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Bykea, which leads the ride-hailing market in Pakistan, has raised $13 million in a new financing round as the five-year-old startup looks to deepen its penetration in the South Asian country and become a “super app.”

The startup’s new financing round, a Series B, was led by storied investment firm Prosus Ventures. It’s the first time Prosus Ventures has invested in a Pakistani startup. Bykea’s existing investors Middle East Venture Partners and Sarmayacar also invested in the round, which brings its total to-date raise to $22 million.

Bykea leads the two-wheeler ride-hailing market in Pakistan and also operates logistics delivery business and financial services business. The startup has partnered with banks to allow customers to pay phone bills and get cash delivered to them, Muneeb Maayr, founder and chief executive of Bykea, told TechCrunch in an interview.

Fahd Beg, Chief Investment Officer at Prosus Ventures, said firms like Bykea are helping transform big societal needs like transportation, logistics and payments through a technology-enabled platform in Pakistan. “Bykea has already seen impressive traction in the country and with our investment will be able to execute further on their vision to become Pakistan’s ‘super-app,” he said in a statement.

Bykea works with over 30,000 drivers who operate in Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore. (Two-wheelers are more popular in Pakistan. There are about 17 million two-wheeler vehicles on the road in the country today, compared to fewer than 4 million cars.)

The new investment comes at a time when Bykea restores the losses incurred by the coronavirus outbreak. Like several nations, Pakistan enforced a months-long lockdown to curtail the spread of the virus in March.

As with most other startups in travel business globally, this meant bad news for Bykea. Maayr said the startup did not eliminate jobs and instead cut several other expenses to navigate through the tough time.

One of those cuts was curtailing the startup’s reliance on Google Maps. Maayr said during the lockdown time Bykea built its own mapping navigation system with the help of its drivers. The startup, which was paying Google about $60,000 a month for using Maps, now pays less than a tenth of it, he said.

Starting August, the startup’s operations have largely recovered and it is looking to further expand its financial services business, said Maayr, who previously worked for Rocket Internet, helping the giant run fashion e-commerce platform Daraz in the country.

The startup has been able to out compete firms like Careem and Uber in Pakistan by offering localized solutions. It remains one of the few internet businesses in the country that supports Urdu language in its app, for instance.

“Our brand is now widely used as a verb for bike taxi and 30 minute deliveries, and the fresh capital allows us to expand our network to solidify our leading position,” he said.

I asked Maayr what he thinks of the opportunities in the three-wheelers category. Auto-rickshaws are some of the most popular mode of transportation in South Asian nations. Maayr said on-boarding those drivers and figuring out unit-economics that works for all the stakeholders remains a challenge in all South Asian nations, so the startup is still figuring it out.

Would he want to take Bykea to neighboring nations? Not anytime soon. Maayr said the opportunity within Pakistan and Bykea’s traction in the nation have convinced him to win the entire local market first.

Some interesting news for lovers of open, decentralized communications tech: Element, the company behind the eponymous Matrix-based Slack competitor (formerly known as Riot) has acquired developer-focused chat platform, Gitter, from dev services giant GitLab, which picked it up back in 2017.

The acquisition means Gitter’s community of some 1.7M users will be migrating to Matrix, the underlying decentralized comms protocol also made by Element — assuming they stick around for the ride with the new owner, of course. But Element is going out of its way to reassure Gitter users they’ll feel properly at home on Matrix.

In a blog post discussing the acquisition, the top-line message from Element CEO and Matrix co-founder, Matthew Hodgson, is that nothing will change in the short term. Furthermore, the pitch to the Gitter community is that, down the line, there will be plenty to gain from the migration/eventual assimilation as a “Gitter-customized version of Element” running on Matrix.

This is because the pledge is feature parity first (so, yes, that means Element will be gaining a bunch of Gitter features; such as threads and instant live room peeking, to name two). Then, once Gitter migrates to Element, it’ll get access to “all the goodies” the combination brings — including end-to-end encryption; reactions; VoIP and conferencing; widgets; all the alternative clients, bots, bridges and servers; the full open standard Matrix API; and the ability to fully participate in that decentralized network…

Another enticing promise is “constantly improving native iOS & Android clients” — which the Element team notes is a welcome alternative to Gitter’s natives ones, given they’re already being deprecated.

The migration will also mean Element will be replacing the current “creaky” matrix-appservice-gitter bridge.

“We’re going to build out native Matrix connectivity — running a dedicated Matrix homeserver on gitter.im with a new bridge direct into the heart of Gitter; letting all Gitter rooms be available to Matrix directly as (say) #angular_angular:gitter.im, and bridging all the historical conversations into Matrix via MSC2716 or similar,” it writes. 

“Gitter users will also be able to talk to other users elsewhere in the open Matrix network — e.g. DMing them, and (possibly) joining arbitrary Matrix rooms. Effectively, Gitter will have become a Matrix client,” Element adds.

So the tl;dr is that current Gitter users should have plenty of reasons to be cheerful about the acquisition. (Plus, as Hodgson points out, anyone less than happy with the direction of travel can of course fork the platform and go their own way, being as Element is an open source company. Though of course the hope is no one will feel the need to fork it.) 

The decision to migrate Gitter to Element has been made purely on resources/efficiency grounds, per Hodgson — to avoid the need for Element to maintain both apps over the longer term. He tells TechCrunch the migration will likely take around a year — “possibly more”.

Element also plans to “comprehensively” document the whole process so that it can serve as “the flagship example of how to make an existing chat system talk – and transition to — Matrix”, as it puts it, so it’s got its eye on encouraging more apps to make the move to Matrix.

While Element says GitLab approached them about taking on Gitter they confess to a long-time “crush” on the platform — saying they jumped at the chance when the other company came knocking. (Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed, however.)

TechCrunch can claim a teeny part in this open source love-in, being as we’re credited with accidentally introducing the teams — after they found themselves across the aisle exhibiting at Disrupt London, back in 2014 (so you truly never know who you’ll serendipitously meet in Startup Alley).

Taking on Gitter is not just a passion project for Element, though. They saw they see the acquisition boosting growth of the Matrix ecosystem as a whole other developer community gets plugged in and — they hope — converted to evangelists for the open network.

“If developers are using it then when they need something to build on — a technology for their messaging apps — then they will naturally use Matrix. And if we want to grow this ecosystem and have as many apps as possible built on top of the protocol then we need to make it known to everyone so if they’re using it for their own comms it makes it easier for them,” Element COO, Amandine Le Pape, tells TechCrunch.

“We’re really doing this for Matrix, rather than for Element,” adds Hodgson. “We’re just trying to grow and make the Matrix network larger and healthier. So it’s not a matter of we can then sell it to governments as a communication platform more easily, it’s much more… that it becomes known to more developers so that when they build their next WhatsApp they don’t go and invent the wheel all over again. They would just obviously use Matrix because that’s what they’re already using to co-ordinate on working on React or Angular or whatever technology they already know.”

He says bringing Gitter into the Matrix fold is “obviously” a boon to developers who already use Element — such as the Mozilla community and Rust developers — as it will help reduce fragmentation.

“Half the world is on Gitter, half the world is on Element, and some poor lost souls are stuck in Discord and Slack. So by going and bringing the open guys together it will just be very concretely more useful in Element that if you want to reach out to whatever developer you will be able to find them in once place rather than having this horrible split brain between the two,” he adds.

Asked about its decision to sell Gitter, GitLab told us it has never been a core element of its business focus.

“While GitLab has contributed to Gitter’s growth in the past three years, Gitter has always been a standalone product, independent of GitLab, even after GitLab’s acquisition in 2017. GitLab and Element saw an opportunity for Gitter to grow further under Element,” it said.

“GitLab has a core business focus to be the market’s leading complete DevOps platform,” it added. “It is not a case of stepping away but seeing an opportunity for an important tool to grow further. In true open source fashion, Gitter is free to use, without limits, for everyone to create public or private communities and to contribute back to. It is currently the only developer-centric messaging platform which is an open source, free, uncapped messaging SaaS. The platform has not been monetized yet and has no commercial edition. Gitter is available on the web with clients available for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.”

Image credit: GitLab/Gitter

Element said it will be bringing on board Gitter’s dev team as part of the acquisition — albeit, it’s actually just one “superstar” developer running the whole thing, per Hodgson and Le Pape. So the team integration process at least shouldn’t be too challenging. 

(For the record, Element is the new name for New Vector (the company) and Riot (the messaging app) which was originally called Vector. So that’s Vector > Riot > Element; and New Vector > Element. “We decided to bring everything under one single brand — as now Element the company, Element the app and Element Matrix Services for the hosting platform,” explains La Pape on this recent rebranding.)

Momentum for Matrix

Matrix, meanwhile, has been continuing to gain momentum throughout the pandemic — thanks to the accelerated shift to remote working pushing demand for secure (and, well, sovereign) digital messaging up the public sector agenda.

“Recently we’ve had the German education system coming on board, the German military coming on board. And we have two other governments who, irritatingly, we can’t disclose yet — but suffice to say they are both very big and very exciting,” notes Hodgson. “They’re in paid trials. Once we successfully convert those it will be as big, if not bigger, than France in terms of banging on about it.” 

“In all of these instances they have gone and slightly tweaked the app. They have forked Element, they have branded it, they’ve built it into an existing tool that they have and it really ties in with the developer story — the reason that they feel happy building on an open standard is because of the wider developer ecosystem,” he adds.

“We’re also seeing a whole galaxy of little startups — nothing to do with us — who are building on Matrix successfully,” Hodgson also tells us, pointing to a German healthcare startup called Famedly as one example.

“It’s unrelated to us but it’s fun to see other companies basically betting the farm on the protocol. So, again, the happier developers are to use the protocol the more random startups like that will begin to bubble up,” he adds. “And if the next-gen of Slack killers happen to be on Matrix — whether it’s us, or anybody else, so much the better.”

Another key factor that could accelerate momentum for Matrix is interoperability — a topic area regulators are increasingly eyeing as they consider how to ensure competition thrives in digital markets that can be prone to ‘winner takes all’ network effects.

Accusations of anti-competitive behavior are also being thrown around in the real-time messaging space specifically. Notably, in July, Slack filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft arguing the latter is being anti-competitive by unfairly bundling its rival Teams product with its cloud-based productivity suite, Microsoft 365.

The Matrix network is no such walled garden, of course — and Element the app offers bridges to other messaging platforms, enabling its users to chat with others siloed on proprietary platforms like Slack. Slack, however, hasn’t offered the same courtesy to Element (only going so far as offering a bridge for, er, email users last year).

“It would be great for Slack, and [Microsoft] Teams and Discord to join in,” says Hodgson, arguing: “I think there’s probably more impetus for them to do so in terms of being able to interoperate with other systems, because we have so many bridges. If you were migrating from Skype for Business to Slack or something the Matrix could be the bridge between the two.”

“They have different users, right,” continues Le Pape, fleshing out the case for such platforms to open up to Matrix. “Usually Teams ends up being the one for the big companies who are actually using Office 365 while Slack might be more of the startup side of things so, in the end, if we could actually join everything together it would be good.” “If you all actually were able to talk to one another then that would solve it,” she adds in reference to Slack’s antitrust complaint against Microsoft.

Hodgson posits that if Microsoft were to expose Teams into Matrix it could help it defend against the complaint — being as it would be able to tell regulators it’s “participating in a global open standard network” that lets users pick whichever client they like. “I think that’s a very compelling solution,” he suggests, adding that Element is involved in discussions with “various parties” on the EU side “to make sure people understand there are viable open standards for doing this”. 

“Historically, before Matrix, basically there wasn’t anything that had the feature set that you would expect from Slack or Teams. Whereas now there is actually a viable middle language,” he adds.

Asked if it’s a wild idea that a polished consumer messaging app such as Telegram could ever move to Matrix, Hodgson describes it as an “interesting” thought — but admits there’s still a bit of a feature gap for Element, while also lauding the Telegram’s technical performance.

“I could see there being some friction in joining Matrix as it is today because it would be a slight backwards step for them… However the pressure is therefore on us to go and get to the point that Element is as snappy and as polished as Telegram — and [Element already] has good encryption,” he says. “At which point I think the tables could turn interestingly.

“But they’ve got hundreds of millions of users. I guess they feel they’re doing it right. They would rather, perhaps, become the next WhatsApp and be a 2BN user silo rather than play nice with other people because they’re already past critical mass. But perhaps if we do our job and make Matrix large enough and interesting enough that it is worth their while to link to it then why not?”

Entrepreneur First-backed Juno Bio has launched a home test kit for women wanting to get a better understanding of their vaginal microbiome while also contributing data to further research into women’s health.

The vaginal microbiome refers to the community of microbes and bacteria that naturally live in the vagina. Variances in the vaginal microbiome are thought to have implications for women’s health conditions — such as recurrent bacterial-vaginosis or a higher risk of contracting an STI, and even preterm birth and infertility. But a historical lack of research into women’s health issues means there’s still a long way to go to fully understand what’s going on. (Or indeed how to intervene to correct an unhealthy imbalance.)

That’s where Juno Bio wants to come in.

Last year the 2018-founded UK startup ran a study in the US that gathered samples from more than 1,000 women to build up a repository of data on the vaginal microbiome. That initial data-set underpins the commercial Vaginal Microbiome Test kit it’s launching today — at a cost of $149 (which includes free shipping).

Women who pay to be screened will receive a test kit in the post. They then carry out a sample gathering procedure at home, passing a Q-tip like swab across the walls of their vagina for around 20 seconds and sealing the sample in the tube provided (with stabilizing agents) to return it by post to Juno Bio for analysis.

Once the sample has been processed the user will be invited to log in online and view her results, with the option to book a one-on-one call with a Juno Bio “vaginal coach” to discuss the data.

It’s worth emphasizing that the startup is being careful to caveat what kind of service it’s offering.

A disclaimer on its website states the tests are “currently exclusively intended to be used for wellness purposes” — and it further adds: “The tests we offer are not intended to diagnose or treat disease, or to substitute for a physician’s consultation.”

Juno Bio confirms the test is purely a commercial offer for now — although it says it’s working on “a regulated version” so it will be able to inform clinical decision making in this area in the future, starting with the US which is its initial market focus (though test kits are also available in the UK).

“For sure we’re not replacing a doctor here,” says CEO and co-founder Hana Janebdar, in a call with TechCrunch. “There’s really two buckets of women, if you like, that tend to join the Juno Study or pre-order a test. And the first woman is someone who wants to be very proactive about her general wellness and wants to know more about her body — and this is one of the best ways that you can learn about your microbes and what that means for your vaginal wellness and your pH etc.

“The other women are women who may have had recurrent bacterial vaginosis or recurrent infections and want to know more about what it is that’s causing it potentially — and so she wants a comprehensive picture of her vaginal microbiome. Because if you go and try and figure out, right now, what is causing your bacterial vaginosis using existing methods of diagnosis they’re not always the most helpful. So while that should always be the first port of call, and women should always go to their doctor when they think they have an issue, this is an incredibly important resource when it comes to wellness for a lot of women.”

“There are 10% of women in America, for instance, who have recurrent bacterial vaginosis — which is just one condition of the vaginal microbiome. And it’s one of the highest recurrent rates in medicine,” she adds. “And partly because the diagnostics are terrible in this space.”

Another of the startup’s investors is life sciences giant, Illumina, which is providing the DNA sequencing technology it’s using to analysis the samples, per Janebdar.

“This is the first comprehensive vaginal microbiome test kit that’s available that’s next generation sequencing based,” she says of the test kit. “Obviously vaginal testing has existed for a while but no one has really used next generation sequencing — which is the technology that enables a really comprehensive picture of what all the microbes that are in the vagina are. And that’s what’s needed to A) unravel the vaginal microbiome and its impact on women’s lives and fertility and health, and then B) to give women actually the full picture of what those microbes are.”

“The conditions that have been associated with the vaginal microbiome — like BV, or recurrent yeast infections or even the downstream conditions like pelvic inflammatory disease — they’ve historically been poorly characterized. So the diagnosis that have existed to date have been [poor at determining] when and what women have these conditions and therefore what the best treatments should be,” she adds.

Janebdar says the prevailing scientific understanding has been that a Lactobacillus dominant vaginal microbiome is healthy — but more recent studies suggest a more nuanced understanding is needed.

“What’s become clear in the literature is that maybe that’s not always be the case. And also the type of Lactobacilli is important. And also there’s really important differences between the vaginal microbiomes and what healthy might look like for caucasian women vs African American women, for instance,” she notes.

Her background includes a degree in biology and a masters in biochemical engineering — including specific work on microbiome science. It was via her experience of the research field that she says she realized there was a huge gap in women’s health research.

Juno Bio CEO and co-founder, Hana Janebdar (Photo credit: Juno Bio)

“What really shocked me what that while there was this explosion of research and work and commercialization of the gut microbiome and the soil microbiome and every microbiome under the earth that you could think of the vaginal microbiome had been relatively ignored,” she says, going back to 2017-18 and her inspiration for the startup.

“It really shocked me because of all the microbiomes the vaginal microbiome was the most readily accessible, the most readily associated with the conditions that could improve women’s lives and there were so many women that have these conditions — it was really a sense of hang on, what is going on? And why is this just so incredibly ignored?” she adds. “This needs to be fixed.

“As an Afghan woman — women’s rights and the fact that women are ignored, and medical health research has been sidelined when it comes to women — it’s a very core part of my actual experience as well.

Juno Bio’s ultimate goal is to gather enough data and understanding to be able to offer “microbial interventions” that can be used to correct problematic imbalances, per Janebdar.

“One of the saddest things… is the fact that microbial interventions could work but having it in this wishy-washy, probiotic, kombucha land has meant that people haven’t fully realized it’s real potential — and it’s really exciting that in the gut microbiome space, which is analogous to us, first the first time this year you’re seeing sort of phase three approved microbial interventions for the gut. So I see the vaginal space as analogous to that. And this is the kind of stuff that the Juno data-sets will unlock.”

Those shelling out to donate their vaginal microbiome data to Juno Bio’s repository are promised it will be “anonymized” — though clearly links will be retained to some individual data points, such as age and ethnicity.

The startup’s privacy policy can be found here — where it writes: “The information we use in Research is often summarised, aggregated, or combined across a group of subjects to minimize the chance of identification.”

“In the event we require use of individual-level Personally Identifiable Information in Research or for other purposes, we will reach out to you and obtain specific consents applicable to such other use,” it adds.

Juno Bio is being advised by Dr Gregory Buck, Ph.D., who was the principal investigator on the Vaginal Human Microbiome Project (VaHMP) and the Multi Omic Microbiome Study Pregnancy Initiative (MOMS PI) — two studies that were part of the US National Institutes of Health Human Microbiome Project.

Commenting in a statement about the launch of the test kit, Buck said: “While previous studies have worked to characterize the vaginal microbiome, these studies have often been limited in population size, utilize limited gene sequences and lack metadata. As a result, present studies now lack data and a comprehensive strain bank of vaginally associated microbes. Having dedicated much of my career to researching microbiomes of the female reproductive tract, I am confident that the Vaginal Microbiome Test will create one of the richest research repositories of data for future research into vaginal health and related issues. Not only that, but it will help change the stigma around vaginal wellness for the better.”

When we caught up with Gusto last year, the small business payroll startup had just raised $200 million and was launching a new office in New York City. Over the past few years though, Gusto has also been accruing new features outside of its original payroll product, features that redefine the borders between payroll and financial wellness, and in the process, are blurring the lines of the classic fintech market map.

Today, the company announced a slew of new offerings that it hopes will give employees better financial and health options through their employers.

The most interesting one here is a tool the company is calling Gusto Wallet. It’s an app and collection of products for employees paid through Gusto that basically acts as a mini bank and financial health monitor. It offers an interest-bearing cash account (called, appropriately enough, Cash Accounts) which can also divert a small slice of each paycheck into a user’s savings, similar to products like Acorns and Digit. Cash stored in the account earns 0.34% interest today, and you can also get a Gusto debit card to spend it.

Gusto’s app gives you access to financial services and wellness tools. Photo via Gusto

For employees, what’s interesting here is that these services are offered essentially for free: Gusto makes money on its payroll services from employers as a software subscription fee, and so it offers financial services like these as an inducement to keep employers and employees engaged. Gusto hopes that this can keep debt low for employees, and also offer them more financial stability, particularly as businesses open and close in the wake of COVID-19.

In addition, Gusto Wallet also offers “Cashout,” which can accelerate a payday ahead of time based on the pay history of an employee. Rather than securing a high-cost payday loan, the product is designed to help users smooth out a bit of their income if they need their paycheck a bit ahead of their actual direct deposit. It’s also free of fees.

Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves said that “One of the biggest problems is people are oftentimes living paycheck-to-paycheck — they’re either not saving money, or they’re getting stuck in debt accessing things like overdraft fees, or credit card debt, or payday loans.” The hope with Gusto Wallet is that its easy availability and low costs not only attract users, but leave them in much better financial shape than before.

What’s interesting to me is placing these new features in the wider scope of the fintech landscape. It seems that every week, there is another startup launching a consumer credit card, or a new debt product, or another savings app designed to help consumers with their finances. And then every week, we hear about the credit card startup launching a new savings account, or the savings app launching an insurance product.

The math is simple: it’s very, very hard to acquire a customer in financial services, and it’s so competitive that the cost per acquired customer is extremely high (think hundreds of dollars or more per customer). For most of these startups, once you have a customer using one financial product, much like traditional banks, they want you to use all of their other products as well to maximize customer value and amortize those high CAC costs.

Gusto is an interesting play here precisely since it starts at the payroll layer. Banks and other savings apps often try to get you to send your paycheck to their service, since if your money resides there, you are much more likely to use that service’s features. Gusto intercepts that transaction and owns it itself. Plus, because it ultimately is selling subscriptions to payroll and not financial services, it can offer many of these features outright for free.

Reeves said that “This is a future that just seems inevitable, like all this information right now is sitting in silos. How do we give the employee more of that ownership and access through one location?” By combining payroll, 401K planning, savings accounts, debit cards, and more in one place, Gusto is hoping to become the key financial health tool for its employee end users.

That’s the financial side. In addition, Gusto announced today that it is now helping small businesses setup health reimbursement accounts. Under a provision passed by Congress a few years ago, small businesses have a unique mechanism (called QSHERA) to offer health reimbursement to their employees. That program is riven with technicalities and administrivia though. Gusto believes its new offering will help more small businesses create these kinds of programs.

Given Gusto’s small business focus, this year has seen huge changes thanks to the global pandemic. “It’s been an inspiring, challenging, motivating, [and] galvanizing time for the company,” Reeves said. “Normally, I would say [we have] three home bases: New York, SF, [and] Denver. Now we have 1,400 home bases.” That hasn’t stopped the company’s mission, and if anything, has brought many of its employees closer to the small businesses they ultimately serve.

Gusto team, with CEO Joshua Reeves on the left of the second row. Photo via Gusto

Following a high-profile breach in July, Twitter has hired Rinki Sethi as its new chief information security officer.

Sethi most recently served as chief information security officer at cloud data management Rubrik, and previously worked in cybersecurity roles at IBM, Palo Alto Networks, and Intuit.

In the new role at Twitter overseeing the company’s information security practices and policies, Sethi will report to platform lead, Nick Tornow, according to her tweet announcing the job move.

Sethi also serves as an advisor to several startups, including LevelOps and Authomize, and cybersecurity organizations, including Women in Cybersecurity.

Twitter had left the role of chief information security officer vacant since the departure of its previous security chief, Mike Convertino, who left in December to join cyber resilience firm Arceo.

In July, the company was hit by a very public cyberattack on the company’s internal “admin” tools that played out on the social media platform in real time, as hackers hijacked high profile Twitter accounts to spread a cryptocurrency scam. The hackers used voice phishing, a social engineering technique that involves tricking someone on the phone to hand over passwords or access to internal systems.

Earlier this month, the company said it bolstered its security following the attack, including rolling out security keys, which makes the kind of attack that targeted Twitter far more difficult.

Retailers and consumer brands are focused more than ever in their histories on using e-commerce channels to connect with customers: the global health pandemic has disrupted much of their traditional business in places like physical stores, event venues and restaurants, and vending machines, and accelerated the hunt for newer ways to sell goods and services. Today, a startup that’s been helping them build those bridges, specifically to expand into newer markets, is announcing a huge round of funding, underscoring the demand.

VTEX, which builds e-commerce solutions and strategies for retailers like Walmart and huge consumer names like AB InBev, Motorola, Stanley Black & Decker, Sony, Walmart, Whirlpool, Coca-Cola and Nestlé, has raised $225 million in new funding, valuing the company at $1.7 billion post-money.

The funding is being co-led by two investors, Tiger Global and Lone Pine Capital, with Constellation, Endeavour Catalyst and SoftBank also participating. It’s a mix of investors, with two leads, that offers a “signal” of what might come next for the startup, sad Amit Shah, the company’s chief strategy officer and general manager for North America.

“We’ve seen them invest in big rounds right before companies go public,” he said. “Now, that’s not necessarily happening here right now, but it’s a signal.” The company has been profitable and plans to continue to be, Shah said (making it one example of a SoftBank investment that hasn’t gone sour). Revenues this year are up 114% with $8 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) processed over platforms it’s built.

Given that VTEX last raised money less than a year ago — a $140 million round led by SoftBank’s Latin American Innovation Fund — the valuation jump for the startup is huge. Shah confirmed to us that it represents a 4x increase on its previous valuation (which would have been $425 million).

The interest back in November from SoftBank’s Latin American fund stemmed from VTEX’s beginnings. The company got its start building e-commerce storefronts and strategies for businesses that were hoping to break into Brazil — the B of the world’s biggest emerging “BRIC” markets — and the rest of Latin America. It made its name building Walmart in the region, and has continued to help run and develop that operation even after Walmart divested the asset, and it’s working with Walmart now in other regions outside the US, too, he added.

But since then, while the Latin American arm of the business has continued to thrive, the company has capitalized both on the funding it had picked up, and the current global climate for e-commerce solutions, to expand its business into more markets, specifically North America, EMEA and most recently Asia.

Revenues were growing at a rate of 50% a year before the pandemic ahead of it’s more recent growth this year of 114%, Shah said. “Of course, we would prefer Covid-19 not to be here, but it has had a good effect on our business. The arc of e-commerce has grown has impacted revenues and created that additional level of investor interest.”

VTEX’s success has hinged not just on catering to companies that have up to now not prioritized their online channels, but in doing so in a way that is more unified.

Consumer packaged goods have been in a multi-faceted bind because of the fragmented way in which they have grown. A drinks brand will not only manufacture on a local level (and sometimes, as in the case of, say, Coca-Cola, use different ingredient formulations), but they will often have products that are only sold in select markets, and because the audiences are different, they’ve devise marketing and distribution strategies on a local level, too. On top of all that, products like these have long relied on channels like retailers, restaurants, vending machines and more to get their products into the hands of consumers.

These days, of course, all of that has been disrupted: all the traditional channels they would have used to sell things are now either closed or seeing greatly reduced custom. And as for marketing: the rise of social networks has led to a globalization in messaging, where something can go viral all over the world and marketing therefore knows no regional boundaries.

So, all of this means that brands have to rethink everything around how they sell their products, and that’s where a company like VTEX steps in, building strategies and solutions that can be used in multiple regions. Among typical deals, it’s been working with AB InBev to develop a global commerce platform covering 50 countries (replacing multiple products from other vendors, typically competitors to VTEX include SAP, Shopify and Magento).

“CPG companies are seeking to standardize and make their businesses and lives a little easier,” Shah said. Typical work that it does includes building marketplaces for retailers, or new e-commerce interfaces so that brands can better supply online and offline retailers, or sell directly to customers — for example, with new ways of ordering products to get delivered by others. Shah said that some 200 marketplaces have now been built by VTEX for its customers.

(Shah himself, it’s worth pointing out, has a pedigree in startups and in e-commerce. He founded an e-commerce analytics company called Jirafe, which was acquired by SAP, where he then became the chief revenue officer of SAP Hybris.)

“We are excited to grow quickly in new and existing markets, and offer even more brands a platform that embraces the future of commerce, which is about being collaborative, leveraging marketplaces, and delivering customer experiences that are second-to-none,” said Mariano Gomide de Faria, VTEX co-founder and co-CEO, in a statement. “This injection of funding will undoubtedly support us in achieving our mission to accelerate digital commerce transformation around the world.”

Facebook announced today it will begin rolling out new functionality that will allow Instagram and Messenger users to communicate across apps, in addition to bringing a host of Messenger-inspired features to the Instagram inbox. On Instagram, users will be presented with an option to update to a new messaging experience that offers the ability to change your chat color, react with any emoji, watch videos together, set messages to disappear and more. As a part of this update, they’ll also have the option to chat with friends who use Facebook, the app will inform them.

Image Credits: Facebook

The broad set of more “fun” additions to the Instagram inbox will serve as a way to entice users to agree to the upgrade. This decision, in turn, locks users further inside the Facebook universe. With cross-platform messaging interoperability, users may see fewer reasons to try a different chat app as one messaging app can reach friends and family across two of the world’s largest social networks.

Facebook says the new interoperability will also work even if the Instagram users don’t have a Facebook account, and vice versa.

In time, Facebook plans to fold WhatsApp into the experience, too, in a further consolidation of its market power.

Though many users may choose to update for the fun enhancements, Facebook notes they can then opt out of being reachable across platforms using new privacy controls, after the fact.

Through an expanded set of privacy tools, users can specify who can reach their main Chats list, who is sent to the Message Request folder and who can’t reach them at all. If an Instagram user doesn’t want to hear from anyone on Facebook, they can turn this feature off.

Image Credits: Facebook

These controls can also be managed in the new Accounts Center, which Facebook launched yesterday. The tool allows users to manage a growing set of cross-app features, like Single Sign On and Facebook Pay.

As before, users on both Instagram and Messenger apps will be able to block and report suspicious and unwanted messages and calls on an as-needed basis. But blocking and reporting will be expanded to allow users to report full conversations in addition to single messages on Instagram. The “Safety Notices” feature in Messenger, which helps users spot and respond to suspicious activity, will also come to Instagram — initially to minors’ accounts.

Image Credits: Facebook

Even if you agree to being reachable across platforms, Facebook clarifies that it’s not actually merging your inboxes.

In other words, you won’t see all your Instagram chats in Messenger or vice versa. Instagram users’ messages and calls from friends and family will remain in the Instagram app, but these may now include messages initiated by a Facebook user, if permitted.

If these changes seem a bit confusing, that could be by design. Facebook and Instagram users have to navigate a labyrinth of privacy and security settings that grow more complicated every year as the functionality offered by Facebook’s networks also expands. Though Facebook offers a range of nuanced controls, many users no longer bother to try to figure them out, as they’re constantly changing, relocated or made more complex.

Consumers may only view the messaging interoperability as a handy way to reach their friends on other services. But for industry observers, it’s another example of how Facebook appears to be leveraging its market dominance to possibly stifle new competition. For a company already under multiple antitrust investigations, it’s a move that seems to thumb its nose at government regulators.

The project to make Facebook’s chat platforms interoperate has been a significant technical undertaking from an infrastructure perspective. Last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg detailed the company’s plans for messaging interoperability as part of his larger vision for a more private social networking experience.

Earlier this summer, Facebook began testing the changes with a small percentage of users.

In terms of the larger update beyond interoperability, Instagram users will also be able to watch videos together, including those from Facebook Watch and soon Reels.

Image Credits: Facebook

They’ll also be able to make their messages disappear, like Snapchat, with a “Vanish Mode” option. Other new features include Boomerang-like “Selfie Stickers,” the ability to personalize the chat’s colors, use custom emoji reactions, forward messages with up to five friends or groups, reply directly to a specific message in a group chat for clarity’s sake and add visual flair to messages with animated effects.

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Facebook says the features will begin rolling out to the general public, initially with a handful of countries around the world before expanding globally.

Silver Lake Partners, the multi-billion dollar tech-focused investment firm, is adding a longterm hedge fund backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala, to its array of investment vehicles to finance technology companies.

The move into multi-strategy investing represents the diversification of financing vehicles that companies have at their disposal and gives the private equity firm the tools it needs to compete in a world awash with capital and new ways for companies to access public market financing.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the public-private, long-only, investment structure is happening as more tech companies are eschewing later stage financing to find cash on public markets through things like special purpose acquisition companies (SPACS).

According to a statement from the firm, the new strategy has a 25-year deployment life cycle and can be invested across structures, geographies and industries. The agreement makes the two financial entities a couple that will really span time together.

In addition to the new strategy, Silver Lake’s partnership has a new minority shareholder in the Abu Dhabi-backed sovereign wealth fund. Mubadala took a minority stake in the firm by buying up half of the 10% chunk of the firm that Silver Lake’s partners sold to Dyal Capital Partners, a subsidiary of Neuberger Berman.

“Silver Lake is a top performer for Dyal, having innovated, evolved and expanded to prudently grow its assets under management from $23 billion when we first acquired our stake to more than $60 billion today,” said Michael Rees, Managing Director and Head of Dyal Capital Partners, in a statement. “This transaction with Mubadala and their commitment to Silver Lake’s new long-term capital vehicle is a strong endorsement of Silver Lake’s differentiated, global capabilities and underscores our conviction in the ability to generate compelling returns by owning stakes in the world’s leading private investment firms.”

It’s not the first time that the two firms have hooked up. Mubadala is a co-investor alongside Silver Lake in the talent agency and entertainment giant, Endeavor; the autonomous vehicle technology developer, Waymo; and the India-based Jio Platforms.

The firm’s co-chief executives Egon Durban and Greg Mondre said in a joint statement that the new deal would allow the firm to capitalize on a wide range of investment opportunities, including ones outside of the mandates of existing funds.

“As an institution that has long seen the potential of investing in the technology sector, we are excited to partner with Silver Lake, one of the world’s most respected technology investors, to capitalize on major opportunities within and beyond the industry,” said Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Mubadala, in a statement.  “Technology is the bedrock of the global economy, and fundamental to all other sectors that are being significantly digitalized.  Our goal is to be well positioned to take advantage of this accelerated digital transformation and its potential, and we believe Silver Lake is the right partner and that this is an optimal structure for us.”

Mubadala’s tech portfolio investments kicked off in 2007 with an investment in the chip manufacturer AMD and then through the creation of the semiconductor manufacturing company GlobalFoundries. It’s also backed the medtech company PCI Pharma Services, and a number of ridesharing and e-commerce companies in Abu Dhabi and Silicon Valley, the company said.

The deal with Silver Lake could also be seen as a slap in the face for Softbank — a long time partner for Mubadala, which was an investor in the Japanese investment firm’s $100 billion Vision Fund and a $400 million European-focused investment vehicle which launched in February of last year.

Google is holding an event to unveil its new phone, the Google Pixel 5. It is going to be a virtual event, and you can steam it live. The event starts at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. in New York, 7 p.m. in London, 8 p.m. in Paris).

Rumor has it that there could be more than just one device. In addition to the Pixel 5, there could be a new Chromecast as well as some updated connected speakers. The Google Home and Google Home Max haven’t been updated for a while, so there might be some updated devices.

Google has already expressed interests in releasing 5G devices. So you can expect a 5G variant of the Pixel 5. But the company might not be using top-of-the-line chipsets in its new smartphone.

Feel free to tag along and watch the event and please check our coverage of the event.

French startup Memo Bank has unveiled three different plans for its new customers. The company is building a business bank for small and medium companies that generate between €2 million and €50 million in annual turnover.

Earlier this year, Memo Bank obtained licenses from the French regulator (ACPR) and the European Central Bank to become a credit institution. It can provide all the services you’d expect from a business bank, from current accounts to credit lines.

On paper, Memo Bank’s current accounts look a lot like a software-as-a-service product. There are three different plans. For €49 per month, you get one user account and each additional account costs €10 per month. You get 20 transactions in and out per month, each additional transaction costs €0.40 per transaction.

For €149 per month, you can create as many user accounts as you want and you get 200 transactions per month. Once again, additional transactions cost €0.40 per transaction.

And if you handle a lot of transactions, you get unlimited transactions for €399 per month. The mid-tier plan also lets you access an authorized overdraft.

Interestingly, companies on the top two tiers will earn interests on their deposits — 0.15% up to €100,000 and 0.30% up to €200,000 for the top two plans respectively. Memo Bank isn’t mentioning checks or payment cards for now.

Image Credits: Memo Bank

The startup is also saying that its web platform should work better than your average banking site. The search feature works as expected, you can issue grouped transfers to pay your employees and you can set up an approval workflow for big transactions.

More importantly, Memo Bank is open for business to issue loans. Companies can apply to get a €20,000 to €200,000 loan and pay back over 1 to 7 years. With this product, the startup is competing with online lending platforms, such as October.

Hailo, a Tel Aviv-based startup best known for its high-performance AI chips, today announced the launch of its M.2 and Mini PCIe high-AI acceleration modules. Based around its Hailo-8 chip, these new models are meant to be used in edge devices for anything from smart city and smart home solutions to industrial applications.

Today’s announcement comes about half a year after the company announced a $60 million Series B funding round. At the time, Hailo said it was raising those new funds to roll out its new AI chips, and with today’s announcement, it’s making good on this promise. In total, the company has now raised $88 million.

“Manufacturers across industries understand how crucial it is to integrate AI capabilities into their edge devices. Simply put, solutions without AI can no longer compete,” said Orr Danon, CEO of Hailo, in today’s announcement. “Our new Hailo-8 M.2 and Mini PCIe modules will empower companies worldwide to create new powerful, cost-efficient, innovative AI-based products with a short time-to-market – while staying within the systems’ thermal constraints. The high efficiency and top performance of Hailo’s modules are a true gamechanger for the edge market.”

Image Credits: Hailo

Developers can still use frameworks like TensorFlow and ONNX to build their models, and Hailo’s Dataflow compiler will handle the rest. One thing that makes Hailo’s chips different is its architecture, which allows it to automatically adapt to the needs of the neural network running on it.

Hailo is not shy about comparing its solution to that of heavyweights like Intel, Google and Nvidia. With 26 tera-operations per second (TOPS) and power efficiency of 3 TOPS/W, the company claims its edge modules can analyze significantly more frames per second than Intel’s Myriad-X and Google’s Edge TPU modules — all while also being far more energy efficient.

Image Credits: Hailo

The company is already working with Foxconn to integrate the M.2 module into its “BOXiedge” edge computing platform. Because it’s just a standard M.2 module, Foxconn was able to integrate it without any rework. Using the Hailo-8 M.2 solution, this edge computing server can process 20 camera streams at the same time.

“Hailo’s M.2 and Mini PCIe modules, together with the high-performance Hailo-8 AI chip, will allow many rapidly evolving industries to adopt advanced technologies in a very short time, ushering in a new generation of high performance, low power, and smarter AI-based solutions,” said Dr. Gene Liu, VP of Semiconductor Subgroup at Foxconn Technology Group.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers would be able to access EA Play for no additional cost. The company shared more details about the rollout. Console players will be able to activate their complimentary EA Play subscription on November 10th.

Microsoft is also launching the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on November 10th. As a reminder, EA Play includes back-catalog games from EA, such as Fifa 20, Madden NFL 20, Battlefield V, Mass Effect games, Dead Space games, etc.

The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription include access to Microsoft’s library of games, an Xbox Live Gold subscription, Microsoft’s cloud gaming service xCloud and soon EA Play. It costs $14.99 per month. If you just subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass for $9.99 per month, you won’t get EA Play.

On Windows, Xbox Game Pass (and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate) subscribers will able to download EA games in December. Unfortunately, you’ll have to create an EA account, download the EA client and link your Xbox and EA accounts.

If you’re already paying for EA Play and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription that grants you access to EA Play, your EA Play subscription will be canceled and your remaining time will be converted to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. If you had between 50 days and 3 months left, you’ll receive one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. If you had between 4 and 6 months remaining, you’ll receive 2 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. You can get more details in the FAQ.

Microsoft is using this opportunity to confirm that some Bethesda games will be added to its subscription service. Doom Eternal is coming on October 1 for instance.

It looks like Apple is scouring its Chinese App Store for any remaining services that may not sit well with Chinese censors. Two RSS reader apps, Reeder and Fiery Feeds, said this week that their iOS apps have been removed in China over content that is considered “illegal” in the country.

Apps get banned in China for all sorts of reasons. Feed readers of RSS, or Real Simple Syndication, are particularly troubling to the authority because they fetch content from third-party websites, allowing users to bypass China’s Great Firewall and reach otherwise forbidden information.

Those who use RSS readers in China are scarce, as the majority of China’s internet users — 940 million as of late — receive their dose of news through domestic services, from algorithmic news aggregators such as ByteDance’s Toutiao, WeChat’s built-in content subscription feature, to apps of mainstream local outlets.

Major political events and regulatory changes can trigger new waves of app removals, but it’s unclear why the two RSS feed readers were pulled this week. Inoreader, a similar service, was banned from Apple’s Chinese App Store back in 2017. Feedly is also unavailable through the local App Store.

The latest incidents could well be part of Apple’s business-as-usual in China: cleaning up foreign information services operating outside Beijing’s purview. The history of China’s crackdown on RSS dates back to 2007 when the authority launched a blanked ban on web-based RSS feed aggregators.

Before its ban, the Fiery Feeds iOS app was available in China without the use of a VPN, though some of the synced services it supported were blocked, the app told TechCrunch. Reeder and Apple cannot be immediately reached for comment.

“It seems [the ban] comes from the Chinese government, so I do see any use in appealing to Apple,” said a spokesperson at Fiery Feeds.

Apple has in recent times come under fire for deferring to censorship demands from China, a major market for its smartphone and app sale. The behemoth has purged its Chinese App Store of VPN services, video games, and podcast apps that lacked local authorization. In other words, the iOS publishing procedure for apps and podcasts in China is increasingly subject to Beijing’s scrutiny.

At this rate, Apple’s latest pledge to commit to “freedom of information and expression” would offer little assurance to its investors who have voiced concerns over Apple’s app takedowns in China.

While the current version of iOS is iOS 14.0.1, Apple is already testing iOS 14.2. The company released an early beta version of the update yesterday, and it includes a new set of emojis, as Emojipedia spotted.

Apple already shared an early look of the new emojis back in July. Overall, there will be dozens of new emojis this year. Emojis will also be more diverse and inclusive than ever with new variations of existing emojis.

Earlier this year, the governing body in charge of approving new emojis, the Unicode Consortium, approved 117 new emojis as part of Unicode 13.0. Operating system developers and social network companies, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and Mozilla, then draw their own versions of the new emojis and release them on their platforms.

In this release, you’ll find a transgender flag, a smiling face with tear, pinched fingers, two people hugging, some insects and animals, a disguised face and more.

My favorite is arguably disguised face:

Emojipedia compiled those new emojis on a single image:

When it comes to new variations, there will be a Mx Claus, a gender-inclusive alternative to Santa Claus and Mrs Claus. Tuxedos are no longer limited to men and veils are no longer limited to women. You’ll be able to send an emoji with a woman wearing a tuxedo and a man wearing a veil.

You can expect the full release of iOS 14.2, iPadOS 14.2 and macOS Big Sur in a month or two.

Inshorts, which operates a popular news aggregator app in India, has raised $35 million in a new financing round led by Lee Fixel’s Addition as the Indian startup looks to scale its adjacent, social network platform.

For Fixel, who wrote several high-profile checks to Indian firms while running Tiger Global, InShorts is the first Indian startup he is backing from his new VC firm. Fixel, who also invested in InShorts when he was at Tiger Global, has backed about six startups through Addition including New York Area-headquartered Odeko, which offers ordering and supply chain tools to cafes, Synk, which develops tools used to identify vulnerabilities, and dLocal, which operates a cross-border payment processor to connect global merchants to emerging markets.

SIG Global and Tanglin Venture Partners, also participated in Inshorts’ new round, which values the startup at about $125 million, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Azhar Iqubal, founder and chief executive of Inshorts, told TechCrunch in an interview that the startup raised the capital to further scale Public, a social network it launched in April 2019.

Public is a location-based social network that connects individuals to people in their vicinity. Think about people living in the same society, or people in a mall or within a few miles from each other.

Public, which is available in several major Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Assamese, Gujarati and Marathi, is allowing shop owners to drive e-commerce, serving as a classified platform and allowing recruiters to hire people from neighborhood, said Iqubal.

The app, which also provides entertainment and news services, has amassed over 50 million monthly active users, he said. More than 1 million videos are being created on the platform each month.

“There are more than 10,000 urban centres in India and existing social networking apps that are aimed at connecting friends leave room for a location-based play,” said Iqubal.

In the next few months, Iqubal said Public will attempt to deepen its penetration across India. In the future, he wants to expand Public outside of India as well, he said.

Inshorts, which is profitable, competes with a handful of players in the country including DailyHunt. Interestingly, both DailyHunt, co-run by Umang Bedi (former head of Facebook India) and Inshorts have expanded to explore opportunities in the space of social networks.

Barcelona-based Emjoy, an audio app for women that sells a narrative of sexual self-care and empowerment, has picked up $3 million in seed funding led by JME Ventures, with existing investor Nauta Capital participating.

The femtech startup believes it has lit on a major opportunity to target women with sex-positive subscription audio content that’s focused on sexual empowerment, intimate education and sensuous entertainment — all wrapped in unapologetically direct digital marketing.

Nor is it alone in seeking to build a brand around such ‘female first’ audio content. (Another startup that springs to mind in this ‘mindful sex’ space is Ferly, for example.) But Emjoy reckons there’s all to play for in this nascent space — which it says is benefitting not only from progress toward female empowerment in recent years but the rise in popularity of podcasting and audiobooks.

“My inspiration for founding Emjoy is based on my personal experience and the experiences of many girlfriends of mine. All of us had normalized not climaxing when having sexual encounters,” Andrea Oliver, CEO and co-founder tells TechCrunch.

“When I began researching this I came across the pleasure gap, with some studies showing that 40% of women have some type of sexual dysfunction. Having been in the VC world and having seen the tremendous success of startups in the mental health and fitness spaces, I was shocked when I could not find an app focusing on sexual wellbeing.”

“What sets us apart from competitors is offering a broad library of both wellbeing and entertainment audios, being extremely trustworthy and reliable because of our in-house sex therapist, partnering with sexual wellbeing experts, and finally being a product company that offers more than just content,” she goes on, discussing the competitive landscape. “An example of this is our ‘Daily Routines’ feature, which allows our users to take 30-day challenges to create new habits, such as accepting their bodies.”

Oliver moved from Nauta Capital, where she’d been working with startups, to founding her own business in January 2019, along with co-founder Daniel Tamas, CTO — taking in an initial €1M from her former VC employer to get the app to market.

Emjoy launched worldwide in early 2020 and went on to clock up 80,000 registered users in its first six months. It now has 150,000 active users globally, with the U.S. and the U.K. its main markets (NB: content is currently only available in English).

Almost 10% of “recently acquired” active users paying a subscription, per Oliver.

“The women who use Emjoy are typically in their 20s, and while most are cisgender we have also received tons of positive feedback from trans and non-binary folk. Really, Emjoy is about getting to know what you like and enjoying yourself, regardless of the gender of your partner(s),” she says.

“We are building a wellbeing brand for women because we see that sexual wellbeing is a major part of overall wellbeing. We want to normalize this,” Oliver adds, nothing that Emjoy’s “wellbeing positioning” includes “entertainment content with our erotic stories”.

The startup’s team has grown to 11 people at this point — including an in-house sex therapist. Most of Emjoy’s content is produced in house at this point.

Discussing its approach to content, which the app touts as “backed by science and supervised by our in-house intimacy therapist”, Oliver says: “For each theory or guided session we try to find a scientific study to back what we say, and we work with our in-house sex therapist who creates most of the content and supervises it. We also partner with external collaborators who are experts in different fields such as sexual trauma, body acceptance, relationships etc.”

“It is important to offer science-based content because most of the sexual content that is available today, in blogs or on YouTube, for example, is very untrustworthy. We want to be a trusted and safe environment for our users,” she adds.

The new seed funding will be ploughed into making more content — with plans for additional collaborations with “leading academics, experts and influencers within the sexual wellbeing and education space” — and the overarching aim of building the “category-defining” app in the female sexual wellness space.

Asked why he’s excited about women’s sexual wellbeing audio as a category, investor Samuel Gil, partner at JME Ventures, told us the space is interesting because it’s been so overlooked.

“It has been ignored or forgotten for a very long time but that’s now changing with women being more empowered than ever,” he said, adding: “Women with sexual wellbeing issues might be reluctant to search for help in a more traditional way due to shame or friction. A digital product is ideal to broaden access to sexual wellbeing solutions.”

He also lauded the “really immersive experiences” possible with audio content which he said “facilitates content production”. (Or, well, it’s a lot easier to get erotic sounds past ‘family-friendly’ App Store review rules than hardcore visuals.)

On investing in Emjoy specifically, Gil added: “It is a nascent category with no clear leaders yet. Emjoy’s vision, ambition, and above all, execution, so far makes us believe that they are really well-positioned to take the leading position very soon.”

Asked what she believes this new rush of female-pleasure-focused audio startups are tapping into, Olivier says: “It is very much an underserved need. We go hand-in-hand with our users to help them discover their bodies, gain confidence, and explore what turns them on, among many other things. We and our users see Emjoy as a journey, with our audio content helping users explore what they like and who they are.

“We are not telling users what they should do, or how they should feel because there is no normal, there’s no ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’. Each personal experience and body is unique and Emjoy adapts to each user’s unique journey.”

“Our users are also generating new habits with Emjoy and we are becoming an everyday tool for women who want to feel more confident or want a safe, female pleasure-centric and trusted place to get in the mood, as opposed to mainstream porn,” she adds.