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NEW DELHI: US trade representative Robert Lighthizer won't be part of the high-powered delegation accompanying President Donald Trump, further dimming hopes that any headway will be made in complex negotiations for a trade deal.However, other senior members of the Trump administration, including national security advisor Robert O' Brien, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and energy secretary Dan Brouillette will visit India, with five pacts likely to be signed covering homeland security, trade facilitation and protection of intellectual property rights.Lighthizer's absence — his name is not on the official delegation list — comes after the two sides have been unable to conclude trade negotiations and delinked the deal from the visit of the US President. Lighthizer had earlier dropped out of a visit for negotiations with commerce minister Piyush Goyal prior to the bilateral summit.'Do not Want to Rush into a Deal'Both the US and India have suggested that the deal needs more time as differences still remain and that a larger free trade agreement (FTA) is in the works to unlock bilateral trade potential."We can have a trade deal with India, but I am really saving the big trade deal for later on… I don't know whether we will have it before the election, but we will have a very big deal with India," Trump had said in Washington.This was echoed by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), which sought to separate the visit from the pact."We do not want to rush into a deal as the issues involved are complicated," MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said. "Many decisions have the potential to impact people's lives and have long-term economic consequences. We do not want to create artificial deadlines."Senior officials had also said that the eventual aim is to have a bilateral FTA and that work is progressing on that.Indian officials have said that bilateral trade will become more balanced within two years with increased sourcing of oil and gas from the US, and the purchase of a large number of civilian aircraft.Among the pacts to be signed, an agreement on sharing technology in the energy sector is on the cards during the visit, sources said. Discussions will also be held on accelerating civil nuclear cooperation with a deal between Westinghouse and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) to build six 1,100 MW reactors in Andhra Pradesh.Besides top officials, Trump's wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and sonin-law Jared Kushner will also be part of the delegation and will visit Ahmedabad, Agra and the national capital on February 24 and 25.
NEW DELHI: It's a palatial bankruptcy resolution — 3.4 acres, total built-up area of more than 25,000 square feet, seven bedrooms, six living and dining rooms, a study room, 7,000 square feet for staff quarters, and all of it surrounded by verdant green in New Delhi's ultra-posh Lutyens' area. All this, for just Rs 400 crore.Adani Properties Pvt Ltd (APPL) of the Gautam Adani-led Adani Group will soon be the new owner of a spectacular, more than a century-old, two-storey bungalow on New Delhi's Bhagwan Das Road — a prize the company won as a part of the bankruptcy proceedings of Aditya Estates Pvt Ltd.Neither APPL nor Aditya Estates responded to emails sent by ET.National Company Law Tribunal documents, from its order dated February 14, show the property has been priced at just Rs 265 crore, a precipitous drop from the Rs 1,000 crore that the erstwhile owners had expected just a few years ago.The NCLT, approving the Adani offer — that had found favour with 93% of Aditya Estates' lenders — has asked Adani Properties to submit performance guarantee of Rs 5 crore. Adani Properties will also have to pay Rs 135 crore as conversion charge. The charge is for the change in ownership status to freehold from leasehold.In its order, the NCLT said two independent valuers had evaluated the property and that the average price came to Rs 306 crore.The Adani Group's real estate showpiece has a rich history. The original owner of the bungalow at 3, Bhagwan Das Road was the colonial office of the Secretary of State for India in Council. In 1921, Lala Sukhbir Sinha bought it.Price of Bungalow has Gone Down Over TimeSinha was a member of the United Provinces Legislative Council and represented the Meerut Division. Aditya Estates had been the owner since 1985."The resolution applicant will end up paying about Rs 400 crore due to the high conversion charge for the property. When it was first put up for sale a few years ago, the owners were expecting more than Rs 1,000 crore. But over time, its price has gone down. And since the sale is happening through the NCLT, the amount payable is less than the market rate," said a person aware of the developments.ICICI Bank UK Plc had filed an application with the NCLT to initiate insolvency proceedings against Aditya Estates. The application was admitted on February 26, 2019. Following a meeting of the committee of creditors, an expression of interest was sought.Besides Adani Properties, Anil Rai Gupta of Havells India, Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd, Infosys cofounder NR Narayana Murthy and Veena Investment Pvt Ltd (VIPL) were among the nine shortlisted bidders. APPL and VIPL submitted their resolution plans on August 7.During the final hearing in the NCLT, a dissenting financial creditor had objected to the resolution applicant reducing its offer from Rs 400 crore to Rs 265 crore. But the NCLT agreed with Adani Properties: "…the resolution applicant undertook to make all the payments towards conversion from leasehold to freehold… The rationale for reduction of the financial proposal is as per the estimates of the additional amount to be incurred."
Covid-19 has spread like a wildfire, wider than SARS in 2003. In less than three months, the novel coronavirus, or Covid-19, has infected more than 75,000 people with 2,236 reported deaths as of Friday. It may nowhere be close to what swine flu did in 2009, but this virus is far more contagious.The virus, which emerged in Wuhan, the sprawling capital of Central China's Hubei province in December, belongs to the same family of the pathogen that causes the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.Public health experts are concerned and believe that the virus may grow into a pandemic but nothing can be predicted."One can be overcautious in this kind of situations but nobody can predict anything," said VM Katoch, a former director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research.And, while the number of the novel coronavirus cases appears to be stabilising in China, experts say the behaviour of the virus cannot be foreseen. 74251402 "Every virus is different. A lot depends on the way the situation evolves," National Centre for Disease Control director Sujeet Kumar Singh said.Pandemics happen when a new influenza virus emerges, spread in over two continents from person to person and is able to infect people easily. Since the virus is new to humans, only a few will have the immunity against the pandemic virus. It will make a lot of people sick (the Covid-19 outbreak has not yet met the official designation of a global pandemic)."How sick people get will depend on the characteristics of the virus, whether or not people have any immunity to that virus, and the health and age of the person being infected," said a public health expert, requesting anonymity.According to US drug regulatory authority Centre for Disease Control (CDC), more than 80% of the people infected with the Covid-19 experience mild symptoms, 14% have severe problems like pneumonia and shortness of breath, and 5% come down with a critical condition like sepsis, multiorgan failure and respiratory failure.All viruses behave differently and have different incubation periods — which means how long it takes for symptoms to show after someone contracts the virus. The time they remain contagious also differs. Here are some such past pandemics:Influenza pandemicThe 1918 influenza was the most severe and deadliest pandemic of the 20th century. It was caused by an H1N1 virus. Although there is no universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.In the 1918 pandemic, mortality was high in people younger than 5 years of age, who were 20-40 years' old and older than 65 years. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.A death toll of 20-50 million was reported.Ebola virus diseaseThe first outbreak occurred in villages in Central Africa. The 2014–2016 outbreak in West Africa was the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the virus was first discovered in 1976. There were more cases and deaths in this outbreak than all others combined. It also spread between countries, starting in Guinea then moving across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia.According to the US CDC: The average EVD case fatality rate was around 50%. The Ebola virus causes an acute, serious illness which is often fatal if untreated. Ebola spreads only through direct contact, such as through broken skin or mucous membranes in the eyes, nose, or mouth, and is considered less easily transmissible than Covid-19.Death toll: 2,249Swine FluIn 2009, a novel influenza A, swine-flu (H1N1), infection emerged. The virus' circulation was realised in April. The big wave of infections in North America began early in the fall. By the time vaccine started to become available in November, the outbreak had peaked. The CDC estimated that 151,700-575,400 people worldwide died from the infection during the first year. Globally, 80% of H1N1 virus-related deaths were estimated to have occurred in people younger than 65 years of age.It had a case fatality rate (CFR) of less than 0.1%. The pandemic began in early 2009 and started to subside by May 2010, before the WHO announced its end in August 2010.Death toll: 151,700-575,400MERSSince the time it was first identified in 2012, there have been multiple outbreaks of MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome). MERS had a case fatality rate at 34.4%, but was less contagious. To date, there have been 2,494 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV and 858 deaths. MERS has a far greater CFR than Covid-19's, but each person infected with MERS infects only one additional person, making it much less contagious. Number of deaths reported were pegged at 2,494.Zika virusThe epidemic began in early 2015 from Brazil and then spread to other parts of South America, as well as several islands in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency in February 2016 due to evidence that the virus could cause birth defects, as well as neurological problems.Influenza viruses are constantly changing, China's lockdown of Hubei province, where the outbreak began, has allowed the world to prepare. But it hasn't stopped the virus, with new cases emerging from all around the globe.According to the WHO, data from China suggested that about 82% of confirmed cases had only a mild infection, about 15% were severe enough to require hospital care, and about 3% needed intensive care. Preliminary data suggest roughly 2% of people who tested positive for the virus have died. Symptoms of the coronavirus may appear in as few as two days or as long as 14 after exposure, according to the US CDC.The WHO organised a global research and innovation meeting on February 11-12. Scientists and researchers from all over the world were invited."We know about the epidemiology of the Covid-19 which is that the virus belongs to the family of SARS-related coronavirus … but it seems to be more transmissible: human-to-human than the SARS or MERS coronaviruses," WHO chief scientist Saumya Swaminathan said."We are yet to understand the full epidemiology in terms of how easily it spreads; how many people can be infected with one person. Initial estimates were 2-3. It has been seen that the virus has infected only 1% children under 15; the older you are, the dangerous this is," added Swaminathan.
MUMBAI: A group of companies has dragged the government and the indirect tax department to court over denying input tax credit on gifts and samples given to customers and clients.Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) framework, companies can set off costs incurred on raw materials or input services against future tax liabilities. However, it denies this benefit on goods distributed as gifts or given free.The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday issued notices to the government and tax department on the companies' petition challenging the denial."The restriction of input tax credit on goods written off or disposed of by way of gift or free samples is against the main objective of GST that there should not be any tax cascading and hence such a restriction will have to cross the bridge of constitutional validity," said Abhishek A Rastogi, partner at Khaitan & Co, who is arguing for the companies in the court.As per the current regulations, pharmaceutical companies cannot avail of tax credit on free samples given to doctors or their clients. Consumer product companies and others are also unable to avail tax credit on customised gifts such as calendars and chocolates they give to their customers. Inability to take credit or set off cost drives up companies' total costs.Section 17 (5) (h) of the CGST (Amendment) Act 2018 says input tax credit "cannot be availed on goods that are lost, stolen, destroyed or distributed as gifts or for free".This has led to a lot of problems for pharma and consumer goods companies that distribute gifts and free samples, industry trackers said."Procurement of gifts and distribution of free samples are in the course or furtherance of business and, hence, denial of credit is a legitimate challenge," Rastogi said.Earlier, several pharma and FMCG companies had come under the taxman's lens for dishing out freebies to consumers. So, companies offering buy-one-get-one-free schemes or 20% extra for the same price were asked to cough up GST on the extra quantities. The tax authorities wanted companies to either pay GST or reverse input tax credits on the extra quantities.This issue was later sorted out through a clarification. This, however, doesn't apply to input tax credit for the free samples and gifts, tax experts said.
MUMBAI: A well-defined vehicle scrappage policy in India can help create an industry of its own with a business opportunity of $6 billion (Rs 43,000 crore) a year, say automobile sector executives and experts.It could generate fresh employment and trigger economic growth, and also act as a critical factor to revive the automobile market that has been hit by a prolonged slowdown, they said.Roads and Transport minister Nitin Gadkari said this month that the policy would soon be put before the Cabinet for approval. The government expects recycling of metals like steel, copper and aluminium from the scrapped vehicles to help reduce their imports. Getting the roads rid of old vehicles would also help lower pollution and the government's oil bill, as the new vehicles replacing the old ones would be more fuel efficient.The automobile industry wants the policy to cover all segments, including cars and two-wheelers and not just commercial vehicles, to create a significant scale for new players to participate in this new market.74251245 Three critical things the government needs to do to promote scrappage are: offer sizeable financial incentives, develop a resale market for the scrappage certificate for those who don't want to replace their scrapped vehicles with new, and fix the life period for a commercial vehicle at 10 years, said Satyakam Arya, the managing director of Daimler India Commercial Vehicles.An HDFC Bank study has estimated the market for vehicle scrappage and recycling at $6 billion. According to it, if the policy is defined well, 9 million vehicles could go off roads by fiscal 2021 and 28 million by 2025, largely comprising two-wheelers. It would reduce carbon dioxide emission by 17% and cut particulate matter in air by 24%. Also, if half the Bharat Stage-II and III vehicles go off the roads, it would save 8 million tonnes of oil a year. "A comprehensive scrappage policy will result in reduction in costs, save foreign exchange and increase revenues in the long term," said Ashok Khanna, the group head for auto finance at HDFC Bank.Already the likes of Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra & Mahindra have ventured into the recycling business and there are another half a dozen companies in queue to enter the space, say people in the know. The challenge is that scrap yards will take time to build.Industry experts say vehicles should be scrapped based on their usage and not just the life of the vehicles.According to HDFC Bank, a personal car may be scrapped after 15 years and a two-wheeler after 10 years. In case of commercial vehicles, it suggests the end of life at 7-8 years, or certain kilometres driven.Under the draft scheme, the government has stated that a part of the scrap value from the old vehicle may be given as a payback. Also, incentives in the form of lower tax could be offered if a person is buying a new vehicle in place of the scrapped one. The government is hoping that higher pollution checks, re-registration charges and fines may also deter usage of old vehicles.Ashish Kale, president of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India (FADA), said since it would be a voluntary policy, there should be financial incentives equal to at least 10% of the new vehicle to the owner to make the scheme successful. "The focus should be more on financial incentivises rather than disincentives," he said.
NEW DELHI: India's electricity demand grew 7.5% in the first 18 days of February with early onset of summer in the South and West, offering some relief to the stressed thermal power sector which can now operate at higher capacities.Currently, thermal power projects are operating at 58% capacity, a senior government official said.Power demand had grown 3.7% in January, turning around after five months of decline.Demand for electricity stood at 1,05,289 megawatt (mw) in January against 1,01,570 mw in December 2019. It was also 3.5% higher than the 1,01,713 mw in January 2019, data available with the Central Electricity Authority showed.In February so far, demand was 15–20 gigawatt (gw) higher than peak-hour demand for the same period last year.Thermal and large hydro projects generated 7.3% more electricity during February 1-18 than the same period last year, while renewable power plants produced about 5.3% more electricity. Peak-hour power requirement has touched 176.6 gw in the current month so far, against 160 gw in the corresponding period a year ago.Power demand for the April-January period of the current financial year was 10.7% higher than in the same period last fiscal year.The monthly data of power requirement for January, however, showed that demand contracted between December and January in Gujarat and Maharashtra, the two most industrialised states in the country, while it was higher in most other states.Electricity demand is seen as an important indicator of economic health, although the Economic Survey tabled on January 31 had suggested that it was not. 74251225 "Given that these indicators do not exhibit a stable relationship with GDP growth even before 2011, they are poorly equipped to diagnose mis-estimation post 2011," it had said.India's power demand grew just 1.1% in 2019.In December, the country's power demand fell 0.5% from the year-ago period, a fifth straight month of decline, compared with a 4.3% fall in November. The fall was the most in October, at 13%, led by a sharp reduction in demand from Gujarat and Maharashtra.
By Kumar Dipankar & Ammar ZaidiNEW DELHI: Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das has said the central bank has already initiated discussions with some institutions and efforts are on for inclusion of government bonds in global indices as quickly as possible.The development would attract higher foreign flows as many overseas funds are mandated to track global indices. It will help bring in large passive investments from overseas, as a result more domestic capital would be available for industry as crowding out to that extent would be reduced."That is work in progress. We have had our discussions with some institutions which maintain these global index...not possible to spell out a timeline, but it is a work in progress. Our effort will be to see that it is taken forward as quickly as possible. I don't want to give a timeline," he told PTI in an interview.This was a long-pending suggestion of foreign investors that was addressed in the Budget this year."Certain specified categories of Government securities would be opened fully for non-resident investors, apart from being available to domestic investors as well," Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said in the Budget 2020-21.The specified securities, which will be listed on the indices, will not have a lock-in requirement.Globally, there are some large institutional investors that track these indices, such as Bloomberg Barclays Emerging Market Bond index, for positional decisions on sovereign papers.With regard to health of the shadow banking sector, Governor Das said RBI has been monitoring the top 50 NBFCs very closely, in fact much more closely than anybody can imagine from outside."Similarly, the health of the other financial sector entities including the banks are also being very closely monitored by the Reserve Bank of India. The Reserve Bank remains committed to maintain financial sector stability," he said.As far as the NBFCs are concerned, he said, "our close monitoring over the last one year, we have a reasonably good idea about where exactly the stress lies. We are constantly engaged with the individual NBFCs and only very few of the NBFCs have some liquidity issues.""We are constantly engaging with their management, with their promoters and encouraging them to resolve their problems through market based solutions in terms of getting additional liquidity. The engagement with the NBFCs management is constantly on," he added.Sounding sanguine about the future, Das said the overall flow of credit to the NBFC sector has improved quite steadily over the last few months."There are a good number of NBFCs which are able to access funds from the market at reasonably competent rates, even comparable to or perhaps a bit lower than the pre-IL&FS rates. So, therefore, NBFC sector is slowly improving, and it has steadily improved over the years and we will continue to monitor that sector," he said.The NBFC sector, including some large housing finance companies, came under stress following a series of defaults by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) group companies beginning September 2018.Immediately after the IL&FS crisis, NBFCs faced severe liquidity crunch as mutual funds (MFs) stopped refinancing their loans, leading to asset liability mismatch.The situation became so dire that it was even compared to the 2008 Lehman Brothers crisis. The government had to step in and supersede the board to avert a blow up. Subsequently, RBI pitched to ease liquidity issues.In a bid to improve regulatory oversight, housing finance companies were brought under the RBI from the fold of National Housing Bank.
Investment preference seems to be changing. A survey by UBS Global Research showed that in 2019,ownership has gone up for insurance, post office savings schemes and pension plans compared with equity/debt mutual funds (MFs) and shares, where it has declined.A survey of investors who have a bank account — either savings or current — by global investment bank UBS showed that 47 per cent of those surveyed held a life insurance policy and 33 per cent had ownership of plain-vanilla bank deposits. "As we have been highlighting, the attractive interest rate offered on government-sponsored small saving schemes versus banks' term deposits is influencing household saving behaviour," said Gautam Chhaochharia, analyst, and Ms Tanvee Gupta Jain, economist, at UBS Securities.The survey "UBS Evidence Lab", the third urban consumer survey of about 1,064 participants, has other interesting findings. It indicated that a higher proportion of households is saving and 35 per cent of respondents currently save or invest before spending compared to 24 per cent in the 2018 survey.About 70 per cent of respondents feel their current level of savings has increased compared with the previous year. However, more than half of respondents (58 per cent) still believe their savings are below expectations, that is they would like to save more.The survey acknowledges the general slowdown in household savings until FY19, for which official data is available."Households that contribute 60 per cent of gross savings in India ran into stretched balance sheets, as they were funding consumption by taking higher leverage and dipping into savings amidst muted income growth. This imbalance seems to have started correcting now" it said. Mean income levels of urban households have remained muted over the past year, with the bulk of the decline in tier-1cities. "We believe this could be on account of potentially weaker job creation trends (quantity, quality or both) and the automation overhang" the reportsaid.
BENGALURU: Wipro Digital, the digital business unit of tech services major Wipro, has acquired Rational Interaction, a full-service digital customer experience (CX) company. The acquisition is aimed to scale Wipro Digital's offering for chief marketing officers (CMO), connecting Rational Interaction's ability to map and orchestrate the customer journey with Wipro Digital's capabilities to design and build experiences at global scale, said Wipro in a press release. The combined offerings from Wipro Digital and Rational Interaction will look to create an ecosystem of connected touch-points across the entire customer journey and help CMOs scale for the future. Rational Interaction helps brands create sustained CX programme success, with core offerings that include strategic advising, customer acquisition, and customer lifecycle management. Founded in 2009, Rational Interaction is headquartered in Washington with more than 300 employees worldwide and offices in Seattle and Bellevue, WA; Dublin; and Sydney. Rational Interaction's deep CX expertise and Wipro's global scale and industry expertise will provide companies and their CMOs with the comprehensive digital programmes and journeys needed in today's customer-centric world, said Wipro."This acquisition comes at a time when companies increasingly compete solely on CX, and the market for CX spending is growing exponentially. Discovering, refining and optimizing the customer experience from first impression through repeat sale requires best-in-class talent, unique marketing technologies and methodologies, and the ability to scale and demonstrate payback quickly," Rajan Kohli, President and Head, Wipro Digital, Wipro, was quoted saying.
MUMBAI: The income tax department is all set to get its own 'wall of fame'. The initiative is aimed at rewarding officers who have performed exceedingly well in their specific responsibilities. Officers who have unearthed unique modus operandi by tax evaders, helped in tax mop-ups and even those who have implemented the Prime Minister's Swachh Bharat Abhiyan will be feted. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has decided to award such officials at public ceremonies and use their body of work for future references.While the initiative has been welcomed by many who feel that the I-T department should restructure their HR policies and bring in corporate culture, others say initiatives like these would only stress the already overburdened tax department.Last week, the government added outcomes on the Vivad se Vishwas tax amnesty scheme as a part of the annual performance assessment."While it's appreciative that the department is trying to don a more corporate culture and make performance as the criteria, this will cause a lot of undue pressure and also there could be allegations that a case was 'fake' or a tax demand was dressed up so that the AO (assessing officer) could benefit from it," said an official."Just when the department was busy meeting the revenue targets which is behind despite a revision in the budget, the government has introduced the VsV scheme which, though voluntary in nature, has been linked to the performance of the field officers. Why should a voluntary scheme be an appraisal criterion," asked another official.
Striking gold! 52.8-k tonne gold reserves discovered in UP's Sonbhadra district The state mining department has formed a seven-member team to conduct geo-tagging of the entire region and it will submit its report on Saturday.
Having a good grasp on grammar and vocabulary is important for your writing, speaking, and general interactions with other people. Improving your skills in each area is a great personal growth exercise that can benefit your everyday life. Start at the beginning and review the basics of sentence structure, spelling, punctuation, and word roots. Grow your vocabulary by reading, looking up words, and committing to use those words in your normal speech. For more help, enroll in courses and use language games and apps to make learning fun.
Study foundational grammar rules. Even if you're a native language speaker, it never hurts to go back to the start and re-learn some of the basic grammar rules. Getting a grasp of technical rules can enhance your speech and writing while avoiding common mistakes. Either use an old textbook or look online for pages about grammar basics and study a bit every day to improve your grammar skills.[1]
Books and online manuals like Purdue OWL and Chicago Manual of Style have information on all of the foundational grammar rules. Use them for the best information.
Finding out which textbooks are used in college courses is another helpful way to find good resources.
Review the rules of punctuation. Misuse of punctuation marks is a very common grammar mistake. While reviewing your grammar rules, pay attention to the correct usage of each punctuation mark to avoid mistakes in your writing.[2]
Semicolons and dashes are often used incorrectly. Semicolons separate 2 independent sentence clauses that can stand on their own, but are related enough to make them part of the same sentence. Dashes connect groups of words in a sentence to emphasize a point, and are usually in the middle of a sentence.
Remember that apostrophes show possession or indicate a missing letter in a contraction.
Identify basic sentence structures to avoid mistakes. At a basic level, a sentence is a set of words or phrases that convey a complete idea. Typically, sentences contain a subject, verb, and object. There are many ways to construct a sentence, so review all of these building blocks to use them correctly.[3]
Correct sentence order is usually subject, verb, and object. A simple sentence that follows this structure is "John opened the door."
Watch out for sentence fragments. These lack a key part of the sentence structure. For example, "Opened the door" is a fragment because it's missing a subject. Make fragments complete sentences by adding another clause or word that fills in the blank.[4]
Make sure your subjects and verb tenses agree with each other. For example, "They was running fast" is incorrect. "They were running fast" is the correct subject/verb agreement.
Learn the prefixes and suffixes of words to figure out their meanings. In English, most words have Greek or Latin roots. Often, the beginning (prefix) or ending (suffix) of a word tells you something about that word's meaning. Study prefixes and suffixes so you can work out the meanings for words you've never seen before.[5]
For example, you might not know what predisposition means. But because you've studied roots, you know that the prefix "pre-" means before, so you can at least get a basic grasp of the word's meaning.
Suffixes work similarly. The suffix "-oid" means resembling, so you can tell that the word spheroid means something similar to a sphere.
Eliminate the passive voice from your writing and speaking. The passive voice means that the subject of the sentence is not doing the action. For example, "The door was opened by him" is the passive version of "He opened the door." While it's not a grammatical error, the passive voice does make your writing wordy and much less clear. In most cases, avoiding it is best.[6]
The easiest way to identify the passive voice is by asking yourself "Who or what is doing the action?" in this sentence. If it's not the subject, then you're probably using the passive voice.
The passive voice is much more common in fiction writing as a stylistic choice. There are situations where it works for dramatic effect, so in these cases it's more acceptable.
Say words and sentences out loud to identify mistakes. Sometimes, we can tell if a sentence or word is incorrect without actually knowing why. Something just sounds "off" about grammar mistakes. Get into the habit of saying your writing out loud while proofreading. This can help you identify potential problems and correct them.[7]
Note that this doesn't always work. Some sentences may be entirely correct but sound strange. This tool is more of a guideline to identify potential mistakes.
Analyze how other authors use grammar and punctuation. Reading widely is a great way to build your grammar and vocabulary. Look at different books, magazines, and websites to see how other authors construct their writing. Use their techniques in your own life.[8]
Try to read things that have passed some kind of editorial process rather than unedited websites. Blogs, for example, may use incorrect grammar if no one is checking them, whereas magazines have editors that check for grammar accuracy.
If you do read unedited things, try to identify and correct improper grammar as an exercise.
Remember that reading older work may be less helpful because grammar rules change over time. A book from the 19th century, for example, will probably use grammar that you don't recognize, and using that grammar nowadays might be incorrect.
Find new vocabulary words by reading different in subjects. Just like with grammar, reading is the best way to improve your vocabulary. Read widely, in many different genres, to encounter as many words as possible. Then keep track of the words you don't know to learn new ones.[9]
Before looking up unfamiliar words, try to figure their meanings out by looking at prefixes, suffixes, and the sentence context.
Try to focus on more advanced books and periodicals as your grammar improves. A higher-brow publication like The Atlantic will use more complicated words and grammar than the New York Post, for example, and you'll learn more vocabulary.
Look up words you don't know in the dictionary. As you read, write down all the words you can't figure out and look them up later. Write down the word and its definition. Keep a journal of these new words and study them as you amass more. This will build your vocabulary in no time.[10]
Either keep a dictionary near you or do an internet search for the word. Look up the other words on the page as well to learn even more.
Use a thesaurus to find words related to the original word. In addition to simply defining the words you find, learn all the other words that mean the same thing. A thesaurus gives you all the synonyms of a given word. Looking up new words expands your vocabulary to include all the words that are related to the original word, building your knowledge more than just defining new words.[11]
You can use a physical thesaurus, or look for one online and type the word in.
A thesaurus also contains antonyms, or words that mean the opposite of a word. Looking at the antonyms builds your vocabulary even more.
Incorporate the new words into your daily speech. Practice is the best way to enhance your vocabulary. As you learn more words, put them to use. Incorporate them into your daily speech to get used to using more advanced words.[12]
Once easy way to do this is pick a new word each day and look for situations where you can use it. Try to use that word as much as possible throughout the day.
When you get better, you can pick multiple words that you'd like to use throughout the day. Over time, you'll get very good at effortlessly using more advanced words in your normal speech.
Eliminate nonspecific or filler words from your speech. Words like "umm" or "like" delay your speech and make you sound unsure of what you're saying. Try to eliminate them altogether. Also, general words like "good" and "bad" aren't very descriptive. Replace these words with more descriptive ones like "ecstatic" or "inconvenient." These make you sound more intelligent and confident in what you're saying.[13]
Instead of using filler words, try to pause instead. This makes it look like you're thinking carefully about your responses.
Always try to use the most descriptive words possible. General words don't say all that much, and make your vocabulary seem much smaller.
Enroll in a college course to review the rules of grammar. If you really want to improve your grammar, there are many courses you can choose from to refresh your skills. Local community colleges usually offer weekend or night classes for non-matriculated students who just want to learn new skills, so see if there are options in your area. There are also many online choices for you.[14]
YouTube has many free instructional videos to improve your skills. For more in-depth, paid options, a site like Udemy has many courses that might appeal to you.
If you don't want to take a whole course, get a textbook or test review book and work in it in your spare time.
Pay attention to spell check while you're writing to catch mistakes. Most word processors now have a built-in spell check feature that highlights misspelled words and grammar mistakes. Pay attention to this feature to correct any mistakes. But also review why certain mistakes are wrong. If spell check identifies a sentence fragment, for example, look at what made that phrase a fragment. Then you'll expand your knowledge of grammar to avoid similar mistakes.[15]
Remember that spell check doesn't catch everything. Don't rely on it completely. Proofread your work in addition to using spell check.
Do crossword puzzles in your free time to learn new word definitions. These puzzles give you tons of new word options. Subscribe to a local newspaper and do the crossword puzzle every day. For more practice, get a whole book of crossword puzzles. Keep track of the new words you learn doing these puzzles to grow your vocabulary.[16]
For an added exercise, pick one of the new words you learn in a crossword puzzle and use it in your everyday speech.
Play word-based board games like Scrabble. These games are a fun way to grow your vocabulary with friends and family. Play for entertainment, but also keep track of the new words you see. Then write them down to use later on.[17]
Add a challenge to your friends or family to use some of the words they learned while they talk. Include everyone on your mission to improve your vocabulary.
Use vocabulary apps to learn new words. There are tons of free apps that will help you grow your vocabulary. The most common ones are "word a day" apps that give you a new word to use every day. Download a few of these apps and use them regularly. Over time, you can build a much larger vocabulary without a lot of effort.[18]
Organizing your bathroom drawers can save you a lot of time during your morning routine and will make finding things in your bathroom a lot easier. Before you start arranging your bathroom products, you should clean out your drawers and separate your items into different categories. After you've organized them, you can use drawer dividers to keep them separated. If you organize your drawers using these methods and still don't have space, there are also alternative storage solutions you can use to organize all of your bathroom products.
Dump everything out of your drawers. Lay down a towel on a countertop or flat surface and dump the contents of your drawers onto the towel. Taking all of your products out of the drawers will make it easier to organize and categorize your products.[1]
The towel will prevent glass items from breaking.
Throw away expired items that you don't need. Look at the expiration label on the products in your bathroom to determine which products are expired. Makeup and medicine are 2 things in your bathroom that will often expire over time.[2]
Throw away anything that you don't plan on using in the future. Go through the remainder of your items and get rid of things that you may have once used but that you don't use anymore. This could include things like a specific perfume or hair gel. If you haven't used something in over a year, there's a good chance you should throw it away.[3]
Try to throw away as many unused products as you can to make room for new things.
Separate your products into different categories. Group your items by the type of product or the time of day that you usually use the items. For instance, you can group shaving products, beauty care, and first aid items in separate categories. You can also separate items by how often you use them. If there are things you use on a daily basis, you can group them together. If there are things you just use occasionally, they can go in a separate category.
You may also want to separate items into smaller sub-categories.
For instance, when organizing beauty care products, create a category for your nail care items and a separate section for makeup.[4]
Purchase drawer dividers online or at a department store. Drawer dividers will help you separate your products into different compartments and will make it easier to quickly locate the things that you need. Measure the dimensions inside of your drawers with a ruler or measuring tape, then find dividers that will fit inside of them.[5]
Dividers will usually have size information on their packaging or in the product details.
Insert the dividers into your drawers. Read the instructions that came with the dividers so you know how to properly install them. Unfold the dividers and place them into the bottom of the drawers. If your organizers shift around in your drawers, apply Command strips to the bottom of them to hold them in place.[6]
Count the spaces in your drawer dividers so that you know how many different product categories you can separate.
Place the most-used products in the top drawers. Figure out the stuff that you use on a daily basis and group them together. Place all the products that you use on a daily basis on the top drawer so that you can access them easily. The lesser-utilized products that you only use occasionally can go in the lower drawers.
Items like face wash, toothpaste, makeup, and shaving equipment are often used on a daily basis.
Things like first aid equipment can be put in lower drawers.
Put the largest items in the largest compartment first. Large items could include things like combs, electric shavers, or facewash. Organizing them in your drawers first will leave enough room for smaller products. Continue to organize them by type, but group the larger things together and keep them in the same compartment.
Put the rest of the products in their own compartment. Place the different products categories into their own compartment as neatly as possible. Avoid just throwing items into the compartments or it will look messy.[7]
Avoid stacking items on top of daily-used products so that you can access them easier.
Store your products in the medicine cabinet as an alternative to drawers. A medicine cabinet can also make great backup storage if you run out of space in your drawers. Arrange the products in your medicine cabinet as neatly possible. Group different types of products together as you would for your drawers.[8]
Medicine cabinets are great for smaller items like medicine and face creams.
Medicine cabinets are also great if you want to keep certain items away from small children.
If you don't have a medicine cabinet in your home, you can install one yourself.
Use the area under the sink to store larger items like cleaning supplies. The area under the sink is the perfect place to store cleaning products because there is often more room there. You can also put whatever bathroom items that don't fit in your drawers or medicine cabinet under the sink.[9]
Larger items like a plunger or toilet scrubbing wands can also go under the sink.
Place items in baskets if you have no drawer space. Purchase plastic or wood baskets from a department store or online. Put the baskets on top or under your sink and carefully put different categories of products in them. If your baskets are on your sink, put your daily-use items in them for easy accessibility.[10]
You can also label each basket so that you can find your products faster.
Store your items in a rolling cart if you don't have storage room. If you've used other storage solutions and still don't have space, you can buy a rolling cart from a department store or online. Organize the cart like you would your drawers so that you can easily access different categories of product.[11]
Avocado might not be the first ingredient you reach for when making dessert, but it could be. Avocado is a source of nutritious fats and its buttery texture means that it blends well with coconut and chocolate. To try an avocado dessert, make a pudding by blending avocado with cocoa and a little milk. You could also blend avocado with sweetened condensed milk and cream to create a no-churn avocado ice cream. If you want to downplay the flavor of avocado, mix a gluten-free brownie batter that includes avocado, chocolate chunks, and cocoa powder.
Cut the avocados in 1/2 and scoop the flesh into a food processor. Put ripe avocados on a cutting board and carefully cut lengthwise through both sides of each avocado. Use your hands to twist the sides of the avocado apart. Then, use a spoon to remove the pits and scoop the flesh from each 1/2 into a food processor.[1]
There's no need to cut the avocados into chunks since you'll be blending them.
Add milk, cocoa, vanilla, and salt to the food processor. Pour of plain, chocolate, or non-dairy milk into the food processor. Then, add 3 tablespoons of (21 g) of unsweetened cocoa powder, of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste, and 1/4 teaspoon (1 g) of salt.[2]
For example, use almond milk, soy milk, oat milk, or hemp milk.
If you'd like your pudding to have a stronger chocolate flavor, add an extra 2 tablespoons (14 g) of cocoa powder.
Blend the ingredients for 30 to 45 seconds. Turn on the food processor and blend the ingredients until the avocados are completely smooth. You might have to stop the machine and scrape down the sides if bits of avocado are getting stuck.[3]
Set aside the avocado mixture while you prepare the chocolate.
Chop 2 to 3 ounces (30 to 45 g) of chocolate into pieces. Put dark or bittersweet chocolate with at least 70% cocoa solids on your cutting board. Then, use a large knife to carefully cut the chocolate into chunks.[4]
It's important to use a dark or bittersweet chocolate so your pudding has a rich flavor.
Microwave the chocolate in 20-second increments until it's melted. Transfer the chocolate chunks to a microwave-safe bowl and heat the chocolate for 20 seconds. Stir the chocolate and microwave it for another 20 seconds. Stir frequently to help the chocolate melt evenly.[5]
It will take 45 to 60 seconds total for the chocolate to melt.
Stir of your choice of sweetener into the melted chocolate. To sweeten your avocado pudding, use sugar, honey, maple syrup, or agave nectar, for instance. Stir the sweetener into the chocolate until it's incorporated.
Adding the sweetener will make the melted chocolate thicker.
Scoop the melted chocolate into the avocado mixture. Take the lid off of the food processor or blender and scrape the melted chocolate into it. Avoid spooning the melted chocolate through the food processor's feeder tube because too much of the chocolate will stick to the tube.[6]
Add coconut cream or a banana to the processor if you want to flavor the pudding. For a slight coconut flavor, add 1 to 3 tablespoons (19 to 57 g) of coconut cream to the food processor. If you want your pudding to be a little sweeter, add 1/2 of a very ripe banana.[7]
The banana will also make the pudding smoother and thicker.
Blend the pudding for 2 minutes or until it's completely smooth. Put the lid on the food processor and blend the ingredients for 1 minute. Then, stop the processor and scrape down the sides of the processor. Blend the pudding for 1 more minute so it's smooth and thick.[8]
If the pudding is too thick for your liking, blend in your choice of milk at a time until it's the consistency you want.
Chill the avocado pudding for 20 to 30 minutes before serving it. Spoon the pudding into a large bowl or individual serving bowls. Cover the pudding with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 20 to 30 minutes.[9]
Refrigerate leftover pudding in an airtight container for up to 1 day.
Scoop the flesh from of avocados into a blender. Set the avocados on a cutting board and carefully slice lengthwise down each side of the avocados. Use both hands to twist the sides in opposite directions so the pieces separate. Then, lift the pit out with a spoon and discard it. Use a spoon to scoop the ripe avocado flesh into a blender.[10]
If you don't have a blender, use a food processor instead.
Put the sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, and salt in the blender. Open a 14-ounce (396 g) can of sweetened condensed milk and scoop it into the blender. Add of lemon juice and 1 pinch of sea salt.[11]
Blend the ingredients until they're smooth and transfer them to a mixing bowl. Blend for at least 30 seconds so there aren't any chunks or pieces of avocado visible. You may need to stop and scrape down the sides of the blender if pieces get stuck. Once the avocado mixture is smooth, pour it into a large mixing bowl and set it aside.[12]
Beat of heavy cream in a separate bowl on high speed. Pour the chilled cream into the bowl of a stand mixer and use a whisk attachment to beat the cream on high speed. Keep beating until the cream holds firm peaks.
If you don't have a stand mixer, use a hand mixer instead.
Fold the whipped cream into the avocado mixture until it's incorporated. Carefully spoon the whipped cream into the bowl using a spatula. To fold the whipped cream, hold the spatula and use a gentle twisting motion with your wrist to curve the spatula around and through the center of the mixture. Keep doing this until there aren't streaks of avocado.[13]
It's important to fold the mixture instead of stir it since you're trying to keep the volume in the cream you whipped.
Pour the mixture into a loaf pan and cover it with foil. Use the back of a spoon to make the mixture level in the pan before you cover it with aluminum foil.
If you prefer, put the mixture into an ice cream maker instead. Follow your machine's operating instructions to freeze the avocado ice cream.
Freeze the ice cream for 6 hours before serving it. Remove the loaf pan once the ice cream is completely firm. Then, scoop the avocado ice cream into serving bowls and enjoy!
Because there are no preservatives in this ice cream, store the leftover ice cream in the freezer and use it within 1 day.
Preheat the oven to and line a pan. Tear off a piece of parchment paper and lay it in the bottom of the baking pan. Set the pan aside while you prepare the batter.[14]
If you don't have parchment paper, spray the pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Cut 2 avocados in 1/2 and scoop the flesh into a blender. Put the ripe avocados on a cutting board and carefully use a knife to cut the avocado lengthwise. Then, twist the avocado apart and use a spoon to scoop out the pit. Take the spoon and scoop the avocado flesh into a blender.[15]
If you don't have a blender, use a food processor.
Add 2 eggs, both types of sugar, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and vanilla to the blender. Crack the eggs into the blender and add 1/2 cup (100 g) of granulated sugar, 2/3 cup (135 g) of packed brown sugar, 2/3 cup (85 g) of cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon (5 g) of baking soda, 1 pinch of salt, and of vanilla.[16]
This recipe doesn't contain flour so it's gluten-free.
Blend the brownie batter for 30 seconds. Put the lid on and blend the ingredients until the avocado is completely smooth. Stop and scrape down the sides of the blender to ensure that avocado pieces aren't stuck.[17]
Add 1 1/2 cups (262 g) of chocolate chunks and pour the batter into the pan. Pour the chocolate chips directly into the brownie batter, but don't use the blender to mix them. Pour the batter into the parchment paper-lined pan and use a spatula to scrape all of the batter out.[18]
Bake the brownies for 20 to 25 minutes. Put the pan into the preheated oven and cook them until they start to pull away from the edge of the pan. To test if they're done, lightly touch the top of the brownies. If they're done, the brownies will feel firm and will spring back slightly.[19]
If your finger leaves an indent, cook the brownies for another 3 to 5 minutes and check them again.
Remove the brownies and cool them for 5 to 10 minutes before serving them. Turn off the oven and wear oven mitts to take the pan out of the oven. Let the brownies cool for 5 to 10 minutes so they're easier to cut. Serve the brownies warm or at room temperature.[20]
Put leftover brownies in an airtight container and refrigerate them for up to 1 week. If you prefer, freeze them for up to 4 months.
To tell if an avocado is ripe, press it gently. It should yield a little instead of being completely firm. You can also remove the little stem. The avocado under the stem should be green, not brown or black.
మెగా స్టార్ చిరంజీవి. తెలుగు తెరపై తిరుగులేని స్టార్ హీరో.. ఇన్నేళ్ల సినీ కెరీర్ లో ఎన్నో రికార్డులు బద్దలుకొట్టి కొత్త రికార్డులు సృష్టించాడు. ఇప్పుడు సీనియర్ హీరోగా.. టాలీవుడ్ దృవతారగా వెలుగొందుతున్నాడు.. అయితే ప్రస్తుతం చిరంజీవి ఈ వయసులోనూ బాక్సాఫీస్ రికార్డులను బద్దలు కొట్టాలని చూస్తుండడం టాలీవుడ్ లో చర్చనీయాంశమవుతోంది. చిరంజీవి బాహుబలి రికార్డులను సవాల్ చేయడానికి ఇటీవల ప్రయత్నించారు. 'సైరా' లాంటి దేశభక్తి పీరియాడిక్ డ్రామా మూవీతో బాహుబలియేతర రికార్డులను అందుకున్నారు. అయితే ఈ […]
టీడీపీలో ఒక సామాజికవర్గ పోకడతో నేతలు రగిలిపోతున్నారా? వారి ఆధిపత్యంతో ఇది తమ పార్టీ కాదని భావిస్తున్నారా? టీడీపీలో భవిష్యత్ లేదని బీసీ, ఇతర సామాజికవర్గ నేతలు వలస బాట పడుతున్నారా? ఆ కుల ఆధిపత్యం కొనసాగితే టీడీపీకి డేంజర్ బెల్స్ అంటూ నేతలు వాపోతున్నారట. తాజాగా నాయకులు ఒకరి తర్వాత ఒకరు పార్టీని విడిచిపెడుతుంటే కేడర్ మౌనంగా ఉండిపోతుంది. ఒకే సామాజిక వర్గానికి చెందిన వారిని టీడీపీ అందలమెక్కిస్తుందన్న ఆరోపణలు క్షేత్రస్థాయి టీడీపీ నేతల్లో వ్యక్తమవుతున్నాయట. […]
కొవిడ్ 19 పేరుగల కరోనా వైరస్ భయంతో ప్రపంచం వణుకుతున్న సమయమిది. చైనాలో పుట్టిన ఈ వైరస్.. ఇప్పటికే వందల మంది ప్రాణాలు బలి తీసుకుంది. మరింతమంది వ్యాధిగ్రస్తులను భయపెడుతోంది. ఈ భయంతో.. ఏ వైరస్ పేరు విన్నా.. అంతా ఆందోళన చెందుతున్నారు. ఈ ప్రభావం ఐటీ రంగంపైనా పడుతోంది. ఏకంగా కార్యాలయాలను మూసివేసి మరీ.. సిబ్బందికి ఇంటి నుంచి పని చేసుకునే అవకాశాన్ని కల్పించేంతవరకూ పరిస్థితి చేరుకుంటోంది. జర్మనీకి చెందిన ఐటీ సంస్థ సాప్.. భారత్ […]
టీడీపీ అధినేత చంద్రబాబు కుటుంబ ఆస్తుల ప్రకటనపై.. వైఎస్ఆర్ కాంగ్రెస్ ఎంపీ విజయసాయిరెడ్డి కౌంటర్ ఇచ్చారు. ఇదో రొటీన్ డ్రామా అని.. ట్వీట్ చేశారు. చంద్రబాబు, లోకేష్ ఇద్దరూ.. రాష్ట్ర ఆర్థిక పరిస్థితికే కాదు.. దేశ ఆర్థిక పరిస్థితికీ జవాబుదారులంటూ వ్యాఖ్యానించారు. వారి పేరు మీద ఉన్న బినామీ ఆస్తులు, రహస్య ఖాతాల గురించి ఎవరికీ వివరాలు తెలియవని.. వాటిపై విచారణ జరిగితే అసలు విషయాలు బయటపడతాయని కీలక వ్యాఖ్యలు చేశారు. ఏటా ప్రకటించినట్టే.. తమ కుటుంబ […]
అతను ఓ బ్యాంకులో క్యాషియర్. లోన్ ల పేరుతో మహిళలను లోబరుచుకోవడం అతనికి అలవాటు. ఒకరు కాదు.. ఇద్దరు కాదు. ఏకంగా 40 మందితో అక్రమ సంబంధం పెట్టుకున్నాడు. పెళ్లి చేసుకున్న తర్వాత.. విషయాన్ని గ్రహించి నిలదీసిన భార్యకు నరకం చూపెట్టాడు. అశ్లీల వీడియోలు విడుదల చేస్తానని బెదిరించాడు. ఆఖరికి ఆమెపై హత్యాయత్నానికి ఒడిగట్టాడు. విధి లేక.. ఆ వివాహిత పోలీసులను ఆశ్రయించగా విషయం వెలుగులోకొచ్చింది. తమిళనాడులో బయటపడిన ఈ వ్యవహారం.. సెక్సువల్ క్రైమ్ కథలకే బాప్ […]
ఆశలపల్లకిలో భారత్! కొత్త దశాబ్దపు మహిళ తొలి టీ-20 ప్రపంచకప్ కు కంగారూల్యాండ్ లో తెరలేచింది. ప్రపంచ మహిళా క్రికెట్లోని పది అత్యుత్తమజట్ల ఈ సమరంలో… సూపర్ హిట్టర్ హర్మన్ ప్రీత్ కౌర్ నాయకత్వంలోని భారతజట్టు తొలిసారిగా హాట్ ఫేవరెట్ జట్లలో ఒకటిగా బరిలో నిలిచింది. మహిళా క్రికెట్ చరిత్రలో మరో ప్రపంచకప్ కు రంగం సిద్ధమయ్యింది. ఆస్ట్ర్రేలియా వేదికగా మార్చి 8 వరకూ జరిగే 2020 టీ-20 ప్రపంచకప్ కు తెరలేచింది. నాలుగుసార్లు విజేత ఆస్ట్ర్రేలియా, మాజీ చాంపియన్లు […]
ఆంధ్రప్రదేశ్ రైతులకు రాష్ట్ర ప్రభుత్వం శుభవార్త చెప్పింది. ఆరుగాలం కష్టించి పండించిన పంటను ప్రభుత్వం కొనుగోలు చేసే విధానంలో కీలక మార్పులు చేసినట్టు వ్యవసాయ శాఖ మంత్రి కురసాల కన్నబాబు ప్రకటించారు. ఇకపై.. రైతులు తమ పంటలను ప్రభుత్వం ఏర్పాటు చేసన కొనుగోలు కేంద్రాల్లో విక్రయించేందుకు.. ఈ-కర్షక్ యాప్ లో నమోదు చేసుకోవాల్సిన అవసరం తప్పని సరి కాదని మంత్రి చెప్పారు. కందులు, శనగల విక్రయానికి గతంలో ఈ-కర్షక్ లో నమోదై ఉంటేనే అవకాశం కలిగేదని గుర్తు […]
Some of Latin America’s leading venture capital investors are now backing hotel chains.
In fact, Ayenda, the largest hotel chain in Colombia, has raised $8.7 million in a new round of funding, according to the company.
Led by Kaszek Ventures, the round will support the continued expansion of Ayenda’s chain of hotels in Colombia and beyond. The hotel operator already has 150 hotels operating under its flag in Colombia and has recently expanded to Peru, according to a statement.
Financing came from Kaszek Ventures and strategic investors like Irelandia Aviation, Kairos, Altabix and BWG Ventures.
The company, which was founded in 2018, now has more than 4,500 rooms under its brand in Colombia and has become the biggest hotel chain in the country.
Investments in brick and mortar chains by venture firms are far more common in emerging markets than they are in North America. The investment in Ayenda mirrors big bets that SoftBank Group has made in the Indian hotel chain Oyo and an investment made by Tencent, Sequoia China, Baidu Capital and Goldman Sachs, in LvYue Group late last year, amounting to “several hundred million dollars”, according to a company statement.
"We’re seeking to invest in companies that are redefining the big industries and we found Ayenda, a team that is changing the hotel’s industry in an unprecedented way for the region”, said Nicolas Berman, Kaszek Ventures partner.
Ayenda works with independent hotels through a franchise system to help them increase their occupancy and services. The hotels have to apply to be part of the chain and go through an up to 30-day inspection process before they’re approved to open for business.
“With a broad supply of hotels with the best cost-benefit relationship, guests can travel more frequently, accelerating the economy,” says Declan Ryan, managing partner at Irelandia Aviation.
The company hopes to have more than 1 million guests in 2020 in their hotels. Rooms list at $20 per-night, including amenities and an around the clock customer support team.
Oyo’s story may be a cautionary tale for companies looking at expanding via venture investment for hotel chains. The once high-flying company has been the subject of some scathing criticism. As we wrote:
The New York Times published an in-depth report on Oyo, a tech-enabled budget hotel chain and rising star in the Indian tech community. The NYT wrote that Oyo offers unlicensed rooms and has bribed police officials to deter trouble, among other toxic practices.
Whether Oyo, backed by billions from the SoftBank Vision Fund, will become India's WeWork is the real cause for concern. India's startup ecosystem is likely to face a number of barriers as it grows to compete with the likes of Silicon Valley.
SpaceX is looking to raise around $250 million in new funding according to a new report from CNBC’s Michael Sheetz. The additional cash would bring SpaceX’s total valuation to around $36 billion, according to CNBC’s sources — an increase of more than $2.5 billion versus its most recently reported valuation.
The rocket launch company founded and run by Elon Musk is no stranger to raising large sums of money — it added $1.33 billion during 2019 (from three separate rounds). In total, the company has raised more than $3 billion in funding to date — but the scale of its ambitions provides a clear explanation of why the company has sought so much capital.
SpaceX is also generating a significant amount of revenue: Its contract to develop the Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the NASA commercial crew program came with $3.1 billion in contract award money from the agency, for example, and it charges its customers roughly $60 million per launch of one of its Falcon 9 rockets. Last year alone, SpaceX had 13 launches.
But SpaceX is also not a company to rest on its laurels, or its pre-existing technology investments. The company is in the process of developing its next spacecraft, dubbed “Starship.” Starship will potentially be able to eventually replace both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, and will be fully reusable, instead of partially reusable like those systems. Once it’s operational, it will be able to provide significant cost savings and advantages to SpaceX’s bottom line, if the company’s projections are correct, but getting there requires a massive expenditure of capital in development of the technology required to make Starship fly, and fly reliably.
Musk recently went into detail about the company’s plans to essentially build new versions of Starship as fast as it’s able, incorporating significant changes and updates to each new successive version as it goes. Given the scale of Starship and the relatively expensive process of building each as an essentially bespoke new model, it makes perfect sense why SpaceX would seek to bolster its existing capital with additional funds.
CNBC reports that the funding could close sometime in the middle of next month. We reached out to SpaceX for comment, but did not receive a reply as of publication.
According to a report from Bloomberg, the Trump campaign called dibs on some of the most prized ad space online in the days leading up to the 2020 U.S. election.
Starting in early November and continuing onto Election Day itself, the campaign will reportedly command YouTube’s masthead, the space at the very top of the video sharing site’s homepage. YouTube is now the second most popular website globally after the online video platform overtook Facebook in web traffic back in 2018. Bloomberg didn’t report the details of the purchase, but the YouTube masthead space is reported to cost as much as a million dollars a day.
The Trump campaign’s ad buy is likely to rub the president’s many critics the wrong way, but it isn’t unprecedented. In 2012, the Obama campaign bought the same space before Mitt Romney landed the Republican nomination. It’s also not a first for the Trump campaign, which bought banner ads at the top of YouTube last June to send its own message during the first Democratic debate.
Screenshot of the Trump campaign’s June 2019 YouTube ads via NPR/YouTube
In spite of the precedent, 2020 is a very different year for political money flowing to tech companies — one with a great degree of newfound scrutiny. The big tech platforms are still honing their respective rules for political advertising as November inches closer, but the kinks are far from ironed out and the awkward dance between politics and tech continues.
The fluidity of the situation is a boon to campaigns eager to plow massive amounts of cash into tech platforms. Facebook remains under scrutiny for its willingness to accept money for political ads containing misleading claims, even as the company is showered in cash by 2020 campaigns. Most notable among them is the controversial candidacy of multi-billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who spent a whopping $33 million on Facebook alone in the last 30 days. In spite of its contentious political ad policies, much-maligned Facebook offers a surprising degree of transparency around what runs on its platform through its robust political ad library, a tool that arose out of the controversy surrounding the 2016 U.S. election.
On the other end of the spectrum, Twitter opted to ban political ads altogether, and is currently working on a way to label “synthetic or manipulated media” intended to mislead users — an effort that could flag non-paid content by candidates, including a recent debate video doctored by the Bloomberg campaign. Twitter is working through its own policy issues in a relatively public way, embracing trial-and-error rather than carving its rules in stone.
Unlike Twitter, YouTube will continue to run political ads, but did mysteriously remove a batch of 300 Trump campaign ads last year without disclosing what policy the ads had violated. Google also announced that it would limit election ad targeting to a few high-level categories (age, gender and ZIP code), a decision the Trump campaign called the “muzzling of political speech.” In spite of its strong stance on microtargeting, Google’s policies around allowing lies in political ads fall closer to Facebook’s anything-goes approach. Google makes a few exceptions, disallowing “misleading claims about the census process” and “false claims that could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process,” the latter of which leaves an amphitheater-sized amount of room for interpretation.
In recent years, much of the criticism around political advertising has centered around the practice of microtargeting ads to hyper-specific sets of users, a potent technique made possible by the amount of personal data collected by modern social platforms and a strategy very much back in action in 2020. While Trump’s campaign leveraged that phenomenon to great success in 2016, Trump’s big YouTube ad buy is just one part of an effort to see what sticks, advertising to anybody and everybody in the splashiest spot online in the process.
YouTube declined to confirm to TechCrunch the Trump campaign’s reported ad buy, but noted that the practice of buying the YouTube masthead is “common” during elections.
“In the past, campaigns, PACs, and other political groups have run various types of ads leading up to election day,” the spokesperson said. “All advertisers follow the same process and are welcome to purchase the masthead space as long as their ads comply with our policies.”
Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards' "Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services." She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives.
Today we bring you another edition of "Dear Sophie," an advice column that answers readers' questions about immigration for tech.
"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, 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."
Dear Readers,
Today I'm sharing answers to the most frequently asked questions following up to the last H-1B Dear Sophie. Fortunately, the government has provided a lot more details over the last few weeks. Additional info about the electronic registration process is available on my H-1B podcast. Enjoy!
Am I limited to sponsoring somebody in the lottery to a maximum of three times?
No, there is no limit to how many times a company can sponsor an individual. A lot of companies tend to do it three times because candidates can often work for you for three years with OPT and STEM OPT, but the law doesn't set out an upper limit. Also, you can sponsor current F-1 students as well as people who have accepted your offers who are currently outside the United States.
I'm in HR. When can I create my profile for H-1B electronic registration?
You can access my.uscis.gov starting February 24, 2020 at 10 a.m. (EST) to create your profile for the electronic registration process. However, employers will not be able to create registrations for your employees and candidates until March 1st at noon.
I'm working with a lawyer; which category should I select for my my.uscis.gov profile?
This is counterintuitive. If you're working with an attorney, on the Account Type screen, don't select the box for "I am an applicant, petitioner, or requestor." Instead, select the "I am an H-1B registrant" box.
When can I actually register my employees and people who accepted our job offers?
The initial registration period starts March 1, 2020 and is supposed to run through March 20, 2020. USCIS will announce the actual end date of the initial registration period on its website. If not enough people register (unlikely), USCIS can decide to re-open registrations.
How do I add my lawyer to the my.uscis.gov account?
Your attorney will provide a "representative passcode" that you need to enter. This will take you to the G-28 page where you can accept your representative. Talk to your attorney about whether they prefer that you have USCIS send notices to you or their firm.
How many people can I register?
You can enter up to 250 people in one batch and you can review them before you submit.
What if I make a mistake when registering somebody?
You should be able to delete entries even after having submitted them. The website will warn you if there is missing information, but cannot warn you about inaccurate information.
Can I register the same person more than once?
No, don't do it. It's against the rules and you will forfeit this person's opportunity to get an H-1B.
When are we supposed to file full I-129 petitions with all the supporting documents?
For each of your selected candidates, you will receive a selection notice listing the 90-day filing window deadline and the physical mailing address to send the petition package. Therefore, most petitions will be submitted April through June.
What if we electronically register somebody in good faith but we can't go through with the petition?
USCIS is trusting your company to act in good faith. Make sure that for any candidate you electronically register, they have accepted a position with your company and you actually intend to follow through with hiring them. However, there is currently no requirement to notify USCIS if you won't be following through with filing the full petition for a selected registration.
Can a current student be included in the "Master's cap?"
The advanced degree exemption to the H-1B lottery is for candidates who have received master’s degrees and PhDs from U.S. universities. They have a higher chance of lottery selection. Under the new electronic registration system, you have to prove eligibility at the time of filing the physical petition, not at the time of electronic registration. So if somebody is graduating in May or June, you check the Master's cap box for them in March. However, it's safest to wait to get their proof of graduation before submitting the full I-129 package.
What are the chances?
Last year, there were more than 200,000 petitions. There are 65,000 available H-1Bs plus 20,000 for the Master's cap. Just how many petitions will be filed with the new electronic registration system remains to be seen.
Will premium processing continue to be available?
I don't know, my crystal ball isn't giving me information on this one right now. ;)
Have a question? Ask it here; we reserve the right to edit your submission for clarity and or space. The information provided in "Dear Sophie" is general information and not legal advice. For more information on the limitations of "Dear Sophie," please view our full disclaimer here.
Have a story to share about how you navigated immigration to build your dreams? Apply to guest on Sophie's podcast about immigration law for tech startups.
Tyler Haney, the founder and chief executive of activewear label Outdoor Voices, has stepped down, the company confirmed for us this afternoon.
The Business of Fashion, which first reported the news, said the transition follows a previously unreported capital injection from Outdoor Voices’ investors at a lower valuation than previous rounds. It says the company tried raising new funding late last year but “had difficulty.”
We reached out to Haney directly earlier today, as well as board members from the venture firms that have backed the company, including General Catalyst and Forerunner Ventures. We have yet to hear back from those investors, but the company sent us the following: “As we look to grow and to scale, Tyler Haney has transitioned from her role as Chief Executive of Outdoor Voices to a new position as Founder. We have raised another round of financing from our current investor group to support our growth and expansion moving forward. Tyler will remain a member of the Board of Directors and will assist with the search for a new CEO. Until we fill that role, Cliff Moskowitz will serve as the Company's Interim CEO."
Moskowitz comes from InterLuxe, an online auction platform for luxury homes and real estate properties where he has served as president for the last six years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
BoF cites executive turnover as an earlier indicator that not all was well within the company, suggesting that mismanagement was one factor that Nike and Under Armour veteran Pamela Catlett joined the company a year ago as president but left months later.
Retail legend Mickey Drexler, formerly of J.Crew fame — who was named chairman of Outdoor Voices’ board in the summer of 2017 as part of a $9 million convertible debt round led by Drexler’s family office — also resigned his position last year, though he maintained a director’s seat.
Operational challenges aside, according to BoF, Outdoor Voices has had trouble replicating the kind of excitement that met its earliest offerings, including flattering, color-blocked athleisure wear, like leggings, sports bras, tees and tanks.
The company has since rolled out an exercise dress that has gained traction with some consumers, but newer offerings meant to extend the brand’s reach, including solidly colored hoodies and terrycloth jogging pants that are less distinguishable from other offerings in the market, have apparently failed to boost sales.
Indeed, according to the BoF report, the brand was losing up to $2 million per month last year on annual sales of around $40 million.
The BoF story doesn’t mention the company’s brick-and-mortar locations and how they factor into the company’s narrative. But certainly, as with a growing number of direct-to-consumer brands that have been encouraged by their backers to open real-world locations, they’ve become a major cost center for the outfit. Outdoor Voices now has 11 locations around the U.S., including in Austin, LA, Soho in New York, Boston, Nashville, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Even with (at least) $64 million in funding that Outdoor Voices has raised from investors over the years, it’s also going head-to-head with very powerful, very entrenched and endurably popular brands, including Nike and Adidas. While Outdoor Voices is still in the fight, the shoe and apparel giants have vanquished plenty of upstarts over the years.
What happens next to Haney — a former track athlete from Boulder who first launched the business with a Parsons School of Design classmate — isn’t yet clear. Still, she isn’t going far, reportedly. BoF says she still owns 10% of Outdoor Voices and will remain engaged with the company in some capacity.
Featured above, left to right, Emily Weiss of Glossier and Tyler Haney of Outdoor Voices at a 2017 Disrupt event.
Hot Wheels will ship you a Cybertruck long before Tesla is likely to make any deliveries on their electric retro-future wheeled trapezoid: The toy maker just unveiled two different RC Cybertruck models, including a 1:64 scale model at just $20, and a much larger 1:10 scale version for $400.
These are available to pre-order now, but like most of Tesla’s cars, just because they’re introduced doesn’t mean you can go out and buy one immediately. They’re set to ship in time for the holidays, however, with a December 15, 2020 estimated availability date, according to the Hot Wheels website.
Other features of the 1:10 scale Cybertruck include functioning headlights and taillights, all-wheel drive, true to form “Chill” and “Sport” modes, a removable tonneau cover, a working telescopic tailgate and more.
The smaller and much more affordable version is just three inches long, which is basically what you’d expect from a traditional Hot Wheels mini model, and it can achieve an “up to 500mph scale speed,” which someone who is better than me at math can figure out what that translates to.
These are available to people in the U.S. and Canada, but I expect them to be pretty hot sellers based on the general fervor and interest around all things Cybertruck to date.
A few days ago, Andreessen Horowitz’s Martin Casado and Matt Bornstein published an interesting piece digging into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) startups, and, more specifically, how those companies perform as businesses. Core to the argument presented is that while founders and investors are wagering “that AI businesses will resemble traditional software companies,” the well-known venture firm is “not so sure.”
Given that TechCrunch cares a lot about startup business fundamentals, the notion that one oft-discussedand well-funded category of venture-backed startup might sport materially less attractive economics than we expected captured our attention.
The Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) perspective is straightforward, arguing that AI-focused companies have lesser gross margins than software companies due to cloud compute and human-input costs, endure issues stemming from “edge-cases” and enjoy less product differentiation from competing companies when compared to software concerns. Today, we’re drilling into the gross margin point, as it’s something inherently numerical that we can get other, informed market participants to weigh in on.
If a16z is correct about AI startups having slimmer gross margins than SaaS companies, they should — all other things held equal — be worth less per dollar of revenue generated; or in simpler terms, they should trade at a revenue multiple discount to SaaS companies, leaving the latter category of technology company still atop the valuation hierarchy.
This matters, given the amount of capital that AI-focused startups have raised.
Is a16z correct about AI gross margins? I wanted to find out. So this week I spoke to a number of investors from firms that have made AI-focused bets to get a handle on their views. Read the full a16z piece, mind. It’s interesting and worth your time.
We asked our group of venture investors (selected with the help of research from TechCrunch’s Arman Tabatabai) three questions. The first dealt with margins themselves, the second dealt with resulting valuations and, finally, we asked about their current optimism interval regarding AI-focused companies.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been sharing a number of updates about his company’s progress on Starship this week. Along with footage of the assembly process of the current “SN1” prototype of Starship, he explained on Twitter some of the other considerations and strategies the company is working with as it works on the new spacecraft and tries to fly it to space this year.
Musk said that SpaceX is iterating at a much faster pace with Starship than it has recently with Falcon, as Falcon’s design more or less stabilized once it started working consistently. He noted that the ability to progress with the design toward having a production vehicle is dependent on the number of interactions of the prototypes of the spacecraft, multiplied by the progress achieved between each version.
That’s been the way that SpaceX has worked in the past, and one of the key reasons it’s been able to upend the traditional rocket launch industry. It moves fast, iterating as it goes and making changes based on failures quickly, whereas the industry has largely focused on more stop/start development cycles where things are mostly fixed with brief periods of intense focus on improvement between long-lived vehicle generations.
Starship presents the company’s biggest challenge yet when it comes to this model, if only because of the scale of the rocket. Starship is by far SpaceX’s largest rocket, and building a number of them quickly is actually a significant challenge just from a mechanical perspective, especially when you factor in the considerable changes between generations, and the eventual addition of the very large Super Heavy rocket booster.
On top of the scale of the spacecraft, there’s also the nature of the vehicle, which SpaceX aims to make fully reusable — with quick turnaround between each flight. It’s fairly easy (relatively speaking, of course) to build a spacecraft that only really needs to work once; it’s another thing entirely to build one that you want to reuse tens or even hundreds of times.
Last year, Musk had said at the unveiling of the first completed full-scale prototype of the Starship that they’d aim to have an orbital flight in as few as six months’ time. It’s increasingly looking like that was yet another extremely optimistic timeline from the SpaceX founder, and SN1 is still aiming to complete a high-altitude suborbital flight before future versions actually make the trip to space. Musk suggested SN3, SN4 or SN5 could be the one to take that trip, according to Ars Technica’s Eric Berger.
Berger also reports that SpaceX is considering one of three options for actually launching the orbital Starship prototype, which will be powered by six of the company’s Raptor engines. These will include either flying from Boca Chica, Texas (this is most likely), where the spacecraft are being built, or from Florida, where SpaceX maintains a launch facility for its Falcon rockets, or as a third option, from a sea-based floating launch platform.
SpaceX will need to increase the rate at which it is building, testing and flying these prototypes if it aims to make 2020 for an orbital flight, but it’s also hiring up to help it speed up production. Earlier this year Musk sent out a call for job applicants to staff up additional production shifts for round-the-clock operations, and SpaceX hosted a job fair for interested applicants at its Texas site earlier this month.
The coronavirus outbreak continues to impact the tech industry, Facebook’s Libra Association signs up a new partner and short-form video service Quibi is available for pre-order. Here’s your Daily Crunch for February 21, 2020.
The coronavirus outbreak could result in at least a 3.3% drop — and as high as a 9% dip — in the volume of PCs that will ship globally this year, according to research firm Canalys.
"In the best-case scenario, production levels are expected to revert to full capacity by April 2020, hence the biggest hit will be to sell-in shipments in the first two quarters, with the market recovering in Q3 and Q4," the firm said.
After eBay, Visa, Stripe and other high-profile partners ditched the Facebook-backed cryptocurrency collective, Libra scored a win with the addition of Shopify. The e-commerce platform will become a member of Libra Association, contributing at least $10 million and operating a node that processes transactions for the Facebook-originated stable coin.
Quibi, the mobile-only streaming service from Jeffrey Katzenberg, is now open for pre-orders. The company declined to fully show off its app only a month ago at CES — instead, demos focused on its "TurnStyle" technology — but it appears the app is ready nonetheless.
With this new funding, Volocopter brings its total raised to around $132 million, and it says it will use the newly acquired capital to help certify its VoloCity aircraft, an air taxi designed to transport people, which is on track to become the company's first-ever vehicle licensed for commercial operation.
With our 2020 Robotics + AI sessions event less than two weeks away, we've decided to perform temperature checks across some of the hottest robotics sub-verticals to see which trends are coming down the pipe and where checks are actually being written. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
While a successful live-action Star Wars TV series is important in its own right, the way this particular show was made represents a far greater change, perhaps the most important since the green screen.
The company's first product, Page Builder, offers a drag-and-drop interface to make it easier for e-commerce brands to build their storefronts on Shopify, BigCommerce, Salesforce and Magento. And there's a new product, Shogun Frontend, which allows brands to create a web storefront that's entirely customized while still using one of the big commerce platforms as their back end.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
Mangrove Capital Partners’ co-founder and CEO Mark Tluszcz is brimming with enthusiasm for what's coming down the pipe from health tech startups.
Populations armed with mobile devices and hungry for verified and relevant information, combined with the promise of big data and AI, is converging, as he sees it, into a massive opportunity for businesses to rethink how healthcare is delivered, both as a major platform to plugging gaps in stretched public healthcare systems and multiple spaces in between — serving up something more specific and intimate.
Think health-focused digital communities, perhaps targeting a single sex or time of life, as we’re increasingly seeing in the femtech space, or health-focused apps and services that can act as supportive spaces and sounding boards that cater to the particular biological needs of different groups of people.
Tluszcz has made some savvy bets in his time. He was an early investor in Skype, turning a $2 million investment into $200 million, and he's also made a tidy profit backing web building platform Wix, where he remains as chairman. But the long-time, early-stage tech investor has a new focus after a clutch of investments — in period tracking (Flo), AI diagnostics (K Health) and digital therapeutics (Happify) — have garnered enough momentum to make health the dominant theme of Mangrove Capital's last fund.
"I really don't think that there's a bigger area and a more inefficient area today than healthcare," he tells us. "One of the things that that whole space is missing is just good usability. And that's something that Internet entrepreneurs do very well."
Extra Crunch sat down for an in-depth conversation with Tluszcz to dig into the reasons why he's so excited about mHealth (as Mangrove calls it) and probe him on some of the challenges that arise when building data-led AI businesses with the potential to deeply impact people's lives.
The fund has also produced a healthcare report setting out some of its thinking.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity
TechCrunch: Is the breadth of what can fall in the digital health or mHealth category part of why you're so excited about the opportunities here?
Mark Tluszcz: I think if you take a step back, even from definitions for a moment, and you look around as an investor — and we as a firm, we happen to be thematically driven but no matter who you are — and you say where are there massive pockets of opportunity? And it's typically in areas where there's a lot of inefficiency. And anybody who's tried to go to the doctor anywhere in Europe or around the world or tried to get an appointment with a therapist or whatever realizes how basically inefficient and arcane that process is. From finding out who the right person is, to getting an appointment and going there and paying for it. So healthcare looks to us like one of those arcane industries — the user experience, so to speak, could be so much better. And combine that with the fact that in most cases we know nothing as individuals about health — unless you read a few books and things. But it's generally the one place where you're the least informed in life. So you go see your GP and he or she will tell you something and you're blindly going to take that pill they're going to give you because you're not well informed. You don't understand it.
So I think that's the exciting part about it. If I now look around and say if I now look at all the industries in the world — and of course there's interesting stuff happening in financial services, and it continues to happen on commerce, and many, many places — but I really don't think that there's a bigger area and a more inefficient area today than healthcare.
You combine that with the power that we're beginning to see in all these mobile devices — i.e. I have it in my pocket at all times. So that's factor two. So one is the industry is potentially big and inefficient; two is there's tools that we have easy to access it. And there has been — I think again — a general frustration on healthcare online I would say of when you go into a search engine, or you go into Web MD or Google or whatever, the general feedback it gives you is you're about to have a heart attack or you're about to die because those products are not designed specifically for that. So you as a consumer are confused because you're not feeling well so you go online. The next day you go see your doctor and he or she says you didn't go to Google did you, right? I know you're probably freaked out at this point. So the second point is the tools are there.
Third I'd say is that artificial intelligence, machine learning, which is kind of in the process of gaining a lot of momentum, has made it that we're able to start to dream that we could one day crunch sufficient data to get new insights into it. So I think you put those three factors together and say this seems like it could be pretty big, in terms of a space.
One of the things that that whole space is missing is just good usability. And that's something that Internet entrepreneurs do very well. It's figure out that usability side of it. How do I make that experience more enjoyable or better or whatever? In fact, you see it in fintech. One of the reasons, largely, that these neobanks are winning is that their apps are much better than what you have from the incumbents. There's no other reason for it. And so I think there's this big opportunity that's out there, and it says all these factors lead you to this big, big industry. And then yes, that industry in itself is extremely large — all the way from dieting apps, you might think, all the way to healthy eating apps to longevity apps, to basic information about a particular disease, to basic general practitioner information. You could then break it down into female-specific products, male-specific products — so the breadth is very, very big.
But I think the common core of that is we as humans are getting more information and knowledge about how we are, and that is going to drive, I think, a massive adoption of these products. It's knowledge, it's ease of use, and it's accessibility that just make it a dream come true if we can pull all these pieces together. And this is just speaking about the developed world. This gets even bigger potentially if I go to the third world countries where they don't even have access to basic healthcare information or basic nutritional information. So I would say that the addressable market in investors' jargon is just huge. Much more so than in any other industry that I know of today.
Is the fund trying to break that down into particular areas of focus within that or is the fund potentially interested in everything that falls under this digital health/mHealth umbrella?
We are a generalist investment firm. As a generalist investment firm we find these trends and then anything within these trends is going to pique our interest. Where we have made some investments has been really in three areas so far, and we'll continue to broaden that base.
We've made an investment into a company called Flo. They are the number one app in the world for women to help track their menstrual cycles. So you look at that and go can that be big, not big, I don't know. I can tell you they have 35M monthly active users, so it's massive.
Now you might say, ‘Why do women need this to help them track their cycles because they've been tracking these menstrual cycles other ways for thousands of years?’ This is where, as an investor, you have to combine something like that with new behavioral patterns in people. And so if you look at the younger generation of people today they're a generation that's been growing up on notifications — the concept of being notified to do something. Or reminded to do something. And I think these apps do a lot of that as well.
My wife, who's had two children, might say — which she did before I invested in the company — why would I ever need such an app? And I told her, “Unfortunately you're the wrong demographic… because when I speak to an 18- year-old she says, 'Ah, so cool! And by the way do you have an app to remind me to brush my teeth?' So notifications is what I think what makes it interesting for that younger demographic.
And then curiously enough — this is again the magic of what technology can bring and great products can bring — Flo is a company created by two brothers. They had no particular direct experience of the need for the app. They knew the market was big. They obviously hired women who were more contextually savvy to the problem but they were able to build this fantastic product. And did a bunch of things within the product that they had taken from their previous lives and made it so that the user experience was just so much better than looking at a calendar on your phone. So today 35M women every month use this product tells you that there's something there — that the tech is coming and that people want to use it. And so that's one type of a problem, and you can think about a number of others that both males and females will have — for whom making that single user experience better could be interesting. And I could go from that to ten things that might be interesting for women and ten things that might specifically be interesting for men — you can imagine breaking that down. This is why, again, the space is so big. There are so many things that we deal with as men and women [related to health and biology].
Now for me the question is, as a venture investor, will that sub-set be big enough?
And that again is no different than if I was looking at any other industry. If I was in the telecommunications industry — well is voice calling big? Is messaging big enough? Is conference calling big enough? All that is around calling, but you start breaking it down and, in some cases, we're going to conclude that it's big enough or that it's not big enough. But we're going to have to go through the process of looking at these. And we're seeing these thematic things pop up all over the place right now. All over Europe and in the U.S. as well.
It did take us a little time to say is this big enough [in the case of Flo] but obviously getting pregnant is big enough. And as a business, think about it: once you know a woman's menstrual cycle process and then she starts feeding into the system, 'I am pregnant; I'm going to have a child,' you start having a lot of information about her life and you can feed a lot of other things to her. Because you know when she's going to have a child, you can propose advice as well around here's how the first few months go. Because, as we know, when you have your first child, you're generally a novice. You're discovering what all that means. And again you have another opportunity to re-engage with that user. So that's something that I think is interesting as a space.
So the thematic space is going to be big — the femtech side and the male tech side. All of that's going to play a big role. One could argue always there are the specific apps that are going to be the winners; we can argue about that. But right now I guess Flo is working very well because those people haven't found such a targeted user experience in the more generic place. They feel as if they're in a community of like-minded women. They have forums, they can talk, they have articles they can read, and it's just a comfortable place for them to spend some time.
So Flo is the first example of a very specific play that we did in healthcare about a year and a half ago. The first investment, in fact, that we made in healthcare.
The second example is opposed to that — it's a much more general play in healthcare. It's a company called K Health . Now K Health looked at the world… and said what happens when I wake up at night and I have a pain and I do go to Google and I think I'm going to have a heart attack…. So can I build a product that would mimic, if you will, a doctor? So that I might be able to create an experience when I can have immediacy of information and immediacy of diagnostics on my phone. And then I could figure out what to do with that.
This is an Israeli company and they now have 5 million users in the U.S. that are using the app, which is downloadable from the U.S. app story only. What they did is they spent a year and a half building the technology — the AI and the machine learning — because what they did is they bought a very large dataset from an insurance company. The company sold it to them anonymized. It was personal health records for 2.5 million people for 20, years so we had a lot of information. A lot of this stuff was in handwritten notes. It wasn't well structured. So it took them a long time to build the software to be able to understand all this information and break it down into billions of data parts that they could now manipulate. And the user experience is just like a WhatsApp chat with a robot.
Their desire is not to do what some other companies are doing, which is 'answer ten questions and maybe you should talk to a doctor via Skype.' Because their view was that — at the end of the day — in every developed country there are shortages of doctors. That's true for the U.K.; it's true for the U.S. If you predict out to 2030, there's a huge hole in the number of GPs. Part of that is also totally understandable; who would want to be a GP today? I mean your job in the U.S. and the U.K. is you're essentially a sausage factory. Come in and you've got 3 minutes with your customer. It's not a great experience for the doctor or the person who goes to the doctor.
So K Health built this fantastic app and what they do is they diagnose you and they say based on the symptoms here's what K thinks you have, and, by the way, here's a medicine that people like you were treated with. So there's an amazing amount of information that you get as a user, and that's entirely free as a user experience. Their vision is that the diagnostic part will always be free.
There are 5 million people in the US.. using the app who are diagnosing. There are 25 questions that you go through with the robot, 'K,’ and she diagnoses you. We call that a virtual doctor's visit. We're doing 15,000 of those a day. Think about the scale in which we've been able to go in a very short time. And all that's free.
To some extent it's great for people who can't necessarily afford doctors — again, that's not typically a European problem. Because socialized medicine in Europe has made that easy. But it is a problem in the U.S.; it is a problem in Africa, Asia, India and South America. There's about 4 billion people around the world for whom speaking to a doctor is a problem.
K Health's view is they're bringing healthcare free to the world. And then ultimately how they make money will be things like if you want to speak to a doctor because you need a prescription for drugs. The doctor has access to K's diagnostic and either agrees or disagrees with it and gives you a prescription to do that. And what we're seeing is an interesting relationship which is where we wanted it to be. Of those 15,000 free doctor visits, less than one percent of those turn into I want to speak to a human and hence pay $15 (that's the price they're charging in the U.S. to actually converse with a human). In the U.S., by the way, about a quarter of the population — 75 million people — don't have complementary insurance. That when they go to the doctor it's $150. Isn't that a crazy thing? You can't afford complementary insurance but you could pay the highest price to go see a doctor. Such madness.
And then there's a whole element of it’s simple, and it's convenient. You're sitting at home thinking, “Okay, I'm not feeling so well” and you’ve got to call a doctor, get an appointment, drive however long it takes, and wait in line with other sick people. So what we're finding is people are discovering new ways of accessing information…. Human doctors also don't have time to give empathy in an ever stretched socialized medicine country [such as in Spain]. So what we're seeing also is a very quick change in user behavior. Two and a half years ago [when K Health started], many people would say I don't know about that. Now they're saying convenience — at least in Europe — is why that's interesting. In the U.S. it's price.
So that's the second example; much more general company but one which has the ability to come and answer a very basic need: 'I'm not feeling well.'
We have 5M users which means we have data on 5M people. On average, a GP in his life will see about 50,000 patients. If you think about just the difference — if you come to K, K has seen 5M people, your GP Max has seen 50k. So, statistically, the app is likely to be better. We know today, through benchmarks and all sorts of other stuff, is that the app is more accurate than humans.
So you look at where that's heading in general medicine we've for a long time created this myth that doctors spent eight years learning a lot of information and as a result they're really brainy people. They are brainy people but I believe that that learning process is going to be done faster and better through a machine. That's our bet.
The third example of an investment that we've made in the health space is a company called Happify . They're a company that had developed like a gamification of online treatment if you have certain sicknesses. So, for example, if you're a little depressive you can use their app and the gamification process and they will help you feel healthier. So so far you're probably scatching your head saying 'I don't know about that…" But that was how they started and then they realized that hang on you can either do that or you can take medicine; you can pop a pill. In fact what many doctors suggest for people who have anxiety or depression.
So then they started engaging with the drugs companies and they realized that these drug companies have a problem which is the patent expiry of their medication. And when patents expire you lose a lot of money. And so what's very typical in the pharma industry is if you're able to modify a medicine you can typically either extend or have a new patent. So Happify, what they've done with the pharma companies now, is said instead of modifying the medicine and adding something else to it — another molecule for instance — could we associate treatments which is medicine plus online software? Like a digital experience. And that has now been dubbed Digital Therapeutics — DTx — is the common term being used for them. And this company Happify is one of the first in the world to do that. They signed a very large deal with a company called Sanofi — one of the big drug makers. And that's what they're going to roll out. When doctors say to their patients I'm diagnosing you with anxiety or depression. Sanofi has a particular medication and they're going to bundle it now with an online experience — and in all the tests that they've done, actually, when you combine the two, the patient is better off at the end of this treatment. So it's just another example of why this whole space is so large. We never thought we'd be in any business with a pharma business because we're tech investors. But here all of a sudden the ability to marry tech with medication creates a better end user experience for the patient. And that's very powerful in itself.
So those are just three areas where we have actually put money in the health space but there are a number of areas that one looks at — either general or more specific.
Yeah it is big. And I think for us at least the more general it stays and it's seen the more open minded we're going to be. Because one thing you have to be as an investor, at least early stage like ours, completely open minded. And you can't bias your process by your own experience. It has to stay very broad.
It's also why I think clinician led companies and investors are not good — because they come with their own baggage. I think in this case, just like in any other industry, you have to say I'm not going to be polluted by the past and for me to change the experience going forward in any given area I have to fundamentally be ready to reinvent it.
You could propose a Theranos example as a counterpoint to that — but do you think investors in the health space have got over any fallout from that high profile failure at this point?
With that company one could argue who's fault it really was. Clearly the founder lied and did all sorts of stuff but her investors let her do it. So to some extent the checks and balances just weren't in place. I'm only saying that because I don't think that should be the example by which we judge everything else. That's just a case of a fraudster and dumb investors. That's going to continue to exist in the future forever and who knows we might come across some of those but I don't think it's the benchmark by which one should be judging if healthcare is a good or viable investment. Again I look at Flo, 35M active users. I look at K Health, 5M users in the US who are now beginning to use doctors, order medicine through the platform. I think the simplicity, the ease of use, for me make it that it's undeniable that this industry's going to be completely shaken up through this tech. And we need it because at least in the Western world are health systems are so stretched they're going to break.
Europe vs the US is interesting — because of the existence of public healthcare vs a lack of public healthcare. What difference does that make to the startup opportunities in health in Europe vs the US? Perhaps in Europe things have to be more supplementary to public healthcare systems but perhaps ultimately there isn't that much difference if healthcare opportunities are increasingly being broken out and people are being encouraged to be more proactive about looking after their own health needs?
Yeah. Take K Health — where you look at it and say from a use example it's clear that everywhere in the world, including US and Europe, people are going to recognize the simple ease of use and the convenience of it. If I had to spend money to then maybe make money then I would say maybe the US is slightly better because there's 75M people who can't afford a doctor and I might be able to sell them something more whereas in Europe I might not. I think it becomes a commercial question more than anything else. Certainly in the UK the NHS [National Health Service] is trying to do a lot of things. It is not a great user experience when you go to the doctor there. But at the end of the day I don't think the difference between Europe-US makes much of a difference. I think this idea that what these apps want to tend towards — which is healthcare for everybody at a super cheap or free price-point — I think we have an advantage in Europe of thinking of it that way because that's what we've had all our lives. So to some extent what I want to create online is socialized medicine for the world — through K Health. And I learnt that because I live here [in Europe].
Somebody in the US — not the 75M because they have nothing — but all the others, maybe they don't think there's a problem because they don't recognize it. Our view with K Health is the opportunity to make socialized medicine a global phenomenon and hoping that in 95% of the cases access to the app is all you need. And in 5% of the cases you're going to go the specialists that need to see you — and then maybe there's enough money to go around for everybody.
And of course, as an investor, we're interested in global companies. Again you see the theme: Flo, K Health, Happify, all those have a potential global footprint right off the bat.
I think with healthcare there are going to be play that could be national specific and maybe still going to be decent investments. You see in that in financial services. The neo banks are very country specific — whenever they try to get out of their country, like N26, they realize that life isn't so easy when you go somewhere else. But healthcare I think we have an easier path to going global because there is such a pent up demand and a need for you to just feel good about yourself… Most of the people who go through [the K Health diagnostic] process just want peace of mind. If 95% of the 15k people who go through that process right now just go, “Phew, I feel okay” then we've accomplished something quite significant. And imagine if it's not 15,000 it's about 150,000 a day, which seems to be quite an easy goal. So healthcare allows us to dream that TAM — in investor terms, target addressable market — is big. I can realistically think with any one of the three companies that I've mentioned to you that we could have hundreds of millions of users around the world. Because there's the need.
There are different regulatory regimes across markets, there are different cultural contexts around the world — do you see this as a winner takes all scenario for health platforms?
No. Not at all. I think ultimately it's the user — in terms of his or her experience in using an app — that's going to matter. Flo is not the only menstrual cycle app in the world; it just happens to be by far the biggest. But there's others. So that's the perfect example. I don't think there's going to be one winner takes it all.
There's also (UK startup) Babylon Health which sounds quite similar to K Health…
Babylon does something different. They're essentially a symptom checker designed to push you to have a Skype call with a human doctor…. It answers a bunch of questions, it'll say, “Well, we think you have this, let's connect you to a real doctor.” We did not want to invest in a company that ever did that because the real problem is there just aren't enough doctors and then frankly you and I are not going to want to talk to a doctor from Angola. Because what's going to happen is there aren't enough doctors in the Western countries and the solution for those type of companies — Babylon is one, there's others doing similar things — but if you become what we call lead generation just for doctors where you get a commission for bringing people to speak to a doctor you're just displacing the problem from in your neighborhood to, broadly speaking, where are the humans? And I think as I said humans, they have their fallacies. If you really want to scale things big and globally you have to let software do it.
No it's not a winner takes all — for sure.
So the vision is that this stuff starts as a supplement to existing healthcare systems and gradually scales?
Correct. I'll give you an example in the U.S. with K Health. They have a deal with the second largest insurance company called Anthem. Their go-to-market brand is called Blue Cross, Blue Shield. It's the second largest one in America… so why is this insurance company interested? Because they know that
There's not enough doctors.
That the health system in the U.S. is under stress
If they could reduce the amount of doctor's visits by promoting an app like K, that's financially beneficial to them.
So they're going to be proposing it, in various forms, to all their customers by saying, “Before you go see a doctor, why don't you try K?”
In this particular case with K there's revenue opportunities from the insurance companies and also directly from the consumer, which makes it also interesting.
You did say different regions, different countries have different systems — yes absolutely and there's no question that going international requires work. However, having said that, I would say a European, an Indonesian and a Brazilian are largely similar. There's sometimes this fallacy that Asians, for instance, are so different from us as Western Europeans. And the truth is not really — when you look at it down into the DNA and the functions of the body and stuff like that. Which you do have to do, though. If we were to take K to Indonesia, for example, you do have to make sure that your AI engine has enough data to be able to diagnose some local stuff.
I'll give you an example. When we launched K in the U.S. and we started off with New York, one of things you have to be able to diagnose is called Lyme disease which is what you get from a tick that bites you. Very, very prevalent in the Greater New York area. Not so much anywhere else in the States. But in New York, if you don't have it it looks like a cold and then you get very sick. That's very much a regional thing that you have to have. And so if we were to go to Indonesia we'd have to have thing like Malaria and Dengue. But all that is not so difficult. But yes, there's some customization.
There are also certain conditions that can be more common for certain ethnicities. There are also differences in how women experience medical conditions vs men. So there can be a lot of issues around how localized health data is…
I would say that that is a very small problem that is a must to be addressed, but it's a much smaller problem than you think it is. Much smaller. For instance, in the male to female thing — of course medical sometimes plays differently — but when you have a database of 5 million of which 3 million are women, and 2 million are men, you already have that data embedded. It is true that medications work better with certain races also. But again very tiny, very small examples of those. Most doctors know it.
At the big scale that may look very small but to an individual patient if a system is not going to pick up on their condition or prescribe them the right medicine that's obviously catastrophic from their point of view…
Of course.
Which is why, in the healthcare space, when you're using AI and data-driven tools to do diagnosis there's a lot of risk — and that's part of the consideration for everyone playing in this space. So then the question is how do you break down that risk, how do you make that as small as possible and how do you communicate it to the users — if the proposition is free healthcare with some risk vs. not being able to afford going to the doctor at all?
I appreciate that, as a journalist, you're trying to say this is a massive risk. I can tell you that as somebody who's involved in these businesses it is a business risk we have to take into consideration but it is, by far, not insurmountable. We clearly have a responsibility as businesses to say: if I'm going to go to South East Asia, I need to be sure that I cover all the 'weird' things that we would not have in our database somewhere else. So I need to do that. How I go about doing that, obviously, is the secret sauce of each company. But you simply cannot launch your product in that region if you don't solve — in this case Malaria and Dengue disease. It doesn't make sense [for a general health app]. You'd have too many flaws and people will stop using you.
I don't think that's so much the case with Flo, for instance… But all these entrepreneurs who are designing these companies are fully aware that it isn't a cookie-cutter, one-size fits all — but it is close to that. When you look at the exceptions. We're not talking about I have to redo my database because 30% or 20% — it's much, much smaller than that.
And, by the way, at the end of the day, the market will be the judge. In our case, when you go from an Israeli company into the U.S. and you have partners like Blue Cross, Blue Shield, they've tested the crap out of your product. And then you're going to say well I'm going to do this now in Indonesia — well you get partners locally who're going to help you do that.
One of the drawbacks about healthcare is, I would say, making sure that your product works in all these countries. And doesn't have holes in the diagnostic side of it.
Which seems in many cases to boil down to getting the data. And that can be a big challenge. As you mentioned with K Health, there was also the need to structure the data as well — but fundamentally it's taken Israeli population data and is using it in the U.S. You would say that model is going to scale? There are some counter examples, such as Google-owned DeepMind, which has big designs on using AI for healthcare diagnostics and has put a lot of effort into getting access to population-level health data from the NHS in the U.K., when — at the same time — Google has acquired a database of health records from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. So there does seem to be a lot of effort going into trying to get very localized data but it's challenging. Google perhaps has a head start because it's Google. So the question then is how do startups get the data they need to address these kinds of opportunities?
If we're just looking at K Health then obviously it's a big challenge because you do have to get data in a way. But I would say again your example as well you have a U.S. database and does it match with a UK database. Again it largely does.
In that case the example is quite specific because the dataset Google has from the department of Veterans Affairs skews heavily male (93.6%). So they really do have almost no female data.
But that's a bad dataset. That's not anything else but a bad dataset.
It's instructive that they're still using it, though. Maybe that illustrates the challenge of getting access to population-level healthcare data for AI model making.
Maybe it does. But I don't think this is one of those insurmountable things. Again, what we've done is we've bought a database that had data on 2.5 million patients, data over 20 years. I think that dataset equates extremely well. We've now seen it in U.S. markets for over a year. We've had nothing but positive feedback. We beat human doctors every time in tests. And so you look at it and you say they're just business problems that we have to solve. But what we're seeing is the consumer market is saying holy shit this is just such a better experience than I've ever had before.
So the human body — again — is not that complex. Most of the things that we catch are not that complex. And by the way we've grown our database — from the 2.5M that we bought we now have 5M. So we now have 2.5M Americans mixing into that database. And the way they diagnose you is they say based on your age, your size, you don't smoke and so on — perhaps they say they have 300,000 people in their database like you and they're benchmarking my symptoms against those people. So I think the smart companies are going to do these things very smartly. But you have to know what you're using as a user as well… If you're using that vs just a basic symptom checker — that I don't think is a particularly great new user experience. But some companies are going to be successful doing that. At the end the great dream is how do you bring all this together and how do you give the consumer a fundamentally better choice and better information. That's K Health.
Why couldn't Google do the same thing? I don't know. They just don't think about it.
That's a really interesting question — because Google is making big moves in health. They're consolidating all their projects under one Google Health unit. Amazon is also increasingly interestedin the space. What do you make of this big tech interest? Is that a threat or an opportunity for health startups?
Well if you think of it as an investor they're all obviously buyers of the companies you're going to build. So that's a long term opportunity to sell your business. On the shorter term, does it make sense to invest in companies if all of a sudden the mammoth big players are there? By the way, that has been true for many, many other sectors as well. When I first invested in Skype in the early days people would say the telecom guys are going to crush you. Well they didn't. But all of a sudden telecom, communication became the current that the Internet guys wanted — that's why eBay ultimately bought us and why they all had their own messenger.
What the future's made of we don't know, but what we do know is that consumers want just the best experience and sometimes the best experience comes from people who are very innovative and very hungry as opposed to people who are working in very large companies. Venture capitalists are always investing in companies that somehow are competing one way or another with Amazon, Facebook, Google and all the big guys. It's just that when you focus your energy on one thing you tend to do it better than if you don't. And I'm not suggesting that those companies are not investing a lot of money. They are. And that's because they realize that one of the currencies of the future is the ability to provide healthcare information, treatment and things like that.
You look at a large retail store like Wal-mart in America. Wal-mart serves largely a population that makes $50k or less. The lower income category in North America. But what are they doing to make you more loyal to them? They're now starting to build into every Wal-mart doctor's offices. Why would they do that? Is it because they actually know that if you make $50k or less there's a high chance you don't have an insurance and there's a high chance that you can't afford to go see a doctor. So they're going to use that to say, “Hey, if you shop with us, instead of paying $150 for a doctor, it'll be cheaper.” And we're beginning to see so many examples like this — where all these companies are saying actually healthcare is the biggest and most important thing that somebody thinks about every day. And if we want to make them loyal to our brand we need to offer something that's in the healthcare space. So the conclusion of why we're so excited it we're seeing it happen in real life.
Wal-mart does that — so when Amazon starts buying an online pharmacy I get why they're doing that. They want to connect with you on an emotional level which is when you're not feeling well.
So no, I don't think we're particularly worried about them. You have to respect they're large companies, they have a lot of money and things like that. But that's always been the case. We think that some of these will likely be bought by those players, some of those will likely build their own businesses. At the end of the day it's who's going to get that user experience right.
Google of course would like us all to believe that because they're the search engine of the world they have the first rights to become the health search engine of the world. I tend to think that's not true. Actually if you look at the history of Google they were the search engine of the world until they forgot about Amazon. And nowadays if you want to buy anything physical where do you search first? You don't search on Google anymore — you search on Amazon.
But the space is big and there's a lot of great entrepreneurs and Europe has a lot to offer I think in terms of taking our history of socialized medicine and saying how can tech power that to make it a better experience?
So what should entrepreneurs that are just thinking about this space — what should they be focusing on in terms of things to fix?
Right now the hottest are the three that I mentioned — because those are the ones that we've put money into and we've put money in because we think those are the hottest areas. I just think that anything where you feel deep conviction about or you've had some basic experience with the issue and the problem.
I simply do not think that clinicians can make this change — in any sector. If you look at those companies I mentioned none of the founders are clinicians in any way shape or form. And that's why they're successful. Now I'm not suggesting that you don't have to have doctors on your staff. For sure. At K Health, we have 30 doctors…. What we're trying to do is change the experience. So the founder, for instance. was a founder of a company called Vroom that buys and sells cars online in the States. When he started he didn't know a whole lot about healthcare but he said to himself what I know is I don't like the user experience. It's a horrible user experience. I don't like going to the doctor. I can change that.
So I would say if you're heading into that space your first pre-occupation is how am I going to change the current user experience in a way that's meaningful. Because that's the only thing that people care about.
How is possible that two guys could come up with Flo? They were just good product people.
For me, that's the driving factor — if you're going to go into this, go into it saying you're there to break an experience and make it just a way better place to be.
On the size of the opportunity I have seen some suggestions that health is overheated in investment terms. But perhaps that's more true in the U.S. than Europe?
Any time an investor community gets hold of a theme and makes it the theme of the month or the year — like fintech was for ten years — I think it becomes overfunded because everybody ploughs into that. I could say yes to that statement sure. Lot of players, lot of actors. Money's pouring in because people believe that the outcome could be big. So I don't think it's overheated. I think that we've only scratched the surface by doing certain things.
Some of the companies in the healthcare space that are either thinking of going public or are going public are companies that are pretty basic companies around connecting you with doctors online, etc. So I think that the innovation is really, really coming. As AI becomes real and we're able to manage the data in an effective way… But again you've got to get the user experience right.
Flo in my experience — why it's better than anything else — one is it's just a great user experience. And then they have a forum on their app, and the forum is anonymized. And this is curious right. I think they anonymized it without knowing what it would do. And what it did was it allowed women to talk about stuff that perhaps they were not comfortable talking about stuff if people knew who they were. Number one issue? Abortion.
There's a stigma out there around abortion and so by anonymizing the chat forum all of a sudden it created this opportunity for people to just exchange an experience. So that's why I say the user experience for me is just at the core of that revolution that's coming.
Why should it be such a horrific experience to be able to talk about that subject? Why should women be put in that position? So that's why I think user experience is going to be so key to that.
So that's why we're excited. And of course the gambit is large. You think about the examples I gave — you can think of dietary examples, men's health examples. When men turn 50 things start happening. Little things. But there's at least 15 of those things that are 100% predictable… I just turned 50 and given there's so much disinformation online I don't know what's true. So I think again there's a fantastic opportunity for somebody to build companies around that theme — again, probably male and female separate.
Menopause would be another obvious one.
Exactly… You don't know who you can talk to in many cases. So that's another opportunity. And wow there are so many things out there. And when I go online today I'm generally not sure if I can believe what I read unless it's from a source that I can trust.
For 50 year old men erectile dysfunction is another taboo — a bit like the abortion taboo is for women. Men don't even talk to their male friends about it… So if there was a place where you could go and learn about it I think there's a big opportunity. I don't think erectile dysfunction is a business, but I think how men age is one.
So it's opportunities for communities around particular health/well-being issues.
Exactly. Because we're looking for truths when we're going through that experience ourselves.
The addressable market is massive. There's men turning 50 every year and they're probably all pretty interested to find out what are the ten or 15 things that could go wrong for them. There's a lot of opportunities. It's so broad. The challenge is you have to think about building it for people who are 50. You're not building it for an 18-year-old. So the user experience again has to be somewhat different probably. And the healthcare goes all the way to the seniors. What are you looking for when you're 75? So you see it treats anywhere from certainly from 18 all the way up across a broad-based spectrum of things. So it's one of our major themes for the next five to ten years.
And so the idea of it being overheated in investment terms is a bit too abstract because there are specific areas that are very underinvested — like femtech. So it's a case of spotting the particular bits of the healthcare opportunity that need more attention.
Yes. You've described it perfectly. In our more simpleton terms, we look at it and say if I look at the previous hot industry — fintech — you would end up with companies doing credit cards, companies doing bank accounts, companies doing lending, companies doing recovery — so many pieces of the value chain. In this case the value chain is humans.
We are even more complex than financial services have ever been, so I think the opportunities are even broader to break it down and build businesses that are going to satisfy certain sexes, maybe certain demographics, certain ages and all these kind of things that are out there. We are just so different.
TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics + AI brings together a wide group of the ecosystem’s leading minds on March 3 at UC Berkeley. Over 1,000+ attendees are expected from all facets of the robotics and artificial intelligence space — investors, students, engineers, C-levels, technologists and researchers. We’ve compiled a small list of highlights of attendees’ companies and job titles attending this year’s event:
ATTENDEE HIGHLIGHTS
ABB Technology Ventures, Vice President
Amazon, Head, re:MARS Product Marketing
Amazon Web Services, Principal Business Development Manager
Autodesk, Director, Robotics
AWS, Principal Technologist
BMW, R&D Engineer
Bosch Venture Capital, Investment Principal
Capital One, President of Critical Stack
Ceres Robotics Inc., CEO
Deloitte, Managing Director
Facebook AI Research, Research Lead
Ford X, Strategy & Operations
Goldman Sachs, Technology Investor
Google, Vice President
Google X, Director, Robotics
Greylock, EIR
Hasbro, Principal Engineer
Honda R&D Americas Inc., Data Engineer
HSBC, Global Relationship Manager
Huawei Technologies, Principal System Architect of Corporate Technology Strategy
Hyundai CRADLE, Industrial Design
Intel, Hardware Engineer
Intuit, Inc., Software Engineer
iRobot, CTO
John Deere, Director, Precision Ag Marketing and Innovation
Kaiser Permanente, Director
Kawasaki Heavy Industries (USA), Inc., Technical Director
LG Electronics, Head of Engineering
LockHeed Martin, Engineering Manager
Moody’s Analytics, Managing Director
Morgan Stanley, Executive Director
NASA, Senior Systems Architect
Nestle, Innovation Manager
NVIDIA, Senior Systems Software Engineer
Qualcomm Ventures, Investment Director
Samsung, Director, Open Innovations & Tech Partnership
Toyota Research Institute, Manager, Prototyping & Robotics Operations
Uber, Engineering Manager
UPS, Director of Research and Development
STUDENTS & RESEARCHERS FROM:
Columbia University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Harvard University
Northwestern University
Santa Clara University
Stanford University
Texas A&M University
UC Berkeley
UC Davis
UCLA
USC
Yale University
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DSP Concepts — a startup whose Audio Weaver software is used by companies as varied as Tesla, Porsche, GoPro and Braun Audio — is announcing that it has raised $14.5 million in Series B funding.
The startup goal, as explained to me by CEO Chin Beckmann and CTO Paul Beckmann (yep, they’re a husband-and-wife founding team), is to create the standard framework that companies use to develop their audio processing software.
To that end, Chin told me they were “picky about who we wanted on the B round, we wanted it to represent the support and endorsement of the industry.”
So the round was led by Taiwania Capital, but it also includes investments from the strategic arms of DSP Concepts’ industry partners — BMW i Ventures (which led the Series A), the Sony Innovation Growth Fund by Innovation Growth Ventures, MediaTek Ventures, Porsche Ventures and the ARM IoT Fund.
Paul said Audio Weaver started out as the “secret weapon” of the Beckmanns’ consulting business, which he could use to “whip out” the results of an audio engineering project. At a certain point, consulting customers started asking him, “Hey, how about you teach me how to use that?,” so they decided to launch a startup focused on the Audio Weaver platform.
Paul described the software as a “graphical block diagram editor.” Basically, it provides a way for audio engineers to combine and customize different software modules for audio processing.
“Audio is still in the Stone Ages compared to other industries,” he said. “Suppose you're building a product with a touchscreen — are you going write the graphics from scratch or use a framework like Qt?”
Similarly, he suggested that while many audio engineers are still “down in the weeds writing code,” they can take advantage of Audio Weaver’s graphical interface to piece everything together, as well as the company’s “hundreds of different modules — pre-written, pre-tested, pre-optimized functions to build up your system.”
For example, Paul said that by using the Audio Weaver platform, DSP Concepts engineers could test out “hundreds of ideas” for algorithms for reducing wind noise in the footage captured by GoPro cameras, then ultimately “hand the algorithms over to GoPro,” whose team could them plug the algorithms into their software and modify it themselves.
The Beckmanns said the company also works closely with chip manufacturers to ensure that audio software will work properly on any device powered by a given chipset.
Other modules include TalkTo, which is designed to give voice assistants like Alexa “super-hearing,” so that they can still isolate voice commands and cancel out all the other noise in loud environments, even rock concerts. (You can watch a TalkTo demo in the video below.)
DSP Concepts has now raised more than $25 million in total funding.
After eBay, Visa, Stripe and other high-profile partners ditched the Facebook -backed cryptocurrency collective, Libra scored a win today with the addition of Shopify. The e-commerce platform will become a member of Libra Association, contributing at least $10 million and operating a node that processes transactions for the Facebook-originated stable coin.
If Libra manages to assuage international regulators’ concerns, which are currently blocking its roll out, Shopify could gain a way to process transactions without paying credit card fees. Libra is designed to move between wallets with zero or nearly-zero fees. That could save money for Shopify and the 1 million merchants running online shops on its platform.
Shopify stressed that helping merchants reduce fees and bringing commerce opportunities to developing nations as reasons it’s joining the Libra Association . “Much of the world's financial infrastructure was not built to handle the scale and needs of internet commerce,” Shopify writes. Here are the most critical parts of its announcement:
Our mission is to make commerce better for everyone and to do that, we spend a lot of our time thinking about how to make commerce better in parts of the world where money and banking could be far better . . . As a member of the Libra Association, we will work collectively to build a payment network that makes money easier to access and supports merchants and consumers everywhere . . . Our mission has always been to support the entrepreneurial journey of the more than one million merchants on our platform. That means advocating for transparent fees and easy access to capital, and ensuring the security and privacy of our merchants' customer data. We want to create an infrastructure that empowers more entrepreneurs around the world.
As part of the Libra Association, Shopify will become a validator node operator, gain one vote on the Libra Association council and can earn dividends from interest earned on the Libra reserve in proportion to its investment, which is $10 million at a minimum.
The Libra Association had lost much of its e-commerce expertise when a string of members abandoned the project in October amidst regulatory scrutiny. That included traditional payment processors like Visa and Mastercard, online processors like Stripe and PayPal and marketplaces like eBay. That threw into question whether Libra would have the right partners to make the cryptocurrency accepted in enough places to be useful to people.
As it works to convince regulators Libra is safe, Facebook has been working on its other payment plays, including Facebook Pay and WhatsApp Pay, that rely on traditional bank transfers or credit cards.
Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lutke tweeted that “Shopify spends a lot of time thinking about how to make commerce better in parts of the world where money and banking could be far better. That's why we decided to become a member of the Libra Association.”
“We are proud to welcome Shopify, Inc. (SHOP) to the Libra Association. As a multinational commerce platform with over one million businesses in approximately 175 countries, Shopify, Inc. brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the Libra project,” writes Dante Disparte, the Libra Association’s head of Policy and Communications. “Shopify joins an active group of Libra Association members committed to achieving a safe, transparent, and consumer-friendly implementation of a global payment system that breaks down financial barriers for billions of people.”
A recent hire further tied the two companies together. Facebook’s former lead product manager for its payment platform and billing teams, Kaz Nejatian, in September became Shopify’s VP and GM of money.
Operating an e-commerce store can be difficult or impossible without a traditional bank account that can be tough to attain in some developing countries. Libra could allow these merchants to establish a Libra Wallet where payments are sent instantly, without steep credit card fees, and in theory could be cashed out at local brick-and-mortar establishments or ATMs for local fiat currency.
Shopify’s credit card readers
But for any of that to happen, the Libra Association will have to convince the U.S. government, the EU and more that it won’t help terrorists launder money, hurt people’s privacy or weaken nations’ power in the global financial system. “The French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, "the monetary sovereignty of countries is at stake from a possible privatisation of money . . . we cannot authorise the development of Libra on European soil."
Libra was initially slated to launch in 2020. We’ll see.
—
Here’s the full list of Libra Association members:
Julian Shapiro is the founder of BellCurve.com, a growth marketing team that trains startups in advanced growth, helps you hire senior growth marketers and finds you vetted growth agencies. He also writes at Julian.com.
We've aggregated many of the world's best growth marketers into one community. Twice a month, we ask them to share their most effective growth tactics, and we compile them into this growth report.
This is how you stay up-to-date on growth marketing tactics — with advice that's hard to find elsewhere.
Our community consists of 1,000 startup founders and VPs of growth from later-stage companies. We have 400 YC founders, plus senior marketers from companies including Medium, Docker, Invision, Intuit, Pinterest, Discord, Webflow, Lambda School, Perfect Keto, Typeform, Modern Fertility, Segment, Udemy, Puma, Cameo and Ritual .
Even people who earn minimum wage can't be bothered to refer a friend for a $25 referral fee. The most successful referral programs typically focus on app features that naturally incentivize users to invite friends and colleagues.
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
This morning we’re digging into Dropbox’searnings report (Q4 2019), and why its recent financial performance and plans for 2020 are making the storage and productivity-focused SaaS player shares soar.
While the broader SaaS category has seen huge valuation gains in recent quarters, Dropbox has not. Along with Box, the two file-sharing focused companies were left behind as their broader unicorn cohort’s value surged. Why? Slowing growth, mostly. But with Dropbox shares up 13% pre-market to more than $21 this morning — its original IPO price — perhaps things are changing for one of the two firms.
To figure out what happened, we’ll start by unearthing what Dropbox managed to pull off in Q4 and compare its projections with market expectations. At the end, we’ll translate what we’ve learned from public SaaS companies for their private, startup brethren. As always, when we look at public companies, we’re hunting for market signals that will impact startup fundraising and valuations.
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week was a fun combination of early-stage and late-stage news, with companies as young as seed stage and as old as PE-worthy joining our list of topics.
HungryPanda raises $20 million from 83North and Felix Capital. With a focus on Chinese food, Chinese language users and Chinese payment options like Alipay, it’s a neat play. According to TechCrunch, the service is live in 31 cities in the U.K., Italy, France, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S and is targeting $200 million in GMV by early Summer.
The Org raises $8.5 million, ChartHop raises $5 million. Hailing from two different product perspectives, these two org chart-focused companies both raised capital Thursday morning. That made them interesting to Alex as they formed yet another startup cluster, and Danny was transfixed by their differing starting points as businesses, positing that they will possibly move closer to each other over time.
DigitalOcean’s $100 million debt raise. The round — an addition of capital to a nearly profitable, SMB-focused cloud infra provider — split our hosts, with one leaning more toward a PE-exit and the other an IPO. Whether it can drive margins in the smaller-spend cloud customer segment will be critical to watch in the coming months.
And finally, the E-Trade sale to Morgan Stanley, and what it might mean for Robinhood’s valuation. As Danny points out, the startup has found a good business in selling the order flow of its customers. Alex weighed in that the company has more revenue scaling to do before it grows into its last private valuation. So long as the market stays good, however, Robinhood is probably in good shape.
Equity is nearly three years old, and we have some neat stuff coming up that you haven’t heard about yet. Stay tuned, and thank you for sticking with us for so long.
Robotics and automation tools are now foundational parts of warehouses and manufacturing facilities around the world. Unlike many other robotics and AI use cases, the technology has moved well beyond the theoretical into practice and is used by small suppliers and large companies like Amazon and Walmart.
There's no doubt that automation will transform every step of the supply chain, from manufacturing to fulfillment to shipping and logistics. The only question is how long such a revolution will take.
There's still plenty of market left to transform and lots of room for new players to redefine different verticals, even with many of the existing leaders having already staked their claim. Naturally, VCs are plenty eager to invest millions in the technology. In 2019 alone, manufacturing, machinery and automation saw roughly 800-900 venture-backed fundraising rounds, according to data from Pitchbook and Crunchbase, close to two-thirds of which were still early-stage (pre-seed to Series B) investments.
With our 2020 Robotics+AI sessions event less than two weeks away, we've decided to perform temperature checks across some of the hottest robotics sub-verticals to see which trends are coming down the pipe and where checks are actually being written. Just as we did with construction robotics last week, this time, we asked seven leading VCs who actively invest in manufacturing automation robotics to share what's exciting them most and where they see opportunities in the sector:
Autonomous air mobility company Volocopter has added to the Series C funding round it announced in September 2019. The German electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft maker announced €50 million ($54 million at today’s exchange rate) in funding at the time, and the C round has now grown to €87 million ($94 million) thanks to new lead investor DB Schenker, a German logistics company with operations all over the world.
This round also includes participation by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group, as well as the venture arm of its parent MS&AD, along with TransLink Capital . Existing investors, including Lukasz Gadowski and btov, also participated in this round extension.
With this new funding, Volocopter brings its total raised to around $132 million, and it says it will use the newly acquired capital to help certify its VoloCity aircraft, its air taxi eVTOL designed to transport people, which is on track to become the company’s first-ever vehicle licensed for commercial operation. Meanwhile, Volocopter will also use the new funds to help continue development of a next-generation iteration of its VoloDrone, which is the cargo-carrying version of its aircraft. It aims to use VoloDrone to expand its market to include logistics, as well as construction, city infrastructure and agriculture.
Already, Volocopter has formed partnerships with companies including John Deere for pilots of its VoloDrone, but it says that a second-generation version of the vehicle will help it commercialize the drone. On the VoloCity side, the company recently flew a demonstration flight in Singapore, and then announced they’d be working with Grab on a feasibility study about air taxi services for potential deployment across Southeast Asia in key cities.
Alongside this round extension, Volocopter adds two advisory board members — Yifan Li from Geely Holding Group, which led the first tranche of this round closed in September, and DB Schenker CEO Jochen Thewes. Both of these are key strategic partners from investors who stand to benefit the company not only in terms of funding, but also in terms of supply-side and commercialization.
A new industry alliance led by Alphabet’s Loon high-altitude balloon technology company and SoftBank’s HAPSMobile stratospheric glider subsidiary aims to work together on standards and tech related to deploying network connectivity using high-altitude delivery mechanisms.
This extends the existing partnership between HAPSMobile and Loon, which began with a strategic alliance between the two announced last April, and which recently resulted in Loon adapting the network hardware it uses on its stratospheric balloons to work with the HAPSMobile stratospheric long-winged drone. Now, the two are welcoming more members, including AeroVironment, Airbus Defence and Space, Bharti Airtel, China Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Intelsat, Nokia, HAPSMobile parent SoftBank and Telefonica.
The new HAPS Alliance, as it’s being called (HAPS stands for High Altitude Platform Station), will be working together to promote use of the technology, as well as work with regulators in the markets where they operate on enabling its use. They’ll work toward developing a set of common industry standards for network interoperability, and also figure how to essentially carve up or stake out the stratosphere so that participating industry players can work together without stepping on each other’s toes.
This new combined group is no slouch: It includes some of the most powerful network operators in the world, as well as key network infrastructure players and aerospace companies. Which could mean big things for stratospheric networks, which have the advantages of being closer to Earth than satellite-based internet offerings, but also avoid the disadvantages of ground-based cell towers, like having to deal with difficult terrain or more limited range.
Is this the first step toward a future where our connected devices rely on high-flying, autonomous cell towers for connectivity? It’s too early to say how ubiquitous this will get, but this new group of heavyweights definitely lends more credence to the idea.
The coronavirus outbreak could result in at least a 3.3% drop — and as high as a 9% dip — in the volume of PCs that will ship globally this year, research firm Canalys reported Thursday evening in its revised projections to clients.
PC shipments will be down between 10.1% to 20.6% in Q1 2020, the firm estimated. The impact will remain visible in Q2, when the shipments are expected to drop between 8.9% (best-case scenario, per Canalys) and 23.4% (worst-case scenario), it said.
In the best-case scenario, the outbreak would mean 382 million units will ship in 2020, down 3.4% from 396 million last year.
The worst case makes a deeper dent, stating that about 362 million units will ship this year, down 8.5% from last year.
"In the best-case scenario, production levels are expected to revert to full capacity by April 2020, hence the biggest hit will be to sell-in shipments in the first two quarters, with the market recovering in Q3 and Q4," the firm said.
"Thus, worldwide PC market shipments are expected to decline 3.4% year on year in 2020, with Q1 2020 down by 10% and Q2 2020 by 9%. PC market supply will normalize by Q3 2020. On a yearly basis, Canalys expects the worldwide PC market will slowly begin its recovery starting in 2021."
The worst-case scenario assumes that production levels will not return to their full capacity by June 2020. "Under the assumptions of this scenario, production and demand levels in China will take even longer to recover and Q2 will suffer a decline on a par with Q1 as a consequence. It will be as late as Q4 2020 until we see a market recovery."
In either of the scenarios, China, one of the world's largest PC markets, will be most impacted. In worst-case scenarios, "the Chinese market will suffer heavily in 2020 under this scenario, with a 12% year-on-year decline over 2019, and subsequent stabilization taking even longer, with 2021 forecast shipments lagging 6 million behind the best-case scenario. The expected CAGR between 2021 and 2024 in China is 6.3%," Canalys stated.
China, the global hub for production and supply chain, moved to contain the impact of coronavirus by first extending the official Lunar New Year holidays, which was followed by stringent travel restrictions to keep citizens safe. "This resulted in a significant drop in offline retail traffic and a dramatic fall in consumer purchases," Canalys analysts said.
The outbreak has also resulted in supply shortages of components, such as PCBs and memory in China and other markets. "Likewise, channel partners have received notifications from key PC vendors over the last two weeks that their PC shipments and replacement parts can be expected to arrive in up to 14 weeks – over three times the usual delivery time – depending on where partners are located," the firm said.
“Technology vendors and channel partners in the Asia Pacific region face the unexpected challenge of coping with the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 (coronavirus). The crisis was largely unforeseen, even in mid-January. Most leaders this year were anticipating disruption from political instability and natural disasters, not an epidemic,” wrote Sharon Hiu, an analyst at Canalys in a separate report.
The outbreak has impacted several more industries, including smartphones, automobiles, television, smart speakers and video game consoles.
Foxconn, a key manufacturer for Apple, said on Thursday that its 2020 revenue will be impacted by Wuhan coronavirus. The firm said its factories in India, Vietnam and Mexico are fully loaded and it is planning to expand overseas.
The U.S. giant is expected to miss its schedule for mass producing a widely rumored affordable iPhone, while inventories for existing models could remain low until April or longer, Nikkei Asian Review reported on Wednesday.
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