3 adtech and martech VCs see major opportunities in privacy and compliance

Between a pandemic, the emergence of new media business models and upcoming privacy changes in iOS, this might seem like a terrible time to get into digital advertising and marketing. Nevertheless, we spoke to top venture capitalists who said they still see investment opportunities.

When we surveyed adtech and martech VCs last summer, we focused on the impact of COVID-19. This time, we asked them to update us on whether deal flow has recovered (MathCapital’s Eric Franchi said the last two quarters have been some of the firm’s most active yet) and to look ahead at the possibility of additional regulation and the most promising new tools.

Regulation, they agreed, presents both a risk and an opportunity. For example, Christine Tsai of 500 Startups noted that as advertisers face more restrictions, “The easiest way for marketers to comply with these rules will likely be through software.” And of course, we asked about what they’re looking for in their next investment. You can read their full responses below.

Here’s who we surveyed:


Digital advertising spend seems well on its way to recovering from the initial downturn during the pandemic. Are you seeing the same with adtech and martech deal flow?

Eric Franchi: Absolutely. Q3 and Q4 2020 were amongst the most active we’ve had in three years in terms of new investments and follow-ons. This seems to mirror the shape of many of our portfolio companies’ 2020 commercial results.

Scott Friend: There seems to be plenty of activity in adtech and martech, particularly across the commerce ecosystem with tools that support monetization for small merchants. Attentive (one of ours) continues to be a standout. I’m also seeing what appears to be a resurgence in digital OOH activity … maybe now’s its time?

How much time are you spending looking at adtech and martech startups right now? Are you more focused on one or the other?

TechCrunch’s favorite companies from 500 Startups’ latest demo day

TechCrunch tuned into 500 Startups‘ 27th demo day today, keen to get our eyes on the accelerator’s latest companies.

Demo days are regular affairs, but they always feature a crop of startups that could build the next tech giant, so we pay attention. Especially in the COVID-19 era, when demo days have gone virtual. Now it’s easier than ever for investors, and journalists, to tune in.

TechCrunch has covered Y Combinator’s virtual demo days, as well as regular batches from the various Techstars accelerators around the world.

But, today we’re talking favorites from 500 Startups’ latest cohort. Jonathan Shieber will take the baton first, followed by Alex Wilhelm.

Demo day standouts

Stack

  • What: A new way to browse online.
  • Why we like it: The browser and tab model hasn’t changed much since the days of Netscape and organizing online information is increasingly a complicated mess of a hundred tabs (at least on my browser). Stack is pitching a new way to organize information that’s more interactive, more organized and easier to visualize.

Adapty

  • What: Low-code A/B testing of monetization mechanics and subscriber services for apps.
  • Why we like it: Helping to give app developers tools to better understand where, how and why monetization breaks down and offer tools to fix it makes Adapty a standout among this YC cohort. The app economy is still a multibillion dollar business and getting customers to stick around remains a huge problem. Anything that can help is a boon for company builders.

8 Miami-area investors assess America’s southernmost tech ecosystem

The exodus out of San Francisco and New York is making a big impact on Miami, a city that’s been steadily growing into a tech hub over the last 15 years. We’re seeing a “moment” in Miami, but many are hoping — and working — to turn it into a movement.

In late January, Softbank Group International announced a $100 fund directed at Miami’s exploding tech scene. As explained in this article, this is the latest validation that Miami is booming. Softbank Group Intl. told TechCrunch this ahead of his announcement. “Miami is quickly evolving to accommodate increasing demand as it becomes a growing startup destination. From emerging ‘elder tech’ to biotech, Miami is an attractive investment market that offers unique opportunities for immigrants and minorities to pursue entrepreneurship opportunities.”

The pandemic has been the catalyst for change, and Miami locals are embracing newcomers and helping them feel at home, hoping that by bringing their talents to South Beach, their bank accounts will follow. For this survey TechCrunch spoke with the following Miami investors to get their input on where the city is now, and where it may be going.


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Marcelo Claure, CEO, Softbank Group Intl.

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

Miami is quickly evolving to accommodate increasing demand as it becomes a growing startup destination. From emerging “elder tech” to biotech, Miami is an attractive investment market that offers unique opportunities for immigrants and minorities to pursue entrepreneurship opportunities. Between 2012 and 2018, Miami-Dade saw a 40% growth in the tech sector, indicating a healthy business trajectory. We anticipate that this trend will only continue in the years to come.

We also know the biggest challenge is getting started, with talent acquisition as the first step toward building a viable headquarters location in any new city. Miami offers a number of attractive benefits including cost of living, lifestyle and opportunity to grow. It’s a natural bridge from Latin America that allows businesses and entrepreneurs to expand seamlessly to the U.S. with an active cultural base. This is a time of exponential opportunity and at SoftBank, we are committed to supporting the technology ecosystem in the Miami market.

Miami has always been close to our hearts — our $5 billion Latam Fund was born in Miami and is headquartered here.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

The accelerated global shift to remote work as the new normal means that talent and entrepreneurship have no geographical boundaries. Miami has significant advantages over competitive markets, including no state income taxes, a commitment to arts and culture, and beautiful weather that encourages an active lifestyle. Florida has seen an insurgence of talent from the technology and finance sectors — in September of 2020 it was reported that roughly 1,000 people were moving to the state every day. That’s incredible.

While remote work is part of the future fabric of business, there’s no replacement for face-to-face interaction in building company culture. We believe that businesses may decrease their traditional office footprint slightly, but will continue to seek space in co-working spaces or rental spaces that are prime destinations for headquarters. We think there will be continued significant net growth in the number of offices located in the city.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you are most excited to fund?

At SoftBank, we invest in technology-focused companies in various sectors — from fintech, to agritech, to education. We invest in the entrepreneurs and companies that are leading the digital transformation of these sectors. Over the last year, we’ve recognized a dramatic shift in where these entrepreneurs call home. For years it was mainly Silicon Valley and New York City — today, it’s also Austin, Dallas, and (of course) Miami. Due in large part to the tireless efforts of Mayor Suarez, Miami has been positioned at the forefront of innovation and the tech industry.

Many of the businesses we’re seeing pop up in Miami are natural fits for what we’re looking to invest in. Through our Latam Fund, we invest in companies focused on the Latin American region. In an effort to address the long-standing diversity and inclusion issues within the VC community we also launched a $100 million Opportunity Fund, focusing on companies founded by Black, Latino and Native American entrepreneurs. So far, we’ve evaluated over 700 companies and have made ~20 investments totaling $20 million. These investments span multiple sectors (healthcare, SaaS, fintech, gaming and more) — sectors we’ve seen growing in Miami.

What are some of the local challenges you have encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Any market poses natural challenges, but there are far fewer barriers to entry in Miami and Florida as a whole. Access to a robust, diverse local professional network is an incredibly valuable resource for companies. Top names in technology and VC are moving to Miami and urging others to do the same.
Take the example of Keith Rabois, who decided to make it his 2021 resolution to rally support for a mass pilgrimage from Silicon Valley to Miami. We are seeing many such examples that are driving the perception of Miami as a hotspot for tech networking. At SoftBank, we have deep roots in Miami and we’re excited to encourage other entrepreneurs to join us here.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We are trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

Emil Michael (ex-Uber), Shervin Pishevar (ex-Uber, Sherpa Capital), Martin Varsavsky (ex-Jazztel, FON), Alexis Ohanian, Reddit co-founder.

German Fondevila, investment manager, Clout Capital

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now? The city has attracted a wide range of people over the years, including more tech and finance companies very recently. How will it add up to something more than the sum of the parts? 


I moved to Miami in 2016 from Barcelona, Spain and I decided to stay because I realized the potential the city held. The first thing to note is that it’s an ecosystem in the making, so it’s still maturing. I believe in the coming years Miami will solidify its identity in the broad startup scene. More talent will relocate here and I hope we will see more companies redomicile here as well. Miami is culturally rich, vibrant and people seem to smile more often than in other cities.

It’s important to state we should avoid jumping on the “hype wagon” right away. There’s a lot of potential for this city, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. There are different layers to building a strong startup community. It’s a messy multivariable problem with no exact recipe. This is a long game we’re playing, so expectations need to be adjusted in that sense. I think it’s funny when people compare it to San Francisco or New York. Had they been in those cities 30 years ago while they grew to become what they are today … surely a lot was missing. I think people with an entrepreneurial mindset will gravitate toward places “in the making.” Here, one can take on an active role in shaping the city’s future and your own.

We also need to come together, talk to each other more and be more deliberate in helping Miami grow. When I moved here I wore the entrepreneur hat. Something that shocked me then was seeing how different players of the ecosystem didn’t collaborate that much with each other. Everyone seemed to be doing their thing. I’ve always thought we should have a “Startup Council” of some sort. To gather every relevant and legitimate stakeholder at the table and work organized to leverage Miami’s strengths. Mayor Francis Suarez has been doing a great job recently, but he’s going to need help to discern the noise from the signal.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?


I have been a defender of remote work for several years. Specifically, the idea of a distributed workforce and the infrastructure that supports it. People think remote work means working in your pajamas from home or at a beach somewhere in the Caribbean (I have done both, I confess). People want flexibility, it’s inevitable. We are finally shifting from the Industrial Revolution model toward the knowledge worker type of organizations.

I don’t think offices will disappear from Miami, but what will change is the density of office space near downtown and the way we develop cities. My guess is that the co-working space model will come back stronger with larger adoption. People will go to work in an office space, it just won’t always be with people from their same company. These will be more evenly distributed around residential areas, cutting commutes; freeing up peoples’ time will lead to a higher sense of well-being that will revert back into productivity.

Startups with distributed teams will be more normal. Capital, however, will take longer to get accustomed to the idea of investing beyond the city limits. A lot of investors like to be in the same city where the founders are. It will take some time to normalize capital dispersion in that sense. Investors have a herd mentality so it will take some top investors to question this status quo publicly to get the ball rolling. A good recent example of this is the recent move of Keith Rabois from Founders Fund to call Miami home.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

With our new $60 million fund, we’re looking to partner with entrepreneurs raising their Series A in Latin America and Florida. Occasionally we participate in seed deals as well.

We tend to gravitate toward product-driven companies. It’s always stimulating to find companies that are not just trying to build a “copycat” but have a genuine IP or value-add in their product or business model. We primarily focus on SaaS, enterprise software, proptech, fintech and insurtech, although we look at many companies outside of that scope. Ultimately, we aim to partner with amazing teams.

There are several great teams in the city and naming only a few wouldn’t be fair. I’m personally excited about investing in collaboration tools that empower the future of work, applied AI and AI infrastructure, payments and e-commerce enablement. I am also becoming increasingly curious about consumer subscriptions. I find the merge between the recurring revenue model of a SaaS and the large market of a B2C business quite powerful.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

The main challenges we hear about are the access to qualified talent (technical or not) and access to capital. The former should be less of a barrier now that people are relocating here and the increasing trend of hiring from a distributed workforce. The access to capital has improved over the last few years with more firms opening in South Florida, covering a wider range of a startup’s lifecycle. Yet, we still need more smart capital. I am hopeful that this will be the case in the coming years.

Miami attracts people of all kinds, so there are all kinds of Miami/s that you can experience. I always like to say that you have to pick the one that works for you. There are a lot of very intelligent people with interesting backgrounds and life stories here, they’re also probably not hanging out at Wet Willies or talking about “popping bottles.” I recommend that people avoid having preconceived judgments about the city, especially at the beginning. You have to come with an open mind, take it for what it is, both the good with the bad. I’m always happy to connect with people that have just relocated here and show them what Miami truly can be.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders, or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

Like any developing ecosystem, there are a lot of important players. Some of the stakeholders that have been committed to helping Miami’s ecosystem include The Knight Foundation, Miami Angels, CIC, Refresh Miami, Wyncode, Next Legal, PAG Law, The LAB, Secocha Ventures, Animo Ventures, Las Olas VC, The Venture City, among many others. I highly encourage outsiders to go beyond the surface of a quick Google search. I have found that it is often the least “flashy” that tends to be worth connecting with.

Tigre Wenrich, CEO, LAB Ventures

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

All of the recent buzz sounds a lot like 1999 to me. It wasn’t so much immigrants from California then, but rather from Latin America. I wasn’t living here (I was in Mexico), but I remember the press started going wild about Miami becoming “Silicon Beach” and a lot of startups opened expensive offices on Lincoln Road. After the dot.com bubble burst in 2000, most of them went out of business or (like MercadoLibre, who became wildly successful but with no Miami presence) went back to Latam.

I am cautiously optimistic that this time is different. It’s great to have big name VCs moving to Miami to save on state taxes, and I applaud Mayor Suarez for the very active promotional role he has been playing. Some of these people are being very vocal about wanting to contribute to the local community, which is awesome. But this is not what gives me conviction about Miami’s future as a tech hub.

The real reason I am optimistic is the slow but steady growth of the local tech community over the past 8 to 10 years. We now have several very large tech companies based in South Florida (e.g., Chewy, Magic Leap, Reef), a much larger pool of local talent, important regional offices for companies like Google, Facebook, Uber, etc, and other large corporations have been opening tech offices here (e.g., JetBlue, Blackstone). And most importantly, we have a small but growing pool of entrepreneurs who have realized successful exits and are giving back by investing in and mentoring new startups.

This is not a recent phenomenon, but rather a trend that has been building since at least 2012 when we opened The LAB Miami. The growth in co-working spaces, accelerators, incubators, university entrepreneurship, and computer science programs, coding schools, and other kinds of organizations offering support to entrepreneurs has been a long-term project that has enabled the recent Twittermania about Miami as the next Silicon Valley. The success of major tech centers like Silicon Valley is based on having a community of different actors that feed off of each other and reinforce each other, thus the overused metaphor “ecosystem.” Miami wasn’t at critical mass 20 years ago (or even 10), and so its tech movement in 1999 was just a tech moment. But today we are approaching critical mass, and I expect that in another five years Miami as a tech hub will become an accepted reality and no longer a topic of debate.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

I don’t believe that offices will disappear from Miami, but the way we use offices will certainly change. While many jobs can be performed remotely forever, many service professions rely on an apprenticeship model, which is very hard to maintain over Zoom (lawyers, accountants, management consultants, etc.). Corporate culture can be maintained with remote work over the short term, but it’s very hard to transmit to new hires. I also believe there is a huge pent-up demand for people to socialize and that there will be a rush back to offices once the vaccines have been rolled out and it’s safe to go back.

The office of the future will likely look very different, however. There will be more shared spaces and areas for people to collaborate. Permanently assigned offices will become much less common as more people transition to a rotational schedule that includes a couple of days a week at the office and the others work from home. Whether this means that demand for commercial office space will decrease or not is unclear. Very dense downtown markets may struggle, but demand will likely surge in suburban markets. I also expect to see a rush back into co-working spaces in the second half of 2021, both as a base to host fully remote workers and as an option on the days when people don’t want to go all the way downtown to their “regular” office. Some people can work very productively from home, but many of us find it quite distracting!

The number of fully remote workers in this country has permanently increased by the pandemic, and if you can live anywhere, then Miami is obviously a compelling option. But all that does for us is drive up housing prices. Those people will be relatively less connected to the local community and less likely to stay long term. The real opportunity is if more companies choose to set up operations here, bringing permanent job growth with them — that has to be the goal. If we succeed, then Miami may very well need more office space, not less.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

At LAB Ventures, we focus on proptech (tech companies that serve the real estate and construction industries). Our focus is not just on Miami, it is global.

We are quite excited about the opportunities in residential real estate, especially with the booming single-family market. Our local portfolio companies with the most traction are focused here, including Beycome — a digital real estate agent that helps consumers to buy or sell their home by themselves, saving thousands in commissions, and Expetitle — a title agency that enables fully remote real estate closings. Both raised seed rounds during the pandemic and have been growing strong throughout.

Construction tech is another area we believe is poised for very strong growth. We’ve invested in a number of companies that provide solutions for the construction industry, including on-site labor tracking, project management software and offsite modular construction. Miami is a great place to pilot these technologies because there is so much construction activity here, and you have very large local players that are actively trying to innovate. We are also the gateway to Latin America, and we are seeing opportunities to bring technology from the region into the U.S., as well as to help Latin American construction companies to deploy innovative new technology from the US.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Access to capital and the local talent pool are two challenges that everyone mentions, and they are very real. But I think we are making huge progress on both fronts. A third one that I would add is Florida’s reputation as a haven for con men and weirdos. While we do objectively have more than our fair share of fraud, it is also true that the cultural diversity and immigrant ethos that permeates Miami brings a deep pool of creative and hardworking people. We are also a very open community — since almost all of us are from somewhere else, we tend to be more welcoming to newcomers. The local tech community is still small too, so it’s really not very hard to figure out what’s what pretty quickly.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

There are many great founders doing important things in Miami. Here are just a few of them at the top of my mind:

  • Aaron Hirschhorn — Aaron is building Gallant, a stem cell banking business for pets, and has raised a ton of money already from big-name VCs (and on Shark Tank). He moved here a couple of years ago after selling his startup DogVacay to Rover.
  • Andres Moreno — In addition to still running Open English, Andres is the co-chair of Endeavor Miami and is actively involved in two other early-stage startups (Longevo and Escala).
  • Maurice Ferré — He is the capo of the Paypal Mafia for Miami health tech; he sold Mako Surgical and is now investing in and mentoring a slew of really legit startups.
  • Jose Rasco and Juan Calle — Sold .CO in 2014 and are now involved in many other projects, including the co-working space building.co.
  • Ariel Quinones at IronHack — He’s based in Miami, but they are the market leader in Europe and just raised another $10 million last month; they are building something big.
  • Felipe Sommer and Emiliano Abramzon. They built Nearpod but recently stepped back from day-to-day management. I’m sure they’ll do something else big soon.
  • Marco Giberti — Marco is an entrepreneur turned angel investor and a pioneer in “company building,” or what we call the “venture studio” model. He is a co-founder at LAB Ventures and also an expert on EventTech (about which he literally wrote the book).
  • Lawyers: PAG.LAW — They represent a huge share of Miami startups, as well as startups from Latin America that have or want to have a U.S. presence or U.S. legal entity.

Rebecca Danta, managing director, Miami Angels

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

I believe people will continue to move here more than ever before. Some of the current buzz may fade, but we will continue to see people actively choosing to live and do business here. Before 2020, living in Miami was sometimes seen as a lifestyle choice, but something that set you back careerwise. We’re already starting to see that is no longer the case. We’re now solidifying ourselves as a real place for tech companies and investors to thrive. We will see the startups that began a few years ago mature and hire more talent at a faster rate as they grow, and we will see more employees of those companies leave to start their own companies.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

I see hybrid work environments being essential in a post-pandemic world and we’re already seeing that with Pipe’s recently announced microhubs, for example. I don’t think all tech jobs and companies will be 100% remote (many will), and I definitely don’t think they’ll be 100% location-based and in-person five days a week. Founders have more options than ever before on where to headquarter their companies, and although employees won’t have to relocate for a job, founders will choose cities that are attractive when it comes to quality of life and a supportive work environment. And if Miami is one of those options, it won’t be hard to attract talent here.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

We are industry agnostic (within early-stage software) at Miami Angels. We’ve been investing in Miami companies since 2013, but we don’t only invest in Miami companies. Some industries that have always been exciting for Miami are edtech and healthcare tech because of our large school and hospital systems. We also have a lot of local expertise and innovation in these areas, which has also been accelerated by the pandemic. At Miami Angels, we’ve invested heavily in these areas over the years; we believe in honing in on areas that are already key for a geography.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Although we’ve had a few notable success stories, we’re still in our infancy as a tech ecosystem. The majority of startups here are still small and have less than 50 employees. This means most companies do not have large product, design and engineering teams. We have good, local talent graduating from our universities but we will continue to see that talent leaving to other cities until we have a larger mass of startups that are able to hire 20+ junior engineers each year, for example. The best product, design and engineering talent is simply not concentrated here right now. Luckily, we can absolutely attract this talent, but it is important that founders know this.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. 

A successful ecosystem is all about the founders, so it’s absolutely the founders who built startups here a few years ago and really took a bet on Miami that deserve special attention. They consciously chose to build here, believing in Miami, even when outside investors told them it wasn’t a great idea. Some of these Miami founders we’ve backed include Alex Nucci of Blanket, Chris Sopher, Rebekah Monson, and Bruce Pinchbeck of WhereBy.Us, Emiliano Abramzon and Felipe Sommers of Nearpod, Maxeme Tuchman of Caribu, and Jason Dettbarn of Addigy. We also have our eye on Emma Harris of Kiddo, Evan Leaphart of Kiddie Kredit, and Emil Hristov of Domaselo.

Kevin Cadette, executive director, Black Angels Miami

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

Miami will expand as an ecosystem for innovators, builders and investors as each community will experience rapid growth and greater interconnectivity. And, if I have a say in this matter, Black Angels Miami will be a critical foundational piece to this community. There are many angel investors that call Miami and South Florida home and that trend will continue on the back of general regional population growth. Black Angels Miami will continue to galvanize the opportunity for investors, educating those new to investing with our Black Angels U programing, in addition to creating opportunities to be Limited Partners in funds.
Miami is a very diverse city and there are many active organizations working to ensure that it remains diverse as the ecosystem grows. The groundwork for what Miami Tech is today has been laid for many years. The Knight Foundation has been at the forefront of supporting organizations in the ecosystem, and that infrastructure is bearing the fruits of today.

As I believe we are scratching the surface of tangible success stories coming out of Miami, I anticipate Miami to be nationally recognized in the next five years as one of the most important entrepreneurial metro regions in the country.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

Remote work will ignite our technology evolution that is already simmering. Miami’s designation as a city where people enjoy spending time will be a major boon for remote work. People want to be here! Offices may disappear, just as they are in all metro areas, but companies are also moving into Miami. Miami and South Florida have demonstrated that one can live and work here without compromise. With more large companies relocating, startups building and investors living in South Florida, I believe Miami’s startup scene will only become stronger.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

Black Angels Miami is sector agnostic, and we are looking for the best early-stage ventures with high growth potential in Miami and anywhere in America. I’m most excited about growth industries that have large total addressable markets that offer delightful solutions for companies and individuals globally.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

One of the local challenges here is its biggest opportunity: The tight-knit, collaborative nature of the city. Miami is a very collaborative community — send an email to someone here and you will get a reply, and will most likely steer you in the right direction. Everyone is trying to collaborate; it’s very much a rising tide for all. We all want to see success stories coming out of the community. However, if you are trying to build here, it can be difficult if you haven’t immersed yourself in the community. The one piece of advice I have to new arrivals would be to reach out to those already here. It is easy to be based here and carry on working virtually as you did before, but then you are missing out on exciting opportunities. The Miami ecosystem is very relationship-based and the doors are wide open.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

There are many “movers and shakers” in the ecosystem. I will just take this opportunity to thank the Knight Foundation for all that they’ve done to support Miami tech. Just take a look at who they have supported through the years, and you’ll see the foundation they have laid.

Mark Kingdon, founder, Quixotic Ventures

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

The city has attracted a wide range of people over the years, including more tech and finance companies very recently. How will it add up to something more than the sum of the parts? In five years, I believe we will have had more notable exits that show the world that Miami can produce major companies. Building an ecosystem takes time. Decades even. Investors, entrepreneurs, startup employees are attracted to Miami. Significant exits occur. Money is recycled into new startups. It’s a virtuous cycle. We’re at the early stages now.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

The trend for remote work is an important trend for Miami. It is already a major hub for Latin America that will increase substantially. Miami is an easy trip from NYC. I can see many NYC inhabitants moving south as I did but maintaining their connection to NYC as I did.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

I focus on e-commerce and e-commerce enablement. I have a narrow focus by design. I’m excited by founders with grit, determination, a great idea and ideally some traction. Sktchy has shown that grit and determination.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Hiring today is a challenge. The candidate flow isn’t what you’d see in NYC. You can’t post a job on Friday and have 10 applicants on Monday. It takes longer here to recruit. That’s workable but only if founders identify needs early and understand there is a longer process to fill key roles.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystems roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

There are too many to name; that’s the fantastic thing about Miami. The community is super welcoming and always has time for new people; it’s wonderful and not something I’ve ever experienced before. A few of the people who helped me get started in Miami include: Nico Berardi, Juan Pablo Cappello, Melissa Krinzman, Matt Haggman, Raul Moas, and Jesse Stein. Miami Angels has been a great community to be part of — the board: me, Melissa Krinzman, Juan Pablo Cappello, Raul Moas, Nico Berardi, Tigre Wenrich, and Marco Giberti have invested in more than 50 Miami companies. Miami Angels has invested in three dozen more. In my opinion, Miami Angels has done a great deal to bring new investors into the ecosystem and to connect them with locals.

Ana González, head of partner funds, 500 Startups

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

There is a unique window of opportunity for Miami to position itself as a regional and even global hub for entrepreneurs. Miami can build on years of investment by public and private entities in the ecosystem, and shape the identity and brand that it wants to showcase to the world. The city can double down on its core strengths and identify new assets that will provide growth into the future. Miami has incredible access to a diverse pool of talent, is well positioned geographically, has a great quality of life and favorable tax policies. A number of industries also have a strong presence in the city and are growing at global scale, including healthcare, logistics and transportation, fintech, blockchain and crypto. New sectors that align with Miami’s future also include climate resiliency, smart cities and sustainability.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

The 2020 pandemic has only accelerated the trend that we’d begun to see in the previous years in which more and more, people are able to choose where to live independently of where their work is. Miami stands front and center in this movement. As people continue to realize the great quality of life that they can have in this city, they move here to settle down, or even better, to build things locally that enable them to stay. This in turn increases quality and density of talent, and feeds the positive feedback loop that makes Miami more and more attractive to live and work in. As the COVID-19 vaccine enables us to move toward in-person meetings and events again, we believe that we will all have to learn to live in a new hybrid model (mix of digital and in person) for building interpersonal relationships, doing business and living our lives overall. Miami can be a great innovator in this sense, just as it has already started innovating with novel outdoor theater productions that are safe and interesting to watch.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

At 500 Startups we accelerate and invest in tech-enabled, seed-stage startups that are coming up with novel solutions and building the industries of tomorrow. And we are sector agnostic. In Miami, we are excited to see the growth of certain industries such as fintech, healthcare, transportation and logistics. There are also contactless solutions being developed that will be especially relevant in the world post-COVID, in the security, travel and hospitality, and financial services industries.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Founders in Miami generally struggle in accessing early-stage capital (anything from angel investing to seed to pre-Series A rounds), as well as finding good talent, especially in engineering, growth and product management roles. This is typical in the development of a new ecosystem. But for Miami, we are excited that this is changing quickly as more and more talent and capital funders are moving here now.

What is great about Miami is how connected it is with other ecosystems. The traditional connection has been with Latam, but now much more with the Bay Area, New York and Europe. So more and more companies are able to do business in Miami, but leverage the global network connected with the city to find the talent, capital and access to markets that you’re looking for.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystem roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

There are so many great people doing amazing work in Miami. What’s great is most people here seem to genuinely want to build something for all. I’d suggest as a starting point:
Maria Derchi (Refresh Miami), Matt Haggman (Beacon Council), Raul Moas (Knight Foundation), Rebecca Danta (Miami Angels), and Tigre Wenrich (The Lab Ventures).

Tom Wallace, managing partner, Florida Funders (Tampa)

Where do you see Miami’s startup scene five years from now?

Although there has been a lot of news about the growing tech community in Miami over the past several months, this plan of transforming Miami and Florida as a whole to a technology hub has been in the works for years. If you look at how technology ecosystems are built, it comes down to two things: talent and capital. The state of Florida has always had a lot of capital but unlike California and New York most of our wealth does not come from technology. What we have seen though is the rise and sale of some great unicorn companies here in Florida that has ultimately fueled the organic growth of the ecosystem. When unicorns liquidate many new millionaires are made and those millionaires are starting their own companies. Just like HP in Silicon Valley, Microsoft in Seattle and Dell in Austin, this is how technology ecosystems are built. So in five years, Miami and Florida as a whole will potentially be a leading technology ecosystem in the country.

Remote work is pushing and pulling the global workforce. This means that offices will disappear from Miami, even with more companies moving in, but also more locals who work remotely for companies elsewhere. How do you see these factors impacting the city’s tech evolution?

There’s no doubt we’re benefiting from the trend in remote work — historically, we’ve been working to build great companies here. We’ve never struggled proving that Miami is an amazing place to spend time. With the shift toward remote work, we’re accelerating the trend of smart people moving here to work for companies that may not be based here, but moving forward, they’ll start or join companies that are local.

I also don’t believe that offices will be completely eliminated. If you look at the companies moving to Miami and Florida (like Blackstone and Goldman Sachs) they’re setting up sizable footprints. Offices will change forever and people will continue to have the ability to work from home for many companies, but there will always be an in-person element of work that cannot be replaced by Zoom. I especially think this is true in early-stage technology companies. For great conversation and innovation nothing beats being in a room with your entire team working through problems on the whiteboard.

What industry sectors do you focus on within Miami (and beyond)? What is happening in Miami now that you’re most excited to fund?

Being the gateway to Latin America has a massive appeal to me and us here at Florida Funders. The Latin American technology market is still in a very early stage, and Miami is where Latam companies jump into the U.S. and vice versa. Logistics and microlending platforms are a major interest. The secondary sector I am beginning to get serious about is fintech. With major players such as Goldman and Blackstone setting up operations in Miami there will be innovative fintech companies that follow in their footsteps.

What are some of the local challenges you’ve encountered or seen founders struggle with? More generally, how should people looking to hire in, invest in or relocate to Miami think about doing business in the city?

Talent, specifically tech development talent has always been a struggle in the state of Florida. We are now seeing, with the rise of remote working, better talent than ever before. But we still have a long way to go. Ecosystems like Boston, Silicon Valley, and even my home town of Pittsburgh have world-class institutions pumping out great tech talent. We do not have that yet here in Florida although the University of Florida and Florida Polytechnic Institute are trying to bridge the talent gap with some great new educational initiatives.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystems roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.

I would like to say Florida Funders is really moving the needle on the capital side in Florida. In Miami, there are some amazing physical locations that have become startup hubs such as the CIC or now the new Mana Development. Also, I know our attorneys at Greenberg Traurig, especially partner Jaret Davis, are making large strides to support the community and have been for years.

Early-stage African VC firm, Microtraction reports portfolio boom despite the weight of COVID-19

In a year marred by the coronavirus pandemic, it seems that early-stage startups on the African continent are continuing to see some notable growth, both in terms of their business and from investors looking to back them. 

Microtraction, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Lagos, Nigeria, saw funding nearly quadruple for its portfolio.

In a review of the year published last week, the firm noted that 21 companies in its portfolio have raised more than $33 million in funding. This represents nearly four-fold growth over a year ago when its portfolio raised $6 million (and just $3 million in 2018). The companies’ combined valuation stands at over $147 million according to the firm.

Founded by Yele Badamosi in 2017, Microtraction arrived on the continent’s early-stage investment scene with all intent to be “the most accessible and preferred source of pre-seed funding for African tech entrepreneurs.”

Badamosi, who returned to Nigeria from the UK in 2015, worked as the general manager for Starta Africa, an online community for African tech entrepreneurs. After his stint there, he saw the need to plug the gap of early-stage funding in Nigeria and the continent at large with Microtraction.

Microtraction does not specify the size of its fund, but what is more clear is that it has attracted a great deal of attention and has built a strong network in part because of who backs it. 

Michael Seibel, the CEO of Y Combinator, is a global advisor and an investor in the firm, and so is Andy Volk, the head of ecosystem for Google Sub-Saharan Africa. Other investors include Pave Investments and US-based angel investor, Chris Schultz.

Being entrepreneurs in the past, some of these investors know what it takes to build a startup in the U.S. But it’s completely different in Africa. With no on the ground know-how as to which startups to fund but an interest to do so, for portfolio diversification and other personal reasons, Microtraction and a few other early-stage investors present the best bets to accomplish this goal.

At first, Microtraction’s standard deal was to offer portfolio startups $15,000 in exchange for a 7.5% equity. But as a sign of how the market is firming up, that changed last year and now the firm invests $25,000 for 7% equity.

Microtraction revealed that it accepted over 500 applications from startups in Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, and Mauritius in its first full year of operation. Though, just eight of those companies got investments.

The introductory batch was all Nigerian. Four fintech startups — Cowrywise, Riby, Wallets Africa, and ThankUCash; a crypto-exchange startup, BuyCoins; a SaaS platform, Accounteer; an edtech startup, Schoolable; and healthtech startup, 54gene.

2019 saw the local VC firm invest in six companies. This time there was a representative outside Nigeria — Ghanaian fintech startup, Bitsika. The Nigerian startups included social commerce startup, Sendbox; events startup, Festival Coins; communications-as-a-service platform, Termii. The rest were unannounced.

Half of its portfolio companies are backed by YC and other global accelerators

Last year (the one this latest review covers), Microtraction announced seven startups. The latest selection includes Nigerian fintech startups, Evolve Credit and Chaka; edtech startup, Gradely; bus-hailing platform, PlentyWaka; and Kenyan credit data marketplace, CARMA.

Of the total investments raised in 2019 and 2020, 54gene contributed more than half of those numbers by raising $4.5 million in seed and $15 million Series A investment. With an ingenious solution to solve the underrepresentation of African genomics data in global genomics research, 54gene got accepted into the winter batch in January 2019, the same month it officially launched.

Excluding 54gene, there were six other African-focused startups in the YC W19 batch. Two out of the six, Schoolable and Wallets Africa, were Microtraction portfolio companies. Others accepted into YC before and after included BuyCoins, Cowrywise, Termii, and two unannounced startups.

Microtraction-backed ThankUCash and a second unannounced startup have also joined cohorts at 500 Startups. On the other hand, Festival Coins is the only startup to be selected into Google for Startups Accelerator. With all accounted for, 11 out of the 21 startups are either backed by Y Combinator, 500 Startups, or Google for Startups.

The Microtraction team with founding partner, Yele Badamosi (far right)

Getting into these global accelerators is a surefire way to receive follow-up investment, ranging from $125,000 to $150,000. From the outside in, startups see Microtraction and other early-stage VC firms like Ventures Platform as a means to that end. There have also been arguments that these firms build startups to be “YC or any global accelerator ready.”

However, Dayo Koleowo, a partner at Microtraction alongside Chidinma Iwueke, debunks it saying there’s no formula behind the numbers we see. He believes YC and other accelerators share the same fundamentals with Microtraction which revolves around the team, the market, and traction.

“We love super technical teams, understand the industry they are in and are likely to succeed without us. We are always looking for companies that are solving huge problems that a lot of people face,” he told TechCrunch. “Also, the tech and startup world moves fast, so we like teams that understand that and can show in real-time that they can execute. I believe that these global accelerators look for these same things.”

Typically, YC and other accelerators may perform extended due diligence and risk assessments before cutting cheques for any African startup without a local backer. Koleowo points out that this might be why Microtraction portfolio companies get accepted quicker. “The icing on the cake is that there is a level of de-risking that has been done by Microtraction and other local investors on the ground before these global accelerators step in,” he added.

That said, there’s no denying the significance of Microtraction’s advisory board in playing a part as to why half the firm’s portfolio are in global accelerators. Besides the names mentioned earlier, Lexi Novitske, PIO at Singularity Investments and Dotun Olowoporoku, managing partner at Starta act as regional advisors, and Monique Woodward, a venture partner at 500 Startups is a global advisor.

And with the growing trends of globalization, plus the acceptance of a more decentralised approach to building and operations in the tech industry because of COVID-19, it’s a trend that might continue for a while.

Cyber Monday scams? Fakespot says it can identify fraudulent reviews and sellers online

The pandemic has made it all but impossible for a retail company without an online presence to survive. Yet while companies heavily dependent on foot traffic like J.Crew and Sur la Table have filed for bankruptcy this year, companies that are expert in e-commerce have thrived, including Target and Walmart. Amazon alone now attracts roughly one quarter of all dollars spent online by U.S. shoppers.

Unfortunately, as more shopping moves online, fraud is exploding, too. The problem is such that startups working with enterprises — flagging transactions for banks, for example — are raising buckets of funding. Meanwhile, one New York-based startup, Fakespot, is taking a different approach. It’s using AI to notify online shoppers when the products they’re looking to buy are fake listings or when reviews they’re reading on marketplaces like Amazon or eBay are a fiction.

We talked earlier today with Kuwaiti immigrant Saoud Khalifah about the four-year-old business, which got started in his dorm room after his own frustrating experience in trying to buy nutritional supplements from Amazon. After he’d nabbed his master’s degree in software engineering, he launched the company in earnest.

Like many other companies, Fakespot was originally focused on helping enterprise customers identify counterfeit outfits and fake reviews. When the pandemic struck, company spied an “opening crack on the internet,” as Khalifah describes it, and began instead catering directly to consumers who are increasingly using platforms that are struggling to keep up — and whose solutions are often more focused on protecting sellers from buyers and not the other way around.

The pivot seems to be working. Fakespot just closed on $4 million in Series A funding led by Bullpen Capital, which was joined by SRI Capital, Faith Capital and 500 Startups among others in a round that brings the company’s total funding to $7 million.

The company is gaining more attention from shoppers, too. Khalifah says that a Chrome browser extension introduced earlier this year has now been downloaded 300,000 times — and this on the heels of “millions of users” who have separately visited Fakespot’s site, typed in a URL of a product review, and through its “Fakespot analyzer,” been provided with free data to help inform their buying decisions.

Indeed, according to Khalifah, since Fakespot’s official founding it has amassed a database of more than 8 billion reviews — around 10 times as many as the popular travel site Tripadvisor — from which its AI has learned. He says the tech is sophisticated enough at this point to identify AI-generated text; as for the “lowest-hanging fruit,” he says it can easily spot when reviews or positive sentiments about a company are posted in an inorganic way, presumably published by click farms. (It also tracks fake upvotes.)

As for where shoppers can use the chrome extension, Fakespot currently scours all the largest marketplaces, including Amazon, eBay, Best Buy, Walmart, and Sephora. Soon, says Khalifah, users will also be able to use the technology to assess the quality of products being sold through Shopify, the software platform that is home to hundreds of thousands of online stores. (Last year, it surpassed eBay to become the No. 2 e-commerce destination in the U.S., according to Shopify.)

Right now, Fakespot is free to use, including because every review a consumer enters into its database helps train its AI further. Down the road, the company expects to make money by adding a suite of tools atop its free offering. It may also strike lead-generation deals with companies whose products and reviews it has already verified as real and truthful.

The question, of course, is how reliably the technology works in the meantime. While Khalifah understandably sings Fakespot’s praises, a visit to the Google Play store, for example, paints a mixed picture, with many enthusiastic reviews and some that are, well, less enthusiastic.

Khalifah readily concedes that Fakespot’s mobile apps need more attention, which he says they will receive. Though Fakespot has been focused predominately on the desktop experience, Khalifah notes that more than half of online shopping is expected to be conducted over mobile phones by some time next year, a shift that isn’t lost on him, even while it hinges a bit on the pandemic being brought effectively to an end (and consumers finding themselves on the run again).

Still, he says that “ironically, a lot of [bad] reviews are from sellers who are angry that we’ve given them F grades. They’re often mad that we revealed that their product is filled with fake reviews.”

As for how Fakespot moves past these to improve its own rating, Khalifah suggests that the best strategy is actually pretty simple.

“We hope we’ll have many more satisfied users,” he says, adding: “No one else really has consumers’ backs.”

African fintech startup Chipper Cash raises $30M backed by Jeff Bezos

African cross-border fintech startup Chipper Cash has raised a $30 million Series B funding round led by Ribbit Capital with participation of Bezos Expeditions — the personal VC fund of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Chipper Cash was founded in San Francisco in 2018 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled. The company offers mobile-based, no fee, P2P payment services in seven countries: Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya.

Parallel to its P2P app, the startup also runs Chipper Checkout — a merchant-focused, fee-based payment product that generates the revenue to support Chipper Cash’s free mobile-money business. The company has scaled to 3 million users on its platform and processes an average of 80,000 transactions monthly. In June 2020, Chipper Cash reached a monthly payments value of $100 million, according to CEO Ham Serunjogi .

As part of the Series B raise, the startup plans to expand its products and geographic scope. On the product side, that entails offering more business payment solutions, crypto-currency trading options, and investment services.

“We’ll always be a P2P financial transfer platform at our core. But we’ve had demand from our users to offer other value services…like purchasing cryptocurrency assets and making investments in stocks,” Serunjogi told TechCrunch on a call.

Image Credits: Chipper Cash

Chipper Cash has added beta dropdowns on its website and app to buy and sell Bitcoin and invest in U.S. stocks from Africa — the latter through a partnership with U.S. financial services company DriveWealth.

“We’ll launch [the stock product] in Nigeria first so Nigerians have the option to buy fractional stocks — Tesla shares, Apple shares or Amazon shares and others — through our app. We’ll expand into other countries thereafter,” said Serunjogi.

On the business financial services side, the startup plans to offer more API payments solutions. “We’ve been getting a lot of requests from people on our P2P platform, who also have business enterprises, to be able to collect payments for sale of goods,” explained Serunjogi.

Chipper Cash also plans to use its Series B financing for additional country expansion, which the company will announce by the end of 2021.

Jeff Bezos’s backing of Chipper Cash follows a recent string of events that has elevated the visibility of Africa’s startup scene. Over the past decade, the continent’s tech ecosystem has been one of the fastest growing in the world by year year-over-year expansion in venture capital and startup formation, concentrated in countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.

Africa Top VC Markets 2019

Image Credits: TechCrunch/Bryce Durbin

Bringing Africa’s large unbanked population and underbanked consumers and SMEs online has factored prominently. Roughly 66% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s 1 billion people don’t have a bank account, according to World Bank data.

As such, fintech has become Africa’s highest-funded tech sector, receiving the bulk of an estimated $2 billion in VC that went to startups in 2019. Even with the rapid venture funding growth over the last decade, Africa’s tech scene had been performance light, with only one known unicorn (e-commerce venture Jumia) a handful of exits, and no major public share offerings. That changed last year.

In April 2019, Jumia — backed by investors including Goldman Sachs and Mastercard — went public in an NYSE IPO. Later in the year, Nigerian fintech company Interswitch achieved unicorn status after a $200 million investment by Visa.

This year, Network International purchased East African payments startup DPO for $288 million and in August WorldRemit acquired Africa focused remittance company Sendwave for $500 million.

One of the more significant liquidity events in African tech occurred last month, when Stripe acquired Nigerian payment gateway startup Paystack for a reported $200 million.

In an email to TechCrunch, a spokesperson for Bezos Expeditions confirmed the fund’s investment in Chipper Cash, but declined to comment on further plans to back African startups. Per Crunchbase data, the investment would be the first in Africa for the fund. It’s worth noting Bezos Expeditions is not connected to Jeff Bezo’s hallmark business venture, Amazon.

For Chipper Cash, the $30 million Series B raise caps an event-filled two years for the San Francisco-based payments company and founders Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled. The two came to America for academics, met in Iowa while studying at Grinnell College and ventured out to Silicon Valley for stints in big tech: Facebook for Serunjogi and Flickr and Yahoo! for Moujaled.

Chipper Cash founders Ham Serunjogi (R) and Maijid Moujaled; Image Credits: Chipper Cash

The startup call beckoned and after launching Chipper Cash in 2018, the duo convinced 500 Startups and Liquid 2 Ventures — co-founded by American football legend Joe Montana — to back their company with seed funds. The startup expanded into Nigeria and Southern Africa in 2019, entered a payments partnership with Visa in April and raised a $13.8 million Series A in June.

Chipper Cash founder Ham Serunjogi believes the backing of his company by a notable tech figure, such as Jeff Bezos (the world’s richest person), has benefits beyond his venture.

“It’s a big deal when a world class investor like Bezos or Ribbit goes out of their sweet spot to a new area where they previously haven’t done investments,” he said. “Ultimately, the winner of those things happening is the African tech ecosystem overall, as it will bring more investment from firms of that caliber to African startups.”

Insight Partners, Precursor Ventures join Hustle Fund in raising new fund money

Even as the country is in the final days of a polarizing election, the cogs of VC never stop turning. On this ever-so-quiet, non-election-news Tuesday, venture firms still managed to file paperwork with the SEC indicating newly raised funds. Precursor Ventures and Insight Partners will join Hustle Fund in closing new capital.

The filings are noteworthy because they signal new capital coming into the startup world, which could look dramatically different in the coming weeks. Still, Precursor Ventures and Hustle Fund are both still fundraising, so expect them to (hopefully) add more capital in the coming months.

Precursor Ventures, led by Charles Hudson, has raised a new tranche of capital to invest in pre-seed companies. The firm first filed in March 2020 that it had plans to raise a $40 million fund, and today it appears that it has closed $29 million of that goal. Recent investments from Precursor include The Juggernaut, mmhmm and TeamPay. The fund made headlines recently because it promoted Sydney Thomas, its first hire, to principal. Hudson was unable to comment due to fundraising activity.

We also saw a filing from Insight Partners, which closed a $9.5 billion fund in April for startups and growth-stage investments, indicating that it has raised money for its first-ever Opportunity Fund. The SEC filing shows that Insight Partners has raised $413 million for the opportunity fund. Insight did not return a request for comment.

Earlier today, SEC filings also showed that Hustle Fund has raised $30 million for a second fund, surpassing its previous fund of $11.5 million. Interestingly, paperwork for this new fund was first filed in May 2019 with the intention to raise $50 million. Today’s news, thus, is its first close. While the firm is still fundraising, it’s a long gap between filing and first close. The fund was launched in 2018 by ex-500 Startup partners Eric Bahn and Elizabeth Yin to, similar to Precursor, invest in pre-seed startups. Hustle Fund invests $25,000 checks into 50 startups per year.

Yin declined to comment due to ongoing fundraising activity.

While the spree of funds on Election Day was noteworthy, it was somewhat expected. Generally speaking, funds want to get their paperwork cleared and closed before a potentially chaotic event or time of unrest. We saw closes from OpenView, Canaan, True Ventures and more, while firms including First Round and Khosla filed paperwork for new funds. Time will tell if this is a final exhale of news until January 1, or if the VC world will continue pushing droves of capital, holidays be damned.

Springboard raises $31 million to expand its mentor-guided education platform to more geographies

Springboard, an online education platform that provides upskilling and reskilling training courses to people looking to learn in-demand roles, has raised $31 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand to more geographies.

The Series B financing round for the San Francisco-headquartered startup was led by investment firm Telstra Ventures . Vulcan Capital and SJF Ventures, as well as existing investors Costanoa Ventures, Pearson Ventures, Reach Capital, International Finance Corporation (IFC), 500 Startups, Blue Fog Capital, and Learn Capital also participated in the round, said the seven-year-old startup, which has raised more than $50 million to date.

Springboard offers a range of six-month and nine-month courses on data-science, design, coding, analytics and other upskilling subjects to help students and those who are already employed somewhere land better jobs.

The startup, which expanded to India last year, also connects students with mentors — people who are working at Fortune 500 companies — to guide them better navigate professional decisions, Vivek Kumar, Managing Director at Springboard, told TechCrunch in an interview.

Startups offering upskilling courses have gained traction in recent years as companies across the globe complain about not being satisfied with a large portion of the undergraduate students who are applying for a job with them.

In many markets like India, one of the global hubs for tech consulting firms, it has become a common sight for several major IT giants to spend months in retraining their new hires. Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in elimination of tens of thousands of additional jobs.

Springboard offers these courses at customized price points to students based on where they live. For instance, a nine-month course that sells for around $7,500 in the U.S., is priced at $3,300 in India, explained Kumar.

“Technology used to be a niche area but that’s no longer the case. As more and more companies are built on tech, the need to understand concepts like Data Science, AI, ML, UI/UX has become more homogenous. For learning to be meaningful, it needs to encompass state-of-the-art curriculum with real-world projects as well as mentorship and that is what Springboard stands for. With this funding we are in a good position to build on our strengths to provide in-demand job skills and holistic support at every step,” he said.

This is a developing story. More to follow…

5 VCs agree: COVID-19 reshaped adtech and martech

We last surveyed VCs about their advertising and marketing investment strategies back in January — which is to say, in a completely different world, before the coronavirus pandemic began to wreak havoc on the global economy.

While there don’t appear to be any comprehensive numbers yet about the effect on digital advertising (which is, after all, still playing out), early data and anecdotes suggest a rapid decline, with some categories of ad spend disappearing entirely.

And as we noted in our previous survey, Crunchbase data shows that adtech had already fallen at a roughly 10% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years.

So what does the landscape look like now, and where are the remaining opportunities? To find out, we’ve compiled updated answers from two investors who participated in the previous survey and brought in three new perspectives:

For the most part, they acknowledged the landscape’s challenges — not just the pandemic, but the general maturity of the industry — while also pointing to opportunities in areas like machine learning. As Elton put it succinctly, “Marketing and advertising are not going away.”

Eric Franchi, MathCapital

How much time are you spending looking at marketing tech or adtech startups right now? Are you more focused on one or the other?

Adtech and martech are our main categories as a fund. We selectively invest in categories that might benefit from it (think DTC brands or media) or be of benefit to it (think next-generation CRM or HR tech). But 90%+ of our focus is adtech and martech.

What are you looking for in your next investment?

As always — team first. We look for founding teams with talent, vision and grit. We keep a fairly wide berth in terms of products and categories but we are spending much of our time focused on two themes: the post-privacy era in marketing (i.e. new, cookieless, compliant forms of identity and infrastructure) and future of digital media (i.e. video, OTT, audio, etc.).

How has COVID-19 impacted the adtech and martech investing landscape? Are there still opportunities?

Dealflow is down somewhat, but we are still seeing great opportunities. We have several investments in the pipeline for Q2. The challenges right now are similar to other sectors: spending time getting to know teams and calibrating expectations for growth in a Zoom-only (for now) world.

What kind of advice are you giving to your portfolio companies?

Right now, two months post-lockdown, most adjustments have been made to budgets and plans, teams (and customers) are adjusted to being fully remote and things have somewhat stabilized. Now is the time to get teams focused on sales and marketing. It’s a unique and rare time to outflank larger, slower-moving competitors and adapt to the market.

Christine Tsai, 500 Startups

5 VCs agree: COVID-19 reshaped adtech and martech

We last surveyed VCs about their advertising and marketing investment strategies back in January — which is to say, in a completely different world, before the coronavirus pandemic began to wreak havoc on the global economy.

While there don’t appear to be any comprehensive numbers yet about the effect on digital advertising (which is, after all, still playing out), early data and anecdotes suggest a rapid decline, with some categories of ad spend disappearing entirely.

And as we noted in our previous survey, Crunchbase data shows that adtech had already fallen at a roughly 10% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years.

So what does the landscape look like now, and where are the remaining opportunities? To find out, we’ve compiled updated answers from two investors who participated in the previous survey and brought in three new perspectives:

For the most part, they acknowledged the landscape’s challenges — not just the pandemic, but the general maturity of the industry — while also pointing to opportunities in areas like machine learning. As Elton put it succinctly, “Marketing and advertising are not going away.”

Eric Franchi, MathCapital

How much time are you spending looking at marketing tech or adtech startups right now? Are you more focused on one or the other?

Adtech and martech are our main categories as a fund. We selectively invest in categories that might benefit from it (think DTC brands or media) or be of benefit to it (think next-generation CRM or HR tech). But 90%+ of our focus is adtech and martech.

What are you looking for in your next investment?

As always — team first. We look for founding teams with talent, vision and grit. We keep a fairly wide berth in terms of products and categories but we are spending much of our time focused on two themes: the post-privacy era in marketing (i.e. new, cookieless, compliant forms of identity and infrastructure) and future of digital media (i.e. video, OTT, audio, etc.).

How has COVID-19 impacted the adtech and martech investing landscape? Are there still opportunities?

Dealflow is down somewhat, but we are still seeing great opportunities. We have several investments in the pipeline for Q2. The challenges right now are similar to other sectors: spending time getting to know teams and calibrating expectations for growth in a Zoom-only (for now) world.

What kind of advice are you giving to your portfolio companies?

Right now, two months post-lockdown, most adjustments have been made to budgets and plans, teams (and customers) are adjusted to being fully remote and things have somewhat stabilized. Now is the time to get teams focused on sales and marketing. It’s a unique and rare time to outflank larger, slower-moving competitors and adapt to the market.

Christine Tsai, 500 Startups