Battery recycling startups have emerged in Europe in a bid to tap into the next big opportunity in the EV market: battery waste. Among them is Cylib, a German-based startup with a pitch automakers may find financially compelling. The company says it can extract pure forms of all materials in a battery using a fraction […]
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When it comes to the world of venture-backed startups, some issues are universal, and some are very dependent on where the startups and its backers are located. It’s something we talked about this week in London, when TechCrunch took its StrictlyVC series of more intimate, more investor-focused events on the road. Sitting down with Saul […]
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Founder-market fit is one of the most crucial factors in a startup’s success, and operators (someone involved in the day-to-day operations of a startup) turned founders have an almost unfair advantage in finding that fit. Data shows that a lack of expertise and business acumen in founders contributes to failed VC investments. The same principle applies […]
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On the heels of OpenAI announcing the latest iteration of its GPT large language model, its biggest rival in generative AI in the U.S. announced an expansion of its own. Anthropic said Monday that Claude, its AI assistant, is now live in Europe with support for “multiple languages,” including French, German, Italian and Spanish across […]
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True to its business concept, Turkey’s “instant delivery” juggernaut Getir rose quickly. Now, with the quick commerce industry in free fall, it is nosediving just as fast. On Monday, the company — once valued close to $12 billion — announced it would shut down its operations the U.S., the U.K. and Europe to focus solely on its home market of Turkey.
The move puts a bitter end to the company’s very aggressive expansion strategy that saw it raise billions of dollars to grow organically and also snap up a number of equally aggressive, yet struggling, competitors to position itself as the market leader. The closures look like they will impact at least 6,000 jobs across the closing markets, but — according to the company — just 7% of its revenues. Alongside the closures, the company said it would get a new injection of investment as a lifeline to extend its runway.
“This decision will allow Getir to focus its financial resources on Turkey,” said a statement from the company.
Getir is not the only one in this space raising money to stay afloat while also retreating from global plans. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Flink, an erstwhile rival of Getir’s in Germany, is raising some $106 million, with around one-third of that secured so far. It comes as Flink, too, is consolidating its position. Coinciding with the fundraise leak, the company also apparently “liquidated” its operations in France.
More details, including financials, below.
Layoffs: To be clear, Getir has only officially announced cuts of 1,500 in the U.K. in the short announcement that it sent out to journalists: no details on jobs impacted elsewhere. However, reports were surfacing over the last few days that it had started to send out notices to 1,800 employees in Germany — HQ of Gorillas (which it acquired at the end of 2022). We’ve been told by a source close to the company that the number is closer to 1,100 (one figure may include contractors).
Meanwhile, when Getir acquired FreshDirect in the U.S. — only six months ago, in November 2023 — it picked up 2,300 employees. Add those different numbers together and you get around 6,000, although since Getir was already active in the U.S. prior to that acquisition, there may well be more impacted. A year ago, the company had as many as 32,000 people working for it.
Its pandemic window of opportunity: The move is a grim chapter for the startup that was founded in 2015 and saw big traction in Turkey before the pandemic — Getir means ‘bring’ in Turkish. That led to aggressive investment and expansion that peaked during Covid-19, when consumers were shopping less in person — in part to minimise infection, in part because shopping in person became really challenging due to supply issues, long lines to stagger entries and more.
Just as ride-hailing companies like Uber raised aggressively to finance aggressive growth and competitive fights across the globe, so too did Getir: between its first outside investment in 2017 and September 2023, it raised more than $2.3 billion from some 36 investors, including Sequoia, Tiger Global, Silver Lake, Mubadala, Goodwater, G Squared and A*.
It also made some aggressive acquisitions of competitors to increase its position in the market — but notably, it was consolidation intended not just a power move, but a way for other struggling, cash-strapped players in the market to step out of the brutal race.
In addition to FreshDirect and Gorillas, Getir picked up operations in Spain, Italy and the U.K. at bargain prices. It was also reportedly interested at one point in Zapp in the U.K. and Flink in Germany, so it definitely saw itself as a consolidator in the troubled market. It was a strategy also taken by Getir’s biggest global competitor, GoPuff. Today’s news leaves easier waters for GoPuff in the U.S. and the U.K.
Its Turkish window of opportunity: This is a grim chapter, but not a final one. Getir also announced that it would be raising fresh money to double down on its home market, a round led by Mubadala and G Squared.
Getir did not disclose who else was participating, nor how much it raised, nor whether this is equity or debt, so it’s hard to say what this means beyond giving the company some runway and a chance at focusing on one market that has worked.
We have reached out to some of its previous investors, Sequoia and Tiger Global, to see if they would comment on whether they are remaining investors in the company now, or whether they have cashed out.
Right now, the strategy for the bigger players in the instant grocery delivery market seems to be: accept that our international strategies were not great ideas, and focus on just our core markets for now.
The writing on the wall: Getir, like its peers in the instant delivery market, has been struggling for a while. In May 2023, it cut 14% of staff and cancelled large parts of its geographic expansion plans as it scrambled to right-size the business ahead of more fundraising. Just weeks after that, it pulled out of Spain, Italy and Portugal in July 2023. At the time, it was well understood that it shut operations because those markets were just not thriving, but Getir was indeed trying to close another round of funding, so cutting loss-making operations makes sense in that context.
Documents have been shared with TechCrunch that indicate that the company, for the calendar year 2023, the company made $3.3 billion, with the U.S. and Europe (including the U.K.) accounting for around $1 billion of that across the year. (It’s not clear from Getir’s statement what the 7% figure relates to. We are asking.) From the documents that we have seen, as of the end of last year, the company was not Ebitda positive in any of its geographies.
Big, bad news in the chaotic market for instant delivery services, but given the states of the venture market, the current economy, and consumer behavior these days — yes, people buy online, but they are also very much back outside, shopping like before — it is likely not the last.
Climate tech VC Satgana has reached a final close of its first fund, which aims to back up to 30 early-stage startups in Africa and Europe.
The VC firm reached a final close of €8 million ($8.6 million) following commitments from family offices and high-net-worth individuals, including Maurice Lévy of the Publicis Groupe, and Back Market co-founder Thibaud Hug de Larauze.
Satgana founder and general partner, Romain Diaz, told TechCrunch that the firm decided to close the fund early, missing initial targets owing to the difficult fundraising environment, which is worse for first-time fund managers, to focus on investing and supporting portfolio companies.
“We launched the fund mid-2022, and we have raised in the most challenging time since 2015. We have managed to make 13 investments and we know that with the current capital commitments, we can execute upon our strategy of investing in 30 companies in this first fund, including follow-on investments,” said Diaz.
“This also paves the way for a new fund in a few years, and it’s likely that we launch different funds with different strategies, maybe one for Europe and another for Africa — but that will come in later; for now, we are really focused on getting this fund right,” he said.
The VC firm invests up to €300,000 ($325,000) in early-stage startups working on mitigating and building resilience to climate change, with a bias for mobility, food and agriculture, energy, industry, buildings and the circular economy subsectors.
Its investees in Africa include Amini, a startup bridging the environmental data gap in Africa; Mazi Mobility, a Kenyan mobility-as-a-service startup working to develop a network of battery-swapping infrastructure; Kubik, which upcycles plastic and has operations in Ethiopia; and Revivo, a B2B marketplace selling electronic spare parts giving products like phones a new lease on life. In Europe, Satgana has invested in Orbio Earth, Yeasty, Loewi, Arda, Fullsoon and Fermify.
Diaz founded the VC firm after a decade of experience in the venture space in several African countries, including Morocco and South Africa, where he co-founded and ran a venture studio.
“I ran it for like five years, and about six years ago I started to really have the awakening to the extent of climate change. That’s where I decided to channel all the knowledge from my previous experience, but on a bigger scale, while focusing solely on investing in climate tech founders,” he said.
Diaz launched the VC firm upon moving to Europe, where he said there are adequate investment networks, especially those focused on investments targeting founders at the pre-seed stage.
Satgana’s focus on Africa was also driven by the fact that it is the most vulnerable continent despite contributing the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions. They recently appointed Anil Maguru as partner to drive their Africa strategy.
“We are entering the continent to pursue green growth objectives; so deploying renewable energy, low carbon buildings, mobility solutions and so on. But we are also keen on investments driving adaptation to climate change, because unfortunately, the reality is that climate change is upon us, and we require solutions already. This is especially for people on the frontline, who are often vulnerable communities, mainly women, people of color and low-income communities that are more exposed to the effects of climate change,” said Diaz.
“From an impact perspective, it’s important for us to invest in solutions, which [traditionally] receive only a tiny fraction of VC money,” he said.
Satgana is among the new funds that are dedicated to the African climate tech sector. These funds include Africa People + Planet Fund by Novastar Ventures, Equator’s fund and the Catalyst Fund.
India, long in the tooth when it comes to co-opting tech to persuade the public, has become a global hot spot when it comes to how AI is being used, and abused, in political discourse, and specifically the democratic process. Tech companies, who built the tools in the first place, are making trips to the country to push solutions.
Earlier this year, Andy Parsons, a senior director at Adobe who oversees its involvement in the cross-industry Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), stepped into the whirlpool when he made a trip to India to visit with media and tech organizations in the country to promote tools that can be integrated into content workflows to identify and flag AI content.
“Instead of detecting what’s fake or manipulated, we as a society, and this is an international concern, should start to declare authenticity, meaning saying if something is generated by AI that should be known to consumers,” he said in an interview.
Parsons added that some Indian companies — currently not part of a Munich AI election safety accord signed by OpenAI, Adobe, Google and Amazon in February — intended to construct a similar alliance in the country.
“Legislation is a very tricky thing. To assume that the government will legislate correctly and rapidly enough in any jurisdiction is something hard to rely on. It’s better for the government to take a very steady approach and take its time,” he said.
Detection tools are famously inconsistent, but they are a start in fixing some of the problems, or so the argument goes.
“The concept is already well understood,” he said during his Delhi trip. “I’m helping raise awareness that the tools are also ready. It’s not just an idea. This is something that’s already deployed.”
Andy Parsons, senior director at Adobe. Image Credits: Adobe
The CAI — which promotes royalty-free, open standards for identifying if digital content was generated by a machine or a human — predates the current hype around generative AI: It was founded in 2019 and now has 2,500 members, including Microsoft, Meta, and Google, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC.
Just as there is an industry growing around the business of leveraging AI to create media, there is a smaller one being created to try to course-correct some of the more nefarious applications of that.
So in February 2021, Adobe went one step further into building one of those standards itself and co-founded the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) with ARM, BBC, Intel, Microsoft and Truepic. The coalition aims to develop an open standard, which taps the metadata of images, videos, text and other media to highlight their provenance and tell people about the file’s origins, the location and time of its generation, and whether it was altered before it reached the user. The CAI works with C2PA to promote the standard and make it available to the masses.
Now it is actively engaging with governments like India’s to widen the adoption of that standard to highlight the provenance of AI content and participate with authorities in developing guidelines for AI’s advancement.
Adobe has nothing but also everything to lose by playing an active role in this game. It’s not — yet — acquiring or building large language models (LLMs) of its own, but as the home of apps like Photoshop and Lightroom, it’s the market leader in tools for the creative community, and so not only is it building new products like Firefly to generate AI content natively, but it is also infusing legacy products with AI. If the market develops as some believe it will, AI will be a must-have in the mix if Adobe wants to stay on top. If regulators (or common sense) have their way, Adobe’s future may well be contingent on how successful it is in making sure what it sells does not contribute to the mess.
The bigger picture in India in any case is indeed a mess.
Google focused on India as a test bed for how it will bar use of its generative AI tool Gemini when it comes to election content; parties are weaponizing AI to create memes with likenesses of opponents; Meta has set up a deepfake “helpline” for WhatsApp, such is the popularity of the messaging platform in spreading AI-powered missives; and at a time when countries are sounding increasingly alarmed about AI safety and what they have to do to ensure it, we’ll have to see what the impact will be of India’s government deciding in March to relax rules on how new AI models are built, tested and deployed. It’s certainly meant to spur more AI activity, at any rate.
Using its open standard, the C2PA has developed a digital nutrition label for content called Content Credentials. The CAI members are working to deploy the digital watermark on their content to let users know its origin and whether it is AI-generated. Adobe has Content Credentials across its creative tools, including Photoshop and Lightroom. It also automatically attaches to AI content generated by Adobe’s AI model Firefly. Last year, Leica launched its camera with Content Credentials built in, and Microsoft added Content Credentials to all AI-generated images created using Bing Image Creator.
Image Credits: Content Credentials
Parsons told TechCrunch the CAI is talking with global governments on two areas: one is to help promote the standard as an international standard, and the other is to adopt it.
“In an election year, it’s especially critical for candidates, parties, incumbent offices and administrations who release material to the media and to the public all the time to make sure that it is knowable that if something is released from PM [Narendra] Modi’s office, it is actually from PM Modi’s office. There have been many incidents where that’s not the case. So, understanding that something is truly authentic for consumers, fact-checkers, platforms and intermediaries is very important,” he said.
India’s large population, vast language and demographic diversity make it challenging to curb misinformation, he added, a vote in favor of simple labels to cut through that.
“That’s a little ‘CR’ … it’s two western letters like most Adobe tools, but this indicates there’s more context to be shown,” he said.
Controversy continues to surround what the real point might be behind tech companies supporting any kind of AI safety measure: Is it really about existential concern, or just having a seat at the table to give the impression of existential concern, all the while making sure their interests get safeguarded in the process of rule making?
“It’s generally not controversial with the companies who are involved, and all the companies who signed the recent Munich accord, including Adobe, who came together, dropped competitive pressures because these ideas are something that we all need to do,” he said in defense of the work.
As TikTok continues to face increased pressure in the U.S. and the U.K., the company is signaling its commitment to fostering educational content on its app. The company announced on Tuesday that it’s expanding its dedicated STEM feed across Europe, starting in the U.K. and Ireland, after first launching it in the U.S. last year.
The STEM feed will begin to automatically appear alongside the “For You” and “Following” feeds for users under the age of 18. Users above the age of 18 can enable the STEM feed via the app’s “content preferences” settings. The feed includes English-speaking content with auto-translate subtitles.
TikTok says that since launching the feed in the U.S. last year, 33% of users have the STEM feed enabled and a third of teens go to the STEM feed every week. The app has seen a 24% growth in STEM-related content in the U.S. since the feed launched. Over the past three years, almost 15 million STEM-related videos have been published on the app globally.
The company is expanding its partnerships with Common Sense Networks and Poynter to assess all of the content appearing on the STEM feed. Common Sense Networks will examine the content to ensure it’s appropriate for the STEM feed, while Poynter will assess the reliability of the information. Content that doesn’t pass both of these checkpoints will not be eligible for the STEM feed.
The launch of the STEM feed comes as TikTok has been criticized for showing harmful content to kids and teens, with rights groups alleging that the app uses addictive design practices to keep users engaged for as long as possible.
In February, the European Union said it was investigating whether TikTok has breached the Digital Services Act, which includes rules for keeping users safe online. The commission is investigating whether the app is doing enough to stop minors from finding inappropriate content and determining whether its design choices stimulate addictive behavior.
With today’s announcement, TikTok is seeking to further present itself as an educational hub for the millions of young users on its app as a way to counter criticisms from lawmakers around the world. The company has already used the STEM feed to counter claims that it’s harmful for young users, as TikTok CEO Shou Chew touted the feed while testifying in two separate U.S. congressional hearings, one in March 2023 and one in January 2024.
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