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So are we banning TikTok or what? Also: Can an influencer really tank an $800M company? | TechCrunch

April 27, 2024 12:49 AM0


Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday.

Ticktock, TikTok: It’s been a wild week for TikTok. Even as the company starts testing its Twitter competitor in certain markets and launches its luxury secondhand shop in the U.K., it’s finding a lot of friction in the land of the free and the home of the brave: In an episode of “As the TikTok Turns,” the U.S.’s esteemed House of Representatives, in a rare show of bipartisanship, has passed a bill to give TikTok’s parent company a nine-month ultimatum: Sell or face extinction in the U.S. This is like giving your teenager an extra three months to clean their room before grounding them … forever!

The bill also comes with a magic “90-day extension” button for the president’s use only. How thoughtful! It seems this move has appeased some Senate skeptics, and even President Biden is on board. Critics argue this ban could infringe free speech rights and hurt businesses. (Who knew viral dances were so crucial to our economy?) On the flip side, as one lawmaker puts it — consider it less entertainment app ban and more spy balloon deflation.

How powerful are influencers?: The weirdest curveball we saw this week was a reminder that people don’t really understand how journalism or product reviews work. To wit: Humane Ai raised $230 million before the product even left the factory. The hype was real until the Ai Pin dropped at a hefty $699 plus monthly fees, and folks realized it’s a lot of ado about not-a-lot. Don’t shoot the messenger — in this case popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee aka MKBHD, whose crime was <checks notes> “Telling it like it is” with his review titled “The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed … For Now.”

Now, this YouTuber has more subscribers than some countries have people (18 million to be exact; in fact, if his YouTube channel was a country, it would be roughly the 69th most populated country. Nice.). Apparently, being honest equates to “potentially killing someone else’s nascent project,” according to ex-AWS engineer Daniel Vassallo. Funny how an underdog worth $800 million can get its feelings hurt so easily! And by the way, this isn’t a first; MKBHD was also accused of causing Fisker’s downfall with another truth-bomb review last month: “This Is the Worst Car I’ve Ever Reviewed.” Dom and Amanda think it’s notable that a YouTuber is perceived as having the power to make or break a company.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

Poetry Camera takes a photo and prints a poem. Image Credits: Poetry Camera

The next time you’re missing the good ol’ days of squinting through a tiny viewfinder and praying your shot turns out okay, remember Mood.camera. It’s an iOS app that gives you all the uncertainty of analogue photography sans trips to the photo lab. Created by developer Alex Fox, this app says “no thank you” to live previews and editing features, instead focusing on vintage filters and letting fate decide how your photos turn out. Because who doesn’t love a little mystery in their life? Just don’t forget to hold still for three minutes or so while it “develops.” For $1.99/month (or $14.99 one-time fee), you too can experience the thrill of accidentally overexposing every picture on your beach vacation like it’s 1995.

Ever snap a pic of a tree and wish it was poetry? Well, Joyce Kilmer didn’t either. But in the age of AI tech, Kelin Carolyn Zhang and Ryan Mather have decided to bless us with their intriguing spawn — the Poetry Camera! This ain’t your average Insta click-creator; instead of capturing duck faces and dinner plates, it generates thought-provoking (or as thought-provoking as AI can manage) poetry based on its visual encounters. A Raspberry Pi serves as its brain while OpenAI’s GPT-4 spins out verses worthy of Wordsworth (or maybe not). And here’s the kicker: This camera prints out your poetic masterpiece on paper — yes, paper. No digital saving for that extra touch of nostalgia or is it just an easy way to avoid privacy concerns? The jury’s still out. But hey, if you’ve been yearning for a physical memento from your digital existence … snap away!

  • A date shared is a risk halved: Tinder rolled out a new feature called “Share My Date,” enabling users to send details about their upcoming romantic escapades directly from the app. Now your friends can know where you’re going, with who and when. And let’s face it, who doesn’t love a good digital, remote third wheel?
  • Good grief: Here’s something that just might be able to help you navigate that murky maze of sorrow and casseroles. DayNew is a new social platform for dealing with trauma and grief, brought to us by two widows-turned-entrepreneurs who were fed up with the lack of suitable resources available during their own grieving process.
  • No loans for you, students: BloomTech (formerly Lambda School) has been served a big ol’ slice of humble pie by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). After pulling back the curtain on their “not-so-risk-free” income share loans and playing fast and loose with job placement stats, the CFPB has placed a 10-year ban on BloomTech’s consumer lending activities.

Most interesting fundraises this week

Image Credits: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Breaking news in the world of bling: Pascal, the lab-grown diamond startup, is making it rain with nearly $10 million in VC funding and a hefty revenue forecast. Who needs Drake’s $400,000 diamond-encrusted iPhone case when you can have affordable ice? These cultured gems are so shiny they’ll make your TikTok videos sparkle like a disco ball. Even Andreessen Horowitz couldn’t resist throwing some money at this gem of an idea!

Well, well, well! Last week we got wind that Rippling was about to close a $200 million funding round at a jaw-dropping $13.4 billion valuation. Now founder Parker Conrad has confirmed the news and spilled some juicy details. They were looking for a way to give early employees some liquidity (read: cash money), but investor interest was so high they had to expand their plans. As for going public? That’s somewhere over the rainbow, suggests Conrad.

Other unmissable TechCrunch stories …

Oh, Tesla. With profits dropping faster than a Cybertruck with a stuck accelerator and EV sales feeling the pressure, it seems the automaker is in a bit of a pickle. A 55% dip in profits? Ouch! It appears that slashing EV prices like they’re Black Friday deals hasn’t worked out quite so well for them. Between wars, arson attacks on factories, high-profile layoffs, and new models rolling off the assembly line slower than LA traffic, it seems Tesla has a long list of challenges. Let’s just hope Musk’s plans work out better than the Tesla semi-truck production timeline.

Here’s another handful of stories you might otherwise have missed:

  • Formlabs’ Form 4 breaks cover: Formlabs has been making desktop 3D printing less of a pipe dream and more of a reality; it’s been five years since Form 3 came along — and what better way to celebrate than by releasing an upgraded version? Meet the Form 4. This big boy boasts faster print times (under two hours for most prints), a larger build volume (30% increase) and resolution that apparently rivals injection molding (whatever that means).
  • Bezos’ buzzing brainchild is bailing on California: Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery operations in Lockeford fold faster than a badly flown origami bird. Why? Well, Amazon mumbled some vague reasons, but the experiment continues in Texas and soon will come to Arizona.
  • The last Post: Oh, Post News. We hardly knew ye … mainly because we still had Twitter. The a16z-funded microblogging platform that popped up like an eager freshman after Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition is closing its digital doors.
  • Wait, what did you say?: Remember when Rewind promised to help you record your digital life and let you search through it? Well, they’re rebranding as “Limitless,” producing a pendant (or is it a necklace?) that records your conversations.
  • Hiring in robotics: Dust off your circuit boards and plug into the job market, folks, because Brian compiled a beefy list of 74 robotics companies that are hiring! From Advanced Construction Robotics with four roles to Exotec with 17, there’s opportunity aplenty for all you wired whiz kids out there.




Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Rippling’s Parker Conrad on the company's new round, new SF lease, and also, its newest critic | TechCrunch

April 22, 2024 9:46 PM0


Last week, TechCrunch broke the news that the workforce management software outfit Rippling was on the cusp of closing a new, $200 million round of funding at a hefty $13.4 billion valuation led by Coatue. We also reported that the round featured a separate, $670 million secondary component meant to give some of the company’s investors a bigger bite of the company, while letting Rippling’s employees – some of whom joined at the outset in 2016 – cash out some of their shares.

Rippling declined to comment at the time, but in an interview Friday afternoon, founder Parker Conrad confirmed our information, adding that the secondary component is actually a $590 million tender, with $200 million available for employees and $390 million available for seed and other investors. 

The round, Rippling’s Series F, is also almost entirely an inside round. Coatue is an earlier investor in Rippling, along with other backers in this round that have been investing all along, including Founders Fund and Greenoaks. The only new member on the cap table is Dragoneer, a growth-stage investment firm in San Francisco.

Of course, we were interested in much more than Rippling’s new fundraise, so while we had Conrad on the phone, we talked turnover. We discussed the company’s new office lease in San Francisco (right now, it’s the second-biggest lease to be signed this year in the city). Conrad also shared why Rippling is relatively “free” of AI. Later this week, you can hear that full conversation in podcast form; for now, excerpts of that conversation follow, edited for length.

So why raise this money?

Honestly, it started out as just an employee tender. We wanted to find a way to get some liquidity for early employees, so we went to market, looking really to do about $200 million for employees that wanted to sell some stock. [But] we got a lot of investor interest, so we expanded it first to include a small amount of primary [capital] – mostly as a way to get more ownership for investors that were looking to buy more – and then beyond that, we ended up expanding into seed investors as well.

What does this secondary sale say about your plans to eventually go public? An IPO is a little bit in the distance?

I definitely think it’s a bit in the distance, but it’s not like a way of delaying [anything]. If anything, it’s probably nice if there are people who want to buy a house or [want more cash] because life happens. It’s great to relieve some of that pressure before you go public so that you don’t have tons of people selling as soon as they can in the public markets. 

Is this the first time employees have been able to sell some shares? 

It’s not. We did something in 2021. But it was smaller and the company was smaller, and it was a long time ago.

Do you worry about employees leaving after cashing out?

One of the things that we talked about internally when we launched it was, we said, ‘Look, the first rule of an employee tender is that you don’t talk about the tender internally or publicly.’ We don’t want to see anyone spiking the football, or something like that. And the second rule of the employee tender is, ‘see the first rule.’ This is a very private, personal thing, and I’m thrilled for everyone [participating]; if this makes a difference in [their] life, that’s great. But it’s not the destination. The game’s not over. 

How do you feel about turnover more generally? Some people don’t like to see it; other managers think it’s for the best. Elon Musk seems to be a fan, given the rate at which he turns over his executive team at Tesla.

The executive team at Rippling has been remarkably stable for a long time. A lot of the people on the team are people who I originally hired for those roles. Some of them are people I have long work histories with, even before this company. And certainly I always like to keep people. I mean, every once in a while, there’s an early Rippling employee who leaves the company, and I find it always just emotionally really sad when that happens, even if the company is going to be fine and they want to do something else or, you know, in some cases just kind of hang out. On a personal level, that’s always very difficult for me.

You newly leased 123,000 square feet in San Francisco for local employees, who are now back three days a week. How did you settle on that policy, and do you worry about retention or hiring?

We just think there’s an enormous amount of value of people being in the office together. We were never a company that was going remote. When we went remote temporarily during the pandemic, we said, this is for three weeks, and then we’re going back to the office. Of course, it was unfortunately a lot longer than that, but we were back in the office as soon as we could be. I think it’s possible for some companies to be fully remote, but it’s sort of like playing the game on hard mode. I think it’s a lot easier if people can get together in person; you get a lot done.

In the meantime, workforce management software is super crowded. You’re going up against a company that you famously co-founded and ran, Zenefits. There’s Paycor, Workday, Gusto, to name a few . . . 

The weird thing is that Rippling is not actually a [human capital management] HCM company. Everyone who has been building business software believes that the way to build the  best business software is to build these extremely narrow, focused deep products. And I think it’s completely wrong. I think the way you build the best business software is to build a really broad product suite of deeply integrated and seamlessly interoperable products. Yes, we have a very strong HR and payroll suite, but we also have an IT and security suite; we have a spend management suite, where we do things like corporate cards and bill pay and expense reimbursements. Actually, we’re using the primary capital that we raised in this round to fund the R&D efforts for a new, fourth cloud that we intend to launch in a completely different area. 

The classic example of a company that builds software in this way is Microsoft. Microsoft is the like the OG of compound software businesses. 

Speaking of Microsoft, what is your “AI strategy”? 

We are a company that is relatively free of any AI products right now. There’s some stuff that we’re working on. But I am always very skeptical of things that are, like, super trendy in Silicon Valley. So I can tell you what [our AI strategy] is not. I’m super skeptical of these chatbots. I don’t think anyone wants to chat with their HR software. 

I have to ask about a tweet related to our story about your new round. I saw [Benchmark general partner] Bill Gurley chimed in that “Anti-focus ain’t cheap.” I wasn’t sure if that was laudatory or a dig. Do you know?

I assume given that it came from Bill that it’s a dig. And he’s not wrong that taking this opposite approach is expensive, particularly on the R&D side. If you look at Rippling financially, the thing that really stands out is how we spend on R&D. If you compare us to other HCM competitors – because you talked about the crowded HCM space –  they spend an average of 10% of their revenue on R&D. Next year, Rippling is going to spend as much on R&D as [three rival companies] combined, and we have a much lower revenue footprint than the three. It’s definitely true that there’s a huge upfront investment phase in building what we’re building that obviously over time, as a percent of revenue, should come down. So he’s not wrong, but it’s a very explicit part of our strategy. What Bill might not totally understand is the benefit that you get from building software in this way; much higher upfront R&D costs [later result in] much higher sales and marketing efficiency. 

Has Bill ever done business with you?

No, I’ve never met Bill. He’s sort of a constant, low-grade antagonist, but I’ve never actually met him. 

I know he doesn’t get along very well with Marc Andreessen. 

Then Bill and I have that in common. Maybe we should meet up and grab a beer over that particular thing. 




Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Tesla's newsy week, and is fintech having a moment? | TechCrunch

April 19, 2024 8:11 PM0


It’s been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but the EV company was inescapable on TechCrunch this week. From layoffs to pricing changes and more, it was a week dyed deeply in Tesla colors so we had to chat through the latest.

But that was just one element of what we got into on Equity this week. We also dug into Mary Ann’s reporting about Ramp’s latest round — and up valuation — that fit neatly next to Rippling’s own impending fundraise. If you are handling money, it’s a good time to be a startup.

The team also dug into Cherub, which wants to connect investors and founders, Maven Ventures’ consumer investing push, and touched on what Mercury is up to. All told, we were fortunate to have Kirsten Korosec along with us this week given the sheer volume, and diversity of transportation news to chew through, especially as it relates to Tesla.

Equity is back tomorrow with a special interview between Mary Ann and Notable Capital’s Hans Tung, so stay tuned! Until then, hit play and let’s have some fun.

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.




Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

Former top SpaceX exec Tom Ochinero sets up new VC firm, filings reveal | TechCrunch

April 17, 2024 3:37 AM0


Former senior SpaceX executive Tom Ochinero is teaming up with SpaceX alum-turned-VC, Achal Upadhyaya, and one of Sequoia’s top finance leaders, Spencer Hemphill, on a new venture called Interlagos Capital, TechCrunch has learned.

There is little public information available about Interlagos, and the trio did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. The company was formally incorporated in the state of Delaware on March 7, and it was registered as an out-of-state company with the state of California only days ago on April 11. Ochinero, Upadhyaya and Hemphill are all listed on the documents. The principal address is in El Segundo, California.

A trademark application for “Interlagos” was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April 4. That application lists an address identical to the one found on the company’s business registration. The application states that the company will deal in “venture capital services; venture capital funding services, namely, providing financing to emerging and start-up companies.”

Ochinero departed from SpaceX in February after a nearly ten-year stint at the company, where he eventually became senior vice president of commercial business. In that role, he helped SpaceX grow into the undisputed global lead in commercial launch. People familiar with the matter told CNBC at the time that Ochinero was resigning “to attend to a family medical matter.”

With Interlagos, he is teaming up with another SpaceX alum — Upadhyaya — who spent a decade in engineering roles at SpaceX before joining investment firm Cantos as a venture partner in 2022. He left sometime this year, according to his LinkedIn. At Cantos, Upadhyaya’s bets included satellite bus manufacturer Apex Space and motion control system developer Salient Motion, both startups headed by ex-SpaceX founders.

Spencer Hemphill, a finance executive, is rounding out the team. He’s coming from Sequoia, where he also spent ten years. He also departed sometime this year, leaving the firm as assistant controller.

Ochinero is just the latest SpaceX executive to move from the behemoth space company into venture investing. It’s popular enough for people to leave SpaceX to found other companies or invest in them that there’s a website dedicated to connecting the two groups. Other notable investors in the SpaceX-to-VC pipeline include Founders Fund’s Scott Nolan, who was a very early SpaceX employee, and Alpine Space Ventures’ Bulent Alton.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

Robotic Automations

HR startup Rippling is in discussions to raise at a $13.4B valuation, up from $11.25B | TechCrunch

April 17, 2024 3:07 AM0


Late stage HRtech startup Rippling is raising new capital. The company’s new round, which has not yet closed, would inject $200 million into Rippling with another $670 million worth of shares being sold by existing stockholders, according to two people familiar with the deal. 

This will be Rippling’s Series F, and could raise its valuation to as high as $13.4 billion on a post-money basis, up from the $11.25 billion valuation it reached when it last raised capital in a $500 million Series E just a year ago. Rippling had raised $1.2 billion total previous to this round.

Reached earlier today, a Rippling spokesperson declined to comment.

Rippling’s last round came together during the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, when Rippling’s funds were suddenly frozen. Rippling founder and CEO Parker Conrad took to X and worked the phones with his banks, investors, and its own customers to raise the cash needed to cover everyone’s payrolls. 

In this round, existing investor Napolean Ta at Founders Fund is prepared to invest up to another $310 million, per two sources familiar with the transaction, which — very notably —  would be the largest check that Founders Fund has ever written for a single company’s round. It’s unclear how much of this cash is for the new Series F shares and how much will be used to buy shares from other investors, because existing investor Coatue is actually leading the round. There’s participation from existing investor Greenoaks, as well.

That Rippling is raising more capital in a year is not a shock; the HRtech market for payroll services and remote labor management is large, growing, and features a slate of well-funded late-stage startups. Rippling competitor Gusto told TechCrunch that it reached $500 million in trailing revenue last year, along with cash flow positivity. Earlier this year Deel, which focuses on payroll for teams that cross borders, said that it had reached $500 million worth of annual recurring revenue.

With Gusto worth around $9.5 billion per Crunchbase data, Deel worth $12 billion, Remote more than $3 billion, and Rippling now at $13.5 billion, there’s a titanic amount of venture capital, founder and employee equity in HRtech today. And new companies are popping up, too. Remofirst recently raised $25 million, for example, to keep working on its low-cost hiring product that competes with many of the companies listed above.

Likewise, with the IPO market still sluggish, existing shareholders, be it employees or existing investors are also looking to sell stakes in private companies to gain liquidity. Large secondary transactions have become en vogue.


Software Development in Sri Lanka

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