Abridge founder talks about fighting ‘pajama time’ burnout in doctors

Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups.

This week’s guest Shiv Rao founded Abridge after experiencing how unnerving it can be to go through a medical emergency with a loved one — even for a practicing doctor like himself. So he and the Abridge team created an app that doesn’t just transcribe a conversation between doctor and patient but can summarize the important parts, pull out the next steps and even define any medical terms that were said so the patient walks away with all the information they need. The same technology helps doctors take better notes and alleviate the “pajama time” burnout by recording what happened in the appointment and synthesizing it in a format that is useful to a doctor. Darrell, Jordan and Shiv talk about the importance of making an impact at scale in the medical field.

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Let’s talk about party rounds

When it comes to types of venture capital instruments, party rounds are as controversial as they come. A party round is an early-stage financing round, usually occurring between the pre-seed and Series A stages, that includes a laundry list – or “party” – of individual investors. It’s different from a more traditional round, which may look like it’s led by one or two institutional investors with a few participating investors also taking part.

The investment vehicle has been around for over a decade and has been a subject of debate for just as long. The positives are obvious: With more investors on their cap table, startups have more avenues for distribution, introductions and advice throughout their lifecycle.

The cons are more complicated. Is the party-round investment as helpful as capital from fewer, more commitment sources? Are there too many cooks in the kitchen? Is it a negative signal that this startup had to raise from dozens of people instead of one high-conviction partner? During a downturn, is a party round all about the confetti and no allergen-friendly appetizers?

Party rounds are either the dinner party of your dreams or the one where no one shows up

While the argument is nothing new, the current market introduces dynamics that make party rounds a little more complex than just bringing a few of your favorite founders and thought leaders onto your cap table.

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This dating app fought scammers with bots… hilarity ensued

You know the feeling; you’re on a dating app, and you start a conversation with someone, and things don’t seem like they add up completely. You’ve seen The Tinder Swindler on Netflix, and you’re suddenly wondering: Is someone about to ask me for money? The team at video dating site Filter Off decided to take a novel approach: Every detected scammer got added to a side-pool of dating hopefuls that only contained their own chatbots posing as adorable singles, and other scammers. As you might expect, hilarity ensued.

As a platform, Filter Off is a video-first dating app, launched at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns. As dating shifted from bars and galleries and picnics to being more chat- and video-first, the company took off, offering virtual speed-dating events around various topics; Harry Potter date night, dog lovers date night, New York City date night — you name it. The platform has hundreds of thousands of users, and as its popularity grew with humans looking for love, the founders discovered that it attracted a second set of people as well — humans looking for money.

“The first time I noticed there was a problem was when I saw that George Clooney had joined Filter Off. I was like, ‘Holy shit, like, this is wild, I can’t believe…’ but then I looked more closely at his profile,” laughs Brian Weinreich, head of product at Filter Off, in an interview with TechCrunch. He realized that Clooney probably wouldn’t be on a dating site, and even if he were, he wouldn’t be a 34-year-old from Lagos, Nigeria. “I deleted their profile to get them off the app. Then I started noticing all these profiles that look like real people, but they were all these different profiles that didn’t add up.”

The product team decided to try to fix the problem with algorithms, and created a piece of software that would sort users into humans, and “based on certain characteristics that I’m starting to notice, on how people sign up how they use the app” they are pretty likely to be a scammer. The team kept deleting the profiles, but for every scammer they cut down, another five would pop up in their place, Medusa-style.

“I was like, alright, we need a way where we can get rid of scammers, but it needs to be in a manner that they can’t just come back and re-join the platform,” said Weinreich. “I remembered that Reddit and other platforms have a form of ‘shadow banning,’ where users can keep posting, but normal users don’t see their content.”

And so the work began. The team used GPT-3 to create a number of chatbots, combined with a script that generates human-like faces, to create a number of fake profiles themselves. The caveat: These profiles aren’t seen by “normal” users, only by people who the algorithm has determined are scammers. They put them in a pool of thousands of bots that look and talk like real people.

“The funny part is, two things happen. One, the scammers will run into other bots, but they’ll also run into other scammers, and they’re trying to scam each other,” laughs Weinreich. “They are like ‘I want $40 For a Google Play gift card’ and the other scammer replies ‘no, no you give a gift card to me‘ and they just kept arguing. It’s just this hilarious thing, where currently in our app, we have probably over 1,000 scammers that I know of that are actively talking to just bots. It’s great. They’re wasting their time and they don’t have to deal with our real users.”

The platform does have report and block features where real users can report potential scammers. When reported, the team can improve their algorithm, and also manually place the scammers in the bots pool.

“The funniest bit about our report feature is the number of reports I get from scammers reporting that they’re talking to a bot. I’m like ‘yeah, I know, that’s the point’,” shrugs Weinreich. 

The company collected some of the most absurd conversations that scammers had with each other and with bots on its own blog, which is well worth a skim as well.

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Bosch to invest $200M in US fuel cell production for electric commercial trucks

Bosch said Wednesday it will invest more than $200 million into its South Carolina factory to build fuel cell stacks that will power hydrogen-powered electric commercial trucks in the United States.

The South Carolina project is part of Bosch’s plan to invest more than $1 billion globally to develop fuel cell technologies by 2024.

Capital upgrades to the campus will include dedicating about 147,000 square feet of floorspace to manufacture the fuel cell stack as well as support the clean room and climate-controlled environments required for quality-critical processes, the company said.

Production of fuel cells at the facility is expected to begin in 2026. The German auto supplier said about 350 new jobs will be created.

Bosch said its fuel cells will be used power electric heavy trucks, including a version of Nikola’s Tre electric semi-truck that is expected to go into production by the end of 2023. Bosch, which invested at least $100 million in the Nikola in 2019, said last year it would supply the company with hydrogen fuel cell modules.

The company’s investment in fuel cells marks a broader movement in the industry to use the technology for heavy duty trucks and commercial vehicles. Fuel cells, which convert hydrogen gas into electricity, are expensive. However, they are considered particularly promising in Class 8 trucks and other heavy commercial vehicles because they are smaller and lighter than using battery packs.

“The hydrogen economy holds great promise and at Bosch we are all in,” Mike Mansuetti, president of Bosch in North America, said in a statement. “This is a significant milestone as we announce the first fuel-cell related production for Bosch in the U.S. to support the growing demand from our local customers as part of a diverse approach to powertrain technology.”

Hydrogen is not an energy source, per se. It is more of an energy carrier, making it a particularly good companion to renewable sources of power generated by weather such as solar and wind.

And not all hydrogen is created equally. About 95% of hydrogen today is produced used a fossil fuel-heavy method called steam-methane reforming. A fraction is produced using electrolysis, a process that uses electricity to split hydrogen and oxygen.

An even smaller sliver of hydrogen is made from renewable energy. Companies including Bosch see “green hydrogen” has the most promising version to reduce the carbon footprint of commercial trucking.

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9 strategies that will help you overcome your fear of fundraising

Masha Bucher Contributor

Masha Bucher is the founder and general partner of Day One Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that backs customer-focused startups and leads their communications.

The contracting private tech markets are driving down the pricing and frequency of funding rounds, while inflation cuts into companies’ runways, meaning they are able to build less product and acquire fewer users with the money they raised.

It’s true that VCs are doing more diligence and being more cautious with their decisions. Some want to make sure their existing founders have enough runway to weather this storm so they are prioritizing these companies. At the same time, there are hundreds of millions earmarked for early-stage companies, and firms such as Lightspeed, Collaborative Fund, CoinFund and Menlo Ventures have announced new funds in the last few weeks. Later-stage capital is now being redirected to earlier stages to avoid being exposed to one- to three-year exit timelines due to short-term turbulence and, instead, investors are focusing on exit horizons of over seven years.

In this economic environment, I’ve been asked by many founders how they can raise capital successfully, especially by those who feel demotivated by how long the process is taking. I want to share what is actually happening within VC, myths about raising in this environment, and actionable tips for closing pre-seed to Series B rounds that have also been instrumental in helping me raise $100 million for our fund.

As a founder, how can you navigate this environment and successfully raise a round?

Any change is an opportunity to create leverage, and a downturn is no exception.

Don’t dilute yourself for more than 10%-15% in any given round

If you want to build a big company, you need to keep enough equity for the next rounds and for yourself so that you’re incentivized to continue growing it. Investors often require this in later stages. At the same time, don’t get obsessed with certain valuation mark-ups. If it’s taking ages to close at a higher valuation, raise money on the same valuation or terms as the last round, or in the worst case, a down round to ensure your company’s financial stability.

Optimize for quality of investors over volume

First, create a list of every investor you know who is a good fit for your round. Then, create a second list of founders and advisors who could introduce you to good investors. Rank them as tier 1 and tier 2.

Tier 1 can lead rounds and signal to other investors that they need to get into your company ASAP. Tier 2 are those you’ll prioritize going to after you strike out with tier 1s. As you map out these lists, think about how relevant their funds are to your company.

When requesting intros, the best way to stand out is by showing alignment with the right partner at a relevant firm. Introductions are about quality, not volume. It’s better to get 20-30 meaningful conversations than sending 200 cold emails that result in nothing. Figure out who from your network can give the warmest intro to an investor. Then create a purpose-drafted pitch for that particular investor to ensure you show alignment in your interests.

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What we expect from Apple’s iPhone 14 event

Don’t you hate it when they give everything away in the headline? So, a belated spoiler warning that, indeed, the iPhone 14 is almost certainly going to be the big headline announcement at Apple’s September event. A few other things seem close to certain, as well, including the Apple Watch Series 8.

As ever, there may be one or two wildcards at the event. It will be interesting to see precisely how much Apple ends up announcing next week. The company was more than happy to spread announcements across events, in the two+ years when everything suddenly went online. The simple truth is it’s a lot easier to ask people to drop everything to cover your event when it involves sitting in front of a computer instead of flying across the U.S. This one, on the other hand, is most likely going to be worth the flight (I mean, I hope — no refunds on the tickets).

Go for launch. Tune in for a special #AppleEvent on September 7 at 10 a.m. PT. 

Tap the and we’ll send you a reminder on event day. pic.twitter.com/T9o7qJt72E

— Apple (@Apple) August 24, 2022

The company sent out invites earlier this month, sporting a galaxy formed into the Apple logo and the words “Far Out.” A subsequent animation shows the constellation spinning around to reveal a heart. There’s often some meaning hidden in the invite art, and speculation has been rampant in the intervening week.

My first thought was something to do with the company’s rumored AR/VR headset. Others have suggested that this might have something to do with the long-rumored satcom technology for Apple devices, which didn’t make it in time for last year’s event. Others still believe it might be a reference to the improved imaging on the new iPhones.

Image Credits: Brooks Kraft / Apple

So, let’s start with the iPhone 14. Hard to believe, but the device had its 15th birthday this June. So, what does Apple have planned for the crystal anniversary? Rumor has it that the high-end devices are reportedly doing the heavy lifting this time out (expect some of these upgrades to trickle down to the lower cost models in the coming year or two).

The most surprising bit of news this time around may be the long-awaited loss of the notch on the Pro and Pro Max. There’s some debate over the exact configuration, but a hole punch (as we’ve seen on a number of Android handsets over the years) is likely to arrive in its place, perhaps coupled with a secondary “pill” design. So you’re getting more real estate, but compromising with a pair of camera cutouts.

Image Credits: Apple

Another longstanding Android feature — the always-on display — is rumored for the more premium models. The main camera is said to be getting a major bump, up to a 48-megapixel sensor. That’s for the wide-angle, with is paired with a couple of 12-megapixel cameras (telephoto and ultrawide).

The chip is also getting updated to the more powerful A16 — again, that may well be a premium-only upgrade here. We know that a move to USB-C is inevitable, given recent legislation in the EU that will require device makers to embrace that universal standard. Though despite the fact that similar laws have been floated for a number of locales — including the U.S. and India — the iPhone 14 is expected to be the Lightning Port’s last stand for the line. Speaking of last stands, the iPhone Mini may be gone from the line altogether. That’s a big blow for fans of the small phone out there — a number of whom are currently employed by TechCrunch. So expect a…spirited post or two on these pages, should that come to pass. The new line is expected to come in two 6.1-inch and two 6.7-inch models, with a standard and Pro version of each.

Image Credits: Apple

The Apple Watch Series 8 is the other big expected headline here. The latest version of Apple’s market-dominating smartwatch is expected in three flavors, per rumors. There’s the SE (getting its first big update sine 2020), which will maintain the same footprint as the Series 7, along with a larger Series 8 and a new outdoor/sports model, designed to take on the Garmins of the world.

Along with upping the screen size, all three devices may also get upgraded to the new S8 chip. Along with software improvements, the system may finally get a new low-power mode, which would go a ways toward improving battery life — still the single largest problem with the Apple Watch, compared to the rest of the field.

Image Credits: Apple

Perhaps the most overdue item in the list: the AirPods Pro. The standard AirPods have gotten a few updates, but the higher-end models haven’t seen one since they were introduced way back in 2019. Three years is forever in the earbud world, and the competition has had plenty of time to catch up and even — in a few cases — pass Apple here.

Lossless audio is rumored. There may be a redesign, as well, that could remove the iconic clicking stem. That would present a fairly dramatic change to the device’s controls. Another interesting potential item is the addition of sound for the case, which can chime to work better with the Find My feature.

CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA – April 20, 2021: Apple’s Raja Bose introduces the new iPad Pro, as seen in this still image from the keynote video of a special event at Apple Park. Photo Credit: Apple Inc.

Meanwhile, iPads may appear, including an M2 iPad Pro model, but the consensus appears to be that the company will throw one more final event ahead of the holidays, where we’ll also get new Macs sporting the latest chips, incluing the long-awaited — and much redesigned — return of the Mac Pro. I wouldn’t rule out either one entirely for this event, but they’re less certain than the above.

The AR/VR headset is the true wildcard in all of this. Rumors have persisted for some time, and have only gotten hotter as the company has applied for trademarks including, “Reality One,” “Reality Pro” and “Reality Processor.” It’s also already said to have shown off a version of the headset to shareholders. At best, a preview could arrive, in order to entice developers to start building for the product.

Image Credits: Apple

A couple of odds and ends:

• The return of the HomePod? We’re talking something potentially similar to the original, full-size model and, perhaps a product with a display, à la the Nest Hub or Echo Show. Apple really needs a proper hub for HomeOS.
• A new Apple TV.
• Release dates for iOS 16 and watchOS 9 seem likely. We know we’ll have to wait a bit longer for the new iPadOS. And macOS Ventura could seemingly arrive during this event, but a safer bet is the aforementioned unannounced October event.

As ever, we’ll be there, bringing you the news as it breaks.

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Studio Ghibli films just became available to rent on major digital platforms Apple TV, Amazon and more

It’s an exciting day for Studio Ghibli fans — fans in the United States and Canada, that is. The majority of Studio Ghibli’s film catalog has just been released to major digital rental platforms, such as Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, Microsoft and Vudu, a report by Variety confirms. For the first time, Studio Ghibli’s films can finally be rented digitally in North America.

Critically acclaimed titles like “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and the award-winning “Spirited Away” will be available to rent for as low as $3.99. However, although Google Play lists the titles at a $5.99 price point, it has a sale where the titles are available to rent for just $3.99 at present.

All films will be available in HD, and customers can rent original Japanese-language or English-dubbed versions.

Other titles now available to rent are “Castle in the Sky,” “Ponyo,” “When Marnie Was There,” “Princess Mononoke,” “The Cat Returns,” “The Tale of The Princess Kaguya,” “Earwig and the Witch,” “From Up on Poppy Hill,” “My Neighbors the Yamadas,” “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” “Ocean Waves,” “Only Yesterday,” “Pom Poko,” “Porco Rosso,” “The Secret World of Arrietty,” “Tales from Earthsea,” “Whisper of the Heart” and “The Wind Rises.”

For years, the Japanese animation studio didn’t make their films available digitally, and viewers couldn’t download the titles legally. In 2017, GKIDS, a U.S. film distribution company, acquired North American theatrical distribution rights for Studio Ghibli. As of 2019, Studio Ghibli’s films have been available for download-to-own in the United States and Canada on Apple TV, Amazon, Vudu, Google Play and Microsoft.

GKIDS also struck a U.S. streaming deal with HBO Max, bringing 21 Studio Ghibli films to the platform in 2020.

Now that customers can rent the movies, they no longer have to pay for a $9.99 or $14.99 subscription to HBO Max. They also don’t have to purchase Studio Ghibli films on digital platforms for roughly $12 to $17. Viewers can enjoy the enchanting and adorable anime movies that many of us love for a significantly lower price.

HBO Max scores all 21 Studio Ghibli films

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How gender-affirming health care startups are navigating legal miasma

Kate Anthony started in the Lone Star State.

It was there, in 2019, that she launched her app Euphoria, seeking to provide information and resources on gender-affirming care. She knew the stakes were going to be high, and as the state passed anti-trans legislation, she and her company were forced to flee.

Settling in Denver, Anthony made a plan on what to do next. She decided to maintain business as usual while the fight for trans rights continues. She’s not alone in that decision. Many apps, if not all, that service the trans community are hyperexposed, under fire and seemingly undeterred.

TechCrunch conducted a vibe check to see how trans entrepreneurs servicing their communities are navigating this moment. The Human Rights Campaign told TechCrunch that legislators in state houses have introduced 344 anti-LGBTQ+ bills this session, with more than 140 specifically targeting the trans community.

“We will not allow these anti-trans people to bully us into giving information.” Aydian Dowling, founder, Trace

These proposed restrictions range from an Alabama bill that seeks to deny medical care for transitions to Iowa and Alaska bans on trans students participating in sports. Louisiana introduced a bill to bar medical professionals from offering minors translation-related care, and Florida now prohibits gender-affirming care under Medicaid.

Anthony said it’s inevitable that her company will one day be sued by someone or some state. Other founders said they are watching the court systems closely, with some rethinking strategies regarding consumer privacy and employee benefits. And for the startup and venture community, support is better late than never — it’s a critical time to defend trans founders.

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Crafting an XaaS customer success strategy that drives growth

Rachel Parrinello Contributor

Rachel Parrinello is a principal in The Alexander Group’s San Francisco office and is a leader in sales compensation, media sales and technology practices.

John Stamos Contributor

John Stamos, a principal in The Alexander Group’s Chicago office, has extensive experience leading large-scale sales transformation engagements, enterprise program build-outs and global compensation redesign efforts.

Any job search platform these days will show there are thousands of customer success (CS) positions waiting to be filled. According to research by Gainsight, a customer success software platform, “companies that invest 10% or more of their revenue into the CS function have the highest net recurring revenue (NRR).”

This supports the argument that there is a need for not only having CS jobs but deploying more of them. Simply put, these jobs serve a critical role in tech companies today.

Like most functions, CS continues to evolve and is not a “one-size-fits-all” model. Deploying the right archetype requires careful consideration to ensure CS teams are focused on the right activities, offer a seamless experience across the customer engagement model and bring value to the end users. Successful companies realize CS is not just a job or even an organization; it is an organizational mindset that includes actions, investments and coordination across multiple departments, including product development, management, marketing, sales, and technical and customer support.

The customer success job archetypes

In an XaaS model, net recurring revenue (NRR) is a key metric for success. It measures the overall impact your existing customers have on revenue generation — more simply, it measures expansion net of churn.

NRR is dependent on retaining and expanding your footprint. If a customer does not adopt and realize value from your solution, they will not renew or expand their contract. This was why technology companies created customer success to drive adoption, usage and value realization about 20 years ago. Since then, many companies have implemented one or more types of customer success roles.

Companies should not design their customer success roles in a vacuum.

Initially most customer success roles were oriented around adoption or service and were fulfilled by talent from the services organization. However, the adoption sales motion naturally results in retaining customers and expanding sales. Today, many companies are designing more commercially oriented customer success roles that focus on renewals and upselling, and a few even focus on expansion.

Companies mostly deploy two or more customer success archetypes. They usually vary by customer segment, business versus technical focus and sales motion focus: adopt, renew, upsell and cross-sell.

While these jobs may vary from company to company, three primary customer success role archetypes exist:

Adopt CSM

This role predominantly focuses on adoption. It usually also provides insights to help the core seller or renewal role drive expansion or maintain renewals.

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TechCrunch+ roundup: Gen Z VCs, choosing a GTM model, crypto crisis communication tips

I’ve always wondered who gets to name demographic cohorts.

My parents were pre-Baby Boomers, which made them part of the Silent Generation. (I’m Generation X, so feel free to ignore me entirely.)

Generation Z is stereotyped as being materialistic, mistrustful and extremely reliant on personal technology. And now that they are entering the ranks of venture capital, one investor says those traits are informing how deals are made.

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Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to members.
Use discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription.

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Tech investors born after 1996 “have raised funds, garnered social media followings and profited from the Gen Z mentality,” says Andrew Chan, a senior associate at Builders VC.

However, “Gen Z, no matter how you slice it, are still a bunch of kids. Myself included,” he notes in a TC+ guest post. “Good for them. I don’t want to be any part of it.”

According to Chan, too many investors his age rely on “youth, group-think identification and confidence as a substitute for hard work and experience.”

“It might work for now, but if that’s success for my generation of venture capitalists, then I would have rather stayed in my happy little bubble writing geochemistry code at NASA JPL.”

Thanks very much for reading,

Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+
@yourprotagonist

A Gen Z VC speaks up: Why Gen Z VCs are trash

6 ways to make sure your startup is using the right GTM model

Image Credits: Klaus Vedfelt (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Years ago, I borrowed a road bicycle from an acquaintance for a day of touring. It was a mistake.

I’d never used a 10-speed bike before, so I wasted time and energy struggling to ascend hills, much like a startup with a go-to-market model that doesn’t match the stage of their business.

“Before you start scaling any kind of sales model, you need a pipeline to support it,” according to Ali Mitchell and Laura Yao, partners at EQT Ventures,

Getting GTM right is more than following basic best practices: You also need to know “what to do and when to do it.”

6 ways to make sure your startup is using the right GTM model

How to communicate to your crypto community when things aren’t going well

Image Credits: Peter Dazeley (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Because it’s a nascent industry that’s largely unregulated, crypto companies are not generally skilled at crisis communications, and I’m being generous.

When a bank or financial services company experiences a massive security failure or a volatility shock, federal laws dictate how it must communicate with its customers. Crypto startups, however, must rely on their own best judgment.

“There’s little benefit in declaring that the sky is falling and begging your community for investment, but an overly rosy outlook won’t fool anyone either,” says Tahem Verma, co-founder and CEO of Mesha.

How to communicate with your crypto community when things aren’t going well

The majority of early-stage VC deals fall apart in due diligence

Image Credits: z_wei (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

It’s amazing how frequently investors say “no” to startup founders: If 100 early-stage entrepreneurs pitch a VC, maybe three of them will be lucky to get a second meeting.

To find out why simple due diligence is the end of the line for so many hopeful founders, Haje Jan Kamps interviewed Axel Bichara and Tyler Mincey of VC firm Baukunst.

“If you feel the need to write a script and prepare for everything to make a good impression, it’s probably not going to work,” said Bichara.

The majority of early-stage VC deals fall apart in due diligence

Investors detail their red (and green) flags for startups seeking venture dollars

Image Credits: David Zaitz (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

To be clear: Most investors want to say “yes.” No one becomes a venture capitalist just so they can stomp on someone’s dreams.

Reporter Rebecca Bellan spoke to several who specialize in climate tech and mobility to learn more about how their thesis has shifted in recent months, and what that means for startups seeking follow-on funding:

• George Kellerman, head of investments and acquisitions, Woven Capital
• Nate Jaret, general partner, Maniv Mobility
• Alexandra Harbour, principal, Prelude Ventures
• Cassie Bowe, partner, Energy Impact Partners
• Andrea Walne, general partner at Manhattan Venture Partners

“Investors are homing in on their thesis discipline as the biggest driver for diligence in today’s environment,” said Walne.

Investors detail their red (and green) flags for startups seeking venture dollars

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A huge Chinese database of faces and vehicle license plates spilled online

A massive Chinese database storing millions of faces and vehicle license plates was left exposed on the internet for months before it quietly disappeared in August.

While its contents might seem unremarkable for China, where facial recognition is routine and state surveillance is ubiquitous, the sheer size of the exposed database is staggering. At its peak the database held over 800 million records, representing one of the biggest known data security lapses of the year by scale, second to a massive data leak of 1 billion records from a Shanghai police database in June. In both cases, the data was likely exposed inadvertently and as a result of human error.

The exposed data belongs to a tech company called Xinai Electronics based in Hangzhou on China’s east coast. The company builds systems for controlling access for people and vehicles to workplaces, schools, construction sites, and parking garages across China. Its website touts its use of facial recognition for a range of purposes beyond building access, including personnel management, like payroll, monitoring employee attendance and performance, while its cloud-based vehicle license plate recognition system allows drivers to pay for parking in unattended garages that are managed by staff remotely.

It’s through a vast network of cameras that Xinai has amassed millions of face prints and license plates, which its website claims the data is “securely stored” on its servers.

But it wasn’t.

Security researcher Anurag Sen found the company’s exposed database on an Alibaba-hosted server in China and asked for TechCrunch’s help in reporting the security lapse to Xinai.

Sen said the database contained an alarming amount of information that was rapidly growing by the day, and included hundreds of millions of records and full web addresses of image files hosted on several domains owned by Xinai. But neither the database nor the hosted image files were protected by passwords and could be accessed from the web browser by anyone who knew where to look.

The database included links to high-resolution photos of faces, including construction workers entering building sites and office visitors checking in, and other personal information, such as the person’s name, age and sex, along with resident ID numbers, which are China’s answer to national identity cards. The database also had records of vehicle license plates collected by Xinai cameras in parking garages, driveways and other office entry points.

Photos of vehicle license plates tracked across China. Image: TechCrunch (composite)

TechCrunch sent several messages about the exposed database to email addresses known to be associated with Xinai’s founder but our emails were not returned. The database was no longer accessible by mid-August.

But Sen is not the only person to have discovered the database while it was exposed. An undated ransom note left behind by a data extortionist claimed to have stolen the contents of the database, who said they would restore the data in exchange for a few hundred dollars worth of cryptocurrency. It’s not known if the extortionist stole or deleted any data, but the blockchain address left in the ransom note shows it hasn’t yet received any funds.

China’s surveillance state sprawls deep into the private sector, giving police and government authorities near-unfettered access and capabilities to track people and vehicles across the country. China uses facial recognition to track its vast population in smart cities, but also uses the technology for mass surveillance of minority populations that Beijing is long-accused of oppressing.

China last year passed the Personal Information Protection Law, its first comprehensive data protection law that is seen as China’s equivalent of Europe’s GDPR privacy rules, which aims to limit the amount of data that companies collect, but broadly exempts police and government agencies that make up China’s vast surveillance state.

But now with two mass data exposures in recent months, both the Chinese government and tech companies are finding themselves ill-equipped to protect the vast amount of data that their surveillance systems collect.

A huge data leak of 1 billion records exposes China’s vast surveillance state

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New rules for digital lenders in Kenya aim to weed out bad actors while bolstering sector growth

Fresh regulations are often met with skepticism from startup founders, but digital lenders in Kenya largely seem to be upbeat about the new Digital Credit Providers law, saying it will bring order to the sector.

The chairman of the Digital Lenders Association of Kenya, Kevin Mutiso, sounded optimistic about the impending new regulatory environment, saying that it had already fostered investor confidence and will bolster growth in the sector.

“The regulations have encouraged investors to come into our market, and I’m already aware of five new big players that have come in because of the new regulatory field. We are looking forward to being regulated and having a fair playing field,” Mutiso told TechCrunch.

Mutiso added that the association’s 16 members — including the market-dominant Tala and Zenka — are awaiting the required licenses to be fully compliant.

The regulations, set to come into effect on September 18, give Kenya’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Kenya, the requisite authority to police digital mobile lenders that have flooded the local market in the last few years.

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Roku debuts a hilarious new trailer for ‘WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story’ starring Daniel Radcliffe

Al Yankovic, the 62-year-old parody artist known as Weird Al, is getting his own equally weird biopic this fall. The trailer for “WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story” gives a first look at the movie, exploring the wacky world of Weird Al, his hilarious cover songs and his Polka obsession.

“WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story” premieres on The Roku Channel on November 4. The film will arguably be Roku’s biggest-ever original film, with well-known stars like Daniel Radcliffe playing Weird Al, Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento, Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna and Quinta Brunson as Oprah Winfrey.

“WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story” will be an ambitious move for the streamer. The Roku Channel has been eager to expand its original programming slate, and the upcoming Al Yankovic biopic will likely be a hit for the free streaming service. Weird Al is a highly successful musician, having sold over 12 million albums and won five Grammy Awards.

When looking at Roku’s growth, the streaming service needs to pick up the pace if it wants to compete with rivals. The company reported lower-than-expected growth in platform revenue in the second quarter of 2022.

Investing in more original content is certainly the best bet for The Roku Channel. Fifty-five percent of consumers crave original and unique titles, according to Fandom’s “2022 State of Streaming” report.

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Waymo opens up driverless robotaxi service in downtown Phoenix to vetted passengers

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle developer under Alphabet, is opening up its driverless robotaxi service in downtown Phoenix to vetted local residents.

People who have been accepted to Waymo’s “trusted tester” program are eligible to hail a driverless ride — meaning no human safety operator is behind the wheel — in a Jaguar I-Pace EV in downtown Phoenix. Waymo has branded these as “rider only” trip to denote that a human safety operator is not in the vehicle. Trusted testers sign non-disclosure agreements and cannot share their experiences on social media or with journalists.

In May, Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov said on stage at TC Sessions: Mobility that the company had started allowing employees to hail a driverless ride — sans human operator — in the downtown Phoenix area. Opening it up to trusted testers is the next step before a wider public release.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego posted a message (along with a video) on Twitter and Instagram marking the occasion.

I had the opportunity to take my first rider only trip with the #WaymoDriver, @Waymo’s fully autonomous driving technology. Phoenicians, I can’t wait for you to experience it for yourselves! Check out the Waymo One app to learn more. #thefutureisphoenix https://t.co/dWVOa2jEAK pic.twitter.com/ODhWBbJkSw

— Mayor Kate Gallego (@MayorGallego) August 29, 2022

 

Waymo has developed a playbook of sorts for how it tests, launches and expands a ride-hailing service using autonomous vehicles in the greater Phoenix area. The company initially tested autonomous Pacifica Chrysler Hybrid minivans with human safety operators behind the wheel in the suburbs east of metro Phoenix.

In 2017, Waymo opened up a ride-hailing service to vetted members of the public, which was dubbed the “early rider program” and has since been rebranded the “trusted tester” program. (Local residents can download the Waymo One app, create an account and express interest in joining the program.) Waymo then opened up the service, which still used a human safety operator behind the wheel, to members of the public.

The entire process repeated when Waymo pulled the human safety operator from behind the wheel and officially launched a driverless robotaxi service in those Phoenix suburbs. Today, the driverless service area in the east Valley includes portions of Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and Tempe.

Waymo is using this same playbook as it expands its service area into downtown Phoenix and begins to offer rides to the airport. For now, only Waymo employees can hail a ride to the airport. And those autonomous vehicles, all of which are Jaguar I-Pace EVs, have a human safety operator behind the wheel.

Waymo is also ramping up in San Francisco. Employees are able to use the Waymo One app to hail a driverless ride, while trusted testers can only access autonomous vehicles with a human safety operator in the driver’s seat.

Waymo has more than 700 vehicles in its fleet, which includes a mix of Jaguar I-Pace EVs and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans as well as the Class 8 trucks. These vehicles, the bulk of which are located in Arizona, California and Texas, are used in testing and commercial operations.

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Microsoft launches Arm-based Azure VMs powered by Ampere chips

Following a preview in April, Microsoft this morning announced the general availability of virtual machines (VMs) on Azure featuring the Ampere Altra, a processor based on the Arm architecture. The first Azure VMs powered by Arm chips, Microsoft says that they’re accessible in 10 Azure regions today and can be included in Kubernetes clusters managed using Azure Kubernetes Service beginning on September 1.

The Azure Arm-based VMs have up to 64 virtual CPU cores, 8 GB of memory per core and 40 Gbps of networking bandwidth as well as SSD local and attachable storage. Microsoft describes them as “engineered to efficiently run scale-out, cloud-native workloads,” including open source databases, Java and .NET applications and gaming, web, app and media servers.

Preview releases of Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise and Linux OS distributions including Canonical Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Debian are available on the VMs day one, with support for Alma Linux and Rocky Linux to arrive in the future. Microsoft notes that Java apps in particular can run with few additional code changes, thanks to the company’s contributions to the OpenJDK project.

The launch of the Azure VMs is a notable win for Ampere, which came out of stealth in 2018 with the ambitious goal of competing with Intel for a slice of the ~$10 billion data center chip market. Backed by $426 million in venture capital and led by a former Intel president, the company has managed to snag a foothold in recent years, inking deals with Oracle, Equinix, Google Cloud and China-based cloud service providers Tencent Cloud, JD Cloud and UCloud to launch Arm-based VMs.

Ampere competes with Arm-powered VMs from Amazon Web Services, which acquired startup Annapurna Labs in 2015 to build its own Arm-based, general-purpose server hardware lineup called Graviton. Microsoft is reportedly pursuing its own Arm chip designs, as well, as are Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Huawei.

Research firm Omdia said last August that it expects Arm to account for 14% of servers by 2025. If the prediction comes to pass, it’d be a major coup against Intel’s x86 chips, which controlled an estimated 89% of the market as of March 2022.

For Microsoft, the Ampere VMs launch is a step toward fulfilling the pledge it made five years ago to power more than half of its cloud data center capacity with Arm-compatible servers. After a false start with Centriq server processors from Qualcomm, which were ultimately discontinued, the company appears better positioned to reach that threshold.

“The general availability of Microsoft Azure VMs on Arm marks an important milestone in redefining what is possible in cloud computing,” Arm SVP Chris Bergey is quoted as saying in a blog post detailing the Azure VMs. “Through market-leading scalable efficiency and the liberty to innovate, Arm … is enabling Azure customers to embrace the increasing diversity of workloads with better overall total cost of ownership and cleaner cloud service operations.”

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Neurofenix puts on a new spin on home stroke rehabilitation with the NeuroBall

Millions around the world suffer strokes every year, and millions more are in recovery from one they’ve suffered. Regaining the use of affected limbs and capabilities is a long road, but one that can be shortened by intensive rehabilitation efforts — which Neurofenix has shown can take place in the home rather than during frequent trips to the hospital. Its Neuroball device and home therapy platform have led to $7 million in new funding to expand and deepen its platform.

The problem with existing stroke rehabilitation techniques is not that they aren’t effective, but that they’re mostly located in hospitals and thus limit how often they can be engaged with.

“For many, many years rehabilitation, especially neural rehabilitation, has been focused on big bulky equipment in facilities,” explained Guillem Singla, CEO and co-founder (with CTO Dimitrios Athanasiou) of Neurofenix. “We’ve extracted the essence of what needs to be done in neural rehabilitation: It has to be intensive, engaging, motivating and get people to follow up for not just weeks but months and years.”

There are some home rehab devices out there, often in the form of gloves or free motion tracking, both of which work to an extent but haven’t caught on.

“Before even starting to develop the first products, we talked with hundreds of patients, hundreds of therapists, tested everything out — I personally, when a family member had a stroke, had to try many things,” Singla said. “The first urgent need that was being completely neglected was upper limb rehabilitation: 80% of patients suffer from arm and hand impairment after a stroke.”

The company’s solution is the Neuroball, a device that the user can grip and strap into easily and which tracks every movement of the upper limbs from shoulder down to fingertips. It doesn’t do anything radically different from in-hospital setups but rather allows patients to perform the rehabilitative exercises and movements far more frequently, and in a way that reflects their particular needs and capabilities.

The Neuroball at rest beside its tablet interface in a person’s home. Image Credits: Neurofenix

It includes a motion and orientation sensor for wrist, elbow and shoulder movements, and individual sensors for each finger. The ball rests in a cradle but can be picked up and moved freely.

“The key is neuroplasticity,” said Singla. “The evidence shows that the more repetitions a patient does, shows recovery to a greater degree. In a typical session a patient does between 30 and 40 movements with a therapist, and in our clinical trials we showed that patients did more than 600 per day.”

Ease of use, gamification and a bit of algorithmic adjustment are what the company claims result in this huge increase in exercise — and, according to studies they’ve conducted, better outcomes, including improved range of movement and reduced pain.

Image Credits: Neurofenix

It’s easier to put on than a resistive glove, doesn’t take up a lot of space, runs its software on a small, dedicated tablet and has a handful of different games available for each movement the patient needs to perform. These are simple but motivational things, like an endless racer where you squeeze to jump or a Space Invaders game where you rotate your wrist to move your ship. It might not be Fortnite, but it’s better than just seeing a number go up. There are even leaderboards in case a user feels like comparing their progress with a fellow patient.

The promise of improved home rehabilitation is one that will almost certainly appeal to a lot of people for whom going to the hospital or physical therapy office three or four times a week is impractical. Such a schedule would be trying for anyone, let alone a person who might have mobility, speech or upper limb limitations.

Doing the exercises at home and on one’s own time, with the software adjusting to patients’ own rhythms and preferences (such as being more flexible in the morning or evening) leads naturally to far more rehabilitative work being done without extra clinical resources. (“In fact, last week a patient reached 300 days in a row on our platform,” noted Singla.)

The main barrier is affordability: The device is too new to be covered by insurance, though it does qualify for HSA and FSA spending. So far the company, based in the U.K. (and Atlanta in the U.S.), has conducted a handful of tests showing the Neuroball’s efficacy but not the type needed in order to be covered as a prescribed medical device. But that’s next on the agenda now that they have a new $7 million round in the bank.

“The reason we raised this Series A was we had clear goals in mind,” Singla said, primarily establishing its commercial and clinical presence in the U.S. and then expanding to adjacent forms of therapy.

“Our goal is to be the leader of neural rehabilitation at home, not only for stroke but for trauma,” he continued. “We literally have 400 ideas in our backlog of improvements we can make: expansions, cognitive training, speech and language … if you think about the needs of a neurological patient, they are extremely varied. There’s so many other therapies we can look at.”

The $7 million A round was led by AlbionVC, with participation by HTH, InHealth Ventures and existing investors. The device is not broadly available yet, but curious clinicians and prospective patients are encouraged to get in contact for potential collaboration.

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Meet the judges for the Minneapolis, Minn TechCrunch Live pitch-off

TechCrunch Live is hosting a special, extended event focused on the great city of Minneapolis, Minnesota on September 7. I hope you can join us. We have an agenda packed with insiders who can speak to the growing startup ecosystem in the Twin Cities. But for the pitch-off, we’ve recruited two outsiders to judge the local startups: Mahati Sridhar, Vice President, Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and Sarah Hinkfuss, Partner, Bain Capital Ventures.

Both Mahati and Sarah offer considerable investment and startup experience. We’re thrilled to have their participation

To help highlight what the city has to offer, we’re enlisting the help of local startups! Like past City Spotlights, this one will feature a pitch-off with local Minneapolis startups pitching to VCs. The winner gets fast-tracked into Startup Battlefield 200, which includes free exhibition space at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022. Applications are closed, but everyone can register for the event here.

Mahati Sridhar, Vice President, Rise of the Rest Seed Fund

Mahati is a Vice President on the investment team at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. She joined the firm in 2021 and focuses on sourcing, due diligence, and supporting existing portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Revolution, Mahati was an Associate at Bull City Venture Partners, a Durham-based venture capital fund where she worked on seed and series A software and internet investments in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. Mahati is also a Venture for America Fellow and served her fellowship in Charlotte where she helped launch CFV Ventures, an early-stage fintech-focused venture fund. She started her career in Investment Banking at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey where she worked on the healthcare coverage team.

Mahati received a B.S. in Business Administration from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Mahati originally hails from Raleigh but currently calls New York City home.

Sarah Hinkfuss, Partner, Bain Capital Ventures

Sarah Hinkfuss works with growth-stage founders across both application software and fintech. She is particularly interested in backing founders who have personal experience in the market they are creating.

Ms. Hinkfuss joined Bain Capital in 2020 as a Vice President on the Tech Opportunities team. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Ms. Hinkfuss worked as an Associate in KKR’s Growth Equity group in San Francisco. Prior to that she was a Senior Vice President at Applied Predictive Technologies, an enterprise SaaS company acquired by Mastercard in 2015.

Ms. Hinkfuss received an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar and Siebel Scholar. She graduated cum laude with a BA in Economics and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, where she was a Hoopes Prize recipient and Weatherhead Research Fellow.

Agenda

TechCrunch Live in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Raising capital outside of the coasts with Anna Mason (Rise of the Rest Seed Fund) + Andrew Leone (Dispatch)

Andrew Leone’s Dispatch provides businesses with an on-demand courier delivery service. Headquartered in the greater Minneapolis, Minn area, the startup is quickly becoming a shining star in the area’s exploding startup ecosystem. It’s the type of startup that captures the attention of local investors, but outsiders as well including Anna Mason, managing partner at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest fund.

Who’s writing checks in MSP with Mary Grove (Managing Partner, Bread & Butter Fund) and Justin Kaufenberg (Managing Director, Rally Ventures)

A panel on the growth opportunities for Minn from the perspective of VC funds – what’s needed in the market, what are they funding right, where startups should look for funding.

Building a fintech company with Atif Siddiqi (Branch) and Ryan Brosha (Matchstick Ventures).

Minneapolis has a growing number of fintech companies, and Branch is among the best positioned. Hear from its CEO and Co-founder Atif Siddiqi and one of the company’s early investors, Ryan Brosha Managing Director and Partner at Matchstick Ventures.

Pitch-off

Judges: Mahati Sridhar & Sarah Hinkfuss

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Meta now lets you post your NFTs on both Facebook and Instagram

Meta announced today that it will now let users post their NFTs across both Instagram and Facebook. Users can connect their wallets like Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet and Dapper Wallet to post digital collectibles minted on Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow.

“As we continue rolling out digital collectibles on Facebook and Instagram, we’ve started giving people the ability to post digital collectibles that they own across both Facebook and Instagram. This will enable people to connect their digital wallets once to either app in order to share their digital collectibles across both,” the company said in its blog post.

The company has been experimenting with NFTs on both its platform since May. So here’s a quick reminder of what Meta has done in the digital collectible space till now:

• March 2022: Mark Zuckerberg said NFTs are coming to Instagram soon.
• May 2022: Instagram first started testing NFTs with select creators in May.
• June 2022: Zuckerberg included more people in that test and said NFTs are coming to Facebook soon.
• June 2022: Facebook began showcasing digital collectibles with limited U.S-based creators.
• July 2022: Meta launched NFT support on Instagram in 100 countries.

Today’s test is just an extension of these steps. However, it’s not clear that the NFT posting feature is available in all markets. We have asked Meta for clarification and we’ll update the story if we hear back.

Apart from extending support for showcasing different digital collectibles, app sleuths have noted that the company is also working on custom animations for NFT posts and digital collectible collections. Earlier in the year, Zuckerberg had mentioned that Meta will work on displaying NFTs through Instagram Stories and make them Spark AR compatible, too.

While other platforms like Twitter and Reddit have focused on NFT-based avatars, Meta is trying to reach a wider audience by introducing features that will let people show their digital collectibles through posts. The company’s plan is to support all major blockchains and wallets so more crypto-native people can display digital art on a mainstream platform. On the other hand, crypto-curious people can look at NFT posts just like other posts on their feeds so they can learn more about them.

Artists were posting their NFT creations on Instagram long before the platform started supporting them. So the company has been trying to cash in by making a long-term roadmap for creator support. In May, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said that the company is exploring digital collectible sales so creators can have another avenue of making money. The company has also expressed a desire to build a digital art marketplace that could be used to purchase items in the metaverse.

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Nigerian YC-backed startup Anchor comes out of stealth with $1M+ to scale its banking-as-a-service platform

In 2015, the emergence of fintechs such as Flutterwave and Paystack changed the game for online businesses in Africa by making it easier to integrate payments into customer interfaces without building those features from the ground up or merging with tacky foreign software.

Amplify was another payment platform that launched during that period. However, it differentiated itself by committing to payments on social media platforms, which Nigerian digital bank Carbon was interested in when it acquired the startup in 2019.

At the time, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, Segun Adeyemi, said that he was taking a break and would “likely start another company” later. While he worked as a Nigeria country manager for JUMO, a South African fintech that offers credit infrastructure to large mobile money operators across Africa, Adeyemi quit last year to launch Anchor, another fintech where he is also chief executive, this February. The new company is akin to Amplify in terms of infrastructural play; however, it provides financial features instead of payment ones. Adeyemi launched the fintech with Olamide Sobowale and Gbekeloluwa Olufotebi.

“We’re now seeing a new development where businesses want to offer different products and financial services beyond just payments,” Adeyemi told TechCrunch over a call. “We strongly believe that the way is not just by latching banking-as-a-service on a payments platform, but there has to be proper banking as a service platform built with the right infrastructure and go-to-market strategy. That’s the problem we decided to solve as a team, basically the full end-to-end infrastructure for startups to be able to build, embed, and launch financial services.”

Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platforms are one of the hottest segments in the global fintech space, with upstarts like Unit and Rapyd hitting unicorn valuations and older startups such as Stripe spinning off similar services. These platforms have become popular with neobanks or upstarts in different segments trying to embed financial services into their offerings because large, incumbent banks have been relatively slow to bring their services up to speed with the pace of change in the world of tech and banking. As such, banking-as-a-service platforms see an opportunity to provide more personalized services and flexibility at less cost.

Treasury Prime raises $20M to scale its banking-as-a-service biz

The situation is no different in Africa. Despite fintech accounting for over 60% of VC dollars last year and the proliferation of financial services, building a fintech startup is an expensive and lengthy endeavor. Per reports, it can take up to 18 months and an average of $500,000 to launch a fintech on the continent as they deal with issues ranging from licensing and compliance processes and multiple integration layers to managing third-party relationships and core banking infrastructure.

Anchor wants to “abstract away these complexities” so pure fintechs and businesses offering embedded finance can get started in 5 minutes, said Adeyemi in a statement. “For startups building a full-scale digital bank or providing embedded finance, we can provide compliance covering that allows them to launch quickly. So from build to embed to launch, our goal is how can we do all of that in the shortest time possible without compromising on security, compliance and scalability. That’s our value proposition,” he added on the call.

The seven-month startup provides APIs, dashboards and tools that help developers embed and build banking products such as bank accounts, funds transfers, savings products, issuing cards and offering loans.

Anchor, accepted into Y Combinator’s summer batch this year as the first banking-as-a-service platform from the continent, went live with its private beta this May. Over 30 startups accessed it, including Pivo, another YC S22-backed company, Outpost Health, Dillali and Pennee. Anchor claims to be transacting several millions of dollars while growing 200% month-on-month. The startup makes revenue by charging fees and taking cuts from every billable part of the business: account issuing, money movement, savings and deposits among others.

After testing these features with a select few, Anchor is coming out of stealth with a $1 million+ pre-seed and making its platform public. Anchor plans to use this investment to attract the best talent, improve the company’s tech infrastructure, invest in compliance and regulatory infrastructure, and acquire customers. Investors backing the BaaS fintech include Byld Ventures, Y Combinator, Luno Expeditions, Niche Capital, Mountain Peak Capital, and angel investors such as SeamlessHR CEO Emmanuel Okeleji.

Meanwhile, Anchor isn’t the only company trying to simplify how businesses offer financial services in Nigeria and Africa. Other upstarts, such as Bloc, have identified this same opportunity, and larger fintechs like Flutterwave are also looking to tap into that market. Adeyemi argues that the founding team’s technical experience, attention to security and scalability and the speed at which businesses can go live on its platform give Anchor some edge. While the CEO built Amplify, the startup’s CTO Sobowale worked at four prominent Nigerian fintechs: AppZone, TeamApt, Kuda and Carbon and Olufotebi was a full stack developer at Booking.com, where he built financial operations software.

“There’s an understanding of the space as founders and the core team building this. We have seen first-hand the painful process of closing banking partnerships, negotiating third-party contracts, and obtaining regulatory approvals. And more generally, the extensive time and effort required to launch financial products,” the chief executive said.

“We optimize for speed of go to market while at the same time, we don’t compromise on security and scalability. So there are a lot of use cases we’ve built for, that if you start from scratch, it will take you some time to get started stage.”

The CEO also pointed out how Anchor has created a network effect with its service where the more platforms it onboards, the stronger its infrastructure and support system. Businesses also need to consider high switching costs when using BaaS platforms, and for a startup like Anchor, being a first mover is a sustainable competitive advantage, he added.

Nigerian fintech startup OneFi acquires payment company Amplify

Unit raises $51M in Accel-led Series B to grow its banking-as-a-service platform

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