The traditional process of buying, insuring and financing cars across emerging markets can be challenging, and it defeats the purpose of building an all-around car shopping experience. Today, FlexClub, a South African company, has been provided with $5 million to improve drivers’ experience in these markets.

FlexClub was founded in 2019 by Marlon Gallardo, Rudolf Vavruch and Tinashe Ruzane. The company is an online marketplace that connects customers looking for flexible access to long-term cars with its partners, offering car subscriptions.

That same year, the company closed a $1.2 million seed round led by CRE Venture Capital. According to Ruzane, the company’s CEO, this $5 million (in equity and debt) is a seed extension round, bringing the total investment raised by FlexClub to over $6 million. The company says it will use the funding to improve its technology which protects and limit partners’ exposure to risk.

Across emerging markets in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, most ride-hailing drivers don’t have access to car financing. Typically, they rent their cars via social media, classified sites, or connect with a car owner willing to rent. That was the model FlexClub launched in South Africa, and after raising $1.2 million, it expanded to Mexico.

Partnering with Uber in both countries and helping their community of drivers subscribe for cars, FlexClub claims to have garnered traction but wouldn’t divulge numbers. These customers, including those who use the cars for deliveries, are called commercial members by FlexClub. In December last year, the company decided to open up its product to another set of customers who are called private members.

“When we first started, we were focused on phase one of our strategy, which came from our knowledge about ride-hailing drivers because of our careers at Uber,” Ruzane said to TechCrunch. “We wanted to help a community of ride-hailing drivers that had been excluded from accessing cars. But right now, we’ve built the product to work for anyone and not just ride-hailing drivers.”

In FlexClub’s marketplace, cars are subscribed for between a hybrid of short- and long-term lease. It means customers pay an all monthly inclusive fee, and at any time, they can cancel a subscription, switch cars or buy it.

But to buy a car from FlexClub, drivers are encouraged to drive safely and comply with FlexClub’s recommendations while using the car. Doing that earns them points that accumulate over time, making cars cheaper to buy if they choose to.

This, alongside the use of banking, credit bureau and identity data, lets FlexClub assess its members’ risk profile and reward them when need be. 

Ruzane says last year was challenging for the company because of what it meant for mobility. At the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, ride-hailing members had financial difficulties. Still, the company partnered with delivery platforms to allow ride-hailing drivers to use their cars to transport goods and packages.

During that period, FlexClub was also able to partner with large brands like U.S. car rental company Avis to offer car subscriptions on its marketplace. Aside from Avis, Ruzane says the company’s partners range from small fleet owners to multinational fleet operators.

The pandemic made it possible for FlexClub to think outside the box and enlist these partners on its platform. However, it didn’t come easy as FlexClub has had to earn trust by building credibility.

“One of the challenges we have faced was that we had to build a reputation to be trusted in the industry. It took us two years to get a brand like Avis to see the value in putting their subscription offers on FlexClub. But with that established, it’s now a lot easier for us to continue investing in driving this new distribution model.”

He likens the distribution model of the automotive industry to how the music industry was decades ago. Then, CDs dominated music revenue but has now given way to streaming.

“If you look at what the music industry looked like 10 years ago, over 50% of music revenue was CDs. Now over 80% is streaming. The industry successfully transitioned from product-led distribution to service-led distribution. I think that’s what we can expect in the automotive industry over the next decade,” Ruzane remarked. “We can be an ally to the automotive industry in driving that evolution because we’ve tested our product in a marketplace with the segment of the population that people thought wasn’t a good profile of customers to serve.”

FlexClub’s expansion to Mexico instead of other African countries continues a series of global expansion that has become common for South African companies.

Two factors decided the move for FlexClub, according to the CEO. First, the founders are from both countries — Marlon Gallardo is Mexican while Rudolf Vavruch and Tinashe Ruzane are South Africans. Next, both markets have a lot of similarities in terms of how the automotive industry works.

South Africa and Mexico have large manufacturing bases and advanced secondary markets where brands can lease used cars. 

Kenya and Nigeria, on the other hand, have a different automotive value chain. Although there’s a growing manufacturing industry in both countries, it is still nascent as most vehicles are imported from countries like the U.S. and Japan.

That said, Tinashe says there’s an opportunity to take FlexClub to not only these regions but most emerging markets around the world. However, it is in no rush to do so.

FlexClub has been able to attract investors who are aligned with its mission of democratizing access to car financing and becoming a global mobility company.

Kindred Ventures, its lead investor, has backed mobility-first companies like Postmates, Uber and Virgin Hyperloop. Other VC investors include CRE Venture Capital and Endeavor. Angel investors like Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress; Federico Ranero, COO of KAVAK; Tariq Zaid, formerly of Shopify and Getaround; and Ron Pragides, formerly of Twitter and Salesforce, also took part in the round.

Montreal-based Heyday announced today that it has raised $6.5 million Canadian ($5.1 million in US dollars) in additional seed funding.

Co-founder and CEO Steve Desjarlais told me that the startup’s goal is to allow retailers to support more automation and more personalization in their online customer interactions, while co-founder and CMO Etienne Merineau described it as an “all-in-one unified customer messaging platform.”

So whether a customer is sending a message from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Google’s Business Messages or just via email, Heyday brings all that communication together in one dashboard. It then uses artificial intelligence to determine whether it’s a customer service or sales-related interaction, and it automates basic responses when possible.

Heyday chatbots can provide order updates or even recommend products (it integrates with Salesforce, Shopify, Magento, Lightspeed and PrestaShop), then route the conversation to a human team member when necessary.

There are other platforms that combine customer service and sales, but at the same time, Merineau said it’s important to treat the two categories as distinct and trust that a good service experience will lead to sales in the feature.

“We believe that helping is the new selling,” he said.

Desjarlais added, “We’re really against the ticket ID system. A customer is not a ticket …
I truly believe that every single customer is a relationship with a brand that needs to be nurtured over time and that will give more value to the brand over time.”

Heyday was founded in 2017 and says that over the past two quarters, it has doubled recurring revenue. Customers include French sporting good company Decathlon, Danish fashion house Bestseller to food and consumer product brand Dannon — Merineau noted that the platform was “bilingual out of the box” and has seen strong international growth.

“Retailers who believe that [the changes brought about by] COVID-19 are temporary are in the wrong mindset,” he said. “The new mantra of future-forward brands is ‘adapt or die.’ … Brands obviously want to delvier great service, but they care about the bottom line. We help them kill two birds with one stone.”

The startup had previously raised $2 million Canadian, according to Crunchbase. This new round comes from existing investors Innovobot and Desjardins Capital. Merineau said the money will help Heyday “double down on the U.S. and scale.”

A newly launched Mac app called Superpowered aims to make it easier to stay on top of all your Zoom calls and Google Meets, without having to scramble to find the meeting link in your inbox or calendar app at the last minute. Instead of relying on calendar reminders, Superpowered offers a notification inbox for the Mac menu bar that alerts you to online meetings just before they start, which you can then join with a click of a button.

To use Superpowered, you first download the app then authorize it to access to your Google Calendar. The app currently works with any Google account, including G Suite, as well as your subscribed calendars.

Once connected, Superpowered pulls all your events into the menu bar, which you can view at any time throughout the day with a click or by using the keyboard shortcut Command+Y.

When you have a meeting coming up, Superpowered will display a drop-down notification to alert you, or you can opt for a more subtle halo effect instead to have it get your attention. You can also configure other preferences — like whether you want a chime to sound, how far in advance you want to be alerted, whether you want a meeting reminder as text to appear in the menu bar ahead of the meeting and so on.

When it’s time for the meeting, all you have to do is click the button it displays to join your Zoom call or Google Meet. The solution is simple, but effective. The startup plans to add support for more integrations going forward, including Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx and others.

The idea for the app comes from four computer science and software engineering students from the University of Waterloo, who previously interned at tech companies like Google, Facebook, Asana and Spotify.

Wanting to build a startup of their own, the team applied to the accelerator Y Combinator with an idea to build a lecture platform for professors. But they soon faced issues in keeping up with their own calendar appointments as they began to conduct user research interviews.

“We were struggling to keep up with each other’s calendars and balance all these meetings throughout the day,” explains Superpowered co-founder Jordan Dearsley, who built the service alongside teammates Nikhil Gupta, Ibrahim Irfan and Nick Yang. “We would be at lunch and be like, ‘Oh shoot, we have a meeting now — I have to run!’ or just completely miss it altogether,” he says.

Irfan had the idea to just put a button in the Mac menu bar to make it easier to join Zoom meetings and soon the team pivoted to work on Superpowered instead.

The product itself is very new. Development work began roughly two months ago and Superpowered opened up to users just last month — a quick pace that Dearsley says was possible because three of the four team members are engineers, and the other, Yang, is the designer.

Although it’s a paid product offered at $10 per month, Superpowered already has hundreds of users who are interacting with the app, on average, 10 times per day. Busier users, like product managers, are clicking on Superpowered as many as 20 to 40 times per day — an indication that it’s found a place in users’ workflows. In the month since its launch, the app has connected users with over 10,000 online meetings, the company says.

Superpowered is not the first to add calendar appointments to the Mac’s menu bar. It competes with a range of products, like MeetingBar, Meeter, Next Meeting and others. But users have been responding to Superpowered’s sleek, clean design.

The company also has a vision for the product’s future that extends beyond meetings. After solving this particular pain point, Superpowered plans to broaden its scope to fix other annoyances for knowledge workers — like Slack notifications, for example.

“It’s really annoying to be pinged all the time while I’m coding … and I don’t know if it’s something that’s worth seeing because Slack doesn’t really give me those controls or ability to peek,” explains Dearsley. Meanwhile, Mac’s built-in Notification Center isn’t smart enough to show you just those items that you really need to know about.

To address this, the team is now working on a Slack integration that will let you quickly check your messages and reply without having to launch the Slack app. Further down the road, the team wants to integrate support for other platforms — like Google Docs, JIRA and GitHub — which would all be pulled into Superpowered’s universal notification inbox.

For the time being, Superpowered is $10 per month for Mac users or $8 per month for those who sign up with a team. Annual pricing is not yet available.

In 1998, Sun Microsystems piloted its “Open Work” program, letting roughly half of their workforce work flexibly from wherever they wanted. The project required new hardware, software and telecommunications solutions, and took about 24 months to implement.

Results were very positive, with a reduction in costs and the company’s carbon footprint. Despite this outcome, long-term remote work never really caught on more broadly. In fact, the 2010s were focused on going the other direction, as open offices, on-site perks and coworking spaces sprung up around the idea that in-person community is an essential component of innovation.

In 2020, companies of all sizes, in all corners of the world, were forced to shift to remote work with the onset of COVID-19. While some companies were better positioned than others — whether it be due to a previously distributed workforce, a reliance on cloud apps and services, or already-established flexible work policies — the adjustment to a fully remote workforce has been challenging for everyone. The truth is that even the largest companies have had to rely on the heroics of employees making sacrifices and persevering through numerous challenges to get through this time.

Technology like high-quality video conferencing and the cloud have been integral in making remote work possible. But we don’t yet have a complete substitute for in-person work because we continue to lack tooling in one critical area: passive collaboration. While active collaboration (which is the lion’s share) can happen over virtual meetings and emails, we haven’t fully solved for enabling the types of serendipitous conversations and chance connections that often power our biggest innovations and serve as the cornerstone of passive collaboration.

Active versus passive collaboration

Those outside of the tech industry may think that software engineers only need a computer and a secure internet connection to do their work. But the stereotype of the lone engineer coding away in solitude has long been shattered. The best engineering work isn’t done in isolation, but in collaboration, as teams discuss, wrangle and brainstorm through problems. Video conference platforms and chat applications help us collaborate actively, and tools like Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Google Docs allow for dedicated asynchronous collaboration, too.

But what we currently lack are the moments of spontaneous engagement that energize us and invite new ideas that otherwise wouldn’t have been part of the conversation. The long-term impact of not having access to this has not yet been measured, but it’s my belief that it will have a negative effect on innovation because passive collaboration plays such a critical role in fostering creativity.

The whiteboard

The best way to think about the differences between passive and active collaboration is to look at a whiteboard. Someone recently asked me, “What is it with people in tech and whiteboards? Why are they such a big deal?” Whiteboards are simple and “low-tech,” yet have become quintessential in our industry. That’s because they represent a source of multimodal collaboration for engineers. Let’s think back to before COVID. How many times have you walked by (or been a part of) a scrum meeting of engineers huddled around a whiteboard?

Have you ever stopped by because you overheard a snippet of a conversation and wanted to learn more or share your perspective? Or maybe something on a whiteboard caught your eye and caused you to start a conversation with another colleague, leading to a breakthrough. These are all moments of passive collaboration, which whiteboards so excellently enable (in addition to being a tool for real-time, active collaboration). They’re low-friction ways to invite new ideas and perspectives to the conversation that otherwise wouldn’t have been considered.

While whiteboards are one mode of facilitating passive collaboration, they aren’t the only option. Serendipitous meetings in the break room, overhearing a conversation from the next cubicle over, or spotting someone across the room who’s free for a quick gut check are also examples of passive collaboration. These interactions are a critical piece of how we work together and the hardest to recreate in a world of remote work. Just as silos in the development process are detrimental to software quality, so too is a lack of passive collaboration.

We need tools that will help us peek over at what other people are working on without the pressure of a dedicated meeting time or update email. The free and open exchange of ideas is a birthplace for innovation, but we haven’t yet figured out how to create a good virtual space for this.

Looking forward

The future of work is one in which teams are more distributed than ever before, meaning we need new tools for passive collaboration not just for this year, but for the future, too. Our own internal survey results tell us that while some employees prefer the option to be fully remote once the pandemic is behind us, the majority want a more flexible solution in the future.

Crucially, the answer is not to create more meetings or email threads, but instead to reimagine virtual spaces that can function like the classic whiteboard and other serendipitous modes of collaboration. As we all still look for ways to solve this challenge, we at LinkedIn have been thinking about how to encourage cross-team conversations and open Q&As to share resources, as a start.

For decades, the tech industry has paved the way for innovations in employee experience, creating spaces and benefits that reduced friction in collaboration and productivity. Now, as we look ahead to a hybrid work world, we must find new ways to continue supporting employee productivity and creativity. It’s only when we’re able to fully realize passive collaboration virtually that we’ll have unlocked the full potential of remote and hybrid work situations.

As Roblox began to trade today, the company’s shares shot above its reference price of $45 per share. Currently, Roblox is trading at $71.10 per share, up just over 60% from the reference price that it announced last night. That effort finally set a directional value of sorts on Roblox’s shares before it floated on the public markets. 

Roblox, a gaming company aimed at children and powered by an internal economy and third-party development activity, has had a tumultuous if exciting path to the public markets. The company initially intended to list in a traditional IPO, but after enthusiastic market conditions sent the value of some public-offering shares higher after they began to trade, Roblox hit pause.

The former startup then raised a Series H round of capital, a $520 million investment that boosted the value of Roblox from around $4 billion to $29.5 billion. TechCrunch jokes that, far from IPOs mispricing IPOs, that $4 billion price set in early 2020 was the real theft, given where the company was valued just a year later. Sure, the pandemic was good for Roblox, but seeing a 5x repricing in four quarters was hilarious.

Regardless. At $45 per share, Roblox’s direct listing reference price, the company was worth $29.1 billion, per Renaissance Capital, an IPO-focused group. Barron’s placed the number at $29.3 billion. No matter which is closer to the truth, they were both right next to the company’s final private price.

So, the Series H investors nailed the value of Roblox, or the company merely tied its reference price to that price. Either way, we had a pretty clear Series H → direct listing reference price handoff.

The company’s performance today makes that effort appear somewhat meaningless as both prices were wildly under what traders were willing to cough up during its first day of trading; naturally, we’ll keep tabs on its price as time continues, and one day is not a trend, but seeing Roblox trade so very far above its direct listing reference price and final private valuation appears to undercut the argument that this sort of debut can sort out pricing issues inherent in more traditional IPOs.

To understand the company’s early trading activity, however, we need to understand just how well Roblox performed in Q4 2020. When we last noodled on the company’s valuation, we only had data through the third quarter of last year. Now we have data through December 31, 2020. Let’s check how much Roblox grew in that final period, and if it helps explain how the company managed that epic Series H markup.

Gaming is popular, who knew

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.
“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie:

I’m an entrepreneur who wants to expand my startup to the U.S. What are the benefits and drawbacks of various types of visas and green cards?

The ones I’ve heard the most about are the H-1B, O-1 and EB-1A.

— Intelligent in India

Dear Intelligent:

I’m happy to hear you’re considering the O-1A extraordinary ability visa and the EB-1A extraordinary green card! Individuals often assume they need to have won a Nobel Prize or some other major award or be well known in their field to qualify for either the O-1A or the EB-1A — and that’s simply not the case.

“Particularly for folks from Asia, being a self-promoter is massively looked down upon. Humility is important,” says Navroop Sahdev, a pioneering economist and blockchain expert I recently interviewed for my podcast. Sahdev is founder and CEO of The Digital Economist, a Connection Science Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a partner at NextGen Venture Partners.

She spoke with me about her immigration journey to the United States, which included two H-1B visas, an O-1A visa and an EB-1A green card.

Here are the pros and cons of each visa and green card that you listed.

H-1B visa

Overall, the requirements for the H-1B specialty occupation visa are not as stringent as those for the O-1A visa and the EB-1A green card, which is why many employers sponsor international students who are on an F-1 visa and recently graduated or on OPT (Optional Practical Training) or STEM OPT for an H-1B.

Because demand for the H-1B far exceeds the annual supply of 85,000, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) holds a random lottery to determine who can apply for an H-1B. (That random lottery is slated to switch to a wage-based selection process next year.)

This morning Arist, a startup that sells software allowing other organizations to offer SMS-based training to staff, announced that it has extended its seed round to $3.9 million after adding $2 million to its prior raise.

TechCrunch has covered the company modestly before this seed-extension, noting that it was part of the CRV-backed Liftoff List, and reporting on some of its business details when it took part in a recent Y Combinator demo day.

Something that stood out in our notes on the company when it presented at the accelerator’s graduation event was its economics, with our piece noting that the startup “already [has] several big ticket clients and [says it] will soon be profitable.” Profitable is just not a word TechCrunch hears often when it comes to early-stage, high-growth companies.

So, when the company picked up more capital, we picked up the phone. TechCrunch spoke with the company’s founding team, including Maxine Anderson, the company’s current COO; Ryan Laverty, its president; and Michael Ioffe, its CEO, about its latest round.

According to the trio, Arist raised its initial $1.9 million around the time it left Y Combinator, a round that was led by Craft Ventures at a $15 million valuation. Following that early investment, the company’s business with large clients performed well, leading to it closing $2 million more last December. The founders said that the new funds were raised at a higher price-point than its previous seed tranche.

The second deal was led by Global Founders Capital.

The company’s enterprise adoption makes sense, as all large companies have regular training requirements for their workers; and as anyone who has worked for a megacorp knows, current training, while improved in recent years, is far from perfect. Arist is a bet that lots of corporate training — and the training that emanates from governments, nonprofits and the like — can be sliced into small pieces and ingested via text-message.

For that the company charges around $1,000 per month, minimum.

Arist did catch something of a COVID wave, with its founding team telling TechCrunch that pitching its service to large companies got easier after the pandemic hit. Many concerns better realized how busy their staff was when they moved to working from home, the trio explained, and with some folks suffering from limited internet connectivity, text-based training helped pick up slack.

We were also curious about how the startup onboards customers to the somewhat new text-based learning world; is there a steep learning curve to be managed? As it turns out, the startup helps new customers build their first course. And, in response to our question about the expense of that effort, the Arist crew said that they use freelancers for the task, keeping costs low.

Recently Arist has expanded its engineering staff, and plans to scale from around 11 people today to around 30 by the end of the year. And while Anderson, Laverty and Ioffe are based in Boston, they are hiring remotely. The startup serves global customers via a WhatsApp integration. So Arist should be able to scale its staff and customer base around the world effectively from birth. (This is the new normal, we reckon.)

What’s ahead? Arist wants to grow its revenues by 5x to 10x by the end of the year, hire, and might share if it wants to raise more capital around the end of the year.

Oh, and it partners with Twilio to some degree, though the group was coy on just what sort of discounts it may receive; the founding team merely noted that they liked the SMS giant and deferred further commentary.

All told, Arist is what we look for in an early-stage startup in terms of growth, vision and potential market scale — the startup thinks that 80% of training should be via SMS or Slack and Teams, the latter two of which are a hint about its product direction. But Arist feels a bit more mature financially than some of its peers, perhaps due to its price point. Regardless, we’ll check back in at the mid-point of the year and see how growth is ticking along at the company.

We’re putting aside the IPO news cycle this morning to check in on the venture capital world and the fintech market in particular.

As we all know, fintech is booming: Between Robinhood and Public and M1 Finance raising competing rounds, payment-tech startup Finix moving to diversify its cap table, and ideas that work in one market finding purchase and capital in others, it’s a damn good time to build financial technology.

But perhaps even with all that recent knowledge, we’re still missing the point.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

A provisional report from data and research group CB Insights indicates that we’re not merely in a warm period for fintech funding  — we are in a period of all-time record investment for so-called mega-rounds, or investments of $100 million or more inside the fintech realm.

The first quarter of 2020 had stiff competition to overcome to set a mega-round record. The preceding period, Q4 2020, for example, saw 30 fintech rounds across the globe that were worth nine figures. But, to date, Q1 2021 is ahead and is thus guaranteed to set a new record, having already bested the preceding all-time high.

This morning we’re talking big money and fintech, with a splash of early-stage digging. I asked a CB Insights analyst about what appears to be falling fintech seed deal volume. Is this the result of data reporting delays inherent to seed data, the impact of SAFEs and other sorts of notes limiting visibility into the earliest stages of venture, or just a plain-old slowdown? Let’s find out.

Big, bigger, small, fewer

Per the interim CB Insights dataset, there have been some 33 fintech mega-rounds so far in 2021. For context, it’s more than 50% more such rounds in Q1 2020 and Q1 2019. Via the preliminary report, here’s the data:

A team of mobile app engineers and designers from companies like Rent the Runway, ClassPass, Kickstarter and others, are now launching their own startup, Runway, to address the common pain points they experienced around the mobile app release cycle. With Runway, teams can connect their existing tools to keep track of the progress of an app’s release, automate many of the manual steps along the way and better facilitate communication among all those involved.

“Mobile app releases are exercises in herding cats, we often say. There’s a lot of moving pieces and a lot of fragmentation across tools,” explains Runway co-founder Gabriel Savit, who met his fellow co-founders — Isabel Barrera, David Filion, and Matt Varghese — when they all worked together as the first mobile app team at Rent the Runway.

“The result is a lot of overhead in terms of time spent and wasted, a lot of back and forth on Slack to make sure things are ready to ship,” he says.

Typically, interdisciplinary teams involving engineers, product, marketing, design, QA and more, will keep each other updated on the app’s progress using things like spreadsheets and other shared documents, in addition to Slack.

Meanwhile, the actual work taking place to prepare for the release is being managed with a variety of separate tools, like GitHub, JIRA, Trello, Bitrise, CircleCI and others.

Runway is designed to work as an integration layer across all the team’s tools. Using a simple OAuth authentication flow, the team connects whichever tools they use with Runway, then configure a few settings that allow Runway to understand their unique workflow — like what their branching strategy is, how they create release branches, how they tag releases and so on.

In other words, teams train Runway to understand how they operate — they don’t have to change their own processes or behavior to accommodate Runway.

Once set up, Runway reads the information from the various integration points, interprets it and takes action. Everyone on the team is able to log into Runway via its web interface and see exactly where they are in the release cycle and what still needs to be done.

“We’re forming this glue, this connective tissue between all of the moving pieces and the tools, and creating a true source of truth that everybody can refer to and sync or gather around. That really facilitates and improves the level of collaboration and getting people on the same page,” Savit says.

As the work continues, Runway helps to identify problems, like missing JIRA tags, for example. It then automatically backfills those tags. It can also help prevent other mistakes, like when the incorrect build is being selected for submission.

Another automation involves Slack communication. Because Runway understands who’s responsible for what, it can direct Slack notifications and updates to specific members of the team. This reduces the noise in the Slack channel and ensures that everyone knows what they’re meant to be working on.

Currently, Runway is focused on all the parts of the mobile app release cycle from kickoff to submission to the actual app store releases. On its near-term roadmap, it plans to expand its integrations to include connections to things like bug reporting and beta testing platforms. Longer term, the company wants to expand its workflow to include launching apps on other platforms, like desktop.

The startup is currently in pilot testing with a few early customers, including ClassPass, Kickstarter, Capsule and a few others. These customers, though not all yet paying clients, have already used the system in production for over 40 app release cycles.

The startup’s pricing will begin at $400 per app per month, which allows for unlimited release managers and unlimited apps, access to all integrations, and iOS and Android support, among other things. Custom pricing will be offered to those who want higher levels of customer support and consulting services.

The startup doesn’t have an exact ETA to when it will launch publicly as it’s working to onboard each customer and work closely with them to address their specific integration needs for now. Today, Runway supports integrations with the App Store, Google Play, GitHub, JIRA, Slack, Circle, fastlane, GitLab, Bitrise, Linear, Jenkins and others, but may add more integrations as customers require.

Runway’s team of four is mostly New York-based and is currently participating in Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 virtual program. The company hasn’t yet raised a seed round.

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The Nordic countries make up just 4% of Europe’s total population, but they account for a significant amount of venture capital investment.

That said, Norway’s VC community has been somewhat dormant for a while. The country makes far too much money from oil, giving it one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds and a large system of socialized support. Not a bad thing, but as a result, there are few “hungry” tech entrepreneurs.

High-profile players like Northzone and Creandum did well with early entries into Spotify and Klarna, among others, and now Norway is catching up with the rest of the European hubs. Among the trends our survey respondents identified were e-commerce, blockchain and crypto, healthtech, energy, mobility and climate.

Investments highlighted included Fairown, Kahoot, Spacemaker, Cognite, Pexip, PortalOne, Dignio, Speiz, Plaace, Glint Solar, variable.co and Nomono. Local investors tend to invest 50% to 90% of their fund into local startups, “but we do look at deal flow in all Nordic countries,” said one.

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On the horizon, there is hope for an increased focus on mental health and wellness from organizations, the press and the government; many also celebrated the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, bitcoin’s rise and a new occupant in the White House.

Green shoots of recovery are coming from portfolio revenue growth, exits and IPOs. One investors we spoke to said Norway is “becoming a major hub, with scale-ups and international capital incoming much faster these days.”

Here’s who responded to our survey:

Sean Percival, managing partner, Spring CapitalEspen Malmo, founding partner, Skyfall VenturesKjetil Holmefjord, partner, StartupLabAnne Solhaug Tutar, partner, AntlerDaniel Holth Larsen, principal, InvestinorMagne Uppman, managing partner, SNÖ Ventures

Sean Percival, managing partner, Spring Capital

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
E-commerce.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
Fairown.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
Martech.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
Not just COVID-proof but services that thrive in COVID times.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?
In Norway, sustainability-focused companies. Lots of good ideas but little revenue growth proven so far.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
50% Norway, 50% Nordic/Baltic.

Which industries in your city and region seem well positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
Norway does video tech well.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
Strong B2B, weak B2C, lots of SDG focus.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
We are not so hard hit in Norway, so Oslo will likely not see much exodus. It’s still the best place to build a company in this country. Although personally I moved to a small village and don’t see myself moving back to Oslo.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
E-commerce is booming here post-COVID, where before it was rather weak.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
Our portfolio is heavy on SaaS, which has weathered things well. So for our founders, it’s mostly about keeping churn-and-burn rates low to survive.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
In some cases yes, including our e-commerce SaaS companies and my recent Bitcoin exchange investment (MiraiEx).

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
Bitcoin’s rise and new open banking solutions have shown the world’s financial engines are still pushing forward. Everything is being built with less friction these days. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know. Iterate is a cool company builder company flying under the radar. Just had their first big investment success/cash out with a company called Porterbuddy.

Any other thoughts you want to share with TechCrunch readers?
Norway is slowing, becoming a major hub with scale-ups and international capital incoming much faster these days (recent investments from SoftBank and Founders fund, for example).

Espen Malmo, founding partner, Skyfall Ventures

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
Skyfall focuses on software companies, marketplaces and hardware companies with a recurring software revenue bundle. We are really excited about the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. Our team has been involved and invested in crypto since 2012, so we’ve been excited about the industry for a long time. We have invested in two great companies in the sector, the blockchain analytics tool Nansen.ai and the cryptocurrency exchange MiraiEx. We also love embedded commerce and social commerce, which we think will boost the more independent long tail of e-commerce in the years to come. Our portfolio company Outshifter is positioned well to utilize this trend.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
It is always hard to pick favorites since we are excited about all our investments, but Nomono is one that really excites us. Nomono is a software and hardware solution to capture and intelligently process voice recordings and spatial audio. The solution enables podcasters to edit their recordings with the click of a button, as a sort of digital audio technician in your pocket.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
This is super hard to pinpoint and it is really challenging to label an industry as overlooked. Bioinformatics is maybe a little bit overlooked in Norway, but I don’t feel that is the case globally. Also, I think the pure B2B SaaS focus of a lot of VC funds makes it harder than necessary to get funding for hardware companies and companies with a rundle business model, even though hardware revenues bundled with recurring software revenues can create extraordinary outcomes due to high order values and strong lock-in effects.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
We invest in strong technical founders solving big problems in markets ripe for change. We usually prefer that the company has a prototype or beta of their solution and some initial market traction.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?
Both micromobility and telemedicine seem very crowded at this point, and we believe the current market leaders in these sectors will become the winners. I think it will be very hard to enter this space as a new startup at this moment in time.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
We have a Nordic investment mandate, but we primarily focus on Norway as we are a Norwegian pre-seed/seed fund and have our competitive insight, network and brand here in Norway. So more than 50% in Norway, but we do look at deal flow in all Nordic countries.

Which industries in your city and region seem well positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
Norway has a great track record within the video conferencing and audio industry. After Cisco bought Tandberg, a world-leading video conferencing company, for $3.3 billion in 2010, Video Valley (the area of Lysaker right outside of Oslo) has churned out a lot of successful companies within the space. For example, Acano (acquired by Cisco for $700 million), Pexip (IPO’ed, now valued at $1.4 billion) and Huddly (IPO’ed, now valued at $0.5 billion). From our own portfolio, both Nomono and Oivi are started by serial entrepreneurs with track records from successful Video Valley companies. Also, Norway is by far the leading country globally in adoption of electric vehicles per capita, and today over 50% of all new cars bought are electrical. This means that Norway is a great playing field for startups piggybacking on the EV revolution and also the green revolution in general. The EV home charger Easee is a company to watch.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
Norway is a country where you get access to a highly educated and technically skilled workforce that is proficient in English, and the valuation of the companies is well below the levels you see in the U.S., or even in Sweden. I think Norway is a country to watch, but I obviously also believe that all the Nordic countries will continue to punch well above their “weight class” in the years to come.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
Yes, the acceptance of working remotely will democratize the startup ecosystem globally. We should see a relative decrease in growth in the traditional hubs of Silicon Valley/SF, Beijing, London, Berlin and so on, compared to a relative increase in companies formed and managed “in the cloud.” We already have one such company in our portfolio, Nansen.ai, which truly is distributed across the world, “in the cloud,” and has been so from day one.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
We do not invest in sectors that have been hit directly by the pandemic, so we have been lucky in that way.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
No, we have in many ways been affected positively by COVID-19 as we have major investments in companies that are working with remote work, home delivery, e-commerce, cryptocurrencies and so on. In general, technology looks like the winning category during this pandemic, and I believe that will continue.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
As answered above, a lot of our companies are actually performing better than usual amid COVID.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
The decline in infections locally and the rollout of the COVID vaccines. Also, Trump leaving the Oval Office. I don’t think I would have managed four more years with him in the spotlight, inciting hatred and nonsense on Twitter.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystems roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.
Yes, Johan Brand, co-founder of Kahoot and now an angel investor.

Kjetil Holmefjord, partner, StartupLab

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
Sector agnostic. Personally interested in climate.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
Latest one announced: Variable.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now? What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
Positive impact, fast team, big returns.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
100% Norway.

Which industries in your city and region seem well positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
Video, health, climate.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
Getting better every day.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
Increase but maybe not a surge.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
Uncertain.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
More international competition for investment opportunities.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
Yes.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
Vaccine news.

Anne Solhaug Tutar, partner, Antler

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
We focus on technology companies and are industry agnostic in general, but in Oslo we have a particular focus on startups within the energy, property and mobility sector.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
Speiz, Plaace and Glint Solar are a few examples.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
Absolutely! We love any company that removes friction and focuses on solving real problems. Very often we see that the best companies are started by founders that have directly been impacted by an inefficiency or problem themselves, and later dedicate their lives to fixing it. Those founders will go above and beyond, and work relentlessly to understand their customers’ needs. We will see a lot of new opportunities from decentralized finance and a shift to a truly global economy where borders and barriers will be surpassed with smart technology.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
The most important factor for any investment we make: a very strong co-founder team. Beyond that, a thoroughly validated business idea and model, a concept that has the potential to scale, traction; rapid growth week over week and founders solving a real problem and not a made-up problem.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?
We have a decade behind us of incremental innovations. In the next 10 to 20 years, we will see huge leaps and groundbreaking new technologies. Lots of current small improvement solutions will be replaced by technologies that are dramatically changing the way we live, work, collaborate and act.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
We can invest anywhere, but the Oslo branch typically invests in locally established companies. I’d say 90%.

Which industries in your city and region seem well positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
Our focus in Norway says a lot about the industries we think have potential for disruption and where Norway holds a particularly strong position; energy, property and mobility.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
Compared to other locations, we see that startups based out of Oslo are typically cheaper than in other parts of the world. Investors that are able to identify the right founders can make great investments in Norway. At the same time, Norwegian founders would benefit from more investors with an international focus. The ecosystem of investors and accelerators is rapidly growing in Oslo, and with more and more successful local startups we have a great environment set up for breeding more great companies going forward. We’re very bullish on what will come out of Oslo over the next few years.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
Generally we experience two simultaneous trends: More talent being freed up from their previous engagements and more uncertainty, with founders being more on the fence about making the leap. We haven’t made observations of this being connected to specific cities or areas yet.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
I’m not sure it’s wise to develop completely new businesses based on opportunities from COVID only; rather, COVID can, timing-wise, really spark the launch or growth for some and significantly slow down the growth pace for others.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
We invest as per normal and see that there is still a lot of capital ready to be deployed in Norway. Our companies have received a lot of soft funding from government initiatives, which is a huge and highly appreciated help to our portfolio companies. For our startups, and most others, the advice is always to keep the burn rate at manageable levels during this time of extra uncertainty, and plan the fundraising strategy accordingly. Otherwise, it’s never been more important to be lean and agile. The founders that are able to navigate well in a context with lots of uncertainty can do really well in the current climate!

Daniel Holth Larsen, principal, Investinor

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
Resource efficiency, healthier lifestyles, internet of behaviors, how we work and learn.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
Dignio (SaaS/medtech).

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
Forestry technology; a lot of focus on agriculture, but not forestry. Massive market opportunity, well positioned for SDGs, and driven by megatrends (building with wood, etc.).

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
In general: Proven scalability in a massive global market opportunity, with a (both) nice and savvy founding team.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?

I think the consumer fintech space will get hard for startups in the coming years. Banks and institutions have competitive advantages through their large customer bases and access to resources and are investing heavily in the space (both through M&A, but more importantly with in-house initiatives and projects).Not one particular product per se, but I’m concerned about nice-to-have enterprise products that are not embedded and adapted in several departments of the customer (i.e., a marketing tool solely used by the marketing team at an organization, or a procurement tool used exclusively by procurement). I think many of these services will have a hard time in the tailwinds of COVID, and I think it is essential to get noticed by C-suites and other departments to survive in the longer run (regardless of your size and number of customers).

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
More than 50%. We are the largest and most active player in Norway by far. In 2020, we did 16 new direct investments, more than 60 follow-up investments, four IPOs, six investments in other venture funds, two complete exits.

Which industries in your city and region seem well positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
The Norwegian ecosystem will continue to thrive and be more and more relevant internationally in regards to software, particularly B2B software. This is driven by:

Leading technological adaption and usage by the government, institutions and business.Low risk in career changes: talent fluctuating from leading companies to startups.Leading support and growth financing initiatives: Innovation Norway, funds, etc.Great global market access: EU networks, foreign investments, etc.

I think we especially have advantages in subsectors like proptech, energy, healthcare and education. I’m particularly excited about Kahoot, Cognite, Dignio (portfolio), Xeneta (portfolio), Gelato, Play Magnus (portfolio) and reMarkable.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?

Transparent way of doing business: honest, close to zero corruption;High grade of innovation and many opportunities;Happy population = happy founders and FTEs, and high productivity;Favorable policies and regulation (policies and legal proceedings, IPOs, etc.);No language barriers;Significant support from government, institutions and local business.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
Maybe, maybe not. I still think cities will be the most prominent location for startups as (1) Big business is not rural, and startup founders typically come from banks, consultancies, corporations, etc. and also recruit from the likes of it; and (2) Network access and information is more vast in cities, and even though people are currently staying at home, geographical proximity remains a key factor.
This might happen in the longer run as more corporations recruit more people remotely, but I don’t see this happening the next following years as a consequence of our situation today. I think it will take more time.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
Oil and gas; we have not made any new investments the last three years, but still have some companies in our portfolio (mostly specific technologies for the O&G industries). Its attractiveness was obviously declining pre-COVID as well, but the crisis has only made the sustainable shift stronger. I don’t see it rebounding to its previous levels. I think startups have opportunities in business partnerships cross-industry, and we are seeing many examples of that now. I also think that software companies that are thriving in the current market have a clear upper hand in building sustainable long-term cultures in their organizations and attracting talent from those other industries affected (travel, aviation, O&G, retail, hotels and accommodation, etc.).

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
Hasn’t impacted it in a big way as most of our companies are performing well. Founders are primarily concerned with the mental health of their employees. My advice: CEOs should especially spend a lot of time on vision and goals, culture, teamwork and collectiveness.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
Yes, last year was a record year for us both in terms of exits, IPOs and gross IRR in the portfolio. More than 80% of invested capital is in software, hardware and healthcare, and most of our companies are thriving. We see some, but very few, being negatively affected in a big way.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
I’m doing well personally, but I have enjoyed seeing:

Our fantastic team members and founders getting the recognition they deserve.Stagnating unemployment, people getting back to work.Increased focus on mental health and wellbeing from organizations, the press and government.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystems roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.
Some:
Kremena Tosheva (SNÖ Ventures, investor), Karen Dolva (No Isolation, founder CEO), Frida Rustøen (Idékapital, investor), Ann-Tove Kongsnes (Investinor, investor), Trond Riiber Knudsen (TRK, investor), Patrick Sandahl (Investinor, investor), Bente Sollid Storehaug (chairperson), Birger Magnus (chairperson), Erik Langaker (chairperson, investor), Anders Kvåle (Arkwright, entrepreneur, investor), Mathilde Tuv Kverneland (Arkwright X, investor), Dilan Mizrakli Landgraff (Antler, investor), Jacob Tveraabak (entrepreneur, investor), Remi Dramstad (Selmer, lawyer), Martin Schütt (Askeladden, founder/investor), Christian Sagstad (Thommessen, lawyer), Jan Grønbech (growth expert), Nils Thommessen (ex-lawyer, investor and board person), Eilert Hanoa (CEO of Kahoot, investor), Tom Even Mortensen (investor, growth expert), Birgitte Villmo (Investinor, investor), Bente Loe (Alliance Ventures, investor).

Magne Uppman, managing partner, SNÖ Ventures

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?
We invest across all digital tech, but some of the areas we have been looking more into lately include health tech, future of work, event and creative tech.

What’s your latest, most exciting investment?
Our latest investment was a follow-on investment in PortalOne, the world’s first hybrid games company. PortalOne converges gaming, shows and the broader entertainment industry into one platform in a really fun and engaging way. It is like nothing you have ever seen before. Spun out of Oslo, they are soon ready to launch in the U.S.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?
One space that continues to evolve is the integration of social into various sectors — e.g., social fitness, social shopping, etc. And particularly, how we can recreate the connections that we make in the physical world in the digital version, leveraging the unique accessibility and reach that the digital platform offers.
We also think there are significant advancements to be made within the privacy sector against a backdrop of increased data vulnerability and third-party access to information.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?
Brilliant and ambitious founder teams. And being in Norway, we want them to target a much larger and hopefully also global market pretty soon after launch. Norway and the Nordics are perfect testing pits, with a digitally advanced, high-trust population, but too small a market for most tech companies that want to become big.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?
We believe that most areas pretty fast become crowded, and try to avoid companies that do only incremental improvements in oversaturated areas. But we don’t necessarily avoid competition if the businesses have a transformative technology and see solutions or have secrets that others have not yet seen.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?
So far we’ve been focused on Norwegian companies only, but with our upcoming fund, we will be pan-Nordic. We expect that about 50% of our investments will be Norwegian, whereas the other 50% will be spread across Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

Which industries in your city and region seem well positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?
We see a good variety of exciting companies from Oslo and Norway. Kahoot, Spacemaker, Cognite and Pexip have been leading the way lately, with new ones like Memory, Tibber, PortalOne, reMarkable and many others coming right behind. We also believe that Norway’s strong roots with industrial companies now seem to move into tech, for example with a highly skilled workforce moving over from the oil and gas industry, as well as really exciting companies coming out of this area — Cognite being a strong example. Norway also has some unique strengths in ocean tech, renewable energy, agriculture and shipping, all fields that we believe will produce exciting startups built around tech advancements.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?
Oslo is a city with a strong foundation and an exciting momentum in tech. There’s too few local VCs, though, and that creates a funding gap around the Series A stage, but at the same time lots of opportunities for investors taking their time to get to know the ecosystem. They should know that the Nordics are fragmented, so it’s not enough to know Stockholm; they should also invest time in the other Nordic hubs in order to succeed with a Nordic investment strategy.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?
The trend of remote work will increase. We have portfolio companies that don’t even have an office today; Confrere, for instance, which offers a video meeting and conferencing platform currently focused primarily on the healthcare sector, has all their employees working remote. But we also see a strong advantage of companies being tightly connected to a startup hub, there is so much learning, inspiration and network to be shared. Hopefully we’ll see even more minihubs being built around the country, and them connecting tightly to each other. There is a lot of potential in more and better collaboration between the different hubs, locally, nationally and internationally.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?
Some of the industry segments that look weaker are business travel, retail and hospitality. Exciting opportunities exist within event, games, work tools and efficiency, health tech and sustainability. One particularly interesting challenge is to understand and anticipate which of the trends that have arisen during these times will be temporary and which will be permanent.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?
Some areas have developed fast, and that impacts which areas we focus on. The biggest worries on the portfolio side have been (1) that their B2B sales will be affected and (2) that the investment climate will be more challenging. Our advice has been to secure a long runway for some companies, whereas other companies have accelerated because of the shifts caused by COVID-19 and need to run even faster.

Are you seeing “green shoots” regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?
Yes, the first two months were hard for some of the portfolio companies, but after that things recovered and they mostly are back at the revenue growth that they planned for before the pandemic.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.
At SNÖ we often draw the comparison between being a founder and the proud heritage we have in Norway with polar explorers and their great expeditions. What our founders have shown the last year, through these uncertain times, gives me good hope that this comparison is valid like never before. Entrepreneurs are the polar explorers of 2021.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally, whether investors, founders or even other types of startup ecosystems roles like lawyers, designers, growth experts, etc. We’re trying to highlight the movers and shakers who outsiders might not know.
There are many in the Oslo scene that have contributed a lot during the last few years; Rolf Assev, Alexander Woxen, Per Einar Dybvik, Tor Bækkelund, Kjetil Holmefjord at StartupLab, Ingar Bentsen and Hans Christian Bjørne at TheFactory, Anniken Fjelberg at 657, Anders Mjåset at Mesh, Heidi Aven at SHE, Knut Wien and Maja Adriaensen at Startup Norway, Lucas H. Weldeghebriel and Per-Ivar Nikolaisen at Shifter. And many more. All great people who deserve praise.

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