Inspirit launches to bring Minecraft creativity to biology class

Aditya Vishwanath, the founder of Inspirit, wants to bring the creativity associated with Minecraft to the day-to-day schoolwork of students around the world.

“These students are coming from TikTok and playing Roblox games [that are] highly interactive and highly engaging,” he said. “Then, they’re coming to the classroom and watching a 20-minute lecture from a person.” As a solution to this staleness, he and his co-founder, Amrutha Vasan, built a solution.

The virtual science platform lets students and teachers create and experience STEM simulations, from DNA replication to projectile motion experiments. Similar to how Minecraft empowers users to create their own worlds, Inspirit wants to empower users to low-code their way into personalized science experiments and learning worlds. The core technology is a 3D platform built atop Unity, a game engine used for editing games and creating interactive content.

The startup is starting with complete control over creation to understand how users naturally gravitate toward certain materials. Teachers can currently build lessons on top of pre-made tracks, such as an exploration of the moon or a eukaryotic cell, and add in annotations, quiz questions and voice-overs.

The company is starting off with this microlesson approach, but Vishwanath sees the real potential in building a Minecraft for educational purposes. The underlying belief powering Inspirit is that students across different stages in their lives want a self-directed, engaging way to learn to supplement in-school learning.

While the tool is not yet technically using virtual reality technology, the first priority is going hardware-agnostic to find product-market fit and get the biggest base of users. It is experimenting with integrations to Oculus Quest, but hasn’t yet made the option accessible on widespread basis.

After launching a waitlist in September, Inspirit had 50,000 users within the K-12 world sign up for access to the private beta.

A gamified, VR-based approach to learning has long been used in edtech to increase engagement and excitement around learning. The startup, which has not yet launched publicly, has a fair share of competitors. Labster, a well-funded Copenhagen startup, was founded in 2011 to provide lab simulations to replace science class. The startup recently expanded its lab software to Asia, after usage on the platform surged. Vishwanath thinks that Inspirit differentiates from Labster because it urges kids to become creators, instead of users.

Another recent example of edtech merging with virtual reality is Transfr, which raised $12 million to upskill workforces. Transfr is selling to an entirely different market than Inspirit by targeting trade workers, but it similarly has invested in creating a library of modules to help scale its curriculum faster.

The biggest test for Inspirit will be if it can truly recreate the spontaneity and magic of Minecraft. Will students feel inspired to create on the platform? More importantly, will they come back over and over again? The dynamic here to think about is that Inspirit is a supplement to school, which currently relies heavily on curriculum-based learning to teach. If a student wants to use Inspirit for comprehension, the possibilities aren’t exactly endless, but instead are bookended by a mandatory set of rules.

It’s the dividing line between what makes a game and what makes an interactive simulation.

“I have a strong feeling and reason to believe even the early science of engagement; the drivers of Inspirit are not going to be teachers,” Vishwanath said. One 12-year-old student used Inspirit to build a Quantum funnel using pre-made modules, he explained.

Amrutha Vasan and Aditya Vishwanath, Inspirit co-founders. Image Credits: Inspirit

Beyond that, the startup will need to prove outcomes and efficiency before it can ethically sell to end users. It’s clear that virtual reality has a huge potential to help people comprehend complex topics, but bite-sized bits of the technology used once in a while might not.

Long term, Vishwanath thinks that edtech will shift to focus on creation, instead of simply consumption. He’s already convinced a number of investors on that vision. The startup announced today that it has raised seed financing to pursue its lofty goal. The $3.6 million round was led by Sierra Ventures. Other investors include Unshackled Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, January Ventures, Edovate Capital, Redhouse Education and Roble Ventures.

The money will be used to figure out a business model and monetization plans, as well as hire a team. The blending of edtech and gaming, Vishwanath thinks, will be able to save them from becoming “another graveyard education company out there that has hypergrowth and doesn’t know how to make money.”

Transfr raises $12M Series A to bring virtual reality to manufacturing-plant floors

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Heights raises $2M for its subscription supplements aimed new ‘braincare’ category

New wellness startup Heights is formally launching this week, focusing on a category it describes as ‘braincare’. The startup will market “ultra high quality, sustainable plant-based supplements that feed your brain” based on what it says is scientific data.

It has raised a $2 million Seed funding round (£1.7M) via the Seedrs crowdfunding platform, with the round also including the institutional investor Forward Partners. Angel investors include Tom Singh (founder of New Look), Damian Bradfield (WeTransfer), Dhiraj Mukherjee (Shazam), Renee Elliot (Planet Organic), and celebrity investor Chris Smalling (an England and Manchester United professional footballer).

The funds will be used for customer growth and new product development, including soon-to-launch a ‘psychobiotic‘ probiotic aimed at cognition and mental health.

Customers first take a ‘brain health’ survey, then sign up for a monthly, quarterly, or annual subscription.

Customers need only take two capsules a day, thus hugely decreasing the complexity of juggling regular vitamin taking.

The product fits through a letterbox and the unusual bottle was designed by the well-known product design agency Pentagram. A content and coaching program included in the subscription helps customers, and another brain health survey happens after a month. Heights claims that “93%” improve their brain health score within one month.

Heights is not alone in this new market for what some describe as ‘designer vitamins’ and the arena is already populated by the likes of Hims / Hers, Motion, Vitabiotics and Bulletproof.

These companies broadly fall into the “Nootropics” category — vitamins and minerals designed to improve cognitive function, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals. But the market is not small. The ‘self care’, ‘healthcare’, and ‘personal development’ market is worth over $1Trillion but supplements alone is worth at least $100BN+.

Heights founders Dan Murray-Serter and Joel Freeman, with adviser Dr. Tara Swart.

However, co-founder Dan Murray-Serter says Heights is aiming to do something different to the aforementioned players.

In a text-based interview, he said: “Nootropics as a category really focus on quick fixes, which is why we’re working on the category creation of ‘braincare’ because there are no ‘quick fixes’ in life, and that terminology and category have essentially set people up with the same false hopes as ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes do. We’re set up differently — aka, starting with scientifically researched articles and journal references.”

He said Heights will be positioned more like a skincare or haircare brand, “because people understand that the daily habit/practice is what creates the longevity and impact, not just a one-day miracle.”

Murray-Serter says there are 20 key nutrients science says our brains need to thrive, and these are mostly found in a combination of buying multivitamins, omega 3s, and ‘nootropics’. He says Heights has sourced the “highest quality” ingredients in the most ‘bioavailable form’ in a patented capsule which makes it easier to digest for the body.

“One of the most common reasons the habit of taking vitamins doesn’t stick for people is that the bottle goes into a cupboard and gets ignored. So we started with design alongside quality,” he says. The Heights vitamins come in a distinctive, recyclable bottle which Heights will also aven recycle if you send it back to them.

Murray-Serter, who previously founded the mobile startup Grabble, says he came up with the idea for the startup after a bout of chronic anxiety and a 6 month-long period of insomnia. The problem was solved by high-quality, high-density vitamins and supplements, as opposed to normal supplements which usually only have the lowest recommended daily levels of vitamins inside them.

After starting a newsletter on the subject of optimizing cognitive performance with cofounder Joel Freeman, the pair amassed a following of 60,000 readers https://ift.tt/36oakuX

and then came up with the idea of launching the actual product.

The company now has a ‘Braincare‘ podcast that has reached 100,000 downloads, and the founders have also been joined by key team member Chief Science Officer, Dr Tara Swart (pictured).

Two things may help Heights. Firstly, in the era of Covid-19, public health authorities and governments around the world have recommended taking Vitamin D to boost the body’s immune system should someone fall prey to the disease. It’s not insignificant that two Heights capsules contain 400% of the ‘Nutrient Reference Value’ (formerly known as Recommended Daily Allowance) of Vitamin D3, as well as many other supplements. Theoretically, one could take four normal tablets of this, but the customer experience and other added vitamins in Heights will appeal to many. Secondly, the growing awareness of mental health and interest in maintaining good mental health is now a regular subject of public discourse. So Heights appears to be well-positioned to ride both those waves.

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Mealco raises $7M to launch new delivery-centric restaurants

Mealco, a startup promising to help chefs launch new restaurants designed around delivery, is announcing that it has raised $7 million in seed funding.

It’s probably not news to anyone reading this that opening a restaurant can be an expensive, risky proposition — and of course, many restaurants have gone out of business during the pandemic.

But founder and CEO Daniel Simon (who was previously a developer and product lead at Applicaster, and has also worked with Tel Aviv restaurant group R2M) said that even in the best of times, it can take $1 or $2 million to get started, and “if you want to hit the ground running, 98% of your focus is not on the food or the customers.”

With Mealco, on the other hand, there’s no need to sign a lease or any other upfront costs for the chefs, and they get to focus on actually creating the dishes and the menu. Mealco locally sources the ingredients, which are then cooked using the startup’s kitchen infrastructure and offered for delivery via the standard delivery apps — Uber Eats, DoorDash, Postmates and Seamless.

Simon said that with Mealco, the process of getting a new restaurant up and running only takes six to eight weeks: “We tell [the chefs] they don’t need to chop any more onions or tomatoes. There’s Mealco software that can tell employees at the Mealco kitchen how to prepare [each dish].”

Cayenne. Image Credits: Mealco

Mealco also provides support around branding, marketing and social media, and gives chefs access to a dashboard with real-time data about menu performance and customer feedback, which can allow them to quickly make adjustments as needed. The chef, he said, can “manage the restaurant from their mobile phone.”

The startup has already launched two restaurants delivering in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens — Mexican restaurant Tributo and Nashville hot chicken restaurant Cayenne (the latter with chef Hillary Sterling). And it says there are 50 chefs on the waitlist.

Asked whether any of Mealco’s partners mind being separated from the food preparation and the dining experience, Simon said it depends on the chef.

“If you want to open a single location and be in the kitchen every morning,” then he said Mealco isn’t for you. “That not wrong or right, it’s a preference … But most chefs are creators, they’re artists. They express themselves through food.” And in his view, Mealco allows them to focus on that creativity.

Rucker Park Capital led the round with participation from FJLabs, Reshape, 2048.vc, Oceans Ventures, WLP and angel investors including former Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky. Simon said the plan is to launch throughout New York City and surrounding areas this year, before moving on to new cities next year.

“We had the opportunity to see the evolution of the food ecosystem firsthand in the past few years,” said Wes Tang-Wymer, general partner at Rucker Park Capital, in a statement. “The time is ripe to embrace all these advances to launch new brands in a new format. In Mealco, we found the most compelling model to push the frontier of restaurant innovation further by empowering chefs to take ‘idea-to-table’ faster and cheaper than ever before.”

JustKitchen is using cloud kitchens to create the next generation of restaurant franchising

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10 VCs say interactivity, regulation and independent creators will reshape digital media in 2021

The digital media industry will give us plenty to talk about this year.

When we last surveyed venture capitalists about their media investments, the big topic was the impact that the pandemic would have on the industry, and on the prospects for new startups.

Obviously, the pandemic hasn’t gone away, but when asked to predict the biggest storylines for 2021, VCs pointed to themes as varied as new distribution models, new kinds of interactivity, new tools for creators, the return of advertising business models and even the role of media in a democratic society.

“We are headed toward a content universe where consumers’ power of choice grows to new heights — what premium content to consume and pay for, and how to consume it,” Javelin’s Alex Gurevich wrote. “The consumers will have the final choice! Not traditional media and content distribution companies.”

For this new survey, we heard from 10 VCs — nine who invest in media startups, plus a tenth who’s seeing plenty of media pitches and was happy to share her thoughts. We asked them about the likelihood of further industry consolidation, whether we’ll see more digital media companies take the SPAC route and of course, what they’re looking for in their next investment.

Here’s who we surveyed:

• Daniel Gulati, founding partner, Forecast Fund
• Alex Gurevich, managing director, Javelin Venture Partners
• Matthew Hartman, partner, Betaworks Ventures
• Jerry Lu, senior associate, Maveron
• Jana Messerschmidt, partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Michael Palank, general partner, MaC Venture Capital (with additional commentary from MaC’s Marlon Nichols)
• Pär-Jörgen Pärson, general partner, Northzone
• M.G. Siegler, general partner, GV
• Laurel Touby, managing director, Supernode Ventures
• Hans Tung, managing partner, GGV Capital

Read their full responses below.

What do you think will be the biggest trend or story in digital media in 2021?

Daniel Gulati: Defining media’s role in a democratic society. What accountability exists when an individual company’s pursuit of scale leads to the spread of disinformation? When a platform’s terms of service appears to collide with constitutional rights, who makes the call and what happens? To what extent should governments support the viability of local media organizations in the face of global competition and a rapidly changing digital landscape?

These are high stakes issues that will be front and center through the year.

Alex Gurevich: The continued disruption of content distribution models, whether that’s the debundling of cable via the plethora of SVOD services, or the way new content is released (i.e., on-demand at home versus movie theaters). We are headed toward a content universe where consumers’ power of choice grows to new heights — what premium content to consume and pay for, and how to consume it. The consumers will have the final choice! Not traditional media and content distribution companies. The pandemic has greatly accelerated this trend.

Matthew Hartman: The two largest social networks, Twitter and Facebook, removed the account of a sitting president and a set of related, follower accounts. This has fundamentally reset the media stack. This will accelerate action the government had already planned to take, including to reshape Section 230. The ripples will be felt throughout media, affecting how news is distributed through social media, what startups can use bigger platforms to grow, what the exit options are for small talent acquisitions and the fragmentation already occurring.

Second, the rise of synthetic media. Algorithmically enhanced or created media is a shift we identified at Betaworks in 2018 and in 2021 it will only increase in scale and scope. Yes, this affects deep fake detection (with companies like Sensity.AI leading the way) and other nefarious uses — but it will also start to fundamentally reshape the way media is created, from the cost of animation to the cost of writing stories, to editing and creating CGI.

Third, game streaming will continue to grow, with audiences that are starting to blow away those of regular TV. An enormous number of people tuned in last year to watch Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez play Among Us on Twitch with popular streamers (she hit 435,000 concurrent viewers at one point). And that wasn’t even close to the biggest event ever on Twitch, David Martinez, aka TheGrefg, hit 2.4 million concurrent viewers for the unveiling of his new Fortnite skin. Game publishers have finally started to understand the power of streamers not just to launch a new game, but to revive old ones, with games that groups of streamers can play together (like Among Us or Rust) soaring in popularity this past year.

Jerry Lu: The emergence of interactive media platforms outside of just gaming.

Because of their isolation due to COVID, people are yearning for social interaction and we’re seeing greater engagement across platforms like Twitch and Zoom, which make interactive communications possible. Previous iterations of media platforms were top-down broadcast, whereby companies produced content they thought consumers would like. Over the past five years, we’ve started to see a greater shift toward the long tail, whereby content comes straight from the consumer.

Gaming and esports were at the forefront of this shift from passive content viewing to interactive entertainment experiences. I believe that 2021 will be the year when we see platforms beginning to embrace interactivity as a form of audience participation, blurring the line between viewer and active participant. I’m excited at the prospect of seeing this form of interactive content consumption applied to other sectors, like education, childcare and commerce, to name a few.

Jana Messerschmidt: We will see a proliferation of products that enable content creators to build businesses outside of traditional media companies. These creators will leverage their existing brand, following and social media engagement to become entrepreneurs, building revenue streams across multiple different products.

There are a plethora of new tools for creators: for writers (Substack, Medium), personalized video shoutouts from creators (Cameo*, PearPop), new audio platforms (Clubhouse, LockerRoom) or all-in-one tools for creators that include merch, subscriptions, tipping and more (FourthWall). Now is the time for creators to be rewarded by their fans for their content creation.

Historically, the big social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snap*, Twitter, TikTok) have failed to create meaningful paths for their creators to monetize. They make money from advertisers and thus their resources are focused on those advertising customer demands.

• denotes Lightspeed portfolio company

Michael Palank: If 2020 was the year every major media company either announced or grew their direct-to-consumer video/audio/gaming offering, 2021 will be the year where those offerings optimize and differentiate or die. We expect the hunger for original content to continue, but we feel the type of content will continue to diversify from both a story and IP perspective and a format perspective. It is not unthinkable that a major media company like Apple, Amazon or Disney looks to acquire Clubhouse in 2021.

As the lines between video games and filmed entertainment continue to blur we can also envision new companies popping up to take advantage of this trend. I also feel these content platforms will need to differentiate by way of better discovery and personalization.

I fully expect every major media company from Disney to Apple to Amazon to Microsoft will be looking for new and innovative ways to separate themselves from the rest of the pack in 2021.

Marlon Nichols: I think that the continued creation of streaming platforms from content creators/owners (e.g., Disney+, HBO Max, etc.) will force downward subscription pricing adjustments across the board and streaming platforms will need to revisit advertising as a revenue stream. That said, we know that watching ads on a paid platform won’t fly with consumers so I believe we’ll see contextually relevant product placement become the accepted form of brand/content collaboration going forward. I led MaC’s investment into Ryff because of this thesis.

Pär-Jörgen Pärson: Institutions and legislators will have a big effect on social media platforms. I think there will be pushes on antitrust behavior, and social networks will have to behave like media — meaning that they also need to take responsibility for the content that’s on their platform, not only from a user agreement standpoint like today but from an editorial standpoint. I think we’ll see many more editors-in-chief in this industry, as editorial becomes more and more important in our polarized world. This has the potential to change the social media platform landscape quite dramatically, and I’m not entirely sure yet on the long-term impact commercially.

M.G. Siegler: It’s sort of boring, but I wouldn’t be shocked if we see a swing back toward advertising-based models. I think there are two parts to this: First, if and when the pandemic recedes, I think a lot of traditional big advertising players like travel, will come roaring back. Second, it feels like there’s been a move away from advertising to paid subscriptions for a while now and I think these things are cyclical.

To be clear, I think both will continue to exist, I just think that after years of underindexing on paid subs, now we’re perhaps on the verge of overindexing on it … Obviously, advertising never went away, I just think it may be due for a bit of a renaissance (though I say that hoping the powers that be make those ads a better user experience — I think that’s the only way there’s not another backlash against them).

Laurel Touby: The biggest trend in digital media will be companies that don’t call themselves media companies, but that clearly draw from the business model playbook of media companies. For example: Companies that monetize their communities by giving sponsors and advertisers access to their audiences; or technology startups that sell wearable products and upsell their customers with access to premium high-value content.

Hans Tung: Contextual social networks: Video and livestreaming with the likes of TikTok and with other players like Instagram and Snap will continue to drive creativity and engagement. Clubhouse is now garnering a lot of attention as audio captures the attention of a new generation. This also creates new opportunities for established audio players like YY or Ximalaya. At the same time, apps like Clubhouse are an evolution of Snap or Twitter where influencers of all sorts gather to build a new following on new platforms.

However, one of the most interesting things we’re seeing is the emergence of contextual social networks that are focused on solving real-life problems. We see a lot more companies taking the best of audio and video experiences and experimenting with the next iteration of apps like Headspace and Calm, to solve societal issues, personal issues such as how to deal with anxiety, etc. These social networks may not scale as quickly or grab headlines like Clubhouse but they’re designed to bring people together to solve problems. We are also seeing professionalized networks such as Valence or Chief use these audio/video networks to address issues for a particular gender or underrepresented group, or apps that create virtual networking for communities.

Digital media delivered with differentiated experiences: Peloton may not immediately jump to mind as a digital-media company but they are one of the best at producing a high-value experience using extremely high-quality content that goes far beyond simple fitness or even the need for hardware. Increasingly more categories will become “Netflix-ized” where content is king and the experience is delivered through your smartphone.

As with Peloton, the experience is further enhanced with social interaction, such as leader boards, access to the best instructors, etc., which in turn expands the reach of the content. It’s a powerful loop that is driven by quality content, and the components feed off each other to make it more accessible. If you then couple it with Affirm to make it more affordable, you’ve got a flywheel on steroids. This pattern will emerge in other categories.

Consumerization of enterprise communication: Another aspect of media is communication, which we are seeing evolve in the enterprise space. It started with Slack a few years ago and Zoom more recently. Now with companies like Yak or the emergence of various conference apps, we see a higher usage frequency between companies, companies and their customers, and within the enterprise itself.

How much time are you spending looking at media startups right now?

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Walking with Dolly

A walk is, more often than not, a solitary experience. As far as the age of COVID-19 is concerned, that’s probably more bug than feature. It’s a way to escape the confines of a shutdown for a few glorious moments, to get some air and, for better or worse, reflect on the day that’s passed or the one to come.

It can, like many things these days, however, be isolating.

For me, long weekend walks have been a sort of lifesaver throughout this bizarre year. Following two months of being completely sidelined over (non-COVID) health issues, I began walking more per week than I ever have. It was a slow process at first — frankly, never leaving my one-bedroom apartment for April and May made it so it was physically painful to walk around the block when I finally felt comfortable going outside.

These days, I walk every morning, regularly crossing the bridge into Brooklyn and Manhattan. Until I started using Apple’s new Fitness+ service a few times a day, it was easily my main source of exercise. In November, however, my Apple Watch Activity bars swapped the more generic gray for the Fitness+ yellow. But even as I’ve made a point to do a couple of indoor exercises a day, I still start each day with a walk. Rain, snow, this weekend’s sub-freezing weather — skipping a day would feel like breaking a promise to myself.

My actual bars (not sure what happened in September — maybe testing a competitor’s device)

This morning Apple dropped the first five installments (episodes?) of Time to Walk. The feature is an attempt to expand the Fitness+ experience beyond the confines of its titular iOS app. A largely Watch-based experience, the feature leverages much of the wearable’s existing features (and Apple’s growing software ecosystem) to offer a more tailored and multimedia experience than you would get listening to a podcast or music alone.

As with the canny arrival of Fitness+ (December) and handwashing for watchOS (September), Apple says the timing was something of a happy coincidence. The company had been working on the feature well before COVID-19 entered the picture.

“Everything from Time to Walk and our launch of Fitness+ was something we had been working on well before COVID,” the company’s senior director of Fitness Technologies Jay Blahnik tells TechCrunch. “From the very beginning, we thought of Fitness+ as a place where everyone was welcome. We wanted it to feel like a place where, whether you’re new to fitness or very fit, there was something for everyone.”

For many, a walk (or push, in the case of those who use a wheelchair for mobility) is square one when it comes to daily workouts. For my part, I was certainly far more comfortable taking quick strolls around the neighborhood. With limits on space and no real exercise equipment to speak of beyond a kettlebell and yoga mat, attempting to approximate the gym experience at home has seemed a fool’s errand.

April found me trying some YouTube yoga classes with limited efficacy. Like most attempts to exercise, it didn’t stick. Walking every day was the only thing that did. And for the first time in my life, COVID-19 found me walking without any particular destination in mind. That old cliché about it being about the journey not the destination is fine when you don’t mind constantly being late to meetings. Walking for the sake of itself, however, changes the dynamic significantly. I speak to artists, writers and musicians on a regular basis for my podcast. The common sentiment is a familiar one: You simply can’t force creativity. But for those who make a point to regularly walk and run, it’s perhaps the most surefire way to kickstart the process.

Apple’s new Fitness+ feature brings celebrity-guided walks to your wrist

Time to Walk is Apple’s attempt to capture some of that lightning in a bottle — to follow a rotating cast of big names as they walk through locations that mean something to them. The company says it’s been making an effort to meet guests where they are and essentially coach them through the process. The ability to do so is, of course, depends on their given location — especially with all of the sorts of travel restrictions that have been in place since early last year.

Ultimately, Apple says, the decisions of where to record are made by the guests. “Some guests said, ‘this is where I want to go,’ ” says Blahnik. “And some guests were like, ‘no, I want to to do the walk I normally do.’ For us, it’s not about Shawn Mendes in the Grand Canyon, it’s about where they want to go. Sometimes that’s limited by COVID, but what we found delightful was for many people, they loved to take the walk they loved to take.”

The first four guests — Mendes, Dolly Parton, Draymond Green and Uzo Aduba — run the gamut on approaches. “We think about the stories, we think about the diverse guest,” says Blahnik. We think about all of the ways you’d like the conversations to go. But what was important to us was that the idea resonated with them. The idea of going out for a walk, having a lovely conversation and hearing stories that could give you a different perspective.”

Parton, who turned 75 earlier this month, recorded her session in a studio — in contrast to the other three names. She relates a handful of stories largely revolving around her upbringing in Sevier County (pronounced “severe”), Tennessee. There’s a story about a Christmas tree and one about opening a literacy center with the help of her father (who struggled with his own ability to read and write).

She somewhat self-effacingly relates a story about the time her hometown erected a statue of her. “So I went home, and I said, ‘Daddy, did you know they’re putting a statue of me? Do you know about the statue down at the courthouse?’ ” Parton explains. “And Daddy said, ‘Well, yeah, I heard about that.’ He said, ‘Now, to your fans out there, you might be some sort of an idol. But to them pigeons, you ain’t nothing but another outhouse.’ ”

According to Parton, her father would visit the statue at night with a bucket of soap and water to clean the pigeons’ mess off his daughter’s likeness. Her segment culminates with something approaching a behind the music-style segment, describing stories behind three of her own songs: “Coat of Many Colors,” “Circle of Love” and “9 to 5.” The latter is the real gem of the bunch, contrasting her morning routines to costars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, while describing the role her acrylic nails played in the songwriting and recording process.

Image Credits: Apple

Green’s stories are more emblematic of the rest. On a walk around Malibu, the Warriors power forward discusses some inspiration stories on and off the court, from being told he would never be a star to a time he tried and failed to cheat on a test in school. The stories are purposefully personal. Aduba relates some of her own struggles to break into acting, as she walks her amusingly named dog Fenway Bark through Fort Green Park in Brooklyn.

The guests share images relating to their stories or snapshots of where they go on their walks, which are delivered to the wrist with a haptic buzz. At they end of the journey, they share three handpicked songs that can be saved to a playlist on Apple Music, similar to what the company has done for its Fitness+ workouts.

Write-ups of the Time to Walk have thus far compared it to podcasting — understandably so, given that it’s an on-demand, audio-first experience. Though the feature, which downloads directly onto the Watch when the new installment drops once a week, has its own flavor, according to Apple.

“Often podcasts are hosted,” Blahnik says, by way of distinction. “In our journey to build out this experience, we certainly considered if there should be a host walking with this person. What we realized is that, for what we were trying to create, the intimacy of having the singular guest talk to you felt a lot more like you were on a walk with them. The notion that it’s not happening in a studio (in almost all cases), that they’re walking someplace that inspires them. You’ll hear that with Draymond and Shawn — with Shawn he’s huffing and puffing up that hill and it’s kind of nice because you’re in that moment together.”

Time to Walk isn’t raw, exactly. It is an Apple production, after all. The company’s certainly not tossing out found audio here. But the content does seem more off-the-cuff than many of its productions, even as it’s packaged together with a slick intro and a trio of songs at the end. But it’s a nice change of pace for those looking for something that feels a little more personal than we’re accustom to from some of the names involved.

Your own mileage will vary, depending on, among other things, your interest in the guest. Though, there’s always a chance someone you’ve never been particularly interested in — or even heard of — will offer some unique tidbit or interesting way of looking at things. That’s one of the potential upsides of having Apple doing the curating here — there’s some interesting potential for discovery. And even in the case of artists you’re familiar with, there’s good potential to discover something new.

The weekly 20 to 45-minute audio supplement won’t make the actual act of walking any less solitary — but for a little while, at least, it’s nice to feel like someone’s along for the ride.

It won’t replace the gym, but Fitness+ will help you break a sweat

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‘Brand tech’ company You & Mr. Jones adds $60M to its Series B

You & Mr. Jones announced today that it has added $60 million in new funding from Merian Chrysalis, bringing the Series B round announced in December to a total of $260 million.

The round values the company at $1.36 billion, post-money.

You & Mr. Jones takes its name from CEO David Jones, who founded the company in 2015. After having served as the CEO of ad giant Havas, Jones told me that his goal in starting what he called “a brand tech group” was to provide marketers with something that neither traditional agencies nor technology companies could give them.

“At that moment, the choices were to go work with an agency group, which is great at brand and marketing, but they don’t understand tech, or with a tech company, which will only ever recommend their platform and don’t have the same [brand and marketing] expertise,” he said.

So You & Mr. Jones has built its own technology platform to help marketers with their digital, mobile and e-commerce needs, while also investing in companies like Pinterest and Niantic. And it makes acquisitions — last year, for example, it bought influencer marketing company Collectively.

Former Ad Exec David Jones Launches $350 Million “Brandtech” Group

You & Mr. Jones has grown to 3,000 employees, and its clients include Unilever, Accenture, Google, Adidas, Marriott and Microsoft. In fact, Jones said that as of the third quarter of 2020, its net revenue had grown 27% year over year.

That’s particularly impressive given the impact of the pandemic on ad spending, but Jones said that’s one of the key distinctions between digital advertising and the broader brand tech category, which he said has grown steadily, even during the pandemic, and which also sets the company apart from agencies that are “digital and tech in press release only.”

“We’re not an ad agency, we’ll never acquire agencies,” he said. “We have the technology platform, process and people to deliver all of your end-to-end, always-on content — social, digital, e-commerce and community management.”

In addition to the funding, the company is announcing that it has hired Paulette Forte, who was previously senior director of human services at the NBA, as its first chief people officer.

“The brand tech category didn’t even exist before You & Mr Jones was established,” Forte said in a statement. “The company became a true industry disruptor in short order, and growth has been swift. In order to keep up with the momentum, it’s critical to have systems in place that help talent develop their skills, encourage diversity and creativity, and find pathways to improving workflow. I am excited to join the leadership team to drive this crucial work forward.”

Publicis Sapient’s John Maeda explains how big companies can think like startups

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Inside SuperCharger Ventures’ debut virtual edtech accelerator

Before the pandemic, edtech companies went decades without raising financing due to lack of interest from generalist venture capitalists. Now, more than a year since COVID-19 began, the sector is showing signs of maturation, from first profits to unicorns, potential IPOs and a rush of talent.

Momentum in mind, cross-border venture capital firm SuperCharger Ventures is launching a debut accelerator exclusively for early-stage edtech founders. The 12-week accelerator, which kicks off today, is being held virtually, with six startups in the debut cohort.

Interestingly, this isn’t the firms’ first time doing an accelerator. SuperCharger has led three cohorts of startups through a fintech-focused accelerator. The pivot from one booming category to another boils down to a simple dynamic, says SuperCharger Ventures co-founder Janos Barberis: banks.

“Banks just don’t have the space or the bandwidth to start dealing with innovation right now,” Barberis said. The co-founder thinks that COVID-19 created a supply and demand unevenness between fintech services and banks, and as many branches struggle to stay open, “the first thing banks cut is innovation.”

So, the firm is hopping to edtech, and taking a key lesson with it from its fintech experience: the importance of B2B and recurring revenue streams.

“The corporate angle? It’s sticky, healthy and revenue driven,” Barberis said. “It’s healthy income, and I think right now investors are willing to pay for that healthy income.”

Financially, Barberis’ argument is hard to disagree with. But when you look at some of the biggest edtech unicorns in this current moment, many are B2C, including Quizlet, Course Hero and ApplyBoard. It’s because in education, it sometimes can be easier to sell to the end-user than dealing with highly fragmented institutions — at least in the United States.

4 edtech CEOs peer into the industry’s future

Still, B2B businesses have the biggest potential for reach, and we’re seeing consumer businesses turn COVID-19 demand into enterprise deals. There’s also hope to be found internationally, which can sometimes have a less fragmented market of institutions, says Barberis.

Beyond B2B sales, cohort startups must be focused on expanding into European and Asian markets.

Barberis sees opportunity in those markets, minus China, because both appear to have gaps in edtech. In Europe, he says there’s a high demand for corporate digital learning from universities, and in Asia, he thinks that investor education is necessary so bets can be placed in countries beyond simply China. On one end there is demand, and on the other end there is opportunity to generate demand.

He leaves out China from the Asian market expansion because he thinks that the country, like the United States, is too saturated with companies right now.

The programming fits the normal accelerator model, with information tailored explicitly to the world of education, such as how to partner with an education institution or shorten sales cycles (as so much of edtech B2B sales happens during the summer months).

The firm doesn’t give any capital, but takes between 1-2% of equity in return for its services, which it estimates cost between $75,000 and $100,000 in “value.” SuperCharger culminates with a Demo Day, and companies in aggregate plan to raise between $15 to $20 million in venture capital.

Other firms have similarly created accelerator programs during the pandemic to help with deal flow and stay competitive in the always-hot seed space, including NextView Ventures.

NextView Ventures is launching a remote accelerator for startups

This isn’t SuperCharger Ventures’ first time doing an accelerator. The firm held three fintech-focused accelerators in the past, graduating 49 companies. The pivot from one booming sector to another comes from fintech saturation, says Barberis.

Out of 208 applications, SuperCharger landed on six companies in its debut cohort:

• Axon Park: Founded by Taylor Freeman, Axon Park is using virtual reality to virtually train workforces, such as teaching proper PPE procedures to healthcare professionals. It sells its programming to businesses, governments and universities.
• BSD Education: Co-founded by Christopher Geary and Nickey Khemchandani, the startup sells tech curriculum to schools teaching students between the ages of eight and 18. Beyond curriculum, the startup offers professional training development for teachers and a platform for online learning to be held.
• Dijital Kolej: Zeynep Dereli and Ferruh Gürtaş are betting on an online hybrid education model that balances asynchronous and synchronous learning throughout the day.
• Newcampus: The startup, launched by Will Fan and Fei Yao, describes itself as a gym membership for learning experiences. It’s part of the wave of companies focused on lifelong learning, with a focus on leadership information.
• Ringbeller: CJ Casciotta is working on a startup that uses interactive video lessons to teach kids soft skills, such as creativity and kindness.
• Roybi: Elnaz Sarraf and Ron Cheng are creating an AI-robot that teaches kids topics in STEM.

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