Month: April 2018

While companies’ operations become increasingly fragmented into a wide variety of different spots — especially if they exist somewhere in a group of different cloud tools — making sure those operations are still healthy has become more and more critical.

And for companies whose lifeblood is directly keeping that software online longer, it’s even more important. Uptime maps directly to revenue, and that’s why Caleb Hailey — who previously worked on this as a consultancy — decided to start Sensu to try to piece together the monitoring operations into a single spot where a company can keep an eye on the health of their operations. The company said it has raised $10 million in a new financing round led by by Battery Ventures, with existing investor Foundry Group participating. Battery’s General Partner Dharmesh Thakker is joining the company’s board of directors.

“Big enterprises are hesitant to work on startups, they’re risk adverse, and it reduces the risk exposure to double down on an open source stack,” Hailey said. ” But this open source technology, it’s used in the largest institutions in the world, and we have found that by delivering cost savings in a competitive market we have already established a rapidly growing developer stream.”

While all those different tools may have their own way of monitoring the health of a system, Sensu tries to get all this into one place to make things a little easier than checking things one-by-one. The aim is to be more proactive and try to flag problems before they are even noticed by the people using Sensu, plugging directly into services like Slack or sending emails to flag potential issues before they end up becoming larger problems. Like others like Cloudera, Sensu builds its business around helping companies deploy this otherwise open source technology efficiently.

Sensu’s backstory starts as a consultancy for Hailey, which was focused on infrastructure and automation — especially as more and more companies moved to a hybrid cloud model that existed partially in some box somewhere on Azure or AWS. Starting off as an open source project is one way that he hopes to convince larger enterprises that might already be using similar tools to adopt a known entity rather than just giving some random startup the keys to maintaining their operations.

The monitoring space is still a competitive — and crowded — one. There are tools like AppDynamics or New Relic, but Hailey argues that Sensu can be competitive with those as they are very bundled while his startup helps companies piece together a more complete solution. For example, a company might need higher granularity in their reports, and Sensu aims to try to provide a robust toolkit for companies that have many disparate operations they need to keep online and running smoothly.

from TechCrunch

Subscription biller Zuora was well-received by stock market investors on Thursday, following its public debut. After pricing its IPO at $14, the company closed at $20, valuing the company around $2 billion.

It was also much higher than expected. The company said in its filings that it planned to price its shares between $9 and $11, before it raised that range to $11 to $13.

Founder and CEO Tien Tzuo told TechCrunch that he believes “a bet on us is really a bet on an entire shift to a new business model, to a subscription economy.” He is optimistic that subscriptions are the “business model of the future.”

Zuora sees itself as an early pioneer in a growing category. The company believes that more businesses will shift their business models to subscriptions, across sectors like media and entertainment, transportation, publishing, industrial goods and retail.

It helps its 950 customers manage subscriptions, including billing and revenue recognition. Zuora touts that it has 15 of the Fortune 100 businesses as clients.

Zuora’s revenue for its fiscal 2018 year was $167.9 million. This was up from $113 million in 2017 and $92.2 million the year before. Losses remained constant in this timeframe, from $48.2 million in 2016 to $47.2 million in 2018.

“We have a history of net losses, anticipate increasing our operating expenses in the future, and may not achieve or sustain profitability,” warned the requisite risk factors section of the filing.

It also acknowledged a competitive landscape. Oracle and SAP are amongst the companies offering software in the ERP (enterprise resource planning) category. It also competes with other startups like Chargebee.

The largest shareholders are Benchmark, which owned 11.1% prior to the IPO . Founder and CEO Tien Tzuo owned 10.2%. Others with a significant stake included Wellington Management, Shasta Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Redpoint.

The San Mateo, California-based company previously raised over $240 million, dating back to 2007.

Zuora listed on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker “ZUO.” Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley worked as lead underwriters on the deal. Fenwick & West and Wilson Sonsini served as counsel.

After a slow start to the year for tech IPOs, there has been a flurry of activity in recent weeks. Dropbox and Spotify were amongst the recent public debuts. We also have DocuSign, Pivotal and Smartsheet on the horizon.

from TechCrunch

Tocano, a spinout from Delft Technology University in the Netherlands which is working on an inkless printing technology, has closed a €1 million angel round to fund the next stage of its tech development and move a step closer to building its first commercial product.

The startup began as the graduate student project of co-founder Venkatesh Chandrasekar who, along with fellow student Van der Veen, founded the business in 2015, gaining early backing from the university.

The team now consists of eight employees and is part of the business incubator Yes!Delft.

Now it’s true there are already some ‘inkless’ printing technologies in use commercially. One we covered back in 2009 is Zink: A color printer which doesn’t require ink cartridges in the actual printer; but does require special Zink photo paper which has colored ink embedded in it. So an ‘inkless printer’, technically, but not actually ink-less technology.

Tocano’s tech — which it is branding Inkless — has a much cleaner claim to the name because it doesn’t involve having to use ink-saturated paper. Nor any other type of special paper, such as thermal-coated paper — which is another type of inkless printing already in use (such as for receipts).

Rather they are using an infrared laser to burn the surface of the paper — so carbonization is being used as the printing medium.

And they claim their technique is able to produce black and white printing with blacks as dark and stable as ink-based prints. Though, clearly, they’re still early in the development process.

Here’s a photo of their current prototype, alongside a sample of text printed with it:

The angel funding will be used to try to reach what they dub “a competitive printing performance”. After which they say they’ll need to raise more money to build the first product — so they’re already planning the next financing round (for the end of the year).

“With this money we can make our technology ‘development-ready’, which means that we can meet the required quality and speed performance requirements so that we can begin with the development of our first product”, says co-founder and CEO Arnaud van der Veen in a statement.

“[The] next round will either be financed by strategic partners or venture capitalists. The first meetings have already taken place.”

If they can successfully productize their laser carbonization technique the promise is printing without the expense, waste and limits imposed by ink refills plus other consumables.

“I always compare this to the transition from the analogue camera to the digital camera,” says van der Veen.  “Suddenly people were able to make unlimited photos and it was not needed to replace the films. Likewise, with our printing solutions, refill and replacement of ink and consumables will not be needed.”

Though quite how expensive the next-gen laser printer machines themselves will be if/when they arrive on shop shelves remains to be seen.

Tocano says its first product will be aimed at industrial users for packaging and labelling use cases — such as printing barcodes, shelf life data and product codes on packages and labels.

Its ambition is to range out after that, bringing additional printer products to market targeting other business users — and eventually even the consumer market.

“Our first product will fit [the packaging/labelling] market but after that we will make the technology accessible for production printers, office printers, consumer printers and receipt printers. In all these market we can offer the same advantages, a cheaper and more sustainable printer without any hassle with ink, cartridges or toners,” he adds.

from TechCrunch

SpaceX has authorized a new Series I round for 3 million shares in a new round that will be worth up to $507 million, according to a certificate of incorporation document filed in Delaware.

If all shares in this round are issued, the new round would value SpaceX at around $23.7 billion, according to the new filing provided by Lagniappe Labs, creator of the Prime Unicorn Index. We’ve previously reported that SpaceX was planning to raise around $500 million in a financing round led by Fidelity, helping provide a lot of liquidity for the company as it begins to ramp up its plans to grow its ambitious launch schedule. While the filing does not confirm that it has raised the full $500 million, it serves as another data point to support that the company has picked up an additional huge influx of cash. The 3 million shares are priced at $169, in the range that we previously reported mid March.

The FCC in March gave SpaceX the green light to launch a network of thousands of satellites to blanket the globe with broadband access. Each additional flight offers SpaceX an opportunity to not only prove out its efficiency as a launching company, but also that it can provide a wide array of companies with a potentially cheaper option to get equipment into orbit for purposes like providing broadband. SpaceX already runs plenty of missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX also won a $290 million contract with the U.S. Air Force to launch three GPS satellites.

SpaceX isn’t the only company that may end up providing a new generation of orbital launches, like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Virgin Galactic also successfully tested its rocket-powered spacecraft for the first time since 2014 earlier this week, and while the details on that launch are still very slim it shows that there’s a wide variety of companies that see potential in figuring out a lower-cost way to get equipment into orbit.

We also previously reported that there could be a secondary offering that could also total up to $500 million in shares. That would run through special purpose vehicles, according to what we’re hearing, which would give investors an opportunity to get some liquidity in the company as it looks to remain private a little longer with the new financing.

We reached out to SpaceX for a comment and will update the story when we get back.

from TechCrunch

Disrupt lands in San Francisco this September, and the agenda is shaping up to be absolutely amazing.

With new digs at Moscone West and expanded capacity, we expect Disrupt SF (September 5-7) to be the biggest and best conference TechCrunch has ever had. And, in large part, that’s credited to our incredible guests.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that GirlBoss Media CEO Sophia Amoruso, as well as Carbon CEO Joseph DeSimone and Adidas CMO Eric Liedtke, will be joining us on the Disrupt stage.

Sophia Amoruso

It’s been four years since GirlBoss Sophia Amoruso graced the Disrupt stage.

A lot has changed since then. Amoruso stepped down as CEO of Nasty Gal, which soon after filed for bankruptcy. She exposed her personal life, and faced harsh criticism, on a brief Netflix original series called GirlBoss.

But Amoruso is neither down nor out. The serial entrepreneur has started another venture by a familiar name. Amoruso described GirlBoss Media to investors as “Oprah for millennials and Supreme with boobs.”

Inspired by Amoruso’s memoir #GirlBoss, GirlBoss Media aims to motivate women to take action in their lives.

There’s something spectacular about falling off the horse and getting back up again, and we’re extremely excited to hear Amoruso tell her story in her own words on the Disrupt SF stage in September.

Bonus: We’re bringing in former TechCrunch co-editor Alexia Tsotsis to conduct the interview, four years after she interviewed Amoruso at Disrupt NY 2014. Tsotsis is now the founder of an SF-based seed-stage fund called Dream Machine.

Joseph DeSimone and Eric Liedtke

You might not equate sneakers with technological advancement, but Carbon and Adidas could quickly prove you wrong.

Carbon, the 3D printing startup that has raised more than $420 million, has fundamentally changed manufacturing by creating a proprietary CLIP tech that speeds up the process of additive manufacturing by leaps and bounds.

Looking for proof of concept? Look no further than Adidas, who has invested in Carbon to help manufacture its 3D-printed Futurecraft sneakers. Carbon’s 3D printers (in relatively small numbers) are able to build out particularly impressive mid-soles, which feature 20,000 struts, a feat that would be far more difficult and exhaustive to accomplish through traditional manufacturing.

That said, Carbon is scaling quickly, with the duet planning to print shoes in the ‘hundreds of thousands of pairs’ this year, jumping to the millions by 2019.

Carbon co-founder and CEO Joseph DeSimone (winner of the $500K Lemelson-MIT prize in 2008) and Adidas Executive Board Member (global brands) Eric Liedtke (named 2017 CMO of the year in Germany) will join us on stage to discuss a range of topics, from upending traditional manufacturing to the relationship between incumbents and disruptive startups.

Disrupt SF runs from September 5 to September 7 at Moscone West. Tickets are available now.

from TechCrunch