6 methods for reducing bias in candidate sourcing and screening

6 methods for reducing bias in candidate sourcing and screening

NEWS

Steve Bartel Contributor

Steve Bartel is the CEO of Gem, a talent engagement platform backed by Greylock, Accel and ICONIQ.

Over the last several years, an increasing number of companies have pledged to hire a more diverse workforce and begun releasing their diversity numbers annually. The results have been a mixed bag at best.

With so many organizations saying that diversity hiring is among their top goals and making good-faith efforts to revamp their recruiting practices accordingly, our team wanted to better understand why the results have fallen short. What we found surprised us: Subconscious bias tends to have the strongest impact on historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the early stages of the interview process.

For example, the data revealed that while white candidates see higher passthrough rates at the very top of the funnel, Black and Hispanic/Latinx talent see higher passthrough rates across the remaining funnel stages: 62% of Black talent and 57% of Hispanic/Latinx talent are extended offers after on-sites, compared to just 54% of white talent.

This suggests that diversity is most often an issue in earlier stages of the interview process, driven at least in part by subconscious bias. Candidates from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups have to work harder to prove themselves than their white counterparts, despite seeing higher offer rates at later stages of the interview process.

Whenever you open a new role, start by asking the question: How do we ensure that our selection is based solely on criteria that’s relevant to the role?

To help address this issue, I’m sharing six strategies that recruiting teams can use to reduce bias in the early phases of the recruiting process, when candidates are both entering and progressing through interviews.

Rethink the criteria for your open roles

Research has found that many things people list on their LinkedIn profile or résumé have very little, if any, correlation with their future work performance.

For example, requiring or being predisposed to four-year degrees from certain institutions biases you toward privilege. Screening for leadership experience can also be racially biased, due to lower representation of non-white people at the executive level.

To avoid this, whenever you open a new role, start by asking the question: How do we ensure that our selection is based solely on criteria that’s relevant to the role?

From there, clarify which competencies and qualifications are absolutely necessary to success in the role, and rather than focusing on the candidate’s experience, education, or — if they’re early in their careers — GPAs, ask yourself what about their history suggests problem-solving skills, cognitive ability and a growth mindset.

Limit access to information that could cause bias

GoPro’s new battery grip triples your action-cam shooting time

GoPro’s new battery grip triples your action-cam shooting time

NEWS

You just know your battery will kick the bucket at the worst possible time, right when you’ve perfected your sick, hella nar-nar skateboard tricks, bruh. The new GoPro HERO10 Black Creator Edition (who names these things, jeez) has directional audio, 5.3K video, an LED light source and the powered Volta grip.

It’s wild to think back to 2006, when the first HERO camera was released, complete with pre-loaded 35mm film and a $22 price tag. The Hero10 is a very different beast indeed. It costs two arms and a number of legs — it will set you back an eye-watering $784.95 (or the equally bizarre price tag of $531.95, if you also sign up for a one-year GoPro subscription).

The camera has some fun software tricks up its sleeve as well, including its award-winning HyperSmooth digital video stabilization, and the option to shoot 1/8-speed slow-mo video.

“HERO10 Creator Edition is like having Hollywood in your hand. It’s the perfect setup for recording professional-quality video when vlogging, filmmaking or even livestreaming,” says GoPro CEO and founder Nicholas Woodman. “Leave the extra batteries and gear behind, all you need is the Creator Edition, and you can create cinematic magic — all day long. You’ll have to recharge and refuel yourself before you even think about recharging your GoPro.”

The Volta battery grip packs an additional 4,900 mAh battery, and is capable of working in conjunction with the camera’s built-in battery to give you four hours of 30fps 4K recording. If you shoot lower resolutions, it stretches that battery life even further. Cleverly, the hand grip has legs; fold ’em out and you have a tripod for stationary shots and/or time-lapse shooting.

Volta is also compatible with HERO9 Black, and it will charge any USB-C-compatible device, including GoPro MAX and older GoPro cameras. You can buy it separately for $90.99 if you’re a GoPro subscriber, or $129.99 sans subscription.

Daily Crunch: Intel will reportedly buy cloud-optimization startup Granulate for $650M

Daily Crunch: Intel will reportedly buy cloud-optimization startup Granulate for $650M

NEWS

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here.

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Thursday, March 31, 2022!

It’s a beautiful day in our neck of the woods, and we have a great lineup of news for you today, so let’s goooooo.

Grab your calendar and add these two: We’re doing a Data and Culture Transformation event on April 26 for the big data aficionados, and now is your last chance to buy discounted tickets for our in-person TC Sessions: Mobility event on May 18 and 19, as well as the virtual event on the 20th.

Don’t worry, it’s Thursday. The weekend is almost here. You can do it; we believe in you. – Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• SEC looks at another EV SPAC: In today’s abbreviation news, several Faraday Future executives find themselves subpoenaed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission amid the agency’s look at electric vehicle companies that went public via special purpose acquisitions companies. The SPAC itself is not under the microscope, but instead alleged inaccurate statements the company made to investors. It’s OK, I’m sure Faraday Future did its best — everyone makes a miSPAC now and then.
• Klarna, Klarna, Klarna, Klarna, Klarna chameleon: Buy now, pay later company Klarna is showing us just how versatile it can be and that it won’t be left out of a good opportunity. Its new open banking application programming interface, Klarna Kosma, helps companies plug into bank accounts and seems to be an answer to Visa announcing it will acquire Tink.
• Are startup layoffs looming?: It’s a question Alex Wilhelm had us pondering today. Valuations are high, but traction is not a-matchin’ for some companies that he called “paper unicorns” (spectacular phrase by the way). Could all this mean we may see layoffs from companies that were able to rake in large amounts of dough, but not able to make the doughnuts? Stay tuned.

Startups and VC

We get a teensy bit excited whenever Y Combinator does a set of demo days. I recommend that you read all our coverage this week, obvz, but if you want a quick summary, read part 1 and part 2 of our “everything you need to know” posts, make yourself a cup of coffee, and follow that up with our favorite startups part 1 and part 2, then pour yourself an adult beverage and wrap it all up with Devin’s irreverently irresistible (and irrationally ironic) review of his favorite YC logos.

‘Tis the season for new venture funds, apparently. Freestyle closed its sixth fund, adding $130 million of dry powder to invest, while Gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC) has a $110 million block of cash in the form of its second to deploy into the crypto universe.

Docker was on the ropes for a little while, there, but hooo boy did it make a comeback. The company just announced a whale of a round, raising $105 million of fresh capital on a $2 billion valuation.

More stories of up, up, and away:

• Speaking of mono-racked fantasy horses, women’s leadership network Chief saddled up and rode its unicorn status into its continued future of developing women in leadership in the course of its $100 million Series B round.
• Kenya’s social commerce platform Tushop is strapping on some rocket fuel for growth, raising $3 million.
• 66% of Egyptian adults don’t have access to formal financial services. Khazna raised $38 million to help address that gap for low- and middle-income earners.
• Famously filthy business, real estate, but French startup Deepski raised $166 million to improve measurement and impact of ESG data across the industry.
• The Great Resignation is having some interesting effects across the job market, and Pursuit spotted an opportunity. It raised a $10 million fund to create a self-sustaining job training service with a really interesting business model.
• Getting your customer data hacked is a surefire way to lose goodwill, and Antimatter raised a $12 million Series A to help avoid that sort of thing.
• Pivoting from video conferencing to higher-end video production, BoxedUp brings the sharing economy to a previously untapped market.
• Freelancers are a squirrely bunch at the best of times (as freelancers ourselves, we can say that with utmost confidence), and managing them can get real quixotic. Archie aims to make things easier for managers, and just closed $4.5 million to do so.
• Space is complex, and as much fun as Kerbal is, it doesn’t cut it for commercial simulation of space missions. Slingshot Aerospace believes it can do better, and just landed a $25 million Space Force contract to build a digital twin of the inky night sky.
• Datanomik is bringing open banking to LatAm, with dLocal and AstroPay execs at the helm.
• Wouldn’t it be great if you could predict the future? Black Crow AI raised $25 million to help e-commerce folks figure out what its users are most likely to buy.
• Not a big fan of injections, needles to say, I was pretty psyched to learn about NovaXS Biotech’s push to make injection therapies needle-free.

5 things first-time founders must remember when working with VCs

Image Credits: Carol Yepes (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

Nothing beats experience like experience, which is why we were happy to run a column written by Zach DeWitt, winner of the 2013 TechCrunch Meetup and Pitch-off.

DeWitt, who became a VC after selling Drop, Inc. to Snapchat in 2016, shares five essential lessons for first-time founders wandering in the wilderness in search of an investor who’ll be “a true partner.”

There’s an inherent power imbalance when asking a stranger for money, but “VCs should work to earn your trust,” writes DeWitt.

“In many ways, it’s like finding the right spouse.”

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

5 things first-time founders must remember when working with VCs

Big Tech Inc.

• Microsoft goes deeper into process mining: What is process mining? Don’t worry, reporter Kyle Wiggers (who is rounding out his first week with us) tells you all about what that is. He also says Microsoft’s latest acquisition of process mining company Minit “comes at a time when the broader business process automation industry, which remains flush with cash, heads toward general consolidation.”
• Intel also gets in on the M&A: We noted last year, when Israel-based Granulate received funding, that it seemed like the network management space was seeing some consolidation. Well, that was confirmed earlier today when Intel said it acquired Granulate “to continue extending both its operations in Israel and the tools that Intel provides to customers to better manage traffic on Intel-powered kit.”
• New research sheds light on Viasat hack: The cyberattack that took down the U.S.-based satellite communications provider’s service in Europe was deemed “likely the result of destructive wiper malware” that originated in Russia, we report. The identity of the hackers is still unknown.
• The strike that turned into a potential lawsuit: Meta and its subcontractor, Sama, are in the hot seat in Kenya, facing some legal action that alleges poor working conditions. Reporter Annie Njanja describes allegations against the companies by former Sama contractor Daniel Motaung, who claims that contractors like him weren’t told what their jobs would be, but that it ended up being content moderation where they looked at some pretty graphic content for a long time, but were not often granted time to compose themselves or offered support when it became too much. Sama is denying any wrongdoing.

Everything you need to know about YC Demo Day Winter 2022, part 2

Everything you need to know about YC Demo Day Winter 2022, part 2

NEWS

The second day of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day is now behind us, and the TechCrunch team is recovering from watching hundreds of pitches in quick succession. Every accelerator demo day is a marathon, but the American group has worked with more startups over time, making its pitch sessions a veritable deluge of new companies and founders.

Recall that nearly 400 companies presented at YC Demo Day from a cohort of 414 in total. So, TechCrunch took on the group from a variety of perspectives. What follows is our collected coverage from the day, so that you can dive into the particular areas that you care about most.

Yesterday we took a look at startups in the batch that hailed from Africa, that work in fintech, are crypto-focused and that compete with one another, and we also tracked a list of favorites. Today we’re taking a look at AI startups, open source-focused companies, and, yes, more favorites.

Recall that Y Combinator changed its standard deal this year, adding more capital to each company that it funds. That means that the startups in its latest cohort are better funded than probably ever before. And we’re seeing some signals that investors are paying more for shares in the current YC Demo Day batch than in prior years. It’s a rich time to build a nascent tech company. Let’s learn more about what’s under construction!

TechCrunch’s YC Demo Day favorites, part 2

Day two is in the books! TechCrunch once again spent much of the day watching a parade of startups present as part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 cohort, Demo Day part two. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. But we did learn quite a lot. Reporters Alex Wilhelm, Christine Hall, Mary Ann Azevedo and Devin Coldewey share their favorite startups to come out of day two of YC Demo Day.

Here are TC’s favorite YC Demo Day startups, part 2.

AI startups from YC Demo Day Winter 2022

Dozens of startups in Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 cohort do something that could be described as AI. Though the term has lost much of its meaning, it’s still an important part of the tech landscape, and both using it and enabling it are fertile ground for new companies.

Here are 14 notable AI startups from the latest YC Demo Day batch.

Open source companies from YC Demo Day Winter 2022

Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 open source founders have some interesting ideas up their sleeves. And since they’re open source, some of these companies will let you join in on the fun of collaboration too.

Here are all of the open source related companies presenting at Demo Day in the Winter 2022 cohort.

Nigeria leads the way in YC Demo Day’s participation in Africa

TechCrunch has covered more African startups in the last year than any period in our history, and it’s no coincidence. Many of these African companies are Nigerian, which is the most active venture capital scene in Africa in 2021. The country’s rise has been sufficiently sharp — it makes sense that Nigeria garners the most African representatives in any Y Combinator batch.

Read more on why Nigeria leads the way in this YC Demo Day batch.

Best logos of YC Demo Day Winter 2022

Over 400 companies presented at YC Demo Day Winter 2022; that’s over 400 logos. Senior Editor Devin Coldewey shuffled through the entire list to call out some of the best logos in the Winter 2022 batch. There are a lot of solid ones, a few clunkers and a handful of really nice ones.

In no particular order, here’s a list of some of the best logos at YC Demo Day for your pleasure and edification.

Gumi Cryptos Capital closes $110M second fund to back blockchain startups

Gumi Cryptos Capital closes $110M second fund to back blockchain startups 

NEWS

San Francisco- and Tokyo-headquartered gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC), a venture capital firm that focuses on blockchain startups, said it has launched a new $110 million early-stage fund.

The venture capital firm’s second fund aims to back approximately 50 blockchain companies in the early stage from pre-seed to seed, managing partner of gCC Rui Zhang told TechCrunch. Industries include blockchain games, infrastructure, web3 applications, tools, DeFi (decentralized finance)/CeFi (centralized finance), DAOs and guilds. The check size will range between $500,000 to $5 million per investment through initial and follow-on investments. The second fund of gCC will invest in both equity and tokens.

“We live in the Experimental Age,” said Miko Matsumura, managing partner of gumi Cryptos Capital. “Tokens represent monetary experimentation powering web3, DAOs and guilds are governance experiments. NFTs are experimental digital assets. The metaverse is a collection of experimental realities.”

Its limited partners include Japanese game company gumi, Shinsei Bank, Cygames, Mistletoe Venture Partners, Marui Group, GMP Capital and Polygon.

Three managing partners of gumi Cryptos Capital, Hironao Kunimitsu, Zhang and Matsumura will lead gCC Fund II.

Despite the similarities in branding, Zhang told TechCrunch gumi Cryptos Capital  (gCC) is not a subsidiary or corporate venture capital arm of gumi, though Zhang notably still holds a position as a vice president at gumi in addition to his role as a managing partner at gCC.

Zhang said that the second fund has already made nine investments as the lead investor or co-lead investor, including Proof of Learn, XY Finance, Solv Finance and Alliance Labs.

The new vehicle is almost five times larger than the $21 million gumi Cryptos Capital Fund I, which backed 36 portfolio companies in their seed round findings, including NFT marketplace OpenSea, Yield Guild Gaming, Celsius Network, Qredo, Agoric, Astar, 1inch and VEGA. The firm said its first fund, gCC fund I, attained a 24.6x return on capital employed (TVPI) as of January 2022.

“We have unique access to both Silicon Valley startup culture and capital markets as well as access to the Japan market,” said Kunimitsu. “Japan is also home to unique intellectual property assets, especially in the fast-growing gaming sector.”

8 open source companies from YC Demo Day Winter ’22

8 open source companies from YC Demo Day Winter ’22

NEWS

Wicked fast VPNs, data organization tools, auto-generated videos to spice up your company’s Instagram stories … Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 open source founders have some interesting ideas up their sleeves. And since they’re open source, some of these companies will let you join in on the fun of collaboration too. Here are all of the open source related companies presenting at Demo Day in the Winter 2022 cohort.

Tuva Health

Founded: 2021

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

What it says it does: Tuva cleans messy healthcare data to help the healthcare industry build scalable data products.

Promises include: Tuva wants to become the open standard for healthcare data transformation and build the data network for multisite benchmarking and research.

How it says it differs from rivals: Tuva uses machine learning to further develop its technology.

Founders: Co-founders Coco (Jorge) Zuloaga and Aaron Neiderhiser have worked in healthcare data science for a decade. They’re using that experience to help digital health companies get their data ready for analytics and machine learning.

Our thoughts: Have you ever gone to the doctor and waited for minutes while the nurse’s computer — running Windows 2000 — struggles to open your chart, only to find that they don’t have updated information about what meds you’re on? We can only imagine how mind-numbingly tedious it would be for health tech companies to organize all this stuff, so it seems like Tuva Health is doing a good service by making their software open source. Now, to get that nurse off of Windows 2000…

Firezone

Founded: 2021

Location: Mountain View, California

What it says it does: Firezone is building an open source alternative to OpenVPN and Cisco AnyConnect using a new VPN protocol called WireGuard. The company is targeting businesses to help remote workers access private networks.

Promises include: Apparently, using WireGuard makes Firezone faster than its competitors.

How it says it differs from rivals: Speed! Cryptography! It’s also worth noting that fellow cohort members Netmaker are also developing open source software based on WireGuard.

Founders: Co-founder Jamil Bou Kheir spent eight years at Cisco, a direct competitor! Spicy! Kheir also lived in a “tiny hacker house” for two years, which … while we don’t want to know what the tiny hacker house smells like, we appreciate the out-of-the-box idea.

Our thoughts: Faster VPN options? Sounds good to us. We’re a bit more fixated on the tiny hacker house, though. What’s going on there?

GrowthBook

Founded: 2020

Location: Palo Alto, California

What it says it does: GrowthBook is an open source platform to help companies make data-driven product decisions with feature flags and A/B tests.

Promises include: GrowthBook focuses on feature flagging and experimentation and operates under the ethos that this is the best way to build products at scale.

How it says it differs from rivals: GrowthBook says that an existing SaaS solution, LaunchDarkly, requires a company to send them all of their data, which poses high costs and security concerns. GrowthBook says it solves this by using a company’s existing data infrastructure and business metrics.

Founders: Co-founders Jeremy Dorn and Graham McNicoll both used to work at Education.com as chief architect and CTO respectively. After Education.com’s exit in 2019, the two of them began working on GrowthBook.

Our thoughts: Startups will likely be more comfortable using open source software to help them make product decisions rather than sending all of their data to a third-party provider.

Eventual

Founded: 2022

Location: San Francisco, California

What it says it does: Eventual is a data warehouse for images and video, making it easier for enterprise machine learning teams to design continuous pipelines that ingest, organize and process imaging data.

Promises include: Eventual wants to help companies save time and money by optimizing workflow.

How it says it differs from rivals: Eventual says that it’s the first turn-key data warehouse for images and video. Instead of using SQL, Eventual’s query interface is a Lambda function that can be written in the programming language of your choice.

Founders: Jay Chia and Sammy Sidhu both have backgrounds in deep learning — they worked together on Lyft Level 5 to build autonomous driving technology that was acquired by Toyota.

Our thoughts: If these founders can get cars to drive autonomously, data organization via machine learning should be a piece of cake, right? (At least it’s a business endeavor less likely to result in an accident.)

Netmaker

Founded: 2021

Location: Asheville, North Carolina

What it says it does: Netmaker is an open source tool based on the WireGuard VPN protocol.

Promises include: Netmaker claims to operate 15 times faster than OpenVPN.

How it says it differs from rivals: Netmaker and its cohort-mate Firezone are both open source, faster alternatives to existing VPN software.

Founders: CTO Dillon Carns and CEO Alex Feiszli left their software engineering gigs to develop Netmaker. Feiszli formerly served as a senior engineer at IBM, a consultant at Deloitte and a contractor for Red Hat.

Our thoughts: Without testing the products, we can’t really say whether Netmaker or its cohort-mate Firezone is faster, but we do know that Netmaker’s CTO has a dog named Pepper. The ball’s in your court, Firezone.

Toolchest

Founded: 2021

Location: Mountain View, California

What it says it does: Per Toolchest’s website, “We have felt the pain of implementing and scaling computational biology tools. We’re here to build better core tooling for bioinformatics.”

Promises include: Toolchest says it will make it possible for drug discovery companies to get analysis results up to 100 times faster.

How it says it differs from rivals: Users don’t need to migrate their data or learn how to use a new platform. Toolchest makes implementing and scaling computational biology tools just three lines of code.

Founders: CTO Bryce Cai has an academic background, researching computational chemistry and mathematics at Stanford. CEO Noah Lebovic previously lead software engineering at a now-acquired microbiome startup.

Our thoughts: Toolchest is so open source that its signature three lines of code are literally just on the homepage of their website.

Unai

Founded: 2021

Location: San Francisco, California

What it says it does: Unai is developing a VR headset and virtual world that aims to help people feel connected to one another in the virtual world.

Promises include: Unai wants to make VR interactions look, feel and sound like they do in real life.

How it says it differs from rivals: Unai believes that “virtual presence” is the “first killer use case” for VR, not gaming.

Founders: Maxim Perumal built Relativity, an open source VR headset, at age 15. Now, as CEO of Unai, Perumal recruited a team with former senior engineers from companies like Apple, Nvidia, Intel, Activision, Meta and Sony.

Our thoughts: Since Unai is still in stealth, it’s hard to say what makes its technology different from mainstream headsets like the Meta Quest 2. But we cannot understate Unai’s biggest advantage, which is that Mark Zuckerberg is not its CEO.

Instant Domains

Founded: 2022

Location: Victoria, Canada

What it says it does: Instant Domains claims that in less time than it takes to create a social media profile, businesses can buy a domain, launch a site and start collecting revenue.

Promises include: Instant Domains is encrypted and promises to never collect data about its users.

How it says it differs from rivals: Technically, you can set up a Squarespace or a Wix site pretty fast too — but Instant Domains says it’s even faster and easier. It may not be as flexible as other no-code website builders, but it’s less expensive ($10 a year for a domain, plus an optional $5 a month for extra features). Some business owners might not need all of the bells and whistles on other platforms.

Founders: Instant Domains is an outgrowth of Instant Domain Search, a side project that CEO Beau Hartshorne built in 2005, which now makes around $1 million in annual revenue. Hartshorne is joined by CTO Dirkjan Ochtman, a 20-year veteran in software engineering and accomplished open source maintainer.

Our thoughts: Hot take: Squarespace is expensive. Normally, I urge people to just make a free WordPress site and attach their own domain to it, but if Instant Domains can accomplish what it sets out to, maybe we won’t have to mess around in cPanel to get an affordable website up and running. Instant Domains kind of feels like Linktree but with custom domain management built in.

Uberduck

Founded: 2021

Location: Seattle, Washington

What it says it does: Uberduck calls itself “Canva for programmable video,” making video that can be automatically generated via API.

Promises include: Within minutes, Uberduck will generate dynamic videos that can be personalized with customer data. Uberduck can also be used to develop advertisements and social media posts. You can also … clone your voice? Deepfake yourself? Use wisely.

How it says it differs from rivals: Uberduck boasts a Discord community of almost 3,000 members who collaborate to turn AI research into design tools for the app.

Founders: Samson Koelle holds a Ph.D. in statistics and has worked for places like Amazon and the National Institutes of Health. Koelle is joined by co-founders William Luer and Zach Wener, who was once an editorial fellow at The Atlantic (is the tech journalist to tech founder pipeline a thing?).

Our thoughts: Finally, a startup that calls itself “Canva for [use case]” that actually makes sense in comparison to Canva.

Dear Sophie: What can we do to help employees who are Ukrainian citizens?

Dear Sophie: What can we do to help employees who are Ukrainian citizens?

NEWS

Sophie Alcorn Contributor

Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives.

More posts by this contributor

• Dear Sophie: How long does it take to get International Entrepreneur Parole?
• Dear Sophie: Is there an easier route to L-1As and STEM O-1As?

​​Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

TechCrunch+ members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

---

Dear Sophie,

We have several employees who are Ukrainian citizens; one is on OPT and the other is on STEM OPT. We want to make sure they can continue to live and work in the United States.

Our most immediate concern is for the F-1 student whose OPT status is expiring in June. We registered her in this year’s H-1B lottery and are hoping she’s selected this week to apply.

In the meantime, we heard that Ukrainians are eligible for TPS. Does that include F-1 students on OPT? Should our other Ukrainian employees also apply for TPS even though their work visas are good for a few more years? What is the process for applying for TPS?

— Strong Supporter

Dear Strong,

I applaud your efforts to plan ahead and support your team! TPS, which stands for Temporary Protected Status, is something I talked about in a recent podcast about the current state of immigration, along with a rundown of how President Joe Biden has proceeded so far on immigration reform.

USCIS just announced that it will be phasing in Premium Processing for more case types throughout 2022, including EB-1C multinational managers, EB-2 NIWs, I-539 changes of status for various types of workers (E-2, E-3), students (F, J, M) and some spouses and even I-765 work permits. More details about the rollout should be published shortly, and changes will begin to take effect before the end of Q2. Stay tuned here for additional updates!

Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)

What is TPS?

To answer your questions about supporting Ukrainians in your team, let me give you a little background on TPS. The Secretary of Homeland Security, who oversees U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has the power to designate or extend TPS to a country if circumstances — such as an armed conflict or natural disaster — make that country unsafe. A citizen of a country designated for TPS is allowed to remain and work in the United States and travel abroad if that individual was present in the U.S. on the effective TPS designation date.

Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas designated Ukraine for TPS, effective on March 1, 2022, for 18 months. That means any Ukrainians in the United States as of that date are eligible to apply for TPS (the last day to apply is August 28, 2022). If TPS is granted, individuals may remain and work in the United States through September 1, 2023. At that time, Mayorkas can determine whether to extend the current TPS designation for Ukraine or redesignate TPS eligibility to those who arrived in the United States after March 1, 2022.

Ukraine joins 12 other countries that currently have TPS designation: Myanmar, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Our favorite startups from YC’s Winter 2022 Demo Day, part 2

Our favorite startups from YC’s Winter 2022 Demo Day, part 2

NEWS

And that’s day two in the books!

TechCrunch once again spent much of the day watching a parade of startups present as part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 cohort, Demo Day part two. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. But we did learn quite a lot.

You can find all our coverage here, but what matters is that themes are emerging from the YC milieu. Southeast Asia is a huge startup target, with a host of business models building for its population. Fintech was, again, a huge category of work around the world.

There were also a few surprises. Frankly we expected more crypto (web3? blockchain?) companies to be in the mix. And while there were a number of API-first startups, there were fewer than we might have guessed. That said, we don’t know the precise monetization method of every software startup that pitched, so we could be undercounting.

As always, to cap off the day we’ve picked a few favorites from the day’s presentations. Every TechCrunch reporter has their own set of interests and topic areas, so the following are not us endorsing any particular company or declaring winners. Instead, they are faves, the company’s that caught our eye as the most interesting. A big thanks to Devin Coldeway, Mary Ann Azevedo and Christine Hall for contributing.

If you need more on demo days, Equity has you covered. And with that, we can get started!

Our favorite startups from YC Winter 2022, day two

The following list is in no particular order. Companies’ websites and authors’ Twitter profiles are linked.

Christine Hall: DimOrder

• Details: DimOrder, a Hong Kong-based company founded in 2019, is developing a restaurant point-of-sale system for Southeast Asia. Its technology enables those in the food and beverage industry to accept online payments, market to customers, order food from suppliers and receive short-term loans.
• Why it’s a fave: Restaurant tech is big right now, and there is a lllloooootttt of funding going into this space. DimOrder is bringing in $183,000 monthly recurring revenue and growing 13% month over month. As the daughter of a former hotel chef, I watched my father make his food ordering lists on a legal pad and call them in. I believe systems like this would have given him that time back to focus on other things.

Daily Crunch: ‘Strategic finance platform’ Mosaic raises $25M Series B

Daily Crunch: ‘Strategic finance platform’ Mosaic raises $25M Series B

NEWS

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PT, subscribe here.

Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Wednesday, March 30, 2022! It’s day two of Y Combinator’s Demo Day, which means that the TechCrunch team has been looking at more than 400 startups over two days.

If you’ll forgive us, our brains are dripping out of our ears as we stare vacantly in the middle distance after some information overwhelms – but one thing’s for sure: It’s hella exciting times in startup land and across the ecosystem.

Dive in; the water is non-fungible, COVID-free, and will probably launch a corporate credit card before long. – Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• ‘From tiny to mighty’: Fintech reporter Mary Ann Azevedo hit it out of the park today with some financial news. First, she wrote about Cross River Bank, which secured a giant round of $620 million that put its valuation at over $3 billion. This is not shocking due to the amount of venture capital being pumped into the sector. However, Cross River was not only an early recipient of fintech funding, getting $30 million back in 2016, but has been profitable since 2010.
• Helping CFOs manage high growth: Mary Ann’s other story was about a couple of Palantir alums out to provide tools for CFOs of high-growth companies. Mosaic raised $25 million in Series B funding from Founders Fund to continue developing what the company calls a “strategic finance” category to get all departments within a company talking about finance. When you are growing, knowing your financial status is certainly important.
• Dyson wants you to mask up: Reporter Brian Heater wins “headline of the day” for his story about, you guessed it, Dyson’s new wearable air purifier.

Startups and VC

It’s day two of Y Combinator Demo Day, and the TechCrunch team is back on the case, sifting the sparkly from the meh for your reading pleasure. Lucas examined the crypto startups plotting out their plans for world domination, and we took a separate look at the fintech companies and AI companies that stuck their heads over the parapet as well.

If you have wild dreams of raising funding from Y Combinator yourself, pop along to our Early Stage conference in a couple of weeks, where Y Combinator’s Dalton Caldwell is doing a “how to get into YC” presentation. If you really want to submerge yourself in demo days, check out today’s excellent episode of our “Equity” podcast as well. I mean, with a title like “Demo days definitely amplify a brand, but not the one you think,” how could you not?

In exciting hardware news, Boston Dynamics is starting sales of Stretch. It’s not as cute as the dog-shaped robot, but probably more helpful for maneuvering around a warehouse.

Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure imagination:

• Good news for lovers of ShhTech – Minut raised a chunk of cash for privacy-forward noise monitors so your neighbor’s Airbnb guests can dial it down a bit.
• Bored of range anxiety as you whoosh around in your EV? Coreshell is rethinking batteries with a small change to the manufacturing process that increases existing battery capacity by a third.
• A propos EVs: Flux Marine just raised $15 million to help you stick to the rivers and the lakes you are used to with its electric outboard engines.
• I can only assume that Brian was channeling his inner John Lennon, gently humming “all we are saying is give bees a chance” as he takes a closer look at Beewise.
• Skiff is working on end-to-end encrypted workspaces for the security-forward among us.
• A good day for the cybersecurity nerds: In addition to Skiff’s round, we have Cyberpion collecting $27 million to help protect businesses from external attacks.
• And finally, all good things come in threes: Wing Security raised $26 million to help companies monitor and bolster their SaaS security across the myriad solutions that go into building a modern business.

How to make a teaser trailer for your startup pitch

Image Credits: Paolo Farinella / Getty Images

When you have an opportunity to sell an investor on your idea, it will likely be via a video call, not across a table or desk.

Considering how many pitch calls investors take on a daily basis, “this new pitching model presents a new problem for founders,” says Flint Capital partner Andrew Gershfeld, whose firm reviews approximately “1,500 online pitches per year.”

To cut through the noise, he recommends that founders create a “teaser trailer” to share with their network before they begin approaching angels and VCs.

According to Gershfeld, “since we’re not getting the same in-person meeting opportunities, this is how founders can hook investors’ attention.”

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

How to make a teaser trailer for your startup pitch

Big Tech Inc.

• Get your groove on with friends: Spotify’s latest update for its Blend playlist creation tool lets you see where your music tastes overlap with a friend and then provides you with a common playlist.
• Google’s been busy: If you haven’t checked in with Google in, oh, about a day, we have some news for you. The first is that Google Workspace customers who are also Markdown fans got some good news in an update that Google Docs can now automatically convert Markdown formatting to rich text. Next, we go over to Chrome OS, which is launching a new version of its operating system — the 100th, to be exact. One of the changes you will notice is the launcher, which we report now leaves space for other windows. Lastly, Google rolled out improvements on its search safety and how it will handle “personal crisis” queries.
• EU wants products to last longer so they don’t end up in landfills: As the shift to a circular economy gains speed, the European Union is laying out some plans for ecodesign with a goal of products lasting longer so that they can be either reused or recycled.
• WhatsApp gives a voice to 7B messages: Reporter Manish Singh admits to never having used WhatsApp to send a voice message — and found that he is in the minority. The communications giant said an average of 7 billion voice messages are transmitted through its app every day, and to celebrate, it’s adding some new features, like pausing during a message and being able to listen to it before hitting “send.”
• Visa joins the NFT movement: The trend of NFTs has certainly hit the world of e-commerce, and credit card giant Visa wants in on the action. Its new NFT creator program aims to help small businesses get into the digital economy through a one-year immersion program.

The 25 crypto startups that Y Combinator is backing in its W22 batch

The 25 crypto startups that Y Combinator is backing in its W22 batch

NEWS

Crypto was big at YC this batch.

Y Combinator Demo Days returned yet again with another ballooning heap of startups. In the old days, a gaggle of TechCrunch reporters would go to the Demo Day in person, write up the presentations of each startup and hobnob with VCs during the breaks, but in a post-pandemic bloat, YC has gotten just so massive that one comprehensive list of startups is neither feasible nor particularly useful to readers. That said, this was a massive year for crypto and I wanted to make sure that we profiled each and every crypto startup that publicly launched at Demo Days this batch.

The list of 25 companies unsurprisingly spans NFTs, DeFi, web3 services and crypto investing.

A couple of notes on these descriptions… These are listed in the seemingly random order in which they appeared on the YC Demo Days site. The “What it says it does:” sections are also taken from that site, while the “Founders:” section is largely based on info from the LinkedIn profiles of the co-founders of each startup. I have not personally fact-checked any of the information that was self-reported by the founders themselves. The “Quick thoughts:” section is made up entirely of my own insightful thoughts, though I also cannot guarantee that they are always all that insightful.

Now, onto the startups… But wait! While I have you, please do me a favor and subscribe to TechCrunch’s new crypto-focused podcast and newsletter Chain Reaction which is launching in April — hosted by myself and my colleague Anita Ramaswamy.

TechCrunch debuts ‘Chain Reaction,’ a new podcast about the wild world of web3

Okay, now, onto the startups!!

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SimpleHash

What it says it does: “SimpleHash allows web3 developers to query all NFT data from a single API. We index multiple blockchains, take care of edge cases, provide a rapid media CDN, and can be integrated in a few lines of code.”
Founders: Alex Kilkka previously co-founded NFT social network Showtime and Olly Wilson has been an EIR at Portage Ventures.
Quick thoughts: The NFT market has made huge strides already on Ethereum, but it’s no secret that any future mainstream embrace of NFTs will rely on Layer 2 blockchains lowering transaction costs. Where this creates opportunities for startups, it also introduces cross-chain headaches for them, something SimpleHash is looking to streamline.

NFTScoring

What it says it does: “NFTScoring is the place for you to discover, analyze and trade NFTs. We give you the superpowers to understand the NFT market in any given moment, make the best decisions, and take faster actions.”
Founders: David Mokoš and Adam Zvada previously co-founded AI lab Cognitic and hyperlocal delivery platform GoDeliver together.
Quick thoughts: NFTScoring is trying to build a better dashboard for NFT traders which accounts for some of the unique attributes that make some NFTs more valuable than others, all while helping users find trending projects early. A big emphasis appears to be tracking which projects NFT whales are buying into through tracking a network of wallets. The startup has premium tier pricing which users need to pay for with Eth.

Remi Labs

What it says it does: “Launching an NFT collection can seem tantalizing for brands, however, when executed poorly can create long-lasting negative implications. We take the cringe out of NFTs.”
Founders: Brant Choate and Dan Conger both previously worked in senior roles at enterprise messaging startup Podium.
Quick thoughts: Basically as soon as NFTs took off, brands looked how to get involved and saw a pretty confusing space with a lot of consumer skepticism tied up in it. Soon after, a lot of white-label NFT services took off aiming to give them a better path towards launching NFT projects. Remi Labs is eyeing this opportunity with a specific focus on NFT collections early-on.

Image Credits: Poko

Poko

What it says it does: “We are building Slack for Web3. We aim to replace LLCs with DAOs in emerging market cross border collaborations. We will take costly multi-step months-long company registration and setups down to $50 a month and with the ease of opening a Slack channel.”
Founders: Van Tran previously led strategy in the SEA region for Netflix, Geoffrey See was an exec at identity startup Trusting Social and Sean Ang founded education org Success Alliance Enrichment.
Quick thoughts: DAOs are hot, but the tooling behind them is still catching up with the hype. Poko is leaning into the idea of using DAOs as LLCs which has some legal blurriness stateside but less so in plenty of other geographies including Singapore (as far as I know) where the startup is based.

GoSats

What it says it does: “GoSats is a bitcoin rewards app. We help people accumulate free bitcoin as cashbacks and rewards every time they shop in India.”
Founders: Roshni Aslam was previously a research analyst at consulting firm ONEX AE, Mohammed Roshan was the CTO for blockchain startup ThroughBit.
Quick thoughts: Crypto credit card rewards are a pretty well-worn path at this point. Though India’s government has played hardball with crypto thus far, plenty of entrepreneurs see the market as one where the industry has outsized opportunities.

Cashmere

What it says it does: “Cashmere is a crypto wallet for web3 startups to manage their digital assets on Solana. Instead of running their business from one person’s wallet, startups can use our wallet to collaboratively manage their funds.”
Founders: Shashank Khanna previously was a senior engineer at SoFi, Rebecca Lee was a deployed engineer at Retool and Charlotte McGinn was a software engineer at Tesla.
Quick thoughts: Consumer crypto wallets have been big business over the past year, but the tech to help startups, projects and DAOs manage funds securely with enterprise-grade multi-signature wallets has had less action. Solana has courted plenty of developer attention over the past year and they are. aiming to replicate some of Ethereum’s tooling while leveraging Solana’s advantages to make improvements.

Chaingrep

What it says it does: “Chaingrep is a search engine for on-chain interactions and digital assets. You can think of it as a new kind of block explorer. We think that current block explorers like Etherscan are too complicated to use for regular users, and that abstracting a lot of their functionalities and filtering out all the noise can dramatically improve the experience of finding on-chain information.”
Founders: Rosco Kalis previously was an engineer at crypto startup Truffle, Merwane Drai has no LinkedIn profile but says he’s working on hacking his way out of the matrix.
Quick thoughts: The transparency offered my blockchains is only as good as the platforms that make interpreting that data simple and readable, something that will become more important as more non-technical users find their way to web3 platforms.

Image Credits: Winter

Winter

What it says it does: “Winter offers an embeddable widget to help your consumers buy an NFT with a credit card or bank account! We also help custody & manage a user’s NFT if they don’t have a wallet.”
Founders: Michael Luo was previously a product manager at Facebook, Laila Chima was a software engineer at Stripe.
Quick thoughts: For anyone who has navigated the process of buying an NFT, the headaches associated with buying crypto on a centralized exchange, creating a wallet and transferring the crypto to that wallet to make a purchase are often the most time-consuming parts of the process. It’s unsurprising that startups are trying to abstract this away with credit card purchases, which will likely appeal to web2 platforms that are trying to find an opportunity in NFTs.

Decent

What it says it does: “Decent enables musicians to monetize their work directly through their fans, aligning artist & fan incentives to reinvent funding, IP protection, and discovery. We do this through a marketplace and infrastructure that enables musicians to issue NFTs collateralized by their royalties.”
Founders: Will Collier was previously an analyst at Accenture, Charlie Durbin was an analyst at Vox Media, Will Kantaros is studying Applied Math and Econ at Brown, Alexander Carlson is a music producer.
Quick thoughts: NFTs have largely found their fit in the art world, but a handful of startups have been trying to find opportunities in other facets of media like music. Decent’s sell seems to be creating NFT incentive structures for new fans to build up buzz around musicians over time that’s more closely tied to the success of the songs themselves.

Yatima

What it says it does: “Yatima is a Substrate blockchain which uses on-chain formal verification and zero-knowledge proofs to radically improve the safety and scalability of smart contracts, and other deterministic computations.”
Founders: John Burnham was previously CEO of Sunshine Cybernetics, Samuel Burnham recently graduated with a CS degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Gabriel Aquino Barreto has worked as an Ethereum software developer.
Quick thoughts: This is one of the more technical startups listed thus far and some of the details are lost on me, but Yatima is building a crypto programming language based around emerging technologies like zero-knowledge proofs, which use complex math to cryptographically verify batches of transactions and are generally seen as a key element of the future of more scalable, trustless blockchains.

Image Credits: CypherD

CypherD Wallet

What it says it does: “Existing Crypto Wallets are too geeky for mainstream users. We are building a multi-chain crypto wallet simplifying user experience for the mainstream users along with a crypto card.”
Founders: Kuberan Marimuthu was previously a senior engineering manager at Coinbase, Muthukrishnan Ramabadran was a senior software engineer at Lyft, Dheeban S.G. was a senior engineer at blockchain startup Magic.
Quick thoughts: There are some major unknowns around what the future of consumer web3 look like, but most investors are assuming that wallet apps will play a pretty central role in that future, giving users a central place to host their coins and NFTs. CypherD is looking to make wallets a hub for USD assets as well, giving users a MasterCard debit card that they can use after converting crypto into USD inside the wallet.

Courtyard

What it says it does: “Courtyard stores physical collectibles (trading cards, sneakers, watches, etc.) in secured vaults, creates a 3D representation of the asset and mints it as an NFT on the blockchain. We’ve partnered with one of the largest security companies in the world to store collectibles.”
Founders: Paulin Andurand was previously a senior software engineer at Apple, Nicolas le Jeune was previously a manager at YouTube.
Quick thoughts: NFTs are great at creating liquid markets for digital assets, but there’s been a lot of chatter about using them to make transacting physical collectibles easier. Vertical-specific marketplaces have already had some success aiming to do this, though there have also been legal challenges associated with selling digital assets that use the likenesses of physical product as a token.

Payourse

What it says it does: “We build the tools and infrastructure that make it easier, faster and cheaper for anyone in Africa easy, fast and cheap access to crypto and web3.”
Founders: Bashir Aminu was previously head of Africa for Binance P2P, Hakeem Adeyemi Orewole was previously a software engineer at Andela, John Anisere previously was a senior software engineer at Intersection Ventures.
Quick thoughts: Crypto advocates are quick to highlight how blockchain-based payments can do wonders for unbanked users in developing countries, but precious little venture funding seems to have been given to teams aiming to do just that.

Argo

What it says it does: “Argo is on a mission to empower Film and TV makers worldwide. It’s the easiest way to upload and monetize your content. Argo provides the technology and the ecosystem for the Filmmakers to monetize their film and tv work through advertising, subscription and NFT sales.”
Founders: Arcadiy Golubovich previously led entertainment production company Primeridian.
Quick thoughts: Argo seems to be a media startup focused on short films first and foremost, offering a platform for filmmakers to showcase their work while also tapping NFT sales as a way of helping them monetize their work and build buzz.

Finnt

What it says it does: “Finnt is the first DeFi app for families. We provide multi-user, high yield saving accounts, which make it easy to save with crypto for your children or family members.”
Founders: Anji Ismail led product at Welcome, Faozi El Yagoubi was previously director of engineering at Ovavi
Quick thoughts: DeFi for families is an awfully specific pitch, which seems mainly focused on allowing users to link sub-accounts to a central investment account. High-profile exploits of DeFi protocols are undoubtedly going to leave some families skeptical of putting their nest egg here, but much higher yield rates are likely going to make it a risk some are happy to take.

Image Credits: Tradezi

Tradezi

What it says it does: “Tradezi is the Robinhood for Southeast Asia. We aim to help everyone invest in stocks, crypto, and other alternative assets all in one place.”
Founders: Phi Dang and Jasmine Huynh were both previously senior software engineers at Google.
Quick thoughts: Robinhood has obviously done a lot to expose American retail traders to crypto by showcasing the coins alongside publicly traded stocks, this is a model Tradezi seems to be interested in tackling in SEA.

Botin

What it says it does: “Botin a mobile app where people in Latin America can invest in US Stocks, Crypto and more.”
Founders: Robert Baron was previously a developer at BitGo, James Jara was previously a software engineer at Avantica. 
Quick thoughts: The Costa Rica startup is also taking the Robinhood approach towards stock and crypto to Latin American users and hoping to find a broader audience for retail trading.

earnJarvis

What it says it does: “earnJARVIS is a crypto investment platform that helps retail investors (i.e, you) and businesses intelligently invest across the crypto-economy.”
Founders: Atyab Bhatti was previously a manager at McKinsey, Kush Maheshwari was previously a software engineer at Rubrik.
Quick thoughts: Robo-advisors have been big business for entry retail investors, but crypto trading has largely been a DIY affair at the same levels. There’s likely going to be a crop of platforms popping up that promise to automate the process of diversifying across crypto assets while exposing users to elements of the DeFi world.

Magna

What it says it does: “We’re bring universally needed tools to crypto companies to help them manage their token distributions, tokenholder onboarding/offboarding, and other critical tools.”
Founders: Bruno Faviero previously was a product manager at Palantir, Arun Kirubarajan is a graduate researcher at Penn.
Quick thoughts: Cap tables have gotten hilariously convoluted in an era where crypto startups are granting both equity and tokens to investors and employees. The cleverly named Magna is looking to add some much-needed streamlining to managing token grants in the same way Carta rethought cap table management for web2 startups.

Soon

What it says it does: “With Soon you can invest without the stress of speculating. Our fully automated sweep account attaches to your bank and uses routine spending activity to signal market trades. By investing on a schedule and selling available gains when you spend, Soon automates investing from beginning to end.”
Founders: Chris Lovato was previously a DevOps engineer at Adobe, Aaron Bylund led corporate strategy at Nu Skin, Michael Shattuck was previously a senior software engineer at Pluralsight.
Quick thoughts: Just because new platforms are bringing users access to new asset classes doesn’t mean consumers all want to turn into part-time investors. Soon is building a platform that automatically invests idle money in a user’s bank account across crypto and more traditional assets.

LiquiFi

What it says it does: “LiquiFi (“Carta for crypto”) helps companies and DAOs automate their token vesting, management, and distribution to employees, investors, partners, and community members. Secure, audited smart contracts guarantee timely distribution of vesting tokens and save significant time and resources spent building your own solution.”
Founders: Robin Ji previously was a product lead at Eco, Oliver Tang was an engineering manager at Amazon.
Quick thoughts:  It’s unsurprising that YC is backing a pair of startups approaching the same opportunity, token management is a clear web3 startup growing pain and YC has always been particularly successful in helping scale “startup-for-startup” products.

Arda

What it says it does: “A single API for fintechs to embed DeFi products on their platform. This allows them to acquire more customers, retain these customers and increase revenue & engagement, all in a custodial, secure, & compliant way.”
Founders: Pranay Shetty was an early employee at CloudKitchens, Ramkumar Venkataraman was the founding engineer of Moneyworld.
Quick thoughts:  While trading stocks and crypto inside the same app has grown to be an expected feature of traditional trading apps, that same relationship hasn’t come to DeFi and traditional fintech services which live separate lives in separate apps and platforms.

OnScale

What it says it does: “OnScale is business bank for high-earning Creators that automates income budgeting, cash flow management, tax write offs and invoicing. We help creators automate financial tasks, save money and time.”
Founders: Tonjé Bakang Tonje is the founder of Afrostream, German Saprykin was a senior engineering manager at Grab.
Quick thoughts:  While plenty of creator-focused web3 products have taken particular aim at NFT creators, OnScale is looking to help a broader swath of creators access traditional financial products while building in crypto rails to help users easily convert income into crypto inside the platform.

Blocknom

What it says it does: “We make crypto investing safe and easy for consumer and businesses through DeFi yielding. Our product is plain simple. People can deposit and withdraw in 3 clicks. Right after deposit, they might earn competitive interest with no hidden fees. The interest is obtained from DeFi protocols.”
Founders: Fransiskus Raymond was a sales manager at Gojek, Ghuniyu Fattah Rozaq was a developer at Ritase.
Quick thoughts:  An awful lot has been said about DeFi yield farming which offers high percentage rates for depositing funds into investment pools. Sometimes these seemingly too-good-to-be-true rates have proven to be just that, but other times they highlight how much upside there is when users cut banks (and their associated protections) from the investing/saving process.

Image Credits: Bloom

Bloom

What it says it does: “Bloom offers students and young professionals in East Africa US Dollar banking. By saving in USD or digital dollars, and spending as they go in local currencies, they won’t be subject to inflation.”
Founders: Ahmed Ismail previously worked at Barclays, Khalid Keenan was an engineer at Finbourne, Youcef Oudjidane was a managing partner at Class 5 Global, Abdigani Diriye was a research manager at Amazon.
Quick thoughts:  The Sudan startup is looking to tap stablecoins to help young professionals in East Africa avoid the hyperinflation common to many currencies in the region. There are clearly large opportunities in helping users in developing nations build wealth, but the risks associated with crypto means that these startups have a big burden of responsibility as well.

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Take a look at some more of our Y Combinator Demo Day coverage.

Everything you need to know about YC Winter 2022 Demo Day, part 1

Everything you need to know about YC Winter 2022 Demo Day, part 1

NEWS

The TechCrunch team spent today covering the first day of Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day, which featured half of the 394 companies that plan to virtually present. Since the overall batch is bigger than ever before – with 414 companies in total – we decided to divide, conquer and create a slew of YC Demo Day trend pieces for you to parse through the cohort. It’s not all inclusive – you can check out Y Combinator’s blog for a list at your own leisure – but instead we aimed to provide signal amid the noise, and shout out out some of our favorite companies within this season’s batch as well.

Before you check out all of our coverage from Day 1, there are some broader statistics and notes about the cohort to note. The fully virtual cohort, YC’s 34th Demo Day to date, was the first group to receive Y Combinator’s new standard deal. The deal, announced in January, is a $500,000 investment across two checks for the same equity stake as before, 7%. Other firsts for the 2022 YC Demo Day batch include country representation from New Zealand, Sudan, Uganda and Costa Rica.

Despite growing its check size, geography focus and the overall size of the batch, YC’s Demo Day mostly fell on diversity. About 10% of founders in this cohort identify as women, down from 12% the batch prior. About 6% of founders in this cohort identify as Black, slightly up from 4% from the year prior, and 12% identify as LatinX, down from 15% the year prior.

Big thank you to our team – Mary Ann, Kate, Connie, Lucas, Devin, Alex, Alyssa, Amanda, Anna, Bryce, Greg, Henry and Tage – for the team work.

Okay! Without any further ado, here’s what we got into today:

TC’s YC Demo Day Favorites, part 1

The TechCrunch staff spends lots of time diving into the technologies that startups are building, the sectors they are focused on, and the parts of the world they hope to serve. As a result, each of us has a distinct perspective covering YC Demo Day.

Out of the hundreds of companies we saw today, which stood out the most to TechCrunch staffers? Read on here!

India Startups at YC Demo Day

More than 191 companies in India have been funded through YC accelerator with nearly half of those companies accepted in the last 12 months. This year’s batch of YC Demo Day companies plan to tackle a diverse range of challenges within tech, but appear concentrated mostly within the financial services sector. Think ‘buy now, pay later’ pitches, savings-focused neobanks and, of course, bitcoin bets. It’s a contrast from prior showings, in which most of India’s YC startups fell into the B2B services category.

Here’s the full list of the startups based out of India in the Winter 2022 batch.

Fintech YC Demo Day batch

There are 35 fintech companies this year at YC Demo Day, just over double the amount of the 2021 winter batch and up from 18 in the summer program, according to the organization’s directory. We’ve listed each startup presented with thoughts about the broader problem each is trying to solve. What you’ll notice about this year’s cohort is the prevalence of companies from Nigeria, Indonesia and Argentina.

Here’s the list of fintech startups presented at YC Demo Day 2022.

Africa Startups at YC Demo Day

The U.S. has the most representation at YC Demo Day W2022. India, with 32 startups, is the second-largest demographic represented in this new batch, while Nigeria is third, having delivered a total of 18 startups. This is the first time an African country is appearing in the top three. Africa as a whole has 24 startups in this new batch, a record besting S21’s 15.

Read the list, in alphabetical order, on the batch of African startups at YC W22 here.

Competitive startups in the same YC batch

YC seems to be actively leaning into startups that are roughly the same age, operating in the same countries and targeting exactly the same opportunity with nearly identical business models. While similar types of companies within a class had grown inescapable as YC’s class sizes have ballooned, a kind of sameness is more apparent than ever with it latest batch of 400 startups. In fact, it’s beginning to look like the plan here is to back as many nascent rival teams as possible — then let them duke it out.

We’ve rounded up some of the startups that seem to us to overlap within this YC Demo Day W22 batch. Read our coverage here.