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VC Lindy Fishburne on the sudden democratization of science — and deep tech investing
Deep science investor Lindy Fishburne cofounded the seed- and early-stage venture firm Breakout Ventures several years ago, after cofounding Breakout Labs within the Thiel Foundation back in 2011, and she has made a wide array of interesting bets in the process. Among her firm’s portfolio companies is Cortexyme, a now publicly traded company that’s currently […]
techcrunch - 2 hours ago
A first look at Coursera’s S-1 filing
After TechCrunch broke the news yesterday that Coursera was planning to file its S-1 today, the edtech company officially dropped the document Friday evening. Coursera was last valued at $2.4 billion by the private markets, when it most recently raised a Series F round in October 2020 that was worth $130 million. Coursera’s S-1 filing […]
techcrunch - 11 hours ago
Snowflake latest enterprise company to feel Wall Street’s wrath after good quarter
Snowflake reported earnings this week, and the results look strong with revenue more than doubling year-over-year. However while the company’s fourth quarter revenue rose 117% to $190.5 million, it apparently wasn’t good enough for investors who have sent the company’s stock tumbling since it reported Wednesday after the bell. It was similar to the reaction […]
techcrunch - 12 hours ago
The owner of Anki’s assets plans to relaunch Cozmo and Vector this year
Good robots don’t die — they just have their assets sold off to the highest bidder. Digital Dream Labs was there to sweep up IP in the wake of Anki’s premature implosion, back in 2019. The Pittsburgh-based edtech company had initially planned to relaunch Vector and Cozmo at some point in 2020, launching a Kickstarter […]
techcrunch - 12 hours ago
Deep Science: AI adventures in arts and letters
There's more AI news out there than anyone can possibly keep up with, but you can stay tolerably up to date on the most interesting developments with this column.
techcrunch - 13 hours ago
Tesla has closed its forums to launch a social platform and fans are not happy
Tesla plans to shut down the forums section on its website as it launches a new social platform called the Tesla Engagement Platform, a move that’s raised the ire of a community of its most ardent supporters. Tesla first announced the new engagement platform with a notice at the top of its forums page that […]
techcrunch - 13 hours ago
How and when to hire your first product manager
In the world of early-stage startups, job titles are often a formality. In reality, each employee may handle a dozen responsibilities outside their job description. The choose-your-own-adventure type of work style is part of the magic of startups and often why generalists thrive here. However, as a company progresses and the team grows, there comes […]
techcrunch - 15 hours ago
How Rani Therapeutics’ robotic pill could change subcutaneous injection treament
A new auto-injecting pill might soon become a replacement for subcutaneous injection treatments. The idea for this so-called robotic pill came out of a research project around eight years ago from InCube Labs—a life sciences lab operated by Rani Therapeutics Chairman and CEO Mir Imran, who has degrees in electrical and biomedical engineering from Rutgers […]
techcrunch - 16 hours ago
Address cybersecurity challenges before rolling out robotic process automation
The security aspect of RPA isn’t implemented in the early stages of development — leaving organizations vulnerable to cybercriminals.
techcrunch - 16 hours ago
Eco raises $26M in a16z-led round to scale its digital cryptocurrency platform
Eco, which has built out a digital global cryptocurrency platform, announced Friday that it has raised $26 million in a funding round led by a16z Crypto. Founded in 2018, San Francisco’s platform is designed to be used as a payment tool around the world for daily-use transactions. The company emphasizes that it’s “not a bank, […]
techcrunch - 17 hours ago
Early-stage investor Mayfield shows how to scaleup your biotech startup at TC Early Stage in April
Founders in the earliest stages of startup life face a hefty learning curve. Just some of the core competencies you need to lock down include how to raise VC funding, recruiting the right people, finding product-market fit, and building a killer go-to-market team. The list goes on and on…and on. You’ll learn about all those […]
techcrunch - 17 hours ago
Albertsons taps Tortoise for remote-controlled grocery delivery robots
Albertsons Companies, the grocery giant that owns Safeway and Jewel-Osco, has launched a pilot program that will test grocery delivery using remote-controlled delivery robots developed by Silicon Valley startup Tortoise. The pilot will start at two Safeway locations in Northern California, although Tortoise co-founder and president Dmitry Shevelenko said if successful, he expects the pilot […]
techcrunch - 18 hours ago
The technology selloff is getting to be somewhat material
Tech stocks are getting hammered today, with previously high-flying shares of software companies taking even more damage. For a sector that has enjoyed a year in the sun, recent trading sessions have punctured a period of market adoration. It is too soon to say that the market is repricing tech stocks, but the selloff has […]
techcrunch - 18 hours ago
3 Ways Businesses Can Tackle Disinformation Campaigns
In an age that everything goes viral on social media within a few hours, disinformation and black propaganda is the last thing that a business needs. An unhappy customer, competitors, or even foreign government-affiliated attackers can be the director of a wide-scale disinformation campaign. Big brands are usually the common targets of disinformation campaigns due […]
The post 3 Ways Businesses Can Tackle Disinformation Campaigns appeared first on ReadWrite.
readwrite - 18 hours ago
YC-backed Pangea discusses growth, fundraising ahead of demo day
Pangea, a marketplace startup that wants to connect college freelancers and companies in need of digital help, is seeing its growth rate accelerate as it races toward the impending Y Combinator demo day. It’s traditional around this time that startups in the accelerator reach out to say hello. Provided that they are willing to chat […]
techcrunch - 19 hours ago
Understanding how investors value growth in 2021
We’re not digging into another IPO filing today. You can read all about AppLovin’s filing here, or ThredUp’s document here. This morning, instead, we’re talking about an old favorite: software valuations. The folks over at Battery Ventures have compiled a lengthy dive into the 2020 software market that’s worth our time — you can read […]
techcrunch - 19 hours ago
SoftBank makes mountains of cash off of human laziness
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat through the week’s biggest tech happenings. It was yet another crazy week, but did our best to get through as much of it as we could. Here’s the rundown, in case you […]
techcrunch - 19 hours ago
Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya sells off remaining personal stake in the space company
The man who arguably ushered in the current SPAC rush with the merger of Virgin Galactic with his Social Capital Hedosophia holding company has divested the remainder of his personal holdings in the space tourism company. Chamath Palihapitiya, who serves as the Chairman of Virgin Galactic’s board, still holds 6.2% ownership in the company in […]
techcrunch - 21 hours ago
Scrum Ventures launches new program to connect startups with Japanese corporations
Headquartered in San Francisco and Tokyo, Scrum Ventures is known for its accelerator programs focused on sports, food and smart city tech. Today it announced the launch of a new incubator program that will help startups from business partnerships with Japanese corporations. Called Scrum Studio, it will be spun out as an independent entity from […]
techcrunch - 22 hours ago
What China’s Big Tech CEOs propose at the annual parliament meeting
The annual meetings of the Chinese parliament and its advisory body are underway in Beijing this week. Top executives from some of China’s largest tech firms are among the thousands of delegates who attend and put forward their opinions. Here is a look at what the tech bosses are proposing for China’s digital economy. Pony […]
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techcrunch
Sounding Board raises cash as startups wake up to executive coaching
techcrunch - 1 month ago
In an unprecedented work environment defined by distributed teams and virtual-only communication, two co-founders think their 2018 bet reigns truer than ever: mentors need mentorship, too.
Christine Tao and Lori Mazan, the brains behind Sounding Board, want to train any leader within an organization to be a better leader. The San Francisco startup connects anyone from first-time managers to C-suite executives with coaches through a marketplace.
Revenue has doubled or tripled every year since 2016, which the company says hovers in the multi-millions range. But in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Sounding Board has seen demand for its platform grow even more. Quarterly bookings have increased 3.4 times from Q2 2020, and in the last five months, monthly revenue has doubled.
On the heels of this growth, the co-founders say that Sounding Boards next step as a startup is to grow beyond coaching services and into a platform that can show leaders how those newfound skills are impacting business development. The new product is meant to serve as a hub and roadmap where a participant and coach can track insights, progress and behaviors.
Within the platform, a user can schedule sessions with a coach, get matched to someone, as well as look at resources and complete tasks assigned to them. Beyond that, there is a feature that allows the coach and the manager to measure goals on an ongoing basis, similar to OKR-related software.
The content is great, but unless you can apply that content, it’s not very useful, Mazan said. So this coaching is a way to help people apply the insights and the learning they’ve gotten from some kind of content and really utilize that in the workplace.
The new product takes the monthly in-person summit that your organization used to call executive coaching and turns it into a living, breathing part of a managers workflow.
Beyond helping its users have a better temperature check on their progress, the product will help Sounding Board scale its services. Now any tutor on Sounding Board has more ways into a users mind and workflow, so every call isnt synchronous and can be managed more evenly.
The co-founders see their long-term differentiation living in this feature. Anyone can create a marketplace, but it takes seamless, easy-to-use tech to track the effectiveness of what happens post-coaching.
Tao admits that the startup isnt for everyone. Sounding Board has seen early adoption around enterprise companies that are in a late-stage, hyper-growth mindset heading toward an IPO. That level of maturity is a sweet spot for a third-party such as them to come in and scale leaders across teams. Customers include VMware, Uber, Plaid, Chime and Dropbox.
That said, within organizations, 60% of Sounding Boards users are first-time managers, 30% are middle-tier and 10% are C-suite. The co-founders think these numbers indicate a broader demand for mentorship beyond what their competitors offer, which often sticks to C-suite life coach territory or stress management.
Everyone is starting to realize that we’re going to have to offer coaching broader than just in the C-suite, and sometimes they don’t really know what that means, said Mazan.
The realization, along with COVID-19 tailwinds, has helped Sounding Board attract new millions in venture capital. The startup tells TechCrunch that it has raised a $13.1 million Series A led by Canaan Partners. Other investors include Correlation Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Precursor Ventures, as well as Degreed founder David Blake and Kevin Johnson, the former CEO of Udemy.
