Tech News

Ubie, a Tokyo-based startup providing an AI-powered symptom checker app and hospital SaaS products, has closed a $19 million extension to its previous Series C round. This brings the health tech startup’s total funding to $45.2 million in Series C.

The extension round consists of 90% equity and 10% debt financing, according to the co-founder and CEO of Ubie Kota Kuto. With this round, Ubie has raised a total of $76 million since its inception in 2017.

The startup declined to comment on its company valuation, but a source familiar with the situation, who wished to remain anonymous, told TechCrunch its valuation is now estimated at $250 million. Investors in the latest funding include Sogo Medical, AAIC Investment, Japan Impact Investment, Rakuten Capital, Shoko Chukin Bank, Japan Finance Corporation and Mizuho Bank.

Ubie plans to use the proceeds to scale up its healthcare platform and ramp up its penetration into the U.S. after entering Singapore in August. The startup launched its symptom checker app earlier this year in the U.S. and opened a U.S. subsidiary in October. Kuto told TechCrunch that Singapore’s medical system is similar to Japan’s, given its geographical and cultural background, so the company decided Singapore would be “an appropriate first step for global expansion.”

The outlet is in discussions with pharma companies to increase partnerships, many of which have offices on the East Coast, Kuto explained. It expects to finalize and announce a handful of partnership deals early next year, Kuto added.

Ubie isn’t the only health tech company developing an AI-enabled symptom checker for users. A Boston-based startup, Buoy Health, built a symptom check app using AI; berline-based Ada Health also developed an AI-driven symptom assessment app; and IBM’s Mediktor helps people with symptom assessment. Kuto pointed out, as a differentiator, that Ubie offers a B2B product called Ubie for Hospital, also known as AI Monshin, and a B2C app for individual users. The Ubie for hospitals, allowing doctors to reduce their time for taking notes of patients’ histories, is a medical questionnaire software for patients to have a preliminary interview via a tablet while waiting before meeting doctors.

“Based on data extracted from about 50,000 medical research papers [created by more than 50 physicisans], AI Monshin [automatically] selects and asks around 20 questions from 3,500 types of question data,” Kota said.

Co-founded by medical doctor Yoshinori Abe and engineer Kubo, Ubie claims that more than 1,100 medical institutions in Japan use Ubie’s AI Monshin. The company also has more than 7 million monthly active users (MAUs) of its symptom checker app. Ubie employs approximately 200 people.

Japan’s health-tech Ubie wants to fuel its U.S expansion with $19M Series C extension by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch

Artificial intelligence is taking over almost every industry. The investment and finance industry is no exception. In Deloitte’s 2019 report, the firm reveals that AI is transforming the financial ecosystem to reduce costs and make operations more efficient by providing automated insights and alternative data, analysis and risk management.

Technology such as AI has digitized the finance sector, ranging from payments and remittances to lending. However, asset management is still in the nascent stage of digitization, according to the chief strategy officer and co-founder of Akros Technologies, Jin Chung.

Akros Technologies wants to disrupt the current asset management industry via its AI-driven asset management software platform that mines market data for stocks. Akros just raised $2.3 million from Z Venture Capital, the corporate venture capital wholly owned by Z Holdings, which also owns the Japanese messaging app Line and internet portal Yahoo Japan.

Akros intends to strengthen strategic ties with Z Holdings via strategic investment, the startup said. The latest funding, which brings Akros’s total amount raised to $6.1 million since its 2021 inception, will help Akros to scale its software platform and asset management products and ramp up its users, including local and global financial institutions and fintech companies.

The outfit is already in discussions with potential partners to expand its AI-powered product called portfolio management as a service, or PMaaS, an all-in-one operating system for portfolio management. Chung explained to TechCrunch that PMaaS “enables B2B clients such as financial institutions, fintech startups and robot-advisors to launch their own exchange-traded funds (ETFs) without having to set up ETF teams and infrastructure.”

He added that it expects to secure more than five B2B clients in the first quarter of 2023.

The startup claims that its AI-powered portfolio management platform can reduce “the overall cost structure [of] the traditional fund development,” including management fees and unnecessary fees involved in the investment process, by more than 80%. The outfit aims to maximize the finance management performance of data-driven ETFs and offer a portfolio management solution via the PMaaS for Akros’s users to help them compete with global ETF institutions like Vanguard or JPMorgan.

In August, Contents Technologies launched Korean pop music, also known as K-pop, and Korea Entertainment ETF, on the NYSE Arca Exchange under the ticker KPOP, using Akros’s PMaaS solution to develop the ETFs. In addition, Akros listed an AI-driven target income ETF, called Akros Monthly Payout ETF (ticker: MPAY), on the NYSE in May with monthly distributions at an annualized target rate of 7%, according to the startup.

To build a slew of investment strategies that lower the cost of portfolio modeling and generate scores of investment portfolios, Akros applies a generative AI model based on a decision transformer, which predicts future actions through the sequencing model, Chung said, adding the company also employs GPT-3 natural language processing (NLP) to analyze unstructured language data.

Akros plans continuously to enhance its engineering technology by bolstering its business to disrupt the asset management market and attract new partners across the globe, including Japan, Singapore and the U.S., co-founder and chief executive officer Kyle Moon said in a statement.

Founded by CEO Moon, CSO Jin and chief marketing officer Justin Gim, Akros employs seven people.

Moon previously worked for Qraft Technologies as head of AI research and CSO and had experience listing four ETFs on NYSE. Before co-founding Akros, Gim had more than nine years of experience in the asset management industry; Chung did research work for Bayesian deep learning in autonomous driving cars at Oxford Robotics Institute.

In March, Akros raised $3.75 million in funding from PeopleFund, a South Korean peer-to-peer lending platform. The company declined to provide its valuation when asked.

Akros Technologies, an AI-powered asset management platform, raises funding from Z Holdings by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch

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Hello, Happy Thursday. There is a lot of news today, much of it posting as I write this — for example, the Federal Trade Commission is now suing to block Microsoft from buying Activision. So less chatter, more banter. — Christine

The TechCrunch Top 3

Let’s give ’em something to talk about: Given all of the ChatGPT popularity in the news lately, it is no surprise that a related company would be top news today. Instead of taking screen grabs, Ivan writes, ShareGPT creates a link to your ChatGPT conversations that you can grab instead.
Get your Frappuccino with a side of NFTs: Starbucks opened its blockchain-based loyalty program and NFT community to its first set of beta testers, Sarah reports. “Journey Stamps” will unlock new experiences beyond the free drinks and food that frequent drinkers can get from Stars.
Flying the friendly skies of capital: Something’s in the air up there. TripActions secured $400 million in credit facilities from Goldman Sachs and Silicon Valley Bank in a move that comes less than two months after the travel expense management company announced a $9.2 billion valuation. Mary Ann has more.

Startups and VC

Moving, starting a new job and getting married in a short span of time is the trifecta of stress for anyone (I know from personal experience). In the startup world, that trifecta might be what happened to marketing technology startup Banzai. Ingrid writes that the company acquired Hyros, raised $100 million and went public via SPAC. Congrats?

Meanwhile, France is having a good venture capital run. Mike reports on a few new funds, including IRIS Capital, which had a first close of €110 million as it works to reach a target of €150 million for its new venture fund.

Want more? Here’s five more:

Creating for creators: Lauren writes about Komi, a landing page tool for content creators, which raised $5 million.
Tools for school admins: Kenya-based edtech startup Zeraki is the latest to grab some funding to provide digital tools to help school administrators manage payments and paperwork. Annie has more.
An extra set of “eyes”: WeWalk secured a small raise to develop computer vision for a smart cane used by visually impaired people, Paul writes.
A car that can monitor your health: Renault China is looking at making super-premium EVs that will tell you if your blood pressure is high, Rita reports. No doubt from that person who just cut you off.
Domain name drag: Picking the right domain name can be just as difficult as creating a password no one will guess. Enter Smartynames, which Haje writes uses AI to find you the perfect domain name.

To prepare for a downturn, build a three-case model

Startups that develop case models are better equipped to deal with potential setbacks. Visualizing exactly how potential market shifts can impact your business is a great way to prepare for the unexpected.

A three-case model attempts to predict best-case, down-case and base-case scenarios, writes Matt Barbieri, partner-in-charge at accounting firm Wiss & Co.

“Typically, the base-case scenario falls between the extremes. For example, in financial modeling, you might say that Peloton experienced both its ‘best case’ and ‘down case’ scenarios within a year.”

Four more from the TC+ team:

Energy boost: Haje takes a look at Rootine’s $10 million Series A deck in his latest Pitch Deck Teardown.
Finally some good news in VC: Women are rising through the ranks at VC firms, according to a new survey that caught Dominic-Madori’s eye.
Scooting ahead: Duffl’s David Lin talks to Christine about why his company has been able to buck traditional rapid grocery delivery woes.
What’s in store for the ad market?: Alex pours through some numbers to forecast what the Q1 ad market is shaping up to be.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

All of the tech layoffs prompted Airtable to put out a memo earlier this week promoting its tools for job seekers. Now it is Airtable’s own employees who might need to use them. Natasha M reports that the company, which was last valued at $11 billion for its no-code software, laid off over 250. And not only that, but it seems that the move also included some executive departures, including the chief revenue officer, chief people officer and chief product officer.

And here’s another five for you:

Know where you’re going: Rebecca writes that Google combines Maps and Waze teams as pressures mount to cut costs.
Know when to fold ’em: Twitter and Apple have not been playing nice, so now it seems if you pay for a Twitter Blue subscription via iOS, get ready to pay $11 to offset App Store fees, Ivan writes.
Know when to put on the brakes: Safety capabilities are the reason for Tesla’s new plans to add radar to its vehicles…again, Rebecca reports.
Know when to bundle: It has arrived… Disney+ now has its ad-supported tier meant to compete with Netflix, Lauren writes.
Know how to move on: Manish writes that Foxconn invested another $500 million into its India business, where Apple plans to have more iPhone production over the next three years.

Daily Crunch: Airtable lays off 250+ as CEO cites importance of ‘being a lean organization’ by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

Virgin Orbit is retargeting a launch that was supposed to take place as soon as next week from Cornwall, England — and that was to be the first spaceflight to depart from British soil — due to additional technical to-dos and remaining regulatory hurdles.

In a statement, Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said the company would retarget launch for “the coming weeks.” In addition to remaining technical work and outstanding launch licenses, Hart said the limited two-day launch window also moved Virgin to delay the mission. He did not elaborate on what technical work is needed for flight readiness.

Just a few hours after the announcement broke, the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the regulatory body that licenses launch, released its own statement to rebuke Virgin’s claim that remaining regulatory issues were in part the reason for the mission delay.

“The UK space regulation process is not a barrier to a UK space launch,” Tim Johnson, CAA’s director for space regulation, said. “Virgin Orbit has said in its statement this morning that there are some technical issues that will need to be resolved before launch. These in no way relate to the timing of when a licence will be issued by the Civil Aviation Authority.”

Virgin Orbit was due to launch from Spaceport Cornwall on December 14. LauncherOne, Virgin’s launch system, is composed of a Boeing 747 and a rocket. The aircraft carries the rocket to high altitude before releasing it on its journey to space, so while this isn’t due to be the first vertical launch from U.K. soil, it will be the first spaceflight mission.

The news came as something of a surprise; as late as Tuesday, Virgin representatives were telling the news media that the mission would be a “go” upon regulatory approval.

UK regulator says it’s not to blame for Virgin Orbit mission delay by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

For some reason, Niantic added a feature to Pokémon Go in which sometimes Pokémon can be HUGE and sometimes they’re tiny. This feels like a relatively useless feature that doesn’t really change gameplay at all, but I mean, sure, I will take a tiny Poochyena, please and thank you!

Rolling out now, the Pokémon Poochyena, Mightyena and Mawile can appear in size XXS or XXL. Why those three Pokémon only? I don’t know, ask Professor Willow. In reality, it is probably to create a sense of excitement that they can draw out as they slowly roll out, uh, small Pikachu and big Eevee. Or, as they appear in-game, Pokémon that’s far from camera and Pokémon that’s close to camera.

We’ve already had sizes of Pokémon since the game first came out in 2016 — usually this was used for horrible Reddit jokes in which people would nickname their Pokémon after certain body parts, then screenshot the appraisal screen, in which the Professor would say, “Your [body part] is huge!” if the Pokémon was of a larger size. You know what I mean. You can’t nickname Pokémon with that language anymore, but as a consolation, now there is a feature in the Pokédex that shows you the size ranges of Pokémon that you have caught. When you catch a new smallest or largest Pokémon for each species in your Pokédex, you will get a fun little pop-up congratulating you.

You’ll know if you’ve come across a superbig or supersmall guy in the wild because, uh, their sizes will be different. And there will be little animations that tell you this. Personally, I think these animations are a bit similar to those that appear when you find a shiny Pokémon in the wild, and a large Mawile simply is not as exciting as a shiny one, but hey, I didn’t design the game. If I did, I would have a shiny Mawile.

In Pokémon Go, you can now capture superbig or supersmall friends by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

You know what I miss about working in an office? Literally nothing, apart from having access to a fancy coffee machine. It turns out that the magic of the liquid black gold is within reach even for work-from-home keyboard warriors. You don’t even need to spend ridiculous amounts of money for a tasty hot beverage to have you jittering your way through the day.

Got any caffeine-fiends or coffee lovers in your life who might want to up their coffee game? Here’s our top six gift ideas, from super affordable to… not.

This article contains links to affiliate partners where available. When you buy through these links, TechCrunch may earn an affiliate commission.

1 – Start with the beans

It’s pretty rare that a great holiday gift comes at a reasonable price, but in the coffee category, you’re in luck. Go to a specialty coffee store near you, and you can get a great, high-end holiday gift in the $12-25 range. High-quality, freshly roasted beans is the first step to making amazing coffee at home, provided that your recipient has a grinder. If they don’t, you can buy pre-ground coffee, but be aware that it goes stale far faster.

I’m a sucker for coffee subscriptions that focus on variety, and most third-wave coffee roasters have a subscription plan you can gift. Atlas Coffee Club is one of my favorites; the bags are only for subscription, so they don’t have to worry about how the bags look on the shelf. The upshot of that is that they always have some fresh and funky designs.

Each pack they ship comes with a postcard with tasting notes. The company charges $109 for six months worth of gift subscriptions, including shipping. If Atlas doesn’t do it for you, Trade has a broader selection of choices, or if that seems too overwhelming and adventurous, the stalwarts of the industry such as Blue Bottle, Peets and Equator all have giftable subscription plans too.

Price:Varies depending on brand and subscription type

2 – Cheap is great: the AeroPress

Launched back in 2005, designed by a guy better known for inventing the Aerobie frisbee, the AeroPress continues to be one of the best devices for coffee making at home. It makes a rich, smooth coffee that tastes somewhere between an espresso, a french press, and a drip coffee. At just $40, it’s It’s by far the cheapest way to make a respectable cup of coffee. It’s almost indestructible (I’ve owned mine for more than 10 years, and it’s still going strong), and can make great coffee wherever you can get water up to a certain temperature. The trick is to use cooler water than you’d expect (175˚ F/80˚ C), which requires a kettle with good temperature control, but overall, it’s hard to screw up a cup of AeroPress. Get some good beans and grind them a tiny bit more coarsely than you would for espresso. If you buy pre-ground beans, espresso grind works just fine.

Price:$40 from AeroPress

3 – From beans to powder: Ode Brew Grinder 2

This might come as a surprise, but for great coffee at home, your first upgrade probably shouldn’t be your machine, but your grinder. Or rather: Make sure you buy fresh, high-quality beans, and then grind them with as much precision as you can: An uniform grind is what you’re looking for. Fellow is perhaps best known for its high-precision EKG electric kettle, which has more or less become the industry standard for high-end baristas making pour-over.

In this guide, however, I wanted to give the Ode Brew Grinder a bit of love. At $345, it is astonishingly expensive, but it is one of the best grinders money can buy.

The original version was well reviewed, and the Gen 2 improves on a winning formula: It has anti-static technology which means less of a mess. It has a cup that goes under the grinder that is held in place magnetically. You grind just enough beans for however much coffee you are going to make, and the grinder stops automatically once your beans are shredded to the appropriate size. The major difference is that the grinding burrs have been completely redesigned; the Gen 2 brew burrs are capable of grinding as fine as 250 microns, while the Standard brew burrs that come stock in the original Ode Brew Grinder can grind as fine as 500 microns. If you love espresso drinks, Fellow warns that this isn’t the grinder for you, but if you’re more of a pour-over person, you can’t go wrong.

Price: $345 from Fellow

4 – Bringing the science: Acaia Pearl coffee scale

Is it sane to pay $150 for Acaia’s specialized set of Pearl digital coffee scales, when Amazon will sell you a just-as-accurate scale for a tenth that? Well, the Acaia scale does more than just measuring the coffee grinds itself; it can also show you the pour rate you are using for your pour-over brews, helping you fine-adjust and make your brews more repeatable.

Accurately measuring the amount of coffee you put into espresso is a crucial part of fine-tuning your coffee recipes: A double shot of espresso, called a doppio, requires 14 to 18 grams of coffee and produces 60 ml (two fluid ounces) of coffee. From there, you esperiment with the pressure your espresso machine is calibrated to, your tamping, the coarseness of your grind, and… Oh dear, my coffee nerdery is showing, isn’t it?

All I’m saying that if your coffee-loving gift recipient doesn’t use scales to make espresso, they either don’t really care about coffee, or they haven’t figured out how important it is for consistency. Whether you pick up the $150 Acaia, the $50 Timemore, or the $17 KitchenTour scale, a precision set of scales is a crucial step toward coffee nirvana.

Price:$150 from Acaia

5 – For the tinkerers: Gaggia Classic

If you love espresso drinks and are an epic coffee nerd, you eventually fall deep enough into the coffee hole that you start learning to make your own espresso drinks from scratch. That means getting a grinder, some scales, and a good machine. The Gaggia Classic wouldn’t stand up to the intense requirements of a busy cafe, but for home use, at under $500, it is a remarkably affordable machine for anyone wanting to make coffee-shop quality espresso.

The machine has the most important features that baristas look for: it cranks out up to 12 bars of pressure, and it’s been around for 30 years. Spare parts are easily and readily available, and YouTube is overflowing with guides for how to take it apart and repair it if something should go wrong with it. The steam wand means that you can steam milk to create more creative espresso drinks; lattes, flat whites, macchiatos; they are all some experimentation and an internet tutorial away.

Price: $425 from Amazon

6 – Just make the coffee for me already: Breville Oracle Touch

If the thought of measuring your grinds to the nearest milligram makes you twitch, and fine-adjusting the coarseness of the grind fills you with a sense of dread, there are luckily fully automatic solutions too. Keurig’s K-cups and Nespresso pods are a good option if you want minimum hassle and don’t care about having some coffee cred. For the lazy aficionado, however, there’s the $2,800 Breville Oracle Touch. Yes, it is eye-wateringly expensive, but it’s capable of making any coffee drink you can imagine. If you’re the kind of person who’s utterly malfunctioning before you have your first cup of coffee, the Oracle Touch makes it as fool proof as it gets: Pour in some beans, water, and milk, then use the touch screen to look for the picture of the drink you want. No hassle, no mess, no skill required. The machine grinds, doses, stamps, heats, pumps, and steams. Sure, there are cheaper bean-to-cup machines out there, but that’s not what we are optimizing for here: This is all about ease of use and a jolt of caffeine while involving as few brain cells as possible.

Price: $2,800 from Breville

6 gifts for coffee lovers looking to up their game by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch