Daily Crunch: Intel will reportedly buy cloud-optimization startup Granulate for $650M - TechCrunch

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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Thursday, March 31, 2022!

It’s a beautiful day in our neck of the woods, and we have a great lineup of news for you today, so let’s goooooo.

Grab your calendar and add these two: We’re doing a Data and Culture Transformation event on April 26 for the big data aficionados, and now is your last chance to buy discounted tickets for our in-person TC Sessions: Mobility event on May 18 and 19, as well as the virtual event on the 20th.

Don’t worry, it’s Thursday. The weekend is almost here. You can do it; we believe in you. – Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• SEC looks at another EV SPAC: In today’s abbreviation news, several Faraday Future executives find themselves subpoenaed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission amid the agency’s look at electric vehicle companies that went public via special purpose acquisitions companies. The SPAC itself is not under the microscope, but instead alleged inaccurate statements the company made to investors. It’s OK, I’m sure Faraday Future did its best — everyone makes a miSPAC now and then.
• Klarna, Klarna, Klarna, Klarna, Klarna chameleon: Buy now, pay later company Klarna is showing us just how versatile it can be and that it won’t be left out of a good opportunity. Its new open banking application programming interface, Klarna Kosma, helps companies plug into bank accounts and seems to be an answer to Visa announcing it will acquire Tink.
• Are startup layoffs looming?: It’s a question Alex Wilhelm had us pondering today. Valuations are high, but traction is not a-matchin’ for some companies that he called “paper unicorns” (spectacular phrase by the way). Could all this mean we may see layoffs from companies that were able to rake in large amounts of dough, but not able to make the doughnuts? Stay tuned.

Startups and VC

We get a teensy bit excited whenever Y Combinator does a set of demo days. I recommend that you read all our coverage this week, obvz, but if you want a quick summary, read part 1 and part 2 of our “everything you need to know” posts, make yourself a cup of coffee, and follow that up with our favorite startups part 1 and part 2, then pour yourself an adult beverage and wrap it all up with Devin’s irreverently irresistible (and irrationally ironic) review of his favorite YC logos.

‘Tis the season for new venture funds, apparently. Freestyle closed its sixth fund, adding $130 million of dry powder to invest, while Gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC) has a $110 million block of cash in the form of its second to deploy into the crypto universe.

Docker was on the ropes for a little while, there, but hooo boy did it make a comeback. The company just announced a whale of a round, raising $105 million of fresh capital on a $2 billion valuation.

🦸 More stories of up, up, and away:

• Speaking of mono-racked fantasy horses, women’s leadership network Chief saddled up and rode its unicorn status into its continued future of developing women in leadership in the course of its $100 million Series B round.
• Kenya’s social commerce platform Tushop is strapping on some rocket fuel for growth, raising $3 million.
• 66% of Egyptian adults don’t have access to formal financial services. Khazna raised $38 million to help address that gap for low- and middle-income earners.
• Famously filthy business, real estate, but French startup Deepski raised $166 million to improve measurement and impact of ESG data across the industry.
• The Great Resignation is having some interesting effects across the job market, and Pursuit spotted an opportunity. It raised a $10 million fund to create a self-sustaining job training service with a really interesting business model.
• Getting your customer data hacked is a surefire way to lose goodwill, and Antimatter raised a $12 million Series A to help avoid that sort of thing.
• Pivoting from video conferencing to higher-end video production, BoxedUp brings the sharing economy to a previously untapped market.
• Freelancers are a squirrely bunch at the best of times (as freelancers ourselves, we can say that with utmost confidence), and managing them can get real quixotic. Archie aims to make things easier for managers, and just closed $4.5 million to do so.
• Space is complex, and as much fun as Kerbal is, it doesn’t cut it for commercial simulation of space missions. Slingshot Aerospace believes it can do better, and just landed a $25 million Space Force contract to build a digital twin of the inky night sky.
• Datanomik is bringing open banking to LatAm, with dLocal and AstroPay execs at the helm.
• Wouldn’t it be great if you could predict the future? Black Crow AI raised $25 million to help e-commerce folks figure out what its users are most likely to buy.
• Not a big fan of injections, needles to say, I was pretty psyched to learn about NovaXS Biotech’s push to make injection therapies needle-free.

5 things first-time founders must remember when working with VCs

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

Nothing beats experience like experience, which is why we were happy to run a column written by Zach DeWitt, winner of the 2013 TechCrunch Meetup and Pitch-off.

DeWitt, who became a VC after selling Drop, Inc. to Snapchat in 2016, shares five essential lessons for first-time founders wandering in the wilderness in search of an investor who’ll be “a true partner.”

There’s an inherent power imbalance when asking a stranger for money, but “VCs should work to earn your trust,” writes DeWitt.

“In many ways, it’s like finding the right spouse.”

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

• Microsoft goes deeper into process mining: What is process mining? Don’t worry, reporter Kyle Wiggers (who is rounding out his first week with us) tells you all about what that is. He also says Microsoft’s latest acquisition of process mining company Minit “comes at a time when the broader business process automation industry, which remains flush with cash, heads toward general consolidation.”
• Intel also gets in on the M&A: We noted last year, when Israel-based Granulate received funding, that it seemed like the network management space was seeing some consolidation. Well, that was confirmed earlier today when Intel said it acquired Granulate “to continue extending both its operations in Israel and the tools that Intel provides to customers to better manage traffic on Intel-powered kit.”
• New research sheds light on Viasat hack: The cyberattack that took down the U.S.-based satellite communications provider’s service in Europe was deemed “likely the result of destructive wiper malware” that originated in Russia, we report. The identity of the hackers is still unknown.
• The strike that turned into a potential lawsuit: Meta and its subcontractor, Sama, are in the hot seat in Kenya, facing some legal action that alleges poor working conditions. Reporter Annie Njanja describes allegations against the companies by former Sama contractor Daniel Motaung, who claims that contractors like him weren’t told what their jobs would be, but that it ended up being content moderation where they looked at some pretty graphic content for a long time, but were not often granted time to compose themselves or offered support when it became too much. Sama is denying any wrongdoing.

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Co-founders of Ukrainian startup Delfast discuss navigating through a crisis - TechCrunch

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'Every morning starts with a check-in on Slack with all the colleagues'

Rebecca Bellan 8 hours

The COVID-19 pandemic taught the world how to work from home, but Russia’s war in Ukraine has taught the employees at Delfast, a Ukrainian e-bike startup, how to work from bomb shelters, while on the move and under threat of violence. 

The usual priorities of a startup – securing venture funding, researching and developing new products, finding product-market fit – haven’t exactly been put on hold, but they are now much lower on Delfast’s to-do list. Since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in late February, Delfast’s top priority has been to see its Ukrainian team of 30 safely evacuated from the most dangerous parts of the country. 

When not focusing on sales, marketing, R&D and customer support, Delfast’s smaller team of seven employees based in Los Angeles has been pleading with U.S. politicians and the European Commission to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and fighter jets that could help Ukraine gain back some control over its air space, and, hopefully, put a stop to this war. 

Delfast’s co-founders, Daniel Tonkopi and Serhiy Denysenko, say they have always believed in safeguarding the future. When they founded Delfast in 2014, originally as a delivery company, Tonkoply and Denysenko knew that providing couriers with green transportation options would be critical to the company’s operations. 

The most important thing for an entrepreneur, and in general for any leader, is to protect the team and be completely honest with them during a tough time. Daniel Tonkopi, co-founder of Delfast

The founders soon realized that a bike with the power, range and battery life their couriers needed didn’t exist, and so they set out to build one. In 2017, backed by a Kickstarter campaign that saw the company raise $165,000, the startup began manufacturing a bike to fit its needs – one that promptly won the Guinness Book of World Records for the greatest distance traveled on an electric motorbike on a single charge.

More recently, the Delfast Top 3.0 e-motorbike won Forbes’ fastest e-bike of the year in 2022 after the company announced some serious upgrades to the vehicle during CES. 

We spoke with Delfast’s co-founders to discuss what it’s like running a startup during a war, how the startup is considering breaking into new business verticals, and the importance of always having a Plan B. 

The following interview, part of an ongoing series with founders who are building transportation companies, has been edited for length and clarity. 

Note: Serhiy Denysenko’s answers were translated from Ukrainian by a member of Delfast’s team for TechCrunch. 

TC: Serhiy, you’re on the ground in Kyiv. What’s your day-to-day like?

Denysenko: Every morning starts with a check-in on Slack with all the colleagues. It’s important to keep in touch and know that everyone is fine, or as fine as is possible right now. 

Besides my work as a COO, I’ve been helping with volunteering, getting supplies and medicine to people, and this is something that pretty much every Ukrainian is now doing. I had my family relocated to Hungary, so I feel more or less safe, and I’m just trying to work as much as possible and do my best in every possible area, whether that’s supporting the company or supporting Ukraine in general. 

How are you managing your team through this crisis? What’s changed?

Denysenko: We got used to working remotely during Coronavirus times, so we have our task tracker, where everyone can see his or her task. Every Monday, we have an online Zoom meeting. Previously we only had these meetings at the executive level, but now during the war, we are gathering all together, just to see each other’s faces and ask how they’re doing, how’s everyone feeling. Just to talk with everybody. 

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A16z Leads $4.8M Round for P2E Gaming Startup Battlebound - CoinDesk

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"The founding team of Battlebound is a rare mix of web3 savvy and veteran game development expertise – collectively Adam Hensel and team have helped build some of the industry’s most successful games such as Teamfight Tactics, League of Legends, and Overwatch 2," Jonathan Lai, general parter at a16z, told CoinDesk in an email. "Their inaugural project ‘the Evaverse’ was proof of their capabilities with a small team, and we’re excited to support them as they scale up to even more ambitious experiences on chain."

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How to make a teaser trailer for your startup pitch - TechCrunch

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Andrew Gershfeld Contributor

Andrew Gershfeld is a partner at Boston-based Flint Capital, an investment company supporting entrepreneurs from Israel, Europe and the U.S. at an early stage of their business.

Around May 2020, nearly everything moved online, and investment pitches were among the first to do so.

The entire milieu around startup funding shifted overnight. For many companies doing their business online, the move to online wasn’t a shock. However, a majority of VC firms only used an offline approach.

It’s impossible for founders to “read the room” when pitching online, which puts them at a severe disadvantage. Research by UCL School of Management professor Chia-Jung Tsay found that people could reliably predict which entrepreneurs would get funded based solely on founders’ physical cues like body language, facial expressions and stage presence.

In essence, this new pitching model presents a new problem for founders: It’s critical to keep investors’ attention, but it’s also more challenging than ever before. This is where the “teaser trailer” can work in a startup’s favor.

If investors can’t understand the teaser without commentary, it needs more work.

At Flint Capital, we listen to around 1,500 online pitches per year. After hearing 15,000 pitches in 10 years, I have some perspective on how to effectively create and leverage teasers that founders may find valuable when they are pitching online.

Why is a teaser so important?

It primes your contact for the big presentation.

Every good pitch starts before the pitch. It’s always preferable to have a trusted contact, such as another investor or portfolio company founder, who can recommend you to the investors before you meet them.

In my experience, about 85% of closed deals result from a pitch from a recommended founder. This means that a first introduction should involve the founder giving their contact this teaser to whet the investors’ appetites.

You can think of this as an extension of your “elevator pitch.” Since we’re not getting the same in-person meeting opportunities, this is how founders can hook investors’ attention.

It gives you a proactive part in the pitching process

In most cases, investors will ask you for an overview of your idea before the first online pitch call happens. Putting together a teaser trailer ahead of time gives you the chance to shine in your first impression to VCs.

Add things that pique investors’ interest and make them wonder how you can make this idea work. Leave them thinking things like, “This is an unusual number. I wonder how they came to this conclusion?” Be careful not to over-dramatize, though, because this can be off-putting.

It gives you the sales advantage of steadily building interest

Remember the adage of sales: “You have 30 seconds to buy three minutes.”

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This startup’s novel tech promises to boost battery capacity for EVs - TechCrunch

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Five years ago, Jonathan Tan and Roger Basu were on the hunt to find an industry where they could take their expertise in thin-film technology and make the biggest and fastest impact possible. They chose batteries — or more specifically, battery degradation and lifespan.

It wasn’t — and still isn’t — an industry lacking in investment, research or companies claiming to have struck battery breakthrough gold. But the pair contend they have zagged where everyone else has zigged.

Tan and Basu, who co-founded California-based startup Coreshell in 2017, said they steered clear of trying to develop a new battery from scratch, an expensive and lengthy undertaking that numerous companies were already working on.

Instead, they focused their efforts on nanolayer coating technology that can be added to a battery cell manufacturer’s existing production system. This coating increases usable battery capacity by 30% or more and increases heat tolerance by 200%, all while lowering costs and improving safety, according to the Coreshell founders. It can also be applied to batteries with different chemistries and applications, including consumer electronics and electric vehicles.

“We want to be the ‘Intel Inside’ of batteries,” Coreshell CEO Tan told TechCrunch. “We want to apply this coating technology directly on the most challenging surfaces inside the battery, which is the surface of the anode and the surface of the cathode, where it meets the electrolyte.”

Coreshell has found support for its novel approach from several investors, battery manufacturers and even iconic dune buggy company Meyers Manx. Its quiver of advisers has also been loaded up with experts, including Tesla co-founder Marc Tarpenning; Chunmei Ban, a professor at the University of Colorado known for her work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; and Judith O’Brien, who has made a career out of helping companies IPO.

The pair initially bootstrapped the company, then went through the Alchemist Accelerator in 2020 and raised some seed money.

Since then, Coreshell has begun a collaboration with BASF to work on several different coatings for advanced cathode materials, as well as demonstrations with other battery cell manufacturers that Tan could not name. The company also recently raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Trousdale Ventures, Industry Ventures and Helios Capital Ventures. Existing investors Entrada Ventures, Foothill Ventures, and Asymmetry Ventures also participated in the round. Coreshell has raised $19 million to date.

Coreshell’s relationship with Trousdale Ventures and, more specifically, managing partner Phillip Sarofim also led to a partnership with Meyers Manx. A prototype Meyers Manx electric beach buggy will be the first vehicle to have the Coreshell technology “inside.”

Sarofim, who is also chairman of Meyers Manx, said the partnership fits into the Meyers Manx mission to “continue bringing adventure and fun to the world, but with even more performance capabilities to match the expectations of modern-day consumers.”

The Meyers Manx demonstration, plus collaborations with other battery cell manufacturers and automakers, allows Coreshell to show off the full capabilities both at the cell level and at the device level, as well as the speed at which it can be applied to vehicles, said Tan, a chemical engineer turned technical business development executive.

The company is also working with New Era Converting Machinery to demonstrate how its thin-film coating technology can be used in roll-to-roll processing. If successful, Coreshell could convince automakers and cell manufacturers to adopt its technology.

Battery producers use a continuous process called roll to roll. Cut open a cylindrical cell and you’ll see what looks like a jelly roll of electrodes, Tan explained. Before they’re put into the battery shell, these are essentially large rolls of electrodes on foil.

“Obviously, it’s much smaller to start off with, but even just showing off that capability is a key step towards being able to show that, ‘Hey, you can slot us right in and get the performance enhancements of solving battery degradation and having increased capacity, while lowering manufacturing costs,'” Tan said.

It’s this progress that caught Tarpenning’s attention.

“It seemed like every six months there was some breakthrough announced that was gonna have some big step in battery capacity or price reduction or whatever the metric is — and that just never happens,” Tarpenning said. “Part of it is that a lot of these techniques that work in the lab don’t scale very well, or at all, or they require an enormous change in the process.”

Coreshell appealed to him because it can be added to a cell manufacturer’s existing operation.

“You can actually slot it in and see see how it scales in an existing factory — and that to me was huge,” he said. “I was like, wow, OK, that that’s one of those big sort of chicken-and-egg things that just got solved.”

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Commonwealth’s innovation official joins startup accelerator MassChallenge - The Boston Globe

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Damon Cox has spent the past four years helping lead the Baker administration’s technology and innovation efforts as an assistant secretary in the Office of Housing and Economic Development. Now the 50-year-old is jumping back to the nonprofit sector to work on issues with less of a regional focus.

Cox this month joined Boston-based startup accelerator MassChallenge, which helps early-stage tech companies get off the ground all over the world. He’ll have dual responsibilities as the head of next practice and inclusive growth. Next practice covers programs the accelerator has started that focus on specific sectors, such as digital health and financial technology, or fintech. Inclusive growth is MassChallenge’s effort to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in the startup economy.

It’s no surprise that Cox sees big challenges when it comes to improving diversity among startups in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

Less than 1 percent of US venture capital funding ― and only 0.4 percent in Massachusetts ― went to companies with black founders last year. And female founders got 2 percent, the smallest allocation since 2016. MassChallenge, however, has done better. Among the 229 companies it backed last year, 48 percent had at least one woman founder and 47 percent had one or more founders who were people of color.

”In the region, and just with innovation in general, we have a long way to go,” Cox told me in a Zoom interview. While continuing with MassChallenge’s efforts to diversify the entrepreneurs it backs, Cox also wants to diversify the pool of mentors the group relies on to advise startups.

“If we’re looking into expanding our fintech reach by looking at decentralized finance, how are we embedding inclusivity into that?” Cox said. “How are we finding mentors that are in that space that are diverse, and can help grow and develop our our ecosystem?”

With his other hat on, Cox is considering the hottest areas for startups where MassChallenge could focus more of its efforts.

“We’re really trying to identify what are those next emerging tech spaces which we need to invest in or double down,” he said.

With the Baker administration, Cox was working to support companies working on blockchain, the database technology underlying bitcoin and other digital currencies and tokens. While there are skeptics, Cox is a believer. “I think that it is very real and I would say an opportunity (for MassChallenge) to expand into that space,” he said.

Although Cox said he couldn’t commit to starting a program focused on blockchain just yet, MassChallenge’s acting chief executive, Cait Brumme, also mentioned blockchain as a future area of emphasis, in a January interview.

Other possible areas for expansion at MassChallenge include artificial intelligence, health tech, and life sciences, Cox said.

Before joining the Baker administration, Cox worked at the Boston Foundation, but he first got interested in startups and innovation earlier in his career. He spent almost 10 years at Universal Records and then at several music management firms, working with artists such as Elton John, Nelly Furtado, and Lil Wayne.

“I was working with artists that were extremely innovative. And each individual artists was was an entrepreneur,” he said. “They were all entrepreneurs in their own right. And I really did get the bug for being an entrepreneur, by working with them...I think the way that music distribution evolved really was a catalyst for me to jump into the space.”

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Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @ampressman.

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EquityZen's Phil Haslett on how startup valuations can regain their moxie - TechCrunch

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And why Instacart did its fellow unicorns a solid by repricing

Alex Wilhelm 8 hours

It’s the first of Y Combinator’s two-day Demo Day event, which means that TechCrunch will spend most of our working hours watching startup demos and tracking how many companies from the batch are in particular sectors and geographies. The early-stage startup market is active and — as formerly late-stage-focused funds look to invest earlier — still awarding attractive valuations to nascent technology upstarts.

Later-stage startups aren’t being afforded similar enthusiasm, with investor notes and data indicating that from Series B onward — and perhaps earlier in some cases — valuations are tightening as investors look to falling public markets as an indication that exit prices will be smaller than previously anticipated. A closed IPO market and antitrust vibes from U.S. and European governments potentially limiting big-ticket M&A aren’t helping.

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The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

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This means that many unicorns looking to provide liquidity for their employees and other shareholders are using services like Forge, which recently went public, and EquityZen. The Exchange has spoken with EquityZen before, but we wanted to dig into current later-stage startup market dynamics to understand what it would take to assuage concerns and bring later-stage startup dealmaking back into the spotlight.

So we asked EquityZen’s Phil Haslett, co-founder and chief revenue officer, to chat through his perspective on the markets.

We learned two key things: First, there is a sort of trigger, if you will, that could reset pessimism regarding technology company growth rates. And, second, Instacart did other startups a huge solid by retooling how it prices employee equity compensation through what is generally considered to be a reset induced by a new 409a valuation. (If you don’t know what a 409a valuation is, think of it as an externally set valuation for private companies’ fair market value.)

Let’s start with what it would take to Lazarus market sentiment about tech companies — and therefore tech stocks — and examine the door that Instacart just kicked open for its fellow unicorns.

Restoring market confidence in tech companies

It’s tricky to compare mid-2021 market sentiment regarding quickly growing technology companies and today. The startup and public markets each sport myriad technology companies with different growth rates, margin profiles and cost bases. One size does not fit all. But that doesn’t mean we can’t sketch out any generalities.

While every technology company is different, the markets have curtailed the value of technology revenues as other investment opportunities became more attractive. More simply, the value of growth has declined in the public markets, leading to revenue multiple compression among startups that have reached, say, eight-figure ARR.

Happily, what drove the sentiment change could also flip back. Haslett told TechCrunch that market concern is being driven by “two big macro uncertainties,” which he identified as “geopolitical risk in Europe, plus inflation.” But if we look out a bit further, he gave us a picture of what good news would look like for tech valuations (quotes have been edited for clarity and length):

What you look for on the horizon is a wave of Top 50 or 100 tech companies having earnings and forecasts that get us back, and right the ship. If DocuSign says, “OK, like, the worst is behind us,” if Zoom says, “The worst is behind us; we’re back up and running,” [then startups can say], “Oh, thank god, now we know we’re in a better spot. Our public comps are gonna look better, we can start [hitting] the ground running.”

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Fintech startup opens hub in Tampa, ‘the next Austin’ - St Pete Catalyst

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A Minneapolis-based tech firm, known for its workforce payment platform, has opened its Tampa hub this month after just closing multiple funding rounds. 

Branch, which provides on-demand digital payments for companies, has opened its Tampa office inside the Industrious Ybor co-working space – making it Branch’s first office to open outside of its headquarters. 

“We saw a good opportunity to put our hub here, specifically around sales, and saw how Tampa has a nice tech community,” said Andrew Johnson, vice president of revenue at Branch, who oversees the local office.

Johnson said the other sites the company was evaluating against Tampa included Austin, Texas, and Raleigh, North Carolina. 

“To me, when I look at Tampa it’s what Austin was maybe five or six years ago and now Austin is a little over-saturated,” Johnson said. “Tampa sounds like a tight-knit community that can offer collaborations we are looking for.”

Cathie Wood of ARK Invest also made similar remarks comparing Austin to the area when she recently decided to relocate her HQ from New York to St. Petersburg. 

“Tampa has become a magnet for innovative, tech companies, and we’re thrilled to welcome Branch to America’s friendliest community,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said in the company’s news release. 

An image of the Branch app showing a direct deposit transaction.  

One of Branch’s largest clients is Uber Freight. Branch helps Uber pay its truckers faster through its platform. With other clients, such as Jimmy John’s and Domino’s, it also provides digital cashless tips. 

The news of Branch opening the Tampa site comes after the company closed a $75 million Series C funding round earlier this month, following a previous $48 million Series B raise. 

The startup, founded in 2015, currently has over 120 employees located across the country. Johnson said the company has hired a sales development director for Tampa, and Branch is actively looking to hire 20 to 30 additional employees. The available positions, which are a mix of in-office and remote work, are in sales, engineering, marketing and customer support. 

“We have embraced remote working and we don’t plan to lose that, but we wanted to bring back the positivity of being in an office at the same time,” Johnson said, adding how a co-working space fit into the hybrid workforce plans. 

“What we like about the co-working space is it allows us to scale up faster and we have the flexibility because we aren’t locked into a traditional three-year office space,” Johnson said.  

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Due Diligence: 3 Questions to Ask Your AI Startup - Datanami

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Due Diligence: 3 Questions to Ask Your AI Startup  Datanami

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China Chip Startup Biren Seeking Funds at $2.7 Billion Valuation - Bloomberg

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China Chip Startup Biren Seeking Funds at $2.7 Billion Valuation  Bloomberg

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Star Power Fuels An Underdog Startup - Sports Business Journal

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Even as they were coming up in a cutthroat industry, Dan Mannix and Dave Nugent developed an easy friendship. Their client book often overlapped, but there was never any competition between them because they worked in separate services. As Mannix built up LeadDog Marketing, Nugent developed his technology firm, Omnigon. After they’d each sold their businesses in 2016, they wanted to find a way to work together directly.

But they didn’t just want to go back to the same playbook. “The reality is: I’m a 54-year-old white man, and most of the leaders of the industry look too much like me,” Mannix said. “When Dave and I started talking, we asked ourselves: How do we create a company that’s a reflection of our diverse society? And could we make this company a new model for our industry?”

Dan Mannix (yellow cap) and Dave Nugent (on Mannix’s right) founded the company in 2021 and have since added more than a dozen colleagues.jesse ward

The model that emerged, in spring 2021, was Underdog Venture Team. Mannix and Nugent spent the rest of the year refining the business plan, raising money and acquiring talent. They designed Underdog to be part venture capital, with a commitment that two-thirds of the companies they invested in be run by women or people of color; and part client services, leaning on their respective backgrounds in marketing and tech.

They raised between $1 million and $2 million, with a lead investment from Isos Capital Management. “Investors who don’t value mission-oriented companies are missing big opportunities,” said Isos founder and co-CEO Michelle Wilson. “In our experience, brands that do things with a purpose and who do things that matter make a difference first in the heart of their consumers, then in their minds and wallets.”

While the company has been operational since the beginning of the year — its clients include Wollman Rink in New York’s Central Park and Moolah Kicks, which was founded by Natalie White and creates a basketball sneaker for women and girls — it is formally announcing the brand’s launch this week as the presenting partner of SBJ’s ALL IN virtual conference on DEI.

Mannix and Nugent also wanted the company to be life-changing for the people who came to work for them. That’s why initial hires were offered not only competitive salaries, but also an equity stake in the company. “There’s a risk in joining the startup world, but we tried to de-risk it enough where it became a viable option for some incredibly talented people,” Nugent said. “The equity stake means that we’re all in this together, and that there’s significant upside for the core team.”

The core team’s mission is to show that a valuable business can be built with a missional mindset and a commitment to equity. “We love being on the same team together,” Mannix said. “Not to get too grandiose, but we’re trying to create a movement within the sport business industry.”

To do that, Mannix and Nugent are leaning on five key executives in particular who will turn this Underdog into a blueblood: 

jesse ward

Megan Allison

Every year, Megan Allison looked forward to SportsTank. Before the pandemic, the event was an annual showcase where entrepreneurs in the sports space could get feedback from a panel of advisers — and get funding from a group of investors. Allison loved hearing all the innovative ideas, but as a member of the advisory panel, she didn’t get to back any of them.

“I wasn’t looking at it as an opportunity for me,” she said. “I was happy to give my advice, but there was a disconnect — I wasn’t really invested in their growth. I couldn’t help but want more.”

Wanting more was on Allison’s mind a lot last year as she approached her 50th birthday. She had been at  Genesco for 16 years. In 2010, she’d moved to North Carolina to start the Charlotte office, and she spent the past decade turning it into a powerhouse group, with clients including Advanced AutoParts and Bojangles. But she wondered if it might be more fulfilling to help smaller brands find their footing in the world of sports.

“I was thinking about all of that when I met Dan,” she said. “We were at SBJ Game Changers in October, and he started our conversation by asking me: ‘Who are the best women- or minority-owned agencies in our industry?’ And I had to say: ‘I don’t know.’ He said he was looking to change that.”

As the managing director of the Brand Strategies and Experience Group at Underdog, Allison will bring her decades of brand experience to a new portfolio of clients — big and small.

“We have to generate revenue and pay our bills, and startups won’t be able to do that for us right away,” she said. “So we’ll be working with all kinds of clients. But the thing that really wrapped this all up in a bow for me was the opportunity to work with startups, to have a social impact and to have equity. We’re all invested in building this thing together.”

jesse ward

Alysse Soll

When Alysse Soll was a freshman at Cornell, the hockey coach tracked her down on campus and invited her to join the team. Soll had trained as a competitive figure skater as a kid, but she’d never played hockey. Her only experience with the sport was seeing Rangers and Islanders players, heavy on bruises and light on teeth, skate onto the ice for their practice as she was leaving hers.

She asked her mom and dad if she should play. “My mom said, ‘No thank you, I like my daughter’s face just the way it is,’” Soll said, and laughed. “But my dad gave me this really great advice. He said that this would be my chance to do something I’ve never done before — to be a part of a team.”

Playing hockey at Cornell also paved the way for her career. After working on Wall Street for a few years, Soll moved to the West Coast in 1990 to help the San Jose Sharks — the NHL’s first new franchise in 10 years — establish a fan base. She went on to launch the first marketing department at the NHL’s league office. One of her major initiatives there, in the early days of the internet, was to switch the fan All-Star voting from mail-in paper ballots to an online system, increasing the number of votes from 2 million to more than 20 million.

After a stint at TimeWarner, she started her own firm, NewModel Advisory, which was acquired last year by Underdog, where she’ll serve as CEO of Underdog Advisory. Soll, 59, will be tasked with sourcing, advising and fundraising for Underdog’s startups.

“If I was in one of those situations where I had to pick 10 people to be stuck on an island with forever, Dan and Dave would be two of my top choices,” said Soll, who is also the board chair for Women in Sports Tech. “In our business, there are people who talk about it, and there are people who do it. I want to be with the doers, not the talkers.”

jesse ward

Sara Toussaint

In the early 2010s, Sara Toussaint traveled to colleges around the country for a venture firm. She was looking for university researchers who were working to create the next Gatorade or Google so that her company, Allied Minds, could get in on the ground level. In addition to discovering some companies that eventually went public, she also learned how few of these entrepreneurs were women of color.

“Probably 99% of the companies we met with were run by men,” she said. “And those men were predominantly white. In my couple of years, there were very, very, very, very few women.”

Toussaint had experience working in male-dominated work environments. She spent a couple of years in labor relations for Major League Baseball, informing clubs when minor league players tested positive for drugs. She also worked in marketing for Major League Soccer before joining Wells Fargo in the sponsorships department. They were looking for someone who knew soccer and who spoke Spanish. When they asked her if she’d be interested, she said, “¡Por supuesto!”

On her own, she continued to invest in early-stage startups like the North Carolina Courage of the National Women’s Soccer League and a social impact food company called Purpose Tea (which was founded by an Asian woman). In April, she’ll join Underdog as a managing director, identifying diverse founders who have ideas worth investing in.

“Regardless of who you are or what you look like or what industry you’re in, the startup path can be unknown for a lot of founders,” she said. “Unless you’re in Silicon Valley or New York, it’s hard to know where to go when you need someone to invest in you. It’s amazing to join an organization whose mission is to support people who look like me and to help them have what they need to see their business succeed.”

jesse ward

Nicole Jeter West

Last year, when Nicole Jeter West was evaluating her next career move, she came up with four filters to help her narrow down the options. First, she wanted to invest directly in women and people of color in the industry. Second, she wanted to create and lead the company’s culture. Third, she wanted to work in spaces beyond sports. And fourth, she wanted the chance to create generational wealth for her family.

“I really did some soul searching about what I wanted from the next chapter of my life,” she said. “I’ve been in this industry for 20 years. I wasn’t just thinking about what I wanted from the industry anymore. I’m at the stage now where I want to think about what I can give to the industry, and to the people who will come after me.”

Jeter West started her career as an hourly worker in the Knicks’ marketing department and worked her way up to director of marketing during two stints with the organization. She then spent five years with the U.S. Tennis Association and another four years with Legends. Before becoming Underdog’s CEO, she had served as the head of marketing and brand engagement for LA 2028.

“I’m half Puerto Rican and half Black, and I’ve often been the only person who looked like me in a room or an organization,” she said. “For me, diversity is not just that we need a token number of people to fill a quota. It’s about diversity of thought and of experience — life experience, career experience and cultural experience. That’s what makes innovation happen. That’s what we’ve been building from the beginning at Underdog.”

And after years leading divisions within some of the biggest companies in sports, Jeter West has been reinvigorated by Underdog’s startup sensibilities. When she, Mannix and Nugent reached the end of the negotiations to bring her on as CEO, they celebrated not with champagne or even a paper contract. Mannix had a bag of M&Ms, so they sealed the deal with a handful of snacks.

jesse ward

Brian Westbrook

Brian Westbrook usually likes the anonymity of New York City. When he’s out walking his three dogs — two French bulldogs and a Belgian Malinois — people don’t come up to him to ask about the nine seasons he spent as an electric NFL running back, or about his pair of Pro Bowl selections. But when Dan Mannix moved in down the hall, the businessman and the former Philadelphia Eagle found an easy friendship.

“I moved into the building in 2017, and he came shortly after that,” said the 42-year-old Westbrook. “He had just sold his company, and I was getting ready to join Ryan Howard’s investing group SeventySix Capital. We just found that we had a lot in common.”

As the managing director of Athlete Entrepreneur Network, Westbrook will provide a crash course in business education for current and former athletes. He’ll help them with everything from evaluating investment pitch decks to understanding the etiquette of the board room.

Westbrook had a solid foundation in business. His father was a bank manager, and he earned his bachelor’s in management information systems at Villanova before earning an executive business degree from Wharton while he was still in the NFL. With Underdog, Westbrook wants to level the playing field on the business side of sports.

“Professional sports have made a lot of minority people millionaires, which is great,” he said. “But when you look at the people who are making the [major] money, there’s still a big disparity. When people who look like me make up 80% of the league and 0% of the owners, there’s a problem. It comes down to the education and to networking, and we’re going to be able to help players with both.”

David Gardner has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and Sports Illustrated, among other outlets.

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Student Startup Teams to Compete For $110000 Cash Prize Pool in U of A's Heartland Challenge - University of Arkansas Newswire

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March 28, 2022

Cari Humphry

Twelve graduate startup teams across North America will compete this spring in the third annual Heartland Challenge, a competition designed to simulate the process of raising venture capital for a high-growth enterprise.  

"The Walton College is proud to host this outstanding international competition face to face in Bentonville this year," said Matt Waller, dean of the Walton College and Sam Walton Leadership Chair.  

"We are grateful for the generous support of the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation and other sponsors across our region, who share our commitment to bolstering entrepreneurship in the Heartland." 

This year's cash prize pool has grown to more than $110,000, with the overall winner collecting $50,000. The second place team will receive $25,000; third place, $10,000; and fourth place, $5,000. 

New for 2022 is an Investor Roundtable event, sponsored by Cadron Capital Partners, that will provide $3,000 awards to the winners of each of three roundtable events. This event, held alongside the main competition, will engage the student founders in informal discussions with active investors, simulating the experience of meeting in a restaurant or airport without the benefit of formal pitch decks or other materials. Additional special awards will be provided by sponsors Delta Solar, Atento Capital, Wright, Lindsey and Jennings, Natural Capital, John Chamberlin and Cannon Capital. 

First and second place winners in the elevator pitch competition — decided by an audience vote — win $3,000 and $2,000, respectively. 

The final round of the main competition will be livestreamed. To receive a link to view the event, please register here.  

Past winners have included technology startups focused on the music industry and improving cancer detection. Having competed during years of the competition that were held virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions, the founders of both companies will be in attendance this year to share their post-competition experiences and join in the Startup Expo. 

Aurign, a music publishing startup from Georgia State University, took home first place in 2020, securing $50,000 for their idea of using blockchain technology to securely file music-publishing documents.  

NurLabs, a graduate student startup team from the University of California at Los Angeles, won the 2021 Heartland Challenge. The team, which developed a patent-pending, non-traditional, non-invasive liquid biopsy platform to detect cancer earlier, used its winnings to expand the size and scope of a lung cancer study. 

NurLabs founder Sumita Jonak said, "The Heartland Challenge is a gem. I'm incredibly honored that NurLabs was recognized and validated by the no-nonsense investor panels as a viable medtech company. It gave me the confidence to push onward." 

The 12 semi-finalist teams include:  

About the U of A Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation: The Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation creates and curates innovation and entrepreneurship experiences for students across all disciplines. Through the Brewer Family Entrepreneurship Hub, McMillon Innovation Studio, Startup Village, and Greenhouse at the Bentonville Collaborative, OEI provides free workshops and programs — including social and corporate innovation design teams, venture internships, competitions and startup coaching. A unit of the Sam M. Walton College of Business and Division of Economic Development, OEI also offers on-demand support for students who will be innovators within existing organizations and entrepreneurs who start something new. 

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Self-Driving Startup Zongmu Raises $157 Million in New Funds - Bloomberg

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Self-Driving Startup Zongmu Raises $157 Million in New Funds  Bloomberg

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A Santa Fe startup that will 'run your errands' plans expansion into Colorado - The Business Journals

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A Novel Approach to Startup Recruiting: Lower the Stock Price - Bloomberg

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Visa’s Crypto Product Lead Leaves for Payments Startup - CoinDesk

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The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG.

@2022 CoinDesk

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A Dotcom Era Pioneer in India Readies Second Startup for an IPO - Bloomberg

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4 Keys to Grow and Scale Your Startup - Entrepreneur

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

One common thread between all types of startups is navigating the pathways between growth and scaling. This rings true whether you’re a business with dozens of employees or a duo working out of a studio apartment. While some startups are easier to scale than others, all companies must grow. All businesses are created, born of passion and promise, aiming to develop into valuable entities able to scale successfully; they bring an exceptional return on investment for all parties involved. Approaching seasons of positive evolution as a startup – whether growth or scaling – requires tenacity and commitment, passion and people skills, and strategic utilization of time, energy, and resources.

Related: Use This Simple Military Strategy to Boost Your Business

What is scaling? What is growth?

Before diving into four key tactics that founders should implement, clarifying growth versus scaling would be a solid foundation. Because of the costs associated with development, entrepreneurs navigating the early years of startups have become obsessed with the concept of scaling.

The critical difference from growth is that scale is achieved by increasing revenue without incurring significant costs. To be truly successful long term, when companies add customers and revenue exponentially, costs should solely increase incrementally (if at all). Take, for example, Google, a spectacular example of founders defining growth vs. scale for their company and sustaining it. Alphabet’s crown jewel has solidified an operating philosophy that has allowed it to continually add customers (either paying business clients or ad-supported free users) while keeping costs at a minimum.

Startup failure is widespread, with 90% of startups failing within five years. Founders who want to succeed have to adapt with ability and flexibility as they navigate the journey from the first sparks of a concept, guided by a forward-thinking business plan that clearly differentiates what growth will look like and how scaling will be attained. While there are never guarantees of success in an arena where failure can seem destined, to be the 1 in 10 that properly grows and blooms into sustained scalability requires an open mind, a willingness to learn, and the ability to adapt. Implementing the four concepts below will significantly increase your chances of being the needle that masters the haystack.

Related: The Strategies I Used to Sell Two Business by the Time I was 45

Master the Power of Digital Advertising

As new digital technologies continue to advance dramatically, the way firms communicate and interact with consumers via digital media has, by necessity, evolved. When you consider the undeniable, it frees you of indecision and spurs you to assess, adapt and achieve: every month and around the world, consumers interact with the digital world to the tune of nearly 2.5 billion active users on Facebook, 1 billion on Instagram, and 330 million on Twitter.

Without a doubt, digital advertising must be a significant component of modern-day marketing strategies. Accurately implemented, digital advertisements add pure fuel to the fire powering your online identity. Growing your online presence translates into the broader visibility needed to foster conversions and sales at an increased rate. However, if your digital strategy isn’t well thought out, the results can be catastrophic.

Whether it be the design, channel, or messaging elements, every aspect of the digital advertisement needs to be taken into consideration. And critically, an awareness of the reality that ads are content in today’s digital landscape. When created and utilized effectively, they can be contextual, relevant, targeted, and helpful in ways they never could before. And the online advertising landscape continues to evolve, challenging entrepreneurs to adapt in motion. New platforms, ad types, and targeting capabilities are popping up all the time. Want your startup to be at the forefront of your industry? Define quality digital marketing as a cornerstone of your marketing strategy and business plan.

Related: 8 Ways to Make Your Website Faster (and Why It Is Critical to Your Business)

Sustainability through a Strong Support Network

To understate the obvious, creating and building a startup is no easy task; reality is the opposite in many ways. As we mentioned earlier, there’s a 90% chance any startup will fail to fully realize its potential. Nurturing an entity from birth through growth and into successful scaling requires an inner resolve and passion; sustaining this energy requires a key ingredient: people. Always keep like-minded people close to you, in your inner circle, and flesh out your support system.

Maximize the local meetups in your area, and integrate yourself into the business support groups that will empower you and your startup. Find the right individuals, fellow entrepreneurs, and friends, and lean on them for brainstorming, feedback, and constructive criticism. Building and maintaining an effective support network will ensure a sense of accountability and a wealth of insight and perspectives to keep you on track.

And throughout your time within this circle of trusted individuals, remember a key nugget of wisdom we all learned during our formative years: what you were the key to good relationships is not making them one-sided; give as much as you get, helping others where you can, and you’ll find you have an enviable support system, a network of people you can rely on as you work to grow and scale up your business.

Related: Build the Network Necessary for Your Startup to Succeed

The journey won’t always be easy or smooth, and in the seasons when your business is fighting to get off the ground, the network you’ve built, the connections you’ve nurtured, will be crucial in keeping it – and you – afloat. As they say, success is predicated on who you know as much as what you know. Never stop networking!

Square one is creating your presence on LinkedIn and gradually expanding your efforts to include industry-specific business groups, small business meetups, and attending dedicated networking events in your local area. The time and effort invested will often return tenfold, connecting you to your community and your industry in invaluable ways.

Maximize Time and Resources by Outsourcing Sales

Whatever industry you may operate in, you undoubtedly want to maximize your resources to allow you the most significant amount of time to spend on that which drives you: the service or product you provide. Outsourcing sales to a third party to generate sales for your startup or business has proven to be highly beneficial for many companies across a broad spectrum of industries. Young companies can face time and resource limitations as well as knowledge or skill gaps that can not be addressed internally. Proactively executing outsourcing partnerships enables founders to successfully achieve results beyond what you might be limited to on your own.

Related: How to Grow Your Sales with These Top 5 Outsourcing-Sales Companies

Meeting the Needs of a Transformed Customer Base

Businesses within every industry are having to adjust to a transformed customer base, with clientele possessing instant access to more information than ever. This shift can benefit both parties, ideally helping to minimize frustration or delay. An informed customer experiencing clear cut and transparent communication is always the end goal. Founders will find themselves balancing product research and development, client care, staff management, and sales growth; these time constraints can make it challenging to develop the skills needed to connect with potential customers. A highly specialized sales team has the training, experience, and resources to cut through the noise and successfully communicate with potential customers, answering any questions they may have on the consumer’s journey.

Sales outsourcing doesn’t diminish a founder’s tangible influence but instead empowers an experienced sales team to spread awareness of the products or services you provide. When you trust their understanding and respect for the standards and values that define your startup, it allows you to focus on developing the business solutions that will deliver the well deserved reputation you’re striving for.

Leverage Startup Programs to Bolster Development

As you start to develop your business, you’ll want to have mentors you can trust, an advisory board steeped in experience and expertise. While navigating the entrepreneurial labyrinth, trusted mentors and proven startup programs will have the advice and guidance you need to find success.

Related: 12 Reasons You Should Join an Accelerator to Advance Your Startup

Discover the SBA (Small Business Association)

Explore options such as SCORE, funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Association; SCORE is a network of retired volunteer business mentors who guide startups at no cost. Also supported by the SBA are Small Business Development Centers, known as SBDCs; these Small Business Development Centers are located around the country to help start and develop small businesses with no-cost consulting and low-cost training.

Find the mentors you need and the startup programs willing and able to support your business; lean on these individuals who are eager to help and guide your business from growth to scaling up. One day you’ll be able to return the favor to the next generation of entrepreneurs looking to launch the successor to Google. You’ll mentor these driven individuals with a passion and commitment to create a new example of exceptional scalability, adding customers and revenue exponentially, with a limited and incremental increase in costs.

Be the Exception to the Expectation!

No destiny is set in stone, whether for individuals or startups alike. There are always exceptions to the rules, and you can be the fulfillment of the 10% chance that all startups have of achieving success. Reduce the amount of chance that is inherent in your journey by investing your priceless time and energy into these key tenets of exhilarating growth and scalability for any startup.

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TechCrunch+ roundup: Startup survival tips, content as a service, leading with transparency - TechCrunch

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At the end of “Planet of the Apes” (1968), the human protagonist realizes that the alien world he crash-landed upon is actually post-apocalyptic Earth.

For many first-time founders in fundraising mode, the current market correction for publicly-traded tech companies has been similarly jarring.

Once investors started shaving value from high-flying stocks, it changed the game for early-stage valuations, says Navin Chaddha, managing partner at Mayfield.

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Looking back at the burst of the first internet bubble in the early 2000s and the 2008 financial meltdown, Chaddha notes that we can expect roiling public markets and “geopolitical challenges” to inform the size of seed and Series A rounds.

“If you are at the inception stage, we are primarily evaluating your team to make sure the product is a pain-killer and not a vitamin.”

Conditions change, and so do investor expectations, which means founders should reframe their thinking about acceptable entry valuations and revisit their spending plans. If I were starting up today, setting aside cash for hiring bonuses would be a much higher priority than buying Herman Miller Aeron chairs.

As Chaddha notes, “it is easier to go up than down.”

Thanks very much for reading TechCrunch+, and have a great week.

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
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After Anaplan, which SaaS company will private equity target next?

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Over the last six months, the share price of planning software company Anaplan dropped more than 22%, which explains why private equity firm Thoma Bravo just announced plans to acquire it for $10.7 billion.

Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm studied the transaction to see “if Thoma Bravo is paying a premium for this company,” but they also looked at the larger question — is this “the beginning of a trend of private equity taking aim at vulnerable SaaS firms?”

Why so many SaaS companies are launching their own media operations

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Content as a service?

In the last few years, Salesforce, Hubspot, Shopify and other enterprise companies have begun scaling their own media operations.

Online audiences are accustomed to consuming well-produced videos, podcasts, infographics and other media. As a result, simple blog posts lost their luster years ago, found reporter Ron Miller.

To see what startups can learn from SaaS’ new approach to content marketing, he interviewed several analysts and experts.

“If I’m a CMO, I have to ask how I get access to these audiences,” said Robert Rose, founder and principal analyst at The Content Advisory.

“I can either continue to rent it through the access that Facebook or Google gives me, which are increasingly walled gardens, or I can start to build it on my own or acquire it.”

Be an entrepreneur who leads with transparency

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Founding a tech company isn’t like starting most small businesses: no one expects a plumber to show 3% month-over-month growth, for example.

Tech entrepreneurs are under pressure to build a team, regularly ship new products, and quickly capture revenue so they can provide a return to their investors. So it’s not surprising that sometimes, they let ethics fall by the wayside.

Entrepreneur and investor Marjorie Radlo-Zandi says the “fake it till you make it” mindset is a useful motivational tool, but it’s not a basis for a sustainable business strategy:

The founder of a company I invested in secretly kept two sets of books: one with correct historical financials, and another with numbers inflated more than 10 times actuals. Sales and product performance had fallen short. His solution was to present the inflated financials to investors.

Zendesk’s latest problem is an activist investor

Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images

After stockholders rejected Zendesk’s plan to acquire SurveyMonkey’s owner Momentive earlier this year, activist investor Jana Partners is now trying to shake up the company’s board, Ron Miller and Alex Wilhelm reported.

“The tension between external and internal parties likely comes from precisely how much the company will be worth in the future, and whether or not there is a price that a larger company will pay that Jana and others like, and the company’s current leaders will accept,” wrote Ron and Alex.

“The more optimistic the current Zendesk management is, the harder it will be to find that price.”

New data underscores a slowing e-commerce market

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

E-commerce boomed after middle-class consumers turned to online shopping and grocery delivery during the pandemic.

But two years on, that growth is slowing as the world recovers, which indicates that “future e-commerce activity was pulled forward, instead of the larger digital commerce pie growing thanks to long-term changes to the economy,” wrote Alex Wilhelm in The Exchange.

Analyzing data from e-commerce giants like Shopify, Pinduoduo, Alibaba and Amazon, Alex shares his insight into the slowing state of e-commerce in 2022.

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TechCrunch+ roundup: Startup survival tips, content as a service, leading with transparency - TechCrunch
"Startup" - Google News
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