INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Good morning friends, and welcome back toTechCrunch Equity Monday, a short-form audio hit to kickstart your week
Regular Equity episodes still drop Friday morning, so if you&ve listened to the show over the years, don''t worry — we&re not changing the
main show.
For folks hunting for our longer-form work, here last week episodewithDanny Crichton and Natasha Mascarenhas, and here yesterday
interview with YC boss Michael Seibel.
Equity Monday is a day late this week as I was off yesterday, but it here today and what a mess the
That was a key theme of the show, but not the only thing that we mentioned
Here are some other bits of news that caught our eye:
GoJek raised $1.2 billion more, a stunning round for this time in the venture
cycle.
HashiCorp raised $175 million at a valuation of more than $5 billion, a huge round at an enormous price in any era, but even more so
in today market.
AI startups are being snapped up at record rates, with a record-setting 231 deals in 2019
According to the same data set, the Big Five were buying the most AI startups, along with Intel.
Looking ahead there little to anticipate
aside from Tencent earnings
So, instead, meet Hourly, a neat company that just raised $7.2 million.
Hourly
Hourly provides a software solution for labor tracking and
payroll processing, noting industries like construction, service and light industry on its website
If a company has a workforce that gets paid by the hour (the company name is a tip-off), Hourly wants to help them keep tabs on the labor,
and help them pay for it.
The startup charges for its tooling on a recurring basis, a regular setup for a modern software product delivered
After paying some modest base prices, time tracking costs $8 per employee per month, while its payroll service costs a bit more at $10 per
According to Hourly CEO Tom Sagi, the company may bundle the two services in the future and offer a discount of perhaps 20% for companies
that buy both.
Time tracking and payroll, however, aren''t the only ways that Hourly generates revenue.
Growth
Hourly also drives top line
through its workers& compensation insurance product, which it refers to as &powered by& itself and &backed by A-rated carriers.& According
to Sagi, the company currently generates about half its revenue from workers comp commissions.
That means that Hourly has a two-part SaaS
business and a technology-powered insurance business
(Sagi detailed to TechCrunch the ins and outs of worker comp payments, employee classification and more; it reasonably complex, perhaps
providing the startup with a moat of sorts.) If that sounds pretty impressive for a company that just put together $7.2 million, it is —
at least compared to how much other startups seem to get done before a round of that size.
How did Hourly get so far with so little money?
The firm bootstrapped, hiring engineers in Colombia — the firm now has 10 staffers in that country, but is headquartered out of Palo Alto
Keeping its costs low let Hourly avoid outside capital — aside from things like family funding and credit cards — before today
And that means that for its external capital base, the company feels somewhat product-mature.
That maturity is letting it bring on larger
According to Sagi, Hourly has been increasingly &appealing to larger companies,& which he clarified to mean firms with 20 people or more
Larger customers means larger contract values, which can mean faster growth.
What else?
Oh just the closing of the unicorn exit window for
Aside from distressed sales, what sort of company would want to exit in a time like this? More from the Equity crew soon, hang tight.
Equity
drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts.
