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Tag: TechCrunch

  • I Founded a Tech Organization with an Estimated Value in the Billions. Here’s Why We Refuse to Monetise It — by Bobby Gruenewald

    I Founded a Tech Organization with an Estimated Value in the Billions. Here’s Why We Refuse to Monetise It — by Bobby Gruenewald

    In 2008, I stood in line at an airport security line at Chicago O’Hare, frustrated with my own inconsistency in reading the Bible and wondering how we could leverage technology to solve a problem that millions struggled with. That moment of curiosity sparked an idea that would eventually become some of the most downloaded apps in history: the YouVersion Bible Apps. 

    But the journey didn’t begin with an app. Our first attempt in 2007 was actually a website, but it didn’t solve the problem of consistency. People would visit the site, but they didn’t come back. Essentially, we’d just moved the Bible from their nightstand to their desktop. We had to meet people where they were if we wanted to help them build a lasting habit that would change their lives. Recognizing this as a failure helped us realize that making the Bible available online wasn’t enough, which positioned us to be ready for what was next. We pivoted to launch a mobile-friendly version for BlackBerry devices, and we quickly saw the momentum shift.

    When Steve Jobs announced the concept of the app, we had no idea what to expect. No one did. But we shifted our focus again and became one of the first 200 free apps available on the day the App Store launched in 2008. The keyword there is free. 

    The one thing we were certain of from the start was that the Bible App must be free, accessible, and non-commercial. If people were hesitant to pay $0.99 for a song they loved, they weren’t going to pay for a book they didn’t understand. So, from day one, the Bible App has remained completely free without any other motivation but to get the Bible into the hands and hearts of people around the world. 

    Today, as we approach one billion installs across our family of Bible apps, I’m reflecting on the path we’ve ventured down. With a billion app opens every 39 days, the numbers tell a compelling story. Industry analysts suggest that if YouVersion operated as a traditional tech company, we’d be “a unicorn several times over,” likely worth billions of dollars. Which begs the question I’ve been asked time and again over the years: Why not monetise?

    The tech entrepreneur in me understands the curiosity. YouVersion has valuable perspective into how people engage with the Bible. But from the very beginning, we’ve made a clear and unwavering commitment to our community. We won’t run ads. We won’t sell data. We’ll stay focused on creating world-class technology funded solely by people who believe in the mission. This might sound radical to someone who doesn’t understand our mission, but it’s been true since day one. 

    Since the very beginning of YouVersion, we’ve been driven by purpose, not profit. And for us, that purpose is clear: to get God’s Word to everyone, everywhere, every day. We believe the Bible should be accessible without distraction or compromise. This kind of access shouldn’t have a barrier to entry, and we shouldn’t feel beholden to a bottom line because of it. When I hear estimations of our value, I don’t think, “How can we capitalize on this?” but instead, “Are we stewarding this influence well?” and “Are we thinking as boldly as that number suggests we should?” 

    That kind of focus requires intentional leadership. There are tensions, of course. Operating like a tech organization means we move fast and value innovation, but we’re first and foremost a ministry. We strive to remain focused on our mission and to center it in all we do. Our team includes seasoned business leaders from SpaceX, major Silicon Valley firms, and Fortune 500 companies who could be making an impact elsewhere, but they’ve chosen to use their innovative minds and experience to make a difference at YouVersion. It’s rare to find a company where every single member of the team is passionate about the purpose driving the work each day. That’s what makes YouVersion different: everyone is deeply invested in the vision.

    And that’s why conversations about our “worth” often miss the point. Our value isn’t measured in dollars. Rather, it’s measured in people finding hope in Scripture and in the global Church unifying around God’s Word. We talk about a billion, but the original vision wasn’t about billions; it was about solving a problem for one. Today, we still go after “the one.” Every month, the most-searched terms within the Bible App include hope, peace, anxiety, healing, and love. This isn’t random. Each term is a window into an individual’s journey with God, whether it be a search for comfort or a longing to understand amidst the waves of uncertainty. 

    From day one, we made a choice: we’re not trying to maximize financial return, we’re working to maximize kingdom impact. That’s the measure of success that drives us. Because of this, I know we’ve been trusted with something far more valuable: the opportunity to be part of what God is doing in hearts and lives around the world. That’s a return on investment that no billion-dollar valuation could ever match.

    Bobby Gruenewald is the Founder and CEO of YouVersion, which shares the Bible with the world for free through a Family of Bible Apps installed on nearly one billion devices. As one of the leading voices in the global Church on innovation and technology, Gruenewald has been featured in The New York Times, TechCrunch, CNN, and more. He has previously started and sold two technology companies as well as served in advisory capacities for various startups and venture capital funds. Gruenewald and his wife, Melissa, live in Oklahoma with their four children.

  • AVCA’S Fifth VC Summit Spotlights Resilience, Scale, and Bankability as Critical Levers to Propel Africa’s VC Ecosystem

    AVCA’S Fifth VC Summit Spotlights Resilience, Scale, and Bankability as Critical Levers to Propel Africa’s VC Ecosystem

    The African Private Capital Association (AVCA) hosted its fifth Venture Capital (VC) Summit yesterday. The summit forms part of the industry association’s 21st Annual AVCA Conference week, held in Lagos until 2 May. The global gathering brings early-stage and venture capital investors, corporate venture arms, founders, entrepreneurs, and accelerators together to discuss new trends and plot the rise of Africa’s venture capital landscape.

    Abi Mustapha-Maduakor, CEO of AVCA, opened the Summit by acknowledging the strategic importance of Nigeria’s entrepreneurial landscape: “Hosting the Summit in Nigeria is significant because this country has long been at the heart of Africa’s entrepreneurial evolution. Despite economic headwinds, we’ve witnessed innovation and resilience in the early-stage ecosystem. It is no coincidence that in 2024, Nigeria produced one of the continent’s newest unicorns.”

    Tope Awotona, Founder and CEO of Calendly, the US$3bn tech unicorn, and Abi Mustapha-Maduakor, CEO of AVCA, kicked off the summit with a keynote fireside chat. Describing his remarkable entrepreneurial journey, Awotona said: “I knew scheduling wasn’t just a productivity tax—it was a tax on important business outcomes like revenue. We didn’t invent online scheduling but made it accessible to more people through three key innovations: our freemium pricing model, our viral distribution method, and our data-driven product improvements.”

    The conversation affirmed the power of innovation, enabling expansion to international markets and the benefits of experimentation with price, distribution, and product. Awotona said: “When scheduling went virtual, more users meant more data could help to improve the product and help to become the best on the market.” 

    Following the sentiments of Calendly’s Founder and CEO, a panel titled Unlocking Scale: The Growth-Stage Challenge with Leo Batalov, Partner, Global Co-Head of Emerging Growth Companies and Venture Capital, DLA Piper, and Brian Waswani Odhiambo, Partner, Novastar Ventures, examined how to bridge the gap for businesses moving from early stage development to accessing capital in their growth stage, and highlighted the urgency of building strong local investor ecosystems.

    Outlining the roles of founders and venture capital investors in supporting the long-term sustainability of Africa’s burgeoning tech ecosystem, Dr Omobola Johnson, Senior Partner, TLcom Capital, said: “We need to help founders understand that at the growth stage, they’re competing for global capital, not just local. Founders must recognise the competition and make their businesses appealing to international investors…This makes the African market more scalable, bankable, and investable.”

    The summit proceeded with a headline session, entitled Titans of Industry: Bold Moves, featuring Tosin Eniolorunda, Group CEO of Moniepoint, who underscored the merits of building a valuable company and building a robust team. He said, “If you have an organisation that is growing, investors will be interested; so we focused early on establishing good fundamentals—topline growth, profitability, EBITDA margins, return on equity. The more important goal is building a valuable company with healthy bottom lines. This opens up multiple opportunities, whether through Nigeria’s evolving stock exchange or large buyouts from sovereign wealth funds.”

    Other panels convened capital allocators – representing corporate, commercial, and development-focused interests – to share their perspectives on a maturing venture capital ecosystem in Africa. The competitive fundraising environment provided a backdrop to outline how Limited Partners (LPs) select where to invest, assess risk, evaluate opportunity, and determine priorities.

    In a panel entitled Venture Debt – Africa’s Missing Piece? speakers including Rosanne Whalley, Chief Executive Officer, AHL Ventures Partners, Roeland Donckers, Managing Partner, iungo capital, and moderator Tage Kene-Okafor, Africa reporter at TechCrunch, discussed the role of venture debt products as a complement to equity funding, providing bridge capital to accelerate company growth. 

    According to AVCA’s latest report, venture debt showed impressive resilience in 2024, with 60 deals totalling US$1.0bn—a 3% increase year-on-year. While representing just 12% of total deal volume, venture debt accounted for 37% of total capital deployed, with median deal sizes reaching US$7.5mn, nearly three times larger than equity-based transactions.

    The session underscored the need for African investors to know when to deploy these tools and the importance of raising awareness amongst founders of these financing alternatives. Biola Alabi, Venture Partner, Delta40, noted that “there is a critical gap in financial literacy around debt financing in our ecosystem. Many founders and even some GPs don’t fully understand what debt investors require in terms of traction and stability. We need to help restructure existing debt and educate founders on how venture debt can complement equity to extend runway and avoid dilution, particularly for businesses with predictable revenue streams.”

  • Cybersecurity skills shortage: Recession or stress?

    Cybersecurity skills shortage: Recession or stress?

    …The economic landscape has seen many technology companies lay off vast numbers of employees, but for cybersecurity, the picture looks very different

    In 2023, there have been so many layoffs in the technology industry that TechCrunch labelled it a “reckoning” in its extensive list released late April. To date, across numerous organisations that include Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Dropbox and Zoom, to name but a few, there have been nearly 169,000 layoffs. Meta is expected to lay off 10,000 roles in the next few months and Disney 7,000. And yet, in cybersecurity there are still more “jobs open than people to fill them”.  According to Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy & Evangelist at KnowBe4 AFRICA, the biggest challenge facing the cybersecurity profession right now is not the sudden loss of a job, but the long-term impact of skills shortages and stress.

    “The cybersecurity skills shortage has meant that fewer roles in this profession have been affected by the layoffs,” she says. “However, there is ongoing job security anxiety for people in the technology industry, regardless of their roles. Cybersecurity professionals are juggling high-demand jobs that are intensely stressful, and they rarely switch off. Security is a 24/7 job where nobody notices the hard work done until something goes wrong.”

    A fact echoed by a recent report on the state of SecOps and automation, which found that 93% of security professionals said their alerts had doubled over the past five years. 56% handle around 1,000 alerts a day. 83% have alert fatigue. Cybersecurity personnel are batting down the defences and battling it out daily but, as Collard points out, the moment they slip up, it becomes a blame game, which can make this an intensely toxic environment.

    This is reflected in the Tines State of Mental Health in Cybersecurity 2022 report which reiterated this reality. Around 27% of professionals believed their mental health had declined over the past year, 66% experience stress at work, 64% say their work affects their mental health and 58% are on medication to manage their mental wellbeing. Only half are in good physical health, with a mere 42% getting a much-needed eight hours of sleep a night.

    “This shifts the conversation from plugging the gaps to making cybersecurity significantly healthier for those entering into the profession,” says Collard. “The holes left by limited access to skilled people are not going to be filled if security remains a space where stress goes to thrive. Amidst the recession and the economic crisis, cybersecurity roles remain empty, which says that the problem may not exclusively be lack of skills development.”

    Cybersecurity is a fascinating industry and for those who love a challenge and thrive on problem solving, it is a space where they can shine. But not if that is at the expense of their health. There are plenty of stories, told around the cybersecurity campfire, of a CISO having a heart attack in the middle of a security incident, or shortly after. The Tines survey found that nearly 30% of cybersecurity professionals believed their mental health was getting worse.

    “Cybersecurity is fun,” says Collard. “It is interesting and dynamic. But these benefits are often overshadowed by that sense of dread that something is about to go horribly wrong. Incidents are unexpected, stressful and often leave teams exhausted, and there is no time to rest before the next incident hits. Cybercriminals are very well rewarded for their diligence when it comes to exploiting every vulnerability they can find. Cybersecurity teams have to chase these vulnerabilities and threats to ensure nothing is left to chance.”

    To minimise the risk of losing talented security people, companies need to look beyond the gaps and skills and into providing truly holistic support to their security professionals. This goes beyond upskilling. Now, security teams need mental wellness support that kicks the toxic blame-game dynamic out of the door.

    “If you want to attract more people into cybersecurity, you need to put controls in place that minimise the stress and emphasise the value of your people,” concludes Collard.