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Earlier today, renowned VC Bill Gurley put together a list of the many “red flags” that VCs should have paid closer attention to when funding FTX, suggesting in a tweet that this summary of warning signs might help keep VCs “out of the investor hurt locker” going forward. Gurley includes such no-nos as “unique financial data presentations,” “aversion to audits,” “large secondary transactions,” and “lack of a legitimate board.”

Yet publishing them now is a little like shouting “fire!” after everyone is already outside the theater, watching its smoldering remains dissolve into the parking lot. Most of the behaviors that Gurley identified today came to a grounding halt when the market abruptly shifted in spring, and by then, the damage was already done. More, if history has shown us anything, it will happen again and not because VCs miss red flags but because they sometimes throw these investing rules out the window.

Gurley asserts, for example, that one reason the startup market cratered was that investors “let the good times roll” (red flag #1). It’s pretty hard to argue with this one. Consider how little VCs really knew about Samuel Bankman-Fried, all while he burnished his image as the crypto industry’s wunderkind. (Weirdly, Sam Bankman-Fried’s smiling visage is still plastered around parts of San Francisco.)

Gurley also cites the “lack of a legitimate board” as a red flag (#2). This was another nod to FTX, which had no board of directors, but barely-there boards have become pervasive. In a story just tonight about Pipe, TechCrunch’s Mary Ann Azevedo writes that the three-year-old marketplace has only one outside board member who is not a cofounder of the company, and that individual has been a VC for three years. (Pipe raised more than $300 million from more than a dozen firms.)

Another issue is dual-class shares (red flag #3), which in many cases give entrepreneurs the power to ignore the wishes of investors. VCs once argued against them but long ago gave into founder demands for them, no matter how ridiculous the ask. Don’t believe us? Lyft’s founders and Snap’s founders have shares designed to keep them in control until they kick the bucket. Adam Neumann had so much control over WeWork that had he not been elbowed out, his children and grandchildren might have been in charge of the company ultimately.

And, Gurley pegs secondary sale transactions (red flag #8) as an obvious danger. Hopin, the virtual events platform, is a prime example. The three-year-old company has been dealing with shrinking market share and layoffs, yet according to a Financial Times piece from earlier this year, its founder was able to take $195 million worth of shares off the table while also retaining nearly 40% of the company and voting control. Bankman-Fried similarly took$300 million off the table last fall in a $420 million round when FTX was barely two years old.

One problem with Gurley’s indictment of his peers is that Gurley himself was complicit in some of these offenses. Remember WeWork, which promised that Adam Neumann’s progeny would rule the company for eternity? Gurley’s firm – Benchmark – had a seat on the company’s board.

The bigger issue ties to how venture firms are structured and paid. VCs can afford to push it to the limit because they know someone else — their own investors — will be around to pick up the pieces.

Unfortunately, the picture isn’t nearly so rosy for everyone else. On the contrary, the consequences of every “red flag” that was waved away is becoming more apparent with every layoff, down round, and executive change-up.

VCs had a good run, and they will again. But right now, if you don’t believe that tens — if not hundreds — of billions of dollars from pension funds, school endowments, hospital systems, and others that provide capital to VCs is about to go up in smoke, you haven’t been paying attention.

It’s not just FTX that’s going down, not by a long shot.

It’s a little late to be talking about red flags in venture investing? by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch

India will undertake the first pilot for retail digital currency on December 1, the central bank said Tuesday, extending the test to evaluate the creation and distribution of the digital currency in the South Asian market with a closed group of customers and merchants a month after it began evaluating the CBDC for the wholesale segment.

State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and IDFC will participate in the initial phases of the pilot in four cities (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar). Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank will join the pilot “subsequently,” the Reserve Bank of India said, adding that it will extend the pilot later to the cities of Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla.

“The scope of pilot may be expanded gradually to include more banks, users and locations as needed,” it said.

The central bank hopes to lower the economy’s reliance on cash, enable cheaper and smoother international settlements, and protect people from the volatility of private cryptocurrencies, RBI officials have said in the past. Based on the test results, the central bank will test additional features and applications of the digital rupee in future pilots, it said.

The limited roll-out of e-rupee comes at a time when several governments across the globe are trialing digital versions of their currencies. Singapore’s monetary authority said in late October that it will test a digital version of the local dollar. The central banks of China, the Bahamas, the euro area have experimented in this area.

“Users will be able to transact with e₹-R through a digital wallet offered by the participating banks and stored on mobile phones / devices. Transactions can be both Person to Person (P2P) and Person to Merchant (P2M). Payments to merchants can be made using QR codes displayed at merchant locations. The e₹-R would offer features of physical cash like trust, safety and settlement finality. As in the case of cash, it will not earn any interest and can be converted to other forms of money, like deposits with banks,” the Reserve Bank of India said in a press announcement.

(More to follow.)

India to pilot retail digital currency on December 1 by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

The last few years have been a major accelerator for the robotics industry at large, but warehouse robotics may be the biggest winner of all. Stay at home orders fueled adoption in the early days of the pandemic, as some retailers stayed open after being labeled “essential businesses.” Even after things began reopening, those roles have remained difficult to fill, leading many firms to look toward robotic help.

All the while, Amazon has had a jump on most of the industry, dating back to the company’s acquisition of Kiva Systems a decade ago. The competition continues looking for angles to compete with the 800-pound e-commerce gorilla, and robotics startups have flooded the field, promising an edge.

Massachussets-based Locus Robotics has risen in the ranks, becoming one of the most prominent names in what is now a fairly crowded category. “We look at Amazon probably as the best marketing arm in the robotics business today,” Locus Robotics CEO Rick Faulk said at our robotics event in July. “They have set SLAs that everyone has to match. And we look at them as being a great part of our marketing team.”

Locus this week announced a $117 million Series F, led by Goldman Sachs, G2 Venture Partners and Stack, with existing investor Scale Venture Partners also participating. The company has been on a fundraising tear, with a $50 million raise last September that followed a $150 million Series E in February. Locus’s total funding is now north of $400 million. This latest round values Locus at “close to” $2 billion.

The firm’s promise is a brownfield solution, with systems that can be easily integrated into existing warehouses without much fuss. The company marked its one-billionth pick in September of this year and says it’s currently averaging around three million picks a day throughout its global operations.

“Locus is clearly the winner in the flexible warehouse robotics space, and the consistency with which the Locus team executes has been extraordinary,” G2’s Zach Barasz says in a release. “We are thrilled to be investors in Locus Robotics and to partner with the leading warehouse execution company in making global supply chains faster, more cost-effective, and more resilient and sustainable.”

He, along with Goldman Sach’s Mark Midle, will be joining the Locus board.

Asked about the challenges of raising in the current climate, CEO Rick Faulk tells TechCrunch:

In today’s environment, investors are focused on high-quality companies that have both strong growth/market leadership and business unit economics. Therefore, it is important to have a track record and forecast that supports both. Late-stage private companies are competing with beaten down public companies for investment dollars.

Companies are focused on improving operational efficiency and Locus assists with exactly that….therefore, there is strong excitement around being a differentiated solution in a very large end market. The raise will enable Locus to continue to extend its leadership in the market.

Locus raises another $117M for its warehouse robots by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

A new report has shone a light on the impact that European and Israeli unicorns have had on the broader technology ecosystem since the global economic crisis 14 years ago.

The report, titled Europe and Israel’s Startup Founder Factories, was produced by VC firm Accel with heavy support from startup and VC data platform Dealroom. It reveals that of the 344 VC-backed unicorns since 2008, nearly two-thirds (203) have led to at least one startup being founded by former employees, with 1,018 tech startups emerging in total.

Founded back in 2005, French adtech giant Criteo leads the pack with its alumni going on to create 29 so-called “second generation” startups. This is followed by Spotify (27), Delivery Hero (27), N26 (24), Klarna (23), Revolut (23), Skype (21), BlaBlaCar (21), Zalando (20), and Wise (19).

While many of the names on there such as Spotify or Skype are long-established founder factories, what’s perhaps more notable are that of the more recent entrants to the unicorn brigade, such as Glovo and Wefox, are already leading to a whole bunch of new startups.

Indeed, a plurality of the unicorns covered in the report only hit unicorn status since 2019.

Experience

This latest report comes as companies from across the industrial spectrum have faced a frosty reckoning with reality this year due to the global economic downturn: valuations at pretty much all stages are down.

However, with the sheer number of tech workers that have been laid of this year, from big tech giants such as Meta and Twitter, to growth-stage startups in just about every vertical, this could create a fertile landscape for a swathe of new startups to emerge. And that, perhaps, is why Accel is producing this report now — it wants to show that some good can come from tough times.

Indeed, the timescale of this report is particularly notable, as its data starts at the time of the last major financial crisis — a point in time that also signalled a major transformation in the technology industry, with smartphones just emerging into the mainstream arena. In the intervening years, countless technology companies have sprung up, some catapulting toward world domination, some disappearing into oblivion, and some falling somewhere in the middle. But irrespective of how events transpired, it all served to produce a lot of people with experience of building and scaling complex tech-infused startups. Even failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“While founders and their teams are navigating a tough macroeconomic environment, it’s also true that the community is in a much stronger position than during the 2008/9 financial crisis,” Accel partner Harry Nelis said in a statement. “There’s now a wealth of strong founders and operators building innovative companies that have experienced the start-up journey before and have the knowledge to create global success stories.”

It seems that this trend isn’t lost on unicorns themselves. Just last week, Spanish delivery company Glovo, which was acquired by Delivery Hero back in January and which has laid off a number of employees this year, announced a new program called Glovo House, designed specifically to support Glovo alumni founders via mentorship, networking, and support for raising money.

Methodology

For the purpose of Accel and Dealroom’s report, the term “unicorn” describes any VC-backed company that achieved a valuation of $1 billion or more while it was a private company, though it excludes pharmaceutical or biotech companies. And “startup” refers to any technology company that was founded by someone formerly employed by a unicorn on a full-time basis for at least five months, and who started their new company within six years of leaving the unicorn.

Digging into the data does reveal some potential flaws, insofar as less than half (44%) of the second-generation startups have confirmed raising more than $1 million in funding. While venture capital funding isn’t the only bellwether of what constitutes a successful startup launch, it’s certainly a strong indicator — thus, it’s difficult to know how many of the startups gained any meaningful traction.

Indeed, when pushed on the data, Accel said that just 48% of the startups had revealed raising $100,000 or more. However, it caveated this by noting that 54% of the startups had only been founded since 2020, meaning that many of them are still very early-stage and either haven’t raised any outside funding yet, or have yet to announce it.

Second-generation unicorns

Digging even deeper into the numbers reveals some other notable nuggets. Delivery Hero, for example, has birthed Flink, Gorillas, and Jokr, while Skype led to Wise, Bolt, and Pipedrive — each of these companies have gone on to hit unicorn status themselves.

Also, there is at least one third-generation unicorn out there. Israel-founded payments company Payoneer has spawned some 12 startups, one of which is IronSource which recently merged with Unity in a $4.4 billion deal. And it was IronSource employees who launched Noname Security, which hit a $1 billion valuation last December just a year after it was founded out of Israel.

In total, there are 23 examples of unicorns birthing unicorns, though not all of those secondary unicorns are necessarily based in Europe themselves. The report did state, though, that 56% of second-generation companies were founded in the same city as the original unicorn.

On top of all that, with layoffs and scalebacks rife, it’s not clear whether all these companies’ respective valuations are still at a “unicorn” level today — some of these valuation needles may spin backwards in a future funding round.

On location

The report also delved into founder factories by city, with the data suggesting that London remains a bedrock in the European technology sphere — the U.K. capital is top of the list in terms of overall number of startups spawned by unicorns. Indeed, 27 unicorns founded out of London created 168 startups over the past 14 years, 69% of which are also based in the city. Berlin was second with 24 local unicorns creating 138 startups, 70% of which were founded in the German capital. Rounding out the top five were Paris (125 startups from 22 unicorns) Tel Aviv (108 startups from 27 unicorns), and Stockholm (98 startups from 11 unicorns).

However, it can be difficult pinning a startup to a specific region, as companies may move their headquarters to the U.S. early on to secure funding or be closer to customers. GitLab, whose former VP of Product launched Remotewhich recently hit a $3 billion valuation, is perhaps a good example of this — while its foundations are certainly rooted in Europe, the company is formally incorporated in the U.S. with a fully distributed workforce spread across dozens of markets globally. Similarly, Payoneer has been headquartered in New York almost since its inception.

The report did note that the location of the companies in the dataset was based on where they were initially created, irrespective of where they may have later relocated to. Put simply, in a world of remote work and founders with itchy feet, it’s perhaps not as easy to pigeonhole a startup as “European” or “Israeli” in 2022 as it was 14 years ago.

But despite all those grey areas, Dealroom’s data still gives some interesting insights into founder factories and the flow of technology talent over the past 14 years.

Founder factories: Alumni from European and Israeli unicorns have birthed 1,018 startups since 2008 by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

CRED is acquiring CreditVidya, a SaaS startup that helps firms underwrite first-time borrowers, in the latest of a series of investments from the Bengaluru-headquartered fintech as it broadens its infrastructure and offerings.

The firms did not disclose the terms of the deal. The 10-year-old CreditVidya — headquartered in Hyderabad and backed by Navroz Udwadia, Kalaari Capital and Matrix Partners — had raised $10 million in previous financing rounds and was last valued at about $30 million post-money.

The two firms will continue to operate independently and CRED will extend its employee stock program and other benefits to CreditVidya workforce, CRED said in a statement.

“Expanding access to credit is a key driver for financial progress. CreditVidya’s patented tech stack uncovers signals of trust among under-served cohorts. We look forward to supporting them in powering an inclusive credit ecosystem,” said CRED founder and chief executive Kunal Shah in a statement.

CreditVidya offers SDKs to firms that they can integrate into their Android apps and collect consent-driven data from users. The startup then processes the data and helps lenders asses the credit risk of the applicants, many of whom have little to no credit history. CreditVidya’s technology has served over 25 million individuals, the startup says on its website.

“We’ve invested in building category-defining products that bring financial services to credit under-served Indians through our partners, transforming how risk is assessed and trust measured to drive financial inclusion. In our next phase of our growth, as we build brand and scale distribution, we are excited to learn from the CRED team,” said Abhishek Agarwal, co-founder and chief executive of CreditVidya, in a statement.

CreditVidya is the latest in a series of investments that CRED has made in the past year. The startup, which offers users the ability to manage and pay their credit card and scores of other bills on time as well as access to D2C brands and loans, backed peer-to-peer lender Liquiloans two months ago, invested in lender CredAvenueearlier this year and expense management platform HapPay in December.

CRED, backed by Tiger Global, Sequoia India, Alpha Wave Ventures and Dragoneer andvalued at $6.4 billion, alsoengaged with Amazon-backed Smallcase earlier this year, initially to explore an investment and later for a majority acquisition, TechCrunch reported earlier. The talks didn’t materialize into a deal after Smallcase’s board declined the offer, according to two people familiar with the matter.

CRED acquires CreditVidya by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Today, Apple announced its list of App Store award winners for this year along with the top chart for most downloaded apps and games across free and paid categories. These awards include apps for all of the company’s platforms including the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and Apple TV. For 2022, the social network app BeReal won the app of the year award for iPhone, while the notetaking app GoodNotes 5 won the crown for the best iPad app.

Synium Software GmbH’s MacFamilyTree 10 — a visual family tree exploration app —was noted as the top Mac of the year; TelevisaUnivision Interactive’s Vix streaming service was awarded the top Apple TV app for elevating Spanish-language stories; and Gentler Stories’ Gentler Streak, an exercise and fitness tracker, was awarded the best Apple Watch app of the year.

Electronic Arts’ Apex Legends Mobile snagged the top iPhone game award while X.D. Network Inc.’s Moncage got the top iPad game title. Other gaming winners include Inscryption from Devolver for Mac, El Hijo from HandyGames for Apple TV, and “Wylde Flowers” from Studio Drydock for Apple Arcade. Shenzhen Tencent Tianyou Technology’s League of Legends Esports Manager won the China app of the year.

BeReal was a social media sleeper hit this year forcing giants like TikTok and Instagram to ape the format. The France-based company originally launched the app in 2020. But its format of getting an alert at random times of the day to post a photo combining front and back cameras within two minutes became popular this year. It’s a stark departure that a social app won the best crown app this year as compared to the last two years’ top apps “Toca Life World” (a Kids’ app) and “WakeOut!” (a workout app). In its blog post for awards, Apple described BeReal as an app to provide”an authentic look into the lives of their family and friends.”

“This year’s App Store Award winners reimagined our experiences with apps that delivered fresh, thoughtful, and genuine perspectives,” CEO Tim Cook said in a statement, “From self-taught solo creators to international teams spanning the globe, these entrepreneurs are making a meaningful impact, and represent the ways in which apps and games influence our communities and lives.”

Last year, Apple had a bonus section called “Apps that brought us together.” So this year, it has introduced a “Cultural Impact” section to honor some apps that had a “lasting impact on people’s lives and influenced culture.” The list includes How We Feel Project’s How We Feel app for logging in daily emotion-based check-ins; Rise-Home Stories Project’s Home Stories Project to highlight stories of systemic housing injustices and their impact on people of color; Locket Labs’ Locket Widget to allow live photo sharing between friends and family through a home screen widget; Vitalii Mogylevets’s hydration tracking app Waterllama; and ARTE Experience’s Inua – A Story in Ice and Time to explore historical events from Inuit tradition.

App Store has had a challenging 2022 with an impact on revenue and regulatory battles. It had to allow developers to use third-party systems for in-app purchases in regions including South Koreaand the Netherlands (just for dating apps). The U.S. and the EU are also looking at ways to control app distribution monopolies across different app stores. These regulations could force Apple to loosen some rules around how it allows app distribution and payments on the App Store.

In March, Apple allowed “reader apps” — apps that give users access to digital content like music, books, and videos — to include external links for users to create and manage their accounts. In June, the company relaxed some of its rules around binary content in the app, using HTML5, and lottery and donation-related apps. In October, it cracked down on NFT functionality within apps, restricting developers from using digital collectibles to unlock new features. Plus, it also mandated that any NFTs purchase system must you Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism, and give a commission to the company. It also updated its guidelines to specify that it will take a cut for buying social media post boosts within the app.

Apple also released the top downloaded apps and games across free and paid categories for the year. Here are the top apps in the US:

Apple announces winners of the App Store Awards for 2022 by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch