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It’s tough in the current economic climate to hire and retain engineers focused on system admin, DevOps and network architecture. In a recent Gartner survey, IT executives cited talent shortages as the top barrier to adopting emerging technologies. Unfortunately for execs, at the same time recruiting is posing a major challenge, IT infrastructure is becoming more costly to maintain. Business monitoring company Anodot reports that nearly half of corporations are finding it difficult to get cloud costs alone under control.

Aiming to overcome some of the blockers to success in IT, Lucas Roh co-founded MetalSoft, a startup that provides “bare metal” automation software for managing on-premises data centers and multi-vendor equipment. MetalSoft allows companies to automate the orchestration of hardware, including switches, servers and storage, making them available to users that can be consumed on-demand.

MetalSoft spun out from Hostway, a cloud hosting provider headquartered in Chicago. Hostway developed software to power cloud service provider hardware, which went into production in 2014. In 2019, the software spun out as a separate company — MetalSoft — with the goal of broadening its capabilities to service additional service providers and enterprises.

“We provide a turnkey solution to service providers to offer … cloud services,” Roh told TechCrunch in an email interview. “We’re differentiated from others in that we automate and manage the full stack [of infrastructure], including switches, servers, storage and networking as well as cloud enablement.”

So how does that solve the talent shortage and cost overruns in tech? Well, Roh — who previously helped to launched cloud provider Bigstep and the aforementioned Hostway — asserts that MetalSoft’s software can eliminate many of the problems associated with hardware silos, reducing the complexity of managing them to the point where non-technical consumers can build their own infrastructure. By allowing customers to pull workloads back from the cloud and run them in-house if they so wish, MetalSoft can bring down IT costs while offering a higher level of control, including security posture, Roh argues.

For instance, MetalSoft can automatically deploy and configure operating systems and firmware upgrades while discovering running hardware on a network. It also can auto-configure storage volumes and storage-related system network settings, generating a visual blueprint that captures a company’s infrastructure, including servers, storage and networking.

Roh says that MetalSoft’s targeting both enterprises that have their own equipment (for example, in a data center or co-location facility) as well as cloud service providers that want to offer “bare metal as a service” or “private cloud as a service” products to their customers (think a provider deploying infrastructure to a client’s on-premises server room). It’s early days — MetalSoft landed its first customers last year, and the company isn’t talking revenue or operating cash flow at the moment — but Roh claims that MetalSoft’s solution is beginning to gain traction in the marketplace.

“We have some major enterprise customers with hundreds of thousands of devices that we are not revealing but include a major telco and major data center and cloud service providers, and have a strong partnership with major OEM,” Roh said. “In the past couple of years, we’ve especially focused on adding many enterprise features and support for more hardware vendors.”

While MetalSoft competes with heavyweights like Cisco and OpenStack, it’s likely to benefit from the recent uptick in investment in on-premises infrastructure. During the past year, 30% of organizations moved workloads or data from the public cloud back to a private cloud or on-premises or colocation facility, according to a report from the Uptime Institute. Their primary reasons were cost, regulatory compliance, performance issues and perceived concerns over security, the report said.

“We help reduce the cost of IT and we have become even more important in a more stringent spending environment … Our software can help reduce the technical labor requirements while significantly reducing cost while delivering the full functionality to their end-users.” Roh said. “After the spinout [from Hostway], we continue improving our product, especially in terms of the enterprise features that customers need.”

MetalSoft, which has around 40 employees, has raised $17 million in venture capital to date; $16 million came from its Series A that closed this week, led by DNS Capital. Roh says that the proceeds will be put toward growing MetalSoft’s sales and marketing functions and product development.

“We have done quite a bit of work on AI and machine learning that’s not yet part of our software stack,” Roh added. “We are currently working to incorporate AI and machine learning to intelligently manage and monitor bare metal hardware. We’ll be excited to introduce that product the second half of next year.”

MetalSoft aims to help manage server infrastructure through automation by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Startup funding continues to dwindle and layoffs keep making headlines as 2023 nears. And yet, pre-seed and seed companies don’t seem to be enduring the same state of panic as their more mature startup peers.

A recent survey of 450 early-stage founders in the U.S. and Europe by pre-seed-focused January Ventures found that despite current market conditions, many startups in their earliest stages still seem to feel largely insulated. Most don’t plan on the current macroeconomic environment changing their growth — both in terms of headcount and projected revenue — all that much.

Early-stage startups say no runway, no problem heading into 2023 by Rebecca Szkutak originally published on TechCrunch

Online grocery delivery, a booming business at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, has definitely come down to earth with the shifts in the economy, public health and technology investing. Oda, one of the bigger players in online grocery delivery in Europe with operations in its home market of Norway as well as Finland and Germany, today announced that it had raised 1.5 billion Norwegian crowns in equity (about $151 million at today’s rates) — a big round, but executed under tough conditions.

The investment gives Oda a post-money valuation of NOK3.5 billion, or $353 million. This represents a big devaluation for the company, which says it is profitable in some (but not all) of its markets. In April 2021, Oda (known then as Kolonial) was valued at around $900 million when it raised $265 million from investors that included SoftBank’s Vision Fund.

SoftBank — one of the most prolific investors in the last several years fueled by its mega-capitalized Vision Funds — has been hit hard by the crunch in the tech world. Last month, it noted that it lost an eye-watering $7.2 billion due to write-downs on the valuations of a number of its technology investments. It still lists Oda among its portfolio companies on its site (as part of Vision Fund 2), although it’s not noted as an investor in Oda’s newest financing.

In addition to the equity investment from Kinnevik, Verdane and Summa Equity, Oda said that this latest round included existing backers Rasmussen Group, Prosus and Kinnevik contributing a further NOK621 million ($62.5 million) in equity through debt conversion.

To give some balance to Oda’s picture, things are not all dark. The company — which has been in business since 2013 and thus is one of the more seasoned players in the space with other notable, regional names in Europe including Ocado out of the U.K., Rohlik in the Czech Republic, Picnic in the Netherlands, and Everli in Italy — says that its Norway operations are profitable.

“In 2021, we made an operating profit of NOK 29 million in Norway, a concrete proof that our business model works,” said Kristin Thornes Woldsdal, managing director for Oda in Norway, in a statement. “The company has very satisfied customers who benefit from a wide range of products at low prices, delivered directly to their homes.” It notes that in recent months, it’s seen a growth in its business with sales up in its home market by 15-20% compared to the same period last year.

That’s been on the back of a lot of margin attrition though at a time when food prices are generally going up across Europe. “Last year we reduced our sales prices to fully match competitors in the discount market, which has resulted in a positive effect on sales,” she added.

Oda says that its focus now will be on getting profitable in Germany and Finland for expanding elsewhere.

Oda’s funding underscores some of the major challenges underfoot for the online grocery sector at the moment. During the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many online grocers came into their own as consumers turned away from shopping in person to reduce social contact.

That led to the rise of a number of different permutations in the online grocery model, including a profusion of “quick-commerce” companies, delivering a smaller section of essentials and indulgent treats in under an hour, as well as a number of more standard grocery propositions aimed at households and replacing their weekly trips to the supermarket. This also saw other kinds of players, like restaurant delivery platforms, move into the grocery space.

However, in more recent times, not only have consumers returned to physical stores, but in many cases, they are facing economic pressures of their own, and for many, paying a premium to have goods delivered to their doors, even if it saves busy people time, has not proven to have a lasting enough pull to sustain the number of companies out there trying to make a business from it.

Many of the quick commerce players have been the first to feel the impact, with the likes GoPuff, Getir, Jokr, and more all laying off workers and pulling out of markets where they’re facing too many costs and too little return.

But as Oda’s devaluation — and other developments, like Instacart’s layoffs — underscore, the restructuring and rationalizing is not limited to the quick-commerce upstarts.

Investors still see an opportunity, though, not least with players who have been around for longer than the latest grocery boom (and now bust).

“We are impressed by how Oda has reinvented grocery shopping. The company has developed a world-class logistics and distribution system, which makes online grocery profitable and sustainable,” said Martin Gjølme and Staffan Mörndal, of Summa Equity and Verdane, in a joint statement. “Customers that place orders through Oda reduce co2 emissions significantly and cut food waste by about a quarter when compared to shopping at a physical store. We are investing in Oda because we see great potential in its business and want to contribute to its continued growth.”

More to come.

Oda, the Norwegian grocery delivery startup, raises a fresh $151M, but at a lowered valuation of $353M by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch

Snapchat announced today that it’s partnering with Adidas to launch a new Bitmoji Fashion Drop, giving users access to exclusive merchandise for a limited time. The partnership will allow users to use Snap Tokens to purchase an exclusive Adidas track jacket for their Bitmoji.

Snap Tokens, which were first introduced in 2020, can be purchased within the Snapchat app by clicking on your profile icon and scrolling down to “My Snap Tokens.” You can purchase 80 Tokens for $0.99, 250 Tokens for $2.99, 500 Tokens for $4.99 or 1,100 Tokens for $9.99. Users can claim the Adidas jacket by using 250 Snap Tokens. You have until Friday to claim the exclusive Adidas “Into The Metaverse” track jacket.

Snap Tokens can currently be redeemed for Gifts to send to Creators or for digital goods within games. With this new Bitmoji Drop, users will be able to use their Tokens to unlock exclusive merchandise for their Bitmoji.

Although this isn’t the first time that Snapchat has run a Bitmoji Drop, it’s the first time that users will have to use Tokens to claim an item in a Bitmoji Drop. The company launched its first Bitmoji Drop in September, giving users a chance to claim an exclusive pair of digital Air Jordan 2 Balvin sneakers. Snap says more than two million people claimed the exclusive digital merchandise before the Drop window closed. With this latest Bitmoji Drop, Snap is betting that some people are willing to pay for exclusive merchandise for their Bitmoji. If enough people are willing to pay, it will open up a new way for Snap to generate revenue.

As of October 2022, Snapchat has 363 Million daily active users. If only two million users claimed the free Bitmoji Drop, it will be interesting to see just how many users claim the Adidas jacket by redeeming 250 Tokens.

“We are thrilled to introduce this first-of-its-kind Bitmoji Drop in partnership with adidas,” said David Rosenberg, the Director of Bitmoji Strategy at Snap, in a statement. “Unlocking new Bitmoji Fashion experiences presents an exciting opportunity for Snapchatters to get access to exclusive digital fashion and express their unique digital identity, and a new frontier for innovative brand partnerships at Bitmoji scale.”

Users can claim the exclusive Adidas track jacket for their Bitmoji by clicking on their profile icon and tapping on the Adidas Bitmoji Drop banner. From there, you need to tap “claim and wear” to use Tokens to get the jacket. The jacket will then be added to your avatar’s outfit and saved to “My Closet.” If you don’t have enough Tokens to claim the jacket, you will be prompted to purchase more in the Token Shop via Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Given that Snap’s Bitmoji avatars are quite popular, it makes sense for the company to use them to further its push into e-commerce, and paid exclusive drops bring a new phase of e-commerce to the app.

Snapchat’s latest Bitmoji Drop features exclusive Adidas merch, but there’s a price tag by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

Cacheflow, a startup building tools for the software sales closing process, announced this morning that it closed $10 million in new capital.

Cacheflow CEO and co-founder Sarika Garg told TechCrunch that the new capital doubled her company’s valuation, added prior lead investor Glenn Solomon (GGV) to its board and brought new investor Crystal Huang (GV) on as a board observer. Huang led Cacheflow’s newest investment — what Garg described as a seed+ round — for GV, while Solomon put in more capital to the round than his pro-rata rights guaranteed, she said.

The venture capital market has slowed, and valuations for startups of all maturities have come down. To see Cacheflow raise a year after it came out of stealth and announced a $6 million roundcaught our attention. How had the company managed a quick raise at an attractive price when so many startups that once found the feat easy are struggling to repeat it today?

Per Garg, her company became commercially available this April, after which point she started to get inbound notes from investors. The startup CEO said that venture investors are still willing to pay for “companies that have momentum or are solving a real problem.”

Easier said than done, yeah? In the case of Cacheflow, after accelerating its sales and marketing efforts a few months ago, it has grown to around a dozen customers, which Garg described as being Series A through C companies. The CEO also said that Cacheflow is talking to larger potential customers today, indicating that her company intends to make the standard pivot upmarket in the future.

If the market for software products is getting a bit steeper than before, and companies are expected to cut back on new tooling in particular during the present economic downturn, how is Cacheflow growing quickly enough to double its valuation in late 2022?

Garg said that she learned that potential customers think of Salesforce as a lead management tool for managers. The CRM giant doesn’t, she argued, map out the last-mile tasks of closing a software deal with a customer. This leads to sales executives — think the CROs of the world — tracking deals manually. Insert blizzard of email here.

Notably, concern regarding sales clarity and speed in the larger software market is helping Cacheflow, well, sell its own software, as its tool helps sales folks track deal closing progress and who’s reading what.

Recall that the original pitch for Cacheflow was that it made buying software simpler. Now, speaking with the company a few days ago, we noticed a greater emphasis on the selling experience versus the buying process. But both sides of the equation orbit around faster, clearer closing steps for the software buying process. As everyone who sells software wants that, especially during the present period of economic angst, you can see why Cacheflow might be able to buck a more conservative market.

(If you, like myself, aren’t super familiar with the use of CRM products in the sales process, don’t worry. The software flow for a startup using, say, Gong and Salesforce and Cacheflow would work something like this: Gong to record sales calls, Cacheflow to close deals, with both services integrating into Salesforce for records management, as I understand it.)

Cacheflow is 16 people today and is unsurprisingly hiring after raising more capital. Garg said that it’s a great time for startups to stack talent because the market is a bit less chaotic than it was during the go-go-go 2021 era. And, she said, there’s less noise in the market. If you are taking a software product to market today, your potential customers are being bombarded with fewer calls and ads, meaning that you might have a clearer run at their attention.

The Cacheflow round is interesting in that it’s a startup we’ve been watching, and seeing it quickly raise more capital at a sharply higher valuation is eye-catching in the present climate. But also because it appears that well-capitalized startups busy selling today are perhaps slogging through less of a miasma than we expected, provided, of course, that customers actually need what they are selling.

Cacheflow doubles valuation while raising $10M, proving that the venture market is far from dead by Alex Wilhelm originally published on TechCrunch

Axiom, a Tel Aviv-based startup that focuses on automating identity and access management (IAM) for developer platforms, is coming out of stealth today and announcing a $7 million seed round led by S Capital.

The idea here is to provide a single platform that provides developers with easy access to the tools they need and security and operations teams with the security guarantees they require. Axiom promises to automatically orchestrate cloud and SaaS IAM and ensuring that developer get the least-privileged access that still allowing them to get their work down without hassle while reducing the potential attack surface and the blast radius of the inevitable security breach.

To achieve this, Axiom offers just-in-time access rights to developers, with a tight integration into collaboration tools such as Slack. The company’s services also integrate with all major clouds and tools, such as Kubernetes, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Jira and ServiceNow, as well as database and data lake services like MySQL, PostreSQL, MongoDB, Snowflake, and Databricks. Axiom currently mostly targets DevOps and DevSecOps teams in mid-market companies.

“Two megatrends are colliding to change the way we work,” said Haim Sadger, founding partner at S Capital (and founder of Sequoia Israel). “The evolution of the Cloud, where infrastructure has become far more elastic and scalable than ever, and the evolution of the workforce, where continued adoption of a hybrid IT model has made identity the new perimeter. Axiom works at the intersection of those megatrends to enable a new era of productive security for everyone.”

The company was founded by Itay Mesika (CEO) and Ilan Dardik (CTO), who first met in the technological unit of the Israeli Air Force. After working in a number of industry roles, the two co-founders decided to tackle a problem they regularly encountered in their day-to-day jobs. One major trend they both saw was that as the infrastructure has become more dynamic in recent years, identity management hasn’t kept up.

“You have that hybrid IT model that you’re starting to see more and more after COVID — and a plethora of dynamic identities because infrastructure has become far more elastic and scalable than ever,” Mesika said. “Both of these have led to a situation where identities have become the new perimeter of attacks. IAM is the glue that connects identities and the cloud and, unfortunately, it is the thing that has stayed behind and became a bottleneck for people.”

He noticed that the core ideas here are obviously not new, by the dynamic nature of cloud access left companies struggling to keep up, especially if they are still relying on manual processes. And while modern zero trust tools help businesses with managing who should have access to a given tool, they don’t necessarily help them decided which kind of access those users should get.

“We have more holistic way of solving the process of cloud access,” Mesika said.” We do this by providing dev, sec and ops teams with an easy-to-use platform that automatically orchestrates all the operations around IAM for cloud and SaaS. We’re minimizing the operational overhead for the security team and also minimizing, at the same time, the user friction and frustration for developers.”

Axiom launches its automated identity and access management platform by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Autonomous trucking technology company Kodiak Robotics won a $49.9 million contract from the the U.S. Department of Defense to help the Army automate future ground vehicles to conduct high-risk missions like reconnaissance and surveillance.

The two year contract, which was awarded by the DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) on behalf of the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) program in October, will see Kodiak develop, test and deploy autonomous software that can navigate complex, off-road terrain, diverse operational conditions and GPS-challenged environments. Ultimately, that software platform needs to be applicable to different formats and vehicle configurations to serve a variety of future use cases.

Kodiak beat 33 other companies that pitched for the contract. In the wake of Argo AI shutting down and questions about the future of the AV industry, this is an opportunity for Kodiak to stand out from the pack and demonstrate that its tech is capable of more than just driving trucks on highways.

“When markets are challenging, you need to be strategic about finding capital to continue to fund the company,” Don Burnette, CEO and co-founder of Kodiak, told TechCrunch. “And in this particular case, the DIU was specifically looking for a dual-use application; they wanted to find a company that was working on autonomy in the commercial space that could be translated and utilized in a military setting.”

DIU is leveraging this partnership to actively build a pipeline between the commercial and military deployment of autonomous vehicle technologies that will reduce the risk to troops in war zones.

“I spent a lot of time in the Army infantry, and I would task a Junior Leader to go from point A to point B and do that reconnaissance,” David Michelson, a project manager at DIU, told TechCrunch. “That’s a high risk mission that we want to automate with the RCV. In Ukraine I think we’re seeing how imperative that is and how dangerous it can be to move forward and commit precious resources — people — to get that reconnaissance. If you can do that with a small vehicle and gather probably more data because you can pack a lot of sensors on that’s helpful.”

Kodiak and DIU are already working together to build test tracks that mirror environments in which you’d expect to find the Army operating. The startup will develop a custom-designed ATV-like vehicle that can be driven by a human safety operator for the purposes of data collection, testing and evaluation.

As part of the contract, Kodiak will explore different sensor configurations for different mission profiles — one can imagine that the light emitted from lidar sensors might not be the best for stealth operations at night. Michelson said the project will pursue a “modular approach” to sensors, which will be important for the Army to stay paced with commercial technology.

From a technical standpoint, automating a vehicle for surveillance and recon is easier in a lot of ways than highway driving, said Burnette. Off-road environments won’t be full of other road users, so it won’t be hard to avoid collisions.

“The downside, of course, is that it’s unstructured, and often you’ll be in environments that the vehicles aren’t familiar with, which adds some complexity, as well,” said Burnette. “However, to combat that, one of the technologies that we’re offering as part of this contract is teleoperation and remote driving…We want to provide a seamless transition from autonomy mode to teleoperation mode and back again.”

Remote operation is important for filling in the gaps of what the autonomous system can do on its own and what it still needs help with. For sidewalk delivery robots, that’s often help crossing a street or navigating a construction zone. But even in developed areas there are latency issues that can cause delays. When questioned on how Kodiak and DIU would solve for that in harsh, off-road environments with nary a cell tower in sight, both Burnette and Michelson said they were working on solutions, but didn’t want to go into specifics.

If all goes well after 24 months, this partnership could lead to long-term collaboration between Kodiak and the Army as the latter works to set up the foundations for future years of autonomous applications beyond recon and surveillance.

Kodiak Robotics wins $50M to help US Army build AVs for recon, surveillance by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

Ledger, a security-focused firm that sells crypto hardware wallets, has partnered with the designer behind the iPod, Tony Fadell, in hopes of creating an easier, more accessible way for users to secure their crypto assets.

Crypto hardware wallets have gained traction in recent weeks, thanks to users wanting to self-custody their digital assets after industry-changing events like crypto exchange FTX exploding and halting customers from withdrawing their assets. Ledger’s chief experience officer, Ian Rogers, said that the company had its biggest sales day ever, which ended its biggest sales week ever, in mid-November after FTX collapsed, which signals the demand for hardware crypto wallets is rising.

The eight-year-old company has sold over 5 million devices to consumers across 200 countries and secures about 20% of the global crypto assets being held to date, it said. The newest product, Ledger Stax, joins existing hardware products like Nano S Plus and Nano X.

“It’s fun and easy to use, which is important,” Fadell said to TechCrunch. “It wasn’t just about the hardware design, but we looked at all the customer journey from opening the website to this and reimagined all this to step up the experience not just for people who understand crypto but to invite more people into the fold.”

Earlier this year, Ledger partnered with $1.5 billion venture capital firm Cathay Innovation to launch a $110 million fund dedicated to securing crypto assets. Last year, it raised $380 million in a funding round led by 10T Holdings, valuing Ledger at $1.5 billion at the time.

“The Ledger Nano is more like the iPod shuffle and we were missing that sexier, better device,” Rogers said to TechCrunch. “The screen gives a much easier onramp and usability. I can set this thing up from box to set up in a minute, which is not as easy to do with [the Ledger Nano.]”

The new credit card-sized crypto wallet can manage NFT collections as well as over 500 coins and digital assets.

“What we’re doing with digital assets is much more complex now,” Rogers said. “People are signing smart contracts, managing digital products and not just sending digital currencies anymore. You need ease of use with screen real estate so you can be more communicative.”

It has an E Ink display similar to a Kindle that can showcase holders’ NFTs even when the device is off. The battery can last for weeks or even months on one battery charge, Ledger stated.

“I was envisioning what the future of digital assets would look like and I came up with this idea of what the next generational [wallet] would look like,” Fadell said. “I was using all these competitor devices, but when they’re all turned off, they’re blank slates like your phone. You don’t know what’s on them. There’s a lot of people who are using multiple devices for NFTs, crypto, etc., but want it in one place.”

The name Stax also relates to the products’ integrated magnets, which makes it stackable for those who own more than one.

“I’m really jazzed that we can expand the audience but we also put emotion into the device,” Fadell said. Stax has sound, wireless charging and communicative functionalities, he added. “All of these little touches make it feel like a true consumer-friendly device.”

The product will be available for $279 in the first quarter of 2023 on the company’s website or at retail stores like Best Buy in the U.S. The first 10,000 products sold will come with a free NFT that can be redeemed, Rogers said.

Here are the nitty-gritty details:

Dimensions: 85 mm × 54 mm × 6 mm (credit card length and width)
Security: Ledger EAL 5+ certified secure element
Screen type: E Ink (up to 16 grays), customizable always-on lock screen, capacitive touch
Screen resolution: 672 × 400 pixels
Weight: 45 g
Connectivity: USB C, Bluetooth 5.2
Magnet array for easy stacking
Qi wireless charging

Ledger’s latest crypto wallet taps iPod designer in bid to boost accessibility by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

Tea, an open source unified package manager for software developers, today announced it has added another $8.9 million in seed funding to its coffer as it builds on recent momentum that has seen some 16,000 developers authenticate their software packages with Tea.

Tea is the brainchild of Max Howell, creator of popular open source package manager Homebrew, and Timothy Lewis. The duo formally founded Tea out of Puerto Rico last November, with the company emerging from stealth in March backed by $8 million in funding from notable backers including the venture capital arm of crypto giant Binance.

The company has made grand proclamations about how it plans to springboard off the blockchain with a new web3 protocol to help open source software creators and maintainers get paid. This will entail “digital contracts” that make it easier for companies to sponsor those responsible for key components in their tech stack. The proposed protocol will see package maintainers receive a non-fungible token (NFT) when they complete a package submission, and which is “used to evidence their work and is the key that directs tea rewards,” according to Tea’s white paper.

For now, though, Tea’s focused on the first incarnation of the product which launched last month to challenge well-established incumbents in the package management space such as GitHub-owned NPM and Homebrew itself.

Flexible

Tea comes with the promise that it will be more than a simple package manager: it will be a “universal” package manager, a universal interpreter, and a virtual environment manager. But over and above all that, it is malleable, with developers and companies able to tailor things to their own needs.

“What we have released so far is what I consider to be the base features that a CLI [command-line interface] tool of its kind should have,” Howell told TechCrunch. “It makes thinking about what packages you need secondary to thinking about what you want to achieve — what you want to build. The future of Tea will be in the extensions the community creates to cater the true power of open source to their individual niches.”

While that future sounds promising, supporting open source developers in their efforts to get paid is arguably the biggest game-changer here. However, Tea’s close alignment with the crypto realm may cause many to pause for thought, particularly in light of the high-profile chaos emanating from the FTX collapse. Besides the involvement of high-profile investors such as Binance, Tea’s proposed protocol will see package maintainers receive a non-fungible token (NFT) when they complete a package submission, and which is “used to evidence their work and is the key that directs tea rewards,” according to the white paper.

But the the issue of payments has been a constant discussion point in the open source sphere, particularly off the back of prominent security flaws such as Log4Shell. Companies ultimately need a robust software supply chain, so any way that this can be supported is likely to garner at least some interest.

There is no firm date in mind for when Tea’s new protocol will be ready for prime-time, but the company says it should be available some time in 2023.

“Much like waiting until November to release our CLI, we’re not going to launch until we understand how it should be best built and have gone through trial and error internally,” Lewis added. “We’re going to take our time and make sure the tool itself is very useful and valuable for developers.”

Lewis also stressed that when the protocol does launch, its core components, which include the blockchain registry, license management, and remuneration features, will be entirely optional for all involved. But it will also serve as the basis for Tea’s own business model.

“We are a multi-faceted services company — we intend to build tools on this protocol that will be revenue-generating, and encourage others to do the same by having an immutable decentralized registry,” Lewis said. “We have a long list of potential revenue-generating outcomes depending on what the community finds most useful.”

More specifically, there will be scope for enterprise-specific services around security and compliance.

“We feel that we can excel in licensing and license management,” Lewis added. “Open source supply chain security is critical for many enterprises today. We’ll have a system to help identify potential threats and operate to monitor license compliance with the thousands of different open source components.”

Tea’s latest seed round was led by Acuitas Group Holdings, with participation from Betaworks Ventures, Percival VC, Round 13 Digital Assets Fund, StrongBlock, and Wax Blockchain.

From the creator of Homebrew, Tea raises $8.9M to build a protocol that helps open source developers get paid by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

It’s an unprecedented time to be in SaaS.

Long term, the sector’s prospects are strong. The SaaS market could grow almost 10% every year to 2027 — and I think that’s a conservative estimate. In a recent Stripe survey, 63% of B2B recurring revenue businesses said they were confident of their growth in 2023.

But the road ahead is bumpy. Many founders are dealing with the first cyclical economic slowdown their businesses have faced. As budgets tighten, SaaS businesses are reexamining the tools they use every day to achieve what they once took for granted: accelerating their growth without making big capital expenditures.

The good news? New technologies offer more ways than ever to grow revenue. And to many founders’ surprise, one of the easiest ways to do this is one of the least glamorous: the financial stack.

Doing more with less often means making big changes. That’s why recessions define startups: They force generational changes that are only possible when the stakes are high. Nearly 82% of businesses Stripe surveyed said they were concerned about the current state of the economy, and 45% of them are worried about their cash flow position.

But at the same time, nearly 60% of businesses agree a recession is a ripe time to innovate. One of the best, most cost-effective ways for SaaS businesses to do that is using technology to reduce the complexity of financial processes and optimize sales.

The real rate limiter for SaaS businesses’ growth isn’t shipping software — it’s selling it

As a business model, SaaS is inherently global. The internet means a Swedish company can instantly reach customers from Singapore to Mexico.

But actually selling things online is still surprisingly hard. That company would need to charge its customers in Singaporean dollars, work out how to bill them automatically, withhold the right sales tax and reconcile global currencies into Swedish kroner, among other financial gymnastics.

Because there hasn’t been an easy way to do this — even for digitally native SaaS businesses — the revenue stack is a big source of inefficiency.

It means losing money for preventable reasons like customers unnecessarily churning when their payment details expire or transactions being falsely blocked as fraudulent.

It means wasting time and money working out how to support new currencies, keeping up with changing regulations on identity verification or adopting new payment methods.

And it means slower innovation, as patchwork software makes it hard to create and test new product tiers, pricing structures or business models.

As a founder, I spent hours creating customer contracts, manually following up on payments or reconciling different invoices generated by patchwork systems. Those are pain points founders can’t afford in a strong economy, let alone a weak one.

Crucially, fully integrated payments technologies mean these problems are now entirely preventable — with no additional headcount and at practically no extra cost.

There are three main things SaaS founders can do to improve their profitability today.

1. Eliminate avoidable churn to maximize revenue

3 ways SaaS businesses can boost revenue in a recession by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch