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Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
A look at the current state of industrial and service robotics, a century after the Czech play “R.U.R.” introduced the word “robot” to the English language — A century after playwright Karel Čapek coined the word ‘robot,’ we finally have the technology …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
What's in store for Amazon during Biden admin: more unions, labor protection and oversight, antitrust actions, privacy and facial recognition regulations, more — - Amazon has cozied up to the Democratic Party through donations and its top spokesperson has a longstanding relationship with President Joe Biden.
Robin Wauters / Tech.eu:
Custom parts manufacturer Protolabs buys 3D Hubs, an online on-demand service providing access to ~240 manufacturing partners, for up to $330M in cash and stock — Protolabs, the US-based provider of a manufacturing service for custom parts, has acquired The Netherlands-based 3D Hubs …
Microsoft On the Issues:
Microsoft confirms it halted all donations of its PAC while it decides by Feb. 15 whether to suspend donations to those who voted against election certification — Microsoft confirmed publicly today, as it announced internally on Jan. 8, that it has halted all donations of its PAC …
Conor Hale / FierceBiotech:
Philips acquired Capsule Technologies, a provider of data platforms to connect all medical devices and record systems within a hospital, for $635M in cash — Philips has moved to acquire Capsule Technologies—a provider of data platforms that aim to connect all of the medical devices …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Uber laid off ~185 Postmates staff, about 15% of the division's workforce; sources say layoffs impacted most of the exec team, including CEO Bastian Lehmann — The layoffs include most of the executive team at Postmates, the food delivery app that Uber bought last year.
Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal:
Globality, whose AI-based sourcing software connects companies with service providers, raises $138M Series E from Sienna Capital and SoftBank's Vision Fund — Service marketplace provider Globality Inc. on Tuesday said it raised a $138 million Series E funding that likely added another unicorn to the Silicon Valley herd.
[UPDATE: Today’s attempt was scrubbed due to weather conditions. Another launch window is available tomorrow at 10 AM ET]
SpaceX is set to launch the very first of its dedicated rideshare missions – an offering it introduced in 2019 that allows small satellite operators to book a portion of a payload on a Falcon 9 launch. SpaceX’s rocket has a relatively high payload capacity compared to the size of many of the small satellites produced today, so a rideshare mission like this offers smaller companies and startups a chance to get their spacecraft in orbit without breaking the bank.
The cargo capsule atop the Falcon 9 flying today holds a total of 133 satellites according to SpaceX, which is a new record for the highest number of satellites being launched on a single rocket – beating out a payload of 104 spacecraft delivered by Indian Space Research Organization’s PSLV-C37 launch back in February 2017. It’ll be a key demonstration not only of SpaceX’s rideshare capabilities, but also of the complex coordination involved in a launch that includes deployment of multiple payloads into different target orbits in relatively quick succession.
This launch will be closely watched in particular for its handling of orbital traffic management, since it definitely heralds what the future of private space launches could look like in terms of volume of activity. Some of the satellites flying on this mission are not much larger than an iPad, so industry experts will be paying close attention to how they’re deployed and tracked to avoid any potential conflicts.
Some of the payloads being launched today include significant volumes of startup spacecraft, including 36 of Swarm’s tiny IoT network satellites, and eight of Kepler’s GEN-1 communications satellites. There are also 10 of SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites on board, and 48 of Planet Labs’ Earth-imaging spacecraft.
The launch stream above should begin around 15 minutes prior to the mission start, which is set for 9:40 AM EST (6:40 AM PST) today.
Mary Ann Azevedo / FinLedger:
Interview with Chase CIO Rohan Amin on managing Chase's $4B tech budget, API integrations, and this year's rise in digital mortgage applications and banking — Chase CIO shares what the firm learned through the pandemic as well as his views on APIs, working with startups & the future of retail banking
Will Knight / Wired:
A look at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, a government-sponsored research lab, and its work on a new language model similar to GPT-3 — China produces as many artificial intelligence researchers as the US, but it lags in key fields like machine learning. The government hopes to make up ground.
When Stripe-subsidiary Paystack raised its seed round of $1.3 million in 2016, it was one of the largest disclosed rounds at that stage in Nigeria.
At the time, seven-figure seed investments in African startups were a rarity. But over the years, those same seed-stage rounds have become more common, with some very early-stage startups even raising eight-figure sums. Nigerian fintech startup, Kuda, which bagged $10 million last year, comes to mind, for example.
Also notable amidst the growth in seven and eight-figure African seed deals have been gains in pre-seed fundraising. Typically, pre-seed rounds are raised when the startup is still in the product development phase, yet to make revenue or discover product-market fit. These investments are usually made by third-party investors (friends and family), and range between $25,000-$150,000.
But the narrative as to how much an early-stage African startup can raise as pre-seed has changed.
Last year, African VCs who usually fund seed and Series A rounds began partaking in pre-seed rounds, and they don’t seem to be slowing down. Just a month into 2021, Egyptian fintech startup Cassbana raised a $1 million pre-seed investment led by VC firm Disruptech in a bid to drive expansion within the country.
So why the sudden change in appetite from investors?
Andreata Muforo is a partner at TLcom Capital, a pan-African early-stage VC firm. She told TechCrunch that last year’s run of 23 pre-seed rounds (10 of which were $150,000+ deals) per Briter Bridges data, was due to the confidence investors had in the market, especially fintech.
While most African pre-seed investments in 2020 went to fintech, there were exceptions, including Egyptian edtech startup Zedny, which raised $1.2 million; Nigerian automotive tech startup Autochek Africa, which raised $3.4 million; and Nigerian talent startup TalentQL, which raised $300,000.
Just as Paystack and Flutterwave built payment infrastructure for thousands of African businesses, these fintech startups are trying to make their mark in the sweet spots of credit and banking.
“Fintech is compelling. But while most fintech startups play around the commodities side of fintech, it’s the companies building infrastructure around the market that got most of the pre-seed validation last year,” Muforo said. Her firm, TLcom, led the $1 million pre-seed investment in Okra.
Okra is an API fintech startup. So are Mono, OnePipe and Pngme. They are building Africa’s API infrastructure that connects bank accounts with financial institutions and third-party companies for different purposes. Within the past 18 months, Mono and Pngme raised $500,000, while OnePipe raised $950,000 in pre-seed.
It is noteworthy that while these startups are clamoring to solve Africa’s open API banking issues, three of the four deals came after Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid last year in January.
Although the Visa-Plaid acquisition has now been called off, it is safe to say some African investors developed FOMO, handing out sizable checks to fund “Africa’s Plaid” in the process.
Digital lenders remain one of their most important customers for fintech API startups. They can access customers’ financial accounts to understand their spending patterns and know who to loan to.
Egypt’s Shahry and Nigeria’s Evolve Credit are fintech startups building credit infrastructure for their markets. Evolve Credit connects digital lenders to those who need loan services in Nigeria via its online loan marketplace. Shahry, on the other hand, employs an AI-based credit scoring engine so users in Egypt can apply for credit. The pair also secured impressive pre-seed funding — Evolve Credit, $325,000, and Shahry, $650,000.
Muforo points out that aside from startups building fintech infrastructure, the caliber of founders was another reason pre-seed funding peaked last year.
Adewale Yusuf, co-founder and CEO of TalentQL, a startup that hires, manages and outsources talent for Nigerian and global companies, seemed to agree. He told TechCrunch that trust between the VCs and founders involved played a major role in most pre-seed rounds last year.
“It wasn’t surprising that a lot of investors put money in pre-seed rounds. I say this because we also saw existing founders and serial entrepreneurs coming back to the market. To me, these founders’ credibility was a major part of why those rounds were large,” he said.
A second-time founder himself, Yusuf is the co-founder of Nigerian tech media publication Techpoint Africa. His partner at TalentQL, Opeyemi Awoyemi, is also a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Ringier One Africa Media-owned Jobberman, one of Africa’s most popular recruitment platforms.
According to Adedayo Amzat, founder of Zedcrest Capital, which is the lead investor in TalentQL’s round, the founders’ experience proved vital in closing the deal.
He says investors are more comfortable backing experienced founders in pre-seed rounds because they have a more mature understanding of the problems they’re trying to solve. So, in essence, they tend to raise more capital.
“If you look at pre-seed sizes, experienced founders can demand a significant premium over first-time founders,” Amzat said. “Pre-seed valuation cap for first-time founders will typically be between 400K to $1 million while we frequently see up to $5 million for experienced founders.”
It was a recurring theme last year. Yele Bademosi, who runs Microtraction, a West African early-stage VC firm, is the CEO of Bundle Africa, a Nigerian-based crypto-exchange startup that raised $450,000 in April 2020.
Shahry co-founders Sherif ElRakabawy and Mohamed Ewis also run Egypt’s largest shopping engine and price comparison website, Yaoota.
Mono co-founder and CEO Abdulhamid Hassan was the co-founder of Nigerian fintech startup OyaPay and data science startup Voyance. Also, Etop Ikpe, the co-founder and CEO of Autochek Africa, was CEO of DealDey and Cars45.
That said, Fara Ashiru Jituboh of Okra and Akan Nelson of Evolve Credit as first-time founders got investments that most of their counterparts would only dream of. For Jituboh, her solid tech background spoke for her — boasting a senior software engineering job at Pexels and engineering consultant role at Canva before founding Okra.
“We backed Fara because she’s a strong tech founder. When you look at the core of what Okra does as a tech-heavy company, you see how important it was to make the decision,” Muforo said about backing Okra’s CEO and CTO.
Nelson also told TechCrunch that his finance background helped Evolve Credit raise its six-figure sum. The team’s bullishness on finding product-market fit and the potential of Africa’s loan marketplace was also enough to bring foreign and local VCs like Samurai Incubate, Future Africa, Ingressive Capital and Microtraction on board.
While early-stage investments in African startups haven’t reached full speed, the explosion in the number of angel investors has lowered entry barriers into early-stage investing.
Now investors are beginning to show readiness toward African startups that have promise as they continue to search for the next Paystack.
“More people are willing to take risks now in the market, especially angel investors. They can easily let go of $10K-$50K because of success stories like Paystack,” Yusuf said about the $200 million acquisition by U.S. payments startup Stripe.
For all of its significance to the African tech ecosystem, what particularly stands out about Paystack’s exit is the return on investment made for early investors.
By the time it exited in October 2020, some angel investors had an ROI of more than 1,400% according to Jason Njoku in his blog post. Njoku, who took part in the round as an angel investor, is the CEO of IROKO, a Nigerian VOD internet company.
For Muforo, witnessing more early-stage investments is a big deal, one the African tech ecosystem should savor regardless of the round in question.
“Pre-seed or seed are just names investors and founders give. They can basically mean the same thing, in my opinion,” she said. “What I think is most important is the fact that we’re getting more early-stage capital into Africa, and startups are getting more attention from investors, which is fantastic.”
USA Today:
Facebook says a configuration change has caused some users to be logged out of their apps and is working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible — “Why am I logged out of Facebook?” The question ricocheted around the internet as an untold number of people across …
William Boston / Wall Street Journal:
How Volkswagen's ID.3, the automaker's long-awaited answer to Tesla, was beset by faulty in-car software, prompting a reboot of the company's software business — Faulty software set back a bid by the world's largest car maker for electric-vehicle dominance
Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News:
Analysis of US-based venture-backed companies that went public in roughly the past two years shows that top 40 companies are now valued at around $1.1T — It's hard to imagine, but there was a time not too long ago when billion-dollar startups were exceedingly rare.
Sam Byford / The Verge:
Microsoft backtracks on price hike for Xbox Live Gold subscriptions announced Friday and says free-to-play games will also no longer require a Gold subscription — Free-to-play games will also no longer require a Gold subscription — Microsoft has reversed its controversial Xbox Live price increase.
Song Jingli / KrASIA:
4Paradigm, a Beijing-based AI software startup focused on enterprise clients, raises $700M Series D led by Boyu Capital, Primavera Capital, and Hopu Fund — 4Paradigm has been recognized as the top machine learning platform in China for several years in a row.
