Sequoia’s Jess Lee explains how early-stage startups can identify product-market fit
Founders at the early stages of building their startups may have already created a strong solution, identified a gap in the market, or may simply have an inescapable and driving motivation to build their own business. Ideally, they have a good combination of all three. But do they have product-market fit? And what actually is product-market fit, anyway?
The investors at Sequoia, one of the world’s biggest venture capital firms, have come up with a very handy framework to answer those two questions. It distills the landscape into three archetypes.
“Hair on Fire” roughly means that your startup addresses an urgent problem. A security startup, for example, might fit here, especially if it can win initial business on the back of parachuting in to fix a breach or other problem already in progress. Or, think of the wave of companies that offered services to businesses and users when they were suddenly sheltering in place and working from home during the peak of Covid-19.
“Hard Fact” translates as a startup that solves an existing problem better than what’s already out there. Square, which emerged as a new point of sale product in a seemingly old and saturated market, is a good example of this.
Lastly, “Future Vision” relates to deep tech, moonshots, and products out of left field. These would include quantum startups, but also those building flying cars or even autonomous vehicles that would ply our roads (or any of the tech that will be needed to make such vehicles).
In sum, the theory goes like this: Startups all, more or less, fit into one of these three archetypes, so identifying which archetype a company fits in can help it focus and develop.
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Founders at the early stages of building their startups may have already created a strong solution, identified a gap in the market, or may simply have an inescapable and driving motivation to build their own business. Ideally, they have a good combination of all three. But do they have product-market fit? And what actually is product-market fit, anyway?
The investors at Sequoia, one of the world’s biggest venture capital firms, have come up with a very handy framework to answer those two questions. It distills the landscape into three archetypes.
“Hair on Fire” roughly means that your startup addresses an urgent problem. A security startup, for example, might fit here, especially if it can win initial business on the back of parachuting in to fix a breach or other problem already in progress. Or, think of the wave of companies that offered services to businesses and users when they were suddenly sheltering in place and working from home during the peak of Covid-19.
“Hard Fact” translates as a startup that solves an existing problem better than what’s already out there. Square, which emerged as a new point of sale product in a seemingly old and saturated market, is a good example of this.
Lastly, “Future Vision” relates to deep tech, moonshots, and products out of left field. These would include quantum startups, but also those building flying cars or even autonomous vehicles that would ply our roads (or any of the tech that will be needed to make such vehicles).
In sum, the theory goes like this: Startups all, more or less, fit into one of these three archetypes, so identifying which archetype a company fits in can help it focus and develop.
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India’s Oyo, once valued at $10 billion, seeks new funding at 70% discount
Oyo, the Indian budget-hotel chain startup, is negotiating with investors to raise a new round of funding that could cut the Indian firm’s valuation to $3 billion or lower.
The startup is engaging with investors, including Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, for the new funding, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the matter is private. The new funding round is likely to see some secondary transactions as well that will value the startup at as low as $2.5 billion, the sources added.
The proposed terms, if they materialize, would represent a steep drop from the peak valuation of $10 billion at which Oyo raised a funding round in 2019. A valuation of $3 billion or less would also be lower than the amount of capital Oyo has raised against equity and in debt over the years.
The deliberations for the new funding are ongoing, and its terms may still change, or a round may not materialize, the sources cautioned.
The cut in valuation is hardly a surprise. SoftBank, which owns more than 40% of Oyo, internally cut the valuation of Indian Startup to $2.7 billion in 2022. Oyo said at the time that there was “no rational basis” for the markdown of its valuation.
Oyo – which counts SoftBank, Airbnb, Peak XV Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners among its backers – disputed the “rumors,” asserting there wasn’t any “concrete transaction.” Khazanah didn’t respond to a request for comment. The terms about the proposed valuation haven’t been previously reported.
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Oyo, the Indian budget-hotel chain startup, is negotiating with investors to raise a new round of funding that could cut the Indian firm’s valuation to $3 billion or lower.
The startup is engaging with investors, including Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, for the new funding, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the matter is private. The new funding round is likely to see some secondary transactions as well that will value the startup at as low as $2.5 billion, the sources added.
The proposed terms, if they materialize, would represent a steep drop from the peak valuation of $10 billion at which Oyo raised a funding round in 2019. A valuation of $3 billion or less would also be lower than the amount of capital Oyo has raised against equity and in debt over the years.
The deliberations for the new funding are ongoing, and its terms may still change, or a round may not materialize, the sources cautioned.
The cut in valuation is hardly a surprise. SoftBank, which owns more than 40% of Oyo, internally cut the valuation of Indian Startup to $2.7 billion in 2022. Oyo said at the time that there was “no rational basis” for the markdown of its valuation.
Oyo – which counts SoftBank, Airbnb, Peak XV Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners among its backers – disputed the “rumors,” asserting there wasn’t any “concrete transaction.” Khazanah didn’t respond to a request for comment. The terms about the proposed valuation haven’t been previously reported.
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Can AI help founders fundraise more quickly and easily?
With venture totals slipping year-over-year in key markets like the United States, and concern that venture firms themselves are struggling to raise more capital, founders might be worried. After all, if private-market investment doesn’t perk up in the coming quarters, we could be on track for yet another year of declines in total startup investment in 2024.
Some startups are working to combat the slowdown, including Intently, which is rolling out a new service this week called Founder AI. The service’s premise is simple: It will go through your personal data, understand who you know, sort those connections based on their own background in terms of what they have built and craft a few recommended paths to warm investor intros from your existing founder network.
The goal is to identify the best ways to reach the most pertinent investors, as most folks won’t make too many introductions for you. That’s why you want to ensure you are aiming at targets who might come good.
Under the hood, the service is a bit more complex; so much so that Intently CEO and co-founder Slava Solonitsyn told TechCrunch that his team built Founder AI first as a services business to ensure that they understood what founders have, need and want, only to later productize that work with the help of AI.
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With venture totals slipping year-over-year in key markets like the United States, and concern that venture firms themselves are struggling to raise more capital, founders might be worried. After all, if private-market investment doesn’t perk up in the coming quarters, we could be on track for yet another year of declines in total startup investment in 2024.
Some startups are working to combat the slowdown, including Intently, which is rolling out a new service this week called Founder AI. The service’s premise is simple: It will go through your personal data, understand who you know, sort those connections based on their own background in terms of what they have built and craft a few recommended paths to warm investor intros from your existing founder network.
The goal is to identify the best ways to reach the most pertinent investors, as most folks won’t make too many introductions for you. That’s why you want to ensure you are aiming at targets who might come good.
Under the hood, the service is a bit more complex; so much so that Intently CEO and co-founder Slava Solonitsyn told TechCrunch that his team built Founder AI first as a services business to ensure that they understood what founders have, need and want, only to later productize that work with the help of AI.
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Infighting among fintech players has caused TabaPay to ‘pull out’ from buying bankrupt Synapse
Instant payments company TabaPay has abandoned its plans to purchase the assets of troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse, TabaPay confirmed to TechCrunch today. Synapse says the problem is banking partner Evolve Bank & Trust. And Evolve says it is not involved, and not to blame. Meanwhile, another player in the saga, Mercury, says Synapse’s allegations have “no merit.”
Synapse’s counsel declared in bankruptcy court on Thursday that the deal would not be moving forward, Fintech Business Weekly’s Jason Mikula shared on LinkedIn. A spokesperson for TabaPay confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday afternoon that the company had “pulled out,” adding that TabaPay had sent “termination notice of the purchase agreement this morning based on failure to meet the purchase agreement closing conditions.”
Synapse CEO and co-founder Sankaet Pathak, however, believes that TabaPay can still be convinced to stay in the deal. He told that his “understanding is that TabaPay is still interested in doing the acquisition, but Evolve has failed to meet their closing condition for TabaPay to be able to close.”
That closing condition is that Evolve Bank & Trust must fully fund its FBO accounts and has thus far failed to do so, according to Pathak. FBOstands for “For Benefit Of” account, and is defined as “a bank or investment account that is set up to receive funds on behalf of a third party or beneficiary.”
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Instant payments company TabaPay has abandoned its plans to purchase the assets of troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse, TabaPay confirmed to TechCrunch today. Synapse says the problem is banking partner Evolve Bank & Trust. And Evolve says it is not involved, and not to blame. Meanwhile, another player in the saga, Mercury, says Synapse’s allegations have “no merit.”
Synapse’s counsel declared in bankruptcy court on Thursday that the deal would not be moving forward, Fintech Business Weekly’s Jason Mikula shared on LinkedIn. A spokesperson for TabaPay confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday afternoon that the company had “pulled out,” adding that TabaPay had sent “termination notice of the purchase agreement this morning based on failure to meet the purchase agreement closing conditions.”
Synapse CEO and co-founder Sankaet Pathak, however, believes that TabaPay can still be convinced to stay in the deal. He told that his “understanding is that TabaPay is still interested in doing the acquisition, but Evolve has failed to meet their closing condition for TabaPay to be able to close.”
That closing condition is that Evolve Bank & Trust must fully fund its FBO accounts and has thus far failed to do so, according to Pathak. FBOstands for “For Benefit Of” account, and is defined as “a bank or investment account that is set up to receive funds on behalf of a third party or beneficiary.”
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Founders Fund leads financing of composites startup Layup Parts
Scarcely five months after its founding, hard tech startup Layup Parts has landed a $9 million round of financing led by Founders Fund to transform composites manufacturing. Lux Capital and Haystack also participated.
The breakneck pace is more than a subtle indication that investors’ appetite for tech-focused solutions to the woes of the American industrial base is not going down. But Layup was likely able to close a large funding round so quickly at least in part because the founders themselves have deep experience with the issues that plague domestic manufacturing.
Layup was founded by Zack Eakin, Hanno Kappen and Elisa Suarez; the trio met while working at The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s idiosyncratic effort to transform transportation using tunnels. Kappen went on to work at robotic pizzeria Stellar Pizza while Suarez had stints at Rivian and renewable energy company Heliogen.
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Scarcely five months after its founding, hard tech startup Layup Parts has landed a $9 million round of financing led by Founders Fund to transform composites manufacturing. Lux Capital and Haystack also participated.
The breakneck pace is more than a subtle indication that investors’ appetite for tech-focused solutions to the woes of the American industrial base is not going down. But Layup was likely able to close a large funding round so quickly at least in part because the founders themselves have deep experience with the issues that plague domestic manufacturing.
Layup was founded by Zack Eakin, Hanno Kappen and Elisa Suarez; the trio met while working at The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s idiosyncratic effort to transform transportation using tunnels. Kappen went on to work at robotic pizzeria Stellar Pizza while Suarez had stints at Rivian and renewable energy company Heliogen.
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Urban Company turns profitable with Rs 7 Cr PBT in April
Urban Company has turned profitable at PBT level (profit before tax) on a consolidated basis in the last month, said two sources aware of the firm’s financial numbers. The development will potentially smoothen its public listing plan which is likely to happen in the second half of next year (2025).
“Urban Company’s India business has been EBITDA profitable since October-November 2022,” said one of the people cited above requesting anonymity. “But on a consolidated basis, the firm posted a little over Rs 7 crore in profit before tax (PBT) in April 2024.”
As for the firm’s India unit — which is more than 90% of its business — it recorded over Rs 11 crore PBT in April. “Urban Company has also achieved breakeven in the UAE but it is incurring losses in Singapore and Saudi region as these two markets are new,” said the person mentioned above.
The profitability in April indicates that Urban Company has been able to cut losses by over two-third in FY24. “The company’s losses for the last fiscal stood under Rs 100 crore,” said another person who also requested anonymity.
The 10-year-old company posted a loss of Rs 308 crore against revenue of Rs 637 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023. According to the startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, Urban Company also reduced its losses by 40.1% in FY23 as compared to FY22.
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Urban Company has turned profitable at PBT level (profit before tax) on a consolidated basis in the last month, said two sources aware of the firm’s financial numbers. The development will potentially smoothen its public listing plan which is likely to happen in the second half of next year (2025).
“Urban Company’s India business has been EBITDA profitable since October-November 2022,” said one of the people cited above requesting anonymity. “But on a consolidated basis, the firm posted a little over Rs 7 crore in profit before tax (PBT) in April 2024.”
As for the firm’s India unit — which is more than 90% of its business — it recorded over Rs 11 crore PBT in April. “Urban Company has also achieved breakeven in the UAE but it is incurring losses in Singapore and Saudi region as these two markets are new,” said the person mentioned above.
The profitability in April indicates that Urban Company has been able to cut losses by over two-third in FY24. “The company’s losses for the last fiscal stood under Rs 100 crore,” said another person who also requested anonymity.
The 10-year-old company posted a loss of Rs 308 crore against revenue of Rs 637 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023. According to the startup data intelligence platform TheKredible, Urban Company also reduced its losses by 40.1% in FY23 as compared to FY22.
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Healthy growth helps B2B food e-commerce startup Pepper nab $30 million led by ICONIQ Growth
Pepper, the e-commerce platform for food distributors, continues to edge into Sysco and US Foods territory by giving smaller, independent distributors a technology leg up.
The company developed an ordering system specifically for independent food distributors that supports catalogs of over 100,000 items, and enables these companies to launch mobile apps and websites so they can accept orders and payments online.
Co-founder and CEO Bowie Cheung, who previously worked at Uber Eats, said the company now has 200 customers among a market of 25,000 food distributors. However, Cheung said Pepper wants to grow that by facilitating the relationship between independent distribution and technology.
“These businesses, generally speaking, have never been well-served by the big-box broad-line distributors like Sysco or US Foods,” Cheung told. “If you enjoy the diversity and the vibrancy that non-chain restaurants bring to your community, then you already understand the importance of that independent distributor, and that’s very much the customer that we have always served and continue to serve today.”
Pepper is doing this by developing dozens of new product features each year that leverage advanced technology, like generative AI, to improve the experience, efficiency and results. The company’s proof points include customers seeing a 23% increase in sales, 93% buyer retention and the ability to save more than 10 hours of work per week per sales representative, Cheung said.
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Pepper, the e-commerce platform for food distributors, continues to edge into Sysco and US Foods territory by giving smaller, independent distributors a technology leg up.
The company developed an ordering system specifically for independent food distributors that supports catalogs of over 100,000 items, and enables these companies to launch mobile apps and websites so they can accept orders and payments online.
Co-founder and CEO Bowie Cheung, who previously worked at Uber Eats, said the company now has 200 customers among a market of 25,000 food distributors. However, Cheung said Pepper wants to grow that by facilitating the relationship between independent distribution and technology.
“These businesses, generally speaking, have never been well-served by the big-box broad-line distributors like Sysco or US Foods,” Cheung told. “If you enjoy the diversity and the vibrancy that non-chain restaurants bring to your community, then you already understand the importance of that independent distributor, and that’s very much the customer that we have always served and continue to serve today.”
Pepper is doing this by developing dozens of new product features each year that leverage advanced technology, like generative AI, to improve the experience, efficiency and results. The company’s proof points include customers seeing a 23% increase in sales, 93% buyer retention and the ability to save more than 10 hours of work per week per sales representative, Cheung said.
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David Sacks reveals Glue, the AI company he’s been teasing on his All In podcast
If you use Slack at work, you’ve likely noticed that the number of channels you’re invited to proliferates incessantly.
David Sacks, one-quarter of the popular All In podcast and a renowned serial entrepreneur whose past companies include Yammer — an employee chat startup that sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012 — says he can solve this problem. Toward that end, he teamed up with Evan Owen, formerly the VP of engineering at a collaboration app, Zinc, that ServiceMax acquired in 2019.
The two of them have created Glue, an employee chat app that they say will fix what they call “Slack channel fatigue.” Glue, which emerged from stealth on Tuesday, is designed around topic-based threads and uses GenAI.
Craft Ventures, the VC firm that Sacks founded, incubated and funded the company through multiple seed rounds. Glue was born in 2021 when Sacks and Owen, then an entrepreneur-in-residence at Craft, decided they each had many ideas about improving workplace messaging, and the space was due for an update.
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If you use Slack at work, you’ve likely noticed that the number of channels you’re invited to proliferates incessantly.
David Sacks, one-quarter of the popular All In podcast and a renowned serial entrepreneur whose past companies include Yammer — an employee chat startup that sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion in 2012 — says he can solve this problem. Toward that end, he teamed up with Evan Owen, formerly the VP of engineering at a collaboration app, Zinc, that ServiceMax acquired in 2019.
The two of them have created Glue, an employee chat app that they say will fix what they call “Slack channel fatigue.” Glue, which emerged from stealth on Tuesday, is designed around topic-based threads and uses GenAI.
Craft Ventures, the VC firm that Sacks founded, incubated and funded the company through multiple seed rounds. Glue was born in 2021 when Sacks and Owen, then an entrepreneur-in-residence at Craft, decided they each had many ideas about improving workplace messaging, and the space was due for an update.
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Indian insurance startup Go Digit raises $141M from anchor investors ahead of IPO
Go Digit, an Indian insurance startup, has raised $141 million from dozens of investors as part of an initial public offering that starts on Wednesday.
Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Bay Pond, Mirae Asset Management, Steadview Capital, and HSBC, as well as Indian mutual funds operated by SBI, ICICI, Axis, Tata and Edelweiss, served as anchor backers for the IPO, Go Digit disclosed in a filing to the stock exchange.
Founded by Kamesh Goyal, an ex-KPMG executive and insurance industry veteran, Go Digit sells auto, health, travel, and accidental insurance. The startup simplifies the insurance purchasing and redemption process, letting users self-inspect, submit claims, and process service requests from their smartphones. It had a total of about 43 million customers in the nine months ending December last year, and had issued a total of 8 million policies, according to its IPO prospectus.
The Mumbai-based startup aims to raise about $313 million from the IPO. It’s seeking a valuation of about $3 billion, which would be about 25% lower than its last private valuation of $4 billion.
Retail investors in India have been warming up to tech startup stocks. Even though the nation’s benchmark, Sensex, is up by 1.4% this year, many of the tech startups that went public on Indian stock exchanges in recent years have outperformed it. Shares of food delivery firm Zomato are up 51.2% this year, while insurance aggregator Policy Bazaar’s stock is up 60.4%.
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Go Digit, an Indian insurance startup, has raised $141 million from dozens of investors as part of an initial public offering that starts on Wednesday.
Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Bay Pond, Mirae Asset Management, Steadview Capital, and HSBC, as well as Indian mutual funds operated by SBI, ICICI, Axis, Tata and Edelweiss, served as anchor backers for the IPO, Go Digit disclosed in a filing to the stock exchange.
Founded by Kamesh Goyal, an ex-KPMG executive and insurance industry veteran, Go Digit sells auto, health, travel, and accidental insurance. The startup simplifies the insurance purchasing and redemption process, letting users self-inspect, submit claims, and process service requests from their smartphones. It had a total of about 43 million customers in the nine months ending December last year, and had issued a total of 8 million policies, according to its IPO prospectus.
The Mumbai-based startup aims to raise about $313 million from the IPO. It’s seeking a valuation of about $3 billion, which would be about 25% lower than its last private valuation of $4 billion.
Retail investors in India have been warming up to tech startup stocks. Even though the nation’s benchmark, Sensex, is up by 1.4% this year, many of the tech startups that went public on Indian stock exchanges in recent years have outperformed it. Shares of food delivery firm Zomato are up 51.2% this year, while insurance aggregator Policy Bazaar’s stock is up 60.4%.
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Shipping logistics startup Harbor Lab raises $16M Series A led by Atomico
Cargo ships docking at a commercial port incur costs called “disbursements” and “port call expenses.” These might include port dues, towage, and pilotage fees. It’s a complex patchwork and all ports operate their own procedures, much of it on spreadsheets. The global cost from port calls, for all vessels, is over $220 billion dollars per year.
Now, a Greek maritime software startup that we last covered when it raised a €6.1 million seed round — Harbor Lab — has gone on to raise a $16 million Series A funding round led by European VC Atomico.
Harbor Lab says the costs that arise from a vessel’s port calls are the second largest expense for commercial vessels behind fuel, reaching around $2.2 million per vessel per year.
The company claims its platform can streamline those costs and reduce the margin of error in invoicing errors and overpayments from 20% to just 3% per port call.
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Cargo ships docking at a commercial port incur costs called “disbursements” and “port call expenses.” These might include port dues, towage, and pilotage fees. It’s a complex patchwork and all ports operate their own procedures, much of it on spreadsheets. The global cost from port calls, for all vessels, is over $220 billion dollars per year.
Now, a Greek maritime software startup that we last covered when it raised a €6.1 million seed round — Harbor Lab — has gone on to raise a $16 million Series A funding round led by European VC Atomico.
Harbor Lab says the costs that arise from a vessel’s port calls are the second largest expense for commercial vessels behind fuel, reaching around $2.2 million per vessel per year.
The company claims its platform can streamline those costs and reduce the margin of error in invoicing errors and overpayments from 20% to just 3% per port call.
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Agora raises $34M Series B to keep building the Carta for real estate
Since he was very young, Bar Mor knew that he would inevitably do something with real estate. His family was involved in all types of real estate projects, from ground-up construction to managing residential, commercial and retail properties.
But unlike his parents, Mor also had a passion for technology. His interest in tech was reinforced when he became a commander in Unit 8200, the elite cyber intelligence division of the Israeli Defense Forces known for minting tech entrepreneurs.
After leaving the army, he decided to combine his two passions: Mor noticed that many real estate investors do not have a dedicated system for keeping track of various back-office processes such as managing cash collected from rent, calculating and distributing proceeds to their LPs and many other administrative functions.
“We’ve seen companies struggling with managing all of these things using a lot of spreadsheets, emails and [other] disjointed systems that don’t interact with each other,” Mor said.
That realization led him, together with Unit 8200 friends Lior Dolinski and Noam Kahan, to found Agora, a software company that manages data, automates reporting, streamlines fundraising processes and provides bookkeeping and tax services for real estate investment firms of various sizes.
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Since he was very young, Bar Mor knew that he would inevitably do something with real estate. His family was involved in all types of real estate projects, from ground-up construction to managing residential, commercial and retail properties.
But unlike his parents, Mor also had a passion for technology. His interest in tech was reinforced when he became a commander in Unit 8200, the elite cyber intelligence division of the Israeli Defense Forces known for minting tech entrepreneurs.
After leaving the army, he decided to combine his two passions: Mor noticed that many real estate investors do not have a dedicated system for keeping track of various back-office processes such as managing cash collected from rent, calculating and distributing proceeds to their LPs and many other administrative functions.
“We’ve seen companies struggling with managing all of these things using a lot of spreadsheets, emails and [other] disjointed systems that don’t interact with each other,” Mor said.
That realization led him, together with Unit 8200 friends Lior Dolinski and Noam Kahan, to found Agora, a software company that manages data, automates reporting, streamlines fundraising processes and provides bookkeeping and tax services for real estate investment firms of various sizes.
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A US Trustee wants troubled fintech Synapse to be liquidated via Chapter 7 bankruptcy, cites ‘gross mismanagement’
The prospects for troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse have gone from bad to worse this week after a United States Trustee filed an emergency motion on Wednesday.
The trustee is asking to convert the company’s debt reorganization Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a liquidation Chapter 7, according to court documents.
The trustee wrote that the need for Chapter 7 resulted from Synapse “grossly” mismanaging its estate so that losses were continuing with little “reasonable likelihood of reorganization” that would allow the company to emerge on the other side and carry on.
This new development is significant because Synapse founder Sankaet Pathak earlier this month alleged that its former partners owe it millions, by its own accounting, and were not paying up. Those partners have been insisting that Synapse’s allegations have “no merit.”
San Francisco-based Synapse, which operated a platform enabling banks and fintech companies to develop financial services, was founded in 2014 by Bryan Keltner and Pathak. It was providing those types of services as an intermediary between banking partner Evolve Bank & Trust and business banking startup Mercury, among others.
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The prospects for troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse have gone from bad to worse this week after a United States Trustee filed an emergency motion on Wednesday.
The trustee is asking to convert the company’s debt reorganization Chapter 11 bankruptcy into a liquidation Chapter 7, according to court documents.
The trustee wrote that the need for Chapter 7 resulted from Synapse “grossly” mismanaging its estate so that losses were continuing with little “reasonable likelihood of reorganization” that would allow the company to emerge on the other side and carry on.
This new development is significant because Synapse founder Sankaet Pathak earlier this month alleged that its former partners owe it millions, by its own accounting, and were not paying up. Those partners have been insisting that Synapse’s allegations have “no merit.”
San Francisco-based Synapse, which operated a platform enabling banks and fintech companies to develop financial services, was founded in 2014 by Bryan Keltner and Pathak. It was providing those types of services as an intermediary between banking partner Evolve Bank & Trust and business banking startup Mercury, among others.
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With AI startups booming, nap pods and Silicon Valley hustle culture are back
When Jeffrey Wang posted Monday to X asking if anyone wanted to go in on an order of fancy-but-affordable office nap pods, he didn’t expect the post to go viral. He said so many others wanted in, he could have ordered over 100 units.
The post didn’t just hit a nerve with other X users who wanted a nap at work. Some people joked about the hygiene of sharing a bed with office mates. One replied, “The last thing I want to do is share bedsheets with my software developer coworkers.”
Many admired the particular features of these nap pods, or applauded the whole idea of office napping. “every modern office should have one no different than napping on a 15 hour flight some task require the better inference that rem sleep gets you [sic]” responded another.
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When Jeffrey Wang posted Monday to X asking if anyone wanted to go in on an order of fancy-but-affordable office nap pods, he didn’t expect the post to go viral. He said so many others wanted in, he could have ordered over 100 units.
The post didn’t just hit a nerve with other X users who wanted a nap at work. Some people joked about the hygiene of sharing a bed with office mates. One replied, “The last thing I want to do is share bedsheets with my software developer coworkers.”
Many admired the particular features of these nap pods, or applauded the whole idea of office napping. “every modern office should have one no different than napping on a 15 hour flight some task require the better inference that rem sleep gets you [sic]” responded another.
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Pine Labs gets Singapore court approval to shift base to India
Pine Labs, a merchant commerce startup, has received approval from a Singapore court to merge its local entity with its Indian unit, and transfer all its assets and properties, effectively permitting the firm to shift its operations to India.
Pine Labs disclosed the court order in a recent regulatory.
Pine Labs offers a range of products and services to merchants, such as cloud-connected point-of-sale machines and working capital. It is backed by Peak XV, Fidelity, Invesco, Temasek, PayPal and Alpha Wave and is valued at over $5 billion.
It is among the handful of Indian startups that have been shifting their domiciles to India of late. Meesho, Zepto, Flipkart, Razorpay and Udaan are also in the process of evaluating a similar move. Fintech startups PhonePe and Groww have already relocated their overseas holding entities to India.
Pine Labs declined to comment.
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Pine Labs, a merchant commerce startup, has received approval from a Singapore court to merge its local entity with its Indian unit, and transfer all its assets and properties, effectively permitting the firm to shift its operations to India.
Pine Labs disclosed the court order in a recent regulatory.
Pine Labs offers a range of products and services to merchants, such as cloud-connected point-of-sale machines and working capital. It is backed by Peak XV, Fidelity, Invesco, Temasek, PayPal and Alpha Wave and is valued at over $5 billion.
It is among the handful of Indian startups that have been shifting their domiciles to India of late. Meesho, Zepto, Flipkart, Razorpay and Udaan are also in the process of evaluating a similar move. Fintech startups PhonePe and Groww have already relocated their overseas holding entities to India.
Pine Labs declined to comment.
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Alchemist’s latest batch puts AI to work as accelerator expands to Tokyo, Doha
Alchemist Accelerator has a new pile of AI-forward companies demoing their wares today, if you care to watch, and the program itself is making some international moves into Tokyo and Doha. Read on for our picks of the batch.
Chatting with Alchemist CEO and founder Ravi Belani ahead of demo day (today at 10:30 a.m. Pacific) about this cohort, it was clear that ambitions for AI startups have contracted, and that’s not a bad thing.
No early-stage startup today is at all likely to become the next OpenAI or Anthropic — their lead is too huge right now in the domain of foundational large language models.
“The cost of building a basic LLM is prohibitively high; you get into the hundreds of millions of dollars just to get it out. The question is, as a startup, how do you compete?” Belani said. “VCs don’t want wrappers around LLMs. We’re looking for companies where there’s a vertical play, where they own the end user and there’s a network effect and lock-in over time.”
That was also my read, as the companies selected for this group are all highly specific in their applications, using AI but solving for a specific problem in a specific domain.
An example of this is healthcare, where AI models for assisting diagnosis, planning care and so on are increasingly but still cautiously being tested out. The specter of liability and bias hang heavy over this heavily regulated industry, but there are also lots of legacy processes that could be replaced with real, tangible benefit.
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Alchemist Accelerator has a new pile of AI-forward companies demoing their wares today, if you care to watch, and the program itself is making some international moves into Tokyo and Doha. Read on for our picks of the batch.
Chatting with Alchemist CEO and founder Ravi Belani ahead of demo day (today at 10:30 a.m. Pacific) about this cohort, it was clear that ambitions for AI startups have contracted, and that’s not a bad thing.
No early-stage startup today is at all likely to become the next OpenAI or Anthropic — their lead is too huge right now in the domain of foundational large language models.
“The cost of building a basic LLM is prohibitively high; you get into the hundreds of millions of dollars just to get it out. The question is, as a startup, how do you compete?” Belani said. “VCs don’t want wrappers around LLMs. We’re looking for companies where there’s a vertical play, where they own the end user and there’s a network effect and lock-in over time.”
That was also my read, as the companies selected for this group are all highly specific in their applications, using AI but solving for a specific problem in a specific domain.
An example of this is healthcare, where AI models for assisting diagnosis, planning care and so on are increasingly but still cautiously being tested out. The specter of liability and bias hang heavy over this heavily regulated industry, but there are also lots of legacy processes that could be replaced with real, tangible benefit.
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VCs wanted FarmboxRx to become a meal kit, the company bootstrapped instead
Some startups choose to bootstrap from the beginning while others find themselves forced into self funding by a lack of investor interest or a business model that doesn’t fit traditional VC.
FarmboxRx decided to bootstrap because founder Ashley Tyrner didn’t like the advice she was getting from potential backers.
Tyrner told that when she went out to raise money for FarmboxRx, a direct-to-consumer produce box company meant to solve food deserts at the time, she found that venture investors were interested if, and only if, she agreed to pivot her company toward a hot trend of the moment.
“Every VC we talked to, any of them that were actually even remotely nice to us at the time wanted us to become a meal kit,” Tyrner said. “That’s not what our focus was. We did not want to jump on the meal kit bandwagon. Now looking back, I’m really glad that I never raised any capital and we still haven’t raised any capital to this day. Most of the meal kits are, you know, they’ve slowly died.”
Instead, the company leaned into its existing produce box-focused model and the supply chain it built around that strategy, and built a new revenue stream on top of that.
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Some startups choose to bootstrap from the beginning while others find themselves forced into self funding by a lack of investor interest or a business model that doesn’t fit traditional VC.
FarmboxRx decided to bootstrap because founder Ashley Tyrner didn’t like the advice she was getting from potential backers.
Tyrner told that when she went out to raise money for FarmboxRx, a direct-to-consumer produce box company meant to solve food deserts at the time, she found that venture investors were interested if, and only if, she agreed to pivot her company toward a hot trend of the moment.
“Every VC we talked to, any of them that were actually even remotely nice to us at the time wanted us to become a meal kit,” Tyrner said. “That’s not what our focus was. We did not want to jump on the meal kit bandwagon. Now looking back, I’m really glad that I never raised any capital and we still haven’t raised any capital to this day. Most of the meal kits are, you know, they’ve slowly died.”
Instead, the company leaned into its existing produce box-focused model and the supply chain it built around that strategy, and built a new revenue stream on top of that.
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ZeroPoint’s nanosecond-scale memory compression could tame power-hungry AI infrastructure
AI is only the latest and hungriest market for high-performance computing, and system architects are working around the clock to wring every drop of performance out of every watt. Swedish startup ZeroPoint, armed with €5 million ($5.5M USD) in new funding, wants to help them out with a novel memory compression technique at the nanosecond scale — and yes, it’s exactly as complicated as it sounds.
The concept is this: losslessly compress data just before it enters RAM, and decompress it afterwards, effectively widening the memory channel by 50% or more just by adding one small piece to the chip.
Compression is, of course, a foundational technology in computing; as ZeroPoint CEO Klas Moreau (left in the image above, with co-founders Per Stenström and Angelos Arelakis) pointed out, “We wouldn’t store data on the hard drive today without compressing it. Research suggests 70% of data in memory is unnecessary. So why don’t we compress in memory?”
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AI is only the latest and hungriest market for high-performance computing, and system architects are working around the clock to wring every drop of performance out of every watt. Swedish startup ZeroPoint, armed with €5 million ($5.5M USD) in new funding, wants to help them out with a novel memory compression technique at the nanosecond scale — and yes, it’s exactly as complicated as it sounds.
The concept is this: losslessly compress data just before it enters RAM, and decompress it afterwards, effectively widening the memory channel by 50% or more just by adding one small piece to the chip.
Compression is, of course, a foundational technology in computing; as ZeroPoint CEO Klas Moreau (left in the image above, with co-founders Per Stenström and Angelos Arelakis) pointed out, “We wouldn’t store data on the hard drive today without compressing it. Research suggests 70% of data in memory is unnecessary. So why don’t we compress in memory?”
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Google invests $350 million in Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart
Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, becoming the latest high-profile name to back the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce startup.
The Android-maker will also provide Flipkart with cloud offerings as part of the deal, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup said in a brief statement Friday. The Google investment is part of a nearly $1 billion funding round that Flipkart kicked off in 2023. Walmart has led the round, having invested $600 million in it late last year. (Microsoft is also an investor in Flipkart.)
Flipkart, valued at $36 billion in the new investment, leads the e-commerce market in India, where it serves hundreds of millions of consumers in smaller cities and towns. The startup, which also owns the fashion e-commerce startup Myntra, commands about 48% of the Indian e-commerce market, according to Bernstein.
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Google is investing nearly $350 million in Flipkart, becoming the latest high-profile name to back the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce startup.
The Android-maker will also provide Flipkart with cloud offerings as part of the deal, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup said in a brief statement Friday. The Google investment is part of a nearly $1 billion funding round that Flipkart kicked off in 2023. Walmart has led the round, having invested $600 million in it late last year. (Microsoft is also an investor in Flipkart.)
Flipkart, valued at $36 billion in the new investment, leads the e-commerce market in India, where it serves hundreds of millions of consumers in smaller cities and towns. The startup, which also owns the fashion e-commerce startup Myntra, commands about 48% of the Indian e-commerce market, according to Bernstein.
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Expressable brings speech therapy into the home
Leanne Sherred, a pediatric speech therapist, has long encountered challenges putting caregiver-led therapy into practice in traditional care settings.
Research suggests that caregiver-led speech therapy, which involves training the caregivers of patients in skill-building therapeutic techniques to use at home, can be highly effective. But as Sherred observed in the course of her practice, therapists often have limited access to caregivers and face serious educational and tech roadblocks.
In 2020, around the start of the pandemic, Sherred saw an opportunity to attempt a new, tech-forward speech therapy care model, one that put caregivers “at the center of care” (in her words). She teamed up with Nick Barbara (Sherred’s spouse), Spencer Magloff and Ryan Hinojosa to found Expressable, a platform that offers one-on-one virtual sessions with speech language pathologists.
“Layered on top of Expressable’s synchronous care is a platform that includes multimedia home programming, interactive weekly practice activities, therapist SMS support and more,” Magloff, Expressable’s chief marketing officer. “With Expressable, speech therapy isn’t limited to one to two times per week, void of caregiver participation.”
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Leanne Sherred, a pediatric speech therapist, has long encountered challenges putting caregiver-led therapy into practice in traditional care settings.
Research suggests that caregiver-led speech therapy, which involves training the caregivers of patients in skill-building therapeutic techniques to use at home, can be highly effective. But as Sherred observed in the course of her practice, therapists often have limited access to caregivers and face serious educational and tech roadblocks.
In 2020, around the start of the pandemic, Sherred saw an opportunity to attempt a new, tech-forward speech therapy care model, one that put caregivers “at the center of care” (in her words). She teamed up with Nick Barbara (Sherred’s spouse), Spencer Magloff and Ryan Hinojosa to found Expressable, a platform that offers one-on-one virtual sessions with speech language pathologists.
“Layered on top of Expressable’s synchronous care is a platform that includes multimedia home programming, interactive weekly practice activities, therapist SMS support and more,” Magloff, Expressable’s chief marketing officer. “With Expressable, speech therapy isn’t limited to one to two times per week, void of caregiver participation.”
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The biggest French startups in 2024 according to the French government
There are many ways countries can go about supporting their tech industries. In France it involves picking a yearly cohort of 120 high-potential startups — the French Tech 120 — including 40 private companies deemed as most promising, dubbed the Next40.
The French secretary of state for Digital Affairs, as of this year, Marina Ferrari, revealed this year’s laureates during VivaTech week in Paris. According to its promoters, this fifth class was the most selective since the inception of the program.
The French Tech Next40/120 program launched in 2019, and lessons have been learned along the way, especially when some unicorns turned out to be ZiRPIcorns. Following recommendations from tech insiders, criteria have changed, and half of the selection is now based on revenue metrics, rather than fundraising.
As a result, only 28 of the French Tech 120 selected in 2024 claim valuations of $1 billion or more. On the other hand, La French Tech reports that the cohort collectively had a net revenue of €10 billion in 2023, compared with €7.5 billion in 2022. Thirty-one companies reported a net revenue above €100 million.
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There are many ways countries can go about supporting their tech industries. In France it involves picking a yearly cohort of 120 high-potential startups — the French Tech 120 — including 40 private companies deemed as most promising, dubbed the Next40.
The French secretary of state for Digital Affairs, as of this year, Marina Ferrari, revealed this year’s laureates during VivaTech week in Paris. According to its promoters, this fifth class was the most selective since the inception of the program.
The French Tech Next40/120 program launched in 2019, and lessons have been learned along the way, especially when some unicorns turned out to be ZiRPIcorns. Following recommendations from tech insiders, criteria have changed, and half of the selection is now based on revenue metrics, rather than fundraising.
As a result, only 28 of the French Tech 120 selected in 2024 claim valuations of $1 billion or more. On the other hand, La French Tech reports that the cohort collectively had a net revenue of €10 billion in 2023, compared with €7.5 billion in 2022. Thirty-one companies reported a net revenue above €100 million.
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EV startup Turno raises $5.5 Mn led by BII
Commercial electric vehicle (EV) distribution and financing Turno has raised Rs 46 crore ($5.5 million) from new and existing investors. The new capital infusion for the Bengaluru-based firm came after 15 months.
The board at Turno has passed a special resolution to allot 18,057 compulsory convertible preference shares at an issue price of Rs 25,509 each to raise Rs 46 crore, its regulatory filing accessed through the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.
British International Investment invested Rs 24.94 crore while existing investors and Quona Accion, Stellaris Ventures, and B Capital participated with 6.89 crore, Rs 9.27 crore, and Rs 4.95 crore respectively.
According to the filings, the company will use these funds for expansion and to meet working capital requirements as decided by the board.
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Commercial electric vehicle (EV) distribution and financing Turno has raised Rs 46 crore ($5.5 million) from new and existing investors. The new capital infusion for the Bengaluru-based firm came after 15 months.
The board at Turno has passed a special resolution to allot 18,057 compulsory convertible preference shares at an issue price of Rs 25,509 each to raise Rs 46 crore, its regulatory filing accessed through the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.
British International Investment invested Rs 24.94 crore while existing investors and Quona Accion, Stellaris Ventures, and B Capital participated with 6.89 crore, Rs 9.27 crore, and Rs 4.95 crore respectively.
According to the filings, the company will use these funds for expansion and to meet working capital requirements as decided by the board.
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