Into Tech: Developer Tools, Consumer Lending, 2020 Tech Trends, and More
This past week's newly funded startups, jobs, industry news, and tips
Alright, I am excited for this week’s edition! Some really cool companies raised money, there are awesome job opportunities, and, if you read to the bottom, there are two in-depth reports on companies and trends that you should definitely check out. I hope this newsletter has been inspiring you, helping you learn more about tech, and surfacing the kinds of interesting companies you should work for. Please share any feedback on how I can improve this newsletter to make it better for you and/or help you in your tech journey.
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Newly Funded Startups
Grocery Delivery
I am sure all of you have heard of Instacart by now. Well, they aren't going anywhere anytime soon as they just closed a new round of funding: $225 million at a $13.7 billion valuation! The current pandemic has created a boom for grocery delivery and it isn't going anywhere soon. They plan to grow their shopper network by 250% and it doesn't look like they plan to stop hiring anytime soon (see below).
Developer Tools
Postman builds technology that lets developers work faster with their API testing, designing, and collaboration tools. If you ever need to test or play with an API and don’t want to deal with cURL, Postman is your friend. They just announced their Series C round of funding, raising $150 million at a $2 billion valuation.
User Privacy Infrastructure
Transcend is building data privacy infrastructure that makes it simple for companies to give users control over their personal data. As new user data privacy laws spring up in the EU, the US, and even specifically in California, companies need technology that makes it easy for them to completely erase user data upon request from users. This is a very important market and one to keep your eyes on as more companies enter it. They raised $25 million in Series A funding.
Job Opportunities
Software Engineer (SF) | Instacart
As mentioned above, Instacart has raised a ton of money and is rapidly expanding. Join their team to help build technology that helps millions of people get groceries delivered.
Front End Software Engineer (SF / NY) | Blend
Blend provides APIs and other technology to help mortgage and consumer loan lenders more quickly and effectively provide loans to their customers. In total, they have raised $290 million and have partners such as Wells Fargo and US Bank. They’ve got a few different SWE roles for which they are hiring so check out their jobs page.
Sales Engineer (Mountain View, CA) | Ironclad
Ironclad is building digital contracting software that streamlines contract workflows, from creation and approvals to compliance and insights, so that legal teams can be more strategic and spend less time on paperwork. They were recently named a Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startup and have raised $84 million total.
What’s New in the Industry
Cryptocurrencies Investments
This may come as a surprise but the number of institutions buying crypto futures (essentially betting that crypto prices will rise in the future) has doubled! In an article from Coindesk covering Fidelity Digital Asset’s new report, institutional investors are becoming increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies stating that 279 out of 774 institutions in the U.S. and Europe were investing in, and holding, crypto. This should provide more legitimacy to, and opportunity for, crypto companies meaning more engineers will be needed. Check out this list of 250 crypto companies to watch in 2020.
General Purpose AI Language System
Open AI is a non-profit organization with the goal of creating a safe general artificial intelligence system. They announced that they have fed it’s AI system trillions of words from Wikipedia and have created a general AI that can do things like translate between languages, write stories and poems, and answer everyday questions. It’s currently being tested and tuned by their researchers but they hope to make it available to other companies soon for uses like customer support, education, and games.
EdTech On The Rise
EdTech is, simply put, any kind of technology that enables learning online. Techcrunch wrote up a great article on the struggles parents are going through to adapt and find engaging and educational information to keep their kids occupied. Being thrown into homeschooling with such a fragmented market of options makes it complicated. From technology like Primer to EdSights to Quizlet, we can see that the market of online education technology will only continue to grow. Check out this list of 17 EdTech companies in San Francisco who may be hiring.
Tips & Tricks
If you see a company you like above but don’t see any available positions, click on their LinkedIn and click See all # of employees. Reach out to one (or more) of the employees who may be able to tell you more about the company and if there are any roles available that would fit your skillset.
CB Insights released a report on 50 Future Unicorns (companies very likely to be worth $1 billion one day). Look through the report and see if there are any companies that interest you.
The Future Today Institute released their 2020 Tech Trends report. They even created a search tool to let you search through all the trends and find what may interest you. Once you’ve looked through the trends, spend some time Googling for startups that may be operating within those trends. For example, let’s say you’re interested in automated medical transcription; in Google type automated medical transcription startups and you will find companies in that space (I found Deepgram - they are hiring)
That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!