Tag: ECL

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Join Yext’s Howard Lerman for a Q&A October 13 at 2 pm ET/11 am PT

Heading into the third quarter and earnings season, TechCrunch is excited to announce that Yext CEO Howard Lerman will join us for a live Q&A next Tuesday as part of our continuing Extra Crunch Live series.

The series recently hosted pairs of investors from Accel and Index Ventures and has hosted business leaders from Mark Cuban to Roelof Botha. Lerman will be one of the few guests who is the CEO of a public company.

But Lerman is no regular public CEO — his company debuted at a TechCrunch event back in 2009, quickly raising capital after the pitch. Yext’s 2017 IPO was therefore an event of interest here at TechCrunch.

What will we talk about? There’s a number of things that come to mind, but we’ll certainly get into the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses and how Yext is handling an uneven market. We’ll dig into search, a rising product and revenue area for the company, and how Yext has managed to broaden its product mix without diluting its focus.

We’ll also discuss what changes for a tech CEO heading into the public markets and what advice he might have for companies either considering, or actively going public in 2020. It has been a busy year for startup liquidity, pushing a great number of startups into the public sphere with varying results.

And we’ll riff on where Lerman is seeing the most interesting startups being built, along with your questions. As with all Extra Crunch Live sessions, we’ll snag a few questions from the audience. So make sure your Extra Crunch Live subscription is live and prep your thoughts.

Details follow after the jump. See everyone Tuesday!

Details

Below are links to add the event to your calendar and to save the Zoom link. We’ll share the YouTube link on the day of the discussion:

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Accel VCs Sonali De Rycker and Andrew Braccia say European deal pace is ‘incredibly active’

The other week TechCrunch’s Extra Crunch Live series sat down with Accel VCs Sonali De Rycker and Andrew Braccia to chat about the state of the global startup investing ecosystem. Given their firm’s broad geographic footprint, we wanted to know what was going on in different startup markets, and inside a number of business-model varietals that we are tracking, like API-focused startups and low-code work.

As with all Extra Crunch Live episodes, we’ve included the full video below, along with a number of favorite quotes from the conversation.

Above the paywall, I wanted to share what De Rycker said about the European startup ecosystem: It’s been stuck in my head for the last day, because her comments points to a future where there is no single center of startup gravity.

Instead, considering her bullishness on her local scene, we’re going to see at least three major hubs, namely North America with a locus in the United States, Asia with a possible capital in India, and Europe, with a somewhat distributed layout.

Here’s De Rycker from our chat, responding to my question about how active the European venture and startup scene is today (transcript has been lightly edited for clarity):

What has surprised me even more [than change in the European startup scene over time] is the acceleration in the last couple of years. And I think it’s continued in the last few months, despite the COVID environment.

And that’s really because Europe isn’t just one location, right? It’s a collection of different ecosystems, different locations, different hubs. At any point in time there are 15 to 20 cities that are relevant, and they’ve all sort of reached this tipping point. And together, Europe is at this inflection point, in terms of the quality of entrepreneurs, [and] the number of opportunities. And it feels like it’s all come together with the digitization that’s going on that we’re all, you know, very much believing in right now. And the fact that there’s a ton of capital around. So I would say that we’re seeing a pretty frenetic pace, more than, candidly, pre-COVID, which is not something we expected. […]

But I would say that overall, Europe is incredibly active [regarding] deal pace, deal count, I wouldn’t say it’s very different from what I understand to be the situation in the U.S.

Undergirding what De Rycker said above, TechCrunch recently reported on the financial results of TransferWise, a European fintech unicorn that grew 70% in the last year, to £302.6 million in revenue. Toss in Adyen’s epic run as a public European tech company and there’s lots to celebrate from the continent, even if we don’t read enough about here in the States.

Extra Crunch Live continues with some really damn fun stuff coming up (including a few more that I am hosting). So, make sure you’re in and ready for the next edition as we dig deeper into season two.

Hit the jump for the full chat and some further bits from the transcript.

Sonali De Rycker and Andrew Braccia

Here’s the full video:

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Index Ventures’ Nina Achadjian and Sarah Cannon: ‘There’s basically an infinite bid’ for growth-stage startups

The venture world is swimming in capital these days, and the flood doesn’t appear to be abating.

That’s changing the game for venture capitalists and their firms, which transformed from solo practitioners focused on one stage and a single geographical area to covering all startups in all geos in all industries in just a handful of years.

One firm that has navigated those changes for decades is Index Ventures, one of the first funds to launch in Europe that has evolved into a multi-stage firm in recent years. The firm last raised a total of $2 billion this past April to continue doubling down on all the deals springing up across the world.

This week on Extra Crunch Live, I interviewed Nina Achadjian and Sarah Cannon, two SF-based partners at Index, to discuss what they are seeing in the market, how VC fundraises have changed and continue to change and how they are adapting to the rise of rolling funds and other new seed vehicles. This was the first time that the two came together for a panel, and our conversation was a real blast.

Index raises $1.2B growth fund and $800M to invest in emerging startups

Here’s an edited and condensed version of the conversation, with highlights of the best insights from the panel.

“It’s not easy to just sit on the sidelines and wait till things sort themselves out.”

TechCrunch: September is traditionally a time for fundraises to kick off for the fall, but in this COVID-19 world, everything is different. Who is fundraising right now and what do you see going on?

Nina Achadjian: Well, there are two things. One, there was an incredible pull from the market for technology tools. So many businesses that had put off buying technology or investing in technology really all of a sudden found themselves in a digitally-first world or a digital-only world and therefore, there was a massive pull for technology products. It’s the reason why companies like Shopify and others in the public markets have had just amazing, record quarters.

The second thing is, in venture when we raise these funds, we have a certain time period to deploy them, usually anywhere from two years to five years. So for us as investors, it’s not easy to just sit on the sidelines and wait till things sort themselves out.

So actually, a lot of venture investors have piggybacked off of this incredible pull from the market side and have been investing, I would say, at the same pace, or even a faster pace than we were before.

“There’s basically an infinite bid for these companies.”

Are those paces the same for all stages?

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Extra Crunch Live: Join us today at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT to discuss the future of startup investing with Index Ventures VCs Nina Achadjian and Sarah Cannon

The venture capital world is rapidly changing, and thank heavens we have two of the smartest VCs on the future of investing, productivity tools, and remote work joining us today to make sense of all the noise.

On Extra Crunch Live today, Sarah Cannon and Nina Achadjian, two VC partners based in Index Ventures’ SF office, will talk about these subjects and more. Plus, we will be taking questions from the audience, so come prepared. Login details are below the fold for EC members, and if you don’t have an Extra Crunch membership, click through to signup.

As I wrote when we announced the slate last week:

First, we have Nina Achadjian, who officially joined Index Ventures several years ago out of the firm’s SF office and was promoted to partner earlier this year. Achadjian has been searching for and investing into some of the most interesting new collaborative companies that are rebuilding the enterprise from the ground up (which happens to have been a brilliant move given our remote-work world this year). Her investments include such companies as product-management service productboard, sales performance platform Gong, executive assistant marketplace Double and real estate services platform ServiceTitan.

Second, we have Sarah Cannon, who joined Index in 2018 from CapitalG, and who is also based officially out of SF. Cannon made a splash earlier this year with her bullish bet on note-taking and team productivity wunderkind Notion, and has also invested in productivity tools like collaborative presentation software Pitch and smart team messaging app Quill.

Join us today at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 6pm GMT.

Event Details

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Extra Crunch Live: Join Index Ventures VCs Nina Achadjian and Sarah Cannon Sept 29 at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT on the future of startup investing

It seems as if every month introduces a whole new paradigm to VC investing. First COVID-19 triggered a wave of changes as founders learned how to pitch their startups remotely and VCs learned how to judge quality without meeting their potential portfolio companies in person. Then we had the rise of SPACs and the rise of rolling funds, growth in secondary transactions including whole VC fund portfolios, and a frothing crypto investing market after years at a slow simmer.

In short, 2020 looks to be a watershed year for VCs, a pivot point for the industry as it learns to adapt to the new normals of startups, valuations, and ecosystems.

Given how important these changes are, we’re excited to announce the next edition of our Extra Crunch Live interview series, this time with two VCs from Index Ventures who are trailblazing tracks across this new environment in AI/ML, SaaS, and the future of work. We’re scheduled for Tuesday, September 29 at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 6pm GMT. Login details are below the fold for EC members, and if you don’t have an Extra Crunch membership, click through to signup.

First, we have Nina Achadjian, who officially joined Index Ventures several years ago out of the firm’s SF office and was promoted to partner earlier this year. Achadjian has been searching for and investing into some of the most interesting new collaborative companies that are rebuilding the enterprise from the ground up (which happens to have been a brilliant move given our remote-work world this year). Her investments include such companies as product-management service productboard, sales performance platform Gong, executive assistant marketplace Double, and real estate services platform ServiceTitan.

Second, we have Sarah Cannon, who joined Index in 2018 from CapitalG, and who is also based officially out of SF. Cannon made a splash earlier this year with her bullish bet on note-taking and team productivity wunderkind Notion, and has also invested in productivity tools like collaborative presentation software Pitch and smart team messaging app Quill.

Together, we’ll talk about remote work and all these productivity cult products, and then we’ll expand the conversation to the broader changes in the work of VCs today and how they’re adapting their own activities to match the world we see today.

Even better, we’ll be taking live questions from the audience, so definitely come bearing interesting questions otherwise I am going to have to do all the work myself and will be very sad.

Join us next week with these two great thinkers at Tuesday, September 29 at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 6pm GMT. Login details and calendar invite are below.

Event Details

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Join Accel’s Andrew Braccia and Sonali De Rycker for a live Q&A today at 2 pm EDT/11 am PDT

Disrupt was just days ago, but the TechCrunch crew is continuing our regular series of public chats with leading founders and venture capitalists under the Extra Crunch Live banner.

Today, we’re excited to host Andrew Braccia and Sonali De Rycker from Accel. The pair of investors will join us for a live Q&A at 2 p.m. Eastern time today (11 a.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. CET). Links and details are down below.

As discussed last week when we announced the session, there’s a lot to get to. Braccia led Slack’s Series A, which means we’ll need to discuss remote work, the direct listing debate and modern SaaS stuff. And with De Rycker we’ll dig into what she’s seeing in Europe and how the two startup markets compare in today’s evolving markets.

(If you are just catching up to Extra Crunch Live, we’ve been hosting live discussions since the early COVID-19 days here in the United States with folks like Mark Cuban, Plaid founder Zach Perret and Sequoia’s Roelof Botha taking part.)

I’ve also been thinking about India (Accel raised a fifth India fund in 2019), which will be worth talking about a little bit even if neither of our guests primarily focuses on the country. And if we have time, it would even be good to get their feelings and reactions to the TikTok mess.

But, before we get into the more exotic areas of conversation we’ll power through the nuts-and-bolts stuff that founders want to know: How active Accel is today, what size checks it is currently writing, its sector focuses and the like. Given that we have a full hour if we want it, we’ll be able to cover a lot of ground.

Be sure to bring your own questions, and I’ll do my best to get to them as we chat.

It should prove to be a good, and, I hope, useful conversation that I am looking forward to hosting. Login details follow for Extra Crunch folks, and you can snag a cheap trial here if you need access.

(If you want to pre-submit a question, you can tweet it at me, but after the actual livestream kicks off I will no longer be checking Twitter. Get them in now, in other words.)

Details

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Join Accel’s Andrew Braccia and Sonali De Rycker for a live Q&A on September 22 at 2 pm EDT/11 am PDT

In the midst of Disrupt 2020, we’re busy keeping tabs on all the panels, chats, demos and battling startups, but we’re also prepping for what comes next. Next Tuesday, the Extra Crunch Live series of Q&As with founders and investors resumes, this time with guests Andrew Braccia and Sonali De Rycker from Accel.

If you are just catching up to Extra Crunch Live, we’ve been hosting live discussions since the early COVID-19 days here in the United States with folks like Mark Cuban, Plaid founder Zach Perret and Sequoia’s Roelof Botha taking part.

The Accel chat is going to be interesting for a few reasons, one of which is that Braccia is the opposite of loud — TechCrunch has noted his general reticence to public comment in prior reporting. But Braccia was early money into Slack, which means he’ll have good perspective into the direct listing market, the IPO market writ large, SaaS and the remote-work boom. We’ll make sure to get the latest.

De Rycker is a bit more active in the public sphere and has lead deals into companies like Sennder (which recently did a deal with Uber), Shift Technology and Avito, which sold to Naspers for north of $1 billion last year. As you can tell from that string of deals, De Rycker will be able to give us a working dig into what’s up in the European startup scene.

And as De Rycker worked as an investment banker before VC, we’ll see what she has to say regarding today’s M&A and IPO climes.

All in all, it’s going to be a good time that I am looking forward to hosting. Login details follow for Extra Crunch folks, and you can snag a cheap trial here if you need access.

Until then, enjoy Disrupt and we’ll see you on Tuesday. Don’t forget to bring your best questions, and we might get to one of them!

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Join Twilio’s Jeff Lawson for a live Q&A today at 2:30 pm EDT/11:30 am PDT

Later today, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson is joining the TechCrunch crew for a live Q&A.

The discussion is part of our Extra Crunch Live series that has been live for the last several months. It’s been a good run, with guests like Charles Hudson, Sydney Sykes and Mark Cuban. We’ve also had entrepreneurs swing by, including one of the founders of Plaid.

But it’s about time we added Lawson to the mix as he’s in a slightly different spot than most guests to date, namely, he’s the CEO of multi-billion dollar public company. Mostly at TechCrunch we talk to the founders and financiers of the yet-private companies that might go public someday.

As we wrote last week, we plan to talk to Lawson about a number of things, including the rising popularity of API-focused startups in recent quarters and how it feels to see companies calling themselves the “Twilio for X.” But since we announced the chat, the world has changed a bit, so we have a few new things we want to throw at the CEO.

Such as, how can he tell when it’s the right time to go public, and what are the best ways to balance growth and deficits when public markets value revenue so highly? Yesterday a host of tech companies filed to go public, so we’ll get Lawson’s take on their decision to pull the trigger today, during a pandemic, recession and election year.

And we’ll also riff on taking a big company remote and find out what he thinks about heading back to the office. We’re also taking audience questions, so get prepped for the afternoon. Details follow for Extra Crunch members. If you haven’t done so yet, sign up today so you can join the conversation.

Zoom and YouTube links after the jump, along with calendar notes so you won’t forget. Chat soon!

Details

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Anu Duggal on COVID-19, promoting diversity and building a fund

It has been nearly a decade since Anu Duggal, founding partner of Female Founders Fund, started raising money to invest in women-led startups. In 2020, the investor says her thesis — that there will be a generation of successful venture-backed businesses built by women — is one you can’t avoid.

“You can’t argue with that anymore,” she said. “There are going to be some people who take a little longer to kind of accept that this is a long-term development, and there’s some that have recognized this is the future.”

We brought Duggal on to Extra Crunch Live on Thursday to discuss how her work is changing amid unprecedented times.

She, like many investors, says she has taken on the “new normal as the new normal” and is invested in startups without ever meeting founders in-person. But how does the breakdown of traditional networks impact female founders?

“I wouldn’t say we’re seeing new tailwinds yet,” she said, on the focus to invest in female founders. “I think we’re still kind of in the early innings of corona. I will say, though, that there’s reason to be optimistic.”

Duggal talks about bright spots in this dumpster fire of a year, scout programs and the “lipstick effect” in the full session, which is available below. You can sign up for Extra Crunch here if you still need access.

Should investors publicly share portfolio diversity data?

We felt strongly about disclosing diversity data because, you know, we invest 100% in companies started by women and so we’re already at somewhat of an advantage compared to most of the industry. I think the reason we did it was to show that we’re not patting ourselves on the back. We still have more work to do. And here’s what we’re going to do, here are the action steps we’re taking.

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Eric Hippeau discusses D2C growth, brand value and advice for early-stage founders

Eric Hippeau is the founding partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures, whose portfolio companies include the likes of Axios, BuzzFeed, Casper, Warby Parker, Allbirds, DocSend, Fundera, Everlane, Giphy, Genius and the recently acquired fitness company Mirror.

It would not be an overstatement to say that Hippeau is well-positioned to discuss startups across a wide spectrum of industries, from media to D2C to telehealth to edtech. We spoke with Hippeau for a full hour on a recent episode of Extra Crunch Live to discuss all of the above and get his tactical advice for early-stage startups looking to catch their break.

Below, you’ll find a video of the entire episode and highlights from our conversation. Enjoy!

Advice for super-early-stage founders

As much as you can, in terms of timing and resources, build something. Don’t just talk about building something. Build it. It’s not gonna be perfect, and it might not work the way you might do, but build it because that will give me, as a VC, an indication of what you’re trying to accomplish. It also tells me a lot about you, and that that this is something that you really care about. You’re going to ask your family, and even ask your friends, and you’re going to get resources any way you can because it’s that important to you. And, the product that you build, while not perfect by any of stretch of the imagination, will go a long way for us to figure out what it is.

On the growth of direct-to-consumer