At-home diagnostics startup Scanwell, which produces smartphone-based testing for UTIs, is working on getting at-home testing for the novel coronavirus into the hands of U.S. residents. The technology, which was developed by Chinese diagnostic technology company INNOVITA and has already been approved by China’s equivalent of the FDA and used by “millions” in China, can be taken at home in 15 minutes with the guidance of a medical professional via telehealth, and produces results in just hours.

Scanwell’s test will require FDA clearance, but the company tells me that it’s in the process of securing approval through the FDA’s accelerated emergency certification program. The FDA guidance says that this approval process should take 6-8 weeks (though that “could be faster,” Scanwell says), and Scanwell is aiming to be ready to go with shipping these as soon as it receives that approval. While the U.S. drug regulatory agency previously had only included PCR tests in its protocols, it updated that guidance to include serological tests earlier this week. Scanwell further says they “don’t anticipate any issues with FDA approval.”

The test that Scanwell is aiming to launch uses what’s called a ‘serological’ technique, which looks for antibodies in a patient’s blood. These are only present if someone has been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, since as of right now researchers haven’t found any evidence that natural antibodies to this particular virus exist without exposure. By contrast, the types of tests that are currently in use in the U.S. are “PCR” tests, which use a molecular-based approach to determine if the virus is present genetically in a mucus sample.

The PCR type of test is technically more accurate than the serological variety, but the serological version is much easier to administer, and produces results more quickly. It’s also still very accurate on the whole, and is much cheaper to produce than the PCR version. Plus, it could help expand efforts beyond testing only the most severe cases with symptoms present, and do a much better job of illuminating the full extent of the presence of the virus, including among people with mild cases who have already recovered at home, and those who are asymptomatic but carrying the virus with the possibility of infecting others.

Other, PCR-based at-home testing options already exist, like one from Everlywell that will start going out on Monday, require round-tripping test samples, adding time, complexity and cost and relying on testing materials like swabs that are in short supply globally. Scanwell’s can be performed completely at home, reducing time for a diagnosis and lessening strain on the supply chain.

Once the test is available, people deemed eligible via Scanwell’s screening process in their Scanwell Health app will be sent the test via next-day delivery. They’ll be guided by telehealth partner Lemonaid‘s licensed doctors and nurse practitioners, and they’ll then receive results and further guidance about those results via the app within a few hours. The whole testing process will cost $70, which Scanwell says just covers its costs (it’s also looking at ways to provide free service to those who need it), and will be deployed first in Washington, California and New York, as well as other areas depending on the severity of their coronavirus situation.

That the tests will take potentially 6-8 weeks to come to market seems like a long time, given the current state of the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation and testing. But we’ll likely still be very much in need of testing options at that time, especially ones that can serve people who aren’t necessarily meeting the criteria for other available testing resources.

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Elly Truesdell, Partner at Almanac Insights, a fund focused on food related investments. Fascinating conversation! MarketKoin As for entrepreneur...

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week’s episode was a testament to making do, as we’ve had to cancel some trips, juggle a few guests, and get up and running as a podcast that have guests dial in without losing our stride. So, this week Danny and Natasha and Alex were joined by Unshackled VC’s Manan Mehta.

And it went pretty ok, aside from a hiccup or two, expect Equity to still feature guests as often as it makes sense, even if we’re currently locked out of our own studio. Anyhoo, a combo of local recording, remote video setups, and Chris handling the dials meant that we were able to talk over all the good stuff:

Hashicorp raises $175 million at a $5 billion valuation. It was nice to see a round so large take place when the rest of the sky in tech was busy falling onto itself.Deepgram raises $12 million. Alex covered this company’s funding, winding up pretty excited about the technology itself.Edtech startup Teachable exits after good GMV growth. Nice exit for this New York City-based startup, and we chatted about the early-stage edtech market, which was good fun.VC firms offer group therapy for founders due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It marks another data point in the small, but growing, cohort of venture capitalists thinking about mental health services beyond an investment opportunity.Remote Year, which helps you work while traveling the world, lays off 50% of staff. It’s one of an incoming flurry of layoffs we’re expecting to see from travel-related startups.Danny advised founders to announce their rounds now to reassure their employees and customers that they are ready for the coming recessionAnd finally, what’s up with Airbnb’s direct listing timing? We tried to sort that out before we ran short of time.

All told there were some laughs, and we spent a good few minutes before mentioning COVID-19. It was good fun to have the crew on for a classic Equity episode, and a big thanks to Manan for coming aboard under less-than-optimal circumstances.

According to a Research and Markets report, the global Human Capital Management (HCM) market is estimated to grow 10% annually over the next few years to $26.5 billion industry by 2024 from $16.7...

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Deepak Jeevankumar: The first question we ask is a market question. Are you part of the future of the world’s story? Future means growth. For example, I think the future is multi-cloud which includes...

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Claimer, a London-based startup that makes it easy for companies to claim R&D tax credits in the U.K., has raised £300,000 in seed funding.

Backing the already revenue-generating company is Ben Holmes (who was previously at Index Ventures), Nick Telson and Andrew Webster (the founders of DesignMyNight, which recently exited), Rupert Loman (founder of Gamer Network), and TrueSight Ventures.

Founded by Adam McCann in January 2018 and then launched in April 2019, Claimer streamlines the process of claiming R&D tax credits, which is a U.K. government subsidy popular with tech startups that is designed to encourage innovation. The startup claims its product is approximately 10x faster and up to 6x cheaper than using a tax consultant.

“Claimer is fixing the R&D tax relief space with tech,” McCann tells me. “If you’re not familiar with the scheme, it’s run by HMRC and allows U.K. businesses to claim back up to 33% of their research & development costs as a cash payment in any industry, such as software and hardware development, manufacturing, textiles, biotechnology, foodtech, and many others.”

“Most accountants don’t have the in-house expertise to process claims, so they refer clients to R&D tax specialists. For many companies, the process is slow, expensive, and frustrating, because these specialists charge very high fees, often taking weeks to process claims.”

In contrast, McCann says Claimer’s platform makes it easy for businesses to reliably complete their R&D relief claims without any prior tax knowledge. After you upload a claim to the platform, which includes the ability to pull numbers from your accounting software, Claimer’s in-house tax specialists check and optimise it before it is submitted to HMRC.

“We’ve processed claims ranging from £1,000 to over £2 million with a 100% success rate (i.e. no rejections or reductions). Our customers have also awarded us 5 stars on TrustPilot,” he adds.

To that end, Claimer’s success is aligned with that of its customers. The startup charges a fee of 5% or less of the saving/credit received in R&D tax credits, capped to £10,000. McCann says this is much less than the typical uncapped 20-30% usually charged by specialists, “often with undesirable terms such as multi-year lock-in contracts, hidden costs, and large minimum fees”.

Meanwhile, Claimer plans to use the seed funding to grow its engineering team and build version two of the product, which McCann says will utilise open data and machine learning, making it possible for claims to be created automatically.

“And yes, we’ll be claiming R&D tax credits for developing our R&D tax credits platform,” quips the Claimer founder.

Wag!, the petcare company known for connecting pet owners with local dog walkers, has recently undergone a series of sweeping changes.

In late November, after I was named the new CEO, my management team and I began plotting a radically different path to profitability. We began by assessing our relationship with users. First and foremost, we recognized that Wag! needed to improve the way we supported the community, including pet parents, pet caregivers and their pets.

Next, we examined the company’s financial health and analyzed the competitive climate, investment community and direction in which the tech industry appeared headed. The time has come to share how this influenced our decisions.

Late in 2019, a lot of smart people began to note a philosophical shift taking place in the capital markets. Investors had begun to lose patience with startups that spent massive sums on acquiring market share, but had demonstrated little to no ability at creating lasting businesses.

We concluded that funding in some sectors would quickly dry up. Based on our analysis, we expect a growing number of startups will be forced to hew out self-sustaining business niches to survive. This assessment is partly what led us to conclude that accepting another funding round wouldn’t necessarily benefit the company in the area that matters most: providing value to customers.

A consensus formed after we took control, and found a constant drumbeat of bills coming in and payments going out, notably to Amazon (Web Services), Google (to help extend our brand), Facebook (to reach customers) and for our office space. These costs were growing faster than revenue.

Scopely, the mobile gaming publisher behind titles including Marvel Strike Force, Scrabble Go, Yahtzee with Buddies and Star Trek Fleet Command, has added another $200 million to its hoard of cash for mergers and acquisitions.

While some startups are fearing a cash crunch, other businesses seem to be preparing to go on a shopping spree. The economic slowdown has many businesses reconsidering their prospects, and it’s a good time for startups and established businesses with lots of cash to consider going on a shopping trip.

With $650 million in venture dollars raised so far, Scopely can certainly consider making some bids. The latest $200 million doubles the amount of money the company closed on for its Series D round. Investors included Advance (the privately held media and publishing company behind Conde Naste and a slew of local news [online and print] publications), and the consumer-focused investment firm, The Chernin Group.

“The FoxNext Games acquisition reinforced our commitment to M&A, and the opportunity to partner with Advance and TCG was a welcome addition to further support our strategy,” said Javier Ferreira, the co-chief executive officer of Scopely, in a statement.

Advance’s investment comes as the company experiments with various new media, entertainment and publishing formats of its own and looks to invest in more digital media companies, according to a statement.

Chernin, a longtime investor in Scopely (since the company’s earliest rounds), said that its investment in Scopely on the heels of closing a $700 million new investment fund was a no-brainer.

“As the traditional media industry continues to go through unprecedented change, we believe that Scopely has all the ingredients for tremendous success — exposure to games (the fastest-growing sector in media), a scalable and durable technology platform, a diversified set of well-known IP, an attractive economic profile, and a team hyper-focused on execution and long-term success,” said Jesse Jacobs, a co-founder and partner at The Chernin Group .

As organizers cancel events with massive attendance, like SXSW (400,000 attendees), E3 (66,000), GDC (65,000) and Mobile World Congress (100,000), mobile game developers have felt the crunch. At a show like SXSW, larger developers can spend more than $135,000 just to secure some real estate.

Despite the steep cost, if you’re a developer, these events can prove worthwhile for building awareness, buzz and customer downloads. Real-time feedback from attendees, the ability to sign up users for beta campaigns, opportunities for bolstering subsequent email marketing and the prestige of having your app live side-by-side with games produced by larger studios are unique qualities.

It remains unclear if and how developers that made investments will recover costs such as those for onsite promotion, print advertising, staff for booths and restaurant reservations. Equally, if not more important though, is the added layer of opportunity cost for developers, especially those who sought to use these events to launch something new.

How important are launch moments for game developers? During the Game Developers Conference 2019, a new port of Cuphead for Nintendo Switch was announced. Per Google Trends, web searches for the game reached their second-highest point of the year during the event (March 20th), only behind search volume of the game’s release a month later, in April 2019.

Large developers can come out unscathed from a trade show cancellation and simply kick the launch moment to their next big tentpole event. But for smaller app or game developers that can’t wait another six months for their launch moment, they need to do something.

Here are five ways to salvage a launch lost to a trade show cancellation.

This week, Extra Crunch hosted a call with General Catalyst managing director Niko Bonatsos to discuss a number of startup topics, including what the novel coronavirus is doing to investing in the Valley, as well as his thoughts on robotics, homeschooling, edtech, SMBs, international investing and what he’s looking to see today in startups. Joining me on the live call was my fellow Equity host Alex Wilhelm and a couple of dozen EC members.

If you missed this conference call for EC members, don’t fret: We’ll have more of these to come in this era of work-from-home. In the meantime, here is a lightly edited transcript, along with a recording of the call if you’d like to listen in.

U.K. takeout marketplace Just Eat has announced a 30-day emergency support package for restaurants on its platform to help them through disruption caused by the coronavirus crisis.

From tomorrow (March 20) until April 19 the package — which Just Eat says is worth £10 million+ — will see funds directed back to U.K. partner restaurants in the form of a commission rebate of one-third (33%) on all commissions paid to Just Eat by restaurants; and via the removal of commissions across all collection orders, which it intends to help reduce pressure on restaurants’ delivery operations, where collection is still available.

Just Eat also said it’s waiving all sign-up fees for new restaurants joining its platform (which must still meet its standard conditions, such as being registered with the relevant local authority as a food business and having the required hygiene rating); and relaxing any existing arrangements that may be in place with partners to enable them to work with delivery aggregators — “regardless of existing contractual terms.”

It added that it will continue to pay restaurants weekly, including the rebate now in place.

Currently Just Eat has around 35,700 restaurants on its platform in the U.K., with delivery available to 95% of U.K. postcodes.

Commenting in a statement, Andrew Kenny, Just Eat’s U.K. MD, said:

These are some of the most challenging times the restaurants we work with have ever been through. We want to show our support and help them to keep their doors open, so they can focus on doing what they do best — delivering food to people across the UK every day. We know our Restaurant Partners are worried about their teams — from chefs to delivery drivers — and these measures will go some way to helping them maintain their operations and support their people.

The food delivery industry has a crucial role to play at this time of national crisis and it is only right that as the market leader in the UK Just Eat steps up to help our independent partners so they can keep delivering for the communities that need them.

In the U.K. and elsewhere there is rising concern about the economic impact of COVID-19 on the hospitality sector as people are told to stay away from social spaces.

On Monday the U.K. government advised people not to go to bars and restaurants or other social spaces in a bid to try to limit the spread of COVID-19. Although, unlike many other European countries, it has not yet issued strict quarantine measures such as ordering hospitality industry businesses to close their doors and citizens to work at home where possible.

On-demand food delivery remains one of the services that continues to operate even in locked down EU Member States. However, with gig economy business models not typically offering platform workers an employment safety net of benefits such as sick pay, the entire sector has come under fresh scrutiny for the legal status it assigns to delivery couriers, given the heightened risks posed to them by the novel coronavirus. In a nutshell, if they need to self isolate, they won’t be able to earn. 

In its press release today Just Eat said it’s working on other unspecified support initiatives for couriers, as well as for groups including the vulnerable and isolated, and frontline workers.

These will be announced in due course, it added. 

Although it also notes that the vast majority of orders placed through its network are delivered by restaurants with their own delivery capability. Its commission for such orders is a maximum of 14%, it added.

Some on-demand food delivery startups operating in Europe which do rely on gig workers to make deliveries have already announced emergency support funds to help platform workers who fall ill or need to self isolate during the COVID-19 crisis — including U.K.-based Deliveroo and Spain’s Glovo.

There has also been some criticism of how easy it is for couriers to access claimed support.

With most new social media startups seeming to dial in on specific communities to thrive in a still Facebook-dominated sphere, some of the more broadly focused social investments from top VCs are going into online gaming.

The latest is Mainframe Industries, a Nordic game studio building a massively multiplayer online title. The team doesn’t have much to share of what their title will actually look like gameplay-wise, they’re just saying it’s a sandbox MMO designed for cloud streaming built on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.

The startup, which has offices in Helsinki and Reykjavik, isn’t building cloud gaming tech but is instead building an MMO title that’s designed from the get-go for streaming platforms like Google Stadia or Microsoft xCloud that beam a title to a user’s device from a cloud-hosted GPU. What does being a cloud-native game entail? Mainly, it seems to mean that they’re creating a social title that is as fully playable on mobile as it is on PC/console.

Building a robust mobile game that meets console/PC gamers expectations has been one of the more tenuous pursuits of the past decade, and one that has more often than not led to watered-down experiences. Mainframe CEO Thor Gunnarsson acknowledges that titles have sometimes catered to the “lowest common denominator,” but he believes that as game-streaming advances lower technical barriers, his team can focus wholly on solving the user experience challenges.

A big focus seems to be leveraging cross-play with more consistent experiences on differently powered devices thanks to cloud streaming. Gunnarsson believes his company’s approach to what occurs on the “social layer” of the title will be what differentiates them the most, though he is mum on details regarding what that will look like in the eventual release.

The startup has some big names supporting them in their quest. The startup announced today that they’ve closed an $8.1 million (€7.6 million) Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Riot Games, Maki.vc, Play Ventures, Sisu Game Ventures and Crowberry Capital also participated in the round.

Andreessen Horowitz, already having bet big on Roblox’s $150 million Series G last month, has been quite active in placing bets on smaller gaming startups in the past year or so, most of which have been made by GP Andrew Chen.

Early last year, Chen directed a16z’s investment in Sandbox VR’s $68 million Series A, a startup aiming to make shared virtual reality experiences more common by building out physical retail locations in malls and shopping areas across the globe. This past August, Chen was also behind the firm’s investment in Singularity 6, another MMO gaming startup that’s looking to build a “virtual society.” Chen was also behind the investment in Mainframe Industries .

“We believe that cloud-native games are poised to revolutionize the entertainment industry in the coming years, yielding entirely new gameplay experiences and business models,” said Chen in a press release announcing the startup’s raise.

In some part, these investments highlight the belief of venture capitalists that online games like Fortnite may represent the future of social networks. They are also, however, platform bets that are rooted in early content plays, which can be notoriously difficult to pick winners in.

While Gunnarsson was quick to discuss how important he believed their title’s social platform would become, he was also just as quick to admit that building a great game was the most critical. “All of the platform stuff is ancillary to the prospect of creating a fun game, but we have really strong game design team.”

Games these days, particularly MMOs, are far from “finished” by launch. Gunnarsson plans to use this round of funding to reach a closed alpha of their title. He didn’t offer any timelines for launch, as they’re only in pre-production now, but did say it certainly won’t be coming out this year.

Quantum Machines, a Tel Aviv-based startup that is building both hardware and software to operate quantum computers, today announced that it has raised a $17.5 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Israeli tech entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz (who, among other companies, co-founded Habana Labs and Anapurna Labs and sold them to Intel and Amazon, respectively) and Harel Insurance Investments.

TLV Partners and Battery Ventures also participated in this round. TLV Partners also led the company’s $5.5 million seed round in 2018, in which Battery Partners also participated.

“The race to commercial quantum computers is one of the most exciting technological challenges of our generation,” said Willenz. “Our goal at [Quantum Machines] is to make this happen faster than anticipated and establish ourselves as a key player in this emerging industry.”

The company says it will use the new funding to accelerate the adoption of its Quantum Orchestration Platform. This platform went live earlier this year. What makes it unique is that it’s a combination of custom hardware, which the company designed itself, and software tools that can be used to control virtually any quantum processor. To control a quantum processor, you also need a powerful classical computer, but traditional computers are ill-suited for this task, Quantum Machines argues, and it’ll take specialized hardware for classical computing to harness the power of quantum computing and run complex algorithms on these machines.

“The classical layers of the quantum computer are the real unmet need. They are the bottleneck,” Quantum Machines co-founder Itamar Sivan told me when the platform launched. “We were really looking into what is holding the industry back. What are the things that we can do today to drive this industry forward, but that will also enable faster progress in the future. Since most of the focus in the last years has been devoted to quantum processors, it was only natural that you know we take on this challenge.”

A new initiative from a Los Angeles investor is taking stock of venture firms and their ability to commit capital in an effort to match firms that are still open for business and cutting checks to startups that are fundraising in the age of COVID-19.

Laurent Grill, one of the investors at Luma Launch (which is the corporate investment arm of the film studio Luma Pictures), has been working in the Los Angeles venture community building and backing startups for about a decade. Over that time, Grill has put together a fairly impressive Rolodex, and in these times of uncertainty, he’s putting that Rolodex to work.

Most startups are buckling in for a bumpy few months and making tough decisions about when, where and how to get the cash they need to keep their businesses going. While there have been a number of statements on Twitter from various investors about how they’re doing deals and are open for business, Grill is making sure the community can be coordinated so companies know where to turn and investors can find businesses to back in an age of Zoom diligence.

He issued a call on LinkedIn, Twitter and seemingly every other platform requesting that investors who are still cutting checks in the time of the coronavirus sign up (privately) to a list that Grill is managing. There’s also a list for startups that are looking for cash.

The matchmaking service is designed to save time and energy for entrepreneurs and investors who have to worry about keeping the lights on.

So far, Grill has racked up responses from a lot of the roughly 400 investors to whom he’s sent an email for the initial list he’s putting together.

Luma Launch, as Grill is the first to admit, won’t be among the investors looking at new deals in the near term. As a corporate venture arm, the firm has to manage the portfolio of investments that are already on its balance sheet. That’s a strong list of companies, including The Wave, Community, Lensabl and others that are well-situated to make it through the crisis, but corporate venture is often constrained as their parent companies look internally and new investments aren’t on the short-term horizon.

However, the network that Grill has amassed (although he’s loath to talk about it) includes a number of top investors at some of the largest funds, and they’re all privately telling him that they’re open for business.

Even if Grill isn’t investing, he still wants Luma Launch to play the role in the community that he hoped it always would. “Luma Launch can be that support mechanism that we have been trying to be since day one,” says Grill. “If we can help support entrepreneurs both here in LA and around the country to connect with relevant investors, then we’re all going to be better in the long run.”

In times of uncertainty, it’s best to have a clear and honest understanding of what’s happening in the market, not just performative assurances, says Grill.

“I want to create an ecosystem where everyone can recognize that people are trying to be active,” he says. That’s when I made the public post… I think someone needs to step up and open this up to the general community and the tech community as a whole to help decipher the noise.”

That said, the matchmaking service that Grill hopes to build won’t be open to every company, just the companies that have already raised at least a seed round of funding. For entrepreneurs just getting their businesses off the ground, Grill advises that they focus on building their product and customer base before tapping venture investment.

For established businesses that need additional support, the door remains open. “If you have the capability of helping someone, you have the responsibility to help someone,” Grill says.

Remote Year wants to help people travel around the world and keep their job while doing so. The Chicago startup relies on the idea that “great work can be done anywhere.” And to prove it, it brings people to 12 cities in 12 months, all while they’re working full-time jobs. Think co-working spaces in Ljubljana, code from bungalows in Thailand and workshops from rooftops in Istanbul.

Needless to say, Remote Year’s core business relies on wanderlust, disposable income and the ability to travel. 

Citing the COVID-19 pandemic, founder Greg Caplan told TechCrunch that Remote Year has laid off 50% of its staff. The layoff impacted roughly 50 roles on the sales, marketing and product side, and comes less than six months after the company raised a $5 million capital investment from LightBank, which brought its total funding to $17 million, according to Crunchbase data. 

“The borders sort of froze up with the virus and a lot of our folks decided not to travel and go home,” Caplan told TechCrunch. “Half of our revenue dried off in a couple of days, and there’s no end in sight when this situation may change.”

The startup says it still has runway from its last capital investment. Layoffs are expected to more largely hit the tech travel industry due to the global pandemic and people staying inside. Earlier this week, travel savings startup Service shut down operations, citing the pandemic and economic downturn. 

Remote Year charges between $2,000 and $3,000 a month for its travel programs per person. This includes travel to and between destinations, private rooms and activities. Caplan said that Remote Year staff has always been a distributed team, and by nature of industry, it was “monitoring” COVID-19 for over a month before the onslaught of cancellations and news.

“But monitoring it and talking about it was very different [from] what has unfolded in the last seven days,” Caplan said. 

To help the employees that were laid off, Caplan looked inward. Remote Year has always had a three-person team that connects people to remote jobs. That team will be helping its former colleagues through 1:1 coaching, resume interviews, interview preparation and contract negotiations. He urges other founders to do whatever they can to “humanize this” global pandemic, and reach out if needed. 

“We’ve actually heard from a couple other companies that want our help finding remote jobs for employees,” Caplan said. “We’re not sure what that means for our business, but we’re going to think about how we can help.”

Glossier NYC, in normal times, is typically visited by more than 2,000 people every day, with lines of people from all over the world curling out the door. And when you enter, it’s tempting to touch, well, everything.

The walls are adorned with flowers, mirrors and giant versions of the makeup company’s flagship product: Boy Brow. Makeup is sold on communal tables, where customers are encouraged to try products. Emily Weiss, the founder of the unicorn startup, calls customer meetups as she sees them: community events.

And, of course, in the store, there are also a few sinks to wash off your makeup (and your hands).

The challenge of running a startup that has a high physical component has become one of the big themes in the world of tech in the last several weeks. Indeed, as companies like Google, Facebook and Zoom do their parts to help people stay connected during the novel coronavirus pandemic, and research for cures, another story has taken shape in a different area of the tech world: startups and larger tech companies with “high touch” models — not just based on customer relationships but literally business models with strong physical components — are facing a world of challenges at a time when people are being asked to stay indoors, and stay away from each other.

To stave off cash shortages and closures, businesses are taking a variety of approaches, and rethinking how they run their businesses, to keep going. In some countries, governments are stepping in to keep businesses from collapsing, while some startups are hoping that their investors will continue to support them as the pandemic continues to spread.

In other cases, startups are quietly coming together to compare notes on how best to tackle legal and other hurdles in an unprecedented environment. (So quietly, in fact, that they didn’t want to talk about this on the record.) When is the right time to talk to insurance companies? How do you negotiate with them and will you ever get anything out of those discussions? What recourse does a company have for forfeiting some payments that are coming due? How do you handle headcount if you lack the liquidity to survive a big dip in your business? What are the best practices for running a business in a reduced or altered form?

“This has been the most difficult five continuous days in all of my team’s careers,” Vibhu Norby, the CEO and founder of b8ta — a chain of retail stores that act as a marketplace between consumers and lots of different hardware and other companies, letting potential buyers try out products before buying — said in an interview. “We don’t have any other business other than our physical one, that’s all we do. But we have an amazing team and there are things that we’re doing that are useful, but there is no playbook for this.”

It’s not all doom and gloom. With people home-bound and spending a significantly higher amount of time online, tech companies that innately support social distancing are getting a huge boost in purchasing. Think in particular e-commerce delivery services such as online grocers, and Amazon. Some are finding that they’ve had to curtail services to be able to meet demand. Others like streaming services are seeing giant spikes in their traffic.

(Haven’t) been there, (haven’t) done that

The trajectory of impact on startups has been a wide one, starting earliest with major events. Conferences and expositions have become something of a cornerstone of how startups come together and do business in a global economy. While we clearly have tech hubs where face-to-face contact is as easy as grabbing a coffee, events become a place where you can catch people from many other corners, or even those who don’t regularly come out of the woodwork.

All of that has changed this year, with just about every major confab this year (so far) getting cancelled. CES, at the beginning of January, just made it through; RSA surprisingly went ahead last month. But many events have been taken off the table: MWC in Barcelona, SXSW in Austin, events from Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, E3, GDC and so many more.

People love to complain about how conferences and expositions are a noisy mess, but the fact of the matter remains that they have no rival when it comes to meeting people and doing deals at scale.

The events themselves are tech businesses in their own right, marketplaces that generate billions of dollars in revenues, and connecting hundreds of thousands people for potential B2B sales. “This is going to impact our business for sure,” one exec at a startup (who didn’t want to be named) told TechCrunch when the huge mobile confab in Barcelona was cancelled over coronavirus fears. “MWC is a major event for us…the largest source of qualified sales leads on our calendar. No other event comes close.”

If events businesses were the first wave of “high touch” tech outfits to be impacted by coronavirus, following closely behind has been the transportation and tourism industries — connected to the events business but also far exceeding it in scope.

People have chosen, been requested and sometimes been forced, to stop moving around in an attempt to mitigate the spread of the virus — creating a significant knock-on effect not just for transportation companies, but also the wider tourism industry, “The biggest nuclear winter in online travel,” as one founder put it last week. As people increasingly stay put, Airbnb this week extended its own extenuating circumstances refund policy so that people can rebook already reserved stays that were supposed to happen in the next month.

Transportation, of course, hasn’t only seen restriction for long-distance travel, or even for the carriage of just humans. Uber and Lyft have both cut back on rides, specifically shared, carpool-style services, in an attempt to “flatten the curve” to reduce the frequency of new cases brought on by too much contact, and food delivery services have introduced “contactless” delivery to minimise contact with customers, especially with those who might be infected and are quarantining at home.

“The health and wellbeing of our couriers and customers is our top priority and we think these practices will help give some peace-of-mind to our fleet, while also decreasing the interaction and contact between both parties,” a spokesman for Glovo, a European delivery startup, said last week when the measures were introduced.

But the impact extends beyond obvious sectors like transportation and tourism. Take makeup, for instance.

While Glossier does a majority of its sales online, it temporarily closed its retail locations last week to limit customer interactions. In some ways makeup is innately an industry that requires you (or someone else) to touch your face. Glossier is brainstorming ways to stay in contact with customers, such as FaceTime consultations and Slack groups.

Per Glossier, it hasn’t yet received questions from customers on how to handle the aspect of makeup application in a time when we are told to not touch our faces. It is, however, telling people to wash their hands.

There’s also Revel, which is a marketplace for women over 50 to host and attend small gatherings and stay connected. Given the age group and social aspect of the company, Revel has cancelled all in-person Revel events through at least the end of March.

“The decision to cancel in-person events has an immediate business impact for us,” the co-founders wrote in an email to TechCrunch.

Revel is working on a speaker series over Zoom, virtual walks where members can be connected via FaceTime or audio to go on walks together, and happy hours. The list goes on with book clubs and writing groups.

Similarly, London startup Jolt built a business around a concept of “pay-monthly” business classes that had a strong in-person component: not only was the idea to learn in a physical classroom, but those involved got opportunities to network with other students before and after courses, participate in breakout sessions, work in partner groups with other students and access presentations.

Now with those in-person classes on hold, Jolt has moved up the launch of “Jolt Remote,” an online version that it had previously planned to ship in 2021, which aims to preserve all the dynamics of the startup’s previous, offline efforts. “The company felt it necessary to expedite its rollout in order to keep their students safe, and to reduce the need for their education to be disrupted in the wake of COVID-19,” a spokesperson said.

Jolt‘s teachers will continue to work as they always did, she continued. But instead of their students meeting up in Jolt campuses, they’ll now be able to access the courses virtually.

While Revel’s shifts are likely to have an impact on its bottom line, they said, it was the right decision. Few startups and investors have even started to point at the new innovation that will come out of this pandemic as a bittersweet externality.

Revel, while it only operates in the Bay Area, has more than 200 members from geographies as far as South Africa. They’re planning to join the upcoming virtual gatherings.

The founders say it is helping Revel to build virtual capabilities that they will be able to use in the future when geographic distance, illness or other factors isolate members who need connection.

It’s helping an in-person company think what it means to be in-person.

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

Today we’re taking a look at the world of esports venture capital investment, largely through the lens of preliminary data that we’ll caveat given how reported VC data lags reality. That phenomenon is likely doubly true in the current moment, as COVID-19 absorbs all news cycles and some venture rounds’ announcements are delayed even more than usual.

All the same, the data we do have paints a picture of a change in esports venture investment, one sufficient in size to indicate that an esports VC slowdown could be afoot. As with all early looks, we’re extending ourselves to reach a conclusion. But… no risk, no reward.

We’ll start by looking at Q1 2020 esports venture totals to date, compare them to year-ago results, and then peek at Q4 2019’s results and its year-ago comparison to get a handle on what else has happened lately in the niche. The picture that the quarters draw will help us understand how esports investing is starting a year that isn’t going as anyone expected.

Venture results

Today we’re using Crunchbase data, looking at both global and U.S.-specific venture totals in both round and dollar volume. To get a picture of the competitive gaming world, we’re examining investments into companies that are tagged as “esports” related in the Crunchbase database. Given that this is a somewhat wide cut, the data below is more directional than precise and should be treated as such.

Sramana Mitra: What kinds of ventures do you think you add the most value to and, hence, what are you looking to invest in? Ashish Jain: We are a technology firm. We are lovers of technology. We...

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As a former Jam City executive, Jill Wilson led teams behind some of the top-grossing gaming franchises, like Cookie Jam and Panda Pop. Now she’s running her own startup, Robin Games, where a team of mostly women is working to create a new niche in mobile entertainment they’re calling “lifestyle gaming.” As the name implies, the idea is to create a mobile gaming experience — in this case, fantasy gaming — that’s more like the sophisticated and stylish lifestyle content that’s popular today.

Robin Games is backed by $7 million in seed funding, the company announced on Thursday, as it made its public debut. The round was led by early-stage fund LVP, which has invested in other to game companies including Supercell, Playfish, and NaturalMotion . Additional investors in the oversubscribed round include 1Up Ventures, Alpha Edison, Everblue Management, firstminute Capital, Greycroft Tracker Fund, Hearst Ventures, and Third Kind Venture Capital.

“Traditionally in gaming, when you say ‘fantasy,’ you mean dragons and other mythical creatures, disproportionately built women, armies and battles and explosions and glory,” explained Wilson, Robin Games’ sole founder and CEO. “As a lifelong gamer, I love (most) of these themes, but traditional gamers are no longer in the majority. Thanks to the smartphone, everyone now has access to a gaming console in their pockets. We are expanding the definition of “fantasy” for this modern wave of gamers, whose fantasies are just as diverse as they are,” she added.

Wilson clarified that she’s not meaning to stereotype women as not enjoying fantasy games about things like warriors and dragons. Instead, Robin Games aims to expand the types of fantasies being explored through gaming — including those mobile gaming has yet to include.

While the company isn’t yet announcing its first titles or specific details, like launch dates, the games are said to cover content you’d typically find in a lifestyle magazine, on an Instagram influencer’s profile or on a lifestyle blog for example.

“We are focused on developing games that are deeply sophisticated under the hood, with an elevated, real-world, approachable style that reflects more of the lifestyle content you’d previously see outside of gaming,” Wilson told TechCrunch .

All this will be wrapped up in the free-to-play business model that powers most top-grossing games. In addition, Robin Games’ strategy will allow it to expand to include a partnership strategy, which will diversify its revenue streams further down the road.

Wilson said the idea for Robin Games was something she had in mind for some time, as she was personally looking for games to like this to play herself — only to find they didn’t exist.

“I’ve always designed products for myself first and foremost, which allows me to deeply connect with what the end-user really wants — since the end-user is me,” said Wilson. “Recently, I realized that not only did we have a unique answer to a pretty major gap in the market, but also that the timing was right and, most importantly, that we could pull together the exact right team to execute this vision.”

The startup is currently a team of nine based in Venice Beach. Management is 80% women and everyone had worked together to make hit games in years prior. In terms of hiring, the company is focused on building out a diverse team in order to better realize its vision, Wilson said, and, more broadly, change the face of the gaming industry as it stands today.

“Our mission goes beyond filling a gap in the market. We’re really looking to shake up the games industry, not only redefining what a modern game team looks like, but also changing the definition itself of what it means to be a gamer,” noted Wilson.

In previous studies, female players have been shown to prefer match-3 and social farming games, among others, with fantasy and MMOs further down the list, and sports and shooting games last. But the types of games Robin Games is proposing don’t really fit into any one category that exists today, so it’s still unknown how female gamers will respond.

However, it makes sense to target this underserved market, given that women account for 46% of all U.S. game enthusiasts.  

“Jill Wilson and her incredible team are already further along than most developers starting out,” added Are Mack Growen, partner at LVP and member of Robin Games’ Board of Directors, about the firm’s investment. “This team has developed and operated some of the world’s most successful games for a decade, and now they have assembled to bring premium experiences to the massively underserved audience of women. In addition to their industry expertise, they fundamentally understand their audience and the ingredients for powerful entertainment. We are proud to have led their seed round and look forward to helping them redefine what it means to be a gamer.”

 

 

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