Tech Mania

YC looks to help more of its companies lock down Series A funding

<a class="crunchbase-link" href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/y-combinator/" target="_blank" data-type="organization" data-entity="y-combinator">Y Combinator,</a> the popular startup accelerator program, has never been shy about experimenting. Now, in its latest trial, the outfit is launching what it’s calling a Series A program. The idea is to help alums that maybe picked up seed funding after one of YC’s famous Demo Day presentations but that could use some help thinking through how much to raise in Series A funding, and from whom.
We talked Friday with the YC partner who is leading the program, Aaaron Harris, about how it will work, why YC deems it necessary, and what it signals about the 15 companies that will be accepted into each of these batches, where they will meet every other week over a two-month period to discuss (in part) business models, forecasts, pitch decks, and how to approach meeting with different types of investors.
TC: For readers who don’t know you, how did you wind up at YC and how long have you been involved with the organization?
AH: I’ve been a partner for five years. I cofounded a [since shuttered] company, TutorSpree, which went through YC in 2011 and was funded by Sequoia Capital. Before that, I worked at a hedge fund in New York.
TC: Why create programming around Series A rounds?
AH: As YC has gotten bigger, we’ve had more companies reaching Series A level funding, and what I noticed was that we didn’t have great advice to give them. The advice was sort of scaled up from seed [round discussions] and while that works for some, it doesn’t work for others. It became apparent that founders don’t have a great sense of who they should be talking with and about what.
In 2017, 62 of our alums raised $550 million across their Series A rounds. That’s more than in any other portfolio in the world as far as I’m aware, so we should know more than others. But we hadn’t established best practices around this, so I started advising companies on a one-off basis about six months ago; now, we’re formalizing the process.
TC: How long after companies graduate from YC and close their seed rounds do they raise Series A rounds typically? And what are some of the things you learned by looking across your portfolio?
AH: It’s often between 14 and 18 months afterward, and what we’ve seen is a cadence to Series A funding. You see a lot of rounds [being sewn up] in September and October and November and then they kind of stop until late January, then you start see [most of them again] in March and April and May.
If companies plan far enough ahead — assuming they hit their milestones — they can raise with more control if they’re aware of these cycles.
TC: Beyond that VCs generally slow down in the summer and over the winter holidays, what have been some of your other observations?
AH: A lot of it boils down to the process and the way they work on raising. The thing that founders screw up the most in raising a Series A is they let it get away from them, and they let it fall into a serial process, talking with investors with half a story over many months. When when it comes to this kind of round, you want to make a clear delineation. You might meet investors to start a relationship, but you don’t want to pitch them in an active sense. Instead, when the time is right, you move, saying, “Can I come in and pitch you?”
You want to have those pitch meetings in a tight window so that investors are meeting with you at the same time and there’s little information [leakage] in the ecosystem.
TC: Do you feel like YC — or its portfolio companies — need to be more strategic because the bar for Series A funding has grown higher?
AH: Naturally, there’s fallout from seed to A,  and that’s good; that means risk is being taken at the seed stage.
What we’re seeing are greater and more diverse groups doing Series A investing than in the past. You’re seeing of rounds being led by firms that aren’t the top-tier Silicon Valley names but smaller, newer funds, including funds abroad that invest internationally. I think it just reflects the increasingly global nature of VC now that more capital is looking for yield, whether from sovereign wealth funds or pension funds or other outlets. But founders have no idea how to access those sources of capital. So we’ll have an application for investors to learn which companies are raising Series A round. We’re building software around that information to better match founders with the right investors.
TC: Does YC have concerns about how many outfits are now offering startups seed funding and how many colors of “seed” have emerged, from pre-seed to seed to post-seed and how that impacts A rounds?
AH: Dilution is an important aspect of this. One thing we’re doing is using the Series A program to point all the way back to Demo Day to inform companies on how much they should raise in order to hit milestones that will be relevant to A. It’s not just a YC problem. A lot of founders raise money at seed without thinking about what dilution means. They’ll take money at good terms, but they don’t think about how much money they need. Ideally, you raise the least amount possible to hit your milestones and you don’t overmaximize the price of the seed round; it makes it harder to raise [again later].
TC: You’ll begin working with your first batch of companies this summer. What can they expect?
AH: We’ll have 10 to 15 companies which, over two months, will be meeting roughly every other week with each other and myself and the rest of the Series A team, kind of like the office hours that we do now.
What’s a bit different from YC’s core program is there’s a clearer set of tactical objectives for each meeting It might be about how you build a financial model for when your investor does diligence, or how you should think about who the right investor is and how you have the right conversations with investors. It sounds basic, but founders don’t know how to talk with VCs unless they’ve done it before. It’s a very different conversation than with an angel investor. There’s a lot more to talk about and things you can predict ahead of time that will concern [Series A] investors. There should be more of a story because there’s more of a business.
TC: Are you worried about what this program signals to investors? You can imagine they will either see these as your most prized Series A stage companies or your most troubled.
AH: We’ve definitely thought about this. Anything we do needs to contribute to network, and signaling risk can damage that.
The way we’re structuring this program gets to the heart of what’s so great about the YC network. It acts as a point at which you pull together a group of companies that are at similar stages and allows us to reforge a batch in cool ways. Early on, there’s tons of bonding and peer support at YC, but afterward, everyone tends to go in different directions. Having a new batch where everyone is at the Series A stage and who can talk about the GPs who they’ve met with and what they’ve learned,  or who’ve dealt with particular issues when it comes to scaling and can share, is [a lot of why we are doing this].
When it comes to the companies we work with, some will continue to raise As without us. There are always going to be founders with good VCs in their round who [help with Series A fundraising] and that’s great. They can still as for our advice about term sheets and how to negotiate specific points. The ad-hoc piece will never go away, just as it never goes away for any YC companies.
TC: How often will you “batch” these companies and who, other than your peers at YC, will be talking with these founders? Will you have outside speakers or mentors involved, too?
AH: We’ll bring in alums for their advice and for panel discussions and pitch practice — both alums who raised years ago and can share their good and bad stories, and people who’ve raised recently for some perspective on the market.
As for these batches, if it winds up being 12 batches a year, we’ll figure out how to do that.
 
 
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YC looks to help more of its companies lock down Series A funding

Y Combinator, the popular startup accelerator program, has never been shy about experimenting. Now, in its latest trial, the outfit is launching what it’s calling a Series A program. The idea is to he…

04 Jun 2018

It turns out TechCrunch writers have really strong opinions about Apple’s new walkie talkie Watch feature

Apple today said it is <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/apple-watch-gets-walkie-talkie-mode/">rolling out a walkie-talkie like feature for the Apple Watch</a>, which is something that seems a really long time coming but just never made it until 2018 when the Apple Watch was out for many years and is on its third iteration.
The new watch has a cellular connection, which seems like a good enough time to add walkie talkie features (or maybe they were waiting for that red dial to make it feel cool). You talk into your watch inspector gadget style, which seems like a final actualization of our childhood dreams and ignite a hope that the future may finally be here. Or not.
But what was actually a little more surprising was the alarmingly lively discussion that took place following the announcement, as well as the very strong opinions some <a class="crunchbase-link" href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/techcrunch/" target="_blank" data-type="organization" data-entity="techcrunch">TechCrunch</a> writers have about the walkie talkie app and its storied history.
Here’s a couple snapshots of the discussion. Also, everyone was warned about this post, so I have plausible deniability.
<img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1650854" height="327" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-14-44-am.png?w=680" width="680" /> <img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1650855" height="490" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-14-51-am.png?w=680" width="680" /> <img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1650856" height="314" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-15-03-am.png?w=680" width="680" /> <img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1650857" height="619" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-15-14-am.png?w=680" width="680" /> <img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1650858" height="194" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-15-32-am.png?w=680" width="680" /> <img alt="" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1650859" height="307" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-15-43-am.png?w=680" width="680" />
Be sure to check out the rest of TechCrunch’s coverage of <a href="https://techcrunch.com/tag/wwdc-2018/">WWDC 2018</a>, Apple’s annual developer conference in San Jose.
 
 
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It turns out TechCrunch writers have really strong opinions about Apple’s new walkie talkie Watch feature

Apple today said it is rolling out a walkie-talkie like feature for the Apple Watch, which is something that seems a really long time coming but just never made it until 2018 when the Apple Watch was …

04 Jun 2018

Apple Watch gets Walkie-Talkie mode

At Apple’s annual developer conference today, the company showed off a new walkie-talkie feature for Apple Watch. The app is uniquely called Walkie Talkie.
“It’s a fun, easy way to talk with friends and family,” Apple VP of Technology Kevin Lynch said at WWDC.
The first time you use it, you send a request to your friend, who can then accept or decline it. If they accept it, you can then walkie-talkie them at any time. This watch-to-watch connection works over cellular and Wi-Fi, and enables you to send short voice messages to friends and family with an Apple Watch. Once you press to talk, your friend will feel some haptic feedback and then hear your voice immediately.
This seems like the type of feature that I wouldn’t want to have on all the time, but it could definitely be fun. Apple first started talking about a walkie-talkie feature back in 2014, before the Apple Watch launched the following year. But that feature didn’t make its way onto the Apple Watch until now.
<div id="attachment_1650870" style="width: 638px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1650870 size-large" height="596" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-20-28-am.png?w=628" width="628" />
Apple’s Walkie-Talkie concept circa November 2014
</div>
At WWDC, Apple also unveiled Watch OS5, which you can read more about <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/apple-introduces-watchos-5/">here</a>.
<div class="embed breakout">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="GazYHfxI10">
<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/apple-introduces-watchos-5/">Apple introduces watchOS 5</a>
</blockquote>
<iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/apple-introduces-watchos-5/embed/#?secret=GazYHfxI10" data-secret="GazYHfxI10" width="800" height="450" title="“Apple introduces watchOS 5” — TechCrunch" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
</div>
 
 
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Apple Watch gets Walkie-Talkie mode

At Apple’s annual developer conference today, the company showed off a new walkie-talkie feature for Apple Watch. The app is uniquely called Walkie Talkie. “It’s a fun, easy way to talk with friends a…

04 Jun 2018

Apple unveils new screen time controls for children

Apple this morning announced a new set of parental controls for iOS devices at its WorldWide Developer Conference this morning in San Jose. The company had already <a href="https://www.imore.com/apple-new-parental-control-features-planned-future">acknowledged</a> back in January that it had new, more robust parental control features in the works, following an open letter <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/07/two-large-apple-shareholders-say-it-needs-to-research-the-impact-of-smartphones-on-kids/">posted</a> by two large Apple shareholder groups, Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System.
The letter from the influential, activist shareholders mentioned recent research from child development experts whose studies have found links between the use of electronic devices by kids, and negative effects on concentration, emotional health, sleep and empathy. One study even found a link between time spent on devices and teen suicide, with teens who spent three or more hours per day on devices at higher risk than those who used them for an hour or less.
In addition, the letter argued that managing children’s device usage isn’t just the parents’ responsibility alone – they also need help from tech companies on the matter.
The shareholders suggested Apple task an executive to focus on these digital wellbeing features aimed at children and parents, and include new setup menus in Apple software that better allow parents to tailor the functionality of the device to the child’s specific ages.
Apple responded by saying updated parental controls were coming, and it <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2018/03/14/apple-parental-controls-features/">rolled out a “Families” page</a> on its website with educational materials for parents.
The company today unveiled for the first time what these new controls would look like, and how they work.
Now, there’s a new activity report for parents and kids that shows how much time is spent using the device and the apps, and parents will have the option of creating screen time allowances for kids.
Another “downtime” option will help kids to unplug, and parents can limit app usage by category or individual whitelisted apps. That way, parents can make sure critical apps will still work even during downtime, like the phone app.
Currently, Apple’s existing set of parental controls on iOS (found under General –> Restrictions) in iOS takes an all-or-nothing approach, where parents toggle on or off Apple’s own apps, configure which apps, music, books, and videos can see based on their ratings. They can also configure various privacy settings related to things like location sharing, advertising, speech recognition, and many others. And parents can configure what the child can or cannot do on the device – like download apps or disable “Do Not Disturb While Driving,” for example.
Meanwhile, other tech companies’ parental control systems have evolved to include more functionality related to screen time.
Amazon, for example, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/freetime%E2%80%8E">offers controls</a> that allow parents to set educational goals that must be met before games can be played, and allows for setting time limits and filtering of content by age. Google’s Family Link, which <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/28/googles-parental-control-software-family-link-launches-to-public/">publicly launched</a> last fall, also focuses on screen time settings.
With the new controls, Apple is playing catch up a bit to an industry that had already made screen time and age filters a key focus. But it’s still an important step, given Apple’s power to set trends.
The addition of the new parental controls is part of <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/apple-unveils-a-new-set-of-digital-wellness-features-for-better-managing-screen-time/">Apple’s larger focus on digital wellness,</a> which includes the arrival of new time management features for adults, as well, arriving in iOS 12.
 
 
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Apple unveils new screen time controls for children

Apple this morning announced a new set of parental controls for iOS devices at its WorldWide Developer Conference this morning in San Jose. The company had already acknowledged back in January that it…

04 Jun 2018

Apple introduces watchOS 5

Kevin Lynch from the watchOS team introduced the next version of watchOS at <a class="crunchbase-link" href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/apple/" target="_blank" data-type="organization" data-entity="apple">Apple’s</a> <a href="https://techcrunch.com/tag/wwdc-2018/">WWDC keynote</a>. It’s been a slow and steady rise for the Apple Watch. It’s by far the most popular smart watch, and it’s becoming slightly more useful every year.
This year is no different. There’s a new workout type for yoga, another one for hiking. You can now challenge your friends for a 7-day competition.
But I’m even more excited about automatic workout detection. If you grab your bike and your heart start beating more rapidly, your Apple Watch will track your workout automatically. You’ll also get notifications to end a workout.
As rumored, Apple is introducing a new Walkie-Talkie app for Apple Watch users. You press to record a message, release to send it. Your friend will receive a notification. That could open up interesting professional use cases. Cellular Apple Watches make this feature more useful too.
The Siri watch face is getting more integrations thanks to Siri shortcuts. You can receive a Citymapper suggestion for instance.
When it comes to the actual voice assistant, you won’t need to say “Hey Siri” anymore. You can just raise your wrist and start talking.
Apple has ported WebKit to watchOS, which opens up a lot of possibilities. You can view web content from your watch. Apple is adding native podcast support on the Apple Watch too.
Overall, Apple tackled a lot of low hanging fruits. But it’s a compelling pitch and makes the Apple Watch more essential than ever.
 
 
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Apple introduces watchOS 5

Kevin Lynch from the watchOS team introduced the next version of watchOS at Apple’s WWDC keynote. It’s been a slow and steady rise for the Apple Watch. It’s by far the most popular smart watch, and it…

04 Jun 2018

Apple unveils a new set of ‘digital wellness’ features for better managing screen time

Apple has become the latest tech giant to prioritize digital wellbeing. At its Worldwide Developer Conference this morning, Apple announced a series of new controls that will allow iOS users to monitor how much time they spend on devices, set time limits on app usage, control the distraction of notifications, and control the device usage for their children.
The addition of these features was previously leaked by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-31/apple-to-tout-digital-health-ar-features-at-software-conference">Bloomberg</a>, but the details on how they worked wasn’t yet known.
In the upcoming version of the iOS 12 software for iPhone and iPad, Apple will include a series of features focused on digital wellness, starting with an upgraded Do Not Disturb feature that will help people who tend to look at their iPhone at night, and then find themselves distracted by the excessive notifications. With Do Not Disturb during bedtime, you can configure so your iPhone doesn’t show your notifications when you look at your phone at night, during hours you customize.
In addition, this feature will include a new morning wakeup screen, that’s similarly bare of notifications so you are “gently eased into your day.”
In Control Center, you can configure when Do Not Disturb will end, as well.
Meanwhile, Apple is also introducing better ways to manage your notifications. Siri will even suggest to you which notifications you should turn off, based on which apps it knows you’re no longer using.
But even more useful, perhaps, is support for grouped notifications. That means notifications will not just be grouped by app, but also by topic and thread. You can tap into these groups and look at those from a particular app, and you can triage all those grouped notifications with a single swipe.
Another part of Apple’s digital wellbeing features includes reporting over how you spend time on your device.
This involes a weekly activity summary that shows you how you used your iPhone or iPad during the week. This full activity report will show you how much time your spending on your device and in apps, and how that breaks down per day. You can also see which apps are sending you the most notifications, so you can make better decisions about which apps’ notifications you may want to disable.
And another feature lets you set time limits for apps that take up your downtime, which you’d like to be more thoughtful about, in terms of your usage. When your time is about up, you’ll get an alert, and when the time is up, a new “Times Up” screen comes up. You can extend your time, if need be, Apple notes.
Other new features are aimed at families who want to control screen time for their children.
This includes an activity report for parents and kids, and the option of creating allowances for kids. A “downtime” option will help kids to unplug, and parents can limit app usage by category or individual whitelisted apps. That way, parents can make sure critical apps will still work even during downtime, like the phone app.
All this is configured by parents remotely from their own device, says Apple.
<img alt="" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1650775" height="469" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screentime_wwdc.jpg?w=680" width="680" />
Apple is not the first tech company to rethink its responsibilities around device addiction.
At Google’s developer conference just a month ago, the company <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/08/android-rolls-out-a-suite-of-time-management-controls-to-promote-more-healthy-app-usage/">introduced</a> its own set of time management tools for Android users. Its tools help users track screen time and app usage, and include new features like a “shush” mode which turns on Do Not Disturb by flipping the phone over, and a “wind down,” color reduction mode for bedtime.
In addition, other major tech companies have begun to consider digital wellbeing when updating their products.
For example, Facebook earlier in 2018 <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/11/facebook-time-well-spent/">changed how its News Feed operates</a> to reduce users’ time spent on the site in favor of wellbeing. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/21/scroll-responsibly/">And Facebook-owned Instagram just introduced its first time well spent feature</a>, by informing users “you’re all caught up” when they’ve viewed all the new posts.
The idea is that people don’t know when to stop when in comes to devices and apps, and lack information and tools that can help them make decisions about how much time they want to spend on devices, versus how much time they’re actually spending.
The movement around digital wellbeing is a fairly recent shift for Silicon Valley, where companies until now have encouraged the design of software and apps that continually engage and addict users, without considering the psychological cost. Stress, anxiety, insomnia, distracted thoughts, inability to concentrate, emotional issues and more have been the result of these companies’ desire to keep users glued to their devices.
But now some early tech execs are pushing back.
Former Facebook president Sean Parker has openly worried about <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/11/09/sean-parker-facebook-childrens-brains/">what social media was doing to kids’ brains</a> and admitted Facebook was designed to <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/12/12/chamath-palihapitiya-facebook-society/">exploit weakness in the human psyche</a> to addict users. A former Google exec Tristan Harris launched a coalition of technologists and activists called the <a href="http://humanetech.com/">Center for Humane Technology</a>, which aims to encourage the implementation of new design principles that help to put users back in control of their technology usage.
As the rumblings around digital addiction escalate, other trends are emerging as well – like the <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/02/self-care-apps-are-booming/">booming business for “mindfulness” apps</a> and those that help users <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/27/aloe-bud-is-the-adorable-self-care-app-youve-been-waiting-for/">practice self-care</a>, which includes putting the phone down and taking care of our other needs. Some have put this into practice in an extreme way, as of late – Simon Cowell said he <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/03/simon-cowell-says-giving-up-mobile-phone-has-made-him-happier">actually gave up his mobile phone entirely</a>, and feels so much happier as a result.
With its own new tools, Apple has the ability to set a new tone for the industry as a whole, given how others copy its designs – right down to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/28/17062030/iphone-x-clones-android-mwc-2018">the iPhone X notch</a>. But in this case, mimicry would be a good thing.
The creation of a new culture around technology usage which stops measuring “time spent” and repeat sessions as metrics of success, would be something that ultimately benefits everyone.
<img alt="" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1650775" height="469" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screentime_wwdc.jpg?w=680" width="680" />
 
 
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Apple unveils a new set of ‘digital wellness’ features for better managing screen time

Apple has become the latest tech giant to prioritize digital wellbeing. At its Worldwide Developer Conference this morning, Apple announced a series of new controls that will allow iOS users to monito…

04 Jun 2018

Apple is adding group FaceTime video calls to iOS 12

<a class="crunchbase-link" href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/apple/" target="_blank" data-type="organization" data-entity="apple">Apple</a> is adding the ability to FaceTime more people onto a video call, allowing more than a dozen people to be on the call — and tapping an increasing interest in group video calling stemming from apps like Houseparty
The app spreads out each stream as a series of tiles that will move around based on who is engaging on the call at the time. When someone speaks, the tile automatically gets larger automatically as a way to try to highlight whoever is talking to create a more robust experience. The whole goal is to try to make it easier to video call with a lot of different people all at once in a way that still feels pretty social.
As far as features go, this was a pretty natural addition to the FaceTime App. Houseparty exposed a lot of interest in this area, allowing multiple friends to spin up a video chat. But it’s also a technically strenuous proposition, and Apple does seem uniquely positioned to absorb the technical overhead (and costs) of running multiple FaceTime streams all at once.
Houseparty, for example, sits at around #10 on the App Store for the social category and still a top-200 app, according to App Annie. It has a 4.4-star rating in the App Store and was last updated at the beginning of June, according to the App Store. So it’s still chugging along, though it does seem like Apple may nullify an app like Houseparty if it hasn’t locked in a huge and engaged fan base.
The next version of iOS tends to come out around the time of the next Apple event, which usually happens around September. Apple announced a stream of updates to iOS in its next version, iOS 12, including FaceTime group chats. 
<img alt="" class="breakout aligncenter wp-image-1650809 size-full" height="646" src="https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/screen-shot-2018-06-04-at-11-04-50-am.png" width="1862" />
 
 
 
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Apple is adding group FaceTime video calls to iOS 12

Apple is adding the ability to FaceTime more people onto a video call, allowing more than a dozen people to be on the call — and tapping an increasing interest in group video calling stemming from app…

04 Jun 2018

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