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Cosi Group, a Berlin-based startup offering an alternative to boutique hotels and managed short-stay apartments, is disclosing €20 million in new investment.

Backing the round is Vienna-based Soravia, a leading real estate group in German-speaking countries. Existing investors Cherry Ventures, e.ventures, Kreos Capital and Bremke followed on, along with a number of individual investors. They are described as including the founders of Flixbus, Travelperk, Comtravo, and Cosi’s own founders.

Cosi says it will use the fresh capital to accelerate international expansion in Europe, implement a new brand, and launch a “new strategic business unit” soon.

Originally described as a tech-enabled or “full-stack” hospitality service that competes with well-run boutique hotels or traditional local managed apartments, the company signs long-term leases with property owners, and then furnishes those apartments itself to “control” the interior design experience. It claims to have digitised, and where possible, automated its processes in order to scale and maintain quality of service throughout the guest journey, from initial contact to loyalty.

Christian Gaiser, CEO of Cosi, tells me the startup has not only been able to mitigate the pandemic — which has seen major restrictions in travel, including countries going into full lockdown — but actually thrive. That’s because Cosi was able to tap “new demand channels” which aren’t reliant on holiday travel or short business trips.

Described as “mid-stay” (guests that stay for 1 month or longer), examples include people who arrive in a city and need a home for 1 or 2 months until they find a longer term apartment, citizens who need to get away from shared apartments (perhaps to be less at risk or to work from home), or families who are building or renovating a house that faces construction delays due to the pandemic.

“Thus, we were able to reach over 90% occupancy and managed to operate our locations on a cash flow positive scale,” adds the Cosi CEO. “Lesson learned for us: Even when almost all your demand channels dry out, you still can do a lot if you focus on what you can control. We simply activated new demand channels”.

In addition, he says the pandemic has accelerated a shift in demand preferences, seeing “big hotel bunkers” become less popular versus individual apartment style accommodations.

Meanwhile, Cosi has also seen a “massive boost in supply,” with lots of takeover opportunities in the hotel space, especially for underperforming hotel properties. And since office space demand has contracted dramatically, the company is receiving offers to convert office space for use as mid-stay accommodation.

“On the back of our strong Covid performance, we’ve built a lot of trust among the real estate community and receive more and more offers,” says Gaiser. “Prices for supply have fallen sometimes dramatically, depending on the city, due to these factors”.

To that end, Cosi currently has 750 units under contract, with 1,500 more under negotiation.

Adds the Cosi CEO: “Now is exactly the right timing to double down on Cosi’s growth from a long term perspective. When everyone is scared/shocked, you can win big if you have a clear plan. Our investors bought into this plan, as we have demonstrated that our business model is resilient and we also have the capacity to navigate the ship both in good but also in rough waters”.

In the nearly ten years since it launched as a whole animal butchery out of a storefront in East Nashville, the founders of Porter Road have wanted to herd America’s meat industry down a new path.

Now the company has $10 million in financing from investors including L37 Ventures, River Park Ventures, Middleland, FJ Labs, Kelvin Beachum along with previous investors MAX Ventures, Tribeca Venture Partners, and Slow Ventures to bring that mission to a broader swath of the country.

Since the company bought its own slaughterhouse back in 2015 and expanded to e-commerce in 2018 it has been shipping its selections of lamb, beef, pork, chicken and sausages from local farms to tables across the U.S.

The new money will be used to scale the company’s sustainable agriculture and its pasture-raised meat for the direct-to-consumer business, its shop in Nashville, and for wholesale distribution to restaurants around the country.

It’s going to expand its operations in Princeton, Ky with a new USDA processing facility that’s 4.5 times larger to meet new demand. That move will create 80 new jobs in the small town and is part of a broader agricultural renaissance in Kentucky.

“It’s easy to back founders who are as comfortable on the manufacturing line as they are in the boardroom, and who see the world differently and have the deep domain expertise to execute on that vision,” said L37 Partner Randall Ussery in a statement. “They have spent years perfecting the Porter Road way which no company nor incumbent can replicate overnight. They are a category killer in the meat industry and have built a moat around their brand.”

Porter Road delivery box of a selection of its steaks, sausages and bacon. Image Credit: Porter Road

One indication of the ways in which Porter Road differs from its larger competitors is in the way it handled the COVID-19 pandemic at its facilities.

Due to its limited production schedule and measures like staggered break times, mask requirements and social distancing rules, the company was able to avoid having any outbreaks at its facilities, according to the company’s co-founder and chief executive, Chris Carter. “We had a handful of people who got sick, but [COVID-19] didn’t spread in Princeton,” said Carter.

And despite the push for more plant-based diets, Carter says that his company’s focus on pasture-raised animals and whole animal butchery should appeal to folks who care about sustainable production. “We care about our farmers and we care about the way our animals are raised,” said Carter. “That’s the whole point of what we’re doing… Porter Road is about animal utilization. It’s about honoring the life of an animal so we find an outlet for every single piece.”

Porter Road is expanding its product line into cooking tallow and fats, and cross cut bones for bone marrow dishes, Carter said.

“The food system is broken and in need of a substantial change. Today’s consumer is demanding a deeper level of connection to their food and can see past misleading labels and buzzwords,” said  Carter, in a statement. “We are delivering trust, transparency, and flavor so no one has to compromise, all while supporting our farmers.”

Before kids graduate to the expansive virtual worlds in games like Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite, they often get their start in online social gaming with a game like Animal Jam. Here, kids learn to personalize their avatar, explore a world, chat with other players, and trade items in a safe environment with parental controls. Today, the company behind this popular title, WildWorks, is launching a new game, Fer.al, which builds on Animal Jam’s legacy while catering to a slightly older crowd of Gen Z teens.

“When we started talking about Fer.al, it was the idea of where do kids go when they age out of Animal Jam?,” explains Clark Stacey, co-founder and CEO of WildWorks. “Because there isn’t a transitional space between a completely walled garden like Animal Jam and…Instagram and the adult social networks and games that don’t have those same protections,” he continues.

“We knew we wanted to provide a place for these older kids to go where the walls are a little bit lower,” Stacey adds.

The new game is meant to cater to older kids — meaning young teens ages 13 to around 18 — who are now choosing their own games, have their own email address, and don’t need parental permission to play. The guardrails on chat also won’t be as high on Fer.al as on Animal Jam, and will focus more on preventing bullying and abuse than blocking words. Players will also be able to connect their online social accounts to their game accounts in the future.

Image Credits: WildWorks

With Fer.al, WildWorks is introducing another animal-centered title, but this time it’s moving into the fantasy realm. Players choose between bipedal humanoid creatures based on folklore and myth including a Kitsune, Senri, Dragon, Jackelope, Werewolf, Kirin, or a Shinigami, with more to come i time.

The characters’ style was inspired by Animal Jam fan art, Stacey says, where kids would create animal avatars that were sort of a mix between manga, Animal Jam’s style, and other, older animation styles.

Like its predecessor, Fer.al players will also be able to personalize their character and change their appearance, design their personal space (this time, a “sanctuary” instead of a “den,”) discover a world where they can interact with other players, collect items and trade, and venture on quests. But the storyline has also evolved to reflect teens’ interests, including their growing understanding of social media and the desire to grow an online fan base.

The larger narrative involves a reality show where two warring queens, Aradia and Delilah — each with their own Instagram account, naturally — are angling for control. The company isn’t offering a lot of details as to how this narrative plays out in the long-term, but it will involve weekly and monthly contests as the game ramps up, in addition to the everyday missions and quests which are undertaken to gain ingredients to create new clothes or a new “glamour” (a rendering effect that goes around your character.)

Image Credits: WildWorks

Much like Animal Jam — or even other virtual worlds like some Roblox games — players are meant to engage in cooperative gameplay to advance. There will be tasks you can’t complete on your own, meaning you’ll need to interact and chat. You will also be able to join factions, initially driven by the two queens, as the game advances.

Another notable aspect to Fer.al is that it’s largely designed to cater to girl gamers.

“It’s certainly not intended to be to the exclusion of boys who are in this age range,” explains Stacey. “But we recognize the fact that, among the most engaged Animal Jam players, it’s about 80% girls. We’ve leaned into that pretty heavily in Animal Jam — we’re trying to feature a lot of female scientists and working with them on causes that promote girls in STEM. So we know a lot of the built-in audience is coming from that,” he says.

“And I think the need that we recognized is that it’s not hard for adolescent boys to find online communities that jive with them. It’s pretty hard for girls to find the same thing. So, as we’re creating this this community — everything from the rules to the visuals — we are very conscious of that. And the people that we’re going to and asking for what works for you and what doesn’t, is primarily girls,” he adds.

Image Credits: WildWorks

Building off the Animal Jam fan base has been an advantage for getting Fer.al off the ground. Today, Animal Jam has anywhere between 2.5 million to 4 million monthly active users out of a total of 135 million registered accounts. The gulf between the registered and active figures is indicative of how many kids have since grew out of Animal Jam since its October 2010 launch. But Stacey admits the title has seen some decline since its peak usage, as well.

Still, there’s a lot of interest in what WildWorks does next, it seems.

Within a week of launching the Fer.al website, the game had 75,000 kids sign up to become beta testers. The testers were brought into the beta slowly, starting in April 2020, and initially on desktop only. Now, the beta version of the game sees daily actives in the low 10,000’s pre-launch. On the Apple App Store and Google Play, over 100,000 people have registered for the pre-release, as well.

Like Animal Jam, Fer.al will offer a freemium experience. But while Animal Jam generated nearly 80% of revenues through subscriptions, Fer.al will use a season pass model of monetization. Users buy the season — priced around $10 to $20 — via an in-app purchase, which will unlock unique items and experiences specific to that season. It expects to launch around 7 seasons per year.

Image Credits: WildWorks

The company didn’t offer seasons until later in the beta test, but Stacey says the conversion rate was at “the high end of our expectations so far on desktop.” If the mobile conversion rates remains as high as desktop, it will be in the range to start investing in user acquisition, he says. The company may also consider ads at a later date as well as merchandise, if all goes well.

Salt Lake City-headquartered WildWorks (formerly Smart Bomb Interactive) is majority owned by Signal Peak Ventures, which has invested $20+ million into the company over the years. The company shifted in 2008 to focus on its own IP, resulting in the launch of Animal Jam and other titles.

Over the past few years, WildWorks’ revenue — largely from Animal Jam and another game, Tag with Ryan — has ranged between $20+ million to below $30 million. If Fer.al is able to successfully capture the Animal Jam graduates who are looking to move up to “older kid” gameplay, it could grow that revenue base by a sizable amount.

Fer.al is launching publically today in all countries, and will be available initially in English. It can be played on PC, Mac, iOS and Android.

TechCrunch is hosting a small virtual meetup this Thursday centered around Miami. We hope you can attend. It’s free.

This is our first (virtual) field trip to Miami. Even though we can’t be there physically right now, it’ll sure feel like we are. All lights will be shining on the Magic City. The area is quickly transforming thanks to active investors, interesting companies, a Twitter-proficient mayor and beautifully scenic living.

If you’re interested in what’s happening in Miami in general, seeking out a new, up-and-coming city to live in, looking for cool companies and talented founders to invest in, then you’ll want to register and drop March 11 on your calendar. This is a virtual event, but space is still limited, so register early.

Here’s just some of what you can expect:

• Networking – It’s what you can always count on us for. Companies are started and deals get done at TechCrunch events (yes, even the virtual ones!).
• Pitch-off – We’re going to tap into the local tech scene in Miami and bring on some VCs to take a look at  your pitches. They’ll give you feedback live from the stage. Sign up to pitch by filling out this form.
• Panels – Meet the movers and shakers up close and personal. Hear about their journey, ask them questions and find out what’s special to them about Miami.

All along the way we’ll be asking for your feedback by way of polls, Q&As and surveys. We want to hear from everyone who lives in the birthplace of sunscreen, and we’re looking to you for suggestions on folks who should be getting all of the attention we can throw at them on March 11. Drop suggestions in the comments below.

It’s going to be one to remember, and it’s the perfect setup for when we can safely crash the city in person again!

Ann Arbor-based Refraction AI announced today that it has raised a $4.2 million seed round. The startup, which debuted on the TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility stage back in 2019, was founded by a pair of University of Michigan professors (Matthew Johnson-Roberson — now CTO — and Ram Vasudevan) seeking to solve a number of issues posed by many delivery robots.

With an initial prototype built on a bicycle foundation, the company’s REV-1 robot is designed to operate in bike lanes and roads, rather than the standard sidewalk ‘bot. The different approach allows the robot to travel at higher speeds (topping out at 15 miles per hour) and removes some of the messy pedestrian-dodging issues that come with sidewalk use (while introducing some new ones on that narrow sliver of asphalt shared by cyclists).

Refraction is currently testing a small fleet in its native Ann Arbor. The seed round, led by Pillar VC, will be used for R&D, expanding the company’s reach and recruiting more customers, with a focus on grocery store and restaurant deliveries. Other investors include, eLab Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, Trucks Venture Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Chad Laurans and Invest Michigan.

Another key differentiator is the use of cameras, versus LIDAR. The decision comes with some technological trade-offs, but benefits include a lower price point and the ability for the company to more quickly scale its fleet. The technology is also not easily districted by weather conditions encountered in the upper midwest, though it has limitations, too. As the company puts it, if you’re not comfortable walking out in it, the robot probably won’t be, either.

“Our platform uses technology that exists today in an innovative way, to get people the things they need, when they need them, where they live,” CEO Luke Schneider said in a release tied to the news. “And we’re doing so in a way that reduces business’ costs, makes roads less congested, and eliminates carbon emissions.”

With this new funding, the company plans to expand operations beyond its native Ann Arbor, though no additional test markets have been announced.