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Fintech startup N26 recently launched in the U.K. with a single product offering. You could sign up to a free account that gives you free payments around the world but no insurance and no free withdrawals in foreign currencies.

The company just added a second tier to its lineup in the U.K. And N26 is choosing to focus on N26 Metal in the U.K. You can now sign up to a Metal account for £14.90 per month (€16.59).

In other N26 markets, people can currently subscribe to N26 Black for €9.90 per month or N26 Metal for €16.90 per month. It’s interesting to see that N26 is using its fresh start in the U.K. to simplify its offering and target premium customers. The startup can still change its mind and launch N26 Black later down the road.

Basic customers can pay anywhere in the world without any foreign fee. The company uses Mastercard’s foreign exchange rates and doesn’t add anything on top. But ATM withdrawals in a foreign currency still cost 1.7 percent of the total amount.

Metal customers get the same perks in the U.K. and other European countries, such as foreign ATM withdrawals with no fee, a travel insurance package from Allianz and dedicated customer support.

N26 also provides partner offerings for N26 Metal subscribers. For instance, you can work from a WeWork office for free one day per month. Deals very from one country to another, and British customers get airport lounge access thanks to LoungeKey.

Your milage may vary depending on your favorite airport as LoungeKey doesn’t have a lounge in all terminals in all airports around the world. Now let’s see if N26 users outside of the U.K. will get a similar service in the future.

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RightHand Robotics announced a $23 million Series B this week. That brings the pick and place robotic arm manufacturer’s total funding up to around $34 million, including last year’s $8 million Series A.

The robotics startup has impressed investors with the dexterity and speed of its robotic picking system, having recruited some big VC names along the way. This latest round is led by Menlo Ventures, along with investments from GV (nee Google Ventures) joining the likes of existing investors, Playground Global, Dream Incubator and Matrix partners.

Picking and placing has been a difficult robotics problem and one that’s only become more pronounced with the growth of fulfillment centers from the likes of Amazon. the online mega-retailer purchased logistics robotics company Kiva Systems for $775 million, back in 2012 and has been rumored to be working on its own pick and place system.

As part of this round, former Kiva CEO Mick Mountz will be joining RightHand’s board of directors.“RightHand is picking up where we left off,” he said in a press release tied to the news. “Customers saw products coming directly to operators for picking and packing and would ask: ‘Why don’t you also automate this step with a robotic arm and gripper?’ But that was a difficult problem that we knew would require years of research and technical breakthroughs.”

RightHand will be using the funding to build out its technical and business teams.

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I’ve been living for the past few years in a limbo between journalist and entrepreneur, trying to build startups the way I saw them being built on stage at Disrupt and discovering that my skill and will to win are no match against the world. That’s fine. These days I’ll take it.

But for a few minutes in Chicago last May, I couldn’t.

That day was normal for me. I woke up, went and met some folks at a cool startup, visited at great guitar store, and had a mediocre deep dish pizza. I then went to an event where I gave my usual rant (and pissed people off) about how smaller market cities are having huge trouble innovating, and then went out with some good people to talk about cool stuff.

Then, on my way back to the hotel, I looked both ways on a busy, dark street and thought long and hard about stepping in front of a Chicago city bus.

Why not? I wasn’t helping. My first startup had failed and everything else was a slow burn. I wasn’t thinking about my family. I wasn’t thinking about my existence on a global scale but on a local one. I could turn off this brain once and for all and I thought everyone would be happier.

I got help. I discovered I was anhedonic and chronically depressed – I couldn’t feel happiness. I had been traveling through life in a haze. I drank a lot to hide this from myself – after all, if you’re hosed you don’t worry about not feeling anything – and I traveled obsessively and spoke on stage so I could feel something, anything, better than the flat grey note that played constantly in my head.

I feel better now. I have a lot of digging to do. I wonder if you’re in the same position.

I’m noodling on this because of Colin Kroll. The specifics of Kroll’s specific story are unclear but an overdose is definitely in the mental illness wheelhouse. Maybe he was having a blast, flush on investor money and celebrating a win. I won’t judge.

But he’s dead. And I don’t want you to follow him.

Any of us could end up gone for any number of reasons associated with entrepreneurship. There is the stress, the overwork. There is the sense of failure even amid the greatest successes. There is deep frustration and deep anger. Entrepreneurs are high performers who are used to getting As in life. When that same life gives you a D- you feel that it’s your fault, that your dreams of success are gold foil over a rotten sweet.

This isn’t true. We all have to work to remind ourselves of this. A startup, like any creative endeavor, is doomed to fail but its very existence is a miracle. We do it not because we want to make millions but because we want to fix something broken in the world. I write to share cool things with you all. I make startups to help bring to the next level of innovation. But I let these efforts get in the way of life. I thought my failures were systemic, that I was proving that I was a failure over and over again and that I had visible proof through my failed efforts. My startup wasn’t me, but I didn’t know that.

In the dull, hot blush of a depressive episode, the embarrassing moment you look at yourself and see nothing but junk, we have to remember that we are making real efforts, building real things, moving way ahead of the pack. The world will catch up.

There are lots of ways to get help. Ask around. You’ll be surprised to hear that your friends and family know great shrinks who can help. You’ll be surprised that going to meetings or talking to someone on the phone can be a great way to assuage mental grief. You’ll be surprised to know that there are people out there for you. Email me if you need help: john@techcrunch.com

This shit is hard. Don’t make it harder by letting it fester.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a 24-hour, toll-free, confidential suicide prevention hotline available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. It provides Spanish-speaking counselors, as well as options for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. It is only available in the United States. A 24-hour an Online Chat in partnership with Contact USA is also available.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (ESP) can be reached at 1-888-628-9454
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Deaf & Hard of Hearing Options) can be reached at 1-800-799-4889

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2CiEIrK

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I’ve been living for the past few years in a limbo between journalist and entrepreneur, trying to build startups the way I saw them being built on stage at Disrupt and discovering that my skill and will to win are no match against the world. That’s fine. These days I’ll take it.

But for a few minutes in Chicago last May, I couldn’t.

That day was normal for me. I woke up, went and met some folks at a cool startup, visited at great guitar store, and had a mediocre deep dish pizza. I then went to an event where I gave my usual rant (and pissed people off) about how smaller market cities are having huge trouble innovating, and then went out with some good people to talk about cool stuff.

Then, on my way back to the hotel, I looked both ways on a busy, dark street and thought long and hard about stepping in front of a Chicago city bus.

Why not? I wasn’t helping. My first startup had failed and everything else was a slow burn. I wasn’t thinking about my family. I wasn’t thinking about my existence on a global scale but on a local one. I could turn off this brain once and for all and I thought everyone would be happier.

I got help. I discovered I was anhedonic and chronically depressed – I couldn’t feel happiness. I had been traveling through life in a haze. I drank a lot to hide this from myself – after all, if you’re hosed you don’t worry about not feeling anything – and I traveled obsessively and spoke on stage so I could feel something, anything, better than the flat grey note that played constantly in my head.

I feel better now. I have a lot of digging to do. I wonder if you’re in the same position.

I’m noodling on this because of Colin Kroll. The specifics of Kroll’s specific story are unclear but an overdose is definitely in the mental illness wheelhouse. Maybe he was having a blast, flush on investor money and celebrating a win. I won’t judge.

But he’s dead. And I don’t want you to follow him.

Any of us could end up gone for any number of reasons associated with entrepreneurship. There is the stress, the overwork. There is the sense of failure even amid the greatest successes. There is deep frustration and deep anger. Entrepreneurs are high performers who are used to getting As in life. When that same life gives you a D- you feel that it’s your fault, that your dreams of success are gold foil over a rotten sweet.

This isn’t true. We all have to work to remind ourselves of this. A startup, like any creative endeavor, is doomed to fail but its very existence is a miracle. We do it not because we want to make millions but because we want to fix something broken in the world. I write to share cool things with you all. I make startups to help bring to the next level of innovation. But I let these efforts get in the way of life. I thought my failures were systemic, that I was proving that I was a failure over and over again and that I had visible proof through my failed efforts. My startup wasn’t me, but I didn’t know that.

In the dull, hot blush of a depressive episode, the embarrassing moment you look at yourself and see nothing but junk, we have to remember that we are making real efforts, building real things, moving way ahead of the pack. The world will catch up.

There are lots of ways to get help. Ask around. You’ll be surprised to hear that your friends and family know great shrinks who can help. You’ll be surprised that going to meetings or talking to someone on the phone can be a great way to assuage mental grief. You’ll be surprised to know that there are people out there for you. Email me if you need help: john@techcrunch.com

This shit is hard. Don’t make it harder by letting it fester.

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a 24-hour, toll-free, confidential suicide prevention hotline available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. It provides Spanish-speaking counselors, as well as options for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. It is only available in the United States. A 24-hour an Online Chat in partnership with Contact USA is also available.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (ESP) can be reached at 1-888-628-9454
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Deaf & Hard of Hearing Options) can be reached at 1-800-799-4889

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2CiEIrK

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B-Social, a London fintech that currently offers a ‘social finance’ app and beta debit Mastercard, has raised £3.2 million in Seed round funding from undisclosed high-net-worth individuals. However, the fundraise is just the first step in a journey in which B-Social want to eventually become a fully licensed bank that reimagines banking around everyday social interactions.

As it exists today, the B-Social app and accompanying card enables users to have control over everyday spending, track expenditure, and create groups between friends to split bills and record settlements. It’s currently in the hands of a limited number of beta testers, spanning employees, investors, friends and family, with plans for a wider U.K. launch in February next year.

“We recognise that almost all financial transactions are inherently social,” B-Social co-founder and CEO Nazim Valimahomed tells me. “We want to change the relationship people have with money by helping them overcome the anxiety, awkwardness and wasted time when they engage with their social finances. We are doing that by building a digital bank that truly accommodates the way people live their lives and is dedicated to connecting a person’s finances to their social world”.

The idea was born in part out of Valimahomed’s own frustrations and is informed by his belief that individuals are often a bank themselves, lending and borrowing to friends and family by making shared purchases and then getting paid back.

“A simple example might be that you pay for flights for two or more people and then get paid back individually,” he says. “For multiple transactions, this becomes complex often resulting in the trip organiser having to create a spreadsheet to work out what people owe across multiple transactions”.

To simplify this problem, B-Social wants to let you to make purchases with your card, which are flagged as an expense on behalf of a group of individuals. From here the bank to be will enable all members of a group — and where groups can be ad hoc and temporary or more long-term — to continuously see who is owed how much and to get paid back easily within the app and record settlements.

Dubbing this future proposition as the seeds of a “social bank,” the B-Social CEO cites competitors as traditional high street banks that currently dominate the U.K. consumer market (the so-called big 5 have around 87 percent market share in the U.K.).

“We are aiming at winning a part of their market share by targeting customers looking for a bank as social as they are that offers a unique digital experience in order to help change the banking ecosystem forever,” Valimahomed tells me, although he also concedes that challengers such as Monzo, N26, Starling and Revolut have also built some basic social features into their apps.

“Our entire technology and product focus is to build a bank from scratch through a social lens,” he says.

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