Extra Crunch Friday: Unpacking Poshmark's IPO filing

Welcome to Extra Crunch Friday

How did fashion marketplace Poshmark go from posting regular losses in 2019 to generating net income in 2020?

After the company filed a public S-1 last night, Alex Wilhelm pondered the question this morning in The Exchange.

Like many e-commerce platforms, Poshmark saw a surge in activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also slashed its marketing spend, which helped boost profits.

As the cash-rich company prepares its road show, “Poshmark is valuable,” Alex concludes.

“How valuable the market will decide. But who will it enrich with its final pricing decision?”

The breach of FireEye and SolarWinds by hackers working on behalf of Russian intelligence is “the nightmare scenario that has worried cybersecurity experts for years,” reports Zack Whittaker.

In his analysis for Extra Crunch, he breaks down the rippling effects of supply-chain attacks that can compromise platforms like SolarWinds, which is used by more than 420 of the Fortune 500.

Thanks very much for reading Extra Crunch this week; I hope you have a safe and relaxing weekend.

Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch
@yourprotagonist

Read more

From startups to Starbucks: the embedded API opportunity

Embedded finance connects services like payment processing with everyday activities like grabbing a coffee before unlocking an e-scooter.

“The ability to be at the right place at the right time, supporting consumers and merchants alike, where they want, how they want it and when they want it — cannot be understated,” says Simon Wu, an investment director with Cathay Innovation.

In a post that identifies embedded finance’s top providers and enablers, he offers advice for startups and established brands that are hoping to “earn and build customer loyalty while generating new revenue streams.”

Read more

Give the gift of Extra Crunch for 25% off!

Sponsored by TechCrunch

Send an Extra Crunch annual membership as a gift to a friend, family member or co-worker for 25% off

Read more

Is rising usage driving crypto's recent price boom?

Bitcoin is at an all-time high.

CoinMarketCap reports that crypto market values have reached almost $659 billion; that figure was just $140 billion in March 2020.

“These gains have created a huge amount of wealth for crypto holders,” Alex wrote yesterday.

To get a better handle on why crypto values are sky-bound, he parsed some basic metrics, including the number of unique bitcoin addresses, fees paid and transactions per day.

“Do the price gains make sense in the short term? Who knows,” he wrote, “but they are not based on nothing.”

Read more

2020 was a disaster, but the pandemic put security in the spotlight

For his year-end Extra Crunch story, security reporter Zack Whittaker looked back the myriad security challenges and vulnerabilities COVID-19 brought to the fore.

The hacks of Fire Eyes and SolarWinds were just one link in the chain: how well is your company prepared to deal with file-encrypting malware, hackers backed by nation-states or employees accessing secure systems from home?

“With 2020 wrapping up, much of the security headaches exposed by the pandemic will linger into the new year,” says Zack.

Read more

Inside Zoox's six-year ride from prototype to product

After six years of research and development, autonomous vehicle company Zoox this week unveiled an electric robotaxi that can carry four people at a maximum speed of 75 miles per hour.

Automotive writer Kirsten Korosec interviewed Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson to learn more about the vehicle’s development and how the company overcame a series of technical and legal challenges.

“I would say that if you have a big idea and you’re confident that it makes sense, you should at least explore the idea, rather than giving up because the current regulations aren’t designed for it,” said Levinson.

Read more

Pluralsight $3.5B deal signals a matured edtech market

In one of the largest enterprise acquisitions of 2020, Visa Equity Partners this week purchased Utah-based edtech startup Pluralsight for $3.5 billion.

According to the entrepreneurs and VCs reporter Natasha Mascarenhas spoke with, the deal “shows the strength of edtech’s capital options as the pandemic continues.”

Read more

Dear Sophie: How did immigration change for startups & founders in 2020?

Dear Sophie:

I’m on an F1 OPT and am about to incorporate a startup with my two American co-founders.

What were the biggest immigration changes in 2020 affecting us?

—Ambitious in Albany

Read more

How to pick an investor in good or bad times

Founders and the VCs who back them may not be friends, but they’re usually friendly.

They’re on a first-name basis and they probably enjoy candid conversations about life, work and the world in general.

But make no mistake, it is a top-down relationship — the investor will always have the upper hand. When an entrepreneur accepts a check, they are hiring their next boss.

In an Extra Crunch guest post, Quiq CEO and founder Mike Myer poses two questions for founders who are considering a new relationship with a VC:

• How can the investor help the business?
• What’s the risk that the investor will hurt the business?

Read more

From India’s richest man to Amazon and 100s of startups: The great rush to win neighborhood stores

In India, about 90% of consumers buy their everyday goods from neighborhood-based kirana stores instead of supermarkets.

As a result, U.S. retail giants like Walmart and Amazon have adopted an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach, offering the nation’s 60 million mom-and-pop stores software for inventory control, payments and e-commerce.

India’s retail market will be worth an estimated $1.3 trillion by 2025, but e-commerce represents just 3% of that activity, reports Manish Singh.

For his final Extra Crunch story of 2020, he looked at the startups and major players who are hoping to carve out their niche in one of the world’s largest retail ecosystems.

Read more