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To achieve enterprise sales success, tailor your approach to CIOs | Yousuf Khan | 2,022 | 3 | 3 | have been successful over the long term all have something in common: they know how to sell to chief information officers. They understand that the work isn’t over after the handshakes and signatures — effectively managing and nurturing a vendor-CIO relationship requires attention. I’m a VC now, but my five CIO stints over the past two decades have taught me plenty about the and of the enterprise sales process. My daily conversations with existing CIOs reaffirm these insights and shed light on other important steps. I’ll tackle the relationship-nurturing piece further down. First up, here is what CIOs look for in solutions and how you can tailor your sales approach accordingly. CIOs rarely make decisions unilaterally. They will most often sponsor a buying decision in collaboration with key members of their team. The mistake most companies make is going straight to the CIO without buy-in from the leadership group immediately under them. Build confidence with that team first. From there, you’ll have better insight into whether the product you’ve built fits into the overarching strategy the CIO has put into place. Make sure your ROI is definitive. People are always willing to pay a premium to solve problems, but you have to be prescriptive about what you do. And whatever that value prop is, be sure it’s aligned with the CIO’s larger vision. CIOs want solutions for the longer term, so think about how you position your product as a long-term solution rather than a reference-point solution. Most CIOs already suffer from tool fatigue, managing a budget that includes hundreds of SaaS applications. If you want the CIO’s attention, position your offering as one that will continue to add value over time. Show that your solution can scale and that you have a vision for the future. CIOs are often wary of procuring products they think may disappear or be acquired. Make sure you have a clearly articulated plan for deployment and change management. Many CIOs will say no to a solution simply because their teams aren’t set up to deploy well. Think about how you can deploy a solution and add value without relying on the customer’s resources. Remember that a CIO’s team has been building, buying, deploying and managing solutions long before you showed up. How does your solution fit into the team’s process and, more importantly, how do you deploy successfully? Have a reference that’s relevant to the CIO before you reach out. CIOs expect to be sold to and cold-called; it’s not a surprise when it happens, nor is it jarring. But it happens a lot, and to break through the noise, it really helps to have a peer CIO who can reference the solution. |
Twitter’s EU-only geoblocks of Russia Today off to a shaky start | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 3 | 3 | Twitter has claimed it’s complying with an EU-wide ban on Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik which as part of the package of sanctions imposed by the bloc on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, albeit reluctantly. In a statement the social network has been circulating in response to press requests this week a Twitter spokesperson said: The European Union (EU) sanctions will legally require us to withhold certain content in EU member states, and we intend to comply. Our global approach outside of the EU will continue to focus on de-amplifying this type of state-affiliated media content across our service and providing important context through our labels. We continue to advocate for a free and open internet, particularly in times of crisis. However it’s not clear how well Twitter is complying with the legal order banning the distribution of RT’s content in the EU. While some users around Europe have reported encountering an “account withheld” notification if they try to access the Kremlin-linked media outlet’s verified Twitter account since the RT ban came into force (see first screenshot below), TechCrunch found it is still possible to view RT’s account from within the EU — without needing to use a VPN to circumvent the geoblocks (see second screengrab). Testing Twitter’s implementation in the EU, here’s what a user in France encountered when attempting to browse to RT’s Verified Twitter account: What a Twitter user in France saw when trying to access RT’s verified Twitter account (Screengrab: TechCrunch) But testing the exact same thing today from Spain we found no block on accessing RT’s account and could also view individual tweets — including the below example which the state-affiliated media entity tweeted out this morning — despite Twitter’s own “account withheld” notice, visible elsewhere in the EU, listing Spain as one of the countries covered by its implementation… A Twitter user in Spain still able to access RT’s account (Screengrab: TechCrunch) At the time of writing our tester in Spain was still able to access RT from the Twitter mobile app and via the mobile web. So Twitter appears to be breaching the EU sanction in this instance. It’s not clear how wide (or singular) a problem this might be with Twitter’s implementation in Spain — or, indeed, across the EU (which has 27 Member States). Further “leakage” can’t be ruled out. Perhaps especially this soon after the sanction came into force. One interpretation of what’s going on here is that it may be a case of Twitter still ironing out issues with its compliance. ( Another, as , is that the blocks don’t rely on location but user-stated country so can be circumvented simply by the user changing their country in the Twitter settings.) It is still possible to access RT’s account on Twitter in the U.K., too — but that’s by design as the company has elected for the narrowest possible application in order to comply with the EU ban, and Nor has the U.K. ordered an equivalent domestic order prohibiting RT’s content from being distributed by online platforms — at least not yet; its media regulator, Ofcom, is whether RT has been breaching the country’s broadcast code. (Ofcom is also gearing up for a overseeing incoming internet content rules ahead of the becoming law, so will certainly be getting involved in online content moderation decisions in the future.) The list of countries where Twitter says it’s geoblocking RT in the wake of the EU prohibition also does not include Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland — which are in Europe, and in the European Free Trade Area, but are not in the EU. So, again, Twitter is electing for the narrowest possible implementation of a pan-EU sanction. That contrasts with and — which earlier this week both announced they were blocking access to RT’s apps on their respective mobile stores, with Apple doing so in all international markets (except Russia itself). Google didn’t go that far but it did implement a slightly broader geoblocking than Twitter — also blocking access to the apps in the aforementioned non-EU European countries (U.K., Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Switzerland), as well as EU countries and Ukraine. On Monday, Microsoft also announced that it was removing RT news apps from its Windows app store, and purging RT and Sputnik content from its Microsoft Start platform (including MSN.com) — in order to “reduce the exposure of Russian state propaganda”, as it put it. So Twitter’s narrow, EU-only block on the Kremlin-affiliated media outlet is starting to look like an outlier. That said, the company’s core product is a real-time information service — which explains its general preference for labelling and contextualizing, rather than censoring (and earlier this week it announced extra labels for tweets linking to the Russian media outlets). Moreover, as Twitter’s statement implies, its network can play an especially heightened role during times of crisis — so having a reluctance to degrade its core utility, even during a war, is understandable. At the same time, the context in which RT is operating has inexorably shifted with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And it’s not clear whether Twitter has reassessed its policies in light of that. We’re now witnessing a war of aggression by Russia against a sovereign country in Europe — in which foreign-targeted propaganda is playing a key strategic role. This is why EU leaders very quickly decided that the invasion of Ukraine marked a red line for allowing the continued free flow of Putin’s propaganda through RT and Sputnik, the two main state-affiliated channels which are engaged in foreign information manipulation and clearly attached to his regime. Nonetheless, Twitter prefers to stay as neutral as it (legally) can, it seems. Asked about the issue our tester encountered in Spain (an EU country) Twitter declined to provide an explanation of why it is failing to block RT’s content — merely pointing back to its earlier statement when it said it “intend[s] to comply” with the EU sanction. Pressed further, Twitter’s spokeswoman confirmed: “We have implemented the ban.” Given that, it looks like the issue we’ve identified is an example of an imperfect implementation of the ban — presumably not an intentional fail by Twitter. And perhaps related to how little time has passed since the ban came into legal force (although the bloc’s president warned it was coming at the weekend). Considering the company’s long-stated preference for as many tweets as possible to flow, it may also be the case that a flakey implementation of a legal prohibition implies a degree of “feature not bug” to Twitter’s sloppy execution. We did press Twitter for clarity on the bug. But despite repeated attempts to get straight answers regarding the issue we had flagged, none were forthcoming. Instead Twitter’s spokeswoman sent us a link to its — and a pointer to what she described as “ The chunk of text she highlighted (see base of post) indicates that there are now 20 countries where Twitter is restricting access to content. So — attempting to read between the lines — it may be trying to suggest that with so many different, country-specific mandates to comply with it’s struggling to execute perfectly. And ahead of the bloc’s ban on the Kremlin-linked media coming into force yesterday, EU officials did signal that they were expecting a degree of progressivity to implementation of the sanction online, given the challenges of cutting off every last outlet where content might get distributed digitally. (Albeit, blocking verified accounts in specific regions really shouldn’t be that hard.) Whatever the specific explanation for the issue we found with Twitter’s implementation of the EU’s ban, one thing is clear: It remains all too easy for it to shrug off another policy enforcement failure. |
Hulu’s Theranos docu-series ‘The Dropout’ is like watching a car crash in slow motion | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 3 | 3 | Just because you know how the story ends doesn’t mean that it’s not fun to watch how it all went so horribly wrong. That’s the premise of an entire emerging genre of media, mostly produced by streaming platforms, which chronicle the most salacious stories in tech, startups and wealth gone wrong. Hulu’s “The Dropout,” which focuses on the fall of Theranos, is the latest. There’s also Apple TV+’s upcoming “WeCrashed” series, based on the podcast “WeCrashed: The Rise and Fall of WeWork,” and then there’s Showtime’s recent “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” featuring stars like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Uma Thurman. And lest we forget when Netflix and Hulu both released the same week, or when Netflix rushed to about the alleged husband-wife before their case has been resolved. But when you’re told the same story again and again without gleaning anything new, it loses its charm. Even before Elizabeth Holmes was of defrauding investors in January, we had from her story, which has already birthed true crime podcasts, books and documentaries. We read “Bad Blood,” the Theranos tell-all by journalist John Carreyrou, whose reporting directly contributed to Theranos’ downfall from a $10 billion valuation to nothing; we watched the HBO documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley;” and we observed in real time as Silicon Valley journalists live-tweeted her four-month-long trial, which was so popular that onlookers had to to make sure they could get a seat. Yet today, Hulu will release the first three episodes of “The Dropout,” and soon, Apple TV+ will unveil its “Bad Blood” movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes. These online streamers keep churning out this content because they know we will watch — we’re desperate and eager to understand how people can be so corrupted by the promise of money and fame that they will sacrifice their morality. Featuring Amanda Seyfried in the lead role, “The Dropout” is the first fictional re-telling of Holmes’ story, which we know so well by now: The youngest female self-made billionaire vows to change the healthcare system with ground-breaking technology, only for the world to discover that the woman they compared to Steve Jobs was peddling technology that never even worked. Photo by: Beth Dubber/Hulu The series opens with fictionalized footage of Holmes on trial, but other than these brief asides, the story of Theranos is told in a straightforward, linear narrative. From this perspective, “The Dropout” feels like watching a car crash in slow motion. You can’t look away, but you don’t really enjoy the sight. Seyfried’s interpretation of Holmes is reasonably convincing as she goes to deranged lengths to convince investors, board members, Walgreens partners and her devoted employees that she isn’t full of shit (spoiler alert: she’s full of shit). We’re also forced to watch as she falls in love with Sunny Balwani, her eventual COO who’s 18 years older than her, despite knowing that in 2021, Holmes would tearfully allege in court that he routinely abused her over their 12-year relationship. “The Dropout” makes it clear that Balwani isn’t a hero in the Theranos story. But as she dives head-first into being a CEO, the stomach-turning dynamics of her secretive relationship with Balwani are glossed over in a way that’s difficult to watch. The show also recounts Holmes’ alleged rape when she was a Stanford freshman in an attempt to contextualize the personal catastrophes that made her so hellbent on achieving fame and success. She in court last year, “I decided I was going to build a life by building this company.” In early episodes, Stephen Fry’s performance as chief scientist Ian Gibbons is a highlight of the show. But for viewers who know Gibbons’ fate, each of his jovial appearances summons a sense of foreboding. In 2013, Gibbons died by suicide shortly before he was required to testify in a lawsuit about Theranos’ technology. His widow, Rochelle Gibbons, that when her husband died, Holmes never reached out — instead, an office manager just asked that she return Ian’s laptop. As we watch Rochelle learn of Ian’s death, Holmes no longer feels like a young woman who’s in over her head. She’s a villain, but a complicated one. “The Dropout” still tries to humanize her, taking a bit of creative license to imagine personal aspects of her life that we will never know. This version of Holmes that Hulu created mourns Gibbons’ death, worries about her company’s lack of viable technology and even asks her mother what would happen if she quit Theranos. But even in this mildly sympathetic look at Holmes, she isn’t a likable character. Streamers know viewers are fascinated by unlikeable central figures, however, which translates into views. For instance, Netflix recently released a limited series about a young female scam artist. The series, “Inventing Anna,” tells the story of Anna Delvey, an infamously fascinating criminal who is enigmatic in the same way Elizabeth Holmes is — you don’t root for her because her actions are just too heinous to justify; but you want to know more about her, so you’ll watch seven to 10 hour-long episodes over the course of one weekend. Netflix viewers spent watching “Inventing Anna” between February 14 and 20, making it Netflix’s most-watched English-language series over a one-week period. The show debuted on Friday, February 11, racking up an additional 77 million hours viewed over the weekend it was released. Unlike “The Dropout,” “Inventing Anna” frames the story of the fake German heiress through a fictional journalist’s pain-staking reporting — the scams and trickery have already happened as the journalist convinces the victims of these scams to tell their side of the story. Like us, the fictional journalist is enraptured with questions of how a young woman could nearly scam Fortress Investment Group out of millions of dollars. Photo by: Beth Dubber/Hulu But the story of Elizabeth Holmes is ultimately scarier than the misdeeds of Anna Delvey. Delvey — whose real last name is Sorokin — basically just stole money from obscenely rich people, which is of course morally abhorrent, but it doesn’t quite stir up the same rage as Elizabeth Holmes’ company giving ordinary people false medical results, which could endanger their lives. If “Inventing Anna” were oriented as a linear narrative, it would probably still be entertaining, since she wasn’t posing an ever-growing threat to human health (…only to their wealth). But “The Dropout” just isn’t a fun watch — it’s like yelling, “No, don’t do it!” to the horror movie character who decides to walk into a creepy house, only that scene lasts for eight episodes, and it’s based on a real story. A lot has changed about our attitude toward tech in the times since movies like “The Social Network” (2010) were released, painting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a “ .” Now we look at these stories of startup founders with rightful skepticism, which makes sense in an era when Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appears on prime-time television, telling us that Facebook . Gone is the excitement of Apple debuting the first iPhone (a moment depicted in “The Dropout,” as Hulu’s Holmes queues in front of an Apple Store to buy one). Now we watch as Elon Musk “billionaire taxes” on Twitter, and Jeff Bezos gets wealthier while Amazon workers to earn workplace protections. Maybe if “The Dropout” came out around 2018 or so, it would have been a compelling introduction to an important moment in Silicon Valley culture. But for now, it feels more like Hulu’s attempt to cash in on our current cultural fascination with failed startups and scams. |
SpaceX successfully launches 47 Starlink satellites | Stefanie Waldek | 2,022 | 3 | 3 | SpaceX is aiming to launch more rockets in 2022 than it has in any year past, and with today’s successful Starlink launch, it’s well on its way to reaching that goal. The Starlink 4-9 mission lifted off at 9:25 AM EST (6:25 AM PST) from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and was SpaceX’s ninth of a planned 52 launches this year. That’s an impressive launch cadence of about one per week, aligning with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s dedication to rapid reusability. Today’s mission was flown by Falcon 9 booster “B1060,” which landed aboard the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” in the Atlantic Ocean approximately nine minutes after launch. With the successful launch and landing, B1060 is now tied for the most rocket reuses at SpaceX — it has completed 11 flights since its debut in June 2020. B1060 successfully carried to orbit 47 Starlink satellites that have now joined 2,000-plus others in the program’s first-generation constellation orbiting Earth, providing high-speed, low-latency internet across the globe, even in remote regions. Starlink is currently approved to expand its constellation to 12,000 satellites, though SpaceX has applied to launch a further 30,000. Starlink 4-9 was SpaceX’s sixth Starlink launch of the year, but not all of the missions were entirely successful. On February 3, a launch brought 49 Starlink satellites to space, but 38 of them failed to reach their intended orbit , burning up as they re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceX maintains that the issue is not a major setback. “We have the capacity to build up to 45 satellites per week, and we have launched up to 240 satellites in a single month,” the company said in a February 22 statement about Starlink’s sustainability and safety. To that end, SpaceX’s next Starlink launch is scheduled for March 8 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) Launch Complex 40. |
Attend TechCrunch Live’s special event in Austin, Texas! (It’s free) | Matt Burns | 2,022 | 3 | 3 | to announce a special event centered around the exploding scene in . The area deserves a spotlight on the upcoming startups and recent milestones. It’s the city of unicorns and tech giants. Drawn to the laid-back lifestyle and lower cost of living — relatively speaking — nearly 185 people are on a daily basis, and many of those people work in the tech industry. Austin wasn’t an overnight success. For years it was known primarily for its software scene. But today, new growing sectors include crypto, real estate tech, CPG and insurance technology. As in other maturing markets, companies that have seen success in the past are now spawning a new generation of entrepreneurs. Look at the companies that surpassed a $1 billion valuation in 2021: The Zebra, Firefly Aerospace, Abrigo, ZenBusiness and Iodine Software. In 2020 Tesla settled into the so-called Silicon Hills district, home to among many, including Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and SpaceX. Funding globally surged over the past year, and Austin was no exception. The year 2021 marked the year of the biggest funding deals ever for Austin startups, according to Silicon Hills News, with — more than double the $2.3 billion raised in 2020. Rounds are getting larger too, signaling a further maturing of the market: All of the top 10 deals for Austin in 2021 amounted to $100 million or more. Not only are companies moving here, investors are too. A number of venture capitalists now call Austin home after relocating from the coasts. They include and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, who said last year he was , 8VC, from Silicon Valley to the city, and , founder and managing partner of Bedrock Capital. There’s more. TechCrunch Live is hosting a special episode with local leaders and investors who can best speak to the area. We want to hear what it took to build the mature ecosystem, and what challenges are persisting. . Just like every TechCrunch Live episode, startups will pitch their companies to our guests. This time around there’s a prize. The winner gets a free booth at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 to exhibit their company. Check back for updates. This is going to be great. |
How Lido raises the stakes for crypto and DeFi investors | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 3 | 3 | The world’s most-used blockchain, Ethereum, is switching to a new validation system this summer called proof-of-stake (PoS). PoS, favored over its predecessor for its relative energy efficiency, lets users validate transactions on the network by temporarily depositing, or staking, a certain amount of their tokens in return for rewards. But ETH holders have been hesitant to stake their coins, with only 8% of eligible tokens in the Ethereum ecosystem staked to date, . Still, Ethereum must encourage staking so it can complete the transition to PoS with an adequately secure network. This incentive gap has created an opportunity for liquid staking providers, including Lido, which announced today that it received a $70 million investment from Andreessen Horowitz. is the market leader for Ethereum liquid staking, representing over 80% of market share in that space, . Assets staked on Lido are worth over $10 billion USD at today’s prices, and are split across 76,000 individual crypto wallets, Lido co-founder Konstantin Lomashuk told TechCrunch in an interview. To understand why assets on Lido grew by 15,000% in 2021, according to Lomashuk, it’s important to first understand why some crypto holders do not choose to stake their coins. First, staking is considered to be less risky, and therefore less lucrative from a return standpoint, than investing in some decentralized finance (DeFi) products. What’s more, staked ETH is effectively “locked up” and cannot currently be withdrawn, making higher-return DeFi strategies look all the more attractive to many yield-seekers. Second, if a user wants to stake their ETH today, they would either need to put up a minimum of 32 ETH (worth more than US$93,000 in today’s terms) or rely on a centralized exchange like Coinbase or Binance to pool their coins with those of other users. And we know crypto users, particularly early adopters, would much rather use decentralized networks than rely on a middleman to execute transactions. Lido aims to solve both of these issues through its decentralized staking platform that allows users to stake their coins with no minimum investment required, Lomashuk said. Lido users can use their staked ETH as collateral to participate in DeFi protocols — meaning they no longer have to choose between staking their ETH and earning attractive DeFi returns, Lomashuk said. The platform does this by issuing a derivative financial product native to Ethereum, which Lomashuk compared to a “new type of bond.” The platform also supports liquid staking on the Solana, Kusama and Terra blockchains and plans to launch on Polygon later this month, Lomashuk said. Staking on each of these chains has its own unique complexities, requiring Lido to write entirely new code every time it onboards a new protocol, he added. A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governs Lido, a structure that allows the group to remove individual staking minimums for users by pooling their assets. The DAO had 90 voting members last year, all holders of Lido’s governance token, who collectively act as Lido’s decision-making entity. “There are a lot of decisions going through the DAO, even small ones, like to onboard a new validator or to stake more assets on that validator. Big decisions [also go through the DAO], for example, redistributing Lido tokens or adding some incentives to the tokens,” Lomashuk said. The DAO structure was crucial for Lido to achieve product-market fit because it was the only way the group could build trust among its community, according to Lomashuk. Executives of the company officially report to the DAO itself rather than to a particular corporate manager or leader, he added. Around 60 people work full-time on Lido, though the project has closer to 100 contributors in total, including part-timers, Lomashuk said. Andreessen Horowitz made the investment in Lido partially using ETH, buying up some of Lido’s governance tokens from other holders, Lomashuk said. In conjunction with backing Lido, the venture firm also staked a portion of its own crypto holdings on the Lido platform, according to the company. |
Uganda in the spotlight as country’s startups captivate YC, Google | Annie Njanja | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | The startup ecosystem in Africa has until now been dominated by Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt (the Big 4), countries that continue to receive the bulk of venture capital and other forms of investment. However, the situation seems to be slowly changing as noteworthy startups begin to rise from other countries within the continent and investors scout for fresh opportunities to spread their risk outside the Big 4. Uganda is one of the countries creating ripples in high-profile tech programs like the Y Combinator accelerator and Google’s $50 million Africa Investment Fund, launched in October last year targeting early- and growth-stage startups. In December 2021, Uganda’s multi-service and digital payment technology platform became the first startup on the continent to receive investment from the Google fund. It has now been joined by fintech , which emerged as the first startup in the country to get into YC (W22). Numida joins 14 other startups from Africa that made it to the accelerator’s winter batch, an opportunity that brings them on the radar of Silicon Valley investors. “Being able to engage with people who have successfully built very large companies and succeeded, and receiving their feedback, especially at our stage … that’s very relevant to us,” Numida co-founder and CEO Mina Shahid told TechCrunch about joining the YC. Numida’s star has been shining since last year when it first bagged $2.3 million in seed funding. The startup offers risk-based credit to micro-businesses in Uganda and has since grown 30% month-on-month propelled by the demand for quick business loans, according to Shahid. Numida’s credit limit is $3,500, but the amount extended to small businesses and interest rate paid is based on the risk profile of loanees. The fintech plans to enter Ghana later this year. Beyond these two announcements, the Ugandan tech scene continues to flourish with startups emerging in the mobility, e-commerce, e-health, cleantech and fintech spaces, pulling all kinds of investors. The country was one of the top 15 in Africa that received significant equity funding last year, according to the Partech . In December, Tugende, an asset financier with operations in Kenya, secured a $17 million debt investment after closing a earlier in the year from notable investors like Mobility 54 Investment SAS, a corporate venture capital subsidiary of Toyota Tsusho Corporation and CFAO group. Founded in 2012 by Michael Wilkerson, Tugende’s core product is a lease-to-own plan for motorcycle taxis – a popular mode of transport in Uganda. It also provides loans to help people acquire other income-generating assets like boats, cars and retail equipment. Also in 2021, Mobility 54 joined DOB Equity and InfraCo Africa to invest $3.4 million in , which operates battery charging and swapping stations across Uganda’s capital, Kampala. It’s a business that seems promising as the uptake of electric motorcycles picks up in the country. Another startup, , raised $1 million in seed funding last year from FCA Investments. Founded by Gerald Otum in 2014, the startup’s proprietary digital infrastructure helps organizations like credit unions and savings groups automate their operations. As it stands, the largest beneficiaries of this funding upsweep are in mobility and fintechs. In mobility tech, the attention has fallen on the motorcycle taxi category, a popular mode of transport in the East African country. It is that there are over 200,000 motorcycle taxis in Kampala alone – where they are used by residents to beat the perennial traffic jams. Multi-service apps like Bolt, Uber and SafeBoda are already active in the motorcycle-ride hailing and delivery market. The e-commerce industry in Uganda is also fast-growing, with by the country’s ICT department indicating that revenue from the sector will double to $421 million and user penetration will hit 29.1% by 2025. Already some businesses — like SafeBoda — have amended their strategic plans to capitalize on the sector’s uptick. SafeBoda has over the last few years changed its strategy from a single service provider to an integrated multi-service super app offering ride-hailing, online shopping delivery and payment (pay bills, send and receive money) services. The ) -backed super app, also available in Nigeria, has its eyes on other markets, too. “We are building a global product that is going to go beyond East Africa,” SafeBoda co-founder and CEO Ricky Rapa Thomson told TechCrunch during a recent interview. Meanwhile, as the Ugandan tech ecosystem comes of age, driven by the country’s youthful population and growing smartphone penetration, tens of startups across the continent have expanded into the country seeking new growth pathways. In October last year , entered the Ugandan market after taking up a 55% stake in Vine Pharmacy, one of the biggest pharmaceutical retailers in the country. Kenyan B2B marketplaces Marketforce and Sokowatch and e-commerce platform Copia, together with Nigerian MaaS startup Treepz, have already set up operations in Kampala. A dozen others, including Kenyan logistics startup are also eyeing the market. Uganda is one country to watch this year as activity resumes across all sectors, buoyed by the recent lifting of lockdowns, including the . |
A look inside Founders Fund, as it closes on $5 billion across two new funds | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | has garnered a lot of money from investors; it has also returned quite a bit of capital. A lot of the action on both fronts has happened very recently. Yesterday, the 17-year-old outfit more than $5 billion in fresh capital commitments across two new funds — a $1.9 billion early-stage and a $3.4 billion growth-stage vehicle — that brings its total assets under management to roughly $11 billion. That’s a lot of moolah. But as the San Francisco-based outfit, which more recently opened an office in Miami, told us earlier today, over the last two years alone, it has returned $10 billion worth of shares to investors after its portfolio companies have hit the public markets. To learn more about how its new funds are likely to be invested, we talked earlier today with both Lauren Gross and Brian Singerman, longtime partners of the 35-person outfit. They also answered questions about how the firm is structured these days; how often investing decisions involve the firm’s famous co-founder, Peter Thiel; and whether Founders Fund plans to incubate more companies (it’s how and got their start). Our chat follows, edited lightly for length. FF: We have five team members in Miami, including Keith Rabois [who opened the office], who is the [general partner] there. We also have Matias [Van Thienen] who was recently promoted to partner and Delian [Asparouhov], one of our principals, is there. All of our team members are considered generalists. We expect people to be able to work across sectors and across stages. We have an entirely opportunistic approach. That’s what has served us best from a returns perspective. We encourage people to find their own competitive advantage and pursue either sectors or stages of particular interest, but it’s not mandated by the firm. We have varying degrees of required votes as you scale up in check size. Yes, all of our GPs weigh in when we’re writing a larger check. We certainly have the ability to do , but generally our public positions come from the private side. Idiosyncratically it could happen, but our comparative advantages and strengths are on the private side. We aren’t registered. We’ve had the discussion for many years, but we have no current plans [to make this change]. We’re non-thematic. It’s not as if we predicted social media and found Facebook [into which Thiel wrote one of the very ] or determined that there was something interesting in aerospace and found SpaceX [which Founders Fund has invested in numerous times over the years, dating back to ]. It’s more that listening to big, bold ideas, across sectors, has unequivocally driven our best returns. Typically you expect a few dozen investments, with a handful where we double, triple, quadruple down, which generally means putting in $100 million, $200 million, $300 million at cost for several billion in exposure. That concentrated piece is what’s more unique to the portfolio and what’s driven the returns more than anything else. Founders Fund is the largest investor in both [new funds], the general partner is. That’s always been true for us and it’s definitely a differentiator within a market that tends to be less aligned from a capital perspective. Some team members might have [a bigger stake in the growth or early stage fund], but we think of it as one team across both sides. The smallest and largest has been $1 million to $300 million. I’d never say we wouldn’t write a check larger than [$300 million] and we have idiosyncratically gone smaller than [$1 million]. The two things the team really got right on crypto [include that] our team wrote its first investment into Bitcoin in 2014 and built a position over time and I’d say [of our cryptocurrency holdings today] two-thirds is in Bitcoin with the rest in crypto surrounding. We’ve done equities, we’ve done tokens. Like all things Founders Fund, whenever we’re [deciding on] a core position for the fund, the full partnership is involved, especially in conversations that involve Brian, or that involve Peter. Today, I’d say the partner who is most focused on [web3 type bets] is Napolean [Ta, who joined the firm in 2012 as a principal after working in the equity research division for Horizon Capital Group’s brokerage business in Vietnam]. But like all positions, it’s a team effort. We’re definitely seeing private market valuations slowly catch up to public market multiples, and that’s fine. With venture capital, you can invest in any macro cycle, and when prices come down — if we’re disciplined enough to wait for prices to come down, and we are — it just means we get those same companies for cheaper. And there are still plenty of amazing companies to invest in. Growth players that are sitting it out is better for us. We can just wait until we get a phenomenal company at a phenomenal price. I don’t think the people who came into late stage were . There was some correcting upwards that needed to happen; now, there’s some correcting downwards that needs to happen. We have to understand what is your competitive advantage. A decade and a half ago, Peter had a big thesis about organized data and was one of the co-founders of Palantir [which became a] huge, multibillion-dollar success. [Founders Fund partner] Trae [Stephens] had a huge thesis on defense and government and how broken it was, and Anduril came out of that. Keith [Rabois] is right now, which is still pretty early days. So we’re open to it, but we have to understand, what does this person [who will cofound this company] understand that others don’t? Why is this person particularly well-suited for this? We have generally defaulted to distribute shares in kind post lockup versus a lot of other firms that sort of hold on to continue to increase multiples. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but our advantage, again, is on the private side. Drivers have included Palantir and Airbnb, [both of which delivered] several billion [dollars in value] each, then Wish, Oscar, Affirm, Asana and Postmates are all names where we’ve returned several hundred million [dollars] or more. |
Daily Crunch: Ransomware group threatens to release Nvidia’s ‘most closely guarded secrets’ | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Friday, March 4, 2022! It’s Friday, y’all, which means this newsletter is full of good vibes and impending relaxation. Naturally before the weekend, there’s lots to do, so check out the (going to rock) (going to roll), and we can get into it! – The corporate venture world is not the only place where we’re seeing more funds pop up. The influencer space is another. So it should be no surprise that the . Who is the D’Amelio family? Well, it’s Charli and Dixie, two super-famous social media personalities. If this confuses you, ask your kids. TechCrunch’s Equity podcast is turning five this month, and said goodbye to one of its founding members last week. . / Getty Images In an in-depth how-to, Shaun O’Meara, global field CTO at Mirantis, walks readers through the four basic elements for using OSS in production: SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images TechCrunch is recruiting recruiters for TechCrunch Experts, an ongoing project where we ask top professionals about problems and challenges that are common in early-stage startups. If that’s you or someone you know, you can let us know before the survey closes today at 11 p.m. ET. |
Winnie has a new plan to help childcare centers scale care | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | When was first founded in 2016 by and , it was focused on childcare solutions built for parents. “The other SaaS solutions in the childcare space have gone after the providers first and that’s been really hard and challenging because it’s a very fragmented market and it’s really hard to get traction,” Mauskopf said. “As parents who really needed this ourselves we decided a marketplace [was] what we understood the best, and where we felt like we could really win.” Now, years in, after aggregating demand from parents all over the country, the startup wants to leverage its trust and comprehension in family needs to make the provider side better. So, it’s launching a product to help daycares scale their care: Winnie Pro. The startup’s service hopes to help childcare centers grow and manage their businesses, not just fill empty seats. To start, it’s as simple as helping smaller operations launch profiles, landing pages and aggregate information in one spot. Winnie says that over half of the 250,000 daycares and preschools on the Winnie platform don’t have their own website, aka their Winnie profile is the sole way that parents can find them. And for the customers that may already have their own websites, Winnie thinks it can help by giving centers a landing page — full of reviews, program details, education types, licensing information and verification — where parents are already heading. Winnie Pro also includes help with marketing, enrollments and even staffing. “Building in services that are always useful for your business is a way to also always deliver value to these providers, not just when they need seats,” Mauskopf added. The new plan also means the company, which has investment money from Unusual Ventures, Homebrew, Day One Ventures, Reach Capital and, most recently, a fresh check from Salesforce Ventures, has an expanded business model. The company is now pursuing a SaaS-like model in which it charges a monthly fee, which ranges based on the capacity of the center, for these new services. Previously, Winnie made money based on how many parents it sent to a childcare center, or the pay-per-lead model. The strategy worked well over the pandemic because Winnie experienced a surge in traffic, leading to 8x growth in revenue, Mauskopf says. “Unlike subscription revenue, [pay-per-lead] varies every month based on how many parents you are trying to care for,” Mauskopf said. “One of the things we saw recently was that a lot of providers were limited by staffing challenges, so they were like, I can’t take any more leads right now.” The company is now pursuing a SaaS-like model in which it charges a monthly fee, which ranges based on the capacity of the center, to help businesses with marketing, enrollments and even staffing. Beta customers include and . Winnie “It’s not just about building some back-end tools to help providers run their businesses more efficiently,” she said. “But really about making the way that parents find care better and more efficient — especially in this changing world where it’s not just nine to five childcare.” The pivoting business model feels like a natural evolution for the company, which can now give consultancy-like advice to centers based on the demand that it sees from parents. For example, Winnie could tell a business that parents in their geography are hungry for drop-in care and advise them to hire accordingly to service demand, and eventually increase revenue. For Mauskopf, the new product was already validated from the fact that a simple marketplace connecting people to care isn’t enough. “I think there was a part of us, before the pandemic, that always wondered, ‘what if every employer just had childcare on site?’ sort of how healthcare is provided by an employer,” she said. “Now, we’re more sure than ever that the answer is yes because people don’t go into an office every day. And there’s not one size fits all for the kinds of care. And employers, for the most part, are not helping solve the challenge for families in a real way.” |
It’s pivot season for early-stage startups | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | Late-stage tech startups are facing a changing public market environment, but their early-stage counterparts are in a different world altogether. The cohort has had access to ample capital in recent quarters, giving them a bubble of venture capital that somewhat protects them from rapid changes in the greater economy. While the bubble is not popping, it’s changing shape. We may not see early-stage startups go through aggressive rounds of layoffs or experience rapid cuts to valuations due to shifting market conditions, but there’s a different signal worth tracking: pivots. Pivots – a change in business strategy based on a new insight or market trend – are somewhat inevitable for young companies still chasing product-market fit. I’d argue that pivots are more important to track than fundraises, because they give a snapshot of a startup reacting to new tensions in the market. Plus, unlike funding rounds, a pivot is a definite signal that something is changing, a tension other than a cadre of investors affirming that a founder is on to something big. Following conversations with a number of investors and founders, it’s clear the coming weeks and months will include many subtle shifts in how early-stage startups do business. Some may re-prioritize objectives to reduce risk, while others may pursue new, more near-term business models to finally get some revenue in the door. Pivots were popular even before the market changed. Everyone was pivoting to Clubhouse, and then everyone was pivoting to the metaverse. Now, everyone is pivoting to more sustainable revenue models. Winnie, a startup that connects parents to childcare options, told TechCrunch this week that it is launching a new product: Winnie Pro. The service will help childcare centers grow and manage their businesses, not just fill empty seats. Winnie Pro also means the company, which has investment money from Unusual Ventures, Homebrew, Day One Ventures, Reach Capital, and most recently Salesforce Ventures, has an expanded business model. Previously, Winnie made money based on how many parents it sent to a childcare center, or the pay-per-lead model. The strategy worked well over the pandemic because Winnie experienced a surge in traffic, leading to 8x growth in revenue, CEO Sara Mauskopf says. The company is now evolving to a place where it wants to do more than just place “butts in seats.” “Unlike subscription revenue, [pay-per-lead] varies every month based on how many parents you are trying to care for,” Mauskopf said. “One of the things we saw recently was that a lot of providers were limited by staffing challenges, so they were like, I can’t take any more leads right now.” The company is now pursuing a SaaS-like model in which it charges a monthly fee, which ranges based on the capacity of the center, to help businesses with marketing, enrollments and even staffing. “Building in services that are always useful for your business are a way to also always deliver value to these providers, not just when they need seats,” Mauskopf added. The pivoting business model feels like a natural evolution for the company, which can now give consultancy-like advice to centers based on the demand that it sees from parents. For example, Winnie could tell a business that parents in their geography are hungry for drop-in care and advise them to hire accordingly to service demand, and eventually increase revenue. Flywheels feel good, don’t they? Going from a consumer marketplace to a B2B software model and a marketplace is one example of how startups are evolving during this time to be more ambitious and sticky when serving their customers. |
TechCrunch+ roundup: 3 views on Epic-Bandcamp deal, SPAC letdown, CIO sales strategy | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | You are more likely to close a sale if you have actionable insights into your prospective customer’s needs. But for enterprise software startups, this presents a special problem. Unless you’re a former CIO who already has a clear understanding of the decision-making process, you can only fall back on basic best practices that usually result in a generic sales pitch: Ridge Ventures partner and five-time CIO Yousuf Khan wrote a column for TechCrunch+ that explores “ .” Over timer founders and sales teams who adopt this mindful approach can turn customers into assets, says Khan. “Good relationships with executive buyers can help shape your company as it grows, ultimately serving as an unofficial advisory board of the top leaders and experts within your customer base.” Thanks very much for reading TechCrunch+, and have a great weekend. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
Using a special purpose acquisition company to go public was a popular fad in 2020 and 2021, but many startups that took this shortcut into the public markets haven’t done very well. In fact, most of these companies failed spectacularly when it came to meeting the goals they’d set before taking themselves public, writes Alex Wilhelm in The Exchange. The poor performance of many SPAC stocks is, in one way or another, the result of companies trying to “extract more value from the market than they can offer regular shareholders,” he writes. “And that’s the problem — if SPACs had been used more conservatively, they could have leveraged their moment in the sun as a way to get more companies public that deserved it.” Photo: Rosley Majid / EyeEm /Getty Images The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a notice after Russia invaded Ukraine warning about the potential for state-sponsored cyber attacks: “Every organization — large and small — must be prepared to respond to disruptive cyber activity,” it advised. Blanket warnings are hard to act on, but now that virtually all information is stored remotely and employees are widely distributed, CISA’s “shields up” advisory has special urgency. / Getty Images The news that Epic Games will purchase Bandcamp took many industry watchers by surprise, but many of the musicians who rely on Bandcamp to support themselves are waiting for the other shoe to drop. Both companies said little will change following the deal, but that’s a song digital creators have heard before. “Artists recognize that when a platform changes ownership, even the smallest tweaks can impact their livelihoods,” writes Amanda Silberling in a three-handed opinion column with Devin Coldewey and Alex Wilhelm. / Getty Images In an in-depth how-to, Shaun O’Meara, global field CTO at Mirantis, walks readers through the four basic elements for using OSS in production: / Getty Images For a founder who’s bootstrapping an early-stage startup, $250,000 could change their company’s trajectory. In the U.S., firms that qualify can deduct as much as $250K each year in payroll taxes to offset money spent on research and development. “Over several years, this credit could save you millions of dollars,” writes CPA and tax accountant Ardy Esmaeili, who breaks down the minutiae of R&D tax laws and the qualifying criteria. Bryce Durbin Before launching autonomous vehicle technology firm Waabi, Raquel Urtasun was a professor, an AI researcher and the founder of Uber’s self-driving unit, Uber ATG. But building a company from scratch was a challenge unlike any other, she says. “I’ve really had to step out of my comfort zone. I’ve spent so many years in AI, as an academic, and it’s been very successful, to the point that things were almost a given,” she told Rebecca Bellan in an interview. “And then suddenly, there was this new world that I didn’t know about, and I had to learn very, very quickly. So that definitely stretched me in many ways.” Corporate venture capital spending soared in 2021 as businesses injected “gobs of parent-company cash into far-smaller concerns,” reported Anna Heim and Alex Wilhelm in The Exchange. Last year, funding for 4,661 CVC deals totaled $169.3B, a spike from $70.1B across 3,356 deals in 2020, setting a new record. The most notable change? “Corporate venture arms’ participation in mega-rounds, or deals worth more than $100 million.” Alex and Anna dove into the data to study what drove the increase in investments, how funds were distributed geographically, and why Silicon Valley is still a favorite place for CVC funding. |
Infrastructure is broken, Gecko is using robotics to help fix it | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | Gecko Robotics’ mission statement is “To protect today’s critical infrastructure, and give form to tomorrow’s.” It’s certainly the sort of thing that rings true in the startup’s home town of Pittsburgh, where the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed under the weight of five vehicles in late-January, the day President Biden was visiting to talk infrastructure. Gecko’s combination of robotics and software solutions is designed to discover cracks and other problem areas before they become much bigger problems. Specifically, the company’s tech is designed to inspect industrial manufacturing structures for things like oil and gas, power, manufacturing and defense. That includes everything from pipelines to ships and tanks. This week, it announced designed to accelerate its technology development and deployment. The round was led by XN LP and features Founders Fund, Drive Capital, Snowpoint Ventures, Joe Lonsdale, Mark Cuban and Gokul Rajaram. It brings the company’s total funding to around $122 million, following a $40 million round, . “Gecko’s unique combination of robotics, software, and AI radically improves the ability to inspect, protect, and efficiently maintain critical infrastructure,” says XN partner, Tim Brown, in a release. “We are excited to partner with Jake and Troy as they extend Gecko’s powerful technology into new geographies and industries, helping customers collect and make sense of physical data to optimize the safety and performance of their assets.” The tech certainly ticks off the dirty and dangerous boxes of automation. It’s designed to scale structures in extremely demanding and difficult settings. The robots spot damage that is often too subtle to be viewed with the human eye, and Gecko’s software helps determine potential problem areas. |
How quickly do enterprise tech firms need to grow to satisfy today’s investors? | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | stocks reported earnings this week, but with the world in turmoil, the market gave them kind of a rough reception. It’s hard to say what had the stock market in a tizzy, but it certainly wasn’t the companies’ straight revenue numbers, as all reported strong quarters: TechCrunch There is a lot going on in the world right now, and the stock market has been on a rough ride so far this year. Maybe the negativity is just contagious. Whatever the reason, the companies that reported positive results saw mixed reactions on the market. At the high end were Box and Splunk, with their stock up around 6% this week. That may not seem like much, but in the current climate (and especially given the stock market’s historically negative response to Box results), it was Wall Street’s equivalent of screaming praise from the rooftops. At the opposite end, we find Snowflake, whose stock took it on the chin this week despite revenue growing at 101%, something most would consider robust. Instead of being pleased with that result, investors whacked the stock down as much as 30% at one point in after-hours trading. As of today, the company stock was down over 21% for the week. Here are the five-day results for all six enterprise tech companies reporting this week as of noon ET : TechCrunch We decided it would be worthwhile to dig in a bit into these different results and see what was happening underneath the financial hood, and if these companies truly warrant the reaction they got, or if Wall Street is just being skittish like the rest of us. Box being our example today of a company that made it through earnings unscathed is somewhat strange — the company spent much of 2021 with some of its shareholders, so you might not expect it to be in Wall Street’s good graces after such a bruising fight. |
Samsung says it will release an update to address app throttling issues | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | Samsung has addressed complaints that the tech giant is throttling the performance of thousands of apps on some of its Android phones. In a statement sent to TechCrunch, a spokesperson for the company said Samsung will release a software update to allow users to have more control over throttling. Samsung has not provided details about when the update will roll out to users. “Our priority is to deliver the best mobile experience for consumers. We value the feedback we receive about our products and after careful consideration, we plan to roll out a software update soon so users can control the performance while running game apps,” a spokesperson from Samsung said in an email. Samsung’s promise follows reports that the tech giant’s phones are throttling the performance of around 10,000 apps, as first reported by , and via , plus Samsung’s Korean . The company’s Game Optimizing Service (GOS) software, which optimizes the performance of CPU and GPU to prevent excessive heating when playing a game for a long time, appeared to be at the core of the issue, but the list of affected apps wasn’t limited to games. However, Samsung has disputed claims that Game Optimizing Service was throttling non-gaming apps. “The Game Optimizing Service (GOS) has been designed to help game apps achieve a great performance while managing device temperature effectively. GOS does not manage the performance of non-gaming apps,” the spokesperson said. Users had reported that Samsung was throttling the performance of non-gaming apps, such as TikTok and Instagram, and gaming apps alike, but Samsung is adamant that this isn’t the case, but did not elaborate on the matter any further. The issue was reportedly not impacting benchmarking apps, users . That could make it seem like performance was better than it actually was when tests were performed. Samsung has offered no explanation here, either. Samsung isn’t the only manufacturer to get caught throttling apps. Last year, OnePlus that the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro many popular apps to improve battery life. Similar to Samsung, OnePlus said it would give users more control over the optimization feature. |
In the metaverse, responsible AI must be a priority | Vasco Pedro | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | According to a recent , the metaverse is an $800 billion market. Still others argue about what the metaverse actually is, but with so much money and curiosity surrounding it, it has everyone talking. Undoubtedly, AI will play a huge role in the metaverse, especially as we communicate with others. While we’ll be more connected than ever, AI untethered to any government, standard or ethical code can have diabolical implications. As asked recently, “Who gets to set the rules?” Because AI algorithms are built by people with biases, they can be created to follow the thought patterns and biases of their creators — which can then multiply. We’ve seen how AI can create , for example, or how AI can give larger , or that certain . To create a flourishing and more equitable metaverse, dark AI patterns that can create and perpetuate bias need to be addressed. But who gets to decide? And how can humans avoid bias? The solution to mitigate this “unchecked AI” is to develop ethical standards across all organizations. From our view, dark AI patterns can be invasive. Most AI is developed without ethical oversight, and this must change in the metaverse. As an avid language learner and founder of a company that uses AI and humans to connect people globally, I’m excited by the prospect of everyone becoming super polyglots — able to speak multiple languages — but I’m even more interested in understanding how that AI will work. In the metaverse, many users will likely be communicating in their own languages, with potential AI-based language translators. Language technology powered by AI can perpetuate bias if we are not careful. We need to be sure that language AI is trained to be ethical as well. Imagine Joe’s avatar wants to speak with Miguel’s avatar, but Joe and Miguel don’t speak the same language. How does AI translate their messages? Directly? Or do we translate for the person’s intent rather than literally, so that the person receiving the message can understand? How “human” we are in the metaverse will matter. Businesses can use language technology to quickly translate interactions into different tongues, which can help create online community, trust and inclusion. However, if we are not careful with the words we choose, technology can also create bias or allow for uncivil behavior. How so? Have you ever heard a 3-year-old speak to Alexa? Personable is not the word for it. When people know that they are interacting with technology and not actual humans, they do not feel the need to be polite. Instead, customers are rude to chatbots, Amazon’s Alexa and automated phone lines. The list goes on. In an ideal world, the AI for language will capture the nuances and empathy needed to accurately represent a human, so that the metaverse becomes a place where human and technology flourish together. Impersonal AI in the metaverse could also be negative. The right language can create real, emotional connection and understanding. With AI-powered language operations, the right message can help humanize a brand. The technology that can help brands communicate in many languages instantly will be pivotal. We believe customer trust is built by native language. But how can a borderless, virtual society have a native language? And how can that environment create trust? As I mentioned before, the metaverse has huge potential for businesses to gain more exposure in a virtual world. People are already shelling out serious dough for virtual fashion, and this trend will only continue. Brands need to find ways to create online experiences that feel authentic or even better than in-person interaction. That is a high bar to surpass and smart language communication will be a part of that journey. What the metaverse ultimately looks like is anyone’s guess. However, no one wants to be the brand remembered for how their AI disproportionately affected one group of people over the other or how their AI dehumanized their product. AI get better and better at predicting patterns for good. However, left unchecked, AI could have serious implications for how we “live” in the metaverse. That’s why responsible or ethical AI ethics is necessary. When AI powers language, chatbots or brands’ virtual realities, there are numerous opportunities to lose customer trust or feelings of humanity. It is up to AI researchers and experts to work together with brands to find solutions for responsible AI frameworks so that we can “live” in the metaverse peacefully. |
Apple Maps now displays Crimea as part of Ukraine to viewers outside of Russia | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | Apple Maps now shows Crimea as part of Ukraine when viewed outside of Russia, in what appears to be a new and quiet update. first reported the change, which comes amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Now, when you search or click on Crimea, it is displayed as Ukrainian territory. Apple did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment regarding the change and has not publically addressed the matter. Russia invaded and the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, prompting international condemnation. In response to the invasion, Russia was suspended from the G8 and subjected to sanctions. Screenshot of Apple Maps In the past, Apple attempted to strike a middle ground by refusing to mark Crimea as part of any country when being viewed in most regions. However, in 2019, Apple app to mark Crimea as Russian territory to viewers in Russia. At the time, Russian authorities had said that Apple “fulfilled its obligations” by bringing its app in compliance with the requirements of the Russian legislation. The decision was largely criticized by Ukrainian officials. Apple is now taking a different stance by displaying Crimea to be part of Ukraine when the map is viewed from other countries, including the United States. The company’s new map change comes days after it that it halted product sales in Russia. The hardware giant also pulled Sputnik and RT News from the App Store and some Apple Pay services in the country. “We are deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stand with all of the people who are suffering as a result of the violence,” a spokesperson from Apple had told TechCrunch at the time. “We have taken a number of actions in response to the invasion. We will continue to evaluate the situation and are in communication with relevant governments on the actions we are taking. We join all those around the world who are calling for peace.” |
Russia says it will block Facebook, its latest effort to control the narrative on Ukraine | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | A week after introducing partial restrictions on Facebook, the Russian government announced Friday that it would begin blocking the social network in the country outright. Russia’s internet regulatory agency Roskomnadzor cited “26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources” in the decision to cut off access to the world’s largest social platform, that the company imposed restrictions on state-affiliated media outlets. “In recent days, the social network has restricted access to accounts: the Zvezda TV channel, the RIA Novosti news agency, Sputnik, Russia Today, the Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru information resources,” the . “The above restrictions are prohibited by Federal Law No. 272-FZ ‘On measures to influence persons involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation,’ adopted, among other things, to prevent violations of the key principles of the free flow of information and unhindered access Russian users to Russian media on foreign Internet platforms.” Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, formerly a deputy prime minister in the U.K., tweeted a statement about the Russian announcement Friday. On the Russian government's decision to block access to Facebook in the Russian Federation: — Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) Earlier this week, Meta announced that it would across Facebook and Instagram, making it more difficult for those accounts to spread messages shaped by the Russian government. The Russian government’s crackdown on Facebook comes as protests against the country’s bloody invasion of neighboring Ukraine . In light of the spreading dissent, Russia’s parliament introducing intense repercussions for anyone found to be deliberately spreading “fake” information about the country’s activities in Ukraine, including lengthy prison sentences stretching up to 15 years. It’s not immediately clear if Russia’s new actions against Facebook will also restrict access to other Meta-owned apps like WhatsApp and Instagram, but considering that those services can be used to organize protests and share information from non-Russian news sources, that outcome seems likely. |
Google pauses its ad sales in Russia, Microsoft pauses sales | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | In further responses from the tech industry to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week and the country’s continued aggression against its neighbor, Google and Microsoft have both now said they’re pausing sales in Russia. We understand that Google’s pause — which is focused on its own ad sales — began last night and has been rolling out over subsequent hours. The news was reported earlier by . It’s not the first to do this. Snap and Twitter previously announced ad sales suspensions in Russia. But Google’s ad business is of course considerably larger. Google’s action boils down to a pause on all ads in Russia, including Search, YouTube and Display ads, effective immediately — meaning people in Russia won’t see ads from Google. But we also understand that it does not prevent Russian advertisers from using Google’s ads services to serve ads outside Russia if they wish. This suggests Russian publications could still seek to monetize content by serving ads to people outside the country via Google’s ad network — at a time when independent journalists in the country are facing an unprecedented crackdown. (Earlier today the Russian parliament for spreading “false” information about the military.) Microsoft, meanwhile, has also announced its own sales suspension in Russia — writing in a today that it will “suspend all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia”. This presumably covers Bing ads, as well as other Microsoft services. (We’ve asked for confirmation.) “In addition, we are coordinating closely and working in lockstep with the governments of the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, and we are stopping many aspects of our business in Russia in compliance with governmental sanctions decisions,” Microsoft’s president and VP Brad Smith also writes in the blog post. Google’s more limited move restricting ad sales is an expansion of measures it — “promoting information quality”, as it put it then — several days after Russia’s invasion began in the early hours of February 24; and after European leaders had spent a day to act decisively against Russian disinformation. Initially, Google said it would of the Kremlin-linked media outlets Russia Today and Sputnik in Europe. It soon followed by — also only in Europe, and ahead of a pan-EU sanction on the channels . Prior to that Google had announced an “indefinite pause of monetization of Russian state-funded media across our platforms” — meaning media outlets such as RT are unable to generate ad revenue or buy advertising via its platforms. But the tech giant confirmed today it’s taken things further by freezing its ad sales in Russia. In light of the extraordinary circumstances, we’re pausing Google ads in Russia. The situation is evolving quickly, and we will continue to share updates when appropriate. Google is not suspending sales of other types of services (e.g. paid consumer services, Google Pay, sales of apps, etc.) at this time. It is also continuing to provide Russians with access to information services (e.g. Google Search, Maps, YouTube, etc.). The piecemeal nature of the tech giant’s announcements since Russia invaded Ukraine suggests Google has been scrambling to come up with a coherent response to an unfolding crisis. Microsoft has looked more decisive — a more rounded package of measures targeted at Russia’s “state-sponsored disinformation” at the start of this week; and further extending that today with a blanket sales ban. Apple also said it was halting product sales in Russia and restricting some of its services (such as Apple Pay). Plus it this week (with the exception of the Russia market itself). The picture from Facebook’s parent Meta is fuzzier. Since the invasion began the social media giant has been (such as demoting RT and Sputnik content) — but at the time of writing, the adtech giant does not appear to have suspended ad sales in Russia itself. (Again, we’ve reached out with questions.) A Meta spokesperson sent this statement after it confirmed : “Despite the Russian government’s announcement that they will be , we are working to keep our services available to the greatest extent possible. However, due to the difficulties of operating in Russia at this time, ads targeting people in Russia will be paused, and advertisers within Russia will no longer be able to create or run ads anywhere in the world, including within Russia.” Bans by private companies are not the only disruption Russians are facing to accessing digital services, of course: Wider sanctions on Russian banks also appear to have been hitting locals’ access to some tech services. |
null | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 3 | 3 | null |
Fetch raises $3.5M for its self-service truck rental marketplace | Greg Kumparak | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | Once upon a time, I had a truck. I loved that truck! I didn’t actually use the truck as a all that often, so eventually I sold it and bought something more in tune with my daily needs. Something more “practical,” I suppose. I still miss that truck. Now the few times a year I need to use a truck as a truck, I’ve gotta convince a buddy to let me borrow theirs for the 34th time or try to nab a rental at the big box hardware store. Hope one is available by the time I get there, wait in line, fill out the paper work, run out to my car because I forgot my insurance card, get back in line, yadda yadda. , a company we first wrote about , makes the process a bit easier: find a truck (or van!) nearby, reserve it through the app, walk up and unlock it from your phone, and be on your way. This week the team is announcing that it has raised $3.5 million to help expand their team and operations. To make Fetch happen, you could say. Fetch is up and running in a handful of cities for now, but that list is starting to rapidly grow. They first rolled things out in their hometown of Atlanta, recently expanding operations to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Dallas and Washington, D.C. Fetch co-founder Adam Steinberg tells me they plan to be in “another 12 cities” by the end of this year. The company’s business model has expanded quite a bit since the last time we wrote, as well. Previously, all trucks available on Fetch were owned by Fetch; these days, it’s a marketplace where anybody with an available truck (be it companies with fleets or individuals with a spare vehicle, as long it can be available for rental seven days a week) can rent it out. Once onboarded, truck owners plug in Fetch’s hardware to allow approved renters to unlock the vehicle and get moving. Renters need to have their own insurance, though Fetch also provides secondary insurance to help augment those policies. Pricing for rentals varies a bit depending on what you’re looking for — the vehicle size, how many miles you’ll drive and, as trucks can be rented by the hour or day, how long you need it. For example, a 6′ pickup in Atlanta is currently on the site for $19 an hour, or $70 per day with 50 miles included. Why build something like this when other on-demand car rental services exist? It’s all about the target audience. It’d feel a bit weird to hop on a vacation car rental app when you just want something to move a thousand pounds of wood, or get that old desk out of the office. “Our ideal customer is a small business owner,” says Steinberg. “Caterers, event planners, small businesses that need trucks on a recurring basis.” Steinberg tells me the company has also “achieved profitability on a per rental basis,” and that they now have “hundreds of trucks live on the marketplace” — with about half of their vehicles currently in the Atlanta area. They’ve also to power the retailer’s rental process in select areas. Next up? Grow the team. The company is currently made up of 12 people, with plans to double that in the next three months or so. This round was led by NextView Ventures, and backed by Knoll Ventures, Zeno Ventures, Nassau Street Ventures and a number of angels. |
D’Amelio family launches VC fund 444 Capital to invest up to $25M in high-growth startups | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | The D’Amelio family, including TikTok stars and digital creators and sister , are formalizing in startups with the launch of a new VC fund, 444 Capital. The family is teaming up with of Tandem Capital and of on the fund, which aims to back high-growth companies with strong end-user brands, including those in the direct-to-consumer space, fintech, edtech, healthcare, insurtech and other B2B2C platforms. The fund has a target of up to $25 million, some of which has already been raised and deployed. The D’Amelio family said the fund will have a particular focus on women- and minority-led startups. “Our family wants to help a new generation of female and minority entrepreneurs build great companies. We hope to play a growing role in leveling the startup playing field over time,” Dixie and Charli D’Amelio said in a joint statement. Though the sisters are the best-known family members due to their TikTok stardom, their parents and are also participating in 444 Capital. We understand the fund’s name is meant to reference the number 4’s association with good fortune and positive energy, and will participate at the Series A stage and beyond. “The new fund will join with top VCs to invest in Series A and later rounds of fast-growing companies that want to accelerate their growth even more,” confirmed Greg Goodfried, Head of the D’Amelio Family Enterprises. The D’Amelios came to be connected with Renert through Beacher, who had been working with several Tandem portfolio companies on their influencer marketing campaigns. Through his network, Beacher had a connection with the D’Amelios among many other influencers and digital creators. He and Renert had discussions about putting such a fund together, which has a similar focus as Tandem Capital. Renert notes the fund doesn’t conflict with his work at Tandem, however, as the VC firm chose not to raise another fund at this time. But many of Tandem’s LPs have returned to invest in 444 Capital. The D’Amelios, Renert and Beacher will use their collective networks to source the deals, and will be looking to co-invest alongside top VCs who lead the rounds. “We want to be additive and not trying to compete for deals with VCs, who we want to collaborate with,” notes Renert. In other words, the idea is to allow the fund to piggyback off the co-investors’ diligence and use their term sheets and documents to move more quickly. Step This year, 444 Capital will put in around a million dollars or so per investment and plans to make around 20 deals. Given the D’Amelios’ ability to reach a broad consumer audience through their online social media presence, some of the deals may include a promotional element on the D’Amelios’ part. “We’re looking for companies with already strong brands that are growing fast, have differentiation and are going after a large market,” Renert said. The move to create a VC fund follows a series of recent startup investments by the D’Amelios. Last year, Charli D’Amelio, , invested in . And , the family, including sister Dixie and parents Marc and Heidi, backed Lightricks, an award-winning app developer behind for enhancing photos and videos, including Facetune 2 and Facetune Video, Videoleap and others. The team plans to make a full announcement about the fund soon, but they pointed to Pair Eyewear, the glasses brand that encourages self-expression with its customizable frames, co-founded by Sophia Edelstein, as an early example of a portfolio company. In Pair’s case, the new fund joined the startup’s which had also touted the participation of another social media star, YouTuber and game livestreamer Ninja. The other fund participants, Beacher and Renert, have backed a long list of well-known startups and consumer brands, including Airbnb, Lyft, NomNom, Outdoorsy and Tile. The 444 Capital team plans to make a larger announcement about the fund in the months ahead. |
From beer waste to ‘plastic’ packaging, Mi Terro downs $1.5M to make the world more biodegradable | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | A shrewd entrepreneur joins sponsored by brewing giant and home consumables emporium , and spots a pattern. The breweries have tons of spent grain, and the home consumables have a plastics problem. Build a bridge between the two problems, and you have , a company that takes agricultural waste and processes it into proteins that can be used as a plastic replacement, animal feed and much more. The company just raised $1.5 million to start scaling up production. “Think of Tide Pods — our material is very similar to the material that Tide Pods are made out of,” says Robert Luo, the founder at Mi Terro. “Except our product has zero microplastics, unlike the Tide Pods that we use today. Our product is water soluble and can break down into water under room temperature. It is also biodegradable. Our in-house data indicates that to naturally degrade will take a year or so. In industrial composting facilities, it can decompose within 180 days.” Luo started the company back in 2018, inspired by visiting his uncle’s dairy farm in China. A lot of milk was going to waste, and he was curious whether it would be possible to make something of value instead of just dumping spoiled milk. The first product the company developed was a textile fiber made from milk waste. They sold about $100,000 worth of these textiles, and still has some customers in Japan, but it turned out that the B2C model was very hard in this space. That was when he joined the accelerator and discovered that there were industrial applications for similar processes. “We got connected with Budweiser in China, and we learned that they have a lot of spent grain, which has a very low value. They wanted to create a better way of using it than to treat it as an animal feedstock for cows, which indirectly contributes to methane and global warming,” explains Luo. “So by using the method that we have previously developed, we were able to come up with a new solution that turns agricultural waste into compostable packaging material. And that’s what I’ve been doing since 2020.” is the lead investor in Mi Terro’s $1.5 million round, which valued the company at $10 million. The investor a while back focused at food and agricultural tech, and it is quickly making a name for itself in this space, with investments in companies as varied as , , , and — earlier this week — . The company currently has a team of five, including a team of product experts in China, where the company is planning to stand up manufacturing, and an office in the U.S. The investment will largely be used to scale up production, which will mean making some changes to how things are done in the lab. Mi Terro’s prototype detergent pods in its plastic-ersatz biodegradable film. Mi Terro “In order for us to scale up, the method for the processing will be changed and the equipment will be different. And another thing that we have to consider is the logistic costs to deliver spent grain from one of the beer breweries to our facility,” says Luo. “We had to find the best place to locate that and now have to take that into consideration as me move toward scale-up. We have to be cautious, because we don’t want to over-spend on transportation.” Mi Terro’s process includes two steps: extracting polymers from the agricultural waste — including proteins, fibers and starch, then, when they have the polymers separated out, they modify them by grafting, which bonds monomers into polymers that then can be used in other manufacturing processes. The resulting material can be extruded — a similar process to making pasta; pressing a liquid-like material through a slit to shape it — which means it can be used in many applications where plastic is used today. The company can make straws, containers and boxes. The first products the company is making are flexible films — much like beer labels, Tide Pods and other packaging. “We are currently developing two solutions for our clients,” explains Luo,” one is water-soluble for applications where that is desirable. The other is water-resistant.” |
Box strikes back with a quarter that beats everyone’s expectations, including its own | Ron Miller | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | year, Box to keep from taking over its board and dictating the company’s direction. If the activist investors had won, CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie might have been forced out, and . But , and the shareholders who backed the executive team were rewarded this week with a quarter , including the company’s own. Last quarter, Box’s revenue reached $233 million, up 17% from a year earlier, and beating analyst estimates of $229 million, according to the company. The revenue result also came in ahead of Box’s own estimates that growth would land somewhere around 12%. Its shares are up over 6% for the week as of Friday morning. When Starboard lit a fire under the company last year, Box had reported a very different set of quarterly results. Growth was an anemic 8.3%, putting pressure on the company’s leadership to start improving growth and profitability. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, that quarter wound up being the low point for Box as the company began an ascent of slow but accelerating growth, as the graph below illustrates: Box Levie was understandably upbeat about his company’s results, saying Box’s growth didn’t come from any one particular area — it was across the board. “It’s been everything from small businesses that are growing quickly to large enterprises that are going through significant digital transformation. I mean, we had some major, major wins [including] large banks and government agencies and large industrial goods manufacturers. So it’s been very broad-based,” he said. One of the primary reasons for the uptick in business is bundling, which last year. It turns out that building a suite of products works out well for SaaS companies. “I think what’s been so important from a business model standpoint is our move toward bundled plans. So we have Enterprise Plus, which is a new enterprise edition of Box that has Box Shield, Box Governance, our eSign capabilities, [and others] all in one suite. And, and that’s certainly accelerated our growth and led to more and more customer adoption of our full platform,” Levie explained. Alan Pelz-Sharpe, founder and principal analyst at Deep Analysis, a firm that watches the content management space Box operates in, said the proxy fight was a drag on the company, and now that it’s past it, it has been able to move forward. |
Airbnb suspends all operations in Russia and Belarus | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | Airbnb is suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus, the company’s CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky on Twitter. Airbnb’s decision comes as numerous companies are withdrawing operations in Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. A spokesperson from Airbnb told TechCrunch in an email: “This means that we will block calendars from accepting new bookings in both countries until further notice. We will also restrict users in Belarus and Russia from making new reservations as guests.” Airbnb is suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus — Brian Chesky 🇺🇦 (@bchesky) Airbnb joins a growing list of companies that have withdrawn their operations in Russia in recent days. Apple that it has halted product sales in Russia. The hardware giant also pulled Sputnik and RT News from the App Store and some Apple Pay services in the country. In addition, Google suspended advertising in Russia, according to a report from . The company also followed Apple’s lead and the apps of RT and Sputnik from its mobile app store. The announcement from Airbnb comes a few days after the company said that it will free and temporary housing for up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine. The company will fund the stays with help from Airbnb hosts and donations to Airbnb.org, which provides people with emergency housing in times of crisis. “We need help to meet this goal,” Chesky tweeted on Monday. “The greatest need we have is for more people who can offer their homes in nearby countries, including Poland, Germany, Hungary and Romania.” Chesky has also said some people around the world are booking Airbnbs in Ukraine, without the intention to stay in them, to send financial help to hosts in the country. Airbnb’s move to provide free housing comes as the company has historically facilitated free housing to those in need over the past few years. Last September, the company said it to provide housing to 40,000 Afghan refugees, which was double its initial goal of 20,000 in August. Airbnb says that as of last week, it has provided housing to 21,300 Afghan refugees and has set a new goal of providing housing to another 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan, Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, and other regions. Its plan to offer housing to up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine is in addition to this broader effort. In 2017, the to stranded refugees, students and green card holders affected by former President Donald Trump’s limiting refugees. More recently, Airbnb provided free or subsidized housing for amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The company says that over the past five years, Airbnb and Airbnb.org have connected more than 54,000 refugees, including from Syria, Venezuela and Afghanistan, to temporary housing. |
Twitter is working on a podcasts tab | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | As Twitter its live audio product Spaces, the platform may soon take things a step further by launching a dedicated podcasts tab on its mobile apps. According to reverse engineers who search the code of mobile apps to spot features in development, this addition would create a dedicated space on Twitter to house podcasts. is working on Podcasts 👀 — Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) We asked Twitter if users could expect this feature to roll out. A spokesperson said, “We’re always exploring new ways to help people engage in the conversation on Twitter, but have no further details to share at this time.” Twitter has worked on a number of podcast-like features to expand the capabilities of its live audio Spaces. Like , Twitter now allows users to listen to Spaces the live recording, helping hosts earn greater engagement from a new audience of asynchronous listeners. When users listen to a recorded Space live, they will see a red recording button. Twitter is also rolling out a feature that allows hosts to view about their recorded Spaces. Twitter is working on Podcasts tab — Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) A podcasts tab might function like a home for users to browse recorded Spaces and generate more engagement in this content; Twitter already shows live Spaces in their own tab. The podcast snobs among us might note that there is a difference between a live, recorded conversation and a properly edited, sound-designed , but… we’ll just have to see what Twitter does with this feature before we have that conversation. |
After clearing all regulatory hurdles, Microsoft closes $20B Nuance deal | Ron Miller | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | When announced its intent last year for $20 billion, it marked a hard move into healthcare for the company. But the deal was not a slam dunk by any means . After finally clearing all the regulatory hurdles, however, the company announced today that the deal has closed. In CEO Satya Nadella called Nuance a pioneer in enterprise AI, and said that he is looking forward to seeing what the two companies can accomplish together. “Together we will usher in a future of outcome-based AI where healthcare professionals can spend more time with patients and less time on documentation. Together we will help move key industry workflows securely to the cloud. And together we will use the power of AI to help organizations across every industry create frictionless, personalized customer experiences,” he said. Nadella’s statement strongly hinted that the company intends to use the Nuance technology more broadly than its primary healthcare focus, taking advantage of Microsoft’s vast resources to build on the existing solutions and bring them to other verticals like financial services, retail and telecommunications. Time will tell how that all comes together. It wasn’t always a given that we would get to today’s announcement with a combined Microsoft-Nuance. While the prevailing industry wisdom was that Microsoft was not going to be dominating any markets with this deal, in a regulatory environment in which governments have been looking more closely at the largest tech companies, and more specifically mega deals that could have a negative impact on competition, it wasn’t always clear it would happen. After the deal was cleared by last year, and later , one last hurdle remained while the from the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). This week , clearing the way for today’s announcement. The CMA said in a statement that it found no evidence that when combined that the two companies would have an adverse impact on competition in the healthcare transcription market where Nuance has primarily operated: “The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that the anticipated acquisition by Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) of Nuance Communications, Inc. (Nuance) does not give rise to a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of Competition,” the watchdog group wrote in . With that out of the way, Microsoft and Nuance will move forward with one of the biggest acquisitions in the Nadella era, second only to in 2016. It’s worth noting that to acquire Activision/Blizzard it announced in January, but that deal is still working its way through the approval process. |
Welcome to the it’s-so-subtle pivot season | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 3 | 5 | As late-stage tech startups face the changing environment in the public markets, their early-stage counterparts are in a different world altogether. The cohort has had access to ample capital in recent quarters, giving them a bubble of venture capital that somewhat protects them from rapid changes in the greater economy. But while the bubble is not popping, it’s changing shape. While we may not see early-stage startups go through aggressive rounds of layoffs or experience immediately slashed valuations due to shifting market conditions, there’s a different signal worth tracking: pivots. Pivots — a change in business strategy based on a new insight or market trend — are somewhat inevitable for young companies still chasing product-market fit. I’d argue that pivots are more important to track than a financing round because they give a snapshot of a startup reacting to a new tension in the market. Plus, unlike a funding round, a pivot is a definite signal that something is changing, a tension other than a cadre of investors affirming that a founder is onto something big. After having conversations with a number of investors and founders, it’s clear that the coming weeks and months will include a lot of subtle shifts in how early-stage startups do business. Some may re-prioritize objectives to reduce risk, while others may pursue new, more near-term business models to finally get some revenue in the door. For my full take on this topic, check out my TechCrunch+ column: “ .” In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk about an Epic deal, fintech going full stack and why one firm is going self-funded. As always, you can support me by sharing this newsletter, or , a music marketplace where any musician can sell their music and keep 82% of the profits. The acquisition comes amid a broader conversation of the role (and power) of platforms in creators’ lives, making platforms like Bandcamp stand out simply due to alignment of incentives. Now that it is within Epic’s comfortable embrace, there’s a new chapter to analyze. “When artists see that a platform they use to make a living is being acquired, their usual reaction isn’t, ‘Oh, cool, they will have more funds to produce better features to help me monetize my creative work!’ They think, ‘Oh shit, not again.’ It happened when Google bought YouTube, and when Spotify bought Anchor. Artists recognize that when a platform changes ownership, even the smallest tweaks can impact their livelihoods. Why would artists trust Big Tech companies when Spotify payouts are dismal, OnlyFans temporarily made career-endangering decisions for sex workers, and Patreon flirts with the idea of crypto payments, a move many of its creators are strongly against?” I wonder, of course, if the buy is in light of community, or just in pursuit of capitalism. We’ll talk about it on Equity next week, Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch , I spoke with Alex and Mary Ann about the state of fintech. It was partially inspired by , and Pipe’s acquisition of an, um, Beyond , we worked through our biggest questions on fintech’s maturation at the moment. For example, if all fintechs become the same company over time, how do you differentiate when initially fighting for the same user cohort? The market made the conversation even more relevant, as public market repricings may be one trigger for fintech’s to pursue more proven revenue streams. So what, SoFi? MirageC / Getty Images (or coffee, or beer, or beverage of your choosing). The venture capital firm is leaving its strictly seed-stage roots — and its traditional venture structure — and pursuing a more stage-agnostic evergreen model that is funded solely by Satya Patel and Hunter Walk, Homebrew’s general partners. Homebrew’s pivot is happening at a crucial market moment for tech startups. Public tech stocks are being hammered regardless of sector. And while early-stage private startups seemingly remain largely unscathed, owing to an influx of venture capital, later-stage companies are finding themselves in a tougher position right now. The move is also notable in a market where raising larger and larger (and larger) funds has become routine. Of course, the perennial challenge that comes when raising more capital is that an investor then has more pressure to deliver on those outcomes. You may have been able to provide outcomes at a 5x rate on a $15 million fund, but can you still hit venture-like targets when you ask them to back a $150 million fund? What about $1.5 billion? Cometeer Techcrunch Early Stage 2022 is April 14, aka right around the corner, and it’s in San Francisco. Join us for a one-day founder summit featuring GV’s Terri Burns, Greylock’s Glen Evans and Felicis’ Aydin Senkut. The TC team has been fiending to get back in person, so don’t be surprised if panels are a little spicier than usual. , and Also, follow our newest producer for Equity: Until next time, |
Indonesian agritech AgriAku reaps $6M in pre-Series A funding | Catherine Shu | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | , a Jakarta-based B2B marketplace for farmers, announced today it has raised a pre-Series A of $6 million. The round was led by Go-Ventures, with participation from MDI Arise, MDI Centauri, Mercy Corps Social Venture Fund and angel investors. The funding will be used on hiring and increasing AgriAku’s market penetration. The marketplace enables retailers to buy supplies, including seeds, fertilizers and agrochemicals, from wholesalers and manufacturers. Then the retailers sell those items to farmers. AgriAku’s goal is to give retailers and farmers a bigger selection of products and access to transparent pricing. It also gives suppliers business software, like bookkeeping and inventory management tools, to help them make forecasts about what farmers will need. AgriAku’s marketplace launched in May 2021 and the company says it has seen average month-on-month growth of 200% in gross merchandise value over the past four months. The number of active users on AgriAku is now about 10,000 registered farmer stores. The company was launched last year by Irvan Kolonas, also founder of social enterprise agritech startup Vasham, and Danny Handoko, who was previously CEO of Airy, an Indonesian hospitality startup. The team also includes Rezky Haryanto Agustia, former assistant vice president for supply chain and operations at e-commerce giant Bukalapak. Kolonas told TechCrunch that AgriAku is a “culmination of a lifelong mission for me, as I first took on the mission 10 years ago with the start of my first company Vasham, a social enterprise, doing a full close-loop, full-stack model helping smallholder corn farmers.” After spending years trying different models, including direct-to-farmer and retail stores, Kolonas said he realized it was not sustainable to sell directly to farmers. “Instead, we believe firmly now that the most important stakeholder is the Toko Tanis. The Toko Tanis are our mitras or agents who distribute not only inputs but eventually other services to farmers. We want to leverage the decades of relationship that have been built up by them as community leaders with the farmers in their surrounding areas.” AgriAku is the latest among several agritech startups in Indonesia that have recently announced funding rounds. Other B2B marketplaces include TaniHub Group, which focuses on connecting farmers with customers to sell their produce. Kolonas said AgriAku eventually also wants to enable farmers to sell produce by connecting them to offtakers or factories like rice millers or corn dryers “Indonesia’s agricultural industry contributes significantly to the economy, at approximately 13.5% of GDP,” Go-Ventures partner Aditya Kamath said in a statement. “However, the upstream agricultural market is highly fragmented with a disorganized value chain for agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and agrochemicals. AgriAku’s B2B input marketplace platform is ideally positioned to improve price transparency and market access for all stakeholders in the agricultural inputs sector.” |
Nigeria’s Sudo Africa raises $3.7M pre-seed for its card-issuing API platform | Tage Kene-Okafor | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | L-R: Kabir Shittu (COO) and Aminu Bakori (CEO) |
Ukraine, API startups and startup valuations | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 5 | Hello friends! I had a little something saved for this email, but it wound up being pushed back to next week, so expect to read about that in a few days. The good news is that we now have some more room to play with today. So let’s chat tech’s response to Ukraine, API startups, and startup valuations, yeah? This will be fun. I was worried that when Russia invaded Ukraine that the world would not step up to the task of giving a shit. Happily, however, the opposite has largely happened. And even more, tech has taken a stand. And not just a positioning or verbal response to the ridiculous and tragic invasion, but a business-impacting response. When , , and , it’s encouraging. What do the actions add up to? We don’t know yet, but Russia is taking a similar tack, banning social services in the country that its citizens might have used to, you know, figure out what is actually going on. So we’re seeing a blackout of tech products and services from both internal and external sources in the country. Given how much of the world Russia touches, in both geographic and economic terms, we’re in experimental territory. Perhaps the tech moves will prove footnote to the larger international sanctions push. But they do indicate to any other nation considering using its military power to crush smaller nations that the response to such action won’t only come from nation-states, perhaps adding a little weight against such belligerence. Let’s hope we keep hearing news about how tech is decoupling from autocratic imperialism. Oh boy. This week I . It’s a nascent project from the venture firm, but one that I liked. In short, GGV is building a database of sorts of private API startups that are doing cool stuff. Naturally, the VC wants to be in the center of the API conversation, so the effort is at once a research project and some form of content marketing. But it did provide a good excuse to list out roughly 8,392 different API startups, or startups with strong API components to their model. And more keep coming in. One such startup is Highnote, which has built APIs to allow other companies to build card-issuance services into their products. I wasn’t going to add more names to the mix of API startups that we already listed, because I still have carpal tunnel from finding all the links, but something about caught my eye. Its website argues that using its service is a faster way to get up and running with card issuance. Yes, you are saying, that is literally the point of an API-delivered service, the abstraction of complexity away from where a product, and not a problem, is needed. Yes, but I just spent two days digging through the corporate venture world, and I see a parallel. Basically and put together a deal to bring its software to Amex’s customers, part of the latter’s argument in favor of the deal was time to market. It could move more quickly with a partnership and investment than it could in building its own version of what Airbase had already cooked up. Sound familiar? In some sense, then, API startups allow companies of all sorts to access and test products more quickly than ever before. This also means that they can sort the build-versus-buy argument more quickly and clearly than ever before. So API products are to smaller companies what corporate venture capital firms are to incumbents? Kinda! A Friday thought, I know, but it was on my mind so I figured I’d share it. Closing out, the bad news. SaaS multiples have to the single digits for even middle-growth companies. For startups, this means that if they are targeting a double-digit revenue (ARR, etc.) multiple, they had best be growing faster than nearly all their peers. The public markets have taken back essentially all the gains afforded to software companies during COVID. We’re back to where we were before, or worse, from a valuations perspective. For the startups that raised fat rounds at 100x ARR, good luck. |
Reliance to invest $221 million for electronics manufacturing with Sanmina in India | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Reliance Industries plans to invest up to $221 million in U.S. electronics firm Sanmina to set up a joint venture as the Indian giant looks to expand its electronics manufacturing. The joint venture aims to create a “world-class” electronic manufacturing hub in India, the two said. It will prioritize high technology infrastructure hardware for growth markets and across industries such as communications networking (5G, cloud infrastructure, hyperscale datacenters), medical and healthcare systems, industrial and cleantech, and defense and aerospace. All the manufacturing will initially take place at Sanmina’s 100-acre campus in Chennai, with the ability for site expansion to support future growth opportunities as well as to potentially expand to new manufacturing sites in India over time based on business needs, they said. The joint venture will also create a “Manufacturing Technology Center of Excellence” to support the product development and hardware startup ecosystem in India, among other things. Reliance Strategic Business Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, will own 50.1% of the joint venture, India’s largest company said in a filing with the stock exchange. The U.S. firm partnered with EV maker Ather Energy in 2018 to develop and manufacture key components for scooters. “We are delighted to work with Sanmina to access the significant market opportunity for high-tech manufacturing in India,” Akash Ambani, director of Reliance Jio, said in a statement. “For both growth and security, it is essential for India to be more self-reliant in electronics manufacturing in Telecom, IT, Data Centers, Cloud, 5G, New Energy and other industries as we chart our path in the new digital economy. Through this partnership we plan to boost innovation and talent in India, meeting both Indian and global demand.” Thursday’s move is the latest from an Indian giant to expand its electronics manufacturing in the country as Narendra Modi’s government makes a broad effort to boost domestic production. Vedanta Group last month inked a partnership with Taiwan’s Foxconn to make semiconductors in the country. India’s government is offering almost $7 billion of incentives to boost the electronics manufacturing sector. |
This Week in Apps: Apps blocking Russia, Walmart adds virtual try-on, Netflix’s trivia game | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 3 | 5 | Welcome back to This Week in Apps, that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the year-end . App Annie global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion. Today’s consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated over $100 million in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue, App Annie . This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend, and just eight apps topped $1 billion. This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place, with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too. / Getty Images The Russia-Ukraine war continued to have a wide-reaching impact on the world of apps as major tech companies took action to block Russian state media outlets, RT and Sputnik, and to further isolate Russia from participating in the broader tech economy. The EU specifically the Kremlin-based media outlets in the region, to prevent the further spread of disinformation and propaganda across EU broadcast channels, online platforms and apps. The app stores pulled the Russian state-owned media outlets’ apps, RT News and Sputnik News, from their global marketplaces outside Russia. This includes the ban of RT from the Windows app store, plus and of RT and Sputnik’s apps. Sensor Tower said that RT News had 5.7 million installs worldwide since its launch in May 2013 across the App Store and Google Play, while Sputnik had 2 million installs worldwide since its release in March 2015. Another firm reported different data. Apptopia estimated RT News had 10 million global installs and Sputnik had 3.85 million. Walmart Twitter Facebook iHeartRadio Netflix Amazon Uber to expand its games business. Netflix has been offering subscriber-only games through its mobile apps on iOS and Android through partnerships and licensing deals. Next Games had ties to Netflix already, having published the role-playing game “Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales.” It had reported sales of $30.2 million in 2020, largely from in-app purchases. “Sky” has over 160 million downloads and nearly 7 million DAUs. The company also added Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull as a principal adviser. . The company will raise up to $335 million in the merger. , hinting at its “music metaverse” ambitions. The company will continue to function as a standalone operation, it said. led by Goodwater Capital, Naver and existing investor Tanglin Venture Partners. The app offers more than 100,000 hours of content and reports having over 50 million users. U.S. firms World Within Ventures and Noemis Ventures co-led the round. Stax has 170,000 customers, 40,000 of which are monthly actives. . The company has 130 employees in London, Paris and Krakow and is working to expand the app to other EU markets. The deal aims to expand DoorDash’s services, like DoorDash Drive and DoorDash Storefront; increase partner restaurant sales; and reduce wait times to order and pay. 55% cash and 45% stock. The deal will close in the first half of 2022, and follows AppLovin’s acquisition of Twitter’s MoPub. The app, which is also backed by actor Kevin Costner, has more than 100,000 registered users and offers more than 8,880 stories across the U.S. The new round was led by RV and outdoor camping retailer Camping World. The app lets users browse deals at nearby grocery partners, then pay for items in the app and arrange for pick up. To date, the company claims to have saved shoppers $100 million and diverted more than 34 million pounds of food from landfills. Japanese manufacturing company Yanmar Global took a majority stake in the company, which now overs over 150,000 rentals in 9,300 destinations. a TV-viewing solutions and analytics company that measures consumer viewing habits in public locations nationwide. Through its iOS/Android app, Tunity allows users to hear live audio from muted televisions directly on their mobile devices. Last year, genealogy service MyHeritage after introducing that allowed users to animate the faces of loved ones in still photos. TikTok users posted videos reacting to the technology, called “Deep Nostalgia,” as they brought back relatives they never got to meet or those whose loss they still grieved. To date, more than 100 million photos have been animated with the feature. Now comes the next iteration. This week, MyHeritage along with technology partner is expanding upon “Deep Nostalgia,” with ,” a feature that doesn’t just bring the people in photos to life with movement, but actually has them speak. The company licensed the new technology from a Tel Aviv-based startup that works to create patented video reenactment technology powered by AI and deep learning techniques. To make the lips match the words, D-ID trained a neural network on a database of videos of people speaking. Its technology is able to work with any language, the company says. The MyHeritage implementation, however, supports 31 languages, including dozens of dialects, with both male and female voice options. After the LiveStory is created, users can watch it, share it with friends or post it to social media. They also can customize the story further by editing the text, choosing a different voice or even uploading their own audio recording. The feature is available in the MyHeritage mobile app and is free to use a few times before a subscription is required. |
Snowflake acquires Streamlit for $800M to help customers build data-based apps | Ron Miller | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | helps customers store and manage oodles of data in the cloud without cloud vendor lock-in. is a startup that developed a for building data-based apps. Seems like a pretty good match, and today Snowflake announced it was acquiring Streamlit for $800 million. Benoît Dageville, co-founder and president of products at Snowflake, said the company became familiar with Streamlit as customers were using it, as were people in-house, and as they talked it seemed increasingly like a good fit. “We have both the same vision — Streamlit and Snowflake — which is all about democratizing access to data. I would describe it very simply as making it super easy to interact with data,” Dageville told me. He said that Streamlit fills in a big missing piece in the platform by allowing data scientists and others to interact with the data and build apps that bring the data to life for non-technical users. Snowflake has all the technical pieces for accessing and managing the data in the cloud, but they lacked a native data visualization piece, and that’s what they’re getting with Streamlit. Streamlit co-founder and CEO Adrien Treuille said that he and his co-founders began talking to Snowflake last fall and over time it became readily apparent that they would match up well together, not just technologically, but also culturally. “I think there’s a really deep cultural alignment beyond the technical and business alignment between the two companies,” Treuille explained. When the startup launched in 2018, it was the brainchild of some former GoogleX and Zoox employees looking to build an open source project to make it easier to build custom applications to interact with data. As Treuille told me , they wanted to build a flexible tool: “I think that Streamlit actually has, I would say, a unique position in this market. While most companies are basically trying to systemize some part of the machine learning workflow, we’re giving engineers these sort of Lego blocks to build whatever they want,” Treuille explained. It reached , and was working on a commercial cloud service. That piece will eventually become part of the Snowflake platform. While the company plans to integrate the Streamlit technology into the Snowflake platform, of course, the plan is to continue to build and support the popular open source project and the community behind it. Treuille says there are tens of thousands of people using the platform and millions using apps built on top of Streamlit. Snowflake launched in 2012 and raised $1.4 billion before going public in September 2020. Streamlit launched in 2019 and raised $62 million. The deal is going to have to pass regulatory muster. The hope is that it gets done sooner than later, certainly this quarter, but Dageville said that would be up to the various regulatory bodies involved. Snowflake stock is down almost 23% in after-hours trading after . |
Daily Crunch: With EU ban pending, Google Play says ‘do svidaniya’ to Russia Today, Sputnik apps | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Wednesday, March 2, 2022. We have a packed newsletter for you today. We’ve got acquisitions, funding rounds, the end of products, and more. Also , which is going to be good fun, and the Equity team . Now, to work! – The push to fund Ukraine’s war-torn nation-state with crypto is turning out to be An Actual Thing. Which is good, as the country needs the money, and it’s good to see blockchain cash have a real-world impact other than enriching your rivals. TechCrunch has notes on and . Scooting along: . Worth some $650 million, you might think to yourself, hot dang, how big has the Indian venture scene become in recent years? The answer? . Before we get into the day’s funding round revue, two more short notes. First, . Recall that for a short period of time, it appeared the whole world might move to shared scooters as a way to get around. That didn’t last, but some of the assets built during the period remain on the books of, well, companies that have other priorities. This deal didn’t shock us. And, second, TechCrunch has an op-ed up today on space debris, one of my favorite pet issues. . From the funding spigot: Photo: Rosley Majid / EyeEm /Getty Images The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a notice after Russia invaded Ukraine warning against the potential for state-sponsored cyber attacks: “Every organization — large and small — must be prepared to respond to disruptive cyber activity,” it advised. Blanket warnings are hard to act on, but now that virtually all information is stored remotely and employees are widely distributed, CISA’s “shields up” advisory has special urgency. How should companies assess and protect their external attack surface? We’ve got answers. SEAN GLADWELL / Getty Images TechCrunch is recruiting recruiters for TechCrunch Experts, an ongoing project where we ask top professionals about problems and challenges that are common in early-stage startups. If that’s you or someone you know, you can let us know . |
Ford increases electrification spend to $50B in attempt to catch up to Tesla | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Ford Motor Company is increasing its electric vehicle investment to $50 billion through 2026, . CEO Jim Farley announced the news on Wednesday after the automaker confirmed that it would something Ford touched on during its in early February. This is the third time in less than a year that Ford has upped its electrification spend; Ford announced in May 2021 that it would be investing $22 billion in EVs, and the continued financial ramping signals the automaker hopes to catch up to industry leader Tesla. Through its new EV business, named Ford Model e, Ford plans to build more than 2 million EVs in 2026, which is a third of its annual global production, with 50% of its total volume being electric by 2030, said Farley. However, the company doesn’t expect to make a profit until the next-gen models begin production in 2025, according to chief financial officer John Lawler. Ford Model e and Ford Blue, the company’s more traditional ICE unit, will report separate financial results by 2023. Ford expects to spend $5 billion on EVs this year, which is double what the automaker spent last year. While many industry analysts expect Ford to spin out its EV business, Farley gave no indication that this would be happening any time soon. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen down the road. “We need the ICE business to generate cash and the EV business to focus on innovation,” Farley said. up from 54,000 over a year ago. While the majority of those sales are trucks and SUVs, Ford sales of EVs increased 55.3% through February, and it’s growing at a faster rate than the overall segment, according to Ford. |
Amazon to close 68 physical retail locations, including Amazon Books and 4-star stores | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Amazon’s is suffering a major blow as the company today it will close 68 brick-and-mortar retail stores across the U.S. and U.K. This includes its Amazon Books bookstores, its pop-up shops in various markets and its 4-star stores, where customers could shop popular and highly rated products across Amazon.com. The retailer, which began its life as an online bookseller, its first physical bookstore in Seattle back in 2015, then steadily expanded its brick-and-mortar footprint to include more locations across the U.S. and abroad, including in U.S. states like Arizona, California, Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregan, Tennessee, Texas and, of course, its home state of Washington. The stores didn’t just provide a place for customers to interact with Amazon merchandise in real life, including its hardware devices, they also served as a convenient spot to pick up merchandise bought online or make returns. In later years, Amazon’s retail footprint expanded to include Whole Foods, with the 2017 of the grocer, plus its own Amazon Fresh grocery stores. And Amazon has been testing its Just Walk Out cashierless shopping technology at a growing number of Amazon Go convenience stores, which weren’t a part of this planned shutdown. The company told Reuters it will alert shoppers to the upcoming closures through in-store signage, as the actual closing dates may vary by location. It also said it was working to find new roles for employees impacted, when possible, or offer them severance. The decision to exit so much of its brick-and-mortar business follows a couple of years that have made in-person retail more challenging for everyone, as the COVID pandemic sent more consumers online as foot traffic to local stores declined. But this decision also comes at a time when Amazon retail workers had begun to organize — though in this case, at an Amazon Fresh grocery. The union push saw the retail workers demanding better wages, more flexible attendance policies, longer breaks and other benefits, . Shutting down dozens of physical stores immediately after such demands seems to send a chilling message to all Amazon retail workers that the company doesn’t value its physical retail business. Amazon, however, said it will continue to work on its cashierless grocery stores and other new concepts, like the called Amazon Style. Though a small part of its broader retail business, Amazon’s brick-and-mortar stores made the company billions. , the company reported its physical retail business generated $4.68 billion, up from $4.02 billion in the year-ago quarter. It also other retail developments in the quarter, in addition to Amazon Style, including the opening of the first Starbucks Pickup with Amazon Go store in New York, and plans for two more such stores in 2022. |
Tier Mobility acquires Spin from Ford, marking entry into North America | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Tier Mobility, the Berlin-based micromobility operator that has been steadily taking over Europe, is making a sweeping entry into North America by acquiring Spin from automaker Ford. Tier will acquire all of Spin’s 50,000 e-scooters and e-bikes, bringing the German company’s total fleet to 300,000. The companies would not disclose the terms of the deal, but last October, , much of which the startup said would be used for strategic investments and acquisitions. Ford, , will maintain a strategic investment in Spin, according to Spin CEO Ben Bear. The news comes a few months after , marking Tier’s entry into the Italian market, as well as , signaling Tier’s move into the multi-modal space. The Spin buy will give Tier a global footprint of more than 520 cities and communities in 21 countries, making it the largest shared operator in the world. Competitors Bird and Lime claim a footprint of 350 and 200 cities globally, respectively, although they use different metrics on their scorecards. Micromobility companies like Tier need to scale in order to reach profitability, but they’re trying to scale at a time when cities are clamping down on the number of operators allowed on the streets. Buying up rivals in cities that have won permits is a tried and tested way to circumvent the system. Just a few weeks ago, Spin laid off a quarter of its staff as it prepared to wind down operations in some U.S. markets, Germany, Portugal and Spain. At the time, Bear said the move would help accelerate the company’s path to profitability via its strategy of pursuing exclusive or limited vendor markets. Spin has retained 100% of those permits over the last five quarters, the company says, which would make it doubly attractive as a partner for Tier across the Atlantic. Tier will maintain the Spin brand and organizational structure in North America, where Tier doesn’t currently have a presence, but Spin’s operations in the United Kingdom will be folded into the overall Tier brand to create a “global superpower together,” Bear told TechCrunch. “With this deal, we’re going to be able to modernize our fleet and bring over 100% swappable batteries, which will just take our operational efficiency to the next level,” said Bear, who noted only 50% of Spin’s e-scooters had swappable batteries at the moment, but those that are swappable can be swapped into Spin’s e-bikes, as well. Both Tier and Spin believe in Similarly, Tier’s Energy Network involves placing battery charging stations in retail stores across its coverage area where riders can swap a scooter’s battery at the end of their ride to earn free credit, all the while bringing foot traffic to shops and cafes. Tier is considering bringing its Energy Network to cities across the U.S. based on the good reception it has gotten in Europe. “We think that it’s something that could be especially interesting for universities,” to pilot camera-based safety systems that can detect and correct dangerous rider behavior, like riding or parking on sidewalks. to implement its Camera Positioning System, which asks users to take a photo of a building nearby when they want to end a ride, allowing Fantasmo’s 3D maps to confirm that the rider is in a city-approved parking space. As a joined force, one of Tier’s top priorities, aside from updating Spin’s North American e-scooter fleet, is to expand the company’s e-bike footprint in North America, which Leuschner says is a huge opportunity. E-mopeds, which Tier operates in some parts of Europe, will not be a priority for the North American market, says Leuschner. Tier’s last funding raise of $200 million was only the first tranche of a larger Series D, so there may be more consolidation in the company’s future. At the time of the raise, Tier reported its value at $2 billion. Leuschner would not share an updated valuation, but he did say the company is not looking to go public any time soon, partly because the company isn’t ready, partly because the markets are too volatile at the moment. |
Polestar’s second concept car is a convertible with an integrated drone | Andrew Tarantola | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | With the already in production, and 4 on the horizon and , Polestar the company has just unveiled its latest electrified vehicle idea: the Polestar O2 convertible concept. “Polestar O2 is our vision of a new era for sports cars,” Polestar’s Head of Design, Maximilian Missoni, said in a Tuesday press statement. “By mixing the joy of open top driving with the purity of electric mobility, it unlocks a new mix of emotions in a car.” The O2 will reportedly be built upon the same “bespoke” that the company is using for the Polestar 5, and generally resemble the Precept concept design it is derived from which, according to Polestar PR, “shows how Polestar’s evolving design language can be adapted to different body styles with a strong family resemblance.” That is, while the Polestar 5 will be a high-performance four-door grand touring vehicle, the O2 will offer a more compact, 2+2 sportscar feel, despite both being built on the same basic underpinnings. Now, you might be wondering how a convertible EV would even work given that traditional convertibles are rather inefficient — their frames are thicker and heavier to offset the structural strength lost by cutting off the roof and their aerodynamics are a mess because, again, no roof — and that is an excellent question. The company doesn’t yet have drag coefficient data to share, but it did assert that “disguised design features like integrated ducts that improve laminar air flow over the wheels and body sides, and rear lights that function as air blades to reduce turbulence behind the car,” are being investigated to maximize the vehicle’s range. With a shorter wheelbase and only an afterthought of rear seats, the O2 offers a sportier, more aggressive stance than the Polestar 2. And those wheels! The exterior is a study of sharp lines with a low-slung cabin seated between angular fender flares and an acutely angled glass-top roof that retracts back into a broad trunk. It looks like if you mashed up a Ford F40 with a Porsche 718 Spyder and then flattened out all the curves. It looks like a roadster you’d see on the streets of . I am a fan. The interior sounds equally supple, featuring a “thermoplastic mono-material” throughout for the hard bits, paired with recycled polyester as “the sole material used for all the soft components.” Because nothing beats the seat-squelching experience of sitting on polyester and plastic in full sun with the roof down. Drivers will also be able to film their top-down adventures thanks to the O2’s integrated cinematography drone. Developed in collaboration with Hoco Flow, this autonomous camera drone rides in an area of negative pressure generated from an airfoil deployed behind the rear seats. The drone can follow along at speeds up to 56 MPH and the captured footage can subsequently be edited and shared from the central infotainment system once the vehicle is parked. I mean, personally, I’d prefer or even if automakers are going to bundle in secondary transports with their vehicle offerings, but sure, a camera drone will definitely remain cool and novel and useful after the first couple flights. I mean, just look at how well they turned out for the or the . Like the Precept, we won’t likely see street legal O2 as it is now. Instead, Polestar plans to launch three new cars over the coming three years, “each of which has potential to gradually realize some of the ideas presented by these concept cars,” so keep an eye out for low-flying drones. |
null | Alexandra Ames | 2,022 | 3 | 4 | null |
Without sustainable practices, orbital debris will hinder space’s gold rush | Luca Rossettini | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Look up at the sky — hundreds of discarded satellites, spent upper-stage rocket bodies, and mission-related objects circle Earth, posing a risk to space-based services and future missions that will support what is projected to be a trillion-dollar space economy. According to the European Space Agency, larger than 10 cm are currently orbiting Earth, along with millions of pieces smaller than 1 cm. Not surprisingly, any collision in orbit can be catastrophic. Traveling at more than 7 km per second — faster than a high-speed bullet — even a 1 cm piece of debris can cause significant damage to a spacecraft and end an entire mission. Today’s sustainability crisis in space is the result of 60 years of exploration and utilization that have largely ignored the environmental consequences of space activities and treated satellites and other space assets as single-use objects. The consequence of this approach is an unsustainable model that increases costs and puts the tremendous promise of the space economy at risk. Low-Earth orbits are already so populated that satellite operators are forced to assess conjunctions and perform debris-avoidance maneuvers that consume valuable resources and can disrupt services. Technical measures alone cannot solve the space sustainability problem. The on-orbit servicing market must be driven by national space policies and international standards that directly support satellite servicing. National regulatory policies are struggling to keep pace with the advancement of technology, the growth of the satellite population, and the development of new activities in orbit. While multilateral UN provisions, such as the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 2019 Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities, provide high-level guidance, specific licensing practices must be created and implemented by national regulatory agencies in individual countries. There is no template for the implementation of these guidelines and high-level agreements on an internationally coordinated basis, and global space activity is not under the control of any single national or international entity. Hence, there is no common set of rules that govern global space activity and no mechanisms to ensure the proper disposal of hardware at the completion of space missions. Nor is there any coordinated effort to clean up the decades of space debris already accumulated in orbit. Attitudes are changing, however, and over the past year, we have seen a significant shift in the urgency around the issue. In June 2021, confirming orbital debris as one of the biggest challenges facing the space sector and pledged to commit to the safe and sustainable use of space. While this statement represents a valuable acknowledgment of the scope of our problems with space sustainability, it’s only a step in the right direction. Key players across the international community, from national governments to private commercial companies, must start developing and coordinating space traffic and environmental management. To date, satellite operators haven’t had options for reducing the risks to their satellites in orbit. However, on-orbit servicing is changing this risk scenario. D-Orbit, Astroscale and ClearSpace are joining forces to move the space sector into an era of sustainability, turning on-orbit servicing into an emerging reality. On-orbit servicing is comparable to roadside car servicing on Earth. Nobody would ever abandon a car in the middle of the highway because the fuel tank is empty or the battery charge runs out. Yet this is exactly how most satellite operators have worked since the dawn of the Space Age, leaving these metaphorical “orbital highways” more congested. According to applications submitted to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and International Telecommunications Union, the number of satellites in low Earth orbit is projected to by 2030, and a single system of over 300,000 satellites has recently been proposed. This growth promises to make a serious issue exponentially worse. The deployment of a geostationary satellite typically costs $150 million to $500 million. Over the next 15 years, more than 100 geostationary satellites will reach their planned retirement age, driving satellite operators to pursue options for extending the value of their assets, rather than just replacing them. By extending the life of a satellite, servicing enables commercial and institutional operators to be more deliberate in how they use their capital. Satellite operators — particularly those building larger constellations — can install a low-cost interface on their satellites before launch to reduce the cost and complexity of any future service that might be required. When a satellite fails or reaches the end of its life, a servicer spacecraft can remove it, much like a tow truck assists broken-down cars on a roadway, keeping orbits clear and reducing collision risks to other satellites, including those belonging to the same constellation. When we extend removal services to on-orbit inspection, operators can assess the condition of their satellites more completely when anomalies arise. With on-orbit relocation services, operators can deliver their satellites from initial deployment to their intended operational orbits, make adjustments to compensate for natural decay, reposition assets within a constellation to address coverage issues, or relocate them to compensate for faults, all without expending their own fuel budget. As with any other long-term plan requiring significant investments in research and development — like the space race of the 1950s — national governments have an essential role in jump-starting sustainable orbital infrastructure. Active debris removal services are set to emerge, with both the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency funding debris removal missions in low-Earth orbit in partnership with private entities like ClearSpace and Astroscale. While solving this global issue requires significant public and private investments, along with systemic changes in the industry, the potential rewards are virtually unlimited. The space economy — a new, unbounded playing field — has the potential to impact life on our planet and open a new frontier across our solar system and beyond. |
Dear Sophie: 2 questions about the latest immigration news | Sophie Alcorn | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies. “Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says , a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to in my next column.” TechCrunch+ members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; . Dear Focused, Yes, you might be eligible for a 24-month extension in your field of finance based on recent legal updates. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), recently added financial analytics and 21 other fields of study to the list of qualified . Talk to the international student office at your university to confirm your STEM eligibility based on your degree field. Getting STEM OPT work authorization while continuing to work at the company you co-founded can be complex, so I would recommend working with an experienced immigration attorney. Creating and working for your own company allowed under , but you can only qualify for the STEM OPT extension if you can demonstrate that despite your co-founder status, you have a with your company and that all regulatory requirements are met. Under the STEM OPT requirements, your company must also devise a formal training plan and learning objectives for you and enroll in the system. Joanna Buniak / You’ll want to ensure your startup complies with all STEM OPT requirements and obtain guidance on other immigration options that will enable you to continue living, growing and thriving with your startup in the U.S. Your future startup should also consider registering you for the if you qualify. This year’s registration period is from March 1-18. Qualifying for STEM OPT gives you more chances to be selected in each year’s H-1B lottery, and your company can register you multiple years in a row. Expanding the list of qualified STEM fields for STEM OPT is part of a larger effort by the Biden-Harris administration to expand immigration policies to attract and retain global STEM talent, spur innovation, and strengthen the U.S. economy. The new policies also affect the educational and cultural exchange visa, the extraordinary ability visa, and the (National Interest Waiver) green card. Discuss with your attorney if any of these other immigration options might work for you. Last night, in fact, President Joe Biden said in the : We can do all this while keeping lit the torch of liberty that has led generations of immigrants to this land — my forefathers and so many of yours. Provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, those on temporary status, farm workers, and essential workers. I believe that you and many others pursuing advanced education and creating leading-edge startups in the United States would definitely be considered “essential workers,” so let’s focus on getting immigration reform through as well. Best wishes for your journey. — Sophie Dear Founder, The startup visa is still alive in Congress! Last month, Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-CA) startup visa — which was included in her Let Immigrants Kickstart Employment ( ) Act — was added to the America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength (COMPETES) Act ( ). The America COMPETES Act, which the House recently passed along party lines, is the House’s version of the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act ( .) It is a sweeping bill that seeks to invest in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and boost research and technology to make the U.S. more competitive against China. The Senate approved its legislation last year. Pretty cool, right? We sure are excited. The House legislation creates a W (non-immigrant) visa category for startup founders and essential employees who have an ownership stake in their startup, and they and their startups meet certain qualifications. To qualify for a W visa for an initial three years: There’s more! Families of W visa holders would be eligible for dependent W visas. The legislation allows for W visas to be extended for three additional years if certain conditions are met. W visa holders can become eligible for green cards, which are exempt from the annual numerical and per-country limits. In addition to creating a startup visa, the America COMPETES Act also would exempt individuals and their families from the numerical and per-country limits on green cards if those individuals have a doctoral degree in a STEM field. If you can spare a bit of time, you can help to generate support for the startup visa: share your entrepreneurial journey with your to encourage them to include the startup visa in the Senate competitiveness bill, and let them know why a startup visa is needed to keep the U.S. competitive and innovative. In the meantime, if you’re looking for options that are available to you right now, consider (IEP). Please note that the minimum investment and grant requirements increased by nearly 6% last year. Take a look at this previous Dear Sophie column in which I talk about the IEP and for startup founders. Be sure to check back here for updates on the startup visa. —Sophie Have a question for Sophie? . We reserve the right to edit your submission for clarity and/or space. The information provided in “Dear Sophie” is general information and not legal advice. For more information on the limitations of “Dear Sophie,” please view . “Dear Sophie” is a federally registered trademark. You can contact Sophie directly at . Sophie’s podcast, , is available on all major platforms. If you’d like to be a guest, she’s accepting applications! |
As war escalates in Europe, it’s ‘shields up’ for the cybersecurity industry | Yaron Tal | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | , even government bureaucracy moves quickly. As a result of the heightened likelihood of cyberthreat from Russian malactor groups, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — part of the Department of Homeland Security — issued an unprecedented warning recommending that “all organizations — regardless of size — adopt a heightened posture when it comes to cybersecurity and protecting their most critical assets.” The blanket warning is for all industries to take notice. Indeed, it’s a juxtaposition of sorts to think the cybersecurity industry is vulnerable to cyberattack, but for many nation state groups, this is their . Inspired by the spike in attacks on cybersecurity agencies globally, a report from Reposify assessed the state of the cybersecurity industry’s external attack surface (EAS). It coincides with CISA’s warning, and highlights critical areas of concern for the sector and how they mirror trends amongst pharmaceutical and financial companies, providing vital insight into where organizations can focus their efforts, and reinforce the digital perimeter. The report examined 35 cybersecurity companies and their 350+ subsidiaries with shocking results: during only a two-week period in January 2022, more than 200,000 exposed assets were uncovered at top firms, 42% of which were identified as high-severity issues. As CISA outlines , the first step to resiliency is to reduce the likelihood of a damaging cyber intrusion in the first place. Recognizing the problem is only the first in a series of actionable moves organizations can make to minimize their external weaknesses to bad actors. If addressing digital perimeter exposures is the foundation, zoning-in on problem areas is the framing. A deep dive into these deficiencies points to clear solutions all industries – cybersecurity or otherwise – can embrace to protect themselves. Many factors, including the transition to remote work environments, increased reliance on third-party vendors, digital transformation and offloading services onto the cloud, have significantly increased companies’ external attack surface. According to the report, the rise of remote access sites saw 89% of identified assets classified as part of the unofficial perimeter. Similarly, 87% of databases were unaccounted for, along with 67% of development tools and 62% of all network assets. Databases were found to be among the most vulnerable to cybersecurity threat, with over half (51%) of cybersecurity companies hosting an exposed database. Nearly all (97.14%) of security agencies have exposed assets on their Amazon Web Services (AWS), and 86% of those analyzed have at least one sensitive remote access service exposed to the internet. |
Ukraine deputy minister talks IT Army and deploying $25M in donated crypto | Ingrid Lunden | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | continues to unfold in Ukraine with alarming developments, the country has been putting up a resistance to Russia beyond the ground war: It’s been taking the fight to the digital front, leveraging the internet to fight against Russia’s attacks, to proactively go after Russia’s halls of power and to corral support — including financial support — from those who want to do something to help out. Russia’s decision to switch from constant, menacing side-presence to full-scale attack may have caught some by surprise, but that was not the case for those who were already aware of the early warning signs. e war didn’t start four days ago,” Oleksandr (Alex) Bornyakov, the country’s deputy minister for Digital Transformation, said in an interview on Tuesday. “It’s been going on for eight years. Russia was attacking us all of those years.” is already starting to pay some sizable dividends. As of yesterday, Bornyakov said, $100 million had been raised through various online donations from around the world. Of that amount, a full $25 million had come from cryptocurrency donations to accounts co-managed by Ukraine officials and those operating the networks in public-private partnership. Over half of that amount has, in turn, already been spent on supplies to help the Ukrainian resistance. Ukraine Deputy Minister for Information Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov. Bornyakov has been working on the front lines of the country’s digital strategy for some time. Before last week, that meant things like running the country’s Diia City initiative, a massive plan to encourage more foreign tech companies to come to Ukraine to build operations, and to encourage more startups to grow in the Ukrainian ecosystem, sweetening the deal with big tax breaks and other incentives. As of this week, the job is more about managing the country’s big leap into raising money through cryptocurrency to support its resistance efforts, managing and interfacing with other digital activist grassroots efforts and thinking about contingency plans for communication as the fighting intensifies. The developments are coming thick and fast in each area. As I interviewed him yesterday, news was breaking about the Russians bombing a television tower; tech companies continued to announce more blockages of content and services; and more people were fleeing, fighting and getting caught in the crossfire. Bornyakov himself confirmed he was still in Ukraine and safe, but declined to disclose his exact location, and his assistant who helped arrange the interview did so from a separate location, a bomb shelter. We also had to try a couple of different communication channels before finding one that would work. How long any of those will remain constant is a big unknown. We’re all hoping for an end to this, and for Ukraine to come out of it independent and stronger. At a time when things are rapidly developing, we caught up with Bornyakov to give us a snapshot of things as they stand right now across some of the bigger digital developments, including the rise of the so-called IT Army; Ukraine’s cybersecurity; and the cryptocurrency bet that Ukraine is taking. The bigger picture is one of bracing for what will come around the corner but also one of keeping calm, carrying on and maybe even flourishing under pressure. Below is a transcript of that interview and conversation, which we’ve lightly edited for length and clarity. I’m in Ukraine, but not in Kyiv. This is really tough, and so far we are safe. But a lot of people from Ukraine are not. They are volunteers just returning the call of the minister. We don’t know them really. And there are no, like, leaders doing coordination on personnel level. It’s just a huge group of people. And I think there are not just individuals there. There are also organizations. Even the Russians said that the power [the IT Army] has is equal to what only three countries in this world have — the USA, China and Russia. So their combined efforts are equal to the biggest state cyber defense groups. We don’t communicate on the person-to-person level with any one specific person or group, we just put a task into a room, and they execute it. Just a couple of minutes after, some infrastructures go down. Any infrastructure that we ask them to, they destroy it. The war didn’t start four days ago. It’s been going on for eight years. Russia was attacking us all of those years. I mean, on a cybersecurity level, on the internet. So, through those years, we developed a really advanced cyber defense system. So maybe — well, I know — they have been trying to attack us. But with no success. Cyberdefense is being taken care of by a different group of people. To defend, we need to give them access to restricted systems. We can’t give access to just anyone and the IT Army is a public group. It could be . So the defense is completely on the shoulders of a different group of people. Well, I can’t really talk about strategy since I know you will publish this. But I can give you sort of an answer. The thing is that we were under attack, for all these years, online. And we never fought back. We just defended ourselves. So this is, for the first time, us trying to show them how we feel when infrastructure is being attacked, when you can’t just use your cards or government services and everything. So so this is the answer. different messengers. But, Telegram is, like… [laughs] it’s a lot of Telegram use. But at the same time, we use almost all of the messaging apps, actually. I don’t have any preference. Other people from our team also communicate using different messaging apps. It’s gonna be really hard to take us down from this perspective. The connections are working. There are no electronics impacted yet. They hit one of the stations but it’s just one in a big city. There are a lot of others. But I think they will try to disrupt connections. They didn’t do this in the first place because I think they thought that this would be faster and easier, they would just run through the city, stop in the main square and just celebrate. That’s why they didn’t touch any infrastructure in the first place. But then the Russians realized they are not welcome here. They are occupying territory. So after like almost a week, they started to destroy our infrastructure, hit civilian objectives, kill civilian people. Listen, I can’t give you like all the plans. But yeah, there are multiple levels of backups and… just plans, of course. And if we had no contingency plans, we would already be dead. You have no idea how many attacks they’ve tried to push on us in cyberspace. So yeah, our infrastructure is working and it’s fine. It’s not just a matter of hitting a server and it’s down. We haven’t heard back from ICANN. I’m not sure what actions they will take or should take. But I’m sure that if organizations, or people, share common humanitarian values, if you don’t stand up, it’s the world that will be impacted. It’s not going to stop here. Putin’s completely out of his mind. And he’s going to push harder. He’s pushing the limits, if you see what he’s been doing for the last decade. And I think he understands the language of power. So my position is that we just need to fight back as in, push as hard as we can. Otherwise, I don’t know, maybe it will eventually go as far as nuclear weapons. But his country has to feel that there are other ways to solve problems, not only war. I think there’s a lot of coordination. [He separately gave a lot of credit to other countries, singling out the U.S. and U.K., for their support, but wouldn’t get into any specifics.] Well, the fund that we manage is being run by a Ukrainian crypto exchange. So this is a partnership, like a public-private partnership. In order to make things faster, we just secured a partnership with one certain exchange. We need to be sure that monies are secured, so no one can reach them. And of course, we need fast exchange and fast transfers. So it’s not just government, but we have control over those accounts. Most of them multi-signature accounts. So if you want to use them, you have to get at least like three signatures of people. [Bornyakov is one of those signatories for some but not all of the accounts.] Yes. That is right. Mostly. We operate in mostly Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether but we also got a huge donation of $5 million in Polkadot. A lot of people want to donate in other currencies, so we are know working on additional crypto wallets. For fiat, I think it is mostly U.S. dollar, and euro. Airdrop confirmed. Snapshot will be taken tomorrow, on March 3rd, at 6pm Kyiv time (UTC/GMT +2 hours). Reward to follow! Follow subsequent news re Ukraine’s crypto donation campaign at — Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) Half of the money is already spent on some equipment — I can’t tell you what — and today we also had a huge purchase. We are spending it. We work with the Minister of Defense too, so it’s not just Kuna and us, it’s also the Ministry of Defense involved. So basically, we we understand the needs and they help us with logistics. Once this is finished, we are going to give a full transparency report to everyone. [Separately Kuna has told us that equipment purchases have included drones and other supplementary equipment.] About $25 million has been raised so far, and I think we have spent like $14 million. [Edit: the day after we published this, another source, not the Ukrainian government, the total at $50 million.] Well, maybe you’re not aware of this, but National Bank of Ukraine ran the first huge national campaign earlier, before this, and specifically they are raising money mostly in fiat currencies and cards. So the work is being done in parallel. It’s not just crypto. There are a number of funds. Some of them are focused on the humanitarian aid, some of them just on military. Some are there to support government operations. So I don’t know, the combined effort of different institutions, I think, has raised $100 million. At this point, yes, a backseat. We started relatively great. There were hundreds of companies, including huge enterprises, international companies going in, but unfortunately, the Russian invasion has killed this. Maybe we could say it’s been postponed. But right now, companies are just evacuating most of their personnel. I agree. It’s just, it’s unbelievable, what’s happened. We never would have imagined such a tragedy on our territory. But we’re going to rebuild eventually. And of course, we think we can work this out. But it’s going to be very hard. |
TrueCircle scoops $5.5M to use AI to drive recycling efficiency | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | UK-based , a computer vision startup founded just last year, has nabbed $5.5 million in pre-seed funding in a bid to bring data-driven AI to the recycling industry to improve recovery rates and quality — with the overarching goal of transforming the economics of waste reuse to shrink demand for virgin materials. So far the startup has its tech up and running in eight UK waste sorting facilities but is ramping up quickly, with more launches coming in Q2 — when it will be expanding internationally into The pre-seed is notable for its size. The round is led by Chris Sacca’s climate focused Lowercarbon Capital fund, with participation from Passion Capital, Giant Ventures and firstminute Capital, as well as the founders of companies including Revolut, Monzo, Infarm and Unity investing in a personal capacity. Commenting on TrueCircle’s pre-seed raise in a statement, Lowercarbon Capital’s Clay Dumas, said: “Single-use plastic is a 300 million tonne scourge on our oceans and landfills that keeps the petrochemical industry in business. We backed TrueCircle because they’re harnessing technology and markets to build a solution that scales to the dimensions of the problem.” TrueCircle’s two co-founders, Eamon Jubbawy and Rishi Stocker, are not new to the startup game. (Indeed, Jubbawy actually has two startups on the go at once right now; the other being an a16z-backed fintech called .) The pair, who originally met at school, tout a lot of relevant tech and business smarts they’re bringing to bear here: Including computer vision experience from Onfido, another of Jubbawy’s startups, where he built up a computer vision team focused on identity document verification and face matching (he left Onfido in summer 2020); and commercial experience from fintech startup Revolut, where Stocker was one of its first employees and spent four years running global partnerships. He also previously worked at FMCG giant Unilever, and says he’s no stranger to the challenges of increasing packaging recycling rates. Recycling isn’t the most glamorous topic ofc but low levels of efficiency in the waste processing industry are a pressing problem from multiple angles — not least when combined with humanity’s pressing need to radically shrink global consumption in order to cut emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change — meaning there are real, meaningful problems here that tech could help solve. Problems that scale all over the globe, too. So the disruption potential — and revenue ‘opportunities’ — look huge. Regulation is also driving a lot more attention to what’s passing down the conveyor belts, as lawmakers start to impose conditions on use of virgin materials for things like packaging — actively changing the economics of recycling. Equally, widespread public anger over direct environmental impacts of discarded waste, like single-use plastic polluting the oceans and creating a risk to marine life, is creating energy for change. Meanwhile AI-driven efficiency gains — and the digitalization of industrial processes more generally — are being specifically looked to to address climate change, including by policymakers in the Europe Union who are pushing a combined ‘green and digital’ transformation investment strategy for the bloc to try to hit net zero carbon emissions by 2050. “The beauty of [our approach] is if you scale it up across the tonnage that’s been processed in the world today it’s a very scalable business model — if we were to just focus on this data-as-a-service business but our ambitions don’t stop there,” says Stocker. “I think this is the thing that gets us all super excited. We have a chance here to disrupt a $20BN per year industry through a much more digitalized trading infrastructure.” “Historically, attempts to revolutionize this industry were maybe a bit more academic and technology based but I think the approach which we’ve taken, from our experience of building and commercializing technology companies — at Onfido; Rishi was heading up a lot of our monetization strategies at Revolut — we’ve realized you need a lot more than that,” adds Jubbawy. “You need great tech but you also need to find a way to make this industry work commercially. Hence turning our focus to getting the sales process working really effectively because that’s just another reason why the recycling industry hasn’t been given the attention that it should.” Rewinding slightly, TrueCircle’s founders are starting with a pretty elementary idea of applying computer vision technology to the waste streams flowing through processing facilities so it can provide its customers with real-time time flows of data on what’s passing through their plants — powering waste analytics and alerts. This means the startup is installing connected camera and lighting kit in their customers’ waste processing plants — and doing that free of charge since the business model is a SaaS-style fee, based on the processing per tonnage scanned. “What we realized is these facilities — their major issue today is they have absolutely no data,” explains Stocker. “It’s a completely data-sparse industry. “In the absence of any data, on the composition of waste coming in, and more importantly the actual quality they’re able to achieve on those distinct output lines, they come across the same problem again and again: 1) Their buyers don’t trust what they’re purchasing so they always get underpaid for the materials. And 2) they actually don’t know when there are issues in their plant because they have no way of capturing real-time data.” “That was the real lightbulb moment for us — especially where Eamon’s computer vision knowledge of setting up and building Onfido from scratch came into play — we realized with a few very quick tests, actually by installing a very cheap camera with a lighting set-up on the conveyor belts that are in these facilities we could then feed that data to the cloud and apply a computer vision machine learning model to tag every single item,” he adds. We’ve seen this sort of idea before — such as by TechCrunch Disrupt battlefield alum (another UK-based startup), which was founded back in 2019 and already sells an AI waste recognition system that’s been globally deployed. But TrueCircle suggests its approach is more “full stack” as it’s also building an automation piece, initially via digital alerts its system sends to facility employees when quality thresholds drop below a customizable level — providing them with a root cause diagnosis so they can take immediate action to correct a problem with their sorting machinery. Later it says it wants to integrate the alert system with the plant’s machinery in order that its software could automatically undertake those sorts of corrections too. “The next step that we’re working on now is actually programmatically integrating with their existing machinery — such that when we spot an issue we can adjust the settings of that device and ensure it resolves it without manual intervention,” says Stocker. “So that’s really where we want to get to. We want to be this data as a service layer that spots issues, fixes them and then certifies the quality to maximize the selling potential.” There’s more too: In parallel, TrueCircle is building a marketplace to support waste processing facilities in selling the verified material they reclaim. Here its premise is that it will be able to help facilities achieve better prices for the processed waste as a result of the data that will come attached to it — aka, the analytics and quality/purity guarantee its AI is able to provide. So the pitch is that — finally — waste processing facilities will have the data to show buyers that ensures they can get a fair price. “By having a bit more of a full stack approach, to helping recycling facilities work with each other, connect with each other, obviously have better data on what they’re doing and make better decisions you can get the whole industry working more effectively,” suggests Jubbawy. “We go after buyers who care about quality,” adds Stocker. “We’ve been able to attract buyers from Germany, for example, onto the platform — because they can see exactly what they’re buying and they can place a bid that’s reflective of that quality. “This is a classic data as a service business — at least in its first module — because now a facility can come onto the platform and say okay I want to understand the quality of my outputs to help our facility get better revenues from a range of buyers. So they’re able to log on and generate a report for buyers. When they sell material at the end of every month they’re able to attach this report of real-time data which shows the exact quality of that line to all of the buyers.” “I come from the fintech world so I kind of bring it back to Moody’s ratings,” he adds. “We see it as we become this Moody’s equivalent for the recycling industry and then that enables us to build the rest of the infrastructure that the industry needs to facilitate efficient recycling.” TrueCircle says its AI models can currently identify around 50 different categories associated with waste — such as the material of the item, its weight, the brand, whether it’s food grade item etc. While accuracy rates for its waste scanning AIs are slated at between 92-98%. And after two months, the startup says it was able to demonstrate — in “some” of the initial facilities using its alerts dashboard — that its customers were getting a 10-15% higher recovery rate vs how they were operating before, i.e. without any AI to keep an eye on waste purity. Given the types of jobs set to be automated here — i.e. dirty, smelly and potentially dangerous low paid manual labor — this is one application of AI that might be more welcomed than feared, Jubbawy also suggests. “Ultimately the reason I’m motivated by this is I remember reading Bill Gates’ book on How to Avoid a Climate Disaster where he categorizes all the causes of this 51BN tonnes of greenhouse gases that we need to remove and the unnecessary use of virgin materials for packaging adds around 2-3% — so well above 1Gigaton,” he says, adding that the team’s overriding motivation is “doing our part to get those 51BN tonnes down to zero”. |
Facebook is shutting down its college student-only social network, Campus | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Facebook attempted a return to its roots as a college-focused social network with the , a private section within Facebook that was only open to those with an @.edu email address. However, the initiative didn’t succeed, as Facebook is now alerting users that Campus will fully shut down on March 10. Through an in-app message, Facebook is informing users that its Campus pilot will close down and that Campus profiles, groups, posts and other data will be deleted. Ahead of its shutdown, users will be able to view their data and download it using an export tool, the message noted. “Since we launched the Campus pilot, it’s been our mission to help bring college communities closer together. But we’ve learned that the best way to support students is through Facebook Groups,” the message explains. Social media consultant told TechCrunch he had been alerted to the closure by several Campus users and posted a of the message to Twitter. Other Campus users had also the planned shutdown and the accompanying plans to delete the data. But very few had commented on the loss — an indication, perhaps, of Campus’ lack of traction. Facebook is shutting down its Campus feature on March 10 — Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) Originally, Facebook had Campus as a way to appeal to make the social network appealing to younger people by offering college students a private place where they could connect with classmates, join groups, learn about upcoming campus events, get updates from their school’s administration, and chat with others. With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was also a sense that Facebook could potentially capitalize on the fact that many students had shifted to virtual learning to drive adoption of its online college network. However, Campus was not offered as a fully separate app — it was accessible from the “More” section alongside other Facebook verticals, like Watch, Dating, Gaming, News and others. This may have made it feel more like a part of Facebook itself, rather than a truly private network. Facebook Facebook had marketed the feature on its platform — sometimes too aggressively, users complained. One Twitter user in 2021 how they were being pushed to join Campus, even though they were faculty, not a student, for instance. As of mid-2021, the feature had become available to 60 total U.S. colleges and universities, after 30 more schools were added to the service. And even as early as this January, Facebook Campus expansions were underway as local outlets were reporting school additions, , for example. Currently, the pilot program has 204 schools on board, Facebook told TechCrunch. A company spokesperson noted the original idea for Campus came about because students were already using Facebook Groups for their college, and Facebook wanted to explore if a dedicated product could better serve this use case. But ultimately, Facebook realized Groups worked better. The spokesperson also confirmed the decision to shut down Campus, noting: We’ve decided to end our pilot of Facebook Campus. We learned a lot about the best ways to support college students, and one of the most effective tools to help bring them together is Facebook Groups. We’ve notified students in the test schools that Campus will no longer be available, and have suggested relevant college Facebook groups for them to join. |
Australian fintech Zeller raises $100M AUD Series B at $1B AUD valuation | Catherine Shu | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Zeller’s EFTPOS terminal. Zeller , the Australian neobank for SMBs, has raised a $100 million AUD Series B (about $72.7 million USD), doubling its valuation to more than $1 billion AUD (about $727 million USD). The funding was led by Headline, with participation from Australian superannuation fund Hostplus. Returning investors included Square Peg, Addition and Spark Capital. The fintech was founded in 2020 by Ben Pfisterer, Square’s former Asia Pacific and Australian head and Dominic Yap, its strategy and growth lead. TechCrunch first covered Zeller in March 2021, when it , the venture capital firm founded by Lee Fixel. Over the span of eight months, Zeller signed up over 10,000 Australian businesses, which is one of the reasons Headline decided to invest in it, principal King Goh told TechCrunch. “The growth of the business is some of the most impressive we’ve seen in any industry. To go from zero to 10,000 customers in eight months is remarkable — you rarely ever see that,” Goh said. “When we invest, we look for companies that are growing many standard deviations above other technology companies and Zeller is a great example of this.” He added, “We like the company’s first act around acquiring customers via its best-in-class point-of-sale/merchant-acquiring product in a capital-efficient manner, followed by expanding into a broader set of business banking solutions. This may seem audacious, but the team is clearly experienced and well-placed to drive that ambition.” Pfisterer told TechCrunch that Zeller was created because merchants looking for a financial service provider “were underserved through lack of innovation, opaque pricing and restrictive contracts.” He added that many had to cobble together card payments, banking, expense management and accounts from different providers, with most relying on up to five different systems. Zeller was created to give SMBs a fully integrated, centralized alternative. Its products for Australian businesses currently include an EFTPOS terminal, business transaction accounts and Zeller Mastercards. Pfisterer said that over 80% of its customers during the first 10 months switched to Zeller from a traditional banking institution, and the majority of them now use their Zeller account as their primary financial services solution. He added Zeller’s customer research showed three in five business owners left traditional banks because of dissatisfaction with outdated tech, poor reliability and reductions to bank services like branch closures and customer support. The company has a simple sign-up process for merchants. First, they open an account on Zeller’s website. Then they can order a Zeller POS terminal online or in Officeworks stores. Another advantage Zeller has over traditional banks is quick customer support, Pfisterer said, with average call wait times of less than 45 seconds. Zeller’s product roadmap includes new omni-channel commerce capabilities, like the ability to accept online payments through integrations with website and e-commerce platforms. It will also give merchants the option of new accounts to manage and store funds, including the ability to transfer money to more places, and tools to track spending across customer profiles and business locations. Also in the works is Zeller Financial Services, which will include credit and debit cards and expense management tools, as well as enhanced analytics through Zeller’s dashboard. “This year we will extend payment acceptance beyond Zeller Terminal to online payments and invoicing via Xero, enabling merchants to get full visibility over transactions across all areas of their business,” said Pfisterer. “In the last two years, Australian merchants have had to adapt and adopt flexible operating models, with the ability to accept payments seamlessly in both person and online — giving their customers as much choice as possible.” |
Epic Games just bought an entire Bandcamp, and it’s not even Friday | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Happy Bandcamp Wednesday. Fortnite-maker Epic Games is . The music download site announced the acquisition in a blog post today, adding that it will continue to function as a standalone entity with co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond at its helm. “We share a vision of building the most open, artist-friendly ecosystem in the world, and together we’ll be able to create even more opportunities for artists to be compensated fairly for their work,” Diamond wrote in the post. The relatively business-as-usual approach includes the continued operation of Bandcamp’s marketplace, community and editorial product, The Daily, as standalone entities. The company says it will also continue to operate Bandcamp Fridays as planned. The monthly event, which removes the service’s cut from purchases, has been a wildly popular features as many musician have struggled to make ends meet amid touring shutdowns. Bandcamp is joining Epic Games! Read more here: — bandcamp (@Bandcamp) “Since our founding in 2008, we’ve been motivated by the pursuit of our mission, which is to help spread the healing power of music by building a community where artists thrive through the direct support of their fans, the CEO adds. “That simple idea has worked well, with payments to artists and labels closing in on $1 billion USD.” It’s a strange acquisition from a thematic perspective, for sure. But Epic has been on something of an acquisition tear in recent years, with a ton of funding in its coffers, thanks largely to Fortnite’s wild popularity. The pandemic, meanwhile, has forced many musicians to reassess their relationship with their work and the platforms they use to put it out into the world. Bandcamp has positioned itself as a far more musician-friendly service versus behemoths like Spotify, adding things like streaming concerts to its list of offerings. “We couldn’t be more excited to welcome the Bandcamp team to Epic Games,” Epic VP Steve Allison said in . “Bandcamp has built an incredible community and business where up and coming artists can succeed thanks to the direct support of their fans, with one of the best revenue models and terms in music. This aligns closely with Epic’s approach to supporting creators across all media and enabling them to connect directly with their fans.” |
Fireside Project manifests a $200K fund to improve access to careers in psychedelic health | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Let’s get three truths out of the way. 1. Drugs are a sensitive topic. 2. In a lot of the world, many drugs that can be used recreationally — including psychedelics — are illegal. 3. A lot of people are willing to break the law to use psychedelic substances, whether recreationally, as part of spiritual practice or as a tool to explore and work on mental health issues. Given the legal status of these substances, people are hesitant to call 911 if they are experiencing a crisis, many don’t have access to peer groups that can offer support and there’s not a lot of other support available either. is a notable exception — the organization runs a hotline you can call when you need a bit of support when the walls are melting and it feels like your ego is sitting on a mushroom next to your body, arguing with the nearest lamp post. In the process of launching the hotline, Fireside is placing itself in a really interesting position. Mental health is getting a lot of attention right now, and a lot of things are shifting in the world of drug decriminalization. The FDA back in 2019, and have popped up to fill that gap in the market. MDMA (ecstasy) is hella illegal, (it’s a in the U.S., which means “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” This includes heroin and LSD, but also — curiously — cannabis, which today is ), but that MDMA can have incredible results for people with severe PTSD. , and a bunch of other cities and states are considering legalizing various psychedelics, including LSD, mushrooms, peyote, ayahuasca and many others. Something interesting happens when a powerful psychedelic becomes legal somewhere; a that might make psychoactive substances such as psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, ketamine, MDMA and ibogaine legal for people 21 and older. Should that happen, the roughly 23 million or so 21-and-over adults in California will legally be able to embrace their inner hippie. It bears pointing out that a tab of acid is a different experience than having a beer or two, and it stands to reason that people might need a bit of support from time to time. In a nutshell, that’s what Fireside is tooling up to help support — instead of dialing 911 because you feel like the trees are breathing along with you and it’s a little scary to face your deepest demons head-on, talking to a trained volunteer might be a better option. “To me, my psychedelic work is really a continuation of the healing work and the growth work that you’re doing in other parts of your life. For my own personal experience, my own relationship to anxiety has been a lifelong struggle. The psychedelic work is not separate from that work. It’s not separate from doing the deep dive into your own psyche and understanding your inner landscape and understanding the different parts of your being and your spirit. I think for me, psychedelics help to accelerate that process,” explains Joshua White, founder and executive director of Fireside. “But psychedelic work doesn’t exist outside of this work of getting to know yourself, discovering and falling in love with the different parts of yourself. That work has innumerable parts; it could be psychotherapy, it could be walking in the forest and journaling, it could be conversations with friends — they’re all interrelated. The psychedelic work is part of — and it can be foundational to — one’s inner work and other parts of one’s life.” Since its launch in April 2021, Fireside Project has fielded nearly 2,000 calls, and trained around 100 volunteers in the ability to field calls from the public. The org also developed an app to help keep people tethered to planet earth, and to help people who need some assistance with a trip they are currently on, or “integrating” a recent journey. The two founders have an interesting background and context for how they ended up dedicating their lives to psychedelic medicine. “I spent the first chapter in my professional life as a practicing lawyer working for the San Francisco city attorney’s office, mostly doing public interest impact litigation cases. It really got me thinking about the relationship between resources and impact,” says White. “How can we have the biggest possible impact using the smallest amount of resources? I started having my own psychedelic experiences many years ago, the first one was in 2002 I think. But psychedelics became a bigger part of my life around 2010. And for me, they were incredibly healing, helping me change my relationship to my anxiety, and really just develop a more loving relationship with each part of myself. I think it was due to my own experiences that I was deciding whether I wanted to leave my career as a lawyer to become a therapist with the hope of eventually working as a psychedelic therapist with MAPS. To explore that career transition, I figured I should try to get a couple of volunteer opportunities to see if I actually liked providing emotional support to other people. I volunteered at the at a few festivals. I fell in love with support lines, and really thought that support lines are a radically underappreciated, but foundational part of a community mental health ecosystem. Fast-forward many years to the start of the pandemic, I was sitting around in my apartment in San Francisco, as so many of us were forlorn about the direction the world was going. Everything from the pandemic, to the epidemic of disconnection and loneliness, to really the country, waking up to the ways that systemic oppression and injustice have been really afflicting our society from the very beginning. And so I thought, well, what can I do in this moment to try to help change the direction of the way things were going. I really believed — as I still do — that psychedelics have amazing healing potential for the world.” White found his co-founder for the Fireside Project in Hanifa Nayo Washington. “I am a cultural activist, musician and artist. I am also someone who’s had 20 years of working in the nonprofit sector leading nonprofits and community organizing. What I bring to the world is around really wanting to create spaces of healing and wellness and connection. I’ve been centered around that practice. I want to live in a world where everybody is living to their full potential, you know, where everybody is inspired and supported, and has all of their basic needs met, a world where everybody can show up at the table, bringing their full gifts,” says Hanifa Nayo Washington, co-founder and chief of strategy at Fireside Project. “What is in the way of us doing that right now? That was, for me, a question that I brought into some of my earliest psychedelic experiences for my particular type of healing path and journey. To me, life is a healing journey. Some of the earliest downloads or visions that I received, particularly after my first ayahuasca experiences, was about starting with you first. And when you do that all else will fall into place. And so that has really stuck with me. I live in New Haven, Connecticut, and am very into meditation and yoga and mindfulness practices and healing community. All the studios and places that are available — yoga studios, meditation halls — there were very few people of color, very few women of color. Very few people in the LGBTQ+ communities. I wanted that, and I figured that if I want that, it means that there’s probably other people who do, too.” Psychoactive drugs tend to skew more educated and more white, with , and generally offers fewer opportunities to the people who need it the most. “Healing communities are important, and within this are affinity groups. To me, ‘affinity’ is like likeness — it can be racial affinity, gender affinity or a connection to whatever career you might have. We are using it as ‘sameness’ or ‘likeness’ and ‘identity’,” explains Washington. “We are starting with some particular identities, including BIPOC communities, military veterans and transgender folks. We will bring on 40 volunteers who share these identities and train them. These volunteers will be on call three shifts per week, and they’ll be able to offer support to people who call in and they want to integrate with someone sharing that part of their identity. We know that representation matters, and it builds trust. It opens the possibility for more vulnerability and safety. The communities that we’re focusing on are communities that have been made to be marginalized, and that are underserved within the current psychedelic space.” In addition to training volunteers to offer more inclusive support to marginalized groups, Fireside recently launched a $200K fund that is available to its volunteers who fall into these categories. After they’ve completed a year of volunteering with Fireside, they will be able to apply for up to $10,000 for initiatives that make psychedelic medicine more available to a broader group of people. “With the equity initiative we have launched our equity fund that any of our affinity volunteers will have access to after they complete a year of service on the line. They can apply for up to $10,000, and the fund also has educational and internship collaborators and partners. The volunteers will have the option to apply to become students of these institutions. So for example, we’re working with , as well as , and others. Many of those groups are offering reduced or free tuition,” explains Washington. “We are also able to offer paid internships working with renowned researchers and clinicians. We want to offer them more pathways, support and connections if they want to continue developing their careers within the psychedelic fields.” |
Apple’s next event is March 8 | Romain Dillet | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Invites just went out for Apple’s next big event, scheduled for . It will be an online event broadcasting from Apple Park. Anybody will be able to watch it from Apple’s website. The invite features an Apple logo that looks like the entrance of a neon tunnel. It says “Peek performance” and rumor has it that Apple has plenty of hardware devices to announce this year. Bloomberg first that Apple was planning to hold an event on March 8. Even though there are some tragic events happening in Ukraine, it sounds like Apple still wants to go forward with an online event. The company could use this opportunity to introduce a refreshed iPhone SE with 5G connectivity, an updated iPad Air with better specs across the board and new Mac models with Apple Silicon. Apple has been refreshing its entire Mac lineup to replace Intel CPUs with Apple chips. There are many possibilities for new computers, such as a new entry-level MacBook Pro, a more powerful Mac Mini, a redesigned MacBook Air or even some new Mac Pro and iMac Pro models. The company isn’t going to release all new Mac models at once though, so we’ll have to wait a few days to learn more. We will cover the event, so stay tuned. Peek performance. March 8th. See you there. — Greg Joswiak (@gregjoz) |
Walmart launches AI-powered virtual clothing try-on technology for online shoppers | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 3 | 2 | Last May, Walmart of the virtual clothing try-on startup , which leveraged a combination of real-time image processing, computer vision, deep learning and other AI technologies to show shoppers how they would look in an item by way of a simulation that takes into account body dimensions, fit, size and even the fabric of the garment itself. Today, Walmart it’s bringing that technology to Walmart.com and its Walmart mobile app. The retailer is introducing the computer vision neural network-powered “Choose My Model” try-on feature, now in beta, which will now allow Walmart customers to select a model that better matches their own appearance and body type. At launch, online shoppers will be able to choose from among 50 different models to find one who best reflects their own skin tone, height and body shape so they can get a better idea of how clothing would look on them. These virtual models currently range in height between 5’2″ and 6’0″ and in sizes XS through XXXL. Walmart notes it will continue to expand its model selection over time, with plans to launch nearly 70 additional models in the weeks ahead to offer more variety in terms of size, skin tone and even hair color. The new feature is powered by Walmart Global Tech’s neural networks, which analyze catalog images of garments to create a dressed image using computer vision algorithms across a diverse set of Walmart model images, the company explains in its about the product’s launch. The use of neural networks helps to determine the different variations available in a single product, which doesn’t just include its size, but could also include other factors, like available color options or even sleeve length. The new system is able to capture all these variations when displaying the options, the retailer says. Walmart The “Choose My Model” feature, which focuses on women’s fashion, will work with thousands of items across Walmart’s own portfolio of exclusive and private brands, including Free Assembly, Scoop, Sofia Jeans by Sofia Vergara, ELOQUII Elements, Time and Tru, Athletic Works, Terra & Sky, No Boundaries, Avia and The Pioneer Woman. It’s also in the process of adding national brands, beginning with Levi’s, Hanes, Just My Size, Secret Treasures and Como Blu. Over time, it will expand to include more national brands, including those both on Walmart.com and the Walmart Marketplace. The company notes it’s easier to enable the technology across its own brands because it owns the inventory and catalog of items. Ahead of its acquisition, Zeekit had been working with a number of retailers, including Walmart, as well as other well-known brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Adidas. This existing work with Walmart helped speed the time it took to bring the technology to the public through the Walmart website and mobile app integration. Walmart When shopping on Walmart.com or in the Walmart app, customers will now see prompts that say “Change my model” to select a model on the clothing item’s page if the new virtual try-on technology is available for that product. These prompts will appear across Walmart.com as well as on the iOS and Android mobile apps. According to Desi Gosby, Walmart’s VP Emerging Tech, the model a customer selects will continue to be shown with apparel items that are Zeekit-enabled for future shopping visits. However, the customer will need to choose their preferred model across each device — that is, if the customer selects a model on the web, it won’t carry over to iOS. At the time of the acquisition, Walmart had mentioned a social sharing feature that would let friends give each other feedback on virtual outfits, but that feature is not live. But the retailer says it could be a future capability for virtual try-on. During tests, Walmart said it received positive customer feedback about the experience, which it hopes will make online clothes shopping feel more like in-person shopping. “One of the most frustrating aspects of shopping for clothes online is understanding how an item will actually look on you. With Zeekit, our goal is to deliver an inclusive, immersive and personalized digital experience that will better replicate physical shopping,” said Denise Incandela, Walmart U.S. EVP of Apparel and Private Brands. Of course, helping customers choose products that look right on them isn’t just about being responsive to customer needs or encouraging a purchase — it’s about helping to cut down on the number of returns of clothes that don’t work when tried on at home. Walmart has tried to address the customer hassle portion of the problem by offering to its retail stores. But the ideal scenario would be a reduction in returns altogether. Walmart Better try-on tech could also help Walmart in its battle with Amazon, which as the number one apparel retailer in the U.S., ahead of Walmart — a spot it was able to claim, in part, due to the COVID pandemic and the resulting increase in online shopping. Walmart, however, had been impacted by “weaker demand” for apparel in the early months of 2021, but toward the end of the year thanks to holiday sales. (It did not break out its apparel sales in Q4, though.) The idea to offer virtual try-on is something many startups have experimented with over the past decade and beyond, as well, including , , , and several others. These sorts of companies have also been the subject of acquisitions, like for 3D try-on tech, for instance. More recently, a was raising funding for its computer vision-powered tech that lets customers pick their model to virtually try on clothes. However, Walmart’s adoption of a virtual try-on feature could push the broader e-commerce industry to integrate similar technology inside their own websites and apps in the future. |
Lune offers an API to calculate carbon emissions at checkout | Romain Dillet | 2,022 | 3 | 20 | Meet , a new startup that wants to expose CO2 emissions calculations so that customers are better informed when they purchase something online. When companies start using Lune’s API, they can also let their customers pay a fee to finance a carbon neutralization project. Before founding Lune with Roberto Bruggemann, Erik Stadigh previously worked for VC fund , which led Lune’s $4 million seed round. In addition, 15 business angels — including N26 co-founder Maximilian Tayenthal, Voi co-founder Fredrik Hjelm, and OysterHR and Nexmo co-founder Tony Jamous — participated. “The way things work today is that companies create a sustainability report that is hidden away on the website and very few people read it,” co-founder Stadigh told me. The startup first helps you measure the carbon impact. As always, those are just estimations. “We offer automated carbon emission calculations and follow best practice guidelines,” Stadigh said. And once you integrate the API in your product, customers can choose to pay a bit more to contribute to compensation projects. “We partner with carbon offset developers across the world,” Stadigh said. Lune also works directly with payment companies, such as TrueLayer. When it’s time to check out, customers can choose a “green payment method” that will contribute to carbon offset projects. From the merchant’s perspective, Lune customers can choose to pay for those projects or let customers pay the extra fee. Lune is already talking with other payment partners to offer more payment integrations. Lune charges based on the number of calculations and also takes a small cut on carbon offsetting transactions. With Lune’s API, the startup wants to turn any company into a climate-friendly company. Many would say that not purchasing a product is the best way to reduce the carbon impact of that potential purchase. But when you can’t avoid a purchase, it could help customers pick one company over another. Lune |
Sequoia debuts Arc, a London/SV program to find and mentor outlier startups, backing each with $1M | Ingrid Lunden | 2,022 | 3 | 20 | Sequoia has over the years made a name for itself for its early-stage bets on younger companies, many of which (Apple, Klarna and WhatsApp, to name a few) have gone on to become tech giants. Now, as competition heats up among investors to work with the most promising startups earlier, and the field of the founders hoping to build and launch companies gets wider and wider, the firm is taking a new approach. Today, it is launching a new program called , which it describes as a catalyst (not an accelerator, nor an incubator) that will seek out and then work with cohorts of about 15 startups in eight-week sessions, with the emphasis on “outlier” founders and startups from across Europe and the U.S. Startups will get an upfront investment of $1 million from Sequoia; mentoring on company design from partners and operators affiliated with the firm (including founders and other key people from companies that it has backed); and a field trip to a legendary company to see it all in action. Sequoia has not yet disclosed which operators will work with the first cohort but said that the first on-site visit will be to Klarna, where startups will spend time with CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CXO Camilla Giesecke, CMO David Sandstrom and CPO David Fock. Those interested can from today until April 8, and the program will start May 23. Arc’s first cohort will be run out of London: one week in Sequoia’s offices in the city, then five weeks of working remotely wherever the startup is normally based, one week of working with another startup on-site, and then finally one week in Sequoia’s head office in Menlo Park, California. (Subsequent cohorts will do the same but start with the first week in Silicon Valley.) Arc will be co-run by Jess Lee (below, left), a Sequoia partner and its chief product officer based out of the firm’s Silicon Valley office, and Luciana Lixandru (right), a partner based out of its London office. Key to it will be its unique selling point (apart from opening the door to working with one of the top VCs in the world): its emphasis on finding “outlier” founders. As Lixandru describes it, Sequoia will source candidates for Arc through an open process. Warm introductions are not factored in, and anyone can apply to be evaluated, screened, and accepted or rejected on equal terms, in part using the data science that Sequoia’s product team (led by Lee) has built internally to evaluate potential investments. The idea here is that, while the tech world has some tried-and-tested corridors to feed the tech and startup ecosystem — Silicon Valley, certain universities, and previously holding an important role at another successful tech company being three of the most stereotypical and leaned-on of these — the growth and increasing decentralization of that ecosystem, accelerated by the last two years of everyone working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is creating new opportunities to find talent, and for talent, wherever it may be located, to take the step from concept to building a company around it. Sequoia — which only established its first official outpost in Europe, in London, in — thinks that while all early startups can benefit from evidence-based guidance and mentoring from Sequoia (we what works, is the basic thought process), there is a prime opportunity to do this in a more concerted and programmatic way for founders from less mature ecosystems. “I really do think that having open applications will benefit European founders even more,” said Lixandru, who has made her name over the years by tapping into less likely regions (such as her home country of Romania) to identify and back companies, like UiPath, that have gone on to booming futures. “Europe is so fragmented. So many founders that I’ve been privileged enough to work with started in nontypical technology hubs.” On a more practical note, though, launching Arc is also an important competitive measure — given what other firms are doing. SoftBank is also making some proactive movements to get in closer with earlier-stage, younger startups, such as with its own accelerator effort, , which it’s running in partnership with Speedinvest. Tiger Global made its name by writing big checks for later-stage businesses, but now it is increasingly also not only looking for , but doing a lot more now in Europe. Andreessen Horowitz is also taking a more active role in . Some of the logic of open applications is to tap more effectively into the long tail of founders, who might not already know someone or tick enough of the right boxes on their resumes, and that will hopefully bring a more diverse mix of people to the table overall. That has been a mantra in the tech world for some time, but often feels more like lip service, so the more programs that are built around the concept, the better. However, it seems there will still be some lines drawn in that process. Lixandru initially told me that Sequoia would also be evaluating founders from Russia as part of the mix — which would be an interesting twist, given how so many companies, including VCs, are themselves from the country due to the war in Ukraine, Russia’s unprovoked attacks, and the subsequent waves of global sanctions and moral outcry against it. “We are going to accept applications from everywhere in Europe, including Russia,” she said. “We think that great founders come from everywhere [and] we want to give these opportunities to founders everywhere.” Lixandru’s portfolio includes leading the Series A for white-boarding and visual collaboration startup Miro (before she moved to Sequoia). Originally founded in Russia, and now HQ’d in San Francisco and Amsterdam, it and is now valued at over $17 billion. Sequoia later clarified to me that while it might back Russian founders in Arc, they are only considering those who are based outside of the country. “Company design,” meanwhile, is a concept and approach that Sequoia has been honing for , with modules that it has built both for later-stage and others for early-stage startups covering concepts that range from the tangible (say, how to build a sales team as you scale) to the slightly less tangible (for example, building company culture). With Arc, that content will be put to work in a new way, specifically to train founders who are just starting to find their feet. In an industry that has a very high fail rate, it’s unsurprising that the word that Sequoia people return to when describing what they’re trying to do here is “enduring,” with Sequoia being a track-record-proven custodian of some of the skills needed to become that kind of company. “Company design is more than just company building,” Lee said in the interview I had with her and Lixandru. “Company design is the Sequoia way to start, build and scale an enduring company. … It’s the outlier mindset of really thinking like about that scale of ambition of actually building for potentially a decade or more. And then that community, this acquired community, [it is] just really powerful to be able to tap into that hive mind and that brain trust.” |
Reliance Retail acquires majority stake in D2C brand Clovia for $125 million | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 3 | 20 | Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Retail said on Sunday evening it is acquiring a majority stake of 89% in direct-to-consumer brand Clovia for $125 million as the largest Indian retail chain looks to expand its footprints in the apparel and innerwear categories. Eight-year-old Clovia, which operates a “bridge-to-premium D2C brand” and sells over 3,500 products across innerwear and loungewear categories for millennial women, had raised about $25.8 million prior to Sunday announcement, according to insight platform Tracxn. Clovia’s parent firm, Purple Panda Fashions, was valued at about $43 million in its most recent funding round in December 2020. “Clovia is excited to become a part of the Reliance Retail family,” Pankaj Vermani, founder and chief executive of Clovia, said in a statement. “Through this partnership, we will benefit from Reliance’s scale and retail expertise, extending the presence of the brand and bring together stronger value proposition through world-class quality, design and fashion in the intimate wear category. We look forward to making Clovia the most loved brand in this category.” Reliance Retail, which has acquired online lingerie brands Zivame and Amante in recent years, said its $125 million investment in Clovia includes some secondary stake purchase. “Reliance has always been at the forefront of enhancing choices and offering best value proposition to consumers,” Isha Ambani, director of Reliance Retail Ventures, said in a statement. “We are pleased to add style, quality and design-led intimate wear brand ‘Clovia’ to our portfolio. We look forward to working with the strong management team at Clovia to take the business to greater heights,” she added. |
The Station: GM deepens it stake in Cruise and Porsche plots out its EV course | Kirsten Korosec | 2,022 | 3 | 20 | Hello readers: Welcome to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. Before we dive in, I wanted to highlight one of our latest founder Q&A interviews, which we publish twice a month over at TC+. This time, , the former Uber executive who co-founded in 2019. The pair covered a lot of ground, including , the future of micromobility, how to own changing business directions, the difficulties in sidewalk robot delivery and the agility of startups. As always, you can email me at to share thoughts, criticisms, opinions or tips. You also can send a direct message on — . As gears up to go public via SPAC with Poema Global this quarter, the company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, from which we can glean some interesting little nuggets of information about the company. For example, the shareholder meeting to approve the merger is scheduled 9:30 a.m. ET on March 31, 2022. : Gogoro expects to make when it goes public, which includes an oversubscribed PIPE (private investment in public equity) and $345 million held in trust by Poema Global. The company will use the funds to expand further into China, India and Southeast Asia. The company’s prospectus details much of the Taiwanese company’s concerns regarding its dealings with China. “Changes in the policies, regulations, rules, and the enforcement of laws of the PRC government may be quick with little advance notice and could have a significant impact upon Gogoro’s ability to operate profitably in the PRC,” the filing said. “The business, financial condition and results of operations of Gogoro, and/or the value of Gogoro’s securities or its ability to offer … securities to investors may be materially and adversely affected to the extent the PRC government intervenes or influences Gogoro’s operations.” The risk factors go on to detail how Gogoro’s operations may be subject to a variety of PRC laws regarding cybersecurity and data protection, which might result in Gogoro spending additional resources and incurring time delays to complete the business combination or be prevented from pursuing certain investment opportunities. Berlin-based e-bike subscription startup to Hamburg, Munich, Vienna and Paris, giving customers an e-bike for €79/month. It’s also acquiring moped subscription startup Rollich. released a , including its first electric motorcycle, at SXSW. The motorcycle is just a concept vehicle, but the other models include an a-bike for kids. Get ’em while they’re young. partnered with , a mobility platform for safety, and Commsignia to bring the benefits of cellular vehicle-to-everything tech to enhance safety for motor vehicles and bicycles. With its partners, Audi is developing hardware and software for cars to help them read their surroundings to identify nearby bicycles. Remember about six weeks ago when autonomous vehicle company unlocked a $1.35 billion investment from after launching a limited driverless robotaxi service to the public in San Francisco? Welp, now owns a helluva a lot more of the company. GM said late Friday it is buying Softbank Vision Fund 1’s equity ownership in Cruise for $2.1 billion. GM said it’s also making an additional $1.35 billion investment in Cruise, replacing a previous commitment made by the fund in 2018. GM back in 2016. Within a couple of years, GM expanded the circle a bit, bringing in investment as well as $2.75 billion as part of an exclusive agreement to develop and produce a new kind of autonomous vehicle. The pool of investors would grow again with T.Rowe Price & Associates and, more recently, Microsoft. It’s unclear who prompted the buyback. Was Softbank unhappy with progress and looking to claw back some of its investment, or was this driven by GM? Or perhaps a combination. It seems, from at least where I sit, GM is laying a foundation for a future spin out and even an IPO for its subsidiary. , the British EV charging company, ended its merger agreement with First Reserve Sustainable Growth Corp. , the cloud parking software startup, nabbed a more than strategic investment from Vista Equity Partners, money that it will use to expand its mobility operating system and payments platform and invest into new talent. , the instant delivery startup, closed a new led by Mubadala Investment Company, with Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG), Alpha Wave Global, Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global also participating. Following this deal, the company reached a valuation of $11.8 billion. , the Indonesian tech firm that formed last year via a merger between ride-hailing giant and marketplace , plans to from an initial public offering scheduled for April 4. The company said it aims to sell up to 52 billion new Series A shares at between 316 rupiah and 346 rupiah apiece, raising $28.8 billion at the top end of the range. , an African mobility fintech startup that provides vehicle financing to drivers of ride-hailing platforms like Uber and other gig networks, in a new Series A2 round led by Speedinvest and Left Lane Capital. Existing investor thelatest.ventures also participated, alongside new backers such as AfricInvest, MUFG Innovation Partners, Latitude and Kreos Capital participated. , the used car e-commerce platform, technology, allowing Shift to become the Amazon of the used car marketplace, a platform that displays third-party listings from dealers alongside the company’s own inventory. , the autonomous vehicle company that is backed by Chinese social media firm Sina Corp, is evaluating whether to and only operate in the U.S after reaching an agreement with the U.S. government to restrict its data due to U.S. security concerns. a Shenzhen-based autonomous delivery startup founded by Baidu veteran David Chang, said it has closed a . Qianchuang Capital, a Beijing-based investment firm managed by veterans from China’s leading financial institutions, led the round, with participation from Shangbang Huizhong, a Chinese fund backed by real estate developers. , the food delivery firm, and instant delivery service Blinkit have for a merger, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The all-stock deal values Blinkit between $700 million and $750 million, the source said, requesting anonymity as the matter is private. has , the second version of its collection of open-source autonomous driving data and high-def maps from Austin, Detroit, Miami, Pittsburgh, Palo Alto, and Washington, D.C. The company is also sharing a lidar dataset to fuel research into new methods of ML using unlabeled point cloud data. built a that will help it develop autonomous trucks and cars in parallel, as well as power those vehicles with its Aurora Driver. , purpose-built heavy-duty truck platforms for autonomous freight. said it will launch and four new electric commercial vehicles in Europe over the next two years, an acceleration of its plans to sell more EVs in the region on its way toward reaching carbon neutrality in the region by 2035. : Ford’s Advanced Manufacturing Center has developed a that solves a bottleneck in the production line by using robots to operate the 3D printers through the night without human interaction. plans to launch a battery-electric version by 2025 and phase out gas engines by the end of the decade, making it the latest to join the long list of marques from Aston Martin to Volvo that has pledged to go electric. provided an update on its strategy during its annual meeting, a plan that will now include producing an followed by a Macan EV as well as building out its own next year, a departure from its initial strategy to rely on partnerships with other companies. and will build their in Ontario, Canada. idled its Shanghai Gigafactory amid a rise in China’s Omicron cases that has prompted the government to tighten restrictions there. The automaker sent a notice to employees and suppliers on Wednesday informing them of the closure, reported , which viewed the internal memo. , the EV charging company, is working with Tanger Factory Outlet Centers to at Tanger locations in nine markets in the U.S., with expectations to grow in the coming months. and are to fares for ride-hail and deliveries as fuel prices around the country rise. The rising prices are due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in a mountain of economic sanctions from the west against Russia, including the U.S.’s ban last week of Russian oil imports and the U.K.’s promise to ease its dependency on Russian fuel by the end of the year. The in grants to 70 projects in 39 states to modernize and electrify America’s buses and improve safety. CEO total compensation skyrocketed 93% to , an increase largely due to stock awards, which more than tripled to about $16 million, according to the company’s annual proxy statement. Farley’s pay included a $1.7 million base salary, a 19% increase from 2020. His compensation also included $830,305 for personal use of aircraft. has , a former executive at Magna International, as its chief operating officer. |
India tax department probe into Infra.Market finds bogus purchases, undisclosed income | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 3 | 20 | The Indian Income Tax Department said it has found and seized “a large number of incriminating evidences” that reveals that a Pune- and Thane-based unicorn startup, referring to Infra.Market, “booked bogus purchases” and disclosed an additional income of more than $29.4 million following a rare probe into a startup. Infra.Market — a startup, backed by Tiger Global, Nexus Venture Partners and Accel and valued at $2.5 billion, that helps construction and real estate companies — “made huge unaccounted cash expenditure and obtained accommodation entries, aggregating to the tune of over Rs 400 crore [$52.7 million],” the department said in a statement Sunday. The executives at the startup, when confronted by the tax authority, “admitted under oath this modus operandi, disclosed additional income of more than Rs. 224 crore [$29.49 million] in various assessment years, and consequently offered to pay their due tax liability,” the department said. Souvik Sengupta, co-founder and chief executive of Infra.Market, did not return a text seeking comment. The startup is said to be closing a new round that would value it at $4 billion, Indian news outlet Entrackr . The department, whose investigations are ongoing, said it also found a “complex hawala network of some Mumbai and Thane based shell companies” that exist only on paper and have been created for the “purpose of providing accommodation entries.” “Preliminary analysis has reveald that the total quantum of accomodation entries provided by these shell entities exceeds Rs. 1,500 crore. So far, unannounced cash of Rs. 1 crore and jewellery of the value of Rs. 22 lakh have been seized,” the department said. |
Why web3’s wealthy are donating crypto instead of cash | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 3 | 20 | Donor-advised funds are a popular vehicle for asset donations — they allow individuals to take an immediate tax deduction when contributing crypto, other assets, or cash to a dedicated account that can appreciate in value over time. The account holder can ultimately deploy the funds in the account to nonprofits at their discretion and does not need to immediately use all the capital. ‘s charitable giving arm, Endaoment, and The Giving Block all offer donor-advised funds that can accept crypto. Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum Foundation) at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017. |
Tech talent flees Russia as Western sanctions bite | Rita Liao | 2,022 | 3 | 20 | an exodus of entrepreneurs, computer programmers and other educated middle-class citizens as Western sanctions and political instability make it impossible to run an international business in the country. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced millions to flee their homes, fearing for their lives. But the war is also leading to Russians moving from their home country. I spoke to a number of Russian entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who shared why they have left or are in the process of leaving their homeland. But as they try to start anew abroad, anti-Russia sentiment and economic sanctions are set to haunt them. As Russia continued to amass troops at the Ukrainian border in mid-February, Eugene Konash, who had staff in Russia working remotely for his London-based gaming studio , became increasingly worried. But like many others, he didn’t expect a full-scale invasion. His hopes of tensions fading soon evaporated. When it became clear Russia was waging a full-on war on Ukraine, Western countries began slapping sanctions on Russia. Businesses felt the impact right away. One of Konash’s employees found their bank hit by sanctions, blocking international transfers to his account. As the ruble collapsed, long queues formed outside banks in Russia as citizens scrambled to convert their savings into dollars — only to find hefty fees and the government . The tipping point for Konash came when investors told him in no uncertain terms that his startup would be uninvestable if it continued to have such a heavy presence in Russia. His Russia-based team agreed it was time to leave. “The guys that even a month ago said they wouldn’t leave Russia under any circumstances were talking about grabbing their things and literally driving to Kazakhstan to cross the land border because the tickets to get out were either sold out or were super expensive,” said Konash. Like many tech firms with an international footprint, Konash’s gaming startup hires developers across Eastern Europe for the region’s affordable and quality programmers. Originally from Belarus, Konash knows well that the former Soviet bloc nations’ emphasis on science and math education has helped a world-class engineering and scientific workforce to flourish. Financial sanctions aside, it became impractical to operate an information technology company from Russia as foreign tech services are either banned or begin to retreat. have suspended all sales in the country, while Russia has attempted to block , , and , albeit with . Some users could still access these American platforms following the bans, suggesting that Russia may be some way away from having a robust censorship machine like that of China. Facebook and said they were working to restore services in Russia. “Who knows when development tools like Unity may be blocked?” said a Siberia-born gaming investor who left the country following the 2015 Crimea annexation and subsequent economic sanctions by the West. “No one wants to end up in a country with no access to the outside world.” After the invasion of Crimea seven years ago, many Russian-built companies began to incorporate elsewhere in a bid to placate investors with qualms over the political risks and optics associated with backing Russian companies. Before, many of these firms were operating outside the country merely on paper, with their teams often entirely still based in Russia. But the full-scale invasion of Ukraine has turned a trickle into a flow. “After 2015, companies were drifting out of Russia legally,” observed an investor at a venture capital firm that recently moved its Moscow team out of the country. Even before the Ukraine crisis, the firm would only back a Russia-based startup if it was incorporated outside the country and had an international focus. “Physically, these startups would still be based in Russia. They’d conduct R&D there because the cost of living was low,” said the investor, who asked for anonymity because the topic is “highly sensitive” for the firm, which has been trying to distance itself from Russia. Life as a startup incorporated overseas but operating for all intents and purposes in Moscow itself sounded pretty breezy up until recently, said Nikita Blanc, who four years ago changed his last name from Akimov. His company , which is building a tool to automate investor relations management, is in the process of incorporating in Delaware. Nikita Blanc’s team working in Moscow before leaving the country following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The startup never intended to serve the Russian market alone, but Blanc and his wife picked Moscow as a base for the obvious perks: their parents could help take care of their 3-year-old daughter; the country’s internet was speedy, cheap, and free at the time; and Moscow was teeming with tech meetups where Blanc found like-minded founders. The Blancs’ entrepreneurial life enjoying the best of both worlds ended abruptly with Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Three days into the invasion, Nikita’s wife Valentina was lying in bed, devastated from seeing her country fall apart. She decided it was time to leave. “I couldn’t do anything at work. Part of my family is from Ukraine,” she said. “It would be hard to leave with a child, but I didn’t think the situation would change. So we each packed 23 kilos of luggage and bought a one-way ticket.” The couple moved with their young daughter to Georgia, one of the top destinations for Russia’s current talent outflow. It is a popular choice of country, along with Turkey, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Thailand, which are relatively affordable and easy to enter for Russians. The venture fund that recently left Moscow has been extracting hundreds of Russian citizens, mostly its own staff and portfolio companies, out of the country in the past few weeks. Across the internet, Telegram groups with tens of thousands of Russians discussing exit plans and helping each other out have mushroomed. The would-be émigrés have to make escape plans on the fly as sanctions against Russia intensify on a daily basis: Which countries are still taking Russian flights, and how will they move money around? Sanctions continue to impact Russians after they have fled abroad, even those who left long ago. European Union regulators have told some banks to scrutinize transactions by all Russian clients, including EU residents. The breadth of this wave of sanctions is prompting some to let go of their Russian passports. The Siberia-born gaming investor is seeking Singaporean “Ukrainians are accepted as refugees around the world, but we Russians are fucked,” the investor lamented. Others are betting that cryptocurrency can help them circumvent sanctions, such as the Blancs, who put a large chunk of their assets into crypto five years ago. Konash, the gaming entrepreneur, expected Bitcoin and Ethereum to be the last resort for cross-border payments if his staff get stuck in Russia for any longer. While major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase have , they have abided by sanctions to block target individuals. Binance’s CEO that crypto is not a likely escape route because transactions are recorded on publicly available ledgers, and hence easy for governments to trace. But EU regulators continue to that sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus extend to all crypto assets, and U.S. lawmakers the Treasury to ensure Russia cannot use crypto to evade sanctions. Those who leave Russia face the obvious difficulty of being away from family and friends staying behind, but even greater anguish comes from the difference in their perception of recent events. “Our parents and older relatives keep telling us to go back, saying, ‘Everything is OK here. Russia is great,'” Blanc said with an incredulous but sad note. These educated, freedom-seeking Russian tech workers won’t likely look back. The Russians I spoke to, who are either leaving the country or helping others escape, were surprisingly calm as they recounted the woes of their country, in part because they have been mentally prepared for the inevitable farewell. “Our investor SOSV taught us to be like cockroaches, be flexible and adapt to new environments as entrepreneurs. This philosophy is now helping us go through these uncertain times,” said Valentina Blanc. “Calm is the new currency.” Émigrés like the Blancs might well be the last wave of Russia’s chronic brain drain, . “The thing that gets me is that if you look at all the fantastic engineering and scientific talent that was produced in the Soviet Union and Russia — most of it has been leaving the USSR world at every opportunity,” said Konash. “Who does that leave in the post-USSR world? For me, this last wave of the brain drain is the death knell of the education and cultural scientific tradition that is probably one the few positive things to come out of the Soviet Union.” |
A security lapse exposed India’s CISF personnel files and health records | Zack Whittaker | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Internal documents, officer health records, and personnel files belonging to India’s Central Industrial Security Force spilled online because of a data security lapse. A security researcher in India, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from the Indian government, found a database packed with network logs generated by a security appliance connected to CISF’s network. But the database was not secured with a password, allowing anyone on the internet to access the logs from their web browser. The network logs contain detailed records of which files on CISF’s network were accessed or blocked because of security rules. Because the logs contained full web addresses of documents stored on CISF’s network, it was possible for anyone on the internet to access the logs and then open those files in their browser directly from CISF’s network, also without needing a password. The logs contained records for more than 246,000 web addresses of PDF documents on CISF’s network, many of which relate to personnel files and health records and contain personally identifiable information on CISF officers. Some of the files are dated as recently as 2022. CISF is one of the largest police forces in the world with more than 160,000 personnel, tasked with protecting government facilities, infrastructure and airport security across the country. The researcher said the security appliance is built by Haltdos, an India-based security company that provides network security technology to organizations. The database was first found to be exposed on March 6, according to Shodan, a search engine for exposed devices and databases. TechCrunch confirmed that the database was configured with the name “haltdos.” Haltdos CEO Anshul Saxena did not respond to multiple requests for comment. TechCrunch also emailed a CISF public affairs officer with several web addresses of publicly exposed files stored on its servers, but we did not receive a response. It’s not uncommon for government organizations in India to quietly fix security issues when alerted by good-faith security researchers but then rebuff or deny the claims when they invariably become public knowledge. The database and the security appliance are no longer online. In an email sent to TechCrunch after publication, Haltdos described the lapse as a “serious security incident.” |
TechCrunch Experts: 3 articles on growth marketing and software development | Miranda Halpern | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | TechCrunch Experts continues to gather and share authoritative advice for founders who need help with growth marketing and software development. Here are a few related articles we’ve run in recent weeks: To uncover some insights into driving viral growth, John Biggs interviewed: Among other topics, this article covers the K-factor formula, which helps measure virality. I spoke with with head of business development Wojciech Borkowski and CTO Peter Tuszynski at software development shop Intent about project pricing, their customer intake process, and how they work with clients who don’t have previous technical experience. It’s important to have a battle-tested process for product validation. Our clients are often very focused on the hardware side, which requires us to be more diligent when working on the software/firmware side of the project to ensure everything will work together smoothly. |
Daily Crunch: Porsche announces plans to build a global network of EV charging stations | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Friday, March 18, 2022! Another week is behind us, which means that it’s time to sit back and read the last tranche of startup and technology news. For those of you building, we just announced that to chat about landing your first investor, and we’ll have , and, since we’re talking moving about, roll. – Why ? That’s what our own wants to know. She rightly points out that with more and more work being done on fertility, there’s a huge market gap left over for folks leaving their childbearing years. And as the world ages, the market is only getting bigger and bigger. / Getty Images (Image has been modified) Every company eventually needs legal advice, but when a few hours of a lawyer’s time costs almost as much as a shiny new laptop, most startups delay dealing with lawyers until it’s absolutely necessary. Kristen Corpio, founder of CORPlaw, says it’s best to consider hiring in-house counsel when “it hurts a bit — when you start to feel stretched thin — rather than too early in your business’ lifecycle.” “Unlike with some other roles that may need filling, you can find highly competent outside lawyers to bridge the gap as you grow into needing full-time support,” she writes. And because I have a plane to catch: over scam ads it says the social company didn’t do enough to address, and |
GM is buying out SoftBank’s stake in autonomous vehicle unit Cruise | Kirsten Korosec | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | General Motors is expanding its ownership stake in self-driving car subsidiary Cruise. The automaker said late Friday that is is acquiring SoftBank Vision Fund 1’s equity ownership in Cruise for $2.1 billion. GM is also making an additional $1.35 billion investment in Cruise, replacing a previous commitment made by the fund in 2018. The announcement comes about six weeks after Cruise launched a limited driverless robotaxi service to the public in San Francisco, a to unlock its previously committed $1.35 billion investment. Why SoftBank has decided to sell out now isn’t clear. A GM spokesperson said the company’s increased investment position not only simplifies Cruise’s shareholder structure, but also provides GM and Cruise maximum flexibility to pursue the most value-accretive path to commercializing and unlocking the full potential of AV technology. GM CEO and Chair Mary Barra said the move will increase shareholder value. “We are extremely pleased to announce GM is leveraging the strength of its balance sheet to capitalize on the opportunity to increase its equity investment in Cruise and advance our integrated autonomous vehicle strategy. We continue to believe our investment represents an extraordinary opportunity for creating long-term shareholder value,” Barra said in a statement. “Our increased investment position not only simplifies Cruise’s shareholder structure, but also provides GM and Cruise maximum flexibility to pursue the most value-accretive path to commercializing and unlocking the full potential of AV technology.” GM’s increased stake could set the stage for the automaker to spin off Cruise, or even head to the public market. GM wouldn’t say if an IPO is in its short-term game plan. However, a GM spokesperson did say that as the company moves forward it will “consider all opportunities to create value for our shareholders.” GM has not ruled out a future IPO of Cruise, the spokesperson added. In addition to GM’s increased investment, it has launched a recurring liquidity opportunity program — another carrot in the bid to attract and retain talent. The program aims to give employees the liquidity and potential upside they might get from their company going public but without actually taking that step into IPO land, according to Vogt. Under the program, current and former employees will be able to sell any amount of their vested equity each quarter. That equity is purchased by GM or others, according to Vogt. The value is determined by a third-party financial firm that will weigh company performance, financial projections, market conditions, relevant transactions and fundraising events, and market comps. “We expect this value to grow as we continue to successfully deploy and scale our technology,” Vogt wrote in a blog post announcing the program. |
DigiLocker, India’s app for issuance and verification of documents, tops 100 million users | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | DigiLocker, an app that enables individuals in India to digitize and store a copy of more than 560 different documents, including government-issued ID cards, says it has topped 100 million users. The , conceived by India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT over six years ago, is New Delhi’s attempt to create a paperless governance ecosystem. Individuals need to physically possess scores of documents in their day-to-day lives: an ID card at the airport or railway station, for instance, a driver’s license when commuting, school and college certificates when applying for a job, and policy documents when making insurance claims. DigiLocker uses APIs to retrieve, digitize and store most of these documents and is recognized by nearly all government bodies, several fintech services and nearly all insurers to authenticate an individual’s identity and other things. Each user gets a storage space of 1GB. One can only underestimate long term impact of this. DigiLocker + eSign combination is 🚀 — Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) The app, which had 38 million users in 2020, today stores nearly 5 billion documents, according to official stats. Staggering figures indeed for this unique platform. |
Unlocking inclusion for women of color in web3 | Audrey Handem | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Day, enthusiastically announced its new investment team with a collage of photos revealing that its new lineup consisted solely of men. Women in all corners of the crypto industry took notice. Faced with the backlash, the original tweet was , Bain Capital Crypto addressed the controversy, and announced as a partner shortly thereafter. Although this was a move in the right direction, we felt it was important to address the crypto industry’s diversity challenges — and how they can be overcome — through the lens of women of color. By definition, web3 is an inspiring vision for a new iteration of the internet. So why build it the same way as we did Web 2.0? Why re-build hierarchies of exclusion in this new era? This tweet is only one of many that highlight the challenge of inclusion and the opportunity to broaden crypto’s impact through diversity. The lack of women benefiting from the financial upside of crypto disproportionately affects women of color. For example, , and they have only received 5% of the multibillion-dollar industry’s turnover. On the institutional side, worldwide. However, this discrepancy is complex. Women and people of color are more likely to invest in crypto. About are people of color, and 41% are women. Black and Latinx communities are of cryptocurrency, with and owning these assets, compared to only 11% of white Americans. How is it possible that a group more likely to be interested in investing in a currency receives an inequitable distribution of the resulting wealth? Twitter |
ClearBank, a UK banking rails provider, raises $230M from Apax to expand into Europe and the US | Ingrid Lunden | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | — a UK fintech that has built a new set of cloud-based financial rails that allows banks and other customers real-time clearance on payment transactions and other financial services — has closed a big round of funding, money it will be using to take its services beyond its home market and move into newer areas such as cryptocurrency exchanges. The company has raised £175 million ($230 million at today’s conversion rates), from a single investor, the PE firm Apax Partners. The startup — founded in 2015 and launched in 2017 — is not disclosing its valuation, but CEO Charles McManus said that the company had prior to this raised £195 million from investors that include Canadian businessman John Risley and PE firms PPF Group and Norther Private Capital, and that its new valuation after Apax’s investment is a significant increase. PitchBook notes that as of the end of December, ClearBank’s valuation was just under £274 million, which likely puts the current valuation at $590 million at its most conservative estimate. But the company’s current size and ambitions speaks to potentially larger numbers. Originally founded by Nick Ogden, who was also the founder of WorldPay (which Fidelity acquired for $43 billion, which was at the time the biggest deal ever made in international payments sector), ClearBank currently has 200 customers — large financial institutions and fintechs using its infrastructure to enable faster transactions — with the list including UK businesses like Tide and Oaknorth, but also international companies like Coinbase, which uses ClearBank for clearing and payments services for its UK customers. Those customers cover some 13 million bank accounts and £3 billion (nearly $4 billion) in assets. The tech world has been awash in “fintech” for a number of years — with a wide swathe of challenger banks; businesses built on the concept of APIs and cloud computing and “embedded” financial services from third parties; artificial intelligence, personalization and mobile apps; and a number of other tech-led innovations, all corralled in the call to disrupt incumbents with new and arguably better and easier to use approaches to spending, saving and investing money. The growth of e-commerce and other services on digital platforms has further spurred that trend. But ClearBank’s existence underscores one of the untold truths amid all of that innovation: many of these new services have been built on top of legacy infrastructure. Some companies like Stripe have built tech to get around some of the hurdles that arise as a result of this: for example, it can take typically days to reconcile and settle a transaction on traditional payment rails. Fintechs like Stripe will offer faster processes not because they have rebuilt that infrastructure, but because they have used tech to assess the overall risk of any single transaction getting rejected and is taking the calculated risk itself, charging extra fees to provide that service (and to in aggregate make money from those transactions that offsets any one of them not going through). “Europe and and the U.S. have been very slow in modernizing,” McManus said “26 countries are only just implementing the that the UK has had for some time. Just look at the discussions on SWIFT and cutting off Russia, and how slow that has been moving.” The alternative is to build a new version of that infrastructure from the ground up that just works faster, which is what ClearBank says that it has done. ClearBank describes itself as the first clearing bank to have launched in the U.K. in 250 years — the ‘big four’ that have ruled the clearing roost in the country up to now being Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC and NatWest — and its aim is to use the rails it has built to run payments services in the U.K. faster than those incumbents, and continue to expand it to more services in its home market, as well as take them abroad. “Our aim is to provide real-time services for everything,” McManus said. As he explains it, ClearBank has built everything into one stack, which not only means that money moving is going through a single system rather than through several different channels, but also lets those plugging into its system “better visibility” into how funds are moving. “That means a greater level of comfort, visibility and faster transactions,” he said. The company today provides banking-as-a-service to its customers both for their needs as businesses, and for them to in turn provide to their customers. It also provides links to the four main channels that are used in UK to handle payments, Faster Payments, BACS, CHAPS and direct debit. The company launched multi currency and foreign exchange services several months ago to UK customers, and plans for the investment will include expanding that to other currencies and facilitating interbank payments, both to provide the services to existing customers that have international footprints, and to work with customers in other markets. One of the big changes that fintech has brought is that it’s become significantly easier for non-financial companies to move into financial services, and in the bid to grow revenues and touchpoints with customers, many have. That spells opportunity for companies that are enabling that adoption. “All companies are becoming fintech companies, and ClearBank is providing the clearing and embedded banking infrastructure for them – starting with fintechs themselves,” said Mark Beith, a partner at Apax Digital, in a statement. “We’ve seen the power of its platform first-hand, and we are excited to partner with Charles and the existing shareholders to take ClearBank global.” ClearBank’s rise points to how, as fintech continues to mature, we’re starting to see a new generation of startups emerging that are willing to tackle that last front tier of infrastructure. Just earlier this week, a startup out of Germany called (the ambition is spelled out in its name) also launched with funding from a16z with its own ambitions to build new infrastructure to handle payments specifically for marketplace and other businesses that sit in the middle of complex transaction architectures. |
TechCrunch+ roundup: eVTOL takes off, pivoting with agility, when to hire a lawyer | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | “Where’s my flying car?” is a staple of Gen X humor, since it reaffirms the cynical viewpoint that technology frequently fails to deliver on its lofty promises. Until recently, electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles were largely consigned to our imaginations. I can name more movies that feature flying cars than I can eVTOL companies, but that’s changing. The industry went from being speculative to competitive in a flash, thanks in large part to advances like composite materials and battery density. And strong investor interest. Last year, boosters poured billions into eVTOL as companies like Joby Aviation, Archer and Lilium used SPACs to rake in cash to fund R&D and test flight programs. , Ben Tigner, co-founder and CEO of electric aerial mobility company Overair, identified four trends that are changing how investors, entrepreneurs and the market are responding to expanding opportunities in eVTOL: “I’ve been working in the aircraft development space for decades, but 2021 was different,” Tigner writes. In January, we reported that Joby Aviation asked the FCC for permission to conduct air taxi flights around sightseeing points in San Francisco. When the time comes, I’m genuinely curious to find out how many of my friends will be interested in taking a Blade Runner-style tour of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m not great with heights, so I’ll look forward to watching their videos. Thanks very much for reading, and have a great weekend. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
Bryce Durbin From the outside, a startup that makes multiple pivots might look like it lacks direction. In reality, changing course is usually the smartest bet, because it allows founding teams to leverage new technology and adapt to changing market conditions. Transportation reporter Rebecca Bellan interviewed Tortoise co-founder Dmitry Shevelenko about his company’s transition “from using a hardware-as-a-service model to a take-rate scheme that gives it 10% of any sales made from its card payment-enabled bots.” Pivoting is positive, says Shevelenko: “The most important thing with agility is actually being able to gracefully admit you’re wrong, or that you’ve learned new information and are adapting.” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch / Getty Images There are many layers to M&A due diligence, but none of that matters if you only identify liabilities after the deal has closed. One way to tackle this information deficit: start early and add open source intelligence — publicly available information including from freely available and licensed sources — to the due diligence process. Using public data allows suitors to start the process early, and since it doesn’t require information sharing or gaining access to the target company’s applications or networks, “initial evaluations can also be completed much faster than traditional cyber diligence, often within a period of a couple of weeks,” says David Etue, CEO of Nisos, / Getty Images (Image has been modified) Every company eventually needs legal advice, but when a few hours of a lawyer’s time costs almost as much as a shiny new laptop, most startups delay dealing with lawyers until it’s absolutely necessary. Kristen Corpio, founder of CORPlaw, says it’s best to consider hiring in-house counsel when “it hurts a bit — when you start to feel stretched thin — rather than too early in your business’ lifecycle.” “Unlike with some other roles that may need filling, you can find highly competent outside lawyers to bridge the gap as you grow into needing full-time support,” she writes. / Getty Images Integrating deferred payments with e-commerce has been a boon for acquisitive consumers and aspiring merchants. But in the United States, regulators are taking a second look at BNPL’s expanding loan market. In December 2021, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered five buy now, pay later providers to “collect information on the risks and benefits” of loans, citing concerns around accumulating debt, regulatory arbitrage, and data harvesting. This move is bound to set in motion a regulatory wave that “will level the playing field in the long term,” writes Yaacov Martin, CEO and co-founder of Jifiti. / Getty Images There’s a lot of excitement about construction tech among investors and entrepreneurs, but general contractors aren’t nearly as enthusiastic. At active job sites, safety, speed and costs are top concerns, which makes it difficult “to secure organization wide buy-in for new tools,” writes Meirav Oren, co-founder and CEO of Versatile. The recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act contains $100M in funding for construction tech, but companies that hope to accelerate adoption need to learn how to collaborate with contractors: / Getty Images Startup hiring has always been tricky, but recruiting technical talent is harder than ever. Making the wrong hire could incur serious technical debt: make a bad bet, and you might even have to refactor, not something you want to explain in a board meeting. Fortunately, smaller companies enjoy many advantages when it comes to landing new employees, starting with the fact that they can condense the typical interview process from a few weeks to a few days. Marcelo Wiermann, head of the global recommendations engineering division at Delivery Hero, shares tactics for finding, engaging, assessing and hiring great engineers, “even if you do not have a technical background.” |
Survival tips for startup founders living through their first market correction | Navin Chaddha | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | those starting companies for the first time, the gyrations of the stock market, the resulting correction in public market tech stocks, and the inevitable impact on private company fundraising might seem disheartening. And the past few weeks of geopolitical challenges only added to the bleak scenario. As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist who has lived through two downturns (the post-2000 internet bubble bust and the post-2008 financial crisis), I know that entrepreneurial innovation is always alive and that company-building is a marathon, not a sprint. Here are a few of my favorite tips for founders looking to raise capital and build a strong inception-stage company. Rather than holding out for a nosebleed valuation at the inception/Series A stage, founders should remember that there will be many future rounds of funding. It is easier to go up than down, and your final value results from building a sustainable company. Raising too much capital at the early stages can result in undisciplined spending, leading to layoffs and other painful actions when the burn rate skyrockets and future funding becomes scarce. The list of breakout companies that raised moderate Series A rounds is long: Lyft raised $6.2 million; Airbnb raised $7.2 million; Zoom raised $9 million; Uber raised $11 million; Confluent raised $6.9 million; HashiCorp raised $10.2 million; Snowflake raised $4.95 million. The list goes on. These founders understood the value of a long-term mindset and the importance of building startups with the right values and structure so they can grow into lasting companies. While founders are rightly sensitive to dilution, it helps to understand that investors who commit to partner with them realize the company will raise many rounds of capital that follow the one they are leading. As stewards of capital raised from their limited partners (often pension funds, university endowments, and philanthropic institutions), investors are committed to delivering returns, and having a meaningful stake in a future liquidity event allows them to achieve that. |
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Zendesk’s latest problem is an activist investor | Ron Miller | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | having some issues with its investors lately. Last month, it turned down from a consortium of private equity investors, saying the deal undervalued the company. Later in the month, the company’s offer for the parent company of SurveyMonkey, Momentive. That’s a lot of turbulence for any company to be dealing with in such a short time, but yesterday, activist investor Jana Partners, which owns 2.5% of the company’s stock, piled on with that wasn’t terribly friendly. In a no-holds-barred filing, the firm put Zendesk management on notice that it wasn’t pleased at all, and said it was nominating four candidates for election to Zendesk’s board of directors at the company’s 2022 shareholder meeting. “We believe the Zendesk Board of Directors’ (the “Board”) misguided attempt to acquire Momentive Global Inc. (“Momentive”) exposed the Board’s blatant disregard for stockholders and ongoing failures of oversight. Absent meaningful change to the Board, we believe Zendesk will fail to achieve its potential and suffer a persistent valuation discount – with stockholders left paying the price,” Jana wrote in the filing. Jana’s filing comes after a in which it questioned the Momentive deal and urged Zendesk management to cancel the acquisition. At the time of the $17 billion takeover offer, we ran . Momentive, in spite of investor objections, would have sped up growth, but even without it, the company was on track to do just fine, so much so that $17 billion seemed like a low-ball offer. Our argument was simple: The offer to buy the company was worth a somewhat-slim 30% premium on its market value, and with accelerating revenue growth in recent quarters, Zendesk had a credible growth story under its belt. |
Volta Labs grabs $20 million to address a growing genomics bottleneck | Emma Betuel | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Twenty years ago, getting a human genome sequenced was a billion-dollar, international project. Today, you can get your dog’s genome sequenced by the end of the month for a few bucks. It speaks to the speed with which genetics has permeated our lives, but despite massive improvements to the technology, the process can still be a bit clunky in the lab. Before you can even start to disentangle someone’s genetic code, you have to start with a sample. And that sample has to get prepped the right way. It’s a relatively boring process that is often sidelined in favor of flashier applications of genome sequencing (read: ). But it’s a place where is aiming to bring a new focus. Founded in 2018, Volta Labs is a startup spun out of MIT’s media lab focusing on creating a programmable approach to DNA sample prep. The team is in the process of creating a desktop-sized instrument that can automate the processes used to get genetic samples ready. “The entire world could not sequence a single human genome 20 years ago, and today, I as a non biologist can sequence a human genome in a day or two on a bench. But if you look at the steps for sample prep, it’s still lagging by a large margin. It’s almost been neglected,” CEO and co-founder Udayan Umapathi told TechCrunch. The origin story of Volta’s instrument goes back to 2015, when Umapathi was working on his graduate thesis at MIT. “What I noticed was that the existing technologies for moving, mixing and heating fluids were archaic,” he said. “I realized if we have to do biology at scale, automation for biology has to be built from the ground up.” The DNA sample prep process starts with a biological sample, like blood, saliva or even plant tissue. From there, a series of enzymatic and chemical reactions are performed that draw out DNA molecules. Then they need to be manipulated so they can then be “read” by a sequencer. Those reactions are performed by , or in some cases by hand. Volta automates this process with what Umapathi called “digital fluidics” — a form of electrowetting. This uses an array of electrodes organized on a grid, each of which can be charged or discharged, creating something like a maze that can precisely position drops of liquid. Volta’s digital fluidics array. Volta Labs With the right programming, Umapathi is confident his platform allows liquids to be manipulated in even more complex ways, like using magnetic fields to draw certain molecules out of samples for further analysis. Despite these capabilities, the instrument is supposed to be small: Umapathi’s goal is to keep it the size of a laptop. Umapathi isn’t the first to see the potential that “digital fluidics” hold for biological applications. In fact, Illumina has been interested in technology of this nature for years. In 2013, Illumina Advanced Liquid Logic, a company founded in 2004 that had already been working on applying digital microfluidics to prep work for Next Generation DNA sequencing. In 2015, Illumina went on to try to launch its own version of a DNA library sample prep product called NeoPrep, which rolled the four to five day process into one instrument that could accomplish the task in 30 minutes. However, as the authors of a on the electrowetting industry note, the instrument was “discontinued for undisclosed reasons” in 2017. Whether the end of NeoPrep in 2017 has bigger implications for Volta’s own commercialization process is hard to say. But, it does seem that Illumina hasn’t put the idea to bed yet. On Thursday, Volta announced a $20 million Series A round, which was led by Maverick Ventures (Maverick also led a previous seed round), with participation from Khosla Ventures, Casdin Capital and E14 Funds. Participants also include Illumina co-founder John Stuelpnagel, and other big names in the genetics space like Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe, and founder of Kapa Biosystems. McEwan specifically has led sequencing sample prep programs at Roche Sequencing Solutions. The natural question here is: Does Volta’s instrument actually exist yet? It does, Umapathi said, and it is already in the hands of four partners that are testing it in the field. He declined to name the partners but described them briefly. One is a company focusing on cancer care and neurological disorders, which has been using Volta’s tech to develop a DNA extraction process. One is a research institution in RNA applications. The third is a “genome center,” he says. The fourth company is a biotech firm interested in synthetic biology. The company’s goal is to launch a “limited trial edition” at the AGBT Genomics conference in June. During that launch, Umapathi also expects to present data from the trial projects run with the “genome center.” He expects to have a commercial product ready in 2023. The rapidly accelerating genomics industry may have room for Volta to climb on board. It cost $3 billion to sequence the human genome as part of the Human Genome Project. Today, that same process can be repeated for . McKinsey’s 2020 estimated that the cost of genome sequencing could dip below $100 within a decade. Amidst this background, the sample prep bottleneck seems obvious. The bigger question here is: Why haven’t the giants in genome sequencing already created the solution? Part of the answer is that they’ve already tried, and some places, have instruments that will address each little piece of the sequencing prep puzzle individually, as opposed to the integrated system Umapathi aims to create. But the answer Umapathi prefers is that existing sequencing technology is already complicated enough to be a full-time job. “The technology we have built today is almost as complex as the sample prep itself. So for a lot of the sequencing tech companies, getting their core technology was already a massive challenge.” Going forward, Volta has to prove that relatively complex chemistries can be manipulated inside such a compact instrument. It will have to publish far more data than it has right now to truly prove it can fit into this niche. Confidential trials with four customers and unpublished data aren’t enough. But if it actually works, Volta may join the rise of an industry that’s already booming. With this Series A round, Umapathi plans to outline a manufacturing plan, and start to build out commercialization capacity. “I think the big chunk of capital is likely going to go into building out a product strategy and commercialization or team as well as we approach commercialization next year,” he said. |
Google confirms Maps is down for some users, says it’s working on a fix | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | is currently down for some users around the world as the mapping service is experiencing a partial outage, Google confirmed to TechCrunch on Friday. “We’re seeing reports of difficulties accessing some Google Maps and Google Maps Platform services. Our team is investigating and working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson from Google said in an email. Google did not elaborate on the outage or explain what may be causing it. The Google Maps says the incident is impacting multiple Maps services, including the direction API, places library and more. “Multiple Google Maps Platform services experiencing high rates of error, including several Web Services and the Maps Javascript API and services. We are still assessing the extent of the issue,” the status page reads. Reports from third-party web monitoring service indicate that issues with the mapping service started at around 11:30 pm ET. The reports indicate that both the web and app versions of Google Maps are experiencing issues. |
Study: 30% of Log4Shell instances remain unpatched | Mehul Revankar | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | , a critical zero-day vulnerability affecting Apache’s Log4j2 library, a Java-based logging utility, was disclosed to the world and broke the internet. As the third most used computer language, Java is practically ubiquitous, and its Log4j2 library is extremely popular, with an estimated 15 billion devices around the globe currently running Java. The worst part is that Log4j is hard to find and easy to exploit, which places hundreds of millions of Java-based applications, databases and devices at severe risk. The full scope of risk presented by the vulnerability is unprecedented, spanning every type of organization across every industry. Due to the ease of the exploit combined with the difficulty in uncovering the vulnerability within your organization, Log4Shell is the proverbial needle in a haystack. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Jen Easterly noted that Log4Shell is the “most serious” vulnerability she has witnessed in her decades-long career. She urged business leaders not to delay remediation processes, noting that this vulnerability could take years to address. Remediating this vulnerability would not be a simple, one-and-done process, and multiple detection methods would be required. As many companies prepared to operate with skeleton IT staff in the last two weeks of 2021, hackers and attackers saw an opportunity. It didn’t take long for this critical Java vulnerability to be exploited in the wild. Nearly were launched in just 72 hours following the vulnerability’s disclosure. What’s worse, as part of an ongoing information-gathering operation, notorious Chinese hacking group APT41, which breached local government agencies in at least six U.S. states in the last 10 months, quickly leveraged Log4Shell as the primary vector to infiltrate at least two of the states’ computer systems. |
CISA, FBI warn of threats to US satellite networks after Viasat cyberattack | Carly Page | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | The U.S. government is warning of “possible threats” to amid fears that recent attacks on satellite networks in Europe, sparked by the war in Ukraine, could soon spread to the United States. A published this week urges satellite communication (SATCOM) network providers and critical infrastructure organizations that rely on satellite networks to bolster their cybersecurity defenses due to an increased likelihood of , warning that a successful intrusion could create risk in their customer environments. While the advisory did not name specific sectors under threat, the use of satellite communications is widespread across the United States. It’s estimated that about eight million Americans rely on SATCOM networks for internet access. Ruben Santamarta, a cybersecurity expert who specializes in analyzing satellite communications systems, told TechCrunch that networks are used in a wide number of industries, including aviation, government, the media and the , as well as gas facilities and electricity service stations that are located in remote places. The military, in particular, should be concerned, according to Santamarta, who says that the recent cyberattack that hit SATCOM provider Viasat, which knocked in February, shows the damage that can be done. “The military in Ukraine was using this kind of satellite terminal,” Santamarta tells TechCrunch. “It has been by one of the representatives of the Ukrainian army that it was a huge loss for them in terms of communications, so obviously that’s one of the most significant sectors that are affected right now.” Santamarta said for the maritime industry, for example, a successful attack could become a safety threat rather than solely a cybersecurity issue. “Vessels use satellite communications for safety operations, so if they have to send a distress call, this can be sent over a radio frequency or a SATCOM channel. If you can’t send that kind of distress call, that’s a problem,” he said. The joint U.S. advisory comes days after Western intelligence agencies reportedly launched an investigation into the cyberattack that hit Viasat’s KA-SAT network last month, causing a massive communications outage across Europe at the outset of Russia’s invasion. The outage, which has not yet been fully resolved, affected satellite internet services for tens of thousands of customers in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, and disconnected . The cyberattack was originally believed to be the result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, but this has since been thrown into doubt. Viasat hasn’t yet provided technical details but has confirmed that attackers leveraged a misconfiguration in the management section of the satellite network for remote access to modems. According to Santamarta, this suggests that the attackers likely deployed a malicious firmware update to the terminals. “The attackers likely managed to compromise or spoof a ground station… to issue a command by abusing a legitimate control protocol… that deployed a malicious firmware update to the terminals,” Santamarta said . Given that Viasat provides its satellite communication service to the Ukrainian military, it’s believed the cyberattack may have been an attempt to disrupt communications across Ukraine during the early stages of Russia’s invasion. “We currently believe this was a deliberate, isolated and external cyber event,” said Viasat spokesperson Chris Phillips. “Viasat’s continuous and ongoing mitigation efforts have stabilized the KA-SAT network.” Phillips rebuffed claims made by Michel Friedling, commander of the French Space Command, who said that Viasat customer terminals had been rendered “permanently unusable” as a result of the incident. “Viasat is actively working with distributors to restore service for those fixed broadband users in Europe impacted by this event, with a priority focus on critical infrastructure and humanitarian assistance,” added Phillips. “We continue to make significant progress and multiple resolution efforts have been completed while others are underway.” The government’s advisory said U.S. organizations should “significantly lower their threshold for reporting and sharing indications of malicious cyber activity” due to the heightened risk of similar attacks targeting SATCOM networks. |
Twitter is testing a new clipping tool for Spaces with select iOS hosts | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Twitter has started testing a new clipping tool for Spaces, the company this week. Select hosts on iOS are now able to clip 30 seconds of audio from recorded Spaces to share them with others on Twitter. All iOS users can now see and listen to the clips on their timelines, while Android and web users will get access soon. The company also plans to roll out the clipping functionality to all users in the future, not just hosts. “There is no limit to the number of audio clips that can be created, and they will live on the platform for 30 days,” a spokesperson from Twitter told TechCrunch in an email. “Currently, everyone on iOS can see and listen to Spaces clips on their Timeline, and soon people on Android and Twitter.com will receive access too. We will be monitoring feedback and plan to expand Spaces clipping functionality to everyone on Twitter in the near future.” Hosts will be able to create audio clips from recorded spaces that can be shared via a tweet that will also link back to the whole recording. The new tool is a way for hosts to boost interest in their Spaces while also highlighting specific parts of a broadcast without having to share an entire recording. ever wish you could capture a moment from a Space? great because we’re testing clipping! certain Hosts on iOS can now clip 30 seconds of audio from recorded Spaces to share, everyone on iOS can see & listen to clips on the Timeline—coming to Android and web real soon — Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) Clubhouse, the social audio app that prompted the launch of Twitter Spaces, rolled out its last September. The feature allows live listeners in public rooms to snip the most recent 30 seconds of audio and share it anywhere. These can be shared on other social media platforms. Twitter has been introducing several Spaces features over the past few months to build out the offering. The company on Spaces Recordings, a feature that will let hosts share tweets with audio recordings of past Spaces. Earlier this year, Twitter who have shared recorded Spaces the ability to see how many listeners joined live, as well as how many people replayed the recording after the fact. Live audio grew in popularity amid the pandemic as people around the world were confined to their homes. But, as restrictions have lifted in many countries and in-person events have returned, companies that offer live audio room capabilities like Twitter and Clubhouse are looking to retain users by launching new features. |
Russia warns YouTube to stop ‘anti-Russian’ ads | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | In Russia’s latest swipe at foreign social media giants since it started a land war in Europe by invading Ukraine late last month, the country’s internet censor has fired a warning shot at Google over what it describes as anti-Russian “information attacks” which it claims are being spread via YouTube — accusing the U.S. tech giant of being engaged in acts “of a terrorist nature” by allowing ads on the video-sharing platform to be used to threaten Russian citizens. In a posted on its website today, Roskomnadzor claims YouTube has been serving targeted ads that call for people to disable railway links between Russia and Belarus. “The actions of the YouTube administration are of a terrorist nature and threaten the life and health of Russian citizens,” the regulator wrote [translated from Russian with machine translation]. “The spread of such appeals clearly demonstrates the anti-Russian position of the American company Google LLC,” it added. The regulator also warned Google to stop distributing “anti-Russian videos as soon as possible”. Its statement goes on to accuse U.S. IT companies in general, and tech giants Google and Meta (Facebook’s owner) in particular, of choosing a “path of confrontation” with Russia by launching a targeted campaign of “information attacks” that it says are intended to “discredit the Russian Armed Forces, the media, public figures and the state as a whole”. “Similar actions by Meta Platforms Inc. and Google LLC not only violate Russian law but also contradict generally accepted norms of morality,” Roskomnadzor added. YouTube could not immediately be reached for comment on the warning from Roskomnadzor. The direct warning to Google from the state internet censor could be a precursor to Russia blocking access to YouTube. In recent days, and have both been blocked by Roskomnadzor — as the Kremlin has sought to tighten its grip on the digital information sphere in parallel with its war in Ukraine. Facebook and Instagram were blocked after Meta said it was relaxing its hate speech policy to allow users in certain regions to post certain kinds of death threats aimed at Russia — which Meta global affairs president, Nick Clegg, as a temporary change he said was designed to protect “people’s rights to speech as an expression of self-defense”. In recent weeks, Roskomnadzor has also put . But YouTube has escaped any major censorship since the Ukraine invasion, despite the company itself applying some limitations to its service in Russia — such as (it took that action as a result of Western sanctions against Russian banks). In one signal that that could be about to change, a report in today suggests a block is looming, citing sources close to Roskomnadzor who told it YouTube could be blocked as soon as today or next week. RIA Novosti’s sources told it a block of YouTube is “most likely” by the end of next week. In what may be another small indicator of the that’s now fiercely raging between Russia and Ukraine, Roskomnadzor’s website was noticeably slow to load as we were filing this report today. It also appears to have introduced a CAPTCHA request — suggesting it may be trying to prevent and/or mitigate DDoS attacks. |
Learn how to land your first investor from Sequoia’s Jess Lee at TC Early Stage | Jordan Crook | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Tapping personal savings or invoking the friends and family plan are signature hallmarks of fledgling startup finance. Eventually though, the majority of early-stage founders will leave their bootstrapping days behind and turn to institutional investors for the capital infusion they need to grow. It’s not easy for inexperienced, first-time founders to attract and secure their first investor. It’s a tough, but not impossible, nut to crack. But you need to overcome a few more challenges before you ever get to the point of convincing an investor that you, your product and your startup are worth their risk. These include burnishing your communication and networking skills. Improving those capabilities will serve you now, as you work to increase both the size and quality of your network, and throughout your startup career. Remember that you don’t just want an investor — you want the right investor for your startup. As you research potential investment firms, flip the script and consider things from their perspective. How might you and your idea help them meet their objectives? Focus on building your network, in a non-transactional way, by getting to know investors and what they care about most. That knowledge will help you find the right investor and, with any luck, get them on board. These are just a few broad strokes on some of the challenges early founders face in the run-up to finding and signing their first institutional investor. But broad strokes won’t cut it, and that’s why we’re thrilled to announce that Jess Lee, a partner at Sequoia, will provide a granular look at these challenges in her presentation, at on April 14. An investor at Sequoia Capital, Lee partners with early-stage founders, works closely with Sequoia’s engineering, product, design and data science teams, and helps run the company’s design program. Her investment portfolio includes companies such as CoCoPie, Faire, IronClad and Mos. Prior to Sequoia, she was co-founder and CEO of fashion app Polyvore, which Yahoo! — now the parent company of TechCrunch — acquired in 2015. Lee is also a founding member of All Raise, a nonprofit dedicated to improving diversity in the tech industry. Join Sequoia’s Jess Lee to learn how to find, impress and get your first yes from the right investor. One excited investor on board can — more often than not — set more investment wheels in motion. sessions provide plenty of time to engage, ask questions and walk away with a deeper, working understanding of topics and skills that are essential to startup success. !
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When raising at a 40x multiple makes sense | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | no-code startup that helps customers build websites, raised a new round of capital this week. Per , landed $120 million in fresh funds at a $4 billion valuation. Forbes also writes that the company will reach the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) mark shortly, has more than 200,000 customers, and currently earns around 8% of its total top line from enterprise customers. The above comes a little over a year after , giving the company a roughly 2x valuation bump with its new capital. But what we care about more than the company’s raw valuation is the revenue multiple that the figure represents. Why? Because while nine-figure startup rounds are still getting done, we’re hearing from investors and founders alike that terms are tightening. Even more, the public market has dramatically cut the value of software revenues, leading to some concern that late-stage startups are going to suffer when they go back to raise more capital. (This sentiment, for example, was .) A few days ago we noted that the era of was fading and that more conservative metrics were becoming common. With a $4 billion valuation and roughly $100 million ARR, however, Webflow is valued at precisely the number that we cast as a figment of yesteryear. Are 40x ARR multiples still fair game for startups that have reached revenue scale? The answer is that they may prove increasingly rare, but that Webflow has a few things going for it that are likely affording it a valuation premium. It’s worth weighing Webflow itself in the context of its rich multiple — but perhaps not presuming that other startups will be able to follow its example this year. So let’s do that. To understand Webflow’s latest round and resulting ARR multiple, we have to do a little historical digging. Pulling from our coverage of the company’s previous round, and a set of notes from an interview with , the following: |
What Shift’s acquisition of Fair says about the online used car market | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Used car e-commerce platform Shift has acquired some of competitor Fair Technologies’ technology, allowing Shift to become the Amazon of the used car marketplace, a platform that displays third-party listings from dealers alongside the company’s own inventory. The deal is a nod toward the direction the online auto market is moving, where even the sale of used cars will require a first-class, seamless user experience. Rising inflation and a supply chain that was already constrained by the pandemic and will now suffer further due to Russia’s war in Ukraine has led to a decrease in new car purchases, which means fewer used cars are hitting the market. Demand for vehicles, however, has not dropped, leading to skyrocketing prices for used cars. From 2020 to 2021, prices on Shift’s platform went up nearly 40%, from around $16,400 to a nearly $23,000 average sale price, according to George Arison, Shift’s co-founder and CEO. More generally, year-over-year, used car prices have gone up nearly 33%, . “In Q1, we’re starting to see retail inventory prices start to depreciate like they normally would, so our assumption is that 2022 will be more like 2019 in terms of normal patterns of depreciation, but we don’t expect prices to go back to where they were in 2019,” Arison told TechCrunch, noting the average car sales price increase from 2021 to 2022 is so far only 17.5%, but that those vehicles are on average a year or two older than the previous years. “Which is really tough because people who thought they could afford a $450 per month car are now told to buy that same car for $600 per month. On top of that, you have a higher interest rate because interest rates are going up.” The result is that the average consumer is shrewder than ever and eager for a site that can help them find the best deal for the best price and with plenty of flexibility. Companies that don’t get the UX down won’t survive as the industry consolidates and responds to such consumer demands. The average expected revenue lost from poor digital experiences in the automotive industry is as high as 18%, according to new research from Qualtrics, which also found that reducing the effort required to a complete a task online can lead to a 23% increase in spend. That’s what makes Shift’s purchase of Fair’s tech so powerful. Fair, which has had a marked by , spent the last 18 months building what amounts to a fintech platform, one that allows customers to shop for cars from a variety of sources from the comfort of their home; schedule test drives, fulfillment and delivery; handle trade-ins; buy insurance; purchase or finance a car; and buy “anything that you could possibly want to attach to a car transaction,” said Brad Stewart, CEO of Fair. Dealers can win from this tech, too, because they “can manage the entire transaction via a proprietary digital onboarding platform, then easily schedule an at-home delivery,” according to , which notes that the platform can help dealers not only participate in e-commerce but also grow market share. “This arc of self service, of being able to shop from your couch, of getting it in two minutes, of integrated transaction capabilities that come with a brand promise — does Shift have it all figured out? I think strategically they do,” Stewart told TechCrunch. “Ultimately, self-service today has to continue to be refined and improved in a way that allows you or me to get on the site and transact versus picking up the phone to ask for support, which we still see quite a bit.” Stewart said he could imagine a world where eventually all pricing options were included, such as subscriptions and leasing, two ventures that ultimately led to Fair’s demise as the startup realized not was scalable and did not have product-market fit. On the one hand, leases or subscriptions could incur an additional $25 per month, for example, when compared to financing a vehicle. Even though those options provide a lot of perks in terms of service, maintenance and trade-ins, in today’s economy, customers are less likely to increase spending even marginally. At the same time, that extra $25 per month wasn’t enough to cover the cost of operations on Fair’s end, which meant the company scaled in a very inefficient, unprofitable way. So unprofitable, in fact, that despite its new winning product feature, Fair was basically forced to sell its most prized asset after burning through so much of its vast sums of cash: The company had raised in over 13 rounds, the latest of which was in 2019. Now, without having to put down any money upfront, Shift is reaping the benefits of Fair’s tech, and its relationships with dealers, to lay the groundwork for the future of automotive purchases. In a transaction that’s expected to close during the second quarter, Shift will buy Fair’s assets for $15 million in cash and a number of shares of Class A common stock equal to 2.5% of Shift’s outstanding shares. At today’s stock price, that equals about $44.8 million, but the real number will depend on Shift’s share price at the transaction’s closing date. The purchase will be funded entirely by SoftBank Group, which has agreed to loan $20 million to Shift to be paid back by 2025, an attempt to recover a sliver of its losses. in Fair’s Series B, and SoftBank itself, along with Mizuho Corporate Bank, gave the company $500 million in debt financing back in 2019. Fair’s debt has been sitting with SoftBank Group since December 2020, said Stewart. While Fair’s dealer marketplace team will join Shift, Stewart is unlikely to follow along and instead intends to take some time to think about his next move, the executive told TechCrunch. Fair’s other assets — its legacy fleet and consumer accounts business — are being sold privately to a financial buyer. The proceeds will go into the company’s cash reserves, which will be used to pay down the debt, according to Stewart. |
Freelancer marketplace Malt acquires consulting marketplace Comatch | Romain Dillet | 2,022 | 3 | 27 | It’s consolidation time in the freelancer marketplace industry. French startup is acquiring , a competing marketplace focused on consultants and industry experts. Comatch originally started in Germany, which means that Malt is also doubling down on the German market with this acquisition. Terms of the deal are undisclosed, but it involves a mix of equity and cash. Malt started as a marketplace that matches freelance developers, designers and other technical workers with companies looking for talent. The startup has raised and has managed to attract 340,000 freelancers across multiple European countries. Originally limited to the French market, Malt has expanded to Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland over the past few years; 40,000 companies have turned to Malt to find a freelancer or several freelancers. Clients include Unilever, Lufthansa, Bosch, BlaBlaCar, L’Oréal and Allianz. As you can see, a lot of large-sized companies have used Malt at some point. Malt focuses exclusively on high-skilled freelancing jobs that can fill a gap when a new project comes up. In addition to developers, Malt now also offers opportunities for marketing and communications professionals, graphic designers and more. Using a platform like Malt can be particularly useful when you’re getting started as a freelancer and you don’t have a big network of potential clients. Malt also helps you take care of the administrative paperwork. Freelancers can charge their clients from Malt directly and, of course, Malt takes a small cut. As for Comatch, the company roughly follows the same model, but with a specific focus on management consultants and industry experts. Malt hasn’t specifically targeted business consultants so far. So the company is entering a new vertical. “Comatch is a champion in the field of business consulting marketplaces. As a fellow company that shares Malt’s ‘community first’ approach, placing our talents at the core of the product and business to our vision for the future of work, we are eager and excited to bring our two worlds of high-skilled freelancers together,” Malt co-founder and CEO Vincent Huguet said in a statement. Malt also wants to become the go-to freelancer marketplace in Europe. Comatch has attracted 15,000 freelancers across nine markets and the two companies work with 80% of publicly traded companies on the CAC 40 and DAX 40. Comatch represents an interesting external growth opportunity. Following this acquisition, Malt has some ambitious goals. By 2024, the company expects to generate €1 billion in business volume, and it plans to hire another 150 employees by the end of 2022. |
Australian fintech Zepto raises $25M AUD Series A to enhance payment infrastructure | Kate Park | 2,022 | 3 | 27 | , an Australian real-time account-to-account (A2A) merchant payments platform, said Monday it raised a $25 million AUD Series A (about $18.8 million USD) co-led by AirTree Ventures and Decade Partners. The instant payment platform lets merchants make, manage and receive secure payments by connecting directly from the payer’s bank to a merchant’s bank. The Series A funding comes after its 10x year-over-year revenue growth since its launch in 2018. The company, which didn’t provide a baseline for that growth or its valuation, says it facilitates more than $4 billion AUD in payment volume every month and expects to process more than $50 billion AUD in payments this year. More than 100 Australian organizations, including banks, fintech companies and credit unions, use (new payments platform), Australia’s open-access infrastructure for fast payment, according to the NPP website. NPP’s is a new digital tool for merchants and businesses to initiate real-time payments from customer bank accounts. approved as an NPP-connected institution in October. That means Zepto will be able to connect its clients directly to the NPP’s PayTo service, which is due to roll out in mid-2022. “Data-rich, real-time payments, directly between bank accounts are the future of how we transact, and Australian policymakers have acknowledged this with the rollout of NPP’s PayTo, which will replace direct debit in roughly three to five years,” Chris Jewell, CEO of Zepto, told TechCrunch. “Merchant and consumer payment preferences are shifting away from expensive legacy payments methods like credit cards and slow, blind traditional direct debit.” There’s an entire generation of consumers coming who will never own a credit card or get approval for a buy now, pay later product, but bank accounts are ubiquitous, and payments directly between them are a simple, clean and efficient way to pay for things, Jewell continued. The real-time payments through Australia’s NPP accounted for 31% of all account-to-account payments in October 2021, according to Jewell. He added that the total cumulative value of NPP payments since its launch in November 2017 was about 2.6 billion. Jewell said account-to-account (A2A), which refers to bank account-to-bank account transactions, does not require a card or PIN. While debit cards are usually powered by Visa and Mastercard, A2A cuts them out as the intermediary. According to 2020, A2A payments will take up 20% of all e-commerce payments, surpassing credit and debit cards by 2023. Zepto serves hundreds of Australian corporations, including lenders, trading/crypto platforms, third-party processors, proptech companies, and travel and tourism operators. Binance Australia, Superhero, Novatti Group, Nimble, Powerpay, Till Payments, Bluestone, Rentbetter, Biz Pay and Get Blys are among its customers. The startup will use the latest funding to advance its functionalities on top of the NPP’s PayTo framework and accelerate its international expansion, starting with New Zealand, driven by growing demand for Zepto’s infrastructure in the region, Jewell said. After New Zealand, Zepto wants to enter the U.S. “The global payments landscape is in the middle of its biggest upheaval in decades, as open banking and real-time, bank-to-bank payments are transforming how we pay and get paid,” AirTree Ventures partner James Cameron said. “With open banking and the NPP, Australia has found itself at the center of this disruption – and Zepto is the leading innovator in this space. With companies like Afterpay, Athena and Airwallex, Australia has shown that we punch well above our weight in fintech innovation globally.” |
Apple TV+ becomes the first streaming service to win a Best Picture Oscar with ‘CODA’ | Catherine Shu | 2,022 | 3 | 27 | Apple TV+ has beat out Netflix to become the first streaming service to win best picture at the Academy Awards, with “CODA” triumphing. “CODA” actor Troy Kotsur also won the best supporting actor trophy, marking the first time for a Deaf male actor, and the second Deaf actor after “CODA” co-star Marlee Matlin won in 1986 for “Children of a Lesser God.” Writer and director Sian Heder won for best adapted screenplay. The three Oscars are the first for Apple TV+, which launched at the end of 2019. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Apple which follows the story of Ruby (Emilia Jones), a Child of Deaf Adults (which the movie’s title is taken from), who plans to join her family’s fishing business but is drawn toward a music career. Apple paid $25 million for distribution rights to “CODA,” which is currently streaming on Apple TV+ and was also in theaters for a limited run. Other contenders in the category included Netflix’s “The Power of the Dog.” Netflix has had several best picture nominees in previous years, including Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma.” While Netflix has failed to pick up the top Oscar award so far, it has received 116 nominations in total and won 15 other categories, including best director (Cuarón for “Roma and Jane Campion for “The Power of the Dog,” best supporting actress (Laura Dern in “Marriage Story”), best foreign language film (“Roma”), and best animated short film (“If Anything Happens I Love You”). |
Fintech Roundup: Will financial technology startups dodge the venture slowdown? | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,022 | 3 | 27 | On March 25, PitchBook released its , which found that the fintech industry raised $121.6 billion last year — up 153% year-over-year in terms of global VC deal value. Alex and I will be doing a deep dive on that report next week, but it’s a nice lead-in to what I’m examining today. Self-proclaimed “fintech junkie” Justin Overdorff / Lightspeed Venture Partners website On the venture side, Overdorff told Anita that from what he’s hearing So if Overdorff’s observations are any indications, both startup founders and investors alike are working harder to make their dollars last longer. In this Q&A with FinLedger, Morty co-founder Nora Apsel the online mortgage marketplace’s journey, overarching goals and plans moving forward. I talked with Nora myself earlier this year and the former engineer is very impressive. Her company raised a $25 million Series B in July 2021 at a $150 million valuation. In February, she told me that the startup’s revenue has grown nearly 14x since 2019 and doubled in the last year alone. Nora Apsel / Morty Mila Ferrell / Cervin |
Russian search giant Yandex tells investors it’s looking for a media exit | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | Russia’s internet giant Yandex has it’s exploring “strategic options” for its media products — including a potential sale of its news aggregator, Yandex News, and a user-generated content recommendation and blogging “infotainment” platform, called Zen. The disclosure confirms our — when sources told us Yandex is in discussions to sell Yandex News and Zen. Our sources suggested the move is linked to the risks posed by tighter regulations on freedom of expression by the Russian state since it went to war in Ukraine, including a new law which threatens lengthy jail sentences for anyone spreading “false” information about the Russian military (such as by referring to the “war” in Ukraine, rather than using the Kremlin’s preferred phrasing of “special military operation”). In a statement to its investors today, Yandex writes that it is “exploring different strategic options, including divestment, for its news aggregation service and infotainment platform Zen”. “The company intends to focus on developing its other technology-related businesses and products (including search, advertising, self-driving and cloud) and transactional services (including ride-hailing, e-commerce, video/audio and streaming), among others,” it added. A spokesperson for Yandex confirmed it is in talks to divest News and Zen. “We confirm that the company is exploring different strategic options, including divestment, for the news aggregation service and infotainment platform Zen,” they said. The company has not made public comments about potential buyers for the media products, but sources close to the discussions told us earlier that Russian social media giant VK is a leading contender. In forward-looking statements to investors, Yandex suggested the divestment process is “at an early stage”, also cautioning its investors that it “can provide no assurance that it will be successful in identifying a buyer, negotiating acceptable terms or closing a transaction”. The Netherlands-registered Russian company on February 25, when its market cap was at $6.8 billion. |
Bored Apes maker Yuga Labs acquires CryptoPunks NFT collection | Lucas Matney | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Bored Apes Yacht Club maker Yuga Labs announced Friday that they have acquired the rights to the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections from creator Larva Labs. Bored Apes and CryptoPunks are the two most valuable NFT collections by market cap, and hold a combined worth at a minimum of some $3.6 billion at current prices. Yuga Labs has been rumored to be in fundraising talks over the past several months but has not made any official announcements. Terms of the deal were not announced. CryptoPunks and Meebits NFTs are owned by members of the community, but the intellectual property rights of the characters had long (and controversially) been owned by the projects’ creators. With this announcement, Yuga Labs signaled that they will be giving full commercial rights of the NFTs to the individual holders; they notably won’t be transferring the full copyright, but is a step further than Larva Labs ever went and something owners had long desired. Some big news to share today: Yuga has acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from , and the first thing we’re doing is giving full commercial rights to the NFT holders. Just like we did for BAYC and MAYC owners. — Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) “We’ve long admired CryptoPunks, and the work of the project’s founders, Matt & John. They’ve pushed NFTs and the broader crypto world forward, and we’re honored to carry the brands they’ve built into the future we’re building at Yuga,” a from the Yuga Labs Twitter account reads. The CryptoPunks project was launched in 2017 with 10,000 NFTs claimed by users for free; it is generally seen as one of the earliest NFT projects and one of the most influential. In late 2020 prices of the pixelated portraits began to spike with the rarest selling for millions of dollars and the cheapest now selling for nearly $200,000. In May of 2021, the Larva Labs founders released a follow-up project called Meebits, banking tens of millions of dollars in primary sales within hours of launch. The Larva Labs founders have almost fully divested from the project at this point, with Yuga Labs detailing in a blog post that they had also acquired 423 CryptoPunks and 1,711 Meebits from the company, leaving the founders with just a few of each in addition to their generative art project Autoglyphs which was not part of the deal. Yuga Labs has taken a more aggressive path toward actively building out the community of the Bored Apes project, revealing a partnership. “This is, however, not an acquisition of Larva Labs… As for what’s next for us, we never talk about that until it’s ready, but in general we’re excited to get back to what we do best, which is working on weird new stuff,” a from the Larva Labs founders reads. Flashback to my CryptoPunks feature last year… “It was never our intention for this to sort of be our careers,” [Larva Labs co-founder John] Watkinson says. — Lucas Matney (@lucasmtny) |
null | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 18 | null |
Diamond Age picks up $50M to lay the foundation for the future of houses built by robots | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Hot on the heels from , is back for a top-up, with a $50 million Series A financing to continue its mission to make homeownership more affordable by using 3D printing and robotics technologies to make home construction significantly cheaper — a welcome change in a world where there’s a 7-million-home shortage in the U.S. housing market. The company describes itself as a “full-stack robotics startup,” building a suite of tools that is designed to take the place of more than half of the manual labor associated with building a new home. The side-effect of adding a slice of robotics to the mix is that homes that used to take nine months to build can now be instantiated into existence in a month or so. The company has now developed 26 end-of-arm robotic tools, on top of a 3D printing system that can print concrete for exterior, interior and roof structures. Since its previous fundraising round, Diamond Age has massively advanced its tech, making it possible to print and build a 2,000-square-foot single-story home. No doubt impressing the investors and adding some fuel to the valuation fire, the company delivered its first scaled version of its system, as well as a full-scale 3-bed, 2-bath house in 11 months — 4 months ahead of schedule. This led to the company’s first contract with a national homebuilder, details of which the founders were tight-lipped about for now — but expect that announcement to come along soon as well. “Affordable housing is impacting people on a global scale. As the average age for first-time homebuyers has moved from mid-twenties to mid-thirties, there’s an increased demand for more rental property — forcing the entire hierarchy of renters into a more competitive market for ‘quality’ housing,” said Jack Oslan, co-founder and CEO of Diamond Age. “Helping the next generation of homebuyers get into their first house faster helps the entire ecosystem of housing.” Diamond Age will use the funding to continue scaling its robotics platform and execute on its first commercial contract to build homes. The company has already doubled in size and plans to add more engineering and fabrication talent. This will help Diamond Age partner with home builders and developers to turn home-building into an on-demand product and provide buyers with more options when designing their home. “Diamond Age’s Factory in the Field system brings automation to the construction site to back fill the massive labor shortage in the home construction industry,” said Prime Movers Lab General Partner Suzanne Fletcher. “Jack and his team have hit key milestones ahead of schedule and are transforming the way production homes are constructed, so it was an easy decision for Prime Movers Lab to lead the company’s Series A.” |
Daily Crunch: Byju’s founder chips in toward $800M funding round to reach $22B valuation | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Friday, March 11, 2022! Oh was that a week. It was full and busy and, now, finally, over. We have your full news digest below, but , because it’s looking increasingly lit. – And speaking of going public, that includes notes on life SPACs for startups that considered the method of going public but ended up saying / Getty Images We’ve reported on the rise of no-code/low-code software for years, but since the pandemic began, they’ve taken on new importance. Rapid digital transitions are taking place in an era where employees have become adept at working remotely and software developers are in higher demand than ever. We interviewed six technologists to learn more about the impacts of no-code/low-code tools, minimizing technical debt and related topics: |
VC and native Ukrainian Alex Iskold is funneling money to Ukranian refugees, $1K at a time | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Alex Iskold is “one of the luckiest people you’ve ever met,” he says from his office in New York. He’s the co-founder and managing partner of a venture firm, . He previously spent five years with Techstars as the managing director of its New York City program, where he invested in and helped more than 100 startups. Iskold has also cultivated a vast network of contacts — contacts that he is putting to use for the second time in two years. The first time, Iskold and fellow VC called on these friends and acquaintances to fund families in need during the pandemic, forming a kind of , as The New York Times described it. According to Iskold, the effort ultimately spread $3 million to roughly 1,000 families, he says. Now, Iskold is reviving that earlier operation, dubbed the , to provide much-needed help to Ukrainian refugees who’ve fled the country, as well as families that remain trapped within its borders, are suddenly jobless and, in a growing number of cases, no longer have a place to call home. “I never thought I would have to restart the 1K Project, but as soon as I realized what [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] would mean,” he started making calls, he says. Like many people, Iskold is horrified by a war that, one month ago was hard to imagine yet has already displaced and caused in damage. But it’s also personal. Iskold is Ukrainian. He spent the first 19 years of his life in the country, and he still has many cousins and friends and acquaintances there. Indeed, he says a third cousin and her family escaped almost immediately after Russian troops entered the country, while desperate others have stayed because they have sons and husbands who are between the ages of 18 and 60 and thus the country. Iskold’s network has been quick to heed the call for help. Since tweeting out the news 11 days ago that he was resuscitating the to funnel money to Ukrainians, a network of 30 volunteers, from developers to data analysts, has sprung into action to spread the word and ease the path to helping sponsor and recipients reach each other. As Iskold explains it, “The most powerful thing we’ve built is a distributed network [that quickly enables] sponsors and families to apply. Interested parties can find the forms on our site. There is a lightweight vetting process for sponsors and more strict vetting process for recipients. But once the sponsor and the family are approved, they get matched, and the sponsor is texted or emailed directions on how to fund the family through [the only money transfer service] .” The donations, made in $1,000 increments, are not tax deductible. For those who want to donate larger amounts and to receive a tax credit for them, Iskold says the group is using an outfit called as its fiscal sponsor. (To donate to five or more families, for example, 1K Project will send someone instructions on how to donate to OpenCollective; it will then dispatch the money to the families through that vehicle.) More volunteers — and donors — are needed. 1K Project — which Iskold describes as “razor focused on helping families who have three-plus children,” including women who are either in the war zone or who are otherwise displaced with their children — already has more demand than it can meet. “We have a ranking algorithm and we’re shortly going to fund 1,200 families,” he says. “But we have 12,000 applicants and we can’t fund everybody; we just don’t have enough.” As for how the money is being deployed, there are “so many use cases,” says Iskold, who credits the Ukranian banking system for continuing to function in the face of complete chaos. Some families have used the funds to move to safer parts of the country, he notes; others who are already outside of Ukraine are using it buy food for their children. In all cases, the families are in highly distressed situations, he says. “We’ve heard from a bunch of families where they’re sitting on their couch one day and the next day, the bombs completely blew away their homes and they have nowhere to live and they need to figure out how to get out of that place with [not much more] than a T-shirt.” The stories pain him. “I’m getting thank-you messages and constantly crying,” he says. Worse, he knows there’s only so much that his sprawling and eager network can do. “There is just a ton of problems that we’re hearing about that we’re not able to help with, like ammunition for the army or medical supplies.” In the midst of everything else, he worries about people he knows, particularly when they become hard to track. “You know how you see green dot [on your smartphone] and then sometimes you don’t?” He is meanwhile doing what he can — and seemingly making a dent. Since spinning up the anew, people have donated $1 million to more than 800 families, help that is “exceptionally helpful for refugees” who’ve left everything behind in a flash. Alas, that need looks . “If families are displaced within Ukraine and lucky enough to get into refugee centers,” says Iskold, “a lot of stuff is taken care for them. If they’re not in refugee centers, they need food, they need help.” |
TechCrunch+ roundup: Tested TAM tips, no-code tech survey, writing crypto white papers | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | For many first-time founders, determining the size of the market in which they hope to compete is one of their biggest challenges. I haven’t launched a successful startup, but I have helped write several pitch decks. Each time, the team’s collective anxiety increased when we needed to calculate TAM. It was always the last slide we worked on. For most products and services, TAM is presented in nine figures or more, but when you’re sitting around a kitchen table eating cold pizza while planning to disrupt a billion-dollar market, these numbers can create a lot of cognitive dissonance. Calculating TAM, SAM and SOM sounds like an existential exercise, but there’s no need to dread it “if you approach market sizing methodically,” says Marjorie Radlo-Zandi, a veteran investor and entrepreneur. , she broke down the steps required to capture these key metrics that will “show prospective investors how they stand to gain from investing in your company, and put yourself in the best possible position to achieve your goals.” This article also covers how to hire and pay for custom market research, the best people to ask for advice, and the importance of only using credible sources. And don’t worry about those eye-popping, billion-dollar figures. “Only be concerned if the number is small,” she says. “The TAM number gives investors an overall macro perspective of your company’s potential.” Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
/ Getty Images We’ve reported on the rise of no-code/low-code software for years, but since the pandemic began, it has taken on new importance. Rapid digital transitions are taking place in an era where employees have become adept at working remotely, and software developers are in higher demand than ever. We interviewed six technologists to learn more about the impacts of no-code/low-code tools, minimizing technical debt and related topics: When Intel bought Mobileye in 2017, the chipmaker paid about $15.3 billion, 43x Mobileye’s prior-year revenues. This year, Mobileye is set to return to the public markets as Intel seeks to spin it off, but the IPO market is so frozen, all eyes are on how well the computer vision company is received. “There may be less of a hype premium attached to Mobileye when it does list. Still, the company does have good growth and operating income attached to a very, very high-tech product, so there is good reason to expect the company to have material value.” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch Companies like GitLab, Hashicorp and Samsara that produce developer tools have seen soaring multiples in recent years, but those numbers are falling back to earth. On Twitter, Boldstart Ventures partner Ed Sim noted that Gitlab’s valuation has fallen from $15B to $5.5B, and Hashicorp has dropped from $14B to $6.7B. This prompted Alex Wilhelm to take a closer look at these “developer-first” companies. “You might think that with venture capital piling into the technology business model category and a number of recent IPOs to point to, the market for such work would be hotter than ever. And yet.” / Getty Images Writing a white paper used to be an academic pursuit, but for crypto startups, these documents are drafted with investors in mind. Potential project supporters want to understand a company’s underpinning technology, but today’s white paper also needs a transparent product roadmap, a tokenomics overview and details about how the proceeds will be used. John Biggs interviewed a slew of crypto execs to learn more about what investors are looking for in white papers and how founders should approach writing them. In early February, VaynerMedia CEO Gary Veynerchuk told CNBC, “I put out content every week saying that 98% of [NFT] projects are going to zero. Most of the behavior I see in NFT buying reminds me of the way people bought Beanie Babies.” On February 23, a planned NFT auction at Sotheby’s was canceled shortly before it was scheduled to start after the consigner posted to Twitter, “nvm, decided to hodl.” Anecdotally, I’m seeing much less discussion about non-fungible tokens in my Twitter timeline, and that includes supporters and detractors. Anna Heim and Alex Wilhelm found several data points suggesting “that the NFT market is slowing along a number of axes, indicating, at a minimum, that growth in the hot sector has come to a halt.” |
For founders who want to launch apps, ‘being non-technical is not a limitation’ | Miranda Halpern | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Based in Warsaw, Poland, assists a wide variety of companies with everything from product design and UX to development and deployment of connected devices. It caters to diverse sectors, with customers such as sleep tracker ŌURA, trivia game HQ, Tomorrow Health, Samsung, Mercedes-Benz and Nike. To get a look at how intent tailors its approach to client needs and how the company helps clients get their products from inception to the market, we spoke with , its head of business development, and CTO . Our service goes beyond being a typical dev shop, as we align with clients to be “think partners” — this is the methodology we use when approaching any new project. We help clients to validate ideas, as their success is crucial to the outcome of a project. We act as a second pair of eyes and assess the project and its assumptions through our frameworks and techniques, such as design sprints and lean canvas. It’s important to have a battle-tested process for product validation. Our clients are often very focused on the hardware side, which requires us to be more diligent when working on the software/firmware side of the project to ensure everything will work together smoothly. We apply our own processes partially or fully depending on where the client is at with their product development. Our PM and UX teams also conduct workshops, as we typically work with net-new project types and things that we haven’t done before. We need to understand the budget, project objectives, and timelines to help the client navigate the project and get it to fit their requirements. This is done through workshops and a few methodologies that we use to get us and the client aligned in terms of knowledge and project scope. Each project is different, but the majority of projects fall into the six-figure range. We have developed different ways of working that we apply based on the project type and client expectations. We deploy a range of tools to keep clients up to date, and this is typically accompanied by different meeting types, such as developer dailies and weekly or biweekly demos and planning sessions, which follow a scrum format. Around 50% of our clients are non-technical founders starting a net-new project, which means intent acts as a “think partner”, or, in effect, a CTO for their project. Many successful startup founders have no technical background, but do possess great product, sales and marketing skills, so being non-technical is not a limitation when working with the right technological partner. We not only act as a partner, we can also help them build their own internal team, even going as far as hiring a CTO. Yes, that’s why we emphasize understanding their customer personas and user journeys. We then work with the client to scope out their MVP using industry-leading workshop methodologies and processes. We’re very diligent in prioritizing the features that make their way into the prototype, and we actively avoid reinventing the wheel by using many ready-made components that we can quickly integrate into the project without spending much time doing custom development. Each project is very different, as we try and prioritize the development of brand new ideas that take us out of our comfort zone. That said, we can typically build an MVP for any product within four months. Not only do we oversee the QA process, we deeply believe in engaging QA engineers from the earliest days of the project so they can get a head start on designing the overall testing strategy and creating test cases. Additionally, our staff has a deep understanding of the approval process for a given app platform, along with the guidelines that must be followed. Our engineers regularly attend conferences like Apple’s WWDC or Google’s IO, where they get to meet and talk with folks who are responsible for the approval process so they can give better support when any unexpected issues arise during the application submission. We don’t offer pure marketing services to clients, but can help them figure out personas for their client types, which in turn helps them identify the best distribution channels. We work on both native and hybrid apps. Since we specialize in building apps that talk to various peripheral and connected devices, native technologies prevail. However, we have working experience with nearly every hybrid stack out there (React Native, Flutter, etc). In fact, we maintain some of the most widely adopted open source Bluetooth Low Energy libraries for ReactNative. Every project is different and a lot of the work we do is net-new, meaning it hasn’t really been done before. There isn’t a silver bullet stack we recommend to our partners. However, our team has found Flutter is great for deploying prototypes quickly. For apps that require the native look and feel, especially on iOS, we tend to lean towards a native toolchain. Sadly, we only accept a low percentage of clients who approach us, because we are highly specialized in delivering digital solutions where a physical device is present. The industry of connected devices is still maturing, which means we had to coin our own term, “PxD,” which we describe as the “intersection of physical and digital.” A good cultural fit is also a big factor on both sides, as no one wants to butt heads throughout the project. The intellectual property rights of the project and code ownership belong to our partners. We do not practice vendor lock-ins. We found the best way to retain a client is to deliver outstanding work backed by years of experience. Typically, we use Github to store all our source code and integrate it with continuous integration pipelines so that each piece of code our engineers commit to the repository is automatically tested and built. For some specific projects, we have aligned with our partner’s setup, which include Gitlab and self-hosted git repositories. |
Hulu + Live TV to now throw in Unlimited DVR as part of its base plan | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | In an effort to attract more subscribers to its service, Hulu announced today that it will offer an Unlimited DVR feature as part of its Hulu + Live TV service’s base plan at no additional cost. The DVR allows customers to record programs from over 80 channels, including broadcast networks ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, which they can then rewind and fast-forward through — like a traditional DVR offers. Previously, users would receive up to 50 hours as part of their base plan, with the option to upgrade to 200 hours with the Enhanced Cloud DVR add-on for an additional $9.99 per month. This also offered them the ability to rewind and fast-forward through recordings, which was not available to those on the base plan. With this change, Hulu is dropping the storage limits on the DVR for all Hulu + Live TV subscribers and making rewind and fast-forward available as part of the offering, too. Each recording will now be available to users for up to nine months, when previously, the oldest recordings were automatically deleted when users ran out of space. As of April 13, those who had purchased the add-on will see a reduction in their monthly subscription fees, while everyone else will see the Unlimited DVR added to their service automatically. This might not immediately be noticeable as the upgrade will only introduce minor changes to the Hulu user interface. For example, there will not be an indication about how much space is left on the DVR, as that’s no longer needed. The company’s decision to make the Unlimited DVR free with the base plan is one it hopes will drive more subscribers to its service and make the upgrade to the Live TV tier more appealing to standard Hulu subscribers. Today, Hulu + Live TV is already one of the largest live TV streamers, with 4.3 million paying customers, but the traditional pay-TV subscriber base is still much larger. A number of live TV streamers, including Hulu + Live TV and rivals like , have to prices for their base plans over the years. This left some consumers wondering if these sorts of services still have value when compared with traditional pay-TV providers, like cable and satellite, where hundreds of channels are available. Plus, when you tack on upgrades — like premium channels, a better DVR, support for unlimited screens and other channel bundles — a service like Hulu + Live TV could end up costing over $100 per month. By making an Unlimited DVR part of the base plan, Hulu + Live TV will seem competitive when compared with both pay TV and its direct competitor, YouTube TV, which comes with an unlimited amount of cloud DVR storage for all users. Hulu + Live TV is on its own for $68.99 per month or in a bundle with Disney+ and ESPN+ for $69.99 per month (or $75.99 per month without ads.) |
Ubisoft won’t say why it reset employee passwords after ‘cyber incident’ | Zack Whittaker | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Gaming giant Ubisoft has confirmed a cybersecurity incident that led to the mass-reset of company passwords, but has declined to say what the incident actually was. In , Ubisoft said: “Last week, Ubisoft experienced a cyber security incident that caused temporary disruption to some of our games, systems, and services. Our IT teams are working with leading external experts to investigate the issue. As a precautionary measure we initiated a company-wide password reset.” “Also, we can confirm that all our games and services are functioning normally and that at this time there is no evidence any player personal information was accessed or exposed as a by-product of this incident,” the statement said. The France-headquartered video game company is best known for its Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry brands. According to the company’s latest earnings report from October, Ubisoft had 117 million active players. It’s not uncommon for companies to when there is a concern that user passwords or employee credentials could have been compromised. TechCrunch sent several questions to Ubisoft, including asking the company to describe the nature of the cybersecurity incident, such as whether it was a breach of its network; and if the company has the means, such as logs, to detect evidence of improper data access or exfiltration. Having logs would allow the company to know with a higher degree of certainty if data was exfiltrated, rather than having no logs and no evidence. A Ubisoft spokesperson said the company had “nothing additional to share” regarding the incident. |
YouTube is now blocking Russia state-affiliated media globally | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | In a further expansion of its policy responses to Russia’s war in Ukraine, YouTube has said it’s now blocking Kremlin-backed media outlets globally — not just in Europe where two Russia state-affiliated channels, Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, along with their subsidiaries, were sanctioned by the European Union . This goes above and beyond any legal mandates to block this content — but is not entirely unprecedented; Apple pulled RT and Sputnik’s apps from its global App Stores following a request by Ukrainian vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who to CEO Tim Cook asking Apple to stop device sales in Russia and block access to the App Store entirely. ( .) That said, YouTube’s wording suggests it be going further than barring the six (in total) RT and Sputnik entities the EU has sanctioned — as the company writes that it’s now “blocking access to YouTube channels associated with Russian state-funded media globally”. (We’ve asked for clarification on the extent of the ban.) 2/ In line with that, we are also now blocking access to YouTube channels associated with Russian state-funded media globally, expanding from across Europe. This change is effective immediately, and we expect our systems to take time to ramp up. — YouTubeInsider (@YouTubeInsider) While the expanded YouTube blocks on Russia state media are “effective immediately”, per an update to the policy the platform just out, it also warns it may take time for the change to take effect — writing that “we expect our systems to take time to ramp up”. In another new step, YouTube says it will be carrying out Ukraine-focused enforcement of certain existing policies from its Community Guidelines — which prohibit content that denies, minimizes or trivializes “well-documented violent events”, noting: “We are now removing content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy.” Stepping up enforcement here — which is presumably the new thing (given the policies themselves aren’t new) — looks intended to respond to the fast-flowing Russian propaganda that’s being churned out to deny the reality of reports of what’s going on inside Ukraine. Such as around the recent bombing of a maternity and children’s hospital in the port city of Mariupol — which Russian outlets quickly targeted with conspiracy theories — including implying victims depicted in photos and video are actors or . They also put out that the hospital itself was a legitimate target because it had been emptied of patients and staff by a battalion of Ukrainian fighters who had taken up sniping positions there. We’ve also reached out to YouTube with questions about the wider context around this enforcement announcement. YouTube said that since its last update on Ukraine-related actions, it has removed more than 1,000 channels and over 15,000 videos for violating a number of policies — including its hate speech policy, policies around misinformation, graphic content and more. It is also looking to signal progress on measures to amplify “quality” information about the war — i.e. to help truthful reporting rise above Kremlin propaganda — saying there’s been some 17 million+ views on “trusted news sources” in Ukraine since it made changes directing users to this content (via breaking news and “top news” sections of its homepage). In a further step targeting YouTube users in Russia, the platform has also confirmed that it’s extended the in the country to also cover all of the ways users could monetize on the platform — cutting off all revenue generating opportunities. Previously YouTube had left some monetization options open to Russian users. Google also said it’s suspending Play Store billing and YouTube payments in Russia as a result of Western sanctions targeting Russian banks. |
We’re looking for a few good volunteers for TC Early Stage | Alexandra Ames | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | null |
Russia says it will block Instagram | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | The Russian government has now said it will limit access to Instagram. It’s the latest state restriction targeting mainstream foreign tech platforms since the country’s invasion of Ukraine. , move comes as Putin continues to tighten his grip on the digital information sphere to try to prevent Russians citizens from bypassing state propaganda and accessing uncensored information on the war — such as by passing (which comes with the threat of up to 15 years in prison for those spreading “false” information). In a announcing the block on Instagram, the Russian government said its national internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, will “restrict access” to the Meta-owned photo sharing site — writing that the platform is being used to distribute “informational materials containing calls to commit violent acts” (translated with machine translation) against Russian citizens, including soldiers: Based on the requirement of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, access to the Instagram social network (owned by Meta Platforms, Inc.) in the Russian Federation will be limited. The Instagram social network distributes informational materials containing calls to commit violent acts against citizens of the Russian Federation, including military personnel. At the time of writing, a source inside Russia said the Instagram app is still accessible for them — but they noted it “usually takes a couple of days til all mobile operators and internet providers block it on their side”. and were already facing restrictions inside Russia — but Instagram, which is extremely popular in the country, had not been named as a target for restrictions until now. Instagram is thought to have . Facebook was hit with a “partial” restriction inside Russia on , after the platform limited access to a number of state-affiliated media outlets. Around the same time, Twitter users also reported issues with accessing its site — and the company later for Russia users to access the service, saying it was working to restore full access. Twitter has launched a dedicated Tor onion service — providing a workaround for anyone seeking to bypass state censorship to access its network. (Facebook has had a since 2014.) Russia’s move against Instagram follows a specific policy shift by Meta — which has faced some wider criticism on human rights grounds (including ). Internal emails to moderators which the news agency reviewed also specified that death threats directed at Russia president Vladimir Putin or Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko would also be allowed — unless the threats also targeted others and/or contained additional “indicators of credibility” (such as location and method), it also reported. Roskomnadzor’s statement announcing the Instagram restrictions cites confirmation by a Meta spokesperson of the change to the hate-speech policy — who the Russian government identifies by name, as — claiming the policy change allows r It’s not clear whether the messaging app WhatsApp — another Meta-owned platform — will face similar restrictions. WhatsApp declined to comment. But some have suggested it is being treated differently by the Russian authorities as it’s not a public-facing social network. The Russian government is certainly going further in one regard, though: In a parallel move today it that a state investigative committee has opened a criminal case against Meta and Meta employees in Russia — apparently leveraging to designate the company an “extremist organization” (following what it describes as “illegal calls for murder and violence against citizens of the Russian Federation”). “These actions contain signs of crimes under Articles 280 and 205.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — (public calls for extremist activities; assistance in terrorist activities),” Russia’s investigative committee wrote today in reference to Meta’s policy change allowing calls for violence. “As part of the criminal case, the necessary investigative measures are being carried out to give a legal evaluation to actions of Andy Stone and other employees of the American corporation,” it added. Russia has long had draconian ‘anti-terror’ laws which can be aimed at critics of Putin’s regime to encourage self censorship. A 2016 update expanded available penalties, with the maximum punishment for “extremism” — a charge The reported at the time had been increasingly brought against social media users critical of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine — getting cranked up from four to eight years in prison, for example. It now appears that Russia intends to press a charge of extremism against U.S.-based Stone — and potentially other unnamed Meta employees. Clearly, Meta staff who are located in Russia face the greatest risk of arrest and detention — Meta and Instagram were approached for comment on the latest developments. Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri, has now a response — calling the ban, which he suggested will affect 80M Russians, “wrong”: On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia. This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world as ~80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country. This is wrong. — Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) Meta president, Nick Clegg, has also hit out at Russia’s plan to designate the company as an extremist organization — defending in statement posted to the policy amendment to allow a degree of hate speech against Russia within Ukraine as a necessary protection of “people’s rights to speech as an expression of self-defence in reaction to a military invasion of their country”. “We will not tolerate Russophobia or any kind of discrimination, harassment or violence towards Russians on our platform,” Clegg added, saying the policy tweak was “temporary” and “taken in extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances”. Responding to reports that the Russian government is considering designating Meta as an extremist organization for its policies in support of speech: — Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) |
AiFi adds new funding into its cart to expand autonomous retail footprint | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Contactless stores are gaining traction, more so in Europe, but there are some trickling into the U.S., including Atlanta’s that opened in January. In that article, we pointed out that the store was entering territory that included , and . Behind some of that cashierless technology are startup companies like , , , and , which all recently took in venture capital to advance their approaches. The latest company with an injection of VC is , which enables retailers to deploy and scale autonomous shopping cost-effectively. It does this in grocery stores, sport stadiums and convenience stores via a camera-only resource that does not require weighted shelves, significantly decreasing the cost and time it takes to get up-and-running, co-founder and CEO Steve Gu said. In addition, its advanced tracking algorithms work in up to 10,000 square feet of space to support various shopping methods, including an app, credit card, gated or hybrid entry. Santa Clara-based AiFi raised $65 million in Series B funding with participation from retail partners Aldi, Zabka and Verizon Ventures, which is enabling the company to utilize 5G technology. This round gives the company a total of $80 million in funding and comes four years after we reported on and two years after it took in what Gu had called its “ .” He intends to use the new funding to strengthen the company’s deployment team in order to launch stores faster and more efficiently. On that front, Gu believes AiFi has cracked the formula: in 2020, it would take six months to get a store ready to accept customers, and the company is now able to reduce that to less than one week. In addition, AiFi will invest in product development and feature enhancement. “Autonomous checkout is just the beginning,” he said. “From the data we are getting, people are starting to see the way you manage an autonomous store is similar to an e-commerce website.” The capital infusion comes at a time when AiFi is experiencing growth. Two years ago, the company had no public-facing stores, and now it has 40 stores, including 30 with Zabka. Back then its largest store was 3,000 square feet, and in January, it launched a 6,000-square-foot Aldi store in London. Last November, AiFi went live in Paris with a first-of-its-kind, 10/10 Flash concept store with Carrefour. It expanded to National Football League stadiums and music festivals, where stores have reduced average transaction and queue time by 50% and increased per capita sales by 170%. In addition to Aldi, Carrefour and Zabka, which Gu pointed out currently has the highest number of autonomous stores around the world powered by computer vision, AiFi is also working with Compass Group to open Market x Flutter, Ireland’s first completely frictionless store. All of that movement has resulted in revenue growth of five to six times year over year, and the need for AiFi to increase its headcount from 40 employees in 2020 to 115 people all over the world today. Meanwhile, Gu mentioned the global pandemic was a factor in helping retailers and consumers realize the importance of autonomous stores. On the retail side, it was also a benefit, as stores struggled to hire people. Labor shortages resulting from the “The Great Resignation” was actually the second wave that hurt retailers, the first being people not going into stores because they didn’t want to touch things in the store, Melody Brue, retail technology analyst at Moor Insights, said. She concurs with AiFi’s data from pilot phases of stores reducing checkout time and increasing purchase volume. In addition, it enables smaller stores to keep more accurate inventory that results in better management of the supply chain. “We are getting so much data about how a customer shops, in what parts of the store people buy more and what products sell the best,” Brue said. “There is a lot of intelligence from this type of shopping that would take longer for a typical store manager to gather. If chips are selling better in aisle two than aisle four, that might be harder to recognize.” With regard to continued funding into the autonomous retail space, it still seems to be flowing, as evidenced by AiFi and some additional companies, including French convenience store startup , which announced $28 million in funding a few weeks ago, and , which works with retailers like Walmart. In December, it raised $25.8 million for its retail automation. “We’ve definitely seen big investments into automation, artificial intelligence and retail, and in some ways, it had a fintech element to it,” Brue said. “It looks like there has been a little bit of a dip-in-and-wait, for example, AiFi’s initial funding was a small round, and now it is getting a much bigger tranche. Venture capital investment over the past couple of years has been thematic in that way of investing in areas that add convenience and efficiency into people’s lives, and from a financial and retail perspective, that is getting a lot of traction.” |
As tech companies suspend sales in Russia, what is the actual business impact? | Ron Miller | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Over the last couple of weeks, since , we’ve been hearing joining businesses in suspending sales in Russia. It’s been a broad response, and clearly sends a message that companies will not continue to conduct business as usual in the country, but what actual economic impact will these actions have on these companies? As IDC pointed out published earlier this week, with Ukraine under attack and sanctions being applied to Russia, it will inevitably have some impact on technology companies operating in that part of the world. “The conflict has halted business operations in Ukraine while the Russian economy is feeling the early impact of Western sanctions. This will strongly affect tech spending in both countries with double-digit contraction of local market demand expected in 2022,” the firm wrote. In terms of pure numbers, however, Russia and Ukraine together, while large countries, don’t add up to a large percentage of overall worldwide tech spending. In fact, IDC reports that the two countries combined only account for 5.5% of European technology spending and just 1% of worldwide technology spend. Canalys said that tech companies that haven’t shut down sales in Russia are under pressure to do so. “Accenture, Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, HPE, Oracle, SAP and TSMC (semi-conductors) are among the technology players on a growing list of international companies (across all sectors) cutting ties with Russia. Those that don’t will find themselves increasingly out of sync with global sentiment,” the company wrote published earlier this month. According to Canalys, Russia accounts for 20% of the European smartphone market and 8% of the PC market. Apple leads the way with 17% of the Russian PC market, sharing that lead with Lenovo. HP is a hair behind at 15%. Canalys These numbers represented around 2% of overall sales for these companies, according to Canalys. All three market leaders have suspended sales in Russia. It’s worth noting that news reports suggest that Lenovo, a Chinese company, is from the Chinese government to reverse that decision. As for smartphones, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi leads the market with 31%, followed by Samsung with 27% and Apple well back in third place with 11%. Canalys That accounted for 2% of Apple’s overall sales and 4% of Samsung’s. Both Apple and Samsung have suspended sales in Russia. Canalys speculated that the Russians could turn to Chinese tech to solve this problem. “With sanctions on technology imports imposed by the West, Russia can be expected to turn more to China (which has stated its opposition to sanctions), particularly as the Russian government rushes to replace Western brands and maintain access to key technologies. The winners are likely to be Chinese vendors such as Huawei, that have themselves been the victim of Western trade embargoes,” the company wrote. As the Lenovo situation shows, however, it’s more complex for Chinese companies that do significant business with Western customers. As for — Amazon, Microsoft and Google? John Dinsdale, principal analyst at Synergy Research, a firm that tracks the cloud market, said that Russia accounts for a fraction of 1% of these companies’ overall business. “From the perspective of AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, cutting off Russian customers would have little effect,” he said. But for those customers, it could still be painful. “Of course, for the customers that might be cut off, the impact could be very meaningful. Russia is not a particularly well-developed market, but for companies that have made a major transition to cloud-based operations, then reversing course will be tough,” he said. Canalys analyst Blake Murray agreed, but said that as with smartphones and PCs, customers left in the lurch by sanctions could turn to Chinese cloud giants. “Overall, it is expected that Russian companies pivot to Russian CSPs like Yandex and Chinese providers that have data centers in the country. They will also look to replace software like Office with Russian-registered equivalents,” he said. That’s not to say it’s going to be easy, but Murray said many organizations inside of Russia had at least started moving in this direction with migration efforts underway. You may be wondering about the impact on SaaS companies. Dinsdale said that the SaaS market tends to be more fragmented, with many more in-country options. That said, “Russia is again a small market accounting for less than 1% of worldwide SaaS revenues. For both Microsoft and Salesforce, Russia accounts for less than 1% of their SaaS business.” Finally, we have internet backbone providers reportedly leaving Russia, with announcing they were shutting down operations this week. “The business services we provide are extremely small and very limited as is our physical presence,” Lumen . “However, we are taking steps to immediately stop business in the region.” Cogent did not issue a public statement, but it was widely reported that it is ceasing business operations in Russia. It’s unclear what the impact would be, but from , it doesn’t appear to have any data centers in Russia. Still, cutting off internet access could have serious implications for people who are trying to get news outside the country, and for companies trying to conduct business. As Dinsdale pointed out, you can’t access any cloud service without internet access, so that could have a potentially serious impact. |
Sorenson Ventures keeps focus on enterprise with new $150M fund | Ron Miller | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | may not be a household name, but the Lehi, Utah-based firm has quietly backed 30 enterprise startups since 2017 when it launched its initial $100 million fund, some exiting via acquisition and some sporting flashy valuations. Today, the company announced that it has raised its second fund, this one around $150 million. Company co-founder and partner Rob Rueckert said he and co-founder Ken Elefant each brought more than 15 years of investing experience when they launched the firm five years ago. Rueckert came from Intel Capital, while Elefant had stints at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Battery Ventures. Both were focused on B2B companies, and Rueckert sees that experience as a key differentiator for his firm. The company looks at early-stage enterprise startups and tends to write small checks in the $3 million to $5 million range. Rueckert said that is unusual for a firm his size. “This is a $150 million fund, the prior one was just a little over $100 million. That’s a little bit unique for a seed and Series A-focused investment fund, only because those funds that have traditionally been really great at that stage are now billion-dollar funds,” he said. He also pointed out that it’s harder for those larger funds, which are typically writing much bigger checks, to make the math work when it comes to checks in his firm’s range. What’s more, he said his firm takes a more hands-on approach with startups. “There’s a lot of hard work to get a company from pre-revenue or early revenue to really rolling, and we embrace that work,” he said. “So we do a lot of the old-fashioned roll-up-your-sleeves work with the firm, helping them find their first customers, helping them find that go-to-market motion, and figuring out the product-market fit,” he added. Rueckert acknowledged that approach requires a lot of heavy lifting, but it makes sense for their kind of fund. “A heavy lift only makes sense if it’s a material part of your fund. So we intentionally tried to keep the fund to a target size where that kind of investment is material for us,” he said. The approach seems to be working, with six exits from the first fund, including Bridgecrew, which was for $156 million; CloudKnox, which was and Openpath, which was . All three exits happened last year. Other portfolio companies include Socure, an identity verification company that in November on an impressive $4.5 billion valuation, and CyCognito, an attack surface management startup at the end of last year with an $800 million valuation. While the new fund is being announced publicly today, they actually closed it last year and have already begun putting the capital to work in a new round of startups. The company is a division of Sorenson Capital, which invests in later-stage companies. |
NetWalker ransomware operator extradited to the US, over $28M in bitcoin seized | Carly Page | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | A former Canadian government employee accused of carrying out dozens of attacks has been extradited to the United States, with more than $28 million in seized in connection with the case. Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins, who worked as an IT consultant for Public Works and Government Services in Canada, according to his LinkedIn profile, was extradited to the U.S. on Wednesday, where he will face multiple charges related to his alleged participation with the NetWalker ransomware group, the U.S. Justice Department . NetWalker, also known as “Mailto,” is a prolific ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation that enlists affiliates to deploy ransomware in return for a share of the ransom payment. The group first surfaced in 2019 and has since been linked to several high-profile attacks. In June 2020, the group targeted the University of California San Francisco, which paid a ransom of more than $1 million. Three months later, NetWalker . The RaaS operation also targeted Argentina’s immigration agency, Pakistan’s largest private power utility and, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of hospitals and law enforcement agencies. Between August 2019 and January 2021, ransomware attacks involving NetWalker pulled $46 million in ransom payments, according to . Vachon-Desjardins was arrested by Canadian police in January 2021 as part of an international law enforcement campaign targeting the NetWalker ransomware group. During a search of his home in Quebec, officers found 719 bitcoin, valued at approximately $28.1 million at the time of writing, and $790,000 in Canadian currency. Authorities in the U.S. and Belgium also used by NetWalker to publish data stolen from victims. At the time, Vachon-Desjardins was sentenced in a Canadian court to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to five charges related to the theft of computer data, extortion, the payment of cryptocurrency ransoms and participating in the activities of a criminal organization. With Vachon-Desjardins now in the U.S., he faces further charges that accuse him of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and wire fraud, intentional damage to a protected computer and transmitting a demand in relation to damaging a protected computer. If convicted, he may be required to forfeit more than $27 million for his involvement with the NetWalker ransomware gang. “As exemplified by the seizure of cryptocurrency by our Canadian partners, we will use all legally available avenues to pursue seizure and forfeiture of the alleged proceeds of ransomware, whether located domestically or abroad,” said assistant attorney general Kenneth Polite Jr. “The department will not cease to pursue and seize cryptocurrency ransoms, thereby thwarting the attempts of ransomware actors to evade law enforcement through the use of virtual currency.” News of Vachon-Desjardins’ extradition comes just days after to face U.S. charges for his alleged involvement in the Kaseya hack. |
SPAC is a four-letter word again | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 3 | 11 | Hello and welcome back to , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week saw Equity back on the live-taping game, with , and gathering with and the TechCrunch video team (shoutout and Yashad!) to chat through the week’s news. Naturally we had to cut like all hell, but we had a simply terrific time traipsing through the following items: better dot com is getting worse a thread of ’s reporting over the past few months: — Equity Podcast (@EquityPod) We do live tapings every two weeks, so come to the next one! This time, we gave away a SXSW ticket, next time, who knows! |
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