Vista acquires Gainsight for $1.1B, adding to its growing enterprise arsenal

Vista Equity Partners hasn’t been shy about scooping up enterprise companies over the years, and today it added to a growing portfolio with its purchase of Gainsight.  The company’s software helps clients with customer success, meaning it helps create a positive customer experience when they interact with your brand, making them more likely to come back and recommend you to others. Sources pegged the price tag at $1.1 billion.

As you might expect, both parties are putting a happy face on the deal, talking about how they can work together to grow Gainsight further. Certainly, other companies like Ping Identity seem to have benefited from joining forces with Vista. Being part of a well capitalized firm allowed them to make some strategic investments along the way to eventually going public last year.

Gainsight and Vista are certainly hoping for a similar outcome in this case. Monti Saroya, co-head of the Vista Flagship Fund and senior managing director at the firm sees a company with a lot of potential that could expand and grow with help from Vista’s consulting arm, which helps portfolio companies with different aspects of their business like sales, marketing and operations.

“We are excited to partner with the Gainsight team in its next phase of growth, helping the company to expand the category it has created and deliver even more solutions that drive retention and growth to businesses across the globe,” Saroya said in a statement.

Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta likes the idea of being part of Vista’s portfolio of enterprise companies, many of whom are using his company’s products.

“We’ve known Vista for years, since 24 of their portfolio companies use Gainsight. We’ve seen Gainsight clients like JAMF and Ping Identity partner with Vista and then go public. We believe we are just getting started with customer success, so we wanted the right partner for the long term and we’re excited to work with Vista on the next phase of our journey,” Mehta told TechCrunch.

Brent Leary, principle analyst at CRM Essentials, who covers the sales and marketing space says that it appears that Vista is piecing together a sales and marketing platform that it could flip or go public in a few years.

“It’s not only the power that’s in the platform, it’s also the money. And Vista seems to be piecing together an engagement platform based on the acquisitions of Gainsight, Pipedrive and even last year’s Acquia purchase. Vista isn’t afraid to spend big money, if they can make even bigger money in a couple years if they can make these pieces fit together,” Leary told me.

Vista Equity Partners buys Acquia for $1B

While Gainsight exits as a unicorn, the deal might not have been the outcome it was looking for. The company raised over $187 million, according to Pitchbook data, though its fundraising had slowed in recent years. Gainsight raised $50 million in April of 2017 at a post-money valuation of $515 million, again per Pitchbook. In July of 2018 it added $25 million to its coffers, and the final entry was a small debt investment raised in 2019.

It could be that the startup saw its growth slow down, leaving it somewhere between ready for new venture investment and profitability. That’s a gap that PE shops like Vista look for, write a check, shake up a company and hopefully exit at an elevated price.

Gainsight hired a new chief revenue officer last month, notably. Per Forbes, the company was on track to reach “about” $100 million ARR by the end of 2020, giving it a revenue multiple of around 11x in the deal. That’s under current market norms, which could imply that Gainsight had either lower gross margins than comparable companies, or as previously noted, that its growth had slowed.

A $1.1 billion exit is never something to bemoan — and every startup wants to become a unicorn — but Gainsight and Mehta are well known, and we were hoping for the details only an S-1 could deliver. Perhaps one day with Vista’s help that could happen.

Private equity firms can offer enterprise startups a viable exit option

Infogrid raises $15.5M from Northzone to retrofit buildings with ‘smart’ IoT

Infogrid, an IoT startup which can retrofit an existing building to make it “smart”, has raised $15.5 million. The Series A funding round was led by Northzone, with participation from JLL Spark, Concrete VC, The Venture Collective, Jigsaw VC, an unnamed real estate investment group and an unnamed large international asset owner, although one report speculated that it is Starwood Capital, the property-focused investor.

Infogrid’s platform combines IoT sensors with proprietary AI analysis and has had some success re-vamping facilities management (FM) for some of the world’s largest FM providers, such as global banks, supermarkets, restaurant chains and the NHS. Infogrid also has an “impact-style” mission to enable businesses to reduce the environmental and social cost of their buildings while simultaneously benefitting their bottom line and asset values.

Infogrid’s system can detect when refrigerated products are being kept outside the required temperature range, measure air quality and check for virus risk indicators such as Legionnaires’ disease in water pipes.

William Cowell de Gruchy, founder/CEO and a former British Army officer, said in a statement: “Until now, the lack of viable and scalable technology has meant that facilities management is one of the last industries to be enhanced by digitization, despite covering the world’s largest asset class. Infogrid’s end-to-end smart building system finally arms organizations with insight to take control and take action. This new era of insight and automation will bring about a positive impact on the efficiencies of businesses, the wellbeing of employees, and the environmental footprint of buildings.”

Jeppe Zink, partner at Northzone added: “With the world undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history, the built environment already generates 39% of annual global carbon emissions. We were instantly drawn to Infogrid for its ability to future-proof buildings in the long-term.”

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Strike first, strike hard, no mercy: How emerging managers can win

TX Zhuo Contributor

TX Zhuo is the managing partner of Fika Ventures, focusing on fintech, enterprise software and marketplace opportunities.

More posts by this contributor

• A COVID-19 resilience test for B2B companies
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Huston Collins Contributor

Huston Collins is an investor at Fika Ventures. He was previously an associate at Greenspring Associates where he started the firm’s machine learning platform.

Like many of us during COVID-19, I’ve found myself watching a bit more TV than I’m typically accustomed to. My latest binge? “The Karate Kid” series continuation “Cobra Kai” on Netflix.

A long-time fan of “The Karate Kid,” I find my style’s a bit more Miyagi-Do, but, in reflecting upon my last few years as a founding GP at a young VC firm, I see some parallels between what it takes to win as an emerging manager and the mantras by which the Cobra Kai school abides.

Before diving into that, let me quickly set the stage for what the competitive landscape looks like for emerging managers these days. I’ll focus primarily on the seed landscape here, but the Cobra Kai framework applies just as readily to later stage funds as well.

Leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, the venture industry saw a record number of dollars raised by seed funds less than $100 million in size. As is the case across stages however, there has been a notable decline in seed volume in the wake of COVID-19.

U.S. fundraising activity for sub-$100M seed rounds. Data source: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Image Credits: Fika Ventures

The opposing dynamics of a contraction in deal volume and an unprecedented amount of readily available investable capital has led to a tremendous amount of competition for the highest-quality deals. This flight to quality can be clearly seen in the rise of seed valuations in the upper quartile compared to the decline in other cohorts. Amid a backdrop of COVID chaos, upper quartile valuations have hit an all-time high.

Angel/seed pre-money valuations by quartile. Data source: PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Image Credits: Fika Ventures

Due to their smaller fund size and prescriptive portfolio construction mandates, emerging managers have little leeway in terms of the valuations at which they can invest — their ownership requirements and check size limits impose a hard ceiling to which their investors hold them strictly accountable.

If budging on valuation is not a viable tactic to compete against established firms — which, in addition to their ability to be less price sensitive also boast more recognizable brand names, larger teams and higher AUM that affords them higher budgets for platform resources — how can emerging managers win? Enter Cobra Kai.

Strike first

Let’s face it. As an emerging manager, the chances of you winning a deal once the established players start to circle drops precipitously. In order to win, you need to have a first-mover advantage.

On a practical level, there are two windows of opportunity to achieve this:

HungryPanda raises $70M for a food delivery app aimed at overseas Chinese consumers

Food delivery apps have been a big deal this year both for consumers stuck at home and unable (or unwilling) to go to restaurants or grocery stores, and for investors who are eyeing the opportunity to back rising stars to help them grow.

Today came the latest development in that story: HungryPanda, which makes a Mandarin-language app specifically targeting Chinese consumers outside of China, has raised $70 million to continue its global expansion in delivering food from Chinese restaurants and Asian grocery stores targeting the Chinese diaspora.

Estimates put the number of Chinese people living abroad (counting students and first-generation immigrants, and counting those living outside of the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) at around 50 million, with most of them concentrated in other Asian countries, so that is a specific target for the startup. Longer term, there are tens of millions more people if you consider second, third and further generations of people, although that will likely see big changes to the app, including introducing other languages.

The funding comes on the back of a surge of usage of HungryPanda. It is now live in 47 cities (versus 31 in February of this year) across Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and the U.K. — the country where it was founded. Growing some 30-fold in the last three years, HungryPanda’s CEO and founder Eric Liu said in an interview that it is already profitable in its earliest markets in the U.K., as well as in New York City, and is safely en route to getting into the black in other locations, too.

The Series C is being led by Kinnevik (a prolific backer of e-commerce startups), with participation also from 83North and Felix Capital (which backed HungryPanda in its last round of $20 million earlier this year), as well as Piton Capital and Burda Principal Investment.

HungryPanda, a food delivery app for Chinese communities, raises $20 million

HungryPanda is not disclosing its valuation right now, but it’s notable that most of its four-year life has been spent bootstrapped — it has raised only $90 million to date, all of it this year.

Food apps have come into their own in 2020. Already popular with consumers who like the convenience of using a phone or website to browse and order food to be brought to their door during the COVID-19 pandemic, many services were stretched to capacity in cities where people were being ordered to shelter in place and restaurants were closed.

E-marketer estimates that in the U.S. alone, usage went up by more than 25%. It all still came at a cost, though. For example, the increased measures that needed to be taken to ensure social distancing meant higher costs for the companies, which are often already stretched in their unit economics.

In that sea of apps, however, you might be hard-pressed to distinguish one from another. At one point in the U.K., for example, even the delivery bags and logos of two big rivals, Deliveroo and Uber Eats, looked the same.

HungryPanda is a very different bird compared to these. For starters, the whole app is in Mandarin. And it focuses primarily (in most cases, only) on Chinese food. If you want pizza or a burger, or if you want to read the menu in English, go somewhere else.

The app was founded four years ago by Liu, who was an international student in computer science at the University of Nottingham. Coming over from China, even though there are indeed a number of Chinese restaurants in the city, he and other Chinese students found it nearly impossible to order from them.

The reasons? All of the menus were in English, and the names of dishes, as they were translated, had no meaning for them; and in any case, they were all essentially filtered and altered for local (read: British) palates. This was a bigger deal than it might be for some: Chinese people prefer to eat “traditional” food, said Liu, and they take the business of eating very seriously.

His solution was to build an app that provided all the information to students like him in a format that they could actually use, including items that typically might only be offered on side menus to Chinese customers in Mandarin, if at all.

What’s interesting is that while food delivery unit economics can be very challenging in a sprawling city, the same does not apply typically to HungryPanda. Typically, at a company like Deliveroo, the rule of thumb has been to be slightly above two deliveries per hour per driver to make that hour profitable. That is not always possible, however, in the real world. (And that’s before counting all of the other costs around marketing, and so on.)

HungryPanda, however, was delivering to students who were in dormitories, and often ordering in groups to eat “family style”. It meant that HungryPanda was mitigating a lot of the typical unit economics, said Antoine Nussenbaum, the co-founder of Felix Capital.

“This made the efficiency of delivering much higher,” he added.

The same has gone for grocery delivery. Panwen Chen, the global VP of strategy and an early employee of the company, was also a student at Nottingham and said, considering that even students don’t want to eat out all the time, getting groceries was next to impossible for him and others like him.

“I didn’t have a car, and so getting to the Chinese grocery in Nottingham meant taking two buses or a 50-60 minute walk,” he said. “Before you know it, you’re struggling with very heavy bags of groceries. It’s not a nice experience. We then started working with groceries, and what we found was that with food delivery we already had the infrastructure, so it was a natural extension of what we do, especially since the community was the same. That helped us to understand also what they wanted.”

He added that takeaway ready-made food is still a majority of the startup’s business, both growing very fast.

Loading in one function, and then two, into the app sets up HungryPanda for how it might grow further in the future. Asia has been a pioneer on that front, with apps like WeChat, and more specifically those focused around delivery services like Grab, really carving out a place for themselves as “super apps,” providing users with a vast array of services beyond the core, original purpose of those apps.

Consumers and businesses in the wider network are accustomed to the existence of “super apps”, and they are well-used. So in a world where some of the homegrown Chinese apps have found it harder to break into international markets (and in some cases like the U.S., they may be downright challenged to do so), this gives HungryPanda, which is a U.K. app, an interesting position, potentially as a partner or as a strong competitor in those markets.

Indeed it already pushes a wide range of offers to users from partner organizations, which stretch well beyond basic food ordering.

HungryPanda started for Liu as a side project to university. His plan was to go on to the London School of Economics for post-graduate work after getting his Nottingham undergrad degree. The business took off, though, and so he deferred for two years. Last year, he got the reminder from the LSE to nudge him on what happens next, and he said he ended up deferring indefinitely for now.

“I feel it’s been not just a good experience for me, but for the Chinese community that uses us,” he said. He now lives in New York City, building the business in the U.S.

5 reasons you don’t want to miss out on TC Sessions: Space 2020

We’re just about two weeks away from launching TC Sessions: Space 2020, our first focused foray into early-stage space startups and the essential satellite industries that support them. Buy your pass and join us on December 16 – 17 for two days packed with all the right stuff, including untapped opportunity.

Still looking for a reason to initiate your launch sequence? We’ll go you four better. Here are five stellar reasons to attend TC Sessions: Space 2020.

1. Top innovators in the space scene

You’ll hear from and engage with the top minds, makers and investors in the space community. We’re talking the leaders of public, private and government agencies; the people making it happen and looking to share their expertise and insight with you — the up-and-coming minds and makers.

A quick for instance includes General Jay Raymond (U.S. Space Force), Lisa Callahan (Lockheed Martin), Jim Bridenstine (NASA), Peter Beck (Rocket Lab) and investors like Chris Boshuizen (Data Collective DCVC), Mike Collett (Promus Ventures) and Tess Hatch (Bessemer Venture Partners).

2. Out-of-this-world networking

Connect and build relationships and opportunities with the global space startup community. CrunchMatch, our free, AI-powered platform, simplifies finding and connecting with the people who align with your goals. Send invitations, schedule 1:1 video calls, meet VCs, founders, engineers, potential customers or employees — you never know who you’ll meet or where one connection can take your business.

3. Fast Money for your startup

An early-stage space startup burns through money like a rocket burns through, well, rocket fuel. Don’t miss Fast Money — a series of six breakout sessions. Presenters from leading space accelerators and funding programs will talk about government accelerators, partnering with the Air Force and how to access grant money. Afterward, you can schedule individual appointments with representatives from each program. Look for the Fast Money sessions in the event agenda.

4. Space expo

Explore more than 30 early-stage startups pushing the boundaries of space technology in the expo area. Check out the competition, start a conversation or kick off a collaboration. Hold up, are you a boundary-pushing founder, too? Then get yourself a Space Startup Exhibitor Package, showcase your talent and take advantage of two expo-only opportunities. See details in reason #5 below!

5. Pitch, pitch, pitch

• Founders who exhibit in the expo area get 5 minutes to pitch live to attendees tuning in from around the globe. Increase your exposure, spotlight your technology and open the door to opportunities.
• Looking for ways to improve your pitch? On December 16 from 2:30 – 3:30 p.m., Stephan Reckie, Executive Director of GEN Space, will moderate a pitch feedback session for startup founders exhibiting in the expo area.
• Are you feeling lucky? Your promising early-stage space startup might be one of 10 selected for a pitch competition — a joint mission between TechCrunch and Starburst Aerospace — called Pitch Me to the Moon. Starburst will choose the competitors, and they will each pitch live to a panel of high-profile judges from across the industry.

Spend two days learning, connecting and engaging with the space startup community. Buy your pass and tap into a galaxy of opportunity at TC Sessions: Space 2020.

Is your company interested in sponsoring TC Sessions: Space 2020? Click here to talk with us about available opportunities.

C3.ai’s initial IPO pricing guidance spotlights the public market’s tech appetite

On the heels of news that DoorDash is targeting an initial IPO valuation up to $27 billion, C3.ai also dropped a new S-1 filing detailing a first-draft guess of what the richly valued company might be worth after its debut.

C3.ai posted an initial IPO price range of $31 to $34 per share, with the company anticipating a sale of 15.5 million shares at that price. The enterprise-focused artificial intelligence company is also selling $100 million of stock at its IPO price to Spring Creek Capital, and another $50 million to Microsoft at the same terms. And there are 2.325 million shares reserved for its underwriters as well.

The total tally of shares that C3.ai will have outstanding after its IPO bloc is sold, Spring Creek and Microsoft buy in, and its underwriters take up their option, is 99,216,958. At the extremes of its initial IPO price range, the company would be worth between $3.08 billion and $3.37 billion using that share count.

Those numbers decline by around $70 and $80 million, respectively, if the underwriters do not purchase their option.

So is the IPO a win for the company at those prices? And is it a win for all C3.ai investors? Amazingly enough, it feels like the answers are yes and no. Let’s explore why.

Slowing growth, rising valuation

If we just look at C3.ai’s revenue history in chunks, you can argue a growth story for the company; that it grew from $73.8 million in the the two quarters of 2019 ending July 31, to $81.8 million in revenue during the same portion of 2020. That’s growth of just under 11% on a year-over-year basis. Not great, but positive.

40% of Americans Use Cash Less Frequently in 2020

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, more than 40% of Americans say they use cashless frequently this year. This according to research data analysis by Comprar Acciones for the third quarter of 2020. When it comes to GenX the decrease in cash usage is down by 53% and it goes up to 64% for those with incomes higher than 150K.

Hardly surprising since more people are trying to limit their point of contact. For small businesses, this means implementing contactless payment solutions along with curbside and delivery services as part of their operations.

Finding the right balance of safety and convenience is key to keep customers happy and coming back. But the one constant is, the adoption rate of contactless payments is increasing.

Adoption Rate of Contactless Payments

In the report, more than one in six of the respondents said they made their first contactless payment after the pandemic started.

The highest adoption rate comes courtesy of Gen Z at 25% with millennials following at 23%. On the other hand, baby boomers came in at 10% with the lowest adoption rate. As far as existing users, 29% said they increased their usage during the pandemic. In this case, the highest users come from millennials at 40% and Gen X at 39%.

Globally, the segment is going to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8% from 2020 to 2027. This is from the $1.06 trillion transaction value of contactless payments in 2019.

Countries around the world are also passing legislation to support the technology. According to the report, 48 countries increased spending limits on touchless transactions. This comes out to an average of 131% increase in transaction limits after the pandemic.

Another data point from the report is the growth of PayPal. The company experienced its strongest growth ever in payment volume during the past quarter. With a 36% YoY volume increase, PayPal reached $247 billion this quarter, up from $179 billion in Q3 2019. The 15 million new accounts also did not hurt, which now brings the total to 361 million.

Payment Flexibility

The large growth of PayPal in the third quarter, as well as the number of people using contactless payment solutions, shows consumers want more ways to pay. As a small business, payment flexibility is key to staying competitive as we move from the pandemic.

Image: compraracciones.com

This article, "40% of Americans Use Cash Less Frequently in 2020" was first published on Small Business Trends

Salut raises $1.25M for its virtual fitness service

This morning Salut, an app-based service that allows fitness trainers to host classes virtually, announced that it has raised $1.25 million in a new financing event. The round was led by Charles Hudson, an investor at Precursor Ventures.

Founder Matthew DiPietro, formerly of Twitch, told TechCrunch that Salut soft-launched in mid-September, with a wider release coming today.

DiPietro thought up the concept behind Salut before the pandemic hit, he said during an interview, but after COVID-19 appeared the idea took on new urgency. The company put together what DiPietro described as a no-code alpha version of the service in May to test the market, allowing the then-nascent startup to validate demand on both sides of its marketplace — it’s famously difficult to jumpstart two-sided marketplaces, as demand tends to follow supply, and vice-versa.

The test allowed the company to get to confidence on demand existing from both trainers and exercise fans, and in its initial economic model.

With the new round in the bank and its product now formally launched, it’s up to Salut to scale rapidly. The company currently has 55 registered trainers on its platform, a reasonable start for the seed-stage startup. It will need to grow that figure by a few orders of magnitude if it wants to generate enough revenue to reach an eventual Series A.

But Salut is not focused on early-revenue generation, taking no cut of trainer revenue today. Indeed, per an email the company sent out to its users this morning, the startup is passing along 100% of post-Apple income that trainers generate, or 85% of the gross.

Currently users can donate to, or tip, trainers that host classes. DiPietro told TechCrunch that subscription options are coming in a quarter or two. The startup also announced today that trainers can now allow their classes to be replayed, what the startup called one of its “most requested features.”

Anyone familiar with Peloton understands why this matters; only a fraction of classes on the Peloton ecosystem are live at any point in time, but the bike comes with a library of content that users can simply load up whenever they like. This also allows Peloton to release more niche content than it otherwise might, as even the heavy metal-themed rides can accrete a reasonable ridership over time (something they might not be able to manage if all classes on the platform were only live once and then gone forever).

DiPietro is bullish on building income streams for trainers, especially during a pandemic that has locked many gyms, leaving fitness processionals with little to no income in many cases.

There’s some early signal that users are willing to pay, the company said, with early users willing to pay $5 or $10 for an hour of fitness training. And with a focus on the long-tail of trainers who can’t attract 10,000 fans to a single class, Salut thinks there are a large number of trainers who have enough pull to generate more income from its service, in time, than they could at a traditional studio.

Salut supports group video classes, of course, so trainers can collect monies from cohorts of users at a time.

The company’s fundraising is largely earmarked for engineering, with the company having what its founder called an ambitious product roadmap.

The startup also announced a new project with Fitness Mentors, a company that helps trainers get certified, to create what the two companies are calling “the industry’s first Virtual Group Fitness Instructor (V-GFI) course and certification.”

You can see why Salut would want the certification to exist; its existence will allow users of its service to find trainers that are worth their time on its service, and may raise the overall level of quality of classes provided.

Let’s see how far Salut can get with $1.25 million.

Gift Guide: Smart exercise gear to hunker down and get fit with

Curio Wellness launches $30M fund to help women and minorities own a cannabis dispensary

“We think of diversity as a keystone issue for the cannabis industry,” said Curio WMBE Fund managing director Jerel Registre in a conversation with TechCrunch. Registre’s conviction around this program is obvious as he explains the problem the fund is addressing.

The new fund, started by the Maryland-based medical cannabis company Curio Wellness, aims to help underserved entrepreneurs entering the cannabis market. With $30 million to invest, the Curio WMBE Fund is looking to invest in up to 50 women, minority and disabled veterans seeking to open and operate a Curio Wellness franchise with a path to 100% ownership in three years.

Registre tells TechCrunch the goal is to create more diverse ownership through a proven business model. Participants of this program gain access to capital and operational resources.

Curio made a name for itself in Maryland, where it’s the largest cannabis cultivator by market share. Founded in 2014, the family-owned business operates dispensaries rooted in a patient-centric approach. While a legally separate but affiliated entity from Curio Wellness, the Curio WMBE Fund aims to give franchisees access to Curio’s secret sauce.

“In looking at the systemic barriers that women, minorities and disabled veterans face in accessing capital, we decided to develop a solution that directly addresses this massive economic disparity,” said Michael Bronfein, CEO of Curio Wellness. “The Fund provides qualifying entrepreneurs with the investment capital they need to become a Curio Wellness Center franchisee while ensuring their success through our best in class business operations.”

“Let’s bottle the success we have,” Registre added. He likens the franchise model to McDonald’s, where the national corporation gives operators a proven standard operating procedure and ongoing support.

“Our fund is unlike any other in the industry,” Registre said, “as eligible entrepreneurs will have a clear path to 100% ownership in as little as three years. Many other funds rely on a model that utilizes minority entrepreneurs as a vehicle to achieve licenses: The Curio approach flips this model by empowering diverse entrepreneurs and supporting them along the way. If something happens and an investment-funded franchisee defaults, they must be replaced by another minority or woman owner. This ensures these licensees can get the financial support they need to launch while ensuring that the fund’s ultimate mission of supporting diverse entrepreneurs is achieved.”

Registre explained that diversity is central to Curio Wellness, too. Of the company’s 200 employees, 40% are female, and more than half are minorities. At the leadership level, 38% of management is female, and 44% identify as a member of a minority community.

“Diversity is a core asset that we recognize as integral to our success and our future, and that is why we decided to create this investment fund,” Registre said.

The fund provides two phases of support. The first provides capital to franchisees to open their Curio Wellness Center and assist them in obtaining licenses, selecting a location and hiring and training employees. Once the location is operational, the fund intends to provide ongoing support around managing, sales and marketing, store operations, and ensuring employees stay updated on product information.

Curio sees its locations as more than cannabis dispensaries. The company calls them Wellness Centers.

“Curio locations go beyond the traditional experience people have at a medical cannabis dispensary — they are total wellness destinations, under the leadership of a licensed pharmacist,” Registre explains. “Patient wellness is at the center of everything we do and is exemplified by a diverse array of holistic health products, services and educational programming we offer. While additive to the medical cannabis patient experience, these features open the store up to the entire community, not limiting the healthcare experience to only those with a medical cannabis card. This practice, of a patient-first mindset through a pharmacist-led model, allows us to truly lead the pursuit of wellness for everyone who walks in the front door.”

As of writing, the fund has raised half of its $30 million target. The company says the fund intentionally targeted, pitched and secured an investment pool that includes women and minorities. The fund expects to close by the end of 2020, and applications are expected to open in early 2021.

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Dozens of tech companies sign ‘Tech for Good Call’ following French initiative

A couple of years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron initiated the Tech for Good Summit by inviting 50 tech CEOs to discuss the challenges in the tech industry and make some announcements.

Usually, tech CEOs meet ahead of Viva Technology, a tech event in Paris. This year, Viva Technology had to be canceled, which means that tech CEOs couldn’t get together, take a group photo and say that they want to make the world a better place.

In the meantime, dozens of tech CEOs have chosen to sign a common pledge. Despite the positive impact of some technological breakthroughs, they collectively recognize that everything is not perfect with the tech industry.

“Recognizing that such progress may be hindered by negative externalities, including unfair competition such as abuse of dominant or systemic position, and fragmentation of the internet; that, without appropriate safeguards, technology can also be used to threaten fundamental freedoms and human rights or weaken democracy; that, unless we implement appropriate measures to combat it, some individuals and organizations inevitably use it for criminal purposes, including in the context of conflicts,” the pledge says.

Among other things, companies that sign the pledge agree to cooperate when it comes to fighting toxic content, such as child sexual abuse material and terrorist content. They promise to “responsibly address hate speech, disinformation and opinion manipulation.”

Interestingly, they also agree that they should “contribute fairly to the taxes in countries where [they] operate.” This has been an ongoing issue between the French government and the U.S. government. The OECD and the European Union have also discussed implementing a tax on tech giants so that they report to tax authorities in each country where they operate.

France starts collecting tax on tech giants

Other commitments mention privacy, social inclusiveness, diversity and equity, fighting all sorts of discriminations and more. As the name suggests, the pledge revolves around using technology for good things.

Now let’s talk about who signed the pledge. There are some well-known names, such as Sundar Pichai from Alphabet (Google), Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook, Brad Smith from Microsoft, Evan Spiegel from Snap and Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square. Other companies include Cisco, Deliveroo, Doctolib, IBM, OpenClassrooms, Uber, etc.

Some nonprofit organizations also signed the pledge, such as the Mozilla Foundation, Simplon, Tech for Good France, etc.

But it’s more interesting to see who’s not on the list. Amazon and Apple have chosen not to sign the pledge. There have been discussions with Apple but the company eventually chose not to participate.

“Amazon didn’t want to sign it and I invite you to ask them directly,” a source close to the French president said. The French government is clearly finger-pointing in Amazon’s case.

This is an odd move as it’s a non-binding pledge. You can say that you want to “contribute fairly to taxes” and then argue that you’re paying everything that you owe — tax optimization is not tax evasion, after all. Worse, you can say that you’re building products with “privacy by design” in mind while you’re actually building entire companies based on personalized ads and micro-targeting.

In other words, the Tech for Good summit was created for photo opportunities (like this photo from 2018 below). Tech CEOs want to be treated like heads of state, while Macron wants to position himself as a tech-savvy president. It’s a win-win for them, and a waste of time for everyone else.

Some nonprofit organizations and governance groups are actually working hard to build digital commons. But big tech companies are using the same lexicon with these greenwashing-style campaigns.

In 2018, hundreds of organizations signed the Paris Call. In 2019, the biggest social media companies signed the Christchurch Call. And now, we have the Tech for Good Call. Those calls can’t replace proper regulation.

Image Credits: Charles Platiau / AFP / Getty Images

Materialize scores $40 million investment for SQL streaming database

Materialize, the SQL streaming database startup built on top of the open source Timely Dataflow project, announced a $32 million Series B investment today led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Lightspeed Ventures.

While it was at it, the company also announced a previously unannounced $8 million Series A from last year that had been led by Lightspeed, bringing the total raised to $40 million.

These firms see a solid founding team that includes CEO Arjun Narayan, formerly of Cockroach Labs, and chief scientist Frank McSherry, who created the Timely Dataflow project on which the company is based.

Narayan says that the company believes fundamentally that every company needs to be a real-time company and it will take a streaming database to make that happen. Further, he says the company is built using SQL because of its ubiquity, and the founders wanted to make sure that customers could access and make use of that data quickly without learning a new query language.

“Our goal is really to help any business to understand streaming data and build intelligent applications without using or needing any specialized skills. Fundamentally what that means is that you’re going to have to go to businesses using the technologies and tools that they understand, which is standard SQL,” Narayan explained.

Bucky Moore, the partner at Kleiner Perkins leading the B round sees this standard querying ability as a key part of the technology. “As more businesses integrate streaming data into their decision making pipelines, the inability to ask questions of this data with ease is becoming a non-starter. Materialize’s unique ability to provide SQL over streaming data solves this problem, laying the foundation for them to build the industry’s next great data platform,” he said.

They would naturally get compared to Confluent, a streaming database built on top of the Apache Kafka open source streaming database project, but Narayan says his company uses straight SQL for querying, while Confluent uses its own flavor.

The company still is working out the commercial side of the house and currently provides a typical service offering for paying customers with support and a service agreement (SLA). The startup is working on a SaaS version of the product, which it expects to release some time next year.

Cockroach Labs scores $86.6M Series D as scalable database resonates

They currently have 20 employees with plans to double that number by the end of next year as they continue to build out the product. As they grow, Narayan says the company is definitely thinking about how to build a diverse organization.

He says he’s found that hiring in general has been challenging during the pandemic, and he hopes that changes in 2021, but he says that he and his co-founders are looking at the top of the hiring funnel because otherwise, as he points out, it’s easy to get complacent and rely on the same network of people you have been working with before, which tends to be less diverse.

“The KPIs and the metrics we really want to use to ensure that we really are putting in the extra effort to ensure a diverse sourcing in your hiring pipeline and then following that through all the way through the funnel. That’s I think the most important way to ensure that you have a diverse [employee base], and I think this is true for every company,” he said.

While he is working remotely now, he sees having multiple offices with a headquarters in NYC when the pandemic finally ends. Some employees will continue to work remotely, but the majority coming into one of the offices.

Confluent lands another big round with $250M Series E on $4.5B valuation

Equity Monday: HungryPanda raises $70M, trade tensions, and cross-border VC

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out last Thursday’s edtech deep dive from our own Natasha Mascarenhas.

Right, now through the first of America’s national Q4 feast days, it’s time to get back to business. Namely, the business of VC and startups. Here’s what we got into this morning:

• It’s Cyber Monday, which means that the Internet is going to be annoying today, but the fake-holiday is boosting ecommerce players like Etsy. That should be good news for payments processors incumbent and startup, as well as other ecommerce businesses, again large, small, and even platform-focused.
• Zappos founder Tony Hsieh passed away this weekend. It was a surprise. He was loved.
• The UK is banning China’s Huawei 5G gear next year as Australia condemns China over a different matter. So if you are keeping tally of countries where Chinese tech may no longer be welcome, the list is certainly longer than merely India, which has banned all popular China-built apps from its mobile phones.
• These broader tensions are changing where VCs are investing their money, notably.
• Primer, the fintech helping merchants consolidate the payments stack, raises £14M Series A
• HungryPanda raises $70M for a food delivery app aimed at overseas Chinese consumers
• Firstminute Capital launches second $111M fund, featuring a who’s-who of founders as LPs
• And finally, we are heading into a deluge of IPOs over the next few weeks. So strap in, it’s going to be messy and fun.

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

Income Tax Brackets for 2020 and 2021

Knowing the federal income tax brackets for the 2020 and 2021 tax year can help you maximize tax savings and retain more of your hard-earned money. The U.S. has a progressive tax system, meaning the higher your taxable income, the higher your tax rate. The income tax rates go up in steps called tax brackets. There are seven brackets that apply to taxpayers’ ordinary income: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%.

Each year the IRS makes inflation adjustments to increase the tax brackets. With each new year you can earn a bit more before being taxed at a higher tax rate.

Finding the tax bracket that applies to you depends on two pieces of information. First you must determine your filing status: individual, married filing jointly, married filing separately, and head of household. Second, it depends on your taxable income.

This article covers rates for tax returns for 2020 income (for returns due in 2021). Tax brackets and rates for 2021 (for returns due in 2022) are also included.

2020 Federal Income Tax Brackets and Rates

The following seven federal tax rates apply to tax returns due in April 2021.

Tax Rate	Single	Married Filing Jointly	Married Filing Separately	Head of Household
10%	$0 to $9,875	$0 to $19,750	$0 to $9,875	$0 to $14,100
12%	$9,876 to $40,125	$19,751 to $80,250	$9,876 to $40,125	$14,101 to $53,700
22%	$40,126 to $85,525	$80,251 to $171,050	$40,126 to $85,525	$53,701 to $85,500
24%	$85,526 to $163,300	$171,051 to $326,600	$85,526 to $163,300	$85,501 to $163,300
32%	$163,301 to $207,350	$326,601 to $414,700	$163,301 to $207,350	$163,301 to $207,350
35%	$207,351 to $518,400	$414,701 to $622,050	$207,351 to $311,025	$207,351 to $518,400
37%	$518,401 or more	$622,051 or more	$311,026 or more	$518,401 or more

Source: Internal Revenue Service

2021 Federal Income Tax Brackets and Rates

The following tax rates apply to tax returns due in April 2022.

2021 Tax Rate	Single	Married Filing Jointly	Married Filing Separately	Head of Household
10%	$0 to $9,950	$0 to $19,900	$0 to $9,950	$0 to $14,200
12%	$9,951 to $40,525	$19,901 to $81,050	$9,951 to $40,525	$14,201 to $54,200
22%	$40,526 to $86,375	$81,051 to $172,750	$40,526 to $86,375	$54,201 to $86,350
24%	$86,376 to $164,925	$172,751 to $329,850	$86,376 to $164,925	$86,351 to $164,900
32%	$164,926 to $209,425	$326,601 to $414,700	$163,301 to $207,350	$164,901 to $209,400
35%	$209,426 to $523,600	$418,851 to $628,300	$209,426 to $314,150	$209,401 to $523,600
37%	$523,601 or more	$628,301 or more	$314,151 or more	$523,601 or more

Source: IRS

Understanding How Tax Brackets Work

Our progressive tax system means we have different tax rates. It’s important to understand that tax brackets apply “up to” a certain level.

Every time you jump up an income bracket, you pay a higher rate on the portion of your earnings that is above that level — but only on that portion. For most people, parts of your earnings will be subject to several different brackets. Therefore, different chunks or portions of your taxable income will be taxed at different percentage rates.

Income Brackets Example

For example, if you are a single filer with a taxable income of $95,000, you would fall in the 24% bracket. However, if you merely multiplied .24 by all your taxable income you’d be paying too much.

Instead you are taxed at different rates in different brackets:

• Part of your income will be subject to the lowest rate of 10%.
• Some of it will be subject to 12%.
• Another portion will be subject to 22%.
• The remainder will be subject to 24% tax.

The higher your income, the higher your highest tax bracket and the higher your taxes. The following illustration shows how tax brackets work:

In our example, the taxpayer would owe $16,821 in federal income tax on a taxable income of $95,000 for the 2021 tax year. That works out to an effective rate of 17.7%.

Our example does not include any state income tax — that would be a separate calculation. Each state’s tax system is different and the state tax brackets will differ from the federal tax brackets. Moreover, some states have a flat rate, meaning all taxable income is taxed on the same percentage amount — there are no brackets. See state tax websites.

In addition, keep in mind that the above example does not include Social Security tax, Medicare tax or other taxes or withholding amounts.

Marginal Rate vs Effective Tax Rate

The marginal tax rate means the rate that some portion — even one dollar — of income is taxed.

When someone asks ‘what is your marginal rate?’ they usually mean what is the top federal income tax bracket you are in. Let’s say your highest bracket is 24%, as in our example above. Your marginal tax rate would be 24%.

In practice, most people pay an average tax rate that’s lower than the top tax bracket because it takes into account all the rates below it and blends them. This average rate you pay is also known as the “effective tax rate.” It means you don’t actually owe 24%; in effect you might pay 17.7%, as in our example.

The average income tax rate that middle-class Americans pay is 9.9%, and at least 40% of Americans effectively don’t pay any income taxes at all. With the Earned Income Credit some people can actually get back more than they paid to the IRS. Those people have a negative tax rate.

Strategies to Get into a Lower Tax Bracket

Some people are shocked to discover they are in a high tax bracket and want to know how to lower it.

To lower tax brackets, one way is to reduce your taxable income. You could make bigger contributions to retirement accounts to reduce taxable earnings and therefore your tax. With many types of accounts such as IRAs you can contribute all the way up to tax day (e.g., April 15th) and have it count.

Another strategy to lower tax brackets is to rack up more deduction amounts. Tax brackets apply to taxable income, not gross income. Deductions reduce your taxable income, and that can reduce the tax you owe and even put you into a lower bracket altogether.

Example 1: Let’s assume you fall into the 24% bracket. You claim deductions totaling $2,000. That could reduce your tax liability by up to $480. (2,000 x .24 = 480) This is a simplified example that assumes the entire $2,000 falls in the 24% bracket.

However, if you are close to a tax bracket cut off, the savings on taxes might be slightly less, as this demonstrates:

Example 2: If only $800 of your taxable income is in the 24% bracket, that would mean the other $1,200 is in the next lower bracket of 22%. In this case, your savings on taxes will be $456. You arrive at this number as follows:

• Calculate the deduction on the amount in the 24% bracket: 800 x .24 = 192
• Calculate the amount applicable to the 22% bracket: 1200 x .22 = 264
• Add the results to get to the amount: 192 + 264 = 456

Be sure to differentiate deductions from tax credits. Credits reduce your final tax bill. However, credits do not impact your federal tax brackets. That said, credits may be more valuable when it comes to saving money on taxes. A credit reduces your final tax bill, dollar for dollar at the end.

Other 2021 Changes

If you take the standard deduction, the Internal Revenue Service has increased it for 2021 over 2020 levels by an additional $150 for individuals, head of household filers, and married couples filing separately. It goes up $300 for couples filing jointly. This deduction amount reduces taxable income for taxpayers, and can effectively put taxpayers in a lower income bracket. See more on the standard deduction.

Finally, remember that for 2020 and 2021 the personal exemption is $0 and no longer applies following passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The TCJA tax reform was designed to reduce federal taxes for consumers and businesses. The TCJA is temporary and 23 provisions of the tax code applicable to individuals are currently set to expire on December 31, 2025, unless extended. If they expire it will result in higher income taxes for individuals according to the Tax Foundation.

Small Business Owner Strategies

Small business owners often have a better opportunity to find and utilize deductions on their Schedule C or Subchapter-S business earnings than non-business owners. That’s because there are many more business deductions available than for personal returns.

Small business tax deductions reduce taxable income “passed through” to the personal tax return if the owner is a sole proprietor, or has an LLC or Subchapter-S election.

If you are a do-it-yourselfer, small business tax software will help you calculate brackets and any amount you owe with a minimum of hassle.

Don’t Forget the Alternative Minimum Tax

If you are a higher earner or have a lot of capital gains, remember the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) may kick in and override the regular taxes calculation. Think of AMT as a “floor” that must be paid, regardless of how many deductions the taxpayer has.

The AMT has two rates (26% and 28%) versus the seven ordinary income tax brackets. However, you can claim an exemption against AMT, depending on filing status.

For the 2020 tax year (returns due in 2021) the AMT exemption amount is:

• For single filers it is $72,900, and starts phasing out at $518,400.
• For married couples filing jointly it is $113,400 and begins to phase out at $1,036,800.

For tax year 2021 (returns due in 2022), the AMT exemption amount is:

• For single filers it is $73,600. But once AMT taxable income exceeds $523,600 the exemption begins to phase out.
• For married couples filing jointly the exemption is $114,600 — and begins to phase out at $1,047,200.

Note how our system affects married couples. The joint filers tax rate is more advantageous than couples filing separately. However, in other ways couples can fare worse than an individual – a condition called the marriage penalty. Finally, be sure not to confuse head of household status, which is for people such as brothers or children who provide more than half the support for others in the house.

Image: Depositphotos

This article, "Income Tax Brackets for 2020 and 2021" was first published on Small Business Trends

DoorDash aims to add $11 billion to its valuation during public offering

This morning, DoorDash filed a new S-1 document, this time updating the market about the price it expects to command during its public offering. The food-delivery giant gave a range of $75 to $85 per share, which would revalue the company sharply higher than its final private price, set during a June Series H that valued DoorDash at $16 billion.

The company intends to sell 33 million shares, raising between $2.475 billion and $2.805 billion in the process. Notably, there are no shares set aside for its underwriting banks to buy at its IPO price.

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The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on Extra Crunch, or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

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After the public offering, DoorDash expects to have 317,656,521 shares outstanding across various classes, giving it a valuation of between $23.8 billion and $27 billion at the two extremes of its IPO range, not counting shares that have not yet vested or are set aside for future employee compensation. CNBC calculates that the company could be worth up to $30 billion on a fully-diluted basis.

How COVID-19 accelerated DoorDash’s business

What matters more than the raw dollar amounts, however, is what we can learn from them. Let’s get into the guts of the valuation range and find out if it’s bullish or if we should anticipate DoorDash to raise its range before it goes public.

Valuations, ranges

The new DoorDash S-1/A filing, it doesn’t appear to contain new financial information, so we can keep our prior notes on the company’s health and performance in mind. Recall that we were generally impressed by DoorDash’s growth and its improving profitability.

Other on-demand food services are doing well: HungryPanda just raised $70 million, and on the back of Uber Eats’ growth — and optimism that its ride-hailing business will return with the market-readiness of strong COVID-19 vaccines — shares of Uber are at all-time highs.

So you can taste the optimism that DoorDash is riding as it looks to list. Given our take, you would be forgiven for presuming that DoorDash is targeting an aggressive price.

Is it?

Nikola shares drop as GM pulls plug on investment deal

GM is backing away from an agreement to take a stake in electric automaker Nikola Corp, marking the collapse of a deal that has been problematic since it was announced just two months ago.

Shares of Nikola plummeted more than 20% in pre-market trading Monday morning.

GM has instead signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to supply Nikola with its Hydrotec fuel cell system. This supplier agreement replaces its previous transaction announcement made on Sept. 8, 2020 to take a 11% stake in Nikola and produce a fuel cell pickup for the company by the end 2022. The investment was valued at $2 billion at the time.

Speculation that GM would pull the plug on the deal has been rampant almost from the start. Just days after GM announced the investment, a noted short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the Nikola of fraud. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened up an inquiry in the matter and within two weeks Nikola’s founder Trveor Milton had stepped down as executive chairman.

Stephen Girsky, a former General Motors executive who was already on the company’s board and who introduced Nikola to GM, took over as executive chairman.

Nikola’s troubles aren’t over. GM’s wording in its announcement suggests as much. GM describes the non-binding MoU as a “potential agreement.” If it goes through, GM would engineer its Hydrotec fuel cell system to the specifications mutually agreed upon by both companies. It is expected that the potential arrangement would be “cost plus,” meaning that Nikola would pay upfront for the capital investment for the capacity. The companies are also discussing the potential of a supply agreement for GM’s Ultium battery system for Nikola’s Class 7 and Class 8 trucks.

Doug Parks, GM executive vice president of global product development, purchasing and supply chain said supplying the Hydrotec fuel cell systems to heavy-duty class of commercial vehicles is an important part GM’s growth strategy and reinforces the company’s commitment toward an all-electric, zero-emissions future.”

GM’s Hydrotec fuel cell system will be engineered at its Michigan technical facilities in Pontiac and Warren and manufactured at its Brownstown Charter Township battery assembly plant, the company said.

How to Create a Media List that Gets Publicity

A good media list helps you bring your company news to the attention of journalists and get publicity. After all, if you are sending out a press release or PR pitch, you want to target the right audience. Below, we show you how to create a media list — one targeting the right people — in 5 easy steps.

What is a Media List?

A media list consists of media contacts from news outlets, magazines and online publications — and specifically ones that attract your potential customers. It contains names, email addresses and other information. Some call it a press list or media contact list.

Why do you need a list? Suppose you are issuing an announcement of a new product, grand opening or other news. With a list you know where to send your news. Most people do individual outreach using their list, and also send releases out over the wire using press release distribution sites.

Buy or Create Your Own Media List?

PR pros may need lengthy lists having hundreds or thousands of names and email addresses. It’s possible to purchase media lists — something those in large enterprises might want to consider — using one of the PR tools below.

However, for local small businesses, media lists are often short, sometimes just a dozen contacts. For a small list it is better to create your own so you can target it better. Quality is more important than quantity.

5 Steps to Create a Media List

Here are five simple steps to create a media list. Start by identifying the market you hope to reach with your news. Then identify the media contacts. Next, set up a spreadsheet. Then gather all contact details and other information. Add notes and update your list from time to time. Let’s dig into the details:

1. Define Your Target Audience

The first step to creating a media contacts list is to define the type of people you want to reach with your company news. These will include potential buyers of your products or services, or those who influence purchasing decisions.

For example, suppose you operate a local family restaurant and you have an amazing new menu to publicize. Your target audience might be local residents within a 25-mile radius who like to dine out and have disposable income.

For example number two, let’s say your business sells financial software. Your ideal customer is a finance manager or someone in an accounting firm. Your target market will be national in scope, consisting of business people with a need for finance software.

Do you see how different each target is? They consume different types of media so your outreach plan must be tailored.

Pro tip: if you’ve previously set up buyer personas describing location, demographic profile, interests and the types of media they consume — those personas will be helpful here.

2. Identify Journalists and Media Outlets

Step 2 is where you identify the media outlets likely to reach your targets. You also need to identify the members of the media (journalists, editors) to add.

• • Identify the media outlet. Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes and find media publications and news outlets that your target buyer typically frequents. Do the outlets cover content similar to your news? Have they given coverage to competitors? How big is their readership? Pick relevant choices so you don’t waste your time.
  • Find the right person in the media outlet. Search for a journalist who covers your beat. What kind of content do they cover? Do they write stories that would get your target’s attention?

Let’s look at our two examples again to illustrate what to look for.

Example 1 – a local restaurant: Wouldn’t it be great to get a story in the food or lifestyle sections of local newspapers? Local news sites such as Patch or Coal Region Canary are another type of outlet to target. Finally, don’t forget local food blogs, e.g. Philly Food Adventures. For a local business, location is super important.

Example 2 – a finance software firm: Look for business magazine sites that accountants read. Search for trade publications serving the accounting industry or websites that review software tools. Industry sector or niche is more important than the location of the media outlet in this example.

Pro Tip: Don’t be afraid to add outlets to your media contacts list. Local media and trade pubs are always in need of a story and willing to review PR pitches and press releases.

3. Decide on a List Format

For this step, the simplest way to set up a contact list is to create a spreadsheet or Word doc with columns. Include the name of each contact and how to reach them.

Make sure to include more than names and contact information. How much detail you need depends on your role. PR professionals who represent many clients will want more detail, covering information such as industry and location. But the marketing manager in a small company might not, for example, need to specify location because all its media contacts would be local.

Add notes about the types of press releases or media pitches that might be most successful with each reporter.

Save time by starting with a template (see our free version below).

4. Begin Adding Contact Information

The next step is to find and enter information for the media contacts. Search for bylines to identify writers as you read publications in your industry. When you see a writer’s name on articles you like, add it. You may find some on Twitter, which attracts a lot of media people. Some media representatives may contact you to get on your list.

Keep it targeted. Remember, a high-quality list of a handful of the right people is better for public relations than thousands of media contacts who can’t get you in front of your target audience.

You will be emailing your contacts individually, so all should be worth your time, not just filling up rows on a spreadsheet. After a few days take a second pass and remove any media contacts if you don’t think they can help you reach your goals.

5. Update Your Media List Regularly

The final step is to update your list regularly so it will be ready the next time you need it. Think of your media list as a work in progress.

Add new media contacts, of course. Periodically cleanse your list. Remove outdated media contacts such as when reporters or editors move on.

Note when you had a great experience from a story. This helps you focus on media list contacts who are more receptive to your pitches.

What Information Goes on a Media List?

The information on a media list should include contact details necessary to reach out to reporters, editors and bloggers with fields for:

• Name of news outlet, media publication or blog site
• Website  URL
• Journalist name
• Job title
• Email address
• Phone number (optional)
• Subjects covered or “beats”
• Notes

Keep your list lean. The temptation is to collect too much information, needlessly inflating your workload. For example, are the social profiles of your media contacts really necessary to send a story idea or press release? Also, you will likely pitch a story via email so a phone number is optional, at best.

Tools, Templates And Examples

Templates and software tools make the public relations process easier and more efficient. You could search the web for media list examples but it would be easier to start with our free template.

Free Media List Template

Use this free list template to enter your own contact details and manage your public relations operations more effectively.

It is a Google Doc (and can be downloaded to Excel). You can add columns or customize them to suit your needs when creating a contact list.

Free Downloadable List Template

Media List Building Tools

These software tools help you identify media contact information and build your media list.

Prowly offers PR and media relations software to help you compile media contacts. Prowly helps build your media list and create media pitches. Prowly is best if you do a lot of PR and need to develop extensive media lists. A basic plan starts at $179 per month.

Muck Rack makes public relations software providing a database of journalists. There are also tools to track news about your brand. You can also use Muck Rack to create reports about your success. Muck Rack is a paid service with pricing available upon request.

PressRush provides a journalist database you can mine for contact information and a tool to create media lists. Plans start at $49 per month. It is cheaper than Prowly but also a bit different.

Anewstip is a simple but pricy tool to locate press representatives and media outlets based on what they write or Tweet. The tool draws from more than 200 million articles, 1 billion Tweets and 1 million media contacts. A free option offers no real contact information or ability to pitch. A standard plan starts at $200 a month.

Hunter.io is a simple tool giving access to email addresses — helpful for locating contact information to put in your media lists. It has free and paid options beginning at $49 per month.

Anymail Finder offers a similar email search function to Hunter.io at a similar price — $49 per month to start. However, the tool boasts that you only pay for “verified” emails.

Voila Norbert is an email address search tool that offers the first 50 searches for free so you can try before you buy. After this, fees begin at $49 per month.

LinkedIn, the social networking platform, offers an easy way to find media contacts and outlets.

Twitter is another social media channel that has long been a favorite of media people. Why not use Twitter as a method of collecting a contact list of journalists as well?

Google is a no-brainer. Use Google search tools to locate media contacts. Media sites feature staff pages with contact information. Find the person’s name. Then search for the name along with the word “email” to find their address.

SimilarWeb is a competitive intelligence platform that analyzes website traffic. SimilarWeb helps you locate websites ranking for the right keyword and their traffic levels, so you know where to send your media pitch.

How Do You Develop Media Contacts?

Great PR involves more than a spreadsheet, wide distribution of a press release, or a clever story pitch. Good media relations are essential.

Make an investment in a relationship with key media contacts. Here are tips for making the most of media contacts:

• Know your people. Know the main story interests of every contact on your media list. Nothing sours a media relationship faster than receiving an irrelevant media pitch where the PR person hasn’t even read your content.
• Include a personal touch. Personalize communications with names. Pick a conversation starter with every contact. Ask about family or vacations if they’ve come up in conversation before. Nobody in the media wants to feel like they are only one of a hundred people on a mailing list.
• Use CRM. Customer relationship management software does more than save time. It can help you nurture relationships. The right tools help you manage media relations by keeping track of personal details, your last conversation with people, etc. for key contacts on your media lists.

Should I Include Social Influencers on a Media List?

Include bloggers, influencers and podcasters in your PR strategy. One influencer with an Instagram following can spark wide discussions in your market. Some people keep a separate social network influencer list, but it’s perfectly fine to add them as media contacts in order to track them.

You don’t necessarily need to send a press release to these individuals. Engaging contacts in conversation can be more effective. Bloggers may be more receptive than reporters to story ideas, but research the blogger first to determine how they respond to story pitches for their blogs.

Do I Really Need a List of Media Contacts (can I Use HARO Instead)?

Platforms like HARO do not take the place of having your own contact list for PR. A reporter writing a story uses HARO, or an alternative we like better called Qwoted, to seek out expert sources on topics. When you subscribe as a potential source you get notified of media requests, but you have to watch your inbox and respond fast.

As useful as such PR tools are, they are limited. They put media people in control of the topics the articles are about. The beauty of your own press list is that instead of waiting for media people to contact you, you are in control. You are the one to contact press people and shape the PR about your brand.

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In conclusion, a contact list is worth its weight in gold. A list accelerates the story pitching process. When you have all contact details at hand, you are always ready for PR outreach.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, "How to Create a Media List that Gets Publicity" was first published on Small Business Trends