AI may not be up to the task of replacing Google Search just yet, but it can be useful in more specific contexts — including handling the drudgery that comes with performing everyday tasks, like scheduling meetings. That’s the premise behind the new startup, Skej, which offers an AI assistant you can loop into your […]
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Appointment scheduling service Calendly has redesigned its browser extension in a bid to improve its schedule management features and make scheduling faster.
The new extension, available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Outlook, has a ‘Meetings’ tab that houses your meetings and lets you join, cancel, or reschedule them. However, it only shows meetings booked through Calendly. The company said it will explore expanding the extension’s functionality based on customer feedback.
There’s also a new ‘Contacts’ tab that lets you see your upcoming meetings with the people who’re in them, as well as your meeting history with them.
The extension also lets you share links to different kinds of meetings (longer or shorter meetings, for example), or instantly book a follow-up call with someone in the current meeting.
Image Credits: Calendly
Calendly is also expanding its overall feature set. The service now lets users book multiple meetings in one time slot, and even prioritize one meeting over another. You still need to prioritize your meetings manually, but the company said it is considering adding some kind of intelligence to provide suggestions to help with prioritization.
Calendly is also introducing a feature for teams that lets members of sales or marketing teams book a call on behalf of their teammates. For this, teammates have to give the group permission to edit their calendars.
Image Credits: Calendly
The company said that with this extension, along with integrations to tools like Gmail and LinkedIn, it aims to reduce the amount of time people spend switching between websites and applications.
Calendly’s chief product officer, Stephen Hsu, told TechCrunch in an interview that Calendly aims to evolve beyond scheduling and become a product that’s useful throughout the meeting lifecycle. In particular, he noted that the company wants to focus on helping people prepare for meetings, and provide insights during meetings as well as after they’ve ended.
Hsu also said the company wants to get into the meeting transcription space. “We have customers who use tools like Otter or Zoom Assistant, but they are not necessarily easily integrated, and [are] managed separately,” he said.
Hsu said the company wants to give users more information about attendees and the agenda of the meeting by grabbing knowledge via its integrations with platforms like Salesforce and LinkedIn. Plus, Calendly could also carry in knowledge from historical meetings and action items, he added.
Currently, you have to open the web app to take notes with Calendly. The company wants to move this feature to an easily accessible location like the extension, Hsu said.
Tools like Notion Calendar, Vimcal, Akiflow, and Amie have made it easier for users to provide their availability across time zones. Calendly said it is looking to revamp its invitee experience and make it easier to book meetings across time zones.
There are plenty of meeting-related tools from major corporations like Zoom to startups like Limitless (previously Rewind AI) that are aiming to leverage AI to make better sense of the information that was generated during meetings.
Calendly, too, wants to tap AI to improve its product. The company said it wants to create a model that can leverage meeting data along with knowledge from systems like CRM platforms to provide a fuller picture of a meeting.
“If we have a world where we can create a model that allows the user to tap into any type of information across that entire meeting lifecycle from anywhere, whether it’s in Slack or a new conversational interface in Calendly, that’ll be super powerful,” Hsu said.
Byju’s secured favorable outcomes in two court hearings Thursday, paving the way for the embattled edtech startup to move ahead with the extraordinary general meeting scheduled for Friday.
On Thursday, the National Company Law Tribunal refused to defer Byju’s planned EGM, where the Indian startup seeks to increase the authorized share capital to give effect to the $200 million rights issue. The matter will be heard again on April 4, the company court said. A lawyer representing the estranged four investors of Byju’s pointed out that once the authorized share capital has been increased, it cannot be reversed.
A group of Byju’s investors, including Prosus, Peak XV and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Sofina, is legally challenging Byju’s recent fully subscribed rights issue and seeks to remove the founder and chief executive Byju Raveendran from the firm.
The Karnataka High Court separately said Thursday it will only hear the case where the investor group seeks to remove Raveendran after two months.
The rights issue is crucial for Byju’s, once India’s most valuable startup, as it seeks to tap the $200 million it has already received from a set of investors, including Raveendran. In an interim order last month, the tribunal court directed Byju’s to move the funds into an escrow account and not use it until the issues have been resolved.
People close to Byju’s assert that the estranged investors are trying to delay the rights issue to completely starve the edtech group. The investor group had no comment.
Byju’s and some of its investors have been fighting for nearly a year over what the shareholders allege are operational and governance challenges at the Indian firm. The startup was in the final stages to raise about $1 billion last year, but the talks derailed after the auditor Deloitte and three key board members (representatives of Prosus, Peak XV and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) abruptly quit the startup. Instead, Byju’s ended up raising less than $150 million in debt from Davidson Kempner and had to repay the investor the full committed amount after making a technical default in a separate $1.2 billion term loan B.
As the funds dried up, Byju’s scrambled to launch a rights issue that cut its valuation by 99%. Prosus, Peak XV, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Sofina as well as some other investors refused to participate in the rights issue. Instead, they voted to remove Raveendran and his family from the startup last month. Raveendran told employees later that he was still their chief executive and that rumors of his firing had been “greatly exaggerated.”
Raveendran claimed in the letter that the extraordinary general meeting lacked the minimum quorum and failed to win majority support for proposed resolutions. The meeting also violated several other “essential” local rules, he asserted.
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