Venture

Extra Crunch roundup: Zūm CEO interview, Cisco’s M&A ethos, neoinsurance bad romance

Comment

Each busy day looks exactly the same, but people around are always different. Just take a moment to slow down.
Image Credits: Zeyu Wang (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

It was once common practice for doctors to visit sick patients in their homes: In 1930, 40% of all consultations were house calls. By 1980, that figure was less than 1%.

Today, urgent care centers occupy Main Street storefronts and 33% of all medical expenditures occur in hospitals. It’s clear that the additional overhead is generating higher prices, but not necessarily better results, according to Sumi Das and Nina Gerson, who lead healthcare investments at Capital G.

“We can improve both outcomes and costs by moving care from the hospital back to the place it started — at home,” they write in a post that explores five innovations enabling at-home care and identifies investment opportunities like acute care and infrastructure development.

Today, in-home care comprises just 3% of overall healthcare spending, but Gerson and Das estimate that will expand to 10% in the next 10 years.

“To make these improvements, in-home healthcare strategies will need to leverage next-generation technology and value-based care strategies. Fortunately, the window of opportunity for change is open right now.”

Back to the suture: The future of healthcare is in the home


Full Extra Crunch articles are only available to members.
Use discount code ECFriday to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription.


Image Credits: Cowboy Ventures / Guild Education

Tomorrow’s episode of Extra Crunch Live will feature guests VC Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures and Rachel Carlson, CEO and co-founder of Guild Education.

Among other topics, Lee will talk about how Guild Education met her criteria for investment before the duo offer feedback on startup pitches submitted by audience members.

Register now to join the free chat on Hopin on Wednesday, August 25, at 11:30 a.m. PDT/2:30 p.m. EDT.

Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch; have a great week!

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist

Zūm CEO Ritu Narayan explains why equity and accessibility works for mobility services

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

Ritu Narayan founded Zūm with her two brothers in 2016 to disrupt student transportation, a space that hasn’t seen much innovation since pupils began finding their way to and from little red schoolhouses.

Since then, Zūm has inked partnerships with school districts around the country to create more efficient routes and reduce vehicle emissions.

By 2025, Narayan says her company will have 10,000 electric school buses and plans to put the fleet into service to generate power and feed it back to the grid.

To learn more about the company’s development, its immediate plans for the future and how the pandemic impacted operations, read on.

Zūm CEO Ritu Narayan explains why equity and accessibility works for mobility services

Bird shows improving scooter economics, long march to profitability

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

For The Exchange, Alex Wilhelm looked at recent financial data from scooter sharing service Bird, which — like Lyft, Uber, Airbnb and others — took a beating during the pandemic as potential riders stayed home.

Bird flipped its business model and its results improved, but it still has a ways to go. “In the bull case, Bird can get rid of its adjusted losses in a few years,” Alex writes.

“If any issues arise at the top of the company’s table — say, for example, that rides per scooter do not scale as the company rolls out more hardware, or merely slower than expected — the anticipated profitability results could evaporate or be pushed into the future.”

Bird shows improving scooter economics, long march to profitability

India’s path to SaaS leadership is clear, but challenges remain

Image Credits: Thitima Thongkham / Getty Images

By 2030, India’s SaaS industry is estimated to comprise 4%-6% of the global market and generate between $50 billion and $70 billion in yearly revenue, according to a SaaSBOOMi/McKinsey report.

“With the right approach, it won’t be long before the Indian SaaS community becomes a large-scale employer of talent, a significant contributor to India’s GDP and a creator of unmatched products,” says Manav Garg, CEO and founder of Eka Software Solutions.

In a guest post, he lays out several key growth drivers, which include “the largest concentration of developers in the world” and the fact that “SaaS is not a winner-take-all market.”

Even so, the region still faces challenges, since “growth requires a growth mindset.”

India’s path to SaaS leadership is clear, but challenges remain

Why have the markets spurned public neoinsurance startups?

Image Credits: Nigel Sussman (opens in a new window)

As Alex Wilhelm has repeatedly noted in The Exchange, neoinsurance companies, from healthcare to auto to home and rental, have taken a whacking by the market.

But he hadn’t quite figured out why until he chatted with Pie Insurance co-founder and CEO John Swigart, who had an interesting hypothesis.

Summing up their conversation in a single sentence: “From the public markets’ perspective, it’s the results, stupid.”

Why have the markets spurned public neoinsurance startups?

How Cisco keeps its startup acquisition engine humming

The Cisco Systems logo is displayed at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on February 25, 2019. - Phone makers will focus on foldable screens and the introduction of blazing fast 5G wireless networks at the world's biggest mobile fair starting February 25 in Spain as they try to reverse a decline in sales of smartphones. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP) (Photo credit should read JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images)
Image Credits: Josep LAGO /AFP/ Getty Images

Ron Miller interviewed three Cisco executives to learn more about the company’s “rich history of buying its way to global success”:

  • CFO Scott Herren
  • Derek Idemoto, SVP for corporate development and Cisco investments
  • Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM, Security and Collaboration

Since its founding, Cisco has acquired 229 companies, buying more than 30 startups in the last four years that focus on everything from edtech to event management.

“Indeed, one of the big reasons for all these acquisitions could be about maintaining growth,” writes Ron.

How Cisco keeps its startup acquisition engine humming

Future tech exits have a lot to live up to

Image Credits: Sam Salek/EyeEm (opens in a new window) / Getty Images (Image has been modified)

“Inflation may or may not prove transitory when it comes to consumer prices, but startup valuations are definitely rising — and noticeably so — in recent quarters.”

That’s Alex Wilhelm’s summation of a recent PitchBook report rounding up valuation data from U.S. startup funding events.

He dug into the report and analyzed what the numbers mean for startup valuations and potential exits.

Future tech exits have a lot to live up to

More TechCrunch

This is the last major step before Starliner can be certified as an operational crew system, and the first Starliner mission is expected to launch in 2025. 

Boeing’s Starliner astronaut capsule is en route to the ISS 

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco is the must-attend event for startup founders aiming to make their mark in the tech world. This year, founders have three exciting ways to…

Three ways founders can shine at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

Google’s newest startup program, announced on Wednesday, aims to bring AI technology to the public sector. The newly launched “Google for Startups AI Academy: American Infrastructure” will offer participants hands-on…

Google’s new startup program focuses on bringing AI to public infrastructure

eBay’s newest AI feature allows sellers to replace image backgrounds with AI-generated backdrops. The tool is now available for iOS users in the U.S., U.K., and Germany. It’ll gradually roll…

eBay debuts AI-powered background tool to enhance product images

If you’re anything like me, you’ve tried every to-do list app and productivity system, only to find yourself giving up sooner than later because sooner than later, managing your productivity…

Hoop uses AI to automatically manage your to-do list

Asana is using its work graph to train LLMs with the goal of creating AI assistants that work alongside human employees in company workflows.

Asana introduces ‘AI teammates’ designed to work alongside human employees

Taloflow, an early stage startup changing the way companies evaluate and select software, has raised $1.3M in a seed round.

Taloflow puts AI to work on software vendor selection to reduce cost and save time

The startup is hoping its durable filters can make metals refining and battery recycling more efficient, too.

SiTration uses silicon wafers to reclaim critical minerals from mining waste

Spun out of Bosch, Dive wants to change how manufacturers use computer simulations by both using modern mathematical approaches and cloud computing.

Dive goes cloud-native for its computational fluid dynamics simulation service

The tension between incumbents and fintechs has existed for decades. But every once in a while, the two groups decide to put their competition aside and work together. In an…

When foes become friends: Capital One partners with fintech giants Stripe, Adyen to prevent fraud

After growing 500% year-over-year in the past year, Understory is now launching a product focused on the renewable energy sector.

Insurance provider Understory gets into renewable energy following $15M Series A

Ashkenazi will start her new role at Google’s parent company on July 31, after 23 years at Eli Lilly.

Alphabet brings on Eli Lilly’s Anat Ashkenazi as CFO

Tobiko aims to reimagine how teams work with data by offering a dbt-compatible data transformation platform.

With $21.8M in funding, Tobiko aims to build a modern data platform

In 1816, French physician René Laennec invented an instrument that allowed doctors to listen to human hearts and lungs. That device — a stethoscope — eventually evolved from a simple…

Eko Health scores $41M to detect heart and lung disease earlier and more accurately

The number of satellites on low Earth orbit is poised to explode over the coming years as more mega-constellations come online, and it will create new opportunities for bad actors…

DARPA and Slingshot build system to detect ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ adversary satellites

SAP sees WalkMe’s focus on automating contextual, in-app support as bringing value to its own enterprise customers.

SAP to acquire digital adoption platform WalkMe for $1.5B

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has emerged victorious in India’s 2024 general election, but with a smaller majority compared to 2019. According to post-election analysis by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan,…

Modi-led coalition’s election win signals policy continuity in India – but also spending cuts

Featured Article

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the…

19 hours ago
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

Featured Article

What to expect from WWDC 2024: iOS 18, macOS 15 and so much AI

Apple is hoping to make WWDC 2024 memorable as it finally spells out its generative AI plans.

20 hours ago
What to expect from WWDC 2024: iOS 18, macOS 15 and so much AI

We just announced the breakout session winners last week. Now meet the roundtable sessions that really “rounded” out the competition for this year’s Disrupt 2024 audience choice program. With five…

The votes are in: Meet the Disrupt 2024 audience choice roundtable winners

The malicious attack appears to have involved malware transmitted through TikTok’s DMs.

TikTok acknowledges exploit targeting high-profile accounts

It’s unusual for three major AI providers to all be down at the same time, which could signal a broader infrastructure issues or internet-scale problem.

AI apocalypse? ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity all went down at the same time

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at LoanSnap’s woes, Nubank’s and Monzo’s positive milestones, a plethora of fintech fundraises and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest…

A look at LoanSnap’s troubles and which neobanks are having a moment

Databricks, the analytics and AI giant, has acquired data management company Tabular for an undisclosed sum. (CNBC reports that Databricks paid over $1 billion.) According to Tabular co-founder Ryan Blue,…

Databricks acquires Tabular to build a common data lakehouse standard

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

The next few weeks could be pivotal for Worldcoin, the controversial eyeball-scanning crypto venture co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, whose operations remain almost entirely shuttered in the European Union following…

Worldcoin faces pivotal EU privacy decision within weeks

OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT has been down for several users across the globe for the last few hours.

OpenAI fixes the issue that caused ChatGPT outage for several hours

True Fit, the AI-powered size-and-fit personalization tool, has offered its size recommendation solution to thousands of retailers for nearly 20 years. Now, the company is venturing into the generative AI…

True Fit leverages generative AI to help online shoppers find clothes that fit

Audio streaming service TuneIn is teaming up with Discord to bring free live radio to the platform. This is TuneIn’s first collaboration with a social platform and one that is…

Discord and TuneIn partner to bring live radio to the social platform

The early victors in the AI gold rush are selling the picks and shovels needed to develop and apply artificial intelligence. Just take a look at data-labeling startup Scale AI…

Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang is coming to Disrupt 2024