Startups

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous

Temporary relief could come, structural exit issues notwithstanding Alex Wilhelm 7 hours Are startups really in danger of suffering a protracted, painful slowdown? With half the year now behind us, the gathering clouds for startups around the world don’t appear to have broken into storms, leaving us wondering if the market is really that bad

From the sample pitch decks in my pitch deck teardown series, you’d conclude that appendices in pitch decks are rare. That would be inaccurate; I’d estimate that more than 70% of decks used actively in pitching startups to investors include one or more appendices. Moreover, whenever I coach clients on building their pitch decks, we

Coalition, a San Francisco-based startup that combines cyber insurance and proactive cybersecurity tools, is preparing to expand outside of the U.S. for the first time following a mega $250 million Series F investment that takes its valuation to $5 billion. The investment, backed by Allianz X, Valor Equity Partners and Kinetic Partners, comes less than

Moving Analytics (Movn), a virtual at-home intervention program for high-risk cardiac patients, claims to be “the most clinically validated” cardiac rehabilitation program on the market. Though other online-based programs exist, others either address other international markets, like Heart2Heart, or work only with very specific current insurance partners, like Henry Ford Health. Moving Analytics founders and

On May 16, Butler Hospitality, an on-demand platform for room service and amenities, sent an email to vendors that might have been considered reassuring under other circumstances. “We are writing to inform you [that] room service and catering services will continue as is. All collateral is still functional,” the email read. “We appreciate your loyalty

Attabotics provides warehouses with a novel robotic solution that is reinventing supply chain management. The company has attracted investment from a wide range of investors, including Gordon Food Service, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension fund, and traditional firms like Coatue Management and Forerunner Ventures. Hear from Scott Gravelle, founder and CEO at Attabotics, about how the

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Greetings on this fine Thursday. We are still reeling about Elon Musk and the twins. Connie has more on that. Amanda also covered the verdict in the case against Theranos’ Sunny Balwani.

Arwa Kaddoura Contributor Arwa Kaddoura has worked for nearly 20 years in cloud GTM strategies and scaling startups and large enterprises. As CRO of InfluxData, she oversees global sales activities, including sales enablement, customer success, and technical support and services. Technology leaders don’t like to admit it, but sales has a perception problem that deters

Build stronger brands and reduce reliance on social Simon Wu 7 hours Simon Wu Contributor Simon is a partner with Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital firm investing across North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. He focuses on software, fintech, digital health and consumer investments. More posts by this contributor From startups to Starbucks: The

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Greetings, and happy Wednesday! I had to check the calendar before I said the day because does anyone really know what day it is anymore? Amanda had me cracking up with her

From the next big thing to rueful error, the global SPAC market has had a big few years. So-called blank check companies, which take a skeleton corporation public with the aim of later merging with a private entity, can offer a quick path to the world’s stock markets. They can also, as we’ve relearned in

During the most recent Y Combinator startup batch, Peakflo stood out to TechCrunch. The company’s simple pitch — Bill.com for Southeast Asia — fit neatly into the broader narrative of the world increasingly digitizing its workflows and the generally hot market we’d seen for fintech companies. At the time, we noted that “there are huge

Loft, a Brazilian proptech unicorn, has laid off about 380 employees, or 12% of its workforce, the company announced today. The layoff marks the company’s second round of cuts this year so far. In April, Bloomberg Linea had reported that Loft had cut 159 jobs. That would mean that Loft has let go of nearly 540

Research shows that more than half of Americans can’t read very well. Their reading skill is below a sixth-grade level. As a startup founder, that is an important statistic. It is something you have to pay attention to. Especially if you are creating a company for regular folks. In a world of apps and websites,

Quantum computing has been making quantum leaps of progress in the last several years — going from theoretical concept to multiple testing environments, to help organizations prep for a time when quantum computers, and their unparalleled processing power, become a scaled reality. Now, UK-based Oxford Quantum Circuits is announcing £38 million ($47 million) in funding

Happy Monday. It’s Independence Day here in the United States, which means that much of TechCrunch is on holiday. But as last week came to a close, several important pieces of data dropped that are worth our consideration. Let’s not let that opportunity pass, day off or not. (Also, this is the last day of

In a sign of the times, Swedish buy now, pay later giant Klarna is reportedly close to inking a new round of funding that would slash its valuation to $6.5 billion — about 1/7 of what the company was valued in June of 2021. The Wall Street Journal reported today, citing anonymous sources, that Klarna

Getting hacked sucks. It’s even worse if you’re a digital creator whose social media accounts literally pay your bills. When creators get hacked, it can mean that they aren’t able to post sponsored content, earn payments from badges or operate their Instagram shops — it’s debilitating, like if a chef broke their arm and had

According to a report by Capchase comparing more than 400 SaaS startups to unicorns that reached the public markets in the last two years, the top performers “are handily beating the ‘Rule of 40,’” reports Kyle Wiggers. For those of us who haven’t memorized economic frameworks: The Rule of 40 is a metric investors developed

Why the post-money valuation model isn’t an accurate indicator of worth Bastian Hasslinger 8 hours Bastian Hasslinger Contributor Bastian Hasslinger is an investor at Picus Capital. He is building Picus’ Berlin office focusing on early-stage technology ventures. Under normal circumstances, the higher the valuation of a startup, the better it is for all stakeholders involved.

June brought another wave of layoffs in tech, with cuts impacting roughly the same number of employees as May: 16,000 employees, according to tracker layoffs.fyi. Another layoff aggregator from TrueUp paints a more dire picture, counting 26,000 impacted employees this month, up from about 20,000 last month. Either way, the data is grim. The end

What’s a poor, freshly minted developer to do when they’re out of coding boot camp but don’t have any real-life experience? You step into the world of simulation. That’s the basic premise of what Wilco offers. Last week, I covered the company’s $7 million seed funding round, and the company’s CEO, On Freund, was gracious

Khaby Lame is quite literally on top of the world (if TikTok follower counts are the world). After attending his first VidCon and surpassing Charli D’Amelio as the most-followed TikToker, the Italian Senegalese comedian signed on as an ambassador for Binance, the world’s largest platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Just last week, Binance snagged

Jonathan Martinez Contributor Jonathan Martinez is a former YouTuber, UC Berkeley alum and growth marketing nerd who’s helped scale Uber, Postmates, Chime and various startups. More posts by this contributor How to improve retention, growth marketing’s golden metric When and how to hire your startup’s first growth marketer If you search for “growth marketing” roles

Mottu, a São Paulo-based motorcycle rental startup, has raised $30 million in equity in a Series B round of funding. The company, which aims to give independent couriers a way to work for logistics and food delivery apps, also secured $10 million in debt financing. Most, if not all, the workers have little to no,

Alex Song Contributor Alex Song is the CEO and co-founder of Proxima, a data science company that helps brands better reach consumers across all major platforms. More posts by this contributor Why D2C holding companies are here to stay Every day, the advertising world faces new challenges and opportunities. New platforms, mediums, M&A activity, privacy

Sophie Alcorn Contributor Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Dear Sophie: What are my F-1

Kukua, a Nairobi- and London-based educational entertainment company and the creators of “Super Sema,” the first African animated superhero franchise, has raised $6 million in its latest round of investment. Tencent, which made its first African edtech bet in Nigeria’s uLesson last December, co-led this Series A round with Italy-based VC Alchimia. Other investors include

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Greetings, there is a lot of news to get into today, and my head is reeling a bit from some of that January 6 testimony today, so let’s get right into it.