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


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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

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has successfully delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station, a key milestone in the aerospace giant’s quest to certify the capsule for regular crewed missions.  Starliner…

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Rivian needs to sell its new revamped vehicles at a profit in order to sustain itself long enough to get to the cheaper mass market R2 SUV on the road.

Rivian’s path to survival is now remarkably clear

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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.

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In a research note, HSBC estimates that the Indian edtech giant Byju’s, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth nothing.

HSBC believes that $22 billion Byju’s is now worth zero

As WWDC 2024 nears, all sorts of rumors and leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its AI-powered apps and features have in store.

What to expect from Apple’s AI-powered iOS 18 at WWDC 2024

Apple’s annual list of what it considers the best and most innovative software available on its platform is turning its attention to the little guy.

Apple’s Design Awards highlight indies and startups

Meta launched its Meta Verified program today along with other features, such as the ability to call large businesses and custom messages.

Meta rolls out Meta Verified for WhatsApp Business users in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Colombia

Last year, during the Q3 2023 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg talked about leveraging AI to have business accounts respond to customers for purchase and support queries. Today, Meta announced AI-powered…

Meta adds AI-powered features to WhatsApp Business app

TikTok is testing streaks that are similar to Snapchat’s in order to boost engagement, including how long people stay on the app.

TikTok is testing Snapchat-like streaks

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Your usual…

Inside Fisker’s collapse and robotaxis come to more US cities

New York-based Revel has made a lot of pivots since initially launching in 2018 as a dockless e-moped sharing service. The BlackRock-backed startup briefly stepped into the e-bike subscription business.…

Revel to lay off 1,000 staff ride-hail drivers, saying they’d rather be contractors anyway

Google says apps offering AI features will have to prevent the generation of restricted content.

Google Play cracks down on AI apps after circulation of apps for making deepfake nudes

The British retailers association also takes aim at Amazon’s “Buy Box,” claiming that Amazon manipulated which retailers were selected for the coveted placement.

UK retailers file a £1.1B collective action against Amazon over claims of data misuse

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Rivian overhauled the R1S and R1T to entice new buyers ahead of cheaper R2 launch

Rivian has changed 600 parts on its R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck in a bid to drive down manufacturing costs, while improving performance of its flagship vehicles.  The end goal, which will play out over the coming year, is an existential one. Rivian lost about $38,784 on every vehicle…

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Twitch has come up with a solution for the ongoing copyright issues that DJs encounter on the platform. The company announced Thursday a new program that enables DJs to stream…

Twitch DJs will now have to pay music labels to play songs in livestreams

Google said today it is partnering with RapidSOS, a platform for emergency first responders, to enable users to contact 911 through RCS (Rich Messaging Service).

Google partners with RapidSOS to enable 911 contact through RCS

Long before product-led growth became a buzzword, Atlassian offered free tiers for virtually all of its productivity and developer tools. Today, that mostly means free access for up to 10…

Atlassian now gives startups a year of free access

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A social app for creatives, Cara grew from 40k to 650k users in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies

Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts. Instagram is a necessity for many artists,…

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Google has developed a new AI tool to help marine biologists better understand coral reef ecosystems and their health, which can aid in conversation efforts. The tool, SurfPerch, created with…

Google looks to AI to help save the coral reefs

Only a few years ago, one of the hottest topics in enterprise software was ‘robotic process automation’ (RPA). It doesn’t feel like those services, which tried to automate a lot…

Tektonic AI raises $10M to build GenAI agents for automating business operations

SpaceX achieved a key milestone in its Starship flight test campaign: returning the booster and the upper stage back to Earth.

SpaceX launches mammoth Starship rocket and brings it back for the first time

There’s a lot of buzz about generative AI and what impact it might have on businesses. But look beyond the hype and high-profile deals like the one between OpenAI and…

Sirion, now valued around $1B, acquires Eigen as consolidation comes to enterprise AI tooling

Carlo Kobe and Scott Smith believed so strongly in the need for a debit card product designed specifically for Gen Zers that they dropped out of Harvard and Cornell at…

Kleiner Perkins leads $14.4M seed round into Fizz, a credit-building debit card aimed at Gen Z college students

A new app called MyGlimpact is intended not only to help people understand their environmental footprint, but why they shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

How many Earths does your lifestyle require?

Prolific Machines believes it has a way of transitioning away from molecules to something better: light.

Prolific Machines, with a $55M Series B, shines ‘light’ on a better way to grow lab proteins for food and medicine

It’s been 20 years since Shira Yevin, the lead singer of punk band Shiragirl drove a pink RV into the Vans Warped Tour grounds, the now-defunct punk rock festival notorious…

Punk singer Shira Yevin pushes for fair pay with InPink, a women-focused job marketplace

While the transport industry does use legacy software, many of these platforms are from an earlier era. Qargo hopes its newer technologies can help it leapfrog the competition.

Qargo raises $14M to digitize and decarbonize the trucking industry

When you look at how generative AI is being implemented across developer tools, the focus for the most part has been on generating code, as with Github Copilot. Greptile, an…

Greptile raises $4M to build an AI-fueled code base expert

The models tended to answer questions inconsistently, which reflects biases embedded in the data used to train the models.

Study finds that AI models hold opposing views on controversial topics

A growing number of businesses are embracing data models — abstract models that organize elements of data and standardize how they relate to one another. But as the data analytics…

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