Technology

I was a little astonished to receive an email from a small iPhone case manufacturer sharing details today of its new case for the iPhone 9, and now it looks like this isn&t an exception, but a wave. Is Apple about to introduce the device?

Apple's March announcement?

The Apple rumor websites are packed with reported iPhone 9 case sightings. 9to5Mac tells us cases for the device are arriving at retailers (including Best Buy) with &an April 5 merchandising date."

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Just three months after capping what was the best year for Indian startups, having raised a record $14.5 billion in 2019, they are beginning to struggle to raise new capital as prominent investors urge them to &prepare for the worst&, cut spending and warn that it could be challenging to secure additional money for the next few months.

In an open letter to startup founders in India, ten global and local private equity and venture capitalist firms including Accel, Lightspeed, Sequoia Capital, and Matrix Partners cautioned that the current changes to the macro environment could make it difficult for a startup to close their next fundraising deal.

The firms, which included Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners — some of the prominent names in India to back early-stage startups — asked founders to be prepared to not see their startups& jump in the coming rounds and have a 12-18 month runway with what they raise.

&Assumptions from bull market financings or even from a few weeks ago do not apply. Many investors will move away from thinking about ‘growth at all costs& to ‘reasonable growth with a path to profitability.& Adjust your business plan and messaging accordingly,& they added.

Signs are beginning to emerge that investors are losing appetite to invest in the current scenario.

Indian startups participated in 79 deals to raise $496 million in March, down from $2.86 billion that they raised across 104 deals in February and $1.24 billion they raised from 93 deals in January this year, research firm Tracxn told TechCrunch. In March last year, Indian startups had raised $2.1 billion across 153 deals, the firm said.

New Delhi ordered a complete nation-wide lockdown for its 1.3 billion people for three weeks earlier this month in a bid to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

The lockdown, as you can imagine, has severely disrupted businesses of many startups, several founders told TechCrunch.

Vivekananda Hallekere, co-founder and chief executive of mobility firm Bounce, said he is prepared for a 90-day slowdown in the business.

Founder of a Bangalore-based startup, which was in advanced stages to raise more than $100 million, said investors have called off the deal for now. He requested anonymity.

Food delivery firm Zomato, which raised $150 million in January, said it would secure an additional $450 million by the end of the month. Two months later, that money is yet to arrive.

Many startups are already beginning to cut salaries of their employees and let go of some people to survive an environment that aforementioned VC firms have described as &uncharted territory.&

Travel and hotel booking service Ixigo said it had cut the pay of its top management team by 60% and rest of the employees by up to 30%. MakeMyTrip, the giant in this category, also cut salaries of its top management team.

Beauty products and cosmetics retailer Nykaa on Tuesday suspended operations and informed its partners that it would not be able to pay their dues on time.

Investors cautioned startup founders to not take a &wait and watch& approach and assume that there will be a delay in their &receivables,& customers would likely ask for price cuts for services, and contracts would not close at the last minute.

&Through the lockdown most businesses could see revenues going down to almost zero and even post that the recovery curve may be a ‘U& shaped one vs a ‘V& shaped one,& they said.

Itmany decades ago, and this pilot fishcompany gets a call from a customer, a small townmunicipal waterworks.A pipe has burst pipe at the pumping station, which also happens to be the site of the waterworks& business offices.

Good news, though: The computer (yes, there is only one) is fine, having been located on a desk above the high-water mark.But all the floppy disks holding backups are ruined.Those had been stored in the &vault,& which is actually a pit in the concrete floor protected by a lockable manhole cover.

The reason for the call is that city hall requires the water department to keep the six most recent monthly backups.

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Vericool, a Livermore, Calif.-based startup thatreplacing plastic coolers and packaging with plant-based products, has raised $19.1 million in a new round of financing.

The companystated goal is to replace traditional packaging materials like polystyrene with plant-based insulating packaging materials.

Its technology uses 100% recycled paper fibers and other plant-based materials, according to the company, and are curbside recyclable and compostable.

Investors in the round include Radicle Impact Partners,The Ecosystem Integrity Fund,ID8 InvestmentsandAiiM Partners, according to a statement.

&We&re pleased to support Vericool because of the companytrack record of innovation, high-performance products, well-established patent portfolio and focus on environmental resilience. We are inspired by the companysocial justice commitment to address recidivism and provide workplace opportunity to formerly incarcerated individuals,& said Dan Skaff, managing partner of Radicle Impact Partners and Vericoolnew lead director.

As healthcare providers face unprecedented challenges fighting the COVID-19 outbreak worldwide, electronic health record (EHR) systems are having to adapt to shifting requirements for patient care.

&We have never had an international crisis of this proportion in the lifetime of the current EHR,& said Dana Bensinger MSN, RN-BC, informatics nurse specialist and client solution executive at consulting firm CTG. &Once things settle down, there will be a lot of analysis of how well our systems performed, what our areas of vulnerability are, and how we fix them for the future.&

With a surge in demand for hospital capacity, one of the challenges facing hospital IT staffers is figuring out how to quickly deploy EHR systems to alternative care locations.

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Xerox announced today that it would be dropping its hostile takeover bid of HP. The drama began last fall with a flurry of increasingly angry letters between the two companies, and confrontational actions from Xerox, including an attempt to take over the HP board that had rejected its takeover overtures.

All that came crashing to the ground today when Xerox officially announced it was backing down amid worldwide economic uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also indicated it was dropping its bid to take over the board.

&The current global health crisis and resulting macroeconomic and market turmoil caused by COVID-19 have created an environment that is not conducive to Xerox continuing to pursue an acquisition of HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) (‘HP&). Accordingly, we are withdrawing our tender offer to acquire HP and will no longer seek to nominate our slate of highly qualified candidates to HPBoard of Directors,& the company said in a statement.

As for HP, it said it was strong financially and would continue to drive shareholder value, regardless of the outcome:

We remain firmly committed to driving value for HP shareholders. HP is a strong company with market leading positions across Personal Systems, Print, and 3D Printing - Digital Manufacturing. We have a healthy cash position and balance sheet that enable us to navigate unanticipated challenges such as the global pandemic now before us, while preserving strategic optionality for the future.

The bid never made a lot of sense. Xerox is a much smaller company, with a market cap of around $4 billion compared with HP with a market cap of almost $25 billion. It was truly a case of the canary trying to eat the cat.

Yet Xerox continued to insist today, even while admitting defeat, that it would have been better to combine the two companies, something HP never felt was realistic. HP questioned the ability of Xerox to come up with such a large sum of money, and, if it did, would it be financially stable enough to pull off a deal like this.

Yet even as recently as last month, Xerox increased the bid from $22 to $24 per share in an effort to entice shareholders to bite. It had previously threatened to bypass the board and go directly to shareholders before attempting to replace the board altogether.

HP didn&t like the hostility inherent in the bid or any of the subsequent moves Xerox made to try to force a deal. Last month, HP offered its investors billions in give-backs in an effort to convince them to reject the Xerox bid. As it turned out, the drama simply fizzled out in the middle of a worldwide crisis.