All posts tagged: startups

Paris-based startup studio Hexa raises some funding to launch even more startups

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You might not be familiar with Hexa, the Paris-based startup studio that has launched dozens of B2B software companies, but some of its portfolio companies have become well-known unicorns, such as Front, Aircall and Spendesk. And it turns out that Hexa itself could be considered as a startup as the company just raised a funding round of $22 million in fresh capital (€20 million). This isn’t the first time Hexa raises outside capital. But it’s the company’s first round since 2016. “We’ve got a few family offices investing, but we’ve mostly got local entrepreneurs investing like Luc Pallavidino (Yousign), Adrien Van Den Branden (Canyon), Paul Vidal (Collective) and Arnaud Schwartz (Marble),” Hexa co-founder Thibaud Elzière told me. In other words, Hexa is raising from its own community of founders and friends. And this is just a first step as the company promises that there will be more funding in the coming months. “This marks our initial close, and we anticipate a subsequent round in the new year. Our aim is to welcome even more family …

Startups should consider hiring fractional AI officers

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Raphael Ouzan Contributor Raphael Ouzan is the founder and CEO of A.Team, a future-of-work company pioneering the world’s first AI-enabled team formation platform. More posts by this contributor A Developer’s Guide To The Wild West Of App Discovery The AI skills gap is real. A recent study from Randstad, the recruitment company, found that job posts referencing generative AI skills have risen by 2,000% since March. It’s the third most sought-after skill set and one of the shortest in supply. The logical step for enterprise companies is to appoint a chief AI officer (CAIO) to kickstart their efforts. Earlier this year, Dylan Fox penned an opinion piece arguing that every Fortune 500 business needs a CAIO. “Companies that do not integrate AI into their product, operations, and business strategy will struggle to remain competitive — and fall behind those that do,” Fox wrote. It’s a compelling argument that makes sense at the enterprise level. But what about everyone else? Startups and scale-ups need to integrate AI just as badly — especially if they’re trying to …

Saviu Ventures’ second fund reaches €12 million first close to back Francophone Africa startups

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Saviu Ventures, a VC firm targeting startups in Francophone Africa, has made an initial close of €12 million for its second fund with the backing of private investors, including French and Kenyan family offices. The VC firm aims to close the fund at between €30 million and €50 million to primarily invest in startups within Francophone Africa. It is said to be in talks with other stakeholders including institutional investors to hit the target. Founded by Benoit Delestre and Samuel Touboul, Saviu Ventures has been active in the Francophone Africa startup ecosystem since 2018, when it began deploying its first €10 million fund. The VC firm invests in seed stage startups, and is sector agnostic, but, with the current fund, it is keen on fintechs, health-techs and climate-techs, while slowing down on e-mobility, e-commerce and e-logistics. “We will follow the same strategy of our first fund, where our majority of our investment will go to startups in the Francophone region, but we still keep the opportunity to invest in East, Southern and North Africa startups …

US chip export ban is hurting China’s AI startups, not so much the giants yet

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Well before Washington banned Nvidia’s exports of high-performance graphic processing units to China, the country’s tech giants had been hoarding them in anticipation of an escalating tech war between the two nations. Baidu, one of the tech firms building China’s counterparts to OpenAI, has secured enough AI chips to keep training its ChatGPT equivalent Ernie Bot for the “next year or two,” the firm’s CEO Robin Li said on an earnings call this week. “Also, inference requires less powerful chips, and we believe our chip reserves, as well as other alternatives, will be sufficient to support lots of AI-native apps for the end users,” he said. “And in the long run, having difficulties in acquiring the most advanced chips inevitably impacts the pace of AI development in China. So, we are proactively seeking alternatives.” Other deep-pocketed Chinese tech companies have also been taking proactive measures in response to U.S. export controls. Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba collectively ordered around 100,000 units of A800 processors Nvidia to be delivered this year, costing them as much as …

Must-have tools modern CFOs need in growth-stage startups

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Dan Allred is Liquidity Group’s ‌North America CEO. Allred is a fintech professional and spent two decades at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), most recently as a Senior Market Manager and Head of the National Fintech practice. He is also a member of the board of directors for FS Vector and an adviser for Modern Treasury. Having spent several years heading Silicon Valley Bank’s fintech sector and now as Liquidity Group’s North America CEO, I’ve often encountered some tools that growth-stage startups should embrace to get the job done. The role of CFOs in growth-stage startups extends beyond traditional financial management. The pressure is to be precise and effective and build a workflow that reduces company workload without compromising quality. In fact, for many industries, fintech included, modernizing the CFO’s tech stack has become a prerequisite for success. The smart, modern CFO’s tech stack should include tried-and-true methods and embrace innovative tools. These tools should streamline financial tasks and support data-driven decision-making. This stack includes advanced solutions for financial planning and risk management, spend management, and …

Uber-for-parcels startups Relay raises $10M Seed round to scale in the UK

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Incumbents in the parcel deliveries space usually have fixed daily routes from suburban depots. But since most parcels are fairly lightweight, this is a bit of a hammer to crack a nut. So it makes sense to “Uber-ise” local deliveries. Indeed, in Asia, the ‘asset free’ delivery model of using mini depots instead of large owned depots has proliferated. That model is scarcer in Europe, however. Thus, Relay, which has a delivery platform for e-commerce companies has raised a $10 million seed round, led by Project A Ventures of Berlinm and Prologis Ventures in the US. Relay’s end-to-end parcel delivery service — which includes the first, middle and last miles — uses urban-based ‘pitstops’ and couriers, meaning it has less overheads compared to suburban area depots and sorting centres, it claims. The company says its routing platform matches couriers to routes and combines deliveries and returns in one route, not unlike Uber’s model. It also says customers can end up with a next-day service. Local couriers are entitled to sick and holiday pay, as well as …

OpenAI mess exposes the dangers of vendor lock-in for startups

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If you looked at OpenAI prior to Friday afternoon, it had everything an enterprise buyer (and, for that matter, an investor) could possibly want in a startup: an absolutely killer product in ChatGPT, a rock star CEO and huge potential future revenue. It looked as stable as any startup could possibly be — until it wasn’t. While the situation remains fluid, it appears that CEO Sam Altman is prepared to drive his tour bus to Microsoft, taking co-founder Greg Brockman and most of his employees with him. When the shit hit the fan Friday, suddenly all the dangers that vendor lock-in represents were on display, and when the soap opera spilled into the weekend, startups who had invested heavily in OpenAI tech had to wonder how this was going to play out. Vendor lock-in has been a problem for as long as there have been enterprise buyers. While there are plenty of large language models in the market from a variety of vendors, OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 seemed to stand above the rest. …

Startups must add AI value beyond ChatGPT integration

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Dima Kovalenko Contributor The AI hype train is going full swing. At this point, it is hard to name an industry not affected by this disruptive technology. Startups feel these hype waves like no one else as the inventors’ demands rise and competition grows. It’s becoming increasingly challenging for startups to raise investment without some AI element in their product. So far, ChatGPT integration — relatively easy, affordable, and fast — has been sufficient to keep up with the race and capture a market share. But it looks like this will no longer be the case. Soon enough, making a statement will take more than just plugging in an open source model. Venture capitalists are already stressing the importance of adding value for startups, not just using a ChatGPT API. Okay, but how do we provide this added value? As CEO of a product development business, I’ve been consulting clients on AI integration solutions and bringing more value to their apps. I’ll explain and share tips on delivering additional value to an AI-driven product by …

Healthcare startups scramble to assess fallout after Postmeds data breach hits millions of patients

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More than two million people across the United States will receive notice that their personal and sensitive health information was stolen earlier this year during a cyberattack at Postmeds, the parent company of online pharmacy startup Truepill. For some of those affected, it’s the first they’re hearing of Postmeds, let alone that the company lost their sensitive personal and health information during the data breach. News of the data breach also appeared to catch off-guard healthcare startups that previously relied on Postmeds to fulfill their customers’ prescriptions. Postmeds, or Truepill, is an online pharmacy fulfillment startup that fills prescriptions for big-name telehealth services and other pharmacies, and mails medications to their customers. Postmeds, through Truepill, has fulfilled prescriptions for customers of Folx, Hims, and GoodRx, and other popular online telehealth startups that have emerged in recent years. Even if you’ve never heard of Postmeds, the company may have filled one of your prescriptions and handled your information. Truepill’s website says it has delivered 20 million prescriptions to three million people since its founding in 2016. …

Will 2024 be a bounce-back year for startups?

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In 2021 and early 2022, startups experienced a time of wild optimism. Capital was still plentiful and cheap, and enterprise buyers were heavily into experimentation, making it a great time to be a startup. But quite suddenly in 2022, the wind shifted, inflation reared its head, the Fed raised interest rates multiple times, and money became much more expensive. Buyers got uncomfortable, buying cycles suddenly were extended, and startups began to feel the pinch. There is a simple law of economic physics: In general the economy goes up, goes down and eventually bounces back up again. But as we approach the middle of the final quarter of 2023, and some of the economic signals have improved, is it reasonable to expect that we’ll be seeing a recovery in which startups can once again thrive? It may not be that simple this time. While IT budgets are projected to improve in the new year, it doesn’t necessarily mean that startups can take advantage of that money. Don’t forget that many major tech vendors raised prices this …