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After years of losses, African e-commerce giant Jumia claimed significant progress towards profitability in its Q4 2020. Backing that claim, Jumia reported record gross profit and some improvements to its cost structure.

The company wrote in its earnings release that while “2020 has been a challenging year operationally with COVID-19 related supply and logistics disruption,” it had also proven “transformative” for its business model.

Let’s examine its financial results to see how Jumia fared during the pandemic year and see if we can see the same path to profitability discussed in its written remarks.

The results

Jumia’s core metrics were uneven in 2020. The company saw its user base grow by 12% in 2020, from 6.1 million customers in 2019 to 6.8 million customers. That means the company added 700,000 customers in 2020 compared to the 2 million customers it acquired the year before.

Other metrics were negative. The company’s gross merchandise value (GMV), the total worth of goods sold over a period of time, grew 23% from the previous quarter to €231.1 million. The company said this was a result of the Black Fridays sales in the quarter. However, when compared year-over-year, Q4 GMV was down 21% “as the effects of the business mix rebalancing initiated late 2019 continued playing out during the fourth quarter of 2020,” Jumia wrote.

Image Credits: Jumia

In terms of orders made on the platform, Jumia saw a 3% year-over-year drop from 8.3 million in Q4 2019 to 8.1 million in Q4 2020. But while the company’s metrics were mixed during Q4 and the full-year 2020 period, there were encouraging signs to be found.

Last year, Jumia’s Q4 gross profit after fulfillment expense was €1.0 million. We reported at the time that the number’s positivity was commendable if merely another mile of the company’s path to profitability. 

The company built on that result in 2020, allowing it to report a record gross profit after fulfillment expense result of €8.4 million in the final quarter of last year. From a full-year perspective, the numbers are even starker, with Jumia managing just €1.5 million in 2019 gross profit after fulfillment expense; in 2020, that number grew to €23.5 million.

That Jumia managed those improvements while seeing its 2019 revenues of €160.4 million slip 12.9% in 2020 to €139.6 million is notable.

JumiaPay and improvement in losses and expenses

There are other metrics that are encouraging for Jumia.

Its gross profit reached €27.9 million in 2020, representing a year-over-year gain of 12%. Sales and Advertising expense decreased year-over-year by 34% to €10.2 million, while General and Administrative costs, excluding share-based compensation, came to €21.8 million in the year, falling 36% year-over-year.

In 2019, Jumia incurred a massive €227.9 million in losses, a 34% increase from 2018 figures of €169.7 million. But that changed last year as Jumia reported a smaller €149.2 million in operating losses, representing a 34.5% decrease from 2019. 

Turning from GAAP numbers to more kind metrics, Jumia’s Q4 2020 adjusted EBITDA loss also decreased. The company recorded an adjusted EBITDA of -€28.3 million in the final quarter of 2020, falling 47% year-over-year from 2019’s €53.4 million Q4 result. For the full 2020 period, Jumia reported €119.5 million in adjusted EBITDA losses, down 34.6% from FY19’s -€182.7 million result.

Jumia lost less money on an adjusted EBITDA basis in 2020 of any of its full-year periods we have the data for. Still, the company remains deeply unprofitable today and for the foreseeable future.

Fintech

Jumia’s fintech product, JumiaPay, has been a factor behind its improving metrics.

In Q1 2020, it processed 2.3 million transactions worth €35.5 million. That number grew to €53.6 million from 2.4 million transactions in Q2 2020. In the third quarter of last year, it recorded 2.3 million transactions with a payment volume of €48.0 million. For Q4, JumiaPay performed 2.7 million transactions worth €59.3 million.

In total, JumiaPay processed 9.6 million transactions with a total payment volume (TPV) of €196.4 million throughout 2020. TPV increased by 30% in Q4 2020 from its 2019 result and 58% in 2020 as a whole.

JumiaPay is a critical part of Jumia’s business, as 33.1% of its orders in Q4 2020 were paid for with the service, up from 29.5% in Q4 2019.

Share price and optimism around profitability

Jumia went public in April 2019. Since opening as Africa’s first tech company on the NYSE at $14.50 per share, the company’s stock has been on a rollercoaster ride.

It traded at $49 per share at one point before battling with scepticism about its business model, fraud allegations, and shorting by Andrew Left, a well-known short-seller and founder of Citron Research. What followed was the company’s share price crashing to $26 before reaching an all-time low of $2.15 on the 18th of March 2020.

Later, Left made a reversal after claiming Jumia had handled its fraud problems. He took long positions at the company and later proposed it would hit $100 per share. That change in market sentiment, coupled with the fact that Jumia changed its business model and halted operations in Cameroon, Rwanda, and Tanzania, enabled its share price to climb back, reaching an all-time high of $69.89 this February 10th.

Before today’s earnings call, Jumia was trading at $48.81. Since dropping its latest data, the company’s share price has expanded by around 10% to just over $54 per share as of the time of writing, indicating investor bullishness despite its continued operating and adjusted EBITDA losses. 

Source: Tech Crunch

Oak HC/FT general partners Annie Lamont, Andrew Adams and Tricia Kemp invested in healthcare and fintech before the two sectors were mainstream, and today, as a result of that early intuition and a handful of key exits, the trio has over a billion dollars in new fund money to show for it.

The firm announced today that it has secured $1.4 billion for its largest fund to date, an investment vehicle that will exclusively back healthcare and fintech companies. The firm previously raised $500 million, $600 million and $800 million for its other funds, respectively. Doing quick math, Oak HC/FT, which closed its first fund in 2014, has been able to triple its total assets managed in six years.

Over the history of its fund, the team has outlined six notable exits, including Anthem’s acquisition of Aspire Health, Thermo Fisher Scientific’s acquisition of Core Informatics, Diplomat’s acquisition of LDI Integrated Pharmacy Services, AXA Group’s acquisition of Maestro Health, GoDaddy’s acquisition of Poynt and Limeade’s public debut. The firm declined to share any numbers around IRR, or share information on what percent of current portfolio companies are planning to go public and which are best capitalized to do so.

Today’s fund, its fourth to date, will be invested across 20 companies, with average check sizes between $60 million and $100 million. Oak HC/FT invests in both early-stage and growth-stage companies. The fresh capitalization comes during a watershed moment for the two sectors, heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic from an innovation and adoption perspective.

For example, digital health funding broke records in 2020, attracting over $10 billion in the first three quarters and increase in deals by investors, compared to the previous year. Fintech, despite an uneven beginning, has been tearing through capital to meet with demand, and valuations continue to skyrocket.

From a healthcare perspective, Adams told TechCrunch that it is looking at startups working on the cost of delivering care and ability to engage with complex patients. Lamont said that “virtualization of [both doctors and patients] has been incredible in the last year,” and that much of the firm’s focus is on startups that rely on providers taking risk. The investor is hinting at the big push of startups that are betting that value-based care will replace fee-for-service care. The former rewards service for money, instead of time for money, placing monetary incentive for doctors more on outcomes than number of visits it takes to get to an outcome.

I asked the team if telehealth was no longer as big of a question mark for them, since the pandemic has accelerated adoption. But Lamont argued that telehealth is still “unbelievably complicated to pull off at scale, which is less obvious to the public.” The firm is looking for startups who can bring a consumer experience to telehealth, taking the place of an in-person receptionist.

The firm is also looking at startups that blend its two expertises, healthcare and fintech, around payments and digitization of billing. Kemp said that the firm is less interested in standalone point-of-sale services for restaurants and bills, and are now looking at items that reduce friction with payments. One of its e-commerce optimization portfolio companies, Rapyd, raised $300 million at a $2.5 billion valuation in January.

Other subsectors of interest include digital consumer payments, as shown by portfolio companies Namogoo and Prove, and fraud and risk identification, as shown by portfolio companies Au10tix and Feedzai.

On the diversity front, Oak HC/FT said that within its portfolio, 26% of C-suite and executive leadership roles are held by women, and 52% of senior management roles are held by women.

The firm has invested in nearly 100 startups to date. Of the 35 investments it made in 2020, 20 of the deals were follow-on rounds.

Source: Tech Crunch

Kapor Capital, the venture firm focused on funding social impact ventures and founders of color, is raising a $125 million fund, called Fund III, a source familiar with the situation told TechCrunch.

What’s notable about this fund is that it will be the first time Kapor Capital is accepting outside money from investors for a fund. Historically, the capital have come directly from Kapor Capital founders Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein.

The fund will be led by Kapor Capital partners Brian Dixon and Ulili Onovakpuri. The two will function as co-managing partners.

Onovakpuri was promoted from principal to partner back in 2018. At the time, she told me was interested in technology that makes access to healthcare more accessible, either through reimbursements to low-income people or through subsidized payments. On the people operations side, Onovakpuri said she was looking at investing in startups that help create inclusive cultures.

“What we have found is that more needs to be done in order to keep [people from diverse backgrounds] in and happy, so that’s what I’ve invested in,” Onovakpuri said.

Her first couple of investments were in mSurvey mSurvey, which started as a text message platform to identify disparities in the world, and tEQuitable, which aims to help companies be more inclusive.

Her co-manager, Dixon, became one of the first Black investors to be promoted to partner at a venture capital in 2015. At the time, Dixon told me he was focused on increasing the number of founders who identify as women and/or an underrepresented person of color in Kapor Capital’s portfolio to above 50%.

“As partner, that’s what I’m trying to continue to do,” Dixon said at the time. “We’re still looking for the best companies. We’re still looking for companies that are going to be impact companies, but also have VC-like returns, so I think that’s what unique about Kapor Capital, is that not many early-stage firms have that focus, and we think we do it pretty well.”

Today, 59% of the companies in Kapor Capital’s portfolio have a founder who identifies as a woman and/or an underrepresented person of color. Kapor Capital has been instrumental in advancing diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. Back in 2016, for example, Kapor Capital began requiring new portfolio companies to invest in diversity and inclusion as part of a Founders’ Commitment.

Kapor Capital has invested in companies like AngelList, Pigeonly, Bitwise Industries, Blavity, Bloc Power, Hustle and others.

Kapor Capital declined to comment for this story.

Source: Tech Crunch

A number of online creators and influencers have adopted mobile-friendly “link in bio” websites, like Linktree, to point their fans to their social profiles or other content they want to promote. Today, live streaming software company Streamlabs launched its own product in this market with its new mobile website builder Willow. Its tool differentiates itself from others in this space by integrating a tipping feature directly on the landing page.

“Link in bio” websites have grown in popularity because social platforms like TikTok and Instagram only allow users to feature one main URL on user profiles. But online creators and influencers often have a presence on multiple sites they want their fans to know about. That’s where these custom websites come in.

Like most “link in bio” website builders, Willow offers a simple way to add a list of links to a customized, mobile-optimized webpage.

The product itself is somewhat basic compared to those being offered by newer startups — like Beacons, for example, which lets users add links for donations, affiliate shopping, paid downloads, and more. In Willow’s case, you just enter a URL and it appears on your website. You can also pick from a handful of colorful designs, each with their own style and font.

The online website builder lets you view your site in progress as you add links or update the design, and you can preview how it looks on mobile, tablet and desktop by clicking a button.

But Willow’s more interesting feature is the ability to add tipping to your website.

To do so, you’ll just toggle on the Tips feature from the website builder interface and then connect your PayPal account to Willow. This places a “Donate!” button at the top of your link list, so you can encourage fans to leave a tip.

Image Credits: Streamlabs

This feature will be the new website builder’s key selling point, given that today, creators who receive tips through social and streaming platforms often have to share the revenue from those transactions back with the platform itself. Tips through PayPal will be a more direct form of payment between fans and creators, beyond any applicable PayPal fees.

Streamlabs tells us it doesn’t keep any of the tip money — everything goes to the creator.

However, it does plan to soon monetize the new product in a different way. In a few weeks’ time, the company will introduce a paid version for $5 per month that will include enhanced analytics like click-through rates and which days see the most clicks and views. The pro version will also include more custom themes.

Image Credits: screenshot of Willow

Because Willow only launched today, it doesn’t have a large number of users at this time. However, a top streamer FaZe Mew has already signed up, per the short Willow link (wlo.link) found on his various social media bios.

“Our experience building tools for live streamers inspired us to build products that cater to the greater content creator ecosystem,” said George Kurdin, Streamlabs GM. “To deliver on this mission and grow our business, we are building products that cater to more brands, businesses, and individuals,” he said.

Source: Tech Crunch

Slack took the workplace communications landscape by storm after it launched its integration-friendly, GIF-tastic chat platform in 2013. Within the space of a decade it entered into the pantheon of big tech: first with massive growth and usage, then a series of giant VC rounds and valuations, spawning controversial competition from incumbents, followed by a public listing and ultimately a $27.7 billion acquisition by Salesforce. Now that the cycle is complete, the decks are clear for a Slack disruptor!

Today, a new app quietly launched out of stealth called Quill, available by way of apps for the web, MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS.

Like Slack, Quill is a messaging app for co-workers to update each other on what they are doing, have conversations about projects and more.

Unlike Slack — the implication seems to be — the difference is that Quill is about delivering messaging in a non-distracting way that doesn’t take up too much of your time, your concentration, and your energy. Quill bills itself as “messaging for people that focus.”

So while you get a lot of the same features you have in Slack for chatting with workers, creating channels, integrating other apps, and having video and voice conversations — one of my colleagues quipped, “It looks like Slack, but more colorful!” — it also includes a bunch of features that put the focus on, well, focus.

“We grew exhausted having to skim thousands of messages every day to keep up, so we built a way to chat that’s even better than how we already communicate in person,” Quill notes on its website. “A more deliberate way to chat. That’s what Quill is all about.”

For example, “structured channels” let you enforce threads in a channel for different conversations rather than view chatter in a waterfall. Automatic sorting in the app moves up active conversations you’re in above others. Limitations on notifications mean you can have more nuance in what ultimately might end up distracting you, and senders for example can alter a setting (with a !!) to notify you if something is critical and needs to ping you. Video chats come automatically with a sidebar to continue texting, too.

Then, you get separate channels for social and non-work chat; and a series of features that let you manipulate conversations after they’ve already started: you can recast conversations into threads after they’ve already started and you have a fast way to reply to messages. There is an easier and more obvious way to pin important things to the tops of channels; and in addition to creating new threads after a conversation starts, you can also move messages from one channel or thread to another.

You can also interact with Quill chats using SMS and email, and like Slack, it offers the ability to integrate other app notifications into the process.

It’s also working on adding a Clubhouse-like feature for voice channels, end-to-end encryption, context-based search (it already has keyword search), and user profiles.

Managing “high load”

The app has been in stealth mode for nearly three years, and while some projects might never go noticed in that time, this one is a little different because of the pedigree and the context.

For starters, Quill was founded by the former creative director of Stripe, Ludwig Pettersson, who was given a lot of the credit for the simplicity and focus of the payment company’s flagship product and platform (simplicity that became the hallmark of the service and helped it balloon into a commerce behemoth).

His involvement signaled that the effort might get at least a little attention. In a landscape that seemed to be all but dominated by Slack and a few huge, well-funded rivals in the form of Microsoft and Facebook, it’s notable that when Quill was just an idea, it had already picked up $2 million in seed funding, from Sam Altman (at the time the head of Y Combinator) and General Catalyst.

Following that it raised a Series A of $12.5 million led by Sarah Cannon of Index Ventures, totaling some $14.5 million in funding in all. The Series A valued the company at $62.5 million, as we reported at the time.

Added to this is the story behind Quill and what brought Pettersson and others on his team to the idea of building it. From what we understand, the idea in its earliest inception was to capture something of the magic of communication that you get from messaging apps, and specifically from workplace communication tools like Slack, but without the distraction and resulting frustration that often come along with them.

By 2018, Slack was already a big product, valued at over $7 billion and attracting millions of users. But there was also a growing number of people criticizing it for being the opposite of productive. “It’s hard to track everything that’s going on in Slack, it can be distracting. Given the network effect, Slack has become powerful, but it was not designed as a high-load system,” Sam Altman, the investor and former head of both Y-Combinator and OpenAI, said to me back in 2018 when I asked him what he knew about Quill after I first got wind of it.

He said he was “super impressed” by Ludwig’s work at Stripe, and then OpenAI (where he stayed for a year after leaving Stripe), so much so that when Ludwig suggested building “a better version of Slack,” it seemed like a “credible idea” and one worth backing even without a product yet to be built.

It’s quite fitting that for an app focused on focus, Quill launched today quietly and without much fanfare: why worry about PR distraction when you can just get something out there?

In any case, we’re hoping to hear more and see what kind of momentum it picks up. We’ve asked Index if we can talk to Sarah Cannon about the investment, and we are still waiting to hear back. We are also trying to see if we can talk to Pettersson. But I should mention we have been trying to talk to him since first getting wind of this app back in August of 2018, so we’re not holding our breath (nor this story).

Source: Tech Crunch

Hackers are said to have broken into the networks of U.S. space agency NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a wider espionage campaign targeting U.S. government agencies and private companies.

The two agencies were named by the Washington Post on Tuesday, hours ahead of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing tasked with investigating the widespread cyberattack, which the previous Trump administration said was “likely Russian in origin.”

Spokespeople for the agencies did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but did not deny the breach in remarks to the Post.

It’s believed NASA and the FAA are the two remaining unnamed agencies of the nine government agencies confirmed to have been breached by the attack. The other seven include the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, and State, the Treasury, and the National Institutes of Health, though it’s not believed the attackers breached their classified networks.

FireEye, Microsoft, and Malwarebytes were among a number of cybersecurity companies also breached as part of the attacks.

The Biden administration is reportedly preparing sanctions against Russia, in large part because of the hacking campaign, the Post also reported.

The attacks were discovered last year after FireEye raised the alarm about the hacking campaign after its own network was breached. Each victim was a customer of the U.S. software firm SolarWinds, whose network management tools are used across the federal government and Fortune 500 companies. The hackers broke into SolarWinds’ network, planted a backdoor in its software, and pushed the backdoor to customer networks with a tainted software update.

It wasn’t the only way in. The hackers are also said to have targeted other companies by breaking into other devices and appliances on their victims’ networks, as well as targeting Microsoft vendors to breach other customers’ networks.

Last week, Anne Neuberger, the former NSA cybersecurity director who last month was elevated to the White House’s National Security Council to serve as the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said that the attack took “months to plan and execute,” and will “take us some time to uncover this layer by layer.”

Source: Tech Crunch

Reddit, which announced a $250 million Series E earlier this month, has added over $116 million to the financing event, upping the round’s most recent total to $367 million, according to a new SEC filing. The document shows that Reddit is aiming to raise up to $500 million in this capital raise.

A Reddit spokesperson confirmed the news, saying that the new capital is from ”new and existing investors.” They offered no specifics on names. The spokesperson did confirm that the new capital did not come with a new valuation, keeping the platform at its previously-announced valuation of $6 billion pre-money.

Reddit is a 16-year-old company with over $800 million in known venture funding. It has been in the spotlight for the past few months, with co-founder Alexis Ohanian resigning over moderation concerns, to, more recently, its role in the Election and the meteoric rise of GameStop’s stock due to the subreddit r/WallStreetBets.

Source: Tech Crunch

Mark your calendar for TechCrunch’s annual celebration of the startup community — TC Disrupt 2021 returns this September 21-23! At Disrupt, you’ll rub virtual elbows with the thousands of startup founders, investors and innovators building cutting-edge products and companies. Disrupt will be all-virtual, allowing more builders from around the world to share in the learning, growth, connection and excitement that you can only experience with TechCrunch. 

As always, networking will be front and center. You’ll have the opportunity to make spontaneous connections, curated connections with CrunchMatch and chat with other attendees, all while watching sessions. Between the tools provided by our virtual event platform and curated matches, you’ll make valuable connections and expand your network.

Every year we iterate on the Disrupt experience to make sure the event includes more of what founders, investors and innovators want and need to be successful. This year, on the Disrupt Stage we’ll not only bring you the minds behind the headlines but also incorporate analysts’ viewpoints, and highlight emerging founders in Startup Alley in an engaging format geared toward helping you find solutions, build your business or expand your portfolio.

We’re also growing the Startup Battlefield cohort this year. Featuring more startups means more opportunity for founders. If you’re a founder or startup selected for Startup Battlefield, you’ll be able to pitch to a panel of renowned VCs for a chance to win $100,000 in equity-free prize money. Applications for Startup Battlefield will open Q2 2021.

Our Extra Crunch Stage will continue to be a valuable resource for entrepreneurs who are looking to tap the minds of experts and VCs across a variety of industries and categories. In highly interactive sessions, you’ll be able to get your questions answered live or have your pitch deck analyzed to help you refine your fundraising and business development strategies. Plus, all applicable passes will get a three-month membership to Extra Crunch, which gives you a library of insider analyst content that you can put into action at your company right away.

For those early-stage founders who are looking to get some extra exposure for their products and company, the Startup Alley experience is for you. The founders who are accepted into Startup Alley will get a dedicated listing at the virtual event, where they can hold live product demos, generate leads and chat with interested attendees. Founders in Startup Alley will also give a live 60-second elevator pitch to TechCrunch staff for feedback and there will be dedicated time for attendees to browse startups in each category during the Startup Alley Crawl. With a dedicated success manager in your corner providing you tips on how to use all of the items in your toolkit, this is a perfect opportunity to gain new customers, meet potential investors and expand your professional social graph.

From the Startup Alley exhibitors we will also select up to 50 founders to participate in Startup Alley+, which will give them access to a pre-Disrupt series of master classes to prep for the event, pitch-off opportunities at Extra Crunch Live and white-glove curated meetings with investors from the TechCrunch network. 

There is much more happening behind the scenes to add to your TC Disrupt 2021 experience that we will be sharing with you over the coming weeks, but we know you’ll want to secure your spot at Disrupt now. Passes are now available at the lowest Super Early-Bird rate, with additional savings available on top of that for founders, students and employees of nonprofits and government organizations. These passes are your full-access ticket to everything Disrupt has to offer and more for under $100 — but only for a limited time. Be a part of the startup world’s annual rite of passage online this September 21-23 and register today!

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Source: Tech Crunch