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| | | I try to identify a thread that connects the stories in these Extra Crunch digests, but not today. Our contributors covered so much ground, it’s impossible to find a unifying theme, but I’m not at all frustrated. Quite the opposite. Alex Wilhelm studied Airbnb’s recent numbers to see how well-positioned the home-sharing king is for an IPO (likely a direct listing). He also looked into why so many SaaS/cloud players are raising equity and added five more startups to his expanding $100M ARR club. Justin Berman, Dropbox’s chief security officer, spoke to TechCrunch about how he assesses risk and measures success, eQuoo Founder Silja Litvin highlighted the need for entrepreneurs to look after their mental health and Eight Sleep CEO Matteo Franceschetti says his firm’s sensor-rich mattress is “a Peloton for your sleep.” Before our Robotics + AI session next month, we surveyed VCs to find out where they’re investing in construction robotics, and Managing Editor Danny Crichton put together a comprehensive guide for startup founders who plan to raise seed rounds this year. (If you know someone who’s raising, they’ll definitely want to read it.) If you drew a map of the major issues impacting founders and investors in the last few days, we would be all over it. Which is appropriate, because Extra Crunch offers a 360-degree view of the technology industry. Thanks for reading! Have a fantastic weekend. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor
@yourprotagonist Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Westend61 / Getty Images | | Apple’s ARKit isn’t that widely used and the company doesn’t manufacture smartglasses, headsets or other AR peripherals. Facebook and Microsoft, on the other hand, have made substantial bets in the augmented reality space, which is forecast to reach almost $60B in global revenue by 2024. Cupertino is associated with some of the world’s top consumer products, but what role does it play when it comes to AR? Read more | | | |
| |  | | As any podcast listener can tell you, there are a ton of direct-to-consumer mattress companies out there — which is probably why Eight Sleep CEO Matteo Franceschetti won’t sew that tag onto his startup. "You can really think of us as a Peloton for your sleep,” he tells TechCrunch. “And so you buy the bed, but it also comes with a digital experience." Customers who use the company’s sensor-laden, temperature-adjusting smart mattress can subscribe to analytics that show how well they’re sleeping, along with content like meditation practices. "Our total addressable market is by definition bigger than the one for Peloton for obvious reasons,” says Franceschetti. “Everyone sleeps, right?” Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Getty Images | | If Airbnb goes public this year, reporter Alex Wilhelm says it would “be the financial event of the year.” However, the once-hot home-sharing unicorn saw slow growth and meager profits last year, making a return to profitability in the last reported quarter. To get a better sense of what’s happening under the surface, Alex reviews Airbnb’s revenue, profitability and revenue growth over the years. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Westend61 / Getty Images | | To lay the groundwork for our 2020 Robotics + AI sessions next month, we spoke to 16 VCs who focus on early- and growth-stage robotics companies to ask them where they’re seeing opportunities in the space. Rapid urbanization, a shortage of construction workers and advances in AI and ML are a few of the factors driving innovation, but is the market under-heated, overheated or just right? Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Pepi Stojanovski / Unsplash | | Unicorns are somewhat plentiful, but companies with $100M in annual recurring revenue are at real scale. Because these firms (ThoughtSpot, Noon, Seismic, Riskified and Moveable Ink) show maturity, they “could go public inside the next six quarters,” concludes Alex Wilhelm. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Courtesy of Savvy | | "I've just always been somebody who's been a patient," says Jen Horonjeff, founder and CEO of healthcare startup Savvy. A human factors engineer with a doctorate in environmental medicine, Horonjeff’s company pairs patients with healthcare providers for focus groups, interviews and user testing. In exchange for helping companies refine products and services, Savvy shares its profits with patients who participate. “As a business, we are trying to elevate the patients' voice and make sure they're fairly valued,” she says. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan / Getty Images | | Smartphone sales have been flagging in recent quarters, but “most leading analysts seem to agree 5G will lead to at least a temporary reversal in sliding smartphone sales,” writes Brian Heater. At Unpacked 2020, Samsung’s yearly event, all eyes were on the $1,400 Galaxy Z Flip foldable phone, which “is still cost-prohibitive for most.” Widespread access to 5G networks is just around the corner, but it still doesn’t look like many manufacturers have a clear idea about “the next big thing,” he concludes. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: RapidEye / Getty Images | | “With so many new investors, the old seed fundraise playbook needs a rewrite,” says TechCrunch Managing Editor Danny Crichton. Once upon a time, founders knew exactly who to approach to find the funds they needed to get a startup off the ground. But today, “there are thousands of people who write checks into the earliest startup venture rounds, making it increasingly challenging for founders to find the right investors,” he concludes. If you’re thinking about founding a company — or if you know someone who is — you’ll want to read this post. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Markus Spiske / Unsplash | | Investors are eager to find SaaS and cloud plays. It’s an excellent time for raising equity funding as VC seek opportunities in these sectors, but “venture debt and revenue-based financing appear to be having a moment,” writes Alex Wilhelm. Valuations are high and founders are having luck when it comes to shaking the money tree, so why are many entrepreneurs choosing to raise debt instead? “As with all explorations of complex, evolving trends, there's no one answer.” Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: TechCrunch | | In the first entry of a series of interviews with Chief Security Officers, reporter Zack Whittaker spoke to Dropbox CSO Justin Berman to learn about why he took the role, how he manages Dropbox’s security policies and “what it means to be a security chief.” Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Charles O'Rear / Getty Images | | Silicon Valley Community Foundation oversees almost $9 billion in donor-advised funds and distributed $126 million in grant funds in 2018, making it one of the region’s philanthropic powerhouses. CEO and president Nicole Taylor spoke to TechCrunch about her work encouraging tech’s titans to address some of the region’s most pressing issues, including housing and poverty. “I like to think about community as an ecosystem,” she says. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Chris Madden / Getty Images | | “The life of an entrepreneur is often very isolated and comes with a lot of pressure,” says Silja Litvin, founder of mental health startup eQuoo. “I think as an entrepreneur you completely identify with your job with your company; it's very closely linked to your self-worth and how you value yourself.” She recommends that founders delete social media, improve their “sleep hygiene” and make use of resources like talk therapy to cope with the stressors of building a company. “If I was an investor, I would have someone come into my VC firm and do a Mental Health First Aid course,” Litvin tells TechCrunch. Read more | | | |
| |  Image Credits: Fokusiert / Getty Images | | Ben Tarnoff, “one of the world's top experts on the intersection of tech and socialism,” says society needs to remove technology from some aspects of human life to make life more sustainable. In a two-part interview, Tarnoff talks to TechCrunch about issues like the unforeseen impacts of machine learning, the “mass digitization boom” and exploiting the natural resources required to make the hardware that underlies it all. “We might begin by asking who is getting to make the decisions about how technologies are built and implemented,” says Tarnoff. Read more | | | |
| |  | | This week, Sarah Perez looks at YouTube TV's decision to stop revenue-sharing with Apple, another mobile voting app with serious flaws, new Apple launches in coding and AR, Microsoft's game-streaming service Project xCloud arrival on iOS and other notable app news and trends, including WhatsApp's big 2 billion user milestone and more. Read more | | | |
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