• Domino Data Lab, which helps businesses manage their AI and machine learning tools, has raised $43 million from investors, including Highland Capital Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Coatue Management. 
• CEO and cofounder Nick Elprin said he launched the San Francisco startup after realizing the problem that corporations were having a hard time making sure their AI and machine learning tools were working well together.
• "It's uncoordinated," he told Business Insider. "It's people bumping into each other. One of the chief analytics officers we work with actually said her data science organization was like a bunch of six-year olds playing soccer."
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The CEO of Domino Data Lab used this pitch deck to raise $43 million to help businesses manage their growing collection of AI tools

The CEO of Domino Data Lab used this pitch to raise $43 million to help businesses manage their AI tools so they're not 'like a bunch of six-year olds playing soccer'

Machine learning and artificial intelligence can help businesses perform tasks faster and more efficiently, from pinpointing sales opportunities to flagging production glitches.

But usefulness aside, it can be a struggle for a company to manage an increasingly complex collection of AI tools. That was the problem Nick Elprin sought to address with his cofounders when they launched Domino Data Lab in 2013. 

On Tuesday, the San Francisco-based startup said it has raised a fresh $43 million in Series E funding from Highland Capital Partners, Dell Technologies Capital, Sequoia Capital, and Coatue Management, among other investors. Domino Data Lab had previously raised about $85 million at a $260 million valuation, according to Pitchbook, which brings its total raised to $128 million. The company declined to share its new valuation. 

Along with the funding news, the company also launched new capabilities on its platform, including tools to help a company manage data science projects.

Businesses have embraced a host of analytics and AI tools to mine data for actionable insights, but many of those tools worked independently of one another, which can make them ineffective, said Elprin, the company's CEO. 

"It's uncoordinated," he told Business Insider. "It's people bumping into each other. One of the chief analytics officers we work with actually said her data science organization was like a bunch of six-year olds playing soccer."

Elprin also compared his company to an orchestra conductor that tries to make sure different AI and machine learning tools are working well together. 

"If you don't have an orchestra in harmony, you have a cacophony and different people doing their own thing," he said. "The conductor brings all the parts together into a beautiful whole."

Domino Data Lab's technology is used by major corporations, including many Fortune 500 companies, Elprin said. 

Here's the pitch deck the company used to raise $43 million:

• Bright.md, a virtual care startup, just closed its Series C funding round in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Lockdowns helped drive investor interest in its technology, which speeds up patient visits for doctors.
• It raised an oversubscribed round of $16.7 million, bringing total funding to about $30 million.
• The investor deck reveals the startup's skepticism of other telemedicine companies.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Bright.md, a virtual healthcare startup, just closed its Series C funding under unusual circumstances. 

The round opened before the pandemic, but closed at the end of May. In the interim, business boomed for Bright.md. Year-over-year, online visits and new patients grew by 1,200% and 2,000% in April, respectively, according to Ray Costantini, the company's co-founder and CEO. 

Now, visits are already declining — a development Costantini called "a good thing" — but those numbers sat well with potential investors at the time, according to the cofounder.

"Urgency increased," Costantini told Business Insider. Some investors even wanted to up their contributions retroactively, he said.

When all was said and done, the Portland, Oregon-based company raised $16.7 million, $1.7 million more than it set out to raise. In all, the startup has taken in about $30 million to date. The company declined to disclose its valuation.

Bright.md's software automates part of doctors' appointments

Bright.md works differently than some other telehealth companies. Instead of connecting patients with doctors for video visits, its platform SmartExam uses computers and smartphones to automate parts of doctors' appointments, typically for urgent care and primary care.

The company's software interviews patients to understand their symptoms, and they're only given a video or in-person appointments when necessary, according to the company. 

Doctors then receive reports, including a transcript of the patient's interview, and sign off on the platform's recommendations or choose another course of treatment. Bright.md inputs the data into electronic health records and can take care of referrals, too.

In some ways, Bright.md's success is a reflection of lockdowns. After coronavirus forced doctors offices to close and people to stay in their homes, companies offering remote care took off. Bright.md itself offers a free tool that helps doctors and hospitals screen patients for coronavirus symptoms.

Telehealth claims in private insurance plans have soared, to 7.5% of claims in March 2020, up from 0.17% in March 2019, according to healthcare data firm FAIR Health. The meteoric rise has caught the eye of venture capital investors, where some top firms are eyeing virtual care's speedy customer acquisition with enthusiasm.

Read more: VCs from 11 top firms share how coronavirus is transforming their healthcare investing strategies.

'I think telehealth is boring'

But with that renewed interest comes renewed skepticism, too. In the latest round, investors frequently asked Costantini what separates Bright.md from the other telemedicine companies out there, he said.

"Telehealth looks crowded. Why should we care about you?" Costantini said, recounting a common question during pitches. 

For starters, Bright.md's chief executive said he doesn't like telemedicine companies very much. 

"We often get lumped in as a telehealth company because we sell into the telehealth space by design," Costantini said. "I think telehealth is boring and commoditized." 

Whereas some telehealth firms sell care directly to consumers and often require video appointments, Bright.md prides itself on cutting down on physicians' wasted time. They only need 2 minutes, according to Costantini, to consult with SmartExam, saving the rest for patients with "complex clinical needs," he said.

The model makes sense to investor Seven Peaks Ventures because other telemedicine businesses can end up taking away revenue from their customers, according to Corey Schmid, a general partner. In contrast, Bright.md works within health systems to expand their own doctors' capacity, she said.

"If a patient calls and says, 'Hey I have a sinus infection,' and [providers] have a contract with Teladoc or some other direct-to-consumer, you're essentially outsourcing that patient to a fleet of doctors that might be in New York or Michigan," she told Business Insider.

Coronavirus gives new life to old debates in telehealth

There's a renewed debate among telehealth investors over whether it's better for companies to integrate more thoroughly with health systems, provide wraparound services like deployment and physician training, or simply help doctors conduct video appointments with patients.

Dr. Krishna Yeshwant, a managing partner at Alphabet's GV venture fund, said he's coming around to the simpler model after seeing smaller providers use a startup called Doxy.me, which helps doctors see patients online, in huge numbers over the last couple of months. 

Prior to the pandemic, however, he doubted that approach "because to some degree, without those wraparound services, I've always felt like telemedicine is a little bit of a commodity," he told Business Insider. 

Read more: 2 investors at Alphabet's $4.5 billion venture fund share the 3 healthcare companies outside their portfolio that impress them the most.

James Olsen, the founder and managing partner of Concord Health Partners, said there are many early-stage companies that address aspects of a patient's healthcare encounters, like scheduling, whereas Bright.md's software can evolve to address a broader set of needs.

Concord helped lead Bright.md's Series C round with B Capital and Seven Peaks Ventures. The investment firm manages a $50 million fund started by the American Hospital Association. 

Here's the deck that convinced those investors to bet on Bright.md in the middle of a pandemic.

Bright.md's introductory slide makes the company's ambitions clear.

Bright.md wants to ease physician burnout and shortages by expanding how many patients they can see in a day, and by removing some of their administrative roles.

Doctor shortages are especially bad in primary care.

Digitalization hasn't boosted productivity in healthcare, according to Bright.md. That's partially because the technology is around billing and not what providers need most, Costantini told BI.

Meanwhile, telehealth visits can take just as long as normal ones.

Bright.md's product SmartExam automates patient visits and billing, limiting the time physicians spend on routine medical issues and freeing them up for more complicated cases, according to the company.

SmartExam works on smartphones and conducts interviews with patients.

At the end of the session, the product gives recommendations, referrals, and prescriptions if needed, all subject to the doctor's approval.

Doctors can see when their patients are being seen by the bot. They review its diagnosis, notes, and prescription recommendations.

The product boosts physician capacity and doesn't require much training, according to Bright.md.

Health systems can expand their geographic reach beyond patients who can physically come into the hospital or clinic.

While Bright.md's typical customer is a mid- to large-sized health system, its technology is compatible with smaller clinics and doctors' groups, too, according to the startup.

Bright.md shared patient and physician testimonials with the potential investors.

The startup also highlighted some news coverage.

Chilmark Research, which publishes reports on healthcare information technology, gave Bright.md a shout out.

Research and consulting firm Gartner says Bright.md is a 'cool vendor.'

Other platforms and services come up short, productivity-wise, Bright.md told investors.

Bright.md also showed off its leadership team.

Investors include SpringRock, Oregon Venture Fund, and Seven Peaks Ventures.

Bright.md concludes with this slide.

• You can upload files to Dropbox via your desktop or mobile device.
• Uploading files to Dropbox from your computer is as easy as dragging and dropping the files from your hard drive into a Dropbox folder. 
• In the mobile app, you'll need to upload files using the "Create" menu.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.

As one of the leading cloud storage services, Dropbox allows you to upload, share, and access files and folders through its mobile apps, or straight from your internet browser. 

Whether you have a basic or business subscription, it's easy to upload files to your Dropbox account. 

So if you're looking to share files with others, or just want to free up storage space on your computer or mobile device, here are step-by-step instructions to upload a file to Dropbox. You can do this using the Dropbox website on your Mac or PC, as well as the mobile app on your iPhone or Android device.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Apple)

Samsung Galaxy S10 (From $699.99 at Walmart)

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

Acer Chromebook 15 (From $358.99 at Staples)

How to upload files to Dropbox from a computer

The simplest way to upload files to Dropbox is to drag and drop the files from your hard drive. 

1. Go to the Dropbox website in your preferred web browser and sign in to your account.

2. Navigate into the folder you wish to upload the file to. Alternatively, you can upload the file to your Dropbox without a folder.

3. Locate the file you want to upload on your hard drive, and drag it to the browser window. 

4. Once you drop it into the window, your file is uploaded. 

In addition to the drag-and-drop method, you can also browse your hard drive to select the files to upload:

5. Once you log into Dropbox, you'll be taken to your account's homepage. Toward the right side of the page will be a list of options. Click "Upload files."

6. Choose files you want to upload and click "Open."

7. Click "Upload" after you've chosen an existing folder in Dropbox for the file, or created a new folder. Your file is uploaded. 

How to upload files to Dropbox from the mobile app

1. After downloading the Dropbox mobile app on your iPhone or Android device, sign in. 

2. From the Home screen, tap "Create" at the very bottom, below the plus sign.

3. Tap "Create or Upload File," then select "Upload File."

4. Browse to find the file you want to upload, and tap the file.

5. You'll be presented with a screen that asks which folder the file should be uploaded to. Tap "Choose a Folder." You can also rename the file on this screen by tapping its name.

6. When you've chosen a destination for the upload, you'll be taken back to the prior screen, where you can now tap "Upload."

Once your file is uploaded, you can share it with others, or access it via your mobile device or any computer, as long as you have your Dropbox login info.

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

• How to change your Dropbox password or reset it if you've forgotten it

• How to share a Dropbox folder in 3 different ways

• How to share files on Dropbox in 3 different ways

• How to download files from Dropbox on your Mac or PC, using the official Dropbox website

• How to delete files from Dropbox to save space in 3 ways, and recover them later

SEE ALSO: The best all-in-one PCs you can buy

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America

• PitchBook just released a 90-page report analyzing promising startups in the $121.3 billion cybersecurity market.
• Analysts say cybersecurity provides relatively stable opportunities to invest, and that an evolving workplace as we emerge from COVID-19 will sustain innovation and growth.
• Cybersecurity is giving rise to powerful startups that compete for market share like Netskope, which hauled in a $340 million funding round in February. 
• The startups spotlighted by PitchBook also include new companies bringing innovation, such as 20-person Confluera, which just popped out of stealth mode to help companies track hackers in real-time. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In a crazy, rollercoaster stock market, cybersecurity offers investors a range of relatively stable opportunities, ranging from billion-dollar companies competing for market-share to new companies providing novel innovation, according to new research. 

A 90-page report from investment analysts PitchBook estimates the cybersecurity industry as a $121.3 billion market (based on overall annual sales), projected to rise to $160 billion by 2023. Investors say there is great promise in key market segments that protect remote workers, help businesses with data compliance regulation, and protect Internet of Things devices. 

Investments now could pay off handsomely in a recovery, PitchBook says: "We expect that a recovery would drive demand for information security technologies to defend broader enterprise surface areas including home networks, multi-cloud environments, and mobile device networks, benefiting longer-term investments in application security, network security, data privacy and identity and access management."

The startups range from Netskope, a cloud security startup that hauled in a $340 million funding round in February to 20-person Confluera, which just popped out of stealth mode to help companies track hackers as they invade networks. 

PitchBook says the analysis is needed in an industry that confuses many. "It's a space people have blown off because it seems over their head, but now they're curious about it and they see the investment opportunity," says Brendan Burke, one of the analysts who wrote the report. 

Investors say cybersecurity startups are worth studying up on, at a time when many industries may not have much short-term upside. 

"I do think there's enough capital for cybersecurity companies to continue growing," says Deepak Jeevankumar of Dell Technologies Capital, an investor in Netskope and Zscaler, a cybersecurity startup that went public two years ago. 

Here are 13 startups spotlighted by in the report, with all information taken from PitchBook:

Auth0 – A growing unicorn in identity management

What it does: Auth0 helps developers to build single sign-on, multi-factor authentication and passwordless logins and customize them to enterprise environments by providing simple code-based integrations that embed the service within existing systems.

What PitchBook says: "Auth0 can maintain a high expansion rate and potentially increase its growth as it benefits from burgeoning demand for identity solutions."

CEO: Eugenio Pace

Location: Bellevue, Washington

Employees: 660

Total venture capital raised: $213.5 million

Valuation: $1.2 billion

Investors: Sapphire Ventures, Capital Partners, WiL (World Innovation Lab), Meritech Capital Partners

Big ID – Data security startup in a booming area

What it does: BigID uses advanced machine learning and identity intelligence to help enterprises safeguard and assure the privacy of their most sensitive data, reducing breach risk and meeting compliance requirements like Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

What PitchBook says: BigID's partnerships illustrate "the potential for new security requirements to cause market dislocations and create startup opportunities" and "the high appeal of this segment for late-stage VC and high growth."

CEO: Dimitri Sirota

Location: New York

Employees: 195

Total venture capital raised: $146.16 million

Valuation: $500 million to $1 billion (per Crunchbase)

Investors: Scale Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners

BitGlass – 'A market leader' in network security

What it does: BitGlass develops enterprise security software that secures corporate data residing on third-party servers, enabling enterprises to embrace the cloud while ensuring data security and regulatory compliance.

What PitchBook says: "Startups can seize market share in network security from legacy firewall vendors," and Bitglass "has become a market leader" in cloud security as a venture-backed company, suggesting that startups may become leaders in emerging categories.

CEO: Nataranjan Kausik 

Location: Campbell, California

Employees: 100

Total venture capital raised: $150 million

Valuation: $480 million

Investors: Singtel Innov8, New Enterprise Associates and Norwest Venture Partners

Cato Networks – 'Advanced visionary' in cloud network security

What it does: Cato Networks is the developer of a cloud-based enterprise security platform providing a secure network connection to all enterprise locations, people and data.

What PitchBook says: "Cato Networks is the most advanced visionary" in one cloud computing area of analyst firm Gartner's Magic Quadrant, "demonstrating that private companies are more advanced in some areas of network software than Cisco or VMware. We expect that novel network architectures for hybrid cloud environments and IoT networks can support unicorn valuations given the limitations of incumbents in those areas."

CEO: Shlomo Kramer

Location: Tel Aviv, Israel

Employees: 200

Total venture capital raised: $202 million

Valuation: Not available

Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greylock Partners

Confluera – Young startup addressing market gaps

What it does: Confluera is the developer of a network security interception platform intended to detect and stop attackers in real-time, allowing companies to radically simplify and manage security operations.

What PitchBook says: "On the early side, Confluera recently emerged from stealth and is addressing multiple market gaps by delivering continuous threat monitoring with a graphical user interface that tracks attacks as they develop, allowing security teams to more quickly threat hunt and conduct forensic analysis." 

CEO: Bipul Sinha 

Location: Palo Alto, California

Employees: 20

Total venture capital raised: $30 million

Valuation: $31 million

Investors: Icon Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Harpoon

Cybereason – User-friendly endpoint protection

What it does: Cybereason is the developer of a cloud-based endpoint detection and cybersecurity platform designed to protect companies from advanced cyberattacks.

What PitchBook says: "Cybereason should continue to grow" because "the company surfaces malicious operations in a user-friendly interface, enabling enterprises to identify the root cause and scope of cyberattacks with minimal manual effort."  

CEO: Lior Div

Location: Boston

Employees: 500

Total venture capital raised: $390 million

Post valuation: $1 billion

Investors: SoftBank

DarkTrace – IPO candidate using machine learning to find new threats

What it does: DarkTrace is the developer of a cyberthreat defense platform that detects and responds to previously unidentified threats, enabling businesses to protect against threats to the cloud, email, IoT, networks and industrial systems.

What PitchBook says: "Darktrace is an IPO candidate that may have to delay its plans in the current economic environment." With a machine-learning approach to threat detection,  DarkTrace faces "weak" competition from incumbents including Cisco and FireEye, PitchBook says.

CEO: Poppy Gustafsson

Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom

Employees: 1,200

Total venture capital raised: $238 million

Valuation: $1.6 billion

Investors: Vitruvian Partners, Samsung Venture Investment, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Ten Eleven Ventures, and Balderton Capital 

Netskope – 'Market leadership in cloud security'

What it does: Netskope is the developer of a cloud analytics platform that protects data, stops threats and responds to incidents. The company's platform eliminates blind spots, guards data everywhere, and stops elusive attacks, enabling businesses to protect sensitive data and ensure compliance in real-time.

What PitchBook says: "Netskope has developed market leadership in cloud security despite the arms race of incumbents. The Netskope management and board of directors has substantial experience at publicly traded companies, causing Pitchbook to believe Netskope will pursue an initial public offering in the medium term." On that subject, CEO Sanjay Beri told Business Insider "while we will one day, nothing is planned in the short term." 

CEO: Sanjay Beri

Location: Santa Clara, California

Employees: 990

Total venture capital raised: $754 million

Valuation: $1.39 billion 

Investors: Sequoia Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, Base Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners

OneTrust – helping companies with privacy compliance

What it does: OneTrust provides a privacy management platform that helps businesses comply with data privacy regulations, including GDPR, and assessing data vulnerabilities in their vendor by taking inventory of their data.

What PitchBook says: "OneTrust achieved scale before requiring venture funding, but has recently accepted VC to take advantage of GDPR opportunities. The company raised a $210 million Series B, less than a year after its $200 million Series A, suggesting that OneTrust has a similar growth profile to leading IT unicorns." 

CEO: Kabir Barday

Location: Atlanta

Employees: 1,500

Total venture capital raised: $410 million 

Valuation: $2.7 billion 

Investors: Insight Partners and Coatue Management

Securiti.ai – Finds leaked personal data using AI

What it does: Securiti.ai is the developer of an artificial intelligence-powered cybersecurity and data-protection platform intended to protect privacy. The company finds personal data in structured and unstructured systems and links it to the owners.

What PitchBook says: "Investments of $50 million were completed for competing data privacy & compliance platforms Securiti.ai and BigID as well, at large valuation step-ups, demonstrating the high appeal of this segment for late-stage VC and high growth for multiple market entrants." 

CEO: Rehan Jalil

Location: San Jose, California

Employees: 180

Total venture capital raised: $81 million

Valuation: $250 million

Investors: General Catalyst, Mayfield Fund

SentinelOne – increasing valuation as it fights off nation-state attacks

What it does: SentinelOne makes endpoint protection software that protects devices and servers against malware and threats. The company's software unifies the detection, prevention and remediation of threats initiated by nation-states and organized crime, enabling organizations to defend against advanced cyberthreats.

What PitchBook says: "SentinelOne's $200 million Series E made it a unicorn…SentinelOne addresses cloud and IoT endpoints, separating it from legacy endpoint detection platforms. For this reason, we believe that its valuation will likely continue to increase." 

CEO: Tomer Weingarten

Location: Mountain View, California

Employees: 500

Total venture capital raised: $429.5 million 

Post valuation: $1.1 billion

Investors: Insight Partners, Samsung Venture Investment

Snyk – Open-source security leader

What it does: Snyk makes security analysis tools designed to identify open-source vulnerabilities. The company's security analysis tools find, fix and monitor threats in open source computer code. 

What PitchBook says: "Application security had a record quarter of VC deal value in the (fourth) quarter following Snyk's record $150 million…the largest-ever Series C in infosec." The report also says: "We believe that the DevOps security market has the potential to create multiple unicorns, reflected in the recent VC mega-deals for Snyk and SentinelOne."

CEO: Peter McKay 

Location: London

Employees: 274

Total raised: $254.5 million

Post valuation: $1 billion

Investors: Stripes, Trend Forward Capital 

WhiteSource – Could be 'an attractive target'

What it does: WhiteSource makes a software solution for agile open-source security and license compliance management. The company's software integrates with development environments to detect open-source code with security or compliance issues in real-time. 

What PitchBook says: "WhiteSource is an innovator in [software composition analysis] and we believe the company could be an attractive target for legacy application-testing vendors" when it comes to acquisitions.

CEO: Rami Sass

Location: New York

Employees: 250

Total raised: $46 million 

Valuation: Not available 

Investors: Susquehanna Growth Equity, M12

• You can easily make a public playlist private on Apple Music by removing it from your profile and making it unavailable to other users in search.
• The method you'll use will vary depending on the device you're using to access your Apple Music account.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories.

It can be fun to share your musical tastes with friends, family, and even fellow music enthusiasts, but sometimes, you don't want everyone to know what you've been listening to recently. If that's the case, making a playlist private can come in handy. 

The process is simple on Apple Music, but be aware that it will vary depending on the device you're using. Here's how to make an Apple Music playlist private on your computer or mobile iOS and Android devices. 

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Apple)

Samsung Galaxy S10 (From $699.99 at Walmart)

Apple Macbook Pro (From $1,299.00 at Apple)

Acer Chromebook 15 (From $358.99 at Staples)

How to make an Apple Music playlist private on a computer

1. Launch your desktop Apple Music app. 

2. Select your playlist from the left sidebar

3. Untick the box that says "Publish on profile and in search."

How to make an Apple Music playlist private on your mobile device

1. Open the Apple Music app. 

2. Tap the "Library" tab. 

3. Select "Playlists."

4. Tap the playlist you want to make private. 

5. Select "Edit" in the top-right corner of the screen

6. Turn off the option to "Show on My Profile and in Search." 

Related coverage from Tech Reference:

• How to make a playlist on Apple Music by adding and organizing your favorite tracks

• How to share an Apple Music playlist on your computer or mobile device

• How to find playlists on Apple Music and add them to your library

• How to delete a playlist on Apple Music on desktop or mobile in 3 simple steps

• What to do if your music won't download in Apple Music on an iPhone or iPad

SEE ALSO: The best noise-cancelling headphones

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What makes 'Parasite' so shocking is the twist that happens in a 10-minute sequence

• Berlin-based scooter startup Tier has raised €20 million ($22.7 million) in additional funding as the company looks to continue its expansion post-coronavirus. 
• The company confirmed the extra capital to Business Insider, and said it was operating "close to overall company profitability." 
• The round was raised as part of an extension to the company's previous $60 million Series B, which was subsequently increased by $40 million. This latest extension was confirmed by Tier in emailed comment to Business Insider. 
• Tier's existing investors including Mubadala Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Northzone, White Star Capital, and RTP Global funded this $22.7 million extension. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Berlin-based electric scooter startup Tier has raised €20 million ($22.7 million) in funding as the company bets on changing transport habits during and after the pandemic.

Founded in 2018, Tier is one of several scooter startups trying to adapt to a sudden drop in tourism as well as a growing interest from governments in reducing the burden on public transport.

Tier's latest round is the second extension to its Series B. The firm initially raised $60 million in October, then raised a further $40 million in February. This latest extension was confirmed by Tier in emailed comment to Business Insider. 

Much like other scooter companies, Tier allows users to rent its electric scooters through an app across its various European cities. Users can use the app to locate and unlock an available scooter nearby. How much you pay per ride depends on the city. In Berlin, for example, you can unlock a scooter for €1 ($1.10) and pay €0.15 ($0.17) per minute of use.

With much of North America and Europe on COVID-19 lockdown between March and May, scooter startups in Europe and the US have felt the pinch from a lack of revenue.

On its website, Tier states that it has paused operations in some cities thanks to the pandemic.

Bird, one of the biggest and best-funded players, laid off 406 staff in March. Swedish scooter company Voi furloughed a large number of its staff in response to the coronavirus. 

There are also wider questions as to whether companies touting new forms of transport, including scooters, will ever turn a profit.

Tier's existing backers including Mubadala Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Northzone, White Star Capital, Novator, and RTP Global funded this new $22.7 million extension. The company's cofounder and CEO Lawrence Leuschner previously told Business Insider that capital efficiency was at the heart of his startup's scaling plans and claimed its unit economics were the best in the industry.

As cities re-open from lockdown, use of public transport is set to be restricted as authorities attempt to reduce the risk of infection and encourage social distancing. Scooter players are eyeing the opportunity to become a viable alternative.

In a statement Leuschner said: "Tier has navigated the crisis very well and we are operating close to overall company profitability. Recently, we have seen significant increase in demand that has cemented our European leadership and presented us with an opportunity to supplement our series B to accelerate our growth."

The UK is in the process of fast-tracking electric scooter trials having previously been slow on changing regulation around the issue. London, Western Europe's largest metropolitan area, is the jewel in the crown for many operators and Tier's funding will likely go towards boosting its expansion opportunities there. 

Meanwhile, major cities such as Paris will soon only allow three scooter companies to offer rentals, making European mobility an increasingly competitive space. 

"Our bet with Tier was always that they could become a global mobility leader by achieving the best unit economics," Paul Murphy, partner at Tier's biggest investor Northzone, told Business Insider in emailed comment. "This has played out beyond our expectations, so we continue to double down at every chance we get."

SEE ALSO: A Lime investor predicts only 2 or 3 scooter players will win after COVID-19, meaning there's going to be a major crunch in Europe

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America

• Doxy.me, a little-known startup that provides a video platform that doctors can use to meet with patients, has become a favorite of medical professionals through the course of the pandemic.
• As of June, Doxy.me had about 700,000 users, up from 80,000 in January. They were drawn by the appeal of free accounts for the browser-based video meeting tool that sends links to patients. 
• Founded in 2014, the company's temporarily operating out of CEO Brandon Welch's house in Charleston, South Carolina.
• It's going up against telemedicine giants like Teladoc and Amwell, but has no outside funding. 
• For more stories like this, sign up here for our healthcare newsletter Dispensed.

The founders of telemedicine startup Doxy.me knew they had a problem by the first week of March.

About 100 doctors signed up for accounts on a Sunday. 

"We thought, maybe there's a conference or something," Doxy.me CEO Brandon Welch told Business Insider. But that Monday, March 2, 300 physicians signed up. 

"That afternoon, I was just like, 'I think this is related to Covid,'" Welch said.

On Tuesday, another 400 signed up, Welch said. By Wednesday, 700; by Thursday, 1,200 new doctors joined.

"By that Tuesday, we had kind of gone into crisis mode," Welch said. 

Doxy.me (pronounced "doc see me") takes a few minutes to get up and running from a browser, without downloading software. Accounts are free, unless physicians upgrade to the professional version for $35 per month. Doctors can send links to patients for online chats. Then, they talk. And that's about it.

The startup is competing against telemedicine companies like Amwell, Doctor on Demand, and publicly-traded Teladoc, which tend to partner with major health systems or insurers. Before the coronavirus pandemic, it could take a doctor as long as 60 to 90 days to get started with a company like Amwell.

Since 2014, Doxy.me had been working mostly with independent doctors or small clinics looking to do mental health or counseling services online. The product's easy access made it a favorite in the early days of the pandemic, when doctors didn't have time to wait around for other telemedicine solutions, the company's founders and doctors who use the platform said. As of June, Doxy.me has about 700,000 users, up from 80,000 in January.  

It's come with some growing pains. Welch and Turner have hired more full-time employees than ever and set up a temporary headquarters to make due — all while drawing more investor interest than they know what to do with. Now, the little-known startup has become a formidable player in an industry that saw massive growth in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.  

From school project to signing on health systems

Doxy.me got its start as a school project while Welch was a doctoral student at the University of Utah School of Medicine studying biomedical informatics.

Welch wanted to make a video platform for delivering prenatal care to women via video chat. Existing video chatting platforms like Skype and FaceTime wouldn't cut it because of their lack of HIPAA compliance, university officials told him.

After Welch connected with Dylan Turner, who was working at the university's Center for Clinical and Translational Science and is now Doxy.me's chief operations officer, the pair made a prototype that won $3,000 at a business innovation competition. By the time Welch graduated in 2014, they'd racked up $25,000 in grants. 

They let the service spread by word of mouth, found a couple of angel investors, and started charging people for Doxy.me. For a while after its inception, though, Welch was still a full-time professor, and Turner was still working at CCTS.

Welch is currently an assistant professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, but plans to cut down on hours there in light of Doxy.me's growth.

"This was just kind of a side thing that was going on," Welch told Business Insider. 

Since the pandemic, the startup has signed on not just individual doctors but large health systems as well.

Doxy.me declined to say how many of its now 700,000 users are paying for premium accounts, but large health systems now constitute more than 25% of the customers. They require "enterprise" accounts (a step up from premium) that cost $50 per month per clinician, according to Welch. Welch declined to name specific health systems. 

Initially, Doxy.me wasn't interested in working with the big healthcare groups, Welch said. Physicians from places like that started signing up in large enough numbers that their administrations were essentially forced to reach out and draw up contracts, according to the cofounder.

"We're seeing a lot of large enterprises come to us because their providers are already using us. And they're just trying to formalize an agreement with us," Welch said.

Growing up overnight

In the early days of the pandemic, Doxy.me struggled to keep up with the growing interest in its platform.

When reports of an uptick in US coronavirus cases came in early March, 8,000 physicians created accounts on March 8 — a number that increased to 32,000 within days, Welch said. Doxy.me was adding more doctors per hour than had joined in the entire month of February.

Welch and Turner got so many calls that they tried to scrub the internet of the company phone number. Then they hired a phone agency to field the avalanche of calls from onboarding customers, Welch said.

Emails and service requests were another matter. Welch's home in Charleston, South Carolina, turned into a temporary headquarters filled with newly hired employees in customer service, technology, and sales. Within a few weeks, the company went from about 15-20 to more than 50 full-time employees, Turner said.

The team made YouTube videos about how to use the product — canceling all the outstanding demos — and put in place bots that tried to triage customer questions before they got to humans. They also set up more servers, while the website stalled from all the activity.

"We've obviously had to grow up overnight into a real company," Welch said.

Read more: Here's how 11 top VCs like Andreessen Horowitz and GV are changing their healthcare strategies, from bets on telemedicine to virtual clinical trials.

'They don't need all the other crap'

Krishna Yeshwant, managing partner at Alphabet's GV, who isn't an investor in Doxy.me, told Business Insider he was impressed with the company after seeing it help many small- and mid-sized providers get online so quickly.

Prior to the pandemic, GV didn't invest in a company like Doxy.me "because to some degree, without those wraparound services, I've always felt like telemedicine is a little bit of a commodity," he said. "Lots of companies do it. There's lots of platforms out there." 

Doxy.me's meteoric rise has some VCs scrambling to invest, the founders said, seemingly throwing a wrench in the argument that, without fancy wraparound services, telehealth products are too "commoditized," or interchangeable with other companies' offerings.  

Read more: 2 investors at Alphabet's $4.5 billion venture fund share the 3 healthcare companies outside their portfolio that impress them the most.

In light of its popularity with physicians, health systems are asking Doxy.me to add a few of those bells and whistles, Welch said.

Moving forward, Doxy.me's enterprise platform is adding a recording feature, a reminder system for patients, single sign-on, chat bots to help collect some data from patients at check-in, and some integration with third-party applications. 

Still, Doxy.me's primary competitor is Zoom, Welch said.

"The only thing providers care about is a way to connect with their patients," Welch said. "They don't need all the other crap that other telemedicine solutions are providing. We just keep it simple and made it easy to sign up."

That's true at least for Sarah Weller, a clinical exercise physiologist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She sees about 20 patients per week via Doxy.me, all of whom have cancer, helping them with strength, endurance, and balance after undergoing treatments, she told Business Insider.

Weller's practice, the Treloar Physio Cancer Exercise Program, plans on using Doxy.me after the pandemic has passed, she said.

"None of my current patients wish to return to in person sessions," Weller said.

It's easier for them not to drive, find parking, or leave home, given their fatigue levels, she said.

Doxy.me doesn't want investors — for now

Welch and Turner get calls and emails from venture capital firms on a daily basis, they said. But having bought out their angel investors in January, they aren't in a hurry to work with outsiders again.

Though he's open to revisiting the idea in a couple of months, the concept seems particularly unpleasant for Welch. 

"When I think about it, it kind of gives me nausea. Thinking about bringing in other investors. Because we finally got these guys out. And we want to bring in others?" Welch said.

Turner said they could be "convinced" otherwise if the right partner wanted to build a better product in the long-term, he said.

"But what we don't want to do is find a partner or business investor that isn't in it for the long game," Turner said.

Asked whether they'd care to disclose their valuation, the pair laughed. 

"I need a VC person telling me that," Welch quipped. "I have no idea."

Moving forward, Welch is thinking about stepping back some from his work as a professor, but still has a class slated for the fall.

And the company will encourage its new employees to work out of Salt Lake City, Utah; Charleston, South Carolina; Rochester, New York, London, or Kiev ⁠— where longstanding employees currently work. But as a telemedicine company, it's not opposed to remote work, Welch said. 

First, though, Doxy.me needs to get "some legitimate office space," he said.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquid

• Y Combinator partner Michael Seibel has been named to Reddit's board of directors. 
• The move comes after Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian quit the board last week, calling on Reddit to name a Black candidate in his place. 
• Ohanian said the change was "long overdue" and said his decision was spurred "as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: 'What did you do?'" 
• Seibel has been a partner at Y Combinator since 2014 and serves as CEO of its accelerator program. He cofounded Justin.tv, which would eventually become Twitch, and served as the CEO of video app SocialCam.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Reddit has named Y Combinator partner Michael Seibel to its board of directors after Alexis Ohanian, Reddit's cofounder, quit last week and called on the company to fill his seat with a Black candidate.

Seibel has been a partner at Y Combinator since 2014 and he currently serves as CEO of its accelerator program, which was where Reddit got its start in 2005. Prior to joining YC, Seibel cofounded Justin.tv, a streaming site that eventually became Twitch. He also served as CEO of video app SocialCam before it was acquired by Autodesk in 2012.

Seibel said in a statement that Reddit is part of the "core fabric of the internet."

"I'm excited to help provide advice and guidance as Reddit continues to grow and tackle the challenges of bringing community and belonging to a broader audience," Seibel said.

Reddit cofounder and CEO Steve Huffman said in a statement that Seibel is "one of the smartest and kindest people in tech" and said the company is honored that he's joining the board.

Seibel's board appointment comes after Ohanian stepped down from his seat last week in what he called a "long overdue" move to "do the right thing." Ohanian is married to tennis superstar Serena Williams, and he said the decision was spurred in part by his family. 

"I'm writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: 'What did you do?'" Ohanian said.

He urged Reddit to replace him with a Black candidate and said he would use future gains on the shares he owns in Reddit to fight racial injustice, beginning with a $1 million donation to Know Your Rights Camp, an organization founded by Colin Kaepernick. 

Ohanian said in a tweet Wednesday morning that Seibel is a "strong leader who will make a great addition to the board."

Reddit has faced criticism in light of protests against police brutality and racial inequality that have spread across the nation in recent weeks. The site has long allowed rampant racism and hate speech on its platform, and critics and even the site's moderators have urged Reddit to explicitly ban violent and hateful rhetoric. Reddit has also been a home for conspiracy theories and harmful misinformation, most recently with users posting unverified information on the coronavirus.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• SpaceX on June 3 launched its eighth batch of internet-beaming Starlink satellites into orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
• On Tuesday, the rocket company released a new video showing the rocket deploying its clamshell-like fairing, or nosecone, while traveling about 8,150 mph.
• The video shows two fairing halves flying apart, followed by the rocket's upper or second stage propelling a stack of 60 Starlink spacecraft toward orbit.
• SpaceX is learning to use boats to recover and reuse its carbon-fiber fairing halves, each of which costs about $3 million to build, but is also working on a potentially revolutionary new rocket system called Starship.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SpaceX on June 3 launched a batch of 60 internet-beaming Starlink satellites into orbit, helping the rocket company work toward establishing a space-based internet service possibly by the year's end.

Some 480 of the desk-size satellites have been launched, though SpaceX needs about 800 to start serving customers, according to COO and president Gwynne Shotwell. The high-stakes project may one day be worth up to $50 billion annually, company founder Elon Musk has said.

The latest Starlink mission careened to space aboard a 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket. It was the company's eighth such Starlink launch, so it was by most appearances similar to the others.

However, this time SpaceX released a new video taken from inside the Falcon 9's payload bay during launch. A camera attached to one of two clamshell-like halves of its fairing, or nosecone, recorded the clip below as the parts separated in space.

"Starlink fairing deploy sequence," SpaceX tweeted on Tuesday evening.

The video lasts all of 10 seconds, but the footage is nonetheless stunning; such views are typically kept secret by other companies, offering a rare look into the workings of a rocket launch.

What SpaceX's new fairing deploy video shows

The movie starts off by showing the illuminated interior of Falcon 9's uppermost payload section.

In the space between the two fairings sits a stack of five dozen Starlink satellites. Along with their deployment mechanisms, the payload weighs about 18 tons, or roughly the mass of a school bus.

In an instant, the fairings fly apart to reveal the darkness of space some 60 miles above Earth while the rocket is traveling at nearly 11 times the speed of sound.

The Starlink stack then zooms out of view as the rocket's second or upper stage propels the payload toward orbit. (The lower or first-stage booster dropped off earlier in the launch, later landing on a boat for recovery and future reuse.)

As the two fairing halves fall back to Earth, they drop through the rocket's exhaust plume. A few sparks fly from the heat of the second stage's engine, and the video ends.

In addition, during a live broadcast of the Starlink launch, SpaceX showed another unprecedented view: the latch-like mechanism by which a stack of Starlink spacecraft is deployed from its rocket ride.

Not the first fairing deployment video

The new fairing video is the second one ever released by SpaceX.

The first, posted to Twitter by SpaceX on July 3, 2019, shows the payload section of a much more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket as it launched the Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission led by the US Department of Defense. The flight was essentially a rideshare of numerous military test satellites (though 152 capsules of human cremains also made it on board).

The video is longer, showing nearly a full minute of footage as the fairings separate and careen back to Earth. Sparks fly and gases glow from the friction caused by the fairing plowing through atmosphere at thousands of miles per hour.

"View from the fairing during the STP-2 mission; when the fairing returns to Earth, friction heats up particles in the atmosphere, which appear bright blue in the video," SpaceX tweeted about the clip with its release.

At the end, a parafoil deploys from the carbon-fiber fairing — each of which cost about $3 million, according to Musk — so SpaceX could try to recover it for reuse on a future space mission. The parafoil helps the fairing glide down to the ocean, where a high-speed SpaceX boat with a giant net can attempt to capture it.

So far, the company has successfully caught three fairing halves with a netted boat, according to SpaceXFleet.com, though it has recovered many more that landed and floated on the ocean.

SpaceX spent years perfecting its fairings, as evidence by the following video recorded on May 27, 2013. 

The clip shows the company testing its design in a giant vacuum chamber at NASA's Plum Brook Station in Cleveland, Ohio. SpaceX engineers recorded the experiment at a very high frame rate to see how the fairing's deployment performed in great detail, so the playback is in slow-motion.

A few months after this test — on September 29, 2013 — SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket payload to orbit.

Although SpaceX has invested greatly in Falcon 9, to the point it can reuse about 80% of its parts and recover tens of millions of dollars in hardware, it's not enough for Musk, the company's CEO and chief designer.

Musk wants to reduce the cost of access to space by more than 1,000-fold in hopes of returning to the moon and sending 1 million people to Mars to inhabit the red planet.

To that end, SpaceX is designing a fully reusable, roughly 39-story launch system called Starship. Over the weekend — just a week after rocketing its first humans to space — Musk reportedly told the company's thousands of employees to consider work on Starship "the top SpaceX priority" going forward.

The vehicle is being built and tested in Boca Chica, a remote area at the southern tip of Texas. A fourth full-scale spaceship prototype exploded during a test firing on May 29, but Musk expects perhaps 20 such experimental vehicles before one flies to orbit and attempts to land back on Earth.

Do you have a story or inside information to share about the spaceflight industry? Send Dave Mosher an email at dmosher+tips@businessinsider.com or a Twitter direct message at @davemosher. More secure communication options are listed here.

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk says it took 100,000 people to launch 2 NASA astronauts into orbit — and that he wasn't sure SpaceX would ever pull off the feat

DON'T MISS: 'We've grown up': SpaceX's failures have prepared the rocket company to launch NASA astronauts for the first time, says president Gwynne Shotwell

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why NASA waited nearly a decade to send astronauts into space from the US

• Amazon announced on Wednesday it is putting a one-year suspension on sales of its facial recognition software Rekognition to law enforcement.
• AI experts and civil rights activists have been campaigning for Amazon to halt the sale of Rekognition to law enforcement for years.
• The ACLU said a one-year suspension is not enough and an AI ethics expert told Business Insider Amazon's statement does not address whether police forces which already have Rekognition will be able to continue using it.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon took an unusual step on Wednesday, recusing itself temporarily from the facial recognition market.

The tech giant announced it would suspend the sale of its facial recognition software Rekognition to law enforcement for one year.

"We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested," Amazon said in its statement.

The announcement came amid the Black Lives Matter protests and renewed concern about the use of facial recognition by law enforcement and government agencies in the US. There is evidence showing the technology is biased against those with darker skin.

For the American Civil Liberties Union, the one-year moratorium is not enough.

"This surveillance technology's threat to our civil rights and civil liberties will not disappear in a year," Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties director for the ACLU, said in a press statement.

"Amazon must fully commit to a blanket moratorium on law enforcement use of face recognition until the dangers can be fully addressed, and it must press Congress and legislatures across the country to do the same."

Why facial recognition is particularly dangerous to people of color

Civil rights organizations and AI experts have been advocating for years for Amazon and others to ban the sale of facial recognition tech, partly because as a policing tool it would be disproportionately used to surveil people of color.

This activism has had a resurgence with the Black Lives Matter protests taking place across the world in the wake of George Floyd's death, and Amazon was accused by its own employees of hypocrisy for voicing support for the protests while continuing to sell Rekognition to police.

"Face recognition technology gives governments the unprecedented power to spy on us wherever we go. It fuels police abuse. This surveillance technology must be stopped," Ozer said.

But on top of the risk that the technology could exacerbate institutional racism, the technology is itself flawed when it comes to identifying people of color.

When building AI-powered technologies like facial recognition, the data used to train the algorithms that make up that technology can ingrain existing biases. So if a dataset is comprised mainly of white faces, the facial recognition software will be good at identifying white people and less good at identifying people with darker skin tones.

A study led by AI researcher Joy Buolamwini published in January 2019 found that Amazon's Rekognition was far worse at recognizing women and people of color. The study, which tasked the program with identifying people's gender, made no errors in identifying the gender of white men but misidentified darker-skinned women as men 31% of the time.

The ACLU also ran a test of Amazon's technology in July 2018 on pictures of members of Congress. Rekognition wrongly identified 28 members of Congress — all of whom were people of color — as people who had been arrested.

Amazon has consistently dismissed criticisms of its software by saying that researchers need to pay more attention to the software's "confidence threshold," a percentage it spits out whenever it makes a match saying how sure it is that it has correctly identified someone.

As Rekognition has been sold to police departments across the US,  multiple reports have emerged from the software's use by police however indicating that in practice law enforcement officers don't pay attention to this confidence threshold either, and are not well trained to recognize the limitations of the technology. A report published in May 2019 by Georgetown's Center on Privacy and Technology found NYPD officers were even running pictures of celebrities through their facial recognition systems to try and identify suspects.

What will happen to the police departments who already use Rekognition?

AI and privacy policy expert Dr. Nakeema Stefflbauer told Business Insider that while it is "great news" that Amazon has halted its Rekognition sales to law enforcement, it still begs the question of what will happen to the police departments who already use it.

"Who will guide or monitor their use of the tool they've licensed? Far better than suspending further sales would be recalling the software altogether, as is commonly done with other faulty or unreliable products," she said.

Mozilla fellow and privacy expert Frederike Kaltheuner also welcomed Amazon's decision, but said praise should not go to Amazon.

"Instead of praising Amazon for its overdue decision, the real story is how activists like Deb Raji and Joy Buolamwini have warned for years that the technology is immature and clearly demonstrates biased performance," she said. "Amazon tried to discredit the authors, and deny their results. Today we should celebrate the hard work that led to Amazon's decision."

Buolamwini welcomed the news in a statement on Twitter.

Amazon's one-year suspension followed an announcement by IBM that it would halt sales of "general purpose" facial recognition. To Kaltheuner, big companies turning away from the tech under activist pressure is a good sign.

"The tide is turning against law enforcement use of face recognition and this is a good thing. There are many other, lesser known companies that sell face recognition (and other invasive and problematic technology) to law enforcement around the world. These companies operate completely under the radar. That's why a moratorium on inaccurate and risky tech is the right move," she said.

SEE ALSO: IBM wins praise for halting sales of its facial recognition tech, but experts say it may have left itself a loophole

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquid

• Zoom deactivated the account of a Tiananmen Square protester after he organized a memorial event for the 1989 protests.
• Zoom said the account was deactivated to "comply with local law" but did not go into further detail.
• The host is US-based, but Zoom's statement suggests some attendees tuned in from China, meaning Chinese censorship laws applied.
• Zoom said it has now reactivated the account.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Zoom, the videoconferencing platform that's ballooned in popularity since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, said on Wednesday it had deactivated an activist group's account for hosting a Tiananmen Square memorial event.

The US-based group, called Humanitarian China, hosted a 31st anniversary event to commemorate Tiananmen Square on May 31, Axios reported. The group is headed up by Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests which culminated in a massacre of protesters on June 4 of that year.

Zhou hosted the event which was attended by some 250 people. Speakers included mothers of students killed during the protests. On June 7, Zhou's account was shut down.

A Zoom spokesperson told Axios the account was deactivated to "comply with local law." Although it did not explicitly say which local law this was, its statement suggested that users joining in from China may have meant the Zoom meeting fell under China's jurisdiction.

"Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate. When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws. We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters," a Zoom spokesperson said.

Zoom has now reactivated the account.

Zhou told Axios Zoom didn't respond to his emails asking why his account was shut down.

"We are outraged by this act from Zoom, a US company," said Zhou. "As the most commercially popular meeting software worldwide, Zoom is essential as an unbanned outreach to Chinese audiences remembering and commemorating Tiananmen Massacre during the coronavirus pandemic."

Although Zoom is headquartered in California, it has already faced scrutiny over how it interacts with China's laws and regulations. In April 2020 the company admitted it had "mistakenly" routed some video calls through servers in China, sparking security concerns. Subsequently the company announced premium users would be able to choose which data centers are used to route their calls, and non-paying users would not have their calls routed through China.

China has stringent censorship laws which ban the discussion of the pro-democracy movement and Tiananmen Square. Zoom's decision to deactivate Zhou's account mirrors reports about TikTok, the wildly popular short-form video app, which was discovered to have been instructing moderators to take down politically contentious content including mentions of Tiananmen Square. TikTok is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing.

SEE ALSO: Zoom CEO Eric Yuan accidentally left his mic on mute while talking to investors over Zoom

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• On Thursday, the developer platform Postman announced that it closed a $150 million Series C funding round at a $2 billion valuation. 
• Postman helps developers build APIs, or application programming interfaces, which allow apps to communicate with — and include features — from other services.
• Postman started as a side project, but it's now used by over 11 million people and 500,000 companies, including Microsoft, Twitter, PayPal, and Cisco.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Postman CEO and cofounder Abhinav Asthana remembers that while interning at Yahoo he noticed that the application programming interfaces (APIs) that he worked with were not well documented, meaning that they didn't include crucial information about how they should be effectively used.

APIs allow apps to communicate with, and include features from, other services: For example, an app may use Facebook or Google's APIs to allow users log in through those other accounts. If an API isn't working for one part of an application, it could break another part, and having poorly documented APIs can exacerbate those problems. Asthana's memories of his API struggles at Yahoo stayed with him "for a while," until he realized that it wasn't only a problem at Yahoo. 

From that epiphany, he built Postman, an API development platform that just raised a $150 million Series C funding round led by Insight Partners. Postman's valuation has soared to a whopping $2 billion thanks to Thursday's news. 

Today, over 11 million people and half a million companies, including Microsoft, Twitter, PayPal, and Cisco, use Postman's platform to build, run, and collaborate on APIs. The company plans to invest the new funding in hiring engineers, designers, and salespeople, and scaling its partnerships. 

"My focus has been helping developers solve this whole challenge of building software, when it comes to building APIs," Asthana told Business Insider. "That's what we've been doing for the past few years. The funding is a big validation of our efforts in growing our community and growing our platform."

Postman started as a side project

Asthana started Postman as a side project in 2012 while also acting as founder and CTO of photography startup TeliportMe. He started interviewing senior architects across industries to learn more about how their companies worked with and collaborated on APIs.

Issues he heard about from those engineers were echoed in his own experience at TeliportMe, where too often one team would update an API without notifying any other teams that could be affected by changes. He wanted to find a way to streamline the API development and update process. 

"It started from a pain point of me wanting to develop APIs and work with my coworkers better," Asthana said.

Postman actually launched as a company in 2014. Since then, Asthana says Postman has become the "de facto standard" for APIs. 

"We just knew we were solving a real fundamental problem," Asthana said. "What we're getting from customers is so phenomenal: how individual developers love it. That has led to an increasing amount of ambition."

Postman's goals for the future

Asthana says that Postman is committed to helping developers in any way they need as the number of APIs increases because of their importance in building apps.

"We're intent on listening to developers," Asthana said. "We call this the 'developer first mentality.' Legacy enterprises didn't listen the way we did when it comes to APIs."

He adds that the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impacts have not affected Postman's adoption and customer growth. If anything, the company's seeing more business than before. 

"We found ourselves in a good place," Asthana said. "What we had been advocating was a good way to build software. It fits the situation a lot better."

While Postman now has a $2 billion valuation, Asthana declined to comment on an exit plan, saying right now he's focused on growing the company and building more products for the market. He says his goal is for Postman to become the API platform for every company.

"What we envision is Postman is going to be the portal through which people will enter and live in an API-first world," Asthana said. "This is where people learn to use APIs for the first time and build APIs for the first time."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.

SEE ALSO: Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Salesforce are taking a stand against systemic racism, but their work with law enforcement could contradict their stances

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tested a machine that brews beer at the push of a button

• Uber has offered the nearly 7,000 employees it laid off in May a fair severance package by nearly all accounts.
• But the company created a lot of confusion because it initially offered the first crop of mostly hourly workers cut on May 6 a less cushy package than it offered the second group of mostly white-collar workers cut on May 18.
• Since Business Insider's inquiries on the discrepancies, Uber has gone back and made the first group's severance package the same as the second's, including a potentially valuable benefit to them concerning their work computer.
• However, employees tell us that the work computer benefit has been a major source of confusion as some employees were allowed to keep theirs and others are not.
• Uber says all laid off employees not allowed to keep their computer will get an extra $1,000 payment instead.
• None of the hourly workers were allowed to keep the computer, and many did not learn about the $1,000 payment until after they signed their initial severance papers.
• Some employees say the initial treatment of the hourly, customer support workers is a symptom of a bigger problem.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As tech companies slash their headcounts to weather the coronavirus crisis, severance packages are in the spotlight. And a recent dust-up around Uber's severance has exposed a contrast that some say illustrates Silicon Valley's two-tier workforce.

When Uber laid off roughly 7,000 employees in May, it did so in two separate episodes, breaking the news to 3,700 primarily customer support staffers on May 6, and two weeks later cutting 3,000 mainly white-collar workers.

The key parts of the severance packages, particularly with regards to the number of weeks paid out, were nearly the same for both groups, and by all accounts fair and generous. But a discrepancy about one conspicuous detail — what happens to employees' personal computers — has caused confusion and added to the stress in a difficult situation.

As part of the severance package, some Uber employees were allowed to keep their work computers, others were not and were offered $1,000 cash payment instead. Uber's hourly workers however, were initially told to turn their computers in without any mention of payment at all.

In response to Business Insider's inquiries, Uber says that it has now gone back to the employees cut on May 6, including the crop of hourly workers, and promised to pay them $1,000 for the computers they turned in.

But confusion has reigned over this benefit for weeks, even for simple things, like Uber saying it would send employees a box so they could send their computers back. It said it wouldn't write the $1,000 check until after the computer and charger was returned, but as of last week, one month after the layoffs, some employees still hadn't received the return boxes.

A generous package bedeviled by an exasperating computer problem

The decision about the computers is a seemingly small detail in the context of a global pandemic and an economic recession that has wreaked havoc on businesses and employees, including the thousands of laid off Uber workers. But for some of the laid-off hourly workers, the ability to keep a computer is a much more meaningful benefit than it is to a salaried employee like a programmer or a marketing professional, many of whom are likely to already own PCs.

The situation has not been helped by the fact that employees are working at home due to the coronavirus.

After the layoffs, Uber remotely locked an undetermined number of computers, requiring a PIN to open, so those employees have not been able to use the computer at all during this time.

And some employees told Business Insider that instructions on erasing the data on the computers and the deadlines for returning the machines have seemed unnecessarily complex. In some cases, people were sent a final waiver that asked them to either return or wipe their computers by a date which had already passed.

Uber says the difference were due to different types of computers and roles among staffers, with some computers able to be wiped remotely, for instance, and some that were not, so that those computers needed to be physically returned for legal reasons. Uber also says the confusion is because it decided to improve the severance package for the May 6 group of laid off workers after the fact, in order to make it match the benefits offered to the May 18 group. So the company has been issuing revised severance documents.

As for other benefits, all workers received four weeks  of "garden leave" pay, four weeks severance, and two weeks for each year worked (with up to 8 weeks total available in this tenure severance pay), as well as health insurance paid until year's end.

Initially, hourly workers and others cut on May 6 who had been employed with Uber less than a year didn't get any tenure severance pay. But Uber has now gone back and granted one week of it to them, so that all employees, no matter their tenure, get at least 10 weeks pay, it says.

We also discovered another thoughtful benefit for the lowest paid, hourly workers known as Community Specialists. Those enrolled in Uber's tuition reimbursement for a bachelors degree at Arizona State University will continue to be granted free courses through the end of the summer. After that time, ASU will offer them a 40% reduction in tuition, one former Uber employee who left before the layoffs, told us.

Computers, bathroom breaks and second-class citizens

While that all sounds like as fair an ending as possible for the laid-off hourly support workers, that initial, lesser severance was a symptom of the second-class status of the lowest-paid workforce, many employees told us.

Uber has about 65 driver support offices known as "Greenlight Hubs" nationwide, as well as a handful of bigger call-center known as Centers of Excellence. People close to the employees who worked at these centers say that they are often run as fiefdoms by the local managers. Employees are subject to the whims of the regional boss.

We've heard stories of nursing mothers not allowed to take extra breaks to pump milk. We've heard talk of employees who feared retaliation if they reported issues to HR, among other stories. 

Uber tells us that it has clear policies on worker treatment including how to support new parents and that it encourages employees to report breaches in policy to its anonymous Integrity Helpline.

Yet, former Uber employees point out: managers who have been the subject of such reports remain working at the company while thousand of hourly folks have been laid off.

Are you an Uber insider with insight to share? Contact Julie Bort via email at jbort@businessinsider.com or on encrypted chat app Signal at (970) 430-6112 (no PR inquiries, please). Open DMs on Twitter @Julie188. 

• Now read:
• These are the first 5 things to do after you get laid off, according to a former WeWork exec who hired 3,000 people and now runs a career coaching startup
• Toxic work relationships can be made worse by remote work and times of stress, an expert says. Here's how to cope.
• Days after layoffs, an Uber exec sold over half her Uber stock for $8.6 million, while cofounder Garrett Camp has sold $69.6 million in stock since March 12

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why electric planes haven't taken off yet

• The EU is to file formal antitrust charges against Amazon over the way it handles third-party sellers, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• If Amazon is found to have violated competition law, it could be fined up to 10% of its annual turnover.
• The EU has spent the last two years probing whether Amazon's use of data from the independent retailers that sell on its marketplace is in breach of EU competition rules.
• Amazon's role as both a platform for merchants and a seller on that same platform has become one of the most contentious areas of the business.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The European Union is planning on filing formal antitrust charges against Amazon over its treatment of third-party sellers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The EU has been building its case and circulating a draft of the charge sheet for a couple of months and could officially file the charges as early as next week or the week after, the report added.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The European Commission began a preliminary investigation into Amazon in 2018 and the following year announced a formal probe. That probe examined whether Amazon's use of data from the independent retailers that sell on its marketplace is in breach of EU competition rules.

Amazon's role as both a platform for merchants and a seller on that same platform has become one of the most contentious areas of the business, and under question is whether the firm uses data to gain an advantage over smaller sellers.

The charges could be filed as early as next week, according to the Journal, and the European Commission could take another year to make a decision. Should the Commission decide against Amazon, the company faces a fine of up to 10% of its annual turnover and restrictions to its business.

Join the conversation about this story »

Hi, this is Amanda Perelli welcoming you back to Influencer Dashboard, our weekly rundown of what's new in the influencer and creator economy.

TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, is one of hottest tech companies in the world and is staffing up rapidly in the US as its wild growth continues (it even recently snagged Disney exec Kevin Mayer to be its new CEO).

This week, my colleague Dan Whateley spoke with a hiring exec at TikTok to see what job applicants can do to stand out. 

Kate Barney, the head of HR for TikTok America's global business solutions team, said TikTok is looking for people ready to dive in headfirst.

The company has hundreds of current job openings for roles in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Austin, and Chicago.

"We're looking for people to grow with the company, so someone who can talk to us about their favorite parts of the product, the ins and outs, what they would change if they were given the opportunity," Barney said.

Don't be afraid to get creative with your application. For instance, one applicant posted a video version of her resume to TikTok highlighting her professional background and interest in the role. The video went viral and landed on the "For You" page of a TikTok HR employee in Chicago.

"I think what was so amazing about this video was that it really showed somebody who was passionate who's going to go above and beyond," Barney said. "For a sales organization, this is putting yourself out there. This is someone who is very much a self-starter, and who's very imaginative and creative."

Here are some key points in how to get noticed as an applicant:

• Reach out to current TikTok employees to prepare for an interview.

• Carefully read through the job description.

• And an obvious but important one: know the app itself.

"If you're not going to make a video, at least have proven that you've watched a few and you know what it is," Barney said. "Figure out what's trending that week. You might not need to know the Toosie Slide, but at least figure out what makes a TikTok video and why they are so fun and joyful."

Read more here on what the company looks for in new hires, and how to stand out as an applicant.

You can read most of the articles here by subscribing to BI Prime. And if this is your first time reading Influencer Dashboard, subscribe to the newsletter here.

A new diverse Instagram influencer group is pitching brands and calling out those that lack representation

Social-media influencer Iesha Vincent (120,000 Instagram followers) recently created a collab group with seven other female travel creators as a way to promote diversity in brand campaigns and call out brands that lack it.

Her group, Babes That Wander, is actively calling for brands to show with their actions (and not just words) that they support Black creators and other creators of color.

I spoke to Vincent who said she wants to see more faces that look like her represented in campaigns by her favorite brands — and she's done staying silent. 

"There's been this issue where we are seeing these elaborate and beautiful influencer trips where brands are taking influencers onto islands, etc.," Vincent said. "But a lot of these influencer trips are whitewashed, no representation of any diversity whether it's race or size."

Read more on how the group plans to help brands close the diversity gap here. 

How much money a YouTube creator with around 50,000 subscribers made in May after her videos on stimulus checks surged in views

Attorney Erika Kullberg left her job as a corporate lawyer six months ago and started a personal-finance YouTube channel, which now has 56,000 subscribers.

"I remember recording my first video and just sweating because I was so nervous looking into the camera," she told me. "Many lawyers told me not to do YouTube because I would 'ruin my professional image.'"

She decided to focus her channel on personal finance after paying off $200,000 in debt by learning how to live frugally, she said.

Toward the end of April (after her video on stimulus checks was picked up by YouTube's algorithm), her channel was accepted into YouTube's Partner Program — making May the first month she earned revenue off YouTube, she said.

In 30 days, her channel went from about 2,000 subscribers on YouTube to over 40,000 subscribers because of her popular videos on stimulus checks.

Read more on how YouTube's algorithm helped her success and how much money she earned in May here. 

What else happened on BI Prime:

• Top influencer revenue sources, ranked: Dan and I reported on a survey of 69 influencers conducted earlier this year by the influencer platform Influence.co, which highlights the many sources of revenue available to creators in 2020.

• Inside Quibi's productions: Ashley Rodriguez got the inside story of how people who have developed or worked on shows for Quibi feel about the short-form video service post-launch.

YouTube video of the week: How to financially help BLM with no money

In response to George Floyd's death, many social-media creators have spoken out online demanding change.

As a way to help raise money for bail funds and Black Lives Matter advocacy groups, YouTube creator Zoe Amira uploaded a 56-minute livestream to her YouTube channel toward the end of May. All of the money earned from the video, which featured art made by Black creators, would be donated, she said. 

"This video project was created to offer people a way to donate and financially contribute to #blacklivesmatter without having any actual money or going out to protest themselves," Amira wrote in the video description. 

The video, which was titled: "How to financially help BLM with NO MONEY/leaving your house (Invest in the future for FREE)," has since been taken down by YouTube for violating YouTube's monetization guidelines, according to Amira on Twitter. 

When I checked the video early Wednesday, the livestream had 9.7 million views. Earlier this week, Amira shared a screenshot of her YouTube Creator Dashboard on Twitter showing that the video earned over $42,000 from Google-placed ads. 

She tweeted on Wednesday: "The actual ad money raised is going back to the advertisers, because the video is in violation of guidelines, but YouTube has pledged to donate the amount that you all have raised."

All of the money will be donated to associations that offer protester bail funds, or help pay for family funerals and advocacy, according to the YouTube video description.

You can check out her channel here: Zoe Amira. 

This week from Insider's digital culture team:

• Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute fired from 'Vanderpump Rules': Margot Harris wrote that the stars would not be returning to the show following racist actions. 

• Kendall Jenner denies editing Black Lives Matter photo: Rachel Greenspan wrote that a viral picture appearing to show Jenner holding a Black Lives Matter poster was photoshopped.

• Jake Paul was accused of taking credit for a fundraiser: Lindsay Dodgson wrote that Paul had been criticized for appearing to take the credit for someone else's Black Lives Matter fundraiser.

• Chicago's Lollapalooza festival will take place virtually: Palmer Haasch reported that the 2020 festival will not take place in person, but will instead take place virtually from July 30 to Aug. 2.

Here's what else we're reading:

• Bon Appétit's staffers of color say it has a 'toxic' culture: Rachel Premack from Business Insider spoke with contributors and employees at BA who described its leadership treating people of color unfairly.

• The TikTok House Wreaking Havoc Next Door: Taylor Lorenz from The New York Times spoke with neighbors of Sway House, a TikTok collab house, who said the social-media stars don't make great neighbors. 

• YouTube guide to monetization: Julia Alexander from The Verge wrote about YouTube publishing a breakdown to earning money through advertising, offering more transparency to creators. 

• Influencers are using protests are backdrops for Instagram: Sarah Manavis from New Statesman wrote that some social-media stars are using the protests as photo background and are getting extreme backlash for it. 

Thanks for reading! Send me your tips, comments, or questions: aperelli@businessinsider.com.

Subscribe to the newsletter here.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• $60 billion quant fund Two Sigma has hired Jeffrey Wecker from Goldman Sachs to be the firm's next chief technology officer.
• The fund's current CTO, well-known computer scientist Alfred Spector, is retiring, according to a release from the firm.
• The firm also recently lost a long-time tech leader, Andrew Janian, to rival Citadel; Janian had served in a variety of roles, including chief information officer, and head of data engineering for Two Sigma.
• Wecker, the new CTO, has extensive financial services experience compared to his predecessor, Spector, who came from Google and IBM.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The person in-charge of one of the hedge industry's top engineering teams is stepping down.

Alfred Spector, the well-known computer scientist who had been Two Sigma's chief technology for five years, is retiring, according to the $60 billion fund. Taking his place is Jeffrey Wecker, a partner at Goldman Sachs who was the bank's first-ever chief data officer. His resume also includes stints at Ray Dalio's Bridgewater and Lehman Brothers. 

"Jeff brings an ideal combination of commercial experience, business acumen, and technical understanding of data analytics and architecture to Two Sigma," said David Siegel, co-founder and co-chairman of Two Sigma in the release.

"Science and technology anchor Two Sigma's offerings, and we look forward to leveraging Jeff's unique expertise as we continue to grow the company."

Compared to Spector, Wecker's financial services background is extensive. In addition to his time at Goldman, he was also the CEO of Caspian Asset Management, along with his time at Bridgewater and Lehman. Spector had worked at tech firms for his career prior to joining Two Sigma, specifically Google and IBM. 

Read more:Citadel just poached Two Sigma's data chief for its tech team — and it's the latest sign of how aggressively the $30 billion firm is pursuing top talent from Wall Street and Silicon Valley

"Data-driven systems have taken on increasing importance across financial services over the last decade, and Two Sigma is a true leader in developing and applying advanced quantitative methods to discover areas of opportunity," said Wecker in the release. He is set to join Two Sigma in July.

Wecker retired from Goldman in December 2019, and his responsibilities were split up among several managing directors, according to people familiar with the matter. At Goldman, Wecker placed data offices throughout the bank's many different departments, and at Ray Dalio's fund, he was the chief business architect in charge of changing the firm's investment engine. 

Two Sigma, which is notable within the fast-paced hedge-fund industry for low turnover among employees, also recently lost a longtime tech leader in Andrew Janian. Janian is joining Citadel after he waits out his garden leave, as previously reported.

The firm filled his role internally but declined to say who has taken over his responsibilities. 

Read more: 

• Goldman Sachs has lost at least 54 partners since David Solomon became CEO. We're keeping a running list — and compiling details from insiders about how the exits are being celebrated.
• Hedge funds are in uncharted waters right now. Here's how 12 billionaires like Ray Dalio, Ken Griffin, and Seth Klarman survived the last time the world fell apart.
• Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones says the pandemic has thrown off economic models so much that people would 'be better off getting financial advice from TikTok'
• For more stories like this, sign up here for our Wall Street Insider newsletter 

SEE ALSO: Citadel just poached Two Sigma's data chief for its tech team — and it's the latest sign of how aggressively the $30 billion firm is pursuing top talent from Wall Street and Silicon Valley

SEE ALSO: Goldman Sachs' top tech exec explains how a fresh slew of senior hires are transforming the bank's approach to building products

SEE ALSO: The world's biggest hedge funds like Bridgewater are blending quantitative and fundamental trading. Here's why it's gaining hype on Wall Street.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How waste is dealt with on the world's largest cruise ship

• Some of Quibi's content partners are starting to wonder whether the startup has backed itself into a corner by distancing itself too much from social media.
• In its first few months, Quibi kept a tight grip on the clips and other assets that its partners could use to promote its content on social media, people who worked on Quibi shows told Business Insider.
• "They created this walled garden that you could only see these things on Quibi," one person said.
• Quibi is showing signs of easing off on that approach. In recent weeks, it released on social media two full, topical episodes of one of its daily series.
• If you have a tip about Quibi, contact the author at arodriguez@businessinsider.com, or message her on Signal at 347-770-5933.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The mobile-video service Quibi was designed for minutes-long videos that were higher in quality — and more like TV — than those on free, digital-first platforms like Snapchat Discover and Facebook Watch.

But some of its content partners are starting to wonder whether the startup has backed itself into a corner by distancing itself too much from social media. Quibi has yet to land a hit show, or anything close to it.

During May and June, Business Insider spoke with 10 people who had developed or worked on shows for Quibi. The people asked to remain anonymous because they did not have permission to speak about Quibi's productions.

Some of the insiders said they'd been pushing Quibi to make its content more discoverable on social platforms.

"The original sin of Quibi is that it's a closed ecosystem," one development exec working at a Quibi content partner said. "They created this walled garden that you could only see these things on Quibi."

The people said Quibi kept a tight grip on the clips and other assets that its partners could use to promote their shows on social media.

The Quibi app also blocks users from taking screenshots of its content, preventing people from easily sharing moments outside the platform. Mobile apps from competitors like Netflix and Hulu do this too, but users can capture content on web browsers and desktops, Business Insider's Paige Leskin reported.

Other streamers, like Netflix, have largely embraced Twitter, Instagram, and other social platforms to build buzz around their programming. "Tiger King" was a huge win for Netflix in part because memes and clips inspired by the docuseries went viral. And Disney Plus' "The Mandalorian" might not have been the success it was if not for the wave of Baby Yoda memes.

"Quibi wants to be the future of streaming and how people get daily information and entertainment," a second development exec working with a Quibi content partner said. "We're all wondering how that can happen in a world where you need that organic conversation to really blow up."

In recent weeks, Quibi has started sharing more content on social media.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Tax Day is now July 15 — this is what it's like to do your own taxes for the very first time

• Workplace communications startup Spike has raised $8 million in a funding round backed by Insight Partners, Wix, and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. 
• The Tel Aviv-based firm promises to combine the best features of email, Slack, Zoom, and Google Docs in a single platform. 
• CEO Dvir Ben-Aroya told Business Insider the firm had seen a surge in demand as COVID-19 forced millions to work from home. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Spike, the workplace communications app, has raised $8 million in a Series A fundraising round backed by Insight Partners and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. 

The firm, founded in 2017 by Israeli entrepreneurs Dvir Ben-Aroya and Erez Pilosof, promises users a seamless experience with email, instant messaging, video calls, and task management combined in a single platform. 

"We use so many applications to keep track of our work now," Ben-Aroya told Business Insider. "Emails, Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, calendars, and so on. We thought it made much more sense to put them in the same place." 

Spike previously raised $5 million in a seed round last March, backed by Yuan, website design firm Wix, and venture capital firm NFX. 

While the company declined to release specific numbers, Ben-Aroya said Spike's usage began to skyrocket in February, as millions around the world were forced to work from home due to COVID-19. 

He added that this period of growth had been "entirely organic", with no additional spend on advertising. 

"Right now, we're just 14 people based here in Tel Aviv," he said. "But, with the money we've raised today, we hope to double that within the next 12 months." 

Daniel Aronovitz, VP at Insight Partners, told Business Insider: "We are an extremely passionate group of software experts and operators and it was the passion with which Dvir walked us through the company vision that helped persuade us to partner with the talented Spike team. 

"We were fortunate to receive strong recommendations from a handful of our early talent scouts in Israel who raved about the product and strength of their team, furthering our conviction." 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tested a machine that brews beer at the push of a button

• Workplace communications startup Spike has raised $8 million in a funding round backed by Insight Partners, Wix, and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. 
• The Tel Aviv-based firm promises to combine the best features of email, Slack, Zoom, and Google Docs in a single platform. 
• CEO Dvir Ben-Aroya told Business Insider the firm had seen a surge in demand as COVID-19 forced millions to work from home. 
• We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck Spike used to bring on Yuan, Insight Partners, and Wix. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Spike, the workplace communications app, has raised $8 million in a Series A fundraising round backed by Insight Partners and Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. 

The firm, founded in 2017 by Israeli entrepreneurs Dvir Ben-Aroya and Erez Pilosof, promises users a seamless experience with email, instant messaging, video calls, and task management combined in a single platform. 

"We use so many applications to keep track of our work now," Ben-Aroya told Business Insider. "Emails, Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, calendars, and so on. We thought it made much more sense to put them in the same place." 

Spike previously raised $5 million in a seed round last March, backed by Yuan, website design firm Wix, and venture capital firm NFX. 

We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck Spike used to bring in its big-name investors:

• Quolum, a startup aiming to help companies control their spending on SaaS subscriptions, launched out of Sequoia's Surge accelerator program with $2.75 million in seed capital. 
• A group of senior enterprise tech executives, including ThoughtSpot CEO Sudheesh Nair, Google Pay head Piyush Ranjan, and Amazon's Kintan Brahmabhatt, also backed the startup. 
• Quolum CEO Indus Khaitan has been immersed in the enterprise sector for more than 15 years, and noticed that companies had yet to come up with a way to keep track of their spending on Asana, Slack, Zoom. 
• As companies look for ways to save costs during the coronavirus pandemic, software subscriptions are likely to become a growing area of focus.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Large corporations looking to scale down on subscriptions to different software services now have a way to begin cutting responsibly — by testing another software. 

Quolum, a startup aiming to help companies control their spending on software-as-a-service (SaaS), announced that it would be launching a beta version of its software on Thursday. 

The startup, which got its start in Sequoia's Surge accelerator program, announced that it raised $2.75 million in seed capital from Sequoia and Nexus Ventures. A group of senior enterprise tech executives, including Thoughtspot CEO Sudheesh Nair, Google Pay head Piyush Ranjan, and Amazon's Kintan Brahmabhatt, also backed the startup. 

Quolum aims to sell its software to large companies, who can often fall victim to hasty employee spending. By keeping track of employee usage data, Quolum's software allows companies to approve and keep track of the different software subscriptions that its hundreds of employees use and expense to the company.

The software is intended to prevent company spending from piling up unnoticed, Quolum CEO Indus Khaitan explained. A company shouldn't be paying for hundreds of licenses on Zoom, Slack Asana, and other tools unless its employees were using it, so Quolum keeps track of employee usage data and issues recommendations to tweak spending on subscriptions depending on the software's popularity. 

"Ad hoc" spending on software spending is a problem that the startup's CEO Indus Khaitan has followed closely for the last few years, as the SaaS industry has exploded in popularity. Khaitan's worked in the enterprise sector for the past 15 years, and sold his last startup to Oracle in 2013. Over the years, he's also served as Sequoia's entrepreneur-in-residence in Singapore, so he's had a chance to observe the industry from a variety of different angles. 

Khaitan said that office spending on enterprise software reminded him of unregulated office spending on websites like Amazon and eBay in the heyday of the dotcom era. Back then, he could theoretically choose to buy anything and expense it to the company without first going through any process for keeping track of spending. Today, companies have separate teams to negotiate prices and deal with vendors for basic things like office furniture or snacks, but lack those processes for software spending. 

"If you want to buy an office furniture, guess what, your department will squeeze the hell out of the vendor," Khaitan said. "They don't do the same thing for SaaS." 

Cutting software spending in the pandemic

Khaitan isn't the only entrepreneur to see opportunity in this space. Vendr, a Y Combinator-based startup that helps companies cut down their software spending, announced that it had raised $4 million from Craft Ventures earlier this week. But the market for such a product otherwise appears sparsely populated. 

Quolum's pitch also comes at a time when companies are grappling with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. As companies grow cash-strapped and begin to work under squeezed budgets, many have already started to go through their software subscriptions and make cuts.  

Khaitan, who has been tracking these cuts closely in the weeks leading up to Quolum's launch, says that companies are dealing with a tough trade off — they need to make sure that their sales pipelines and customer relationships remain unaffected. 

"You don't want to switch off the electricity. You want to utilize that part of the room and sit in the AC and then switch off and go to the next one," Khaitan explained, by way of analogy. "You don't want to curtail innovation, but you want to be responsible to what you are cutting." 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America