time with Whoopi Goldberg (pictures to prove it). Though the family-friendly vehicle comes in at $25,000, Rebecca points out that the interior is roomier than it looks from the outside, but also that no cup holders in the back might not go over with some American families.

And we have five more for you:

• More layoffs: Jagmeet has more on Momentive Global’s layoff announcement of 11% of its workforce. If you’re thinking, “Who?” that would be SurveyMonkey’s parent company. Real estate valuation technology company Clear Capital is also reducing its staff by 27%, reports Andrew.
• Get the popcorn ready: Peacock is making the “Real Housewives” franchise its guinea pig as it tests out some new interactive features that will give viewers extended clips and interviews, Lauren reports.
• Don’t @me: Meanwhile, over at Twitter, the company is developing a way for users to control who can mention them, writes Aisha.
• It puts the lotion on its robotic skin: Brian reports that Touchlab, which won the TC Sessions: Robotics pitch-off event a few months ago, began piloting its robotic skin sensors in a hospital setting.
• Time, time, time, see what’s become of me: The owner of the Shein fashion e-commerce site was fined $1.9 million for not properly handling a 2018 data breach that compromised millions of users’ information, Rita writes.

Daily Crunch: Andreessen Horowitz backs Synonym’s development of ‘fermentation farms’ by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

source https://techcrunch.com/?p=2425426