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

Today we’re unpacking some new data concerning what happened to Silicon Valley’s venture capital market in Q1, with a special focus on private financings towards the end of the three-month period. If the deterioration in deal volume we’ll go over today persists into Q2, the United States’ largest startup market could be in for more than a bump as the global pandemic slows economic activity.

We’ve already talked to venture capitalists who invest in fintech, social companies, consumer startups, and other niches to understand the present state of the venture capital market. We’re also looking through data on the global and domestic venture scene, digging into local data on Boston and Utah. Other cities and states will be examined in the coming weeks.

Fluid situations demand lots of attention.

However, up until March of 2020, the venture capital and startup market had one speed (fast) and one goal (growth). The new normal of the COVID-19 era is different, and with the help of some excellent data from Fenwick and West, a legal firm that works with technology companies, let’s dig into how Silicon Valley’s venture scene nosedived as Q1 came to a close.

January, February, Ouch

The venture capital scene in Silicon Valley got off to a hot start in 2020. Fenwick’s collected data indicates that there were 126 financings in the region in January of this year — up more than 100% from the preceding year’s January tally of 60.

As we get further along in the new way of working, the new normal if you will, finding more efficient ways to do just about everything is becoming paramount for companies looking at buying new software services. To that end, Comet.ml announced a $4.5 million investment today as it tries to build a more efficient machine learning platform.

The money came from existing investors Trilogy Equity Partners, Two Sigma Ventures and Founder’s Co-op. Today’s investment comes on top of an earlier $2.3 million seed.

“We provide a self-hosted and cloud-based meta machine learning platform, and we work with data science AI engineering teams to manage their work to try and explain and optimize their experiments and models,” company co-founder and CEO Gideon Mendels told TechCrunch.

In a growing field with lots of competitors, Mendels says his company’s ability to move easily between platforms is a key differentiator.

“We’re essentially infrastructure agnostic, so we work whether you’re training your models on your laptop, your private cluster or on many of the cloud providers. It doesn’t actually matter, and you can switch between them,” he explained.

The company has 10,000 users on its platform across a community product and a more advanced enterprise product that includes customers like Boeing, Google and Uber.

Mendels says Comet has been able to take advantage of the platform’s popularity to build models based on data customers have made publicly available. The first one involves predicting when a model begins to show training fatigue. The Comet model can see when this happening and signal data scientists to shut the model down 30% faster than this kind of fatigue would normally surface.

The company launched in Seattle at TechStars/Alexa in 2017. The community product debuted in 2018.

Digital marketing company TapClicks announced this morning that it’s broadening its platform with the acquisition of AdStage.

AdStage first launched back in 2013 as a cross-network advertising startup, eventually expanding by automating ad campaigns and consolidating marketing data.

TapClicks founder and CEO Babak Hedayati told me that his goal is to build a “single, unified platform” for marketing. The company says it already sells interconnected products for analytics, intelligence, reporting, workflow and order management, with many of those capabilities coming from acquisitions — in 2019 alone, TapClicks announced that it was buying Megalytic, iSpionage and StatX.

By acquiring AdStage, Hedayati said TapClicks can deepen its intelligence capabilities, giving marketers a better understanding of how their campaigns are performing across different channels.

The companies said TapClicks made offers for the entire AdStage team to join, with the majority of the team accepting. AdStage co-founders Sahil Jain and Jason Wu are taking roles at TapClicks as general manager for marketing intelligence and vice president of engineering for marketing intelligence, respectively.

AdStage previously raised more than $15 million in funding from investors including Verizon Ventures, Freestyle Capital, 500Startups, Digital Garage and HubSpot. (Verizon owns TechCrunch.)

Jain said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, he was considering different paths for AdStage’s future. That might have meant raising more funding, but he realized that “consolidation is happening” across the industry, and that by joining a company that was “very financially sound, we could leverage those resources to build the stuff that we’ve always wanted to build … the cool stuff that truly help marketers not just see what they’re spending on and the cross-channel makeup, but where to spend the next dollar.”

He also praised the way TapClicks handled the acquisition — Jain said that as the world changed around them, Hedayati and the other executives “never wavered from the deal, they never changed the terms.”

Looking ahead, Hedayati argued that despite the broader downturn in ad and marketing spending, there are still opportunities. For one thing, he suggested that large enterprises are going to be less interested in making a big investment in building their own marketing tools.

“When they need a technology partner for martech, they’re calling us,” he said.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) reported its first quarter results this week and it failed to impress the market. The Covid-19 crisis gripping the world has also impacted IBM significantly, and the company pulled...

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Firefly Aerospace has signed an agreement with Spaceflight Inc. that provides Spaceflight with the majority of the payload capacity aboard a Firefly launch vehicle scheduled to take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California sometime in 2021. Spaceflight is a ride-share service provider for space-bound payloads, working with other companies to pool resources and combine spacecraft aboard one vehicle to defray the per-customer cost of a launch while maximizing use of the rocket’s payload capacity.

Firefly’s Alpha rocket, its first launch vehicle, will have a full payload capacity of 630 kilograms (around 1,400 pounds) to sun synchronous orbit, and Spaceflight will manage singing and integrating payloads from a number of customers to fill that capacity. This agreement also includes a provision that extends longer-term to future missions, with Spaceflight on board to help secure customers to join future Firefly Alpha launches as well.

Already, Spaceflight has emerged as a leading company in the rocket ride-share market, providing launch payload management services for 271 satellites across 29 different launches. Firefly is currently still in the testing phase for Alpha, but has made significant progress and continues its work despite the coronavirus pandemic, despite some setbacks including a fire on the test pad in January.

Firefly Aerospace still plans to fly Alpha for the first time later this year, with final acceptance testing of the vehicle’s first and second stages currently underway at the company’s Briggs, Texas facility. Should that initial test flight prove successful, the company should be in a good position to begin flying commercially in 2021.

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Vestiaire Collective just closed another big round of funding in the middle of an economic crisis — the round closed in early April. The startup raised $64.2 million (€59 million) and the company has raised more than €209 million in total, according to Crunchbase. Vestiaire Collective operates a marketplace of pre-owned fashion items. Users can both sell and buy clothes and accessories on the platform.

There’s a huge list of investors in today’s round — Korelya Capital, Fidelity International-managed funds, Vaultier7, Cuit Invest and existing investors Eurazeo (Eurazeo Growth and Idinvest Venture funds), Bpifrance, Vitruvian Partners, Condé Nast, Luxury Tech Fund and Vestiaire Collective CEO Max Bittner are all participating.

With 9 million members across 90 countries, Vestiaire Collective has become a huge marketplace. And it makes sense that an e-commerce website focused on pre-owned items is working well. There has been a ton of backlash against fast fashion over the past few years.

People now also value circular business models as it becomes more affordable to refresh your wardrobe, especially during an economic crisis, and it is better for the environment.

As always, Vestiaire Collective will use the new influx of cash to expand to more countries. In particular, with Korelya Capital as a new backer, the company will expand to South Korea and Japan this year. While the company started in France, 80% of transactions are now cross-border transactions.

Originally, Vestiaire Collective asked you to send your items to its warehouses to check them before putting them on sale. The startup has been betting on direct shipping from the seller to the buyer in Europe and it has been working well. You can get reimbursed if there’s something wrong with what you ordered though.

Direct shipping has been available in Europe since September 2019 and it now represents over 50% of orders in the region. Up next, Vestiaire Collective will introduce direct shipping in the U.S. this summer and in Asia by the end of 2020.

A lot of startups have answered the call for more personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essentials to support healthcare workers in their efforts to curb the spread and impact of COVID-19. One of those is direct-to-consumer 3D-printed eyewear brand Fitz, which is employing its custom-fit glasses technology to build protective, prescription specs for front-line healthcare workers in need of the best protection they can get.

Fitz Protect is a version of Fitz’s eyewear that uses the same custom measurement tool Fitz created for use via its iOS app, made possible by Apple’s depth-sensing Face ID camera on newer iPhones and all iPad Pro models. The app allows virtual try-on, and provides millimeter-level accurate measurements for a custom fit. Protect is a version of the glasses that still supports a wide range of prescriptions, but that also extends further like safety glasses to provide more coverage and guard against errant entry of any fluids through the eyes.

Healthcare professionals are doing what they can to ensure their face, mouth, nose and eyes are protected from any coughs, sneezes or other droplet-spreading activity from COVID-19 patients that could pass on the infection. These measures have more broadly focused on face shields that feature a single transparent plastic sheet, and N95  masks (and alternatives when not available) to protect the mouth and nose.

Fitz CEO Gabriel Schlumberger explained via email that the design for Fitz Protect came from working front-line doctors and nurses from New York, LA and Texas who were all looking for something to source prescription protective eyewear.

“More than 60% of doctors are glasses wearers, and current guidance is for them to stop wearing contact lenses,” Schlumberger explained, adding that Fitz Protect is also designed to be worn in conjunction with a face shield, when that’s an available option, to provide yet another layer of defense.

“We heard from prescription glasses wearers that their standard glasses didn’t provide anywhere near adequate coverage, especially over the eyebrows, and in some cases they were adding cardboard cut-outs,” he said. “We leveraged our existing system to create something much better. ”

Fitz’s model also helps on the pricing side because it’s already designed to be an aggressively cost-competitive offering when compared to traditional prescription eyewear. Their glasses typically retail for just $95 including frames, lenses and shipping, and are also offered in a $185 per year unlimited frame membership plan. For doctors, nurses and hospital staff, the entire cost of Fitz Protect is being waived, and the company is seeking donations to help offset its own manufacturing costs, which currently stand at around $100 per set, though process improvements should bring that down, according to Schlumberger, as they expand availability.

Already, he said that nearly 3,000 healthcare professionals have signed up to receive a pair in their first week of availability, so they’re working on adding scale to keep up with the unexpected demand.

Building a startup is hard enough. But COVID-19, our generation’s worst plot twist, gives new meaning to uncertainty and stress. No one had “pandemic” on their early-stage startup’s radar, which begs the question: How do you move your business forward in unprecedented times?

It’s a huge challenge, and we’ve worked hard to find a way to help you keep momentum in the face of lockdowns and travel restrictions. Drumroll please — the Digital Startup Alley Package, a virtual exhibition for startups at Disrupt SF (September 14-16).

Accept no virtual substitutes. Disrupt is the OG of startup conferences, and TechCrunch has the resources and industry connections to replicate the Startup Alley experience as a truly world-class virtual event.

The Digital Startup Alley Package lets early-stage, pre-Series A startups disrupt from home for only $445. Digital Startup Alley kicks off early, and it runs through the end of the physical event in September. Place your startup in front of thousands of influential investors, technologists, customers and media — with months to pitch, demo, network and schedule meetings.

The Digital Startup Alley Package covers three people and includes:

CrunchMatch: TechCrunch’s AI-powered founder/investor networking platform. Save time, zero in and connect with the people who can move your business forward. Each startup will create a customizable profile, allowing startups to easily note their value add and business model to potential customers and investors.

Exceptional Pitch Coaching: Grab a brew and join TechCrunch editors for Pitchers and Pitches — an interactive opportunity to learn from the best. Whip your pitch into shape with the team that coaches the Startup Battlefield competitors.

Exposure to Investors: Exhibiting startups will be included in a deck available exclusively to investors attending Disrupt SF.

Exhibitor Guide: The definitive resource to Startup Alley and Disrupt SF — modified to reflect our digital exhibitors. Plus, you get access to the content included with a Disrupt Digital Pro Pass.

Exclusive Founder Webinars: All Startup Alley exhibitors will get exclusive access to the brightest industry minds to hear their current thinking on ways startups can adapt and thrive both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pro Tip: Come September, if you can exhibit at Disrupt SF in person, you can upgrade your package and still enjoy the benefits of Digital Startup Alley.

Remember, founders don’t quit — they adapt and move forward. Buy your Digital Startup Alley Package today.

TechCrunch is mindful of the COVID-19 issue and its impact on live events. You can follow our updates here.

It would be easy to assume that Verizon’s purchase last week of video-conferencing tool BlueJeans was an opportunistic move to capitalize on the sudden shift to remote work, but the ball began rolling last June and has implications far beyond current work-from-home requirements.

The video-chat darling of the moment is Zoom, but BlueJeans is considered by many to be the enterprise tool of choice. The problem, it seems, is that it had grown as far as it could on its own and went looking for a larger partner to help it reach the next level.

BlueJeans started working with Verizon (which owns this publication) as an authorized reseller before the talks turned toward a deeper relationship that culminated in the acquisition. Assuming the deal passes regulatory scrutiny, Verizon will use its emerging 5G technology to produce much more advanced video-conferencing scenarios.

We spoke to the principals involved in this deal and several industry experts to get a sense of where this could lead. As with any large company buying a startup, outcomes are uncertain; sometimes the acquired company gets lost in the larger corporate bureaucracy, and sometimes additional resources will help grow the company much faster than it could have on its own.

What is BlueJeans?

After being forced to quickly shift plans and stage a remote demo day last month following the outbreak of COVID-19 stateside, Y Combinator announced today that they will officially be fully moving their next batch to a remote format.

In a post today on Y Combinator’s site, YC CEO Michael Seibel announced the move. “We have decided to run the S20 batch remotely, because amid the COVID-19 crises, the safety of founders and YC staff is our top priority.”

The Summer 2020 group of founders will operate fully online with interviews, office hours, evening talks and meetups taking place over video conferencing. This could assumedly extend to the group’s demo day as well, though that was not explicitly stated. Y Combinator had given startups in the most recent class the option to defer an onstage launch until a later Demo Day; it seems that those YC startups may not get that option for 2020.

As YC shifts online, questions are sure to only grow on whether founders are still getting a good deal from the accelerator in the midst of a crisis.

Founders joining the program give up a 7% slice of their company in exchange for $150K and, more importantly, access to YC’s network and group of advisors.

Y Combinator has already been scaling rapidly with larger class sizes, and this move will force the company to add a radical format change to the mix. Accelerator batches have ballooned in size in recent years, tapping out at 240 startups in this most recent class.

To account for these larger groups, YC has had to experiment with major format changes in how startups are grouped internally and how they present to investors. Losing their Demo Day last session meant founders lost easy access to in-person introductions with the large group of VCs that typically flock to the event.

Last week, TechCrunch reported that YC was changing the terms of its pro rata investment program and would be investing in startups on a case-by-case basis, shifting their years-old policy of investing in every company’s seed and Series A rounds.

Joshua Posamentier is Co-founder and Managing Partner at Congruent Ventures, a firm focused on sustainability oriented technology ventures.

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

Late last week a Chinese company called Kingsoft Cloud filed to go public in the United States. The cloud infrastructure business intends to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol “KC,” with J.P. Morgan, UBS and Credit Suisse helping out with running the deal.

Kingsoft Cloud has a $100 million placeholder figure in its F-1 filing, giving us an idea of its expectations for the size of the public offering. According to Crunchbase data, Kingsoft Cloud raised nearly $1 billion while private.

There are a few questions to answer:

Does Kingsoft compete with Alibaba’s cloud projects that the Chinese tech giant just promised to spend $28 billion building out? Is it an economically viable business?What are we supposed to think about an IPO in this economy?

What does Kingsoft Cloud do?

The best founders seek out great mentors and guidance from folks who know best, but during the coronavirus pandemic, asking for help when it’s needed is critical for all entrepreneurs.

Ureeka, a startup founded by Melissa Bradley, David Jakubowski and Rob Gatto, is looking to provide that mentorship and guidance through their platform, which just closed on an $8.6 million funding round from Bullpen Capital, Chicago Ventures and Salesforce Ventures.

“There is an intentionality in our business to go after what we see as the fastest growing, largest and most interesting market opportunity, which is not the Harvard and MIT pedigree, but underrepresented entrepreneurs,” said Bradley. “Small and medium businesses account for 99 percent of all business in this country and there has been a real missed opportunity around serving them.”

The company says that female led venture-backed business performance is 63 percent higher than investments in all male teams, while the same businesses have 12 percent higher revenue and use 33 percent less capital, with a 15-25 percent lower failure rate. Since the recent recessions, businesses owned by people of color are the fastest growing segment, with 38 percent growth between 2008 and 2012, according to Ureeka. Meanwhile, Hispanic-owned businesses have seen 46 percent growth from 2007 to 2012, with $700 billion in sales globally, creating 8 million jobs with a total payroll of $254 billion, the startup says.

Ureeka pairs these entrepreneurs with mentors and coaches to get answers to their most pressing questions. The idea for the startup came when the cofounders were judging a pitch competition in Michigan and got to talking about the challenges associated with starting a company, particularly for underrepresented founders.

The Ureeka founders noted that black, hispanic and women founders begin businesses with approximately half of the capital that white men do, on average, and that loan rejection is three times higher for minority entrepreneurs than their white counterparts.

“In talking with Melissa, I realized that there are some basic things I was taking for granted,” said Jakubowski, formerly Head of Data & Analytics, Emerging Business & Partnerships at Facebook . “For example, I could pick up the phone and have an answer to my question in 30 minutes.”

After testing for months, Jakubowski and Bradley (Managing Director of Project 500, adjunct professor at Georgetown’s Business school and presidential appointee under both President Clinton and President Obama) launched Ureeka to give access to mentorship to underrepresented small and medium business owners, agnostic of sector or region.

These entrepreneurs can hop on the platform with a question and get an answer from a mentor or coach in under two hours. Mentors, experts from just about any sector of business, give their time to the platform for free. Coaches, on the other hand, are paid contractors (many of whom have their own business or operational position at a large company). Ureeka members can also start up conversations with other members, and access on-demand webinar-style content on topics that are common to the whole community, such as adapting to the coronavirus pandemic.

Ureeka has more than 200 mentors on the platform, many of whom hail from companies like Facebook, Snap, Salesforce, Google, and Adobe, among others. Ureeka members can also pay a premium ($3,000/year) to have access to a dedicated coach, who can then follow along with the various questions and issues that arise and ultimately skip over the exposition and context-gathering part of the conversation. Those that opt for a dedicated coach get two hours each month of one-to-one video chat with their coach.

Alongside the funding announcement, Ureeka is also announcing that it will be facilitating the SMB grant programs from Facebook and Salesforce. Facebook’s grant program will provide $100 million to SMBs in the United States, and Salesforce’s Small Business Grants will provide $10,000 individually to SMBs.

According to the company, Ureeka members see 2x revenue growth once they’re connected to mentors and coaches, and the founders noted that many Ureeka members graduate to mentors or coaches and pay it forward to new members.

The for-profit business charges $200/year for members to join, and the company takes less than 15 percent margin. Ureeka is also waiving its fee for all businesses impacted by coronavirus through 2020.

The company also has a vendor partnership program, helping members find the right vendor for their need without being overwhelmed by thousands of Google search results. In fact, many vendors are Ureeka members themselves, creating a virtuous circle within the Ureeka community. Big corporations that would like to be included in the Ureeka vendor program must provide a dedicated line of communication for the Ureeka community.