Parsing the latest data on the startup fundraising market in Q2, TechCrunch has explored the global perspective, taken a closer look at fintech, asked how much dry powder VCs have and brought the latest from unicorn land. But we are not yet done.

Later this week, we’re looking at the European venture market, which is faring a little better than many other major startup hubs. But Europe is not doing the best — that honor may belong to Africa. Data indicates that Africa is not only posting year-over-year gains in venture capital fundraising, it could also be on track for a record year.

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Regional discrepancies abound in a changing global market, but today, instead of merely tracking which areas are declining the fastest when compared to 2021, we have some more positive data to chew on.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, and most interesting technology, startup, and markets news. Today was a fun day in that we didn’t start off with just bad news — what a change!

• Stocks are up around the world, and cryptos have rallied in the last week. The positive price movement in crypto-land, however, doesn’t appear to be lighting a fire underneath the NFT market, for example.
• Robots! Yes, our robotics-themed event — Free! And online! — is this week, which means that I have robots on the brain. That made the Syrius round all the more interesting. It appears that ecommerce will remain a key driver of robotic innovation for some time to come.
• Podcast deals are still happening, kinda. Acast is buying Podchaser, which may or may not mean a lot to you. What does matter in this deal is that Spotify wasn’t involved. That’s a change!
• Quick Hits: India may ban crypto, at least if its leading bankers get there way, Missfresh’s implosion got a small lifeline, and Modsy is no more — and the way that it is going out leaves quite a lot to be desired.

You might think given the chatter in the startup world that venture capitalists are short on funds — after all, we’re hearing about young tech companies finding themselves marooned between stages, hitting up investors with smaller capital pools than prior backers and turning to equity crowdfunding to keep their cash balances healthy.

And yet new data from PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association indicate that while the pace of U.S. venture capital investment is slowing — more here on the global perspective — American venture capitalists are sitting atop more investable capital (dry powder) than ever before.

Even more, the pace at which venture investors are accreting funds is elevated compared to historical norms, meaning that private-market investors are in aggregate not struggling to raise, even if their portfolio companies may find themselves in a very different situation.

The question bouncing around our minds this morning is why — why are venture investments slowing when so much capital has been raised by VCs to invest?

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Kindly His’ at home semen test kit

Hormonal healthcare can be intimidating, since it touches on the most intimate parts of our lives. Kindly Health wants to make it accessible to more people, with a combination of at-home diagnostic tests (including semen tests and tests for polycystic ovary syndrome), telehealth consultations and supplements.

The Bangalore-based startup, which has ambitions to expand into global markets, announced today it has raised a $3.25 million seed round from investors including Y Combinator, Olive Tree, Soma, Goodwater and Gaingels.

Kindly Health has two product lines, KindlyHis and KindlyHers. KindlyHers will launch a PCOS predictive test that can help women diagnose and manage PCOS. It also sells routine lab work for PCOS profiles and STD diagnosis. KindlyHis’ sperm tests lets users take the test at home and then send it to a test center for diagnosis.

Kindly Health was founded in 2020 by Nilay Mehrotra, its CEO, and previously known as Janani.life. Mehrotra told TechCrunch that before taking part of Y Combinator’s winter 2022 cohort, Kindly Health was focused on fertility, specifically building a B2B tool for IVF clinics that would help them select the right embryo.

“But as we start to get a better understanding of the market and our customers, we realized the problem was indeed much bigger and we needed to focus on lifestyle disorders,” he said. “We realized that at-home semen testing and diagnostics had a much bigger use case than just fertility and we didn’t want to limit ourselves to that.”

Since launching a month ago, Mehrotra said revenue growth is trending at 30% month-over-month, and the company expects to reach $1 million in revenue at the end of the year.

Mehrotra says the market opportunity in India for lifestyle disorders, sexual performance and hormonal wellness is $8 billion, based on the startup’s findings that 130 million people in India spend about $60 on sexual wellness and performance products.

In the future, Kindly Health will also focus on more wellness categories, and expand its product portfolio to include eczema, psoriasis and gut health. Its goal is to acquire 130 million users, and it plans to launch an app within the next few months.

The founders of New Zealand-based Carepatron, a healthcare platform used by providers and patients, say they are passionate about solo practitioners and small health teams. With that in mind, they built Carepatron, which helps reduce the amount of administrative work that practices need to perform and also automatically reminds patients about appointments to reduce no-shows.

The company announced today it has raised $1.6 million NZD (about $980,000 USD) in pre-seed funding led by Blackbird. The funding will be used to hire for Carepatron’s global team and on product and growth. It has clients in 30 countries, including the United States, and markets in Europe and Asia Pacific.

Carepatron is used by practices ranging from a solo practitioner to teams of about 100. It says its clients save about eight hours of administrative work each week by helping them manage tasks like booking, rescheduling appointments, responding to emails and generating bills. It is now used by 700 health teams, with about two-thirds of its clients based in North America and Asia. More than half of Carepatron’s usage is on mobile devices.

Carepatron was founded in 2021 by David Pene and Jamie Frew. Both were inspired by their life experiences. Frew helped his family with their community hospital as a kid, while Pene’s partner is a doctor who works with small teams and practices.

Frew, Carepatron’s CEO, told TechCrunch that “David and I were frustrated by the lack of progress and innovation across the healthcare software sector, as we had personally seen the impact of poor tools on our partner’s mental health and medical practices. We bring everyone together in an ultra-secure app with the tools and information they need to achieve better health outcomes.”

The platform’s core products are scheduling and workflow, client records and documentation, and billing and payments. Frew says it can reduce costs by 74% for its clients by reducing the range of software subscriptions and tools they require from nine to two.

“Because we are community-driven, we can massively reduce the cost of our platform with an average subscription of $12 month per patient,” he said. He added that even though Carepatron is in its early stages, it is already generating revenue and has been growing its customer base consistently since launch.

The platform reduces patient no-shows through tools like scheduling automation, including smart reminders, online rescheduling and built-in video options.

In a prepared statement, Blackbird principal Phoebe Harrop said, “By allowing people to access the experts they need, Carepatron reduces the frictions associated with getting timely care. We are really excited to support Jamie and David on their journey to supercharge hundreds of thousands of health professionals around the world with lovable practice management software.”

In the final quarter of 2019, startup funding rounds worth $100 million or more reached a local minimum. With 103 such deals, Q4 2019 saw just $22.7 billion disbursed in nine-figure chunks. That dollar figure rose at the start of 2020 only to retreat during the pandemic-impacted second quarter. But from that moment in time, huge rounds for startups rose steadily throughout 2021, CB Insights data indicates.

That boom led to one of the most impressive runs of private-market value creation on record. But since the go-go-go year of 2021 closed, things have changed for the most valuable startups. And the change is not positive.

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Data indicates that the pace of unicorn birth — the rate at which new startups clear the $1 billion valuation threshold — has slowed; so-called mega-rounds worth $100 million or more have decelerated; and the larger venture capital market is rebalancing its investments toward earlier-stage companies.

TechCrunch doesn’t tend to cover personnel changes because the startup world is sufficiently massive as to render any particular job changes too small for our lens. However, Instacart this morning announced a slew of promotions inside of its senior leadership, and given that the company filed for an IPO — albeit privately — we’re paying extra attention.

Briefly, the U.S. grocery-delivery giant promoted Daniel Danker and Laura Jones, vice presidents of product and marketing, to chief product officer and chief marketing officer, respectively. Given that Instacart is prepping for a public debut, getting its C-suite in order makes sense. In that vein, the multi-unicorn is also promoting its vice president of engineering, Varouj Chitilian, to the CTO role. Prior CTO Mark Schaaf is leaving the company for what Instacart described in a phone call as a break of sorts.

The company also shook up its business division. Recall that Instacart has a few revenue lines, including delivery, a software platform that it offers to grocery chains, and advertising business. Instacart also announced today that it is unifying its grocery business and ads business under its newly promoted chief business officer Chris Rogers, its prior vice president of retail.

Why do we care about Instacart bringing ads more closely to its grocery business? Because search advertising is a big damn market. And when you are grocery shopping and want to add a particular good to your cart, you are executing a search.

This means that the same forces that powered Google to search dominance — and provided a huge tailwind to Amazon — are at play inside of Instacart’s service. In simple terms, high-intent customers searching for goods to buy is the precise place where advertisers want to flaunt their wares. So, it makes sense to have the ads team and the grocery team working in unison — they are somewhat the same project, albeit with different search results as their main remit.

We’re counting down until Instacart’s IPO filing drops the private tag and flips public. When will that happen? It’s not clear. The IPO market today is more barred window than open portal, which means that our normal methods of calculating when a company may go public do not work. We’re stuck waiting. But when we do get that document, we’ll be hunting through it for notes on Instacart’s revenue mix and per-business line gross margins, along with the usual growth and profit material we observe for every company.

Can Instacart’s software and advertising work improve its overall gross margin profile? Can those business lines provide growth levers in excess of simply driving more GMV through the service? That’s Rogers’ job now. Let’s see how he performs in the expanded role.

C2 Ventures doesn’t invest in crypto, Web 3 or consumer companies, and it stays away from Silicon Valley startups. Instead, the New York City-based venture firm focuses on disruption in legacy industries. For example, one of its portfolio companies is a robotics startup that cleans commercial bathrooms.

The firm announced today it has closed its second-early stage fund totaling $20 million, and a separate $2.5 million Tributary Fund that will make investments in earlier, pre-seed stage old-economy SaaS and robotics productivity tools.

Fund 2’s LPs include over 125 investors, including the State of Connecticut through Connecticut Ventures.

This brings C2V’s total assets under management to more than $30 million. The firm has more than 30 portfolio companies, three of which have exited, including Kambr, an airline revenue management SaaS provider that was acquired by Amadeus.

C2V’s general partners are Chris Cunningham and Matt Olivo. Describing C2V’s investment philosophy, Cunningham said “number one, we are not an anti-San Francisco firm, but we don’t invest in the Bay Area. We don’t invest there because it’s generally over saturated. Price points are insane.”

Instead, C2V focuses on flyover states and has made investments in cities like Cleveland, Chicago and Charlotte.

Cunningham also said the firm “runs as fast as possible” away from crypto, NFTs, Web 3 and consumer companies toward what the “dirty, dull and dangerous.”

“These are old economy, legacy industries that are ripe for disruption,” said Cunningham. “They’ve had stagnant productivity. Examples are ad tech, prop tech, insurance tech and the underlying data for the commercial trucking industries.

Some other examples of C2V’s portfolio companies includes a robotics startup for construction and software companies for car washes, laundromats and dry cleaning.

“We love these verticals because they’re sitting on billions of dollars of TAM and hundreds of millions of revenue. They’re arguably recession-proof, but they’re not that glamorous, so they get over looked,” Cunningham said.

So far, this approach is working out for the firm. C2V’s Fund 1, which closed at the end of 2019, has a current IRR of more than 50% and two exits. In less than two years, 15 out of its 19 portfolio companies have either excited or raised major follow-on funding.

Some of Fund 2’s LPs include quarterback Baker Mayfield and his brother Matt and NFL Network reporter, along with founders and tech executives like Brian Adams, Jennifer Prince, Shiven Ramji, Sean Cohen, David Kidder, Ari Paparo, Haroon Mokhtarzada and Mike Murphy, who are all an “operators bench” that helps with technical due diligence and then supports startups after they join C2V’s portfolio.

Cunningham said 30% of Fund 2’s LPs are private individuals and family offices, but 70% have experience operating a tech company.

In a prepared statement, Matt McCooe, chief executive officer of Connecticut Ventures said, “C2V squarely fits our strategy of identifying the best emerging managers in Connecticut committed to supporting and growing our state’s startup ecosystem.

Mental health startup Intellect’s ambitious goal is to be available across the Asia-Pacific, but ensure localized, culturally-competent care in each of the many markets it serves. Today it announced it has added $10 million to its war chest in a Series A extension led by Tiger Global, bringing the round’s total to $20 million. The first half of Series A was announced in January 2022.

Other investors in the extension round include new backers K3 Ventures, JAFCO Asia, Singtel Innov8 and PERSOL Holdings, with participation from returning investors Insignia Ventures Partners and HOF Capital.

Intellect describes this as “the largest venture round raised by any mental health company in Asia.” The capital brings Intellect’s total funding since the Y Combinator alum was founded in 2019 to $23 million, and will be used to launch commercially in more markets, expand its operations and build out its mental healthcare system.

Intellect’s coverage and self-guided programs are available in 15 languages. Though it has a consumer app, the company primarily takes a B2B2C model, with companies offering it as an employee benefit. Its clients include Merck, Philips, Foodpanda, Singtel, Shopee, Omnicom Media Group and abrdn. It currently serves 3 million users in more than 60 countries and has therapists and coaches based in 20 countries.

Founder and CEO Theodoric Chew told TechCrunch that it decided to raise an extension instead of moving onto a Series B because the company is in a strong position and making revenue. “With the current economic climate, we wanted to put it in a better position for the next two years and beyond, so we have a strong war chest and are not distracted.”

Intellect primarily sells to regional hubs with a lot of conglomerates and headquarters. For example, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are all core markets. Currently, most of its clients are from Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Intellect’s platform has two components. The first is the tech product, which includes its self-guided programs and app. The second is its clinical team of coaches, therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists.

Chew said the company works with professionals in each market to ensure culturally competent care.

“That’s something we have thought very deeply about from day one,” he said. “Essentially, what makes sense for Intellect in each region. It’s about having a product that’s hyper-localized for each culture, each region and country as well. To give an example, when someone struggles in Thailand or in Hong Kong, it’s quite different from Singapore in terms of what stresses they have.”

Though Intellect is available in 15 languages, Chew emphasizes that its goal isn’t just to translate the same material.

“We work with providers in every market, clinicians, psychologists, a team, to make sure that we’re not just translating, but also have examples and scenarios for the local context, and that extends to its own network of providers as well,” he said. “So beyond the app the being localized in pretty much every country in APAC today, we have a whole network of local, native, on-the-ground professionals.”

When someone logs into Intellect for the first time, they are prompted by chat to speak with a provider. Chew said this is important because it results in the most user retainment. “The majority of people in Asia have never seen a professional therapist or coach, so this is a barrel of newness for them.”

The mental wellness tech space in Southeast Asia has grown rapidly over the past few years. A new examples include Meta-backed Ami, MindFi and Thoughtfull, plus a roster of startups focused on specific markets, like Ooca in Thailand or Naluri in Malaysia.

“It’s definitely great to see more and more players pushing and coming to this space,” said Chew. “For us, I think that means there is more awareness and push to expand the category. It’s a huge cultural shift and push that we’re building for. It’s not just going to be a zero sum game from the get-go.”

As for how Intellect differentiates, Chew said the main thing is aiming to be an end-to-end platform for mental health care, ranging from its self-guided programs to psychiatric care.

In a statement, Tiger Global partner Jay Chen said, “With its tech-empowered, end-to-end holistic approach, Intellect is poised to become a leader in offering access to mental healthcare across Asia. We are excited to partner with the Intellect team as it builds a flexible, responsive and modern system for a critical component of healthcare.”

Klarna’s announcement that its long-expected funding round has come to a close brought with it one of the steepest valuation resets in memory, at least as far as operating businesses are concerned. Now worth $6.7 billion after raising $800 million, the European BNPL provider is worth a fraction of its self just last year, though the new war chest means the company is now well-fueled to execute its business plan.

The movement of Klarna’s price has been something to behold. Coming into 2022 worth more than $46 billion, prices for the company’s next funding round were reportedly initially around the $50 billion mark. That became something around $30 billion, then $15 billion, then $10 billion. Klarna’s final price cut feels punitive. But is it really? And now that Klarna has seen its valuation come down so very sharply, is Affirm — a U.S.-based, publicly listed rival in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) space — cheap?

Let’s do some math and find out.

Klarna versus Affirm: A lesson in fintech valuations

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. After some holiday weeks, we are back on an actual Monday! What a treat. Here’s what we got into:

• Stocks are off around the world, partially due to government action, partially due to the complex web of negative factors that we’ve discussed for months now.
• Cryptos are more staid; if you like bitcoin at $20,000 this is your moment.
• Tiger’s slowdown is no mere blip, TechCrunch reports. The investing powerhouse is going to slow its roll for the rest of 2022, and is looking to raise a new fund.
• Unacademy is looking to cut costs, go public in two years per TechCrunch. And Kadamos raised more capital, marking a pretty quick reload after raising a few months ago.
• Quick Hits: The Uber Files are a mess, layoffs aren’t solving a talent crunch in Southeast Asia, and fintech staffing cuts are starting to pile up.

Tech layoffs have hit almost every region in the world, and Southeast Asia is no exception, with companies like Sea, Crypto.com and JD.ID among those affected. In particular, fintech startups—BNPL, credit and lending, and inventory-holding businesses—are vulnerable, like in other parts of the world.

Glints, one of Southeast Asia’s largest jobs platforms with over 30,000 active job listings per month and 40,000 employers, recently issued a report that shows the situation may not be so dour (even though it probably doesn’t feel that way to someone who just got laid off). There still exists a tech talent crunch, even in Singapore, where most layoffs and hiring freezes have happened because it’s regional headquarters for many international businesses and a startup hub.

“It’s a correction in general. I think what we have seen is that there has been a lot of capital being pumped into the tech industry over the past two to three years in a major bull run. With that, we had a lot of companies that have also expanded rapidly,” said Glints co-founder and CEO Oswald Yeo told TechCrunch.

“Singapore companies seem to be responding the most quickly to the changes in the macroeconomic environment,” he added, “Which is not necessarily a bad thing, because for some of these changes, you want to move quickly,”

Teams that have been hit hardest include operations, financial and human resource departments, plus some sales and marketing teams.

A lot of new hiring will happen remotely, with companies turning to Vietnam and Indonesia, which have both seen less layoffs, for top tech talent. This is fueled in part by the willingness for a decentralized workforce created by the pandemic.

“Together with the cost saving measures because on the one hand, comfort in remote hiring has increased because of the pandemic,” Yeo said. “Then on the other end, there is this need to save costs. So from both a human capital angle and a financial capital angle, a lot of companies are now actually doing more remote hiring. On Glints, for example, we see remote job opportunities has grown by 10 times over the past year.”

In Malaysia, regional companies still hire cross-border, but local companies have shifted back to local hiring. Glints said they do not expect mid- to senior-compensation to drop from current levels, but junior talent compensation might be affected.

Another new trends is fixed-term, usually one year, contracts, that allow companies to better predict their financial outlook. “Employers are more cautious of committing themselves to permanent contracts with employers,” said Yeo.

“It’s not all doom and gloom in two ways, and there are still positives,” Yeo said. For example, he said there is still disproportionate demand for technology and product talent on Glints, with the ratio in job seekers’ favor.

Layoffs also give startups a chance to build their core teams.

“For companies who are in good position and can afford it, it’s actually a great time to strengthen the bench, shape the management bench and the leadership bench with top management talent because there’s now a little bit less competition for talent.”