Responding to a popular request, we are now sharing transcripts of our investor podcast interviews in this new series. The following interview with Darshana Zaveri was recorded in April 2020....

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According to a Markets and Markets report, the global Healthcare IT market is expected to grow 15% annually to reach $390.7 billion by 2024 from $187.6 billion in 2019. Tennessee-based Change...

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John discusses analytics use cases in healthcare. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Pareto. John Steele: I’m the CEO of Pareto Intelligence. Pareto is...

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This feature from The New York Times looks at how the pandemic has accelerated automation and the use of robots in several industries. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links. Tech...

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[Editor’s note: Want to get this free weekly recap of TechCrunch news that startups can use by email? Subscribe here.] 

While consumer tech has matured as a startup category in recent years, many investors continue to be bullish on specific trends like online gaming, voice, and the unbundling of platforms in favor of focused social networks. That’s the key takeaway from a survey that Josh Constine and Arman Tabatabai did this week with 16 of the most active investors in key social product categories over on Extra Crunch. Here’s an excerpt of the responses, from Olivia Moore and Justine Moore of CRV:

“Unbundling of YouTube.” You can build a big company by targeting a vertical within YouTube with a product that has better features and more opportunities for creator monetization. Twitch is a great example of this! We’re also watching early-stage companies like Supergreat (in beauty) and Tingles (ASMR).

Voice as a social medium. Voice continues to pick up steam as a broadcast medium via podcasting, but we haven’t seen a lot in social or P2P voice yet. We think a successful platform will leverage the fact that voice content can be created and consumed while doing other things. We’re big fans of companies like TTYL and Drivetime that are making strides here!

Flexible digital identities. Gen Zers are online constantly but have different preferences across platforms/friend groups about how they want to “show up” digitally. The rise of “Finsta” accounts is one good example of this. Companies like Facemoji already help users create social content using a curated digital avatar — we’re excited to see what else founders build here!

Synchronous, shared mobile experiences. We’re bullish on apps that connect users in real time to have a shared social experience. Most apps now are “single-player,” which creates scroll fatigue. HQ Trivia was an early example more on the entertainment side, while companies like Squad help users browse the internet and watch TikTok together.

Other respondees include: Connie Chan (Andreessen Horowitz). Alexis Ohanian (Initialized Capital), Niko Bonatsos (General Catalyst), Josh Coyne (Kleiner Perkins), Wayne Hu (Signal Fire), Alexia Bonatsos (Dream Machine), Josh Elman (angel investor), Aydin Senkut (Felicis Ventures), James Currier (NFX), Pippa Lamb (Sweet Capital), Christian Dorffer (Sweet Capital), Jim Scheinman (Maven Ventures), Eva Casanova (Day One Ventures) and Dan Ciporin (Canaan).

EC subscribers please note: a second part of this survey will be running this coming week, focused specifically on social investing in the COVID-19 era.

Are VCs investing — or maintaining?

Speaking of financing, who is actually writing checks right at this moment in time?

“I’ve seen a lot of VCs talking about being open for business,” Eniac Ventures founding partner Hadley Harris proclaimed on a fundraising-trend panel this week, “and I’ve been pretty outspoken on Twitter that I think that’s largely bullshit and sends the wrong message to entrepreneurs.” Instead, as Connie Loizos covered for us on TechCrunch, he said he didn’t have time to talk to more founders because he was so busy helping existing portfolio companies.

Not every investor agrees with that viewpoint —  VC Twitter features many an anecdote about fresh companies getting funding. 

Let’s just hope that both things are true, because it is already rough out there. 

Does your startup qualify for a PPP loan? (And should you apply?)

Two debates have been raging around government support for startups. First, the big, messy new Paycheck Protection Program — designed to cover expenses for small businesses — does seem to be somewhat available to startups, based on revisions published by the Small Business Administration late last week. But things get complicated quick depending on your fundraising and cap table, as Jon Shieber covered last weekend for TechCrunch. Venture firms typically have controlling interests in a portfolio of companies that total more than 500 people, so if such a firm also has a controlling interest in your startup, you may not be eligible. Even if the VC stake is under 50%, preferred terms that came with the fundraising may your application afoul of the rules.

To help founders work through their own situations faster, startup lawyer William Carleton wrote a quick guide for Extra Crunch. Here’s where he says you need to start:

Do you have a minority investor which controls protective covenants in your charter, or which controls a board seat afforded certain veto rights on board decisions? If the answer to either fork of that question is “yes,” you almost certainly have confirmed that you will need to amend your charter and/or other governing documents before proceeding with a PPP application.

The other aspect, of course, is whether startups should be applying for this in the first place. Congress broadly intended the money to go towards small to medium sized businesses, most of whom would never be considered for venture. Shieber’s article is full of comments on that topic, if you feel like weighing in….

The commercial real estate comeuppance

If you’re like me, and you’ve started companies in the Bay Area and struggled to find office space you could afford, enjoy this bit of schadenfraude as you plot your remote-first future. Because the commercial real estate industry is facing an existential crisis after many, many years of rent-seeking upon the Silicon Valley tech economy (and everyone else).

Connie explored this exploding topic with a range of startups, investors and CRE agents in a big feature for TechCrunch this week. One analyst “expects the market to come down by ‘at least 10% and probably 20% to 30%’ from where commercial space in San Francisco has priced in several years, which is $88 per square foot, according to CBRE. Driving the expected drop is the 2 million square feet that will come onto the market in the city as soon as it’s possible — space that companies want to get off their books.”

It’s quite possible to imagine even bigger declines, given the broader hits that most any possible tenant is also taking to their budgets. Who knows, maybe this whole process will even help make the Bay Area and other wealthy metros a little more affordable again.

Edtech gets hot again, according to investors

After lots of money and lots of struggle over the past decade, edtech is suddenly hot again thanks to the pandemic. Natasha Mascaranhas has been covering the trend recently, and dug in this week with a big investor survey on the category for Extra Crunch.

“One investor pivoted from spending a third of their time looking at edtech companies to devoting almost all their time to the sector,” she tells me. “Another, who has been bullish for years on edtech, says its business as usual for them, but that competition may arise. An ed-tech focused fund thinks the sector has been underfunded for a while, so the moment of reckoning has begun.”

Respondents include:

Across the week:

TechCrunch

Economists haven’t thrown out the models yet (but they will)

Five CEOs on their evolution in the femtech space

Equity Monday: Hunting for green shoots amid the startup data

Extra Crunch

How SaaS startups should plan for a turbulent Q2

Fintech’s uneven new reality has helped some startups, harmed others

Fast-changing regulations give virtual care startups a chance to seize the moment

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson on shifting a 3,000-person company to fully remote

Amid unicorn layoffs, Boston startups reflect on the future

#EquityPod

From Alex:

We started with a look at Clearbanc  and its runway extension not-a-loan program, which may help startups survive that are running low on cash. Natasha covered it for TechCrunch. Most of us know about Clearbanc’s revenue-based financing model; this is a twist. But it’s good to see companies work to adapt their products to help other startups survive.

Next we chatted about a few rounds that Danny covered, namely Sila’s $7.7 million investment to help build technology that could take on the venerable and vulnerable ACH, and Cadence’s $4 million raise to help with securitization. Even better, per Danny, they are both blockchain-using companies. And they are useful! Blockchain, while you were looking elsewhere, has done some cool stuff at last.

Sticking to our fintech theme — the show wound up being super fintech-heavy, which was an accident — we turned to SoFi’s huge $1.2 billion deal to buy Galileo, a Utah-based payments company that helps power a big piece of UK-based fintech. SoFi is going into the B2B fintech world after first attacking the B2C realm; we reckon that if it can pull the move off, other financial technology companies might follow suit.

Tidying up all the fintech stories is this round up from Natasha and Alex, working to figure out who in fintech is doing poorly, who’s hiding for now, and who is crushing it in the new economic reality.

Next we touched on layoffs generally, layoffs at Toast, AngelList, and not LinkedIn — for now. Per their plans to not have plans to have layoffs. You figure that out.

And then at the end, we capped with good news from Thrive and Index. We didn’t get to Shippo, sadly. Next time!

Listen to the full thing here!

Ritesh Agarwal is Co-founder and Managing Director at CerraCap Ventures, a deep tech focused early stage firm.

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I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I...

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Instacart is adding more support roles to help its shoppers, customers and retail partners as the company faces unprecedented demand for its grocery delivery services due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders.

Today Instacart announced that it has doubled its Care team, from 1,200 agents to 3,000 agents. Care team employees will work on answering questions about how Instacart works, delivery issues, address mishaps and other general woes.

The hiring news comes after Instacart shoppers organized a strike last month, demanding personal protective equipment, hazard pay, default tips and extended sick pay.

Instacart has been on a hiring spree as customer demand increased more than 300% year over year last week alone. Last month, the Instacart shopper community grew to 350,000 active shoppers, up from 200,000 two weeks ago.

Today, along with doubling its Care team, Instacart says it has also hired and signed an additional 15,000 representatives that will join the team by May. With that, Instacart says it will have a Care team of about 18,000 members.

Some of Instacart’s new hires have are experienced support agents recently laid off in the flurry of cuts across the hospitality and travel industry.

With more demand, and thus more stresses on shoppers than ever before, the new members seem like yet another move by Instacart to try to pacify its growing shopper network. Last month, Instacart outlined an extended pay policy and contactless pay option. The company also introduced new product features aimed at making delivery windows for shoppers more flexible and fast.

Earlier this week, tip-baiting emerged as a grotesque tactic used by customers. Customers have been baiting Instacart shoppers to pick up their groceries by putting large tips on the bill through the app. Then, once the shopper drops off the groceries, customers are changing that tip to a lesser amount or even to $0.

The ability to change the tip price up to three days after grocery drop-off is an option provided through the Instacart application.

According to Instacart, tip-baiting is rare. Customers either adjusted their tip upward or did not adjust tip at all on 99.5% of orders. The company also removed the “none” option in the customer tip section with hopes that customers will tip at minimum.

While these feature updates will likely have a positive impact, Instacart has still not banned customers from changing the tip after getting their groceries. The new roles will not be able to help shoppers with tip-baiting changes either, as the tip is entirely up to the customer.

The company has also not changed the default tip minimum, as worker protests asked for tip defaults to be put at 10% during this time.

The surge of hires for Instacart’s Care team was not related to the tip-baiting issue, says the company, but instead related to the surge of demand for the service.

Earlier this week TechCrunch caught up with Union Square Ventures‘ (USV) Albert Wenger. Wenger, a managing partner at the venture firm, is well-known in the New York startup scene. USV has invested in former startups like Twitter, Twilio, Etsy and Cloudflare.

TechCrunch is touching base with a number of investors during the COVID-19-driven economic slowdown. Everyone is already at home, in front of a computer, so why not get them on the phone? (Follow @TechCrunch for updates, we’re keeping the series alive over the next few weeks with more neat guests.)

We wanted to know what Wenger thought about the level of fear in his local market, and how much cash startups should hold during the COVID-19 era. On the latter point, Wenger noted that each company’s present situation is suitably diverse as to avoid any single rule, but implied that companies with healthy backers don’t have to hold as much cash, as they have access to more; the weaker a startup’s investing syndicate is, the more cash it should hold, as that might be all the money it has access to.

We also took time to talk about PPP loans, and what types of startups should apply for them, a subject that Wenger has written about. There’s a moral point in the discussion that’s worth understanding.

We also took a number of questions from folks tuned in on Zoom during the call and generally had a good time. We’ve preserved the audio, so take a listen. If you wanted to see the video of TechCrunch’s Jordan Crook and Alex Wilhelm talking to Wenger, every one of the three in a different state, you missed out. Come to our next public Zoom!

The recording

Pangea.app, a Providence, Rhode Island-based startup has raised a $400,000 pre-seed round, it told TechCrunch this week. The company’s new capital, raised as a post-money SAFE, comes from PJC, a Boston-based venture capital firm and Underdog Labs. Previously, Pangea.app raised money from angel investors.

The company links “remote college freelancers,” per its website, to businesses around the country. College students want paid work and resume-building experience, while businesses need help with piece-work that students can help with, like graphic design. Today, with colleges and universities closing due to COVID-19, students stuck at home, and many businesses leery about adding new, full-time staff, Pangea.app could find itself in a market sweet spot.

Some students that had work lined up for the summer are now unexpectedly free, possibly adding to the startup’s labor rolls. “I can’t tell you how many students I’ve spoken with who have had summer internships and on-campus jobs canceled,” Adam Alpert, Pangea.app’s CEO and co-founder told TechCrunch, “we are filling an important gap helping them find short-term, remote opportunities that enable them to contribute while learning.”

If its marketing position resonates as its CEO hopes, the firm could see quick growth. According to Alpert the company has seen five figures of contracts flow through its platform to date, and expects to reach a gross merchandise volume run rate that’s a multiple of its current size by the end of summer.

Some 250 schools have students on the platform; 60 schools have joined in the last three weeks.

Pangea.app makes money in two ways, taking a 15% cut of transaction volume and charging some companies a SaaS fee for access to its best-vetted student workers. The company had targeted a $500,000 raise, a sum that Alpert says he’s confident that his company can meet.

While the national economy stutters and the venture capital world slows, Pangea.app may have picked up capital at a propitious time; raising capital is only going to get harder as the year continues and it now has enough to operate for a year without generating revenue; it will generate top line, however, extending its cash cushion.

Pangea.app aspires to more than just growth. Alpert told TechCrunch that it has a number of development-focused hires on the docket for 2020, including a UI/UX designer and engineering talent. The company also intends to use its own platform to staff up over the summer to help speed up its own development.

Being based in Providence, not precisely the center of the world’s startup gravity, may have some advantages for Pangea.app. The company said that it is working to reach break-even profitability before it works on the next part of its business. It’s easier to do that in Providence where the cost of living and doing business is far lower than it is in larger startup hubs.

Update: The round was a pre-seed investment, not a seed deal as originally reported. The post has been corrected. 

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here: 480th 1Mby1M Roundtable April 9, 2020: With Ritesh Agarwal, CerraCap Ventures

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Waveform CEO Sina Khanifar started tinkering with bootstrapped entrepreneurship way back in college. It has certainly paid off. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where...

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Entrepreneurs are invited to the 481st FREE online 1Mby1M mentoring roundtable on Thursday, April 16, 2020, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious...

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Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

Airbnb’s recent moves in the wake of a global travel slowdown are interesting and worth understanding in chronological order. What it details is a company spending heavily today to keep up its future health. Demand will return to the world travel market in time — how much, no one knows — and Airbnb wants to be a well-liked participant in the return to form.

Building off our last look at the company, we should understand how Airbnb intends to not only survive, but come out the other side of the pandemic with enough user trust to get back to work.

An IPO promise

We’re in unprecedented times and are likely at the beginning of a long journey back to normal  —  whatever the new “normal” turns out to be.

While governments rush to get debt-relief packages in place, the high-risk, high-reward tech sector will need something different. To survive, the community requires fancy footwork, hard choices and a lot of shared pain between founders, staff, investors, suppliers and customers.

With my startup Moonfruit, a DIY website and e-commerce platform I co-founded with Wendy Tan-White (now a VP at X) and eirik pettersen (currently CTO at Secret Escapes), we survived the 2001 dot-com crash, when the entire tech sector was decimated for years to come, as well as the 2008 financial crisis, when we were lucky enough to experience rapid countercyclical growth. These experiences made us stronger and ultimately led to our successful exit in 2012 and post-acquisition growth to $150 million ARR.

I’ve spent the last five years as a general partner at Entrepreneur First, raising $200 million of funds and advising hundreds of startups through formation, growth and fundraising — but right now I work with many of them daily on survival.

For most companies, I think this crisis will look more like 2001 than 2008, though there will be some who are lucky enough to grow through it. The good news is, having been through this before, I know there are things you can do as a founder or as an investor that can mitigate the damage. In the U.K., I’m in several conversations about making emergency equity funding more available, and I hope this happens all over the world too.

Here is a tactical guide to surviving the crisis.

As domestic and global economies grapple with the COVID-19 era, its impact on startups is coming into focus: All will be impacted, many will suffer and some will close.

Boston, a city that TechCrunch keeps tabs on, has seen a number of well-known startups struggle in recent weeks. Their misfortunes come quickly after companies in the region recorded huge venture raises, generating notable momentum.

In December, TechCrunch wrote that “despite winter’s chill, the Northeast’s tech ecosystem is white-hot,” taking into account Boston’s historical gains in the venture world. And earlier in 2020 we covered a few huge rounds that the city’s own Toast and Flywire had put together; worth $520 million as a pair, the two venture deals stood out for how large they were and how close to one another they were announced.

Indeed, looking at preliminary venture data from Crunchbase, Boston was on track to crush its 2019 tally of venture rounds of $50 million or more in 2020. That record-setting pace is now in doubt. 

To get a feel for Boston’s new reality, we’ve collected the region’s recent news and spoke to area investors and founders, including David Cancel of Drift (the previous founder of Compete and other companies), Drew Volpe of First Star VC and a team of folks from Underscore VC.

TechCrunch had intended to start a monthly series on Boston and its venture capital and startup scenes later this month. We’re kicking it off early because the news is already here.

Slowdown

Earlier this week, restaurant management platform Toast cut 50% of its staff. The Boston-based company was valued at $5 billion in recent months, and — before the pandemic hit — was planning to spend the next few years gearing up to go public. Toast sits uniquely between fintech and restaurant tech, industries that have been arguably impacted the most by COVID-19’s spread and widespread restaurant closures.

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Ritesh Agarwal, Co-founder and Managing Director CerraCap Ventures, a deep tech focused early stage firm. Ecoin As for entrepreneur pitches, we had...

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