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Slice and dice it all you want, that’s a seed round | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 4 | 30 | Weekly, a fresh human-first take on this week’s startup news and trends. To get this in your inbox, There’s a clash happening in the early-stage market. In one world, late-stage investors are reacting to tech stonk corrections by clamoring toward the early-stage investment world, forcing seed investors to go even earlier to defend ownership and potential returns. This trend was underscored by firms like Andreessen Horowitz launching months after . Even more, Techstars, an accelerator literally launched to help startups get off the ground, debuted a fund to back companies While all that is going on, early-stage investors are enduring and portfolio markdowns. Some are admitting that they’re telling portfolio companies to refocus on cash conservation, profitability and discipline, not just growth. Let’s pretend these two vastly different worlds are in the same universe: Early-stage investors are getting more disciplined and cash rich, but at the same time, the earliest investors are going earlier. Investors are pushing founders to be lean but also green, but at the same time, offering them $10,000 to take PTO for a week and try their hand at entrepreneurship. Growth, gross margin and burn , but at the same time, venture capitalists are clamoring to offer more funds, earlier, in newly invented subcategories of early-stage investment. It’s a lot happening at once, and makes me worry about the race to the bottom — or race to the earliest stage — and its consequences. For more thoughts, read my TechCrunch+ piece: In this newsletter, we’ll talk about news that has to do with Elon Musk, and news that has nothing to do with Elon Musk. As always, you can support me by forwarding this newsletter to a friend, or As I’m sure many of you know all too well, Elon Musk’s $44 billion dollar bid for Twitter was accepted this week, marking a massive moment in tech history and a looming return to the private markets for a fundamental social media platform. We wrote up , from tweet to close, but just know the saga is nowhere near done — the deal is yet to officially close. I mean, for once this format doesn’t work because there’s way too many angles for why Musk’s buy of Twitter is important. Instead, I’ll just bullet list some specific angles that TechCrunch dug into. And finally, I’ll just remind you all that Twitter, in its earnings this week, By 1.9 million accounts. Jeez. It’s a bad look for Twitter, but also bad news for advertisers — a revenue stream that the platform is very dependent on. As put it, “for a company as dependent on advertising revenues as Twitter currently is, it’s a wonder why they would agree to a deal that puts a free speech absolutist in charge.” Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch Yes, we’re at that point of the [insert high–profile news cycle] story. First, there are the leaks and scoops. Then there are the slightly hedged thought pieces. Then, there is the Major Confirmation. Then, there are the straight-up savage threads and op-eds, sprinkled with more leaks, more scoops and key details. And finally, the stories that want to provide brief respite from the aforementioned madness. Let’s embrace this last stage! The deal of the week, that may have snuck under your radar, is that Robinhood announced its layoffs just days before Q1 2022 earnings, and after its seen its value erode in the public markets. The move thus seems defensive, and the company’s attempt at proving that it’s en route to becoming a more efficient and growth-oriented financial institution. Also in fintech news, . / Getty Images Until next time, |
On putting toothpaste back into the tube | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 4 | 30 | Good news! We’re talking about crypto, Elon Musk or SaaS multiples today. We’re also not talking IPOs, global venture capital trends or the like. Instead, we’re going to talk about putting toothpaste back in the tube. Sound fun? Let’s go. Since and the Chinese Communist Party executed off a flat-wild period of regulatory action in 2021, you have probably heard less about China’s technology. That’s because the companies that tended to make the biggest splash in foreign media were concerns like Alibaba, ByteDance and the like — tech companies that touched lots of individuals, including folks outside the country’s national borders. China’s government decided that such companies had too much influence, and thus needed to be cut down to size. This meant, variously, the , , the effective curtailment of foreign listings, punitive data reviews, video game limits along with a long pause in new titles, and more. After a period of comparative freedom to innovate, compete and, yes, at times act anticompetitively, China’s domestic tech industry entered 2022 in a very different state than it kicked off 2020. (This isn’t to discount the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese tech companies; but the move toward remote work and the like was global, and for our purposes today we care more about the regulatory environments shifts in particular.) The result of the fusillade of regulatory action, a full nelson of top-down control, was probably about what you expected. Some recent headlines for flavor: Those should paint a fair enough picture of market sentiment regarding the crackdown. In more monetary terms, the value of many Chinese tech companies fell sharply. After peaking at more than $300 per share in late 2020, Alibaba is worth less than $100 per share today. Didi, which after its IPO, saw its shares peak at a penny over $18 per share. Today it’s worth less than $2 per share. Stories began to crop up about layoffs and other misery from Chinese tech companies. A few more headlines for context: Given that this was pretty much what anyone with a pulse might have expected from the Chinese government throwing its absolute control around like gravity in a rollercoaster, pushing to remake one of its key economic engines by autocratic fiat in a short period of time, you are probably not surprised. And yet it appears that the Chinese government is, at least to some degree! How do we know that? Well, observe: The context here is that while the rest of the world is largely figuring out a path out of COVID, China’s government is locking down hundreds of millions of its citizens as it chases an impossible goal of zero COVID-19 cases. (The government previously touted its success at keeping the pandemic at bay as evidence of its superiority; such a stance makes any retreat from the goal difficult.) The result of lockdowns and a sharply diminished local tech industry is, surprise, economic malaise. Not that the Chinese government intends to accept that. After indicating that besting American economic growth , debt-fueled infrastructure spending , along with , and, it appears, some softening of the rules deluge that its domestic tech market has been forced to endure without complaint. Good luck? Can the Chinese government put the tech toothpaste back in the tube? We’ll find out, but if I was an investor or founder I would not build inside the country. Sure, it’s a big market, but not one that you can count on. More when we get Q2 2022 Chinese venture capital data. |
Perceptron: AI mixes concrete, designs molecules, and thinks with space lasers | Devin Coldewey | 2,022 | 4 | 30 | Welcome to Perceptron, TechCrunch’s weekly roundup of AI news and research from around the world. Machine learning is a key technology in practically every industry now, and there’s far too much happening for anyone to keep up with it all. This column aims to collect some of the most interesting recent discoveries and papers in the field of artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter. (Formerly known as Deep Science; .) This week’s roundup starts with a pair of forward-thinking studies from Facebook/Meta. The first is a collaboration with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that aims at reducing the amount of emissions from concrete production. Concrete accounts for some 8 percent of carbon emissions, so even a small improvement could help us meet climate goals. This is called “slump testing.” What the Meta/UIUC team did was train a model on over a thousand concrete formulas, which differed in proportions of sand, slag, ground glass, and other materials (you can see a sample chunk of more photogenic concrete up top). Finding the subtle trends in this dataset, it was able to output a number of newformulas optimizing for both strength and low emissions. turned out to have 40 percent less emissions than the regional standard, and met… well, of the strength requirements. It’s extremely promising, and follow-up studies in the field should move the ball again soon. The second Meta study has to do with changing how work. The company wants to work with neural imaging experts and other researchers to compare how language models compare to actual brain activity during similar tasks. In particular, they’re interested in the human capability of anticipating words far ahead of the current one while speaking or listening — like knowing a sentence will end in a certain way, or that there’s a “but” coming. AI models are getting very good, but they still mainly work by adding words one by one like Lego bricks, occasionally looking backwards to see if it makes sense. They’re just getting started but they already have . Back on the materials tip, researchers at Oak Ridge National Lab are getting in on the AI formulation fun. Using a dataset of quantum chemistry calculations, whatever those are, the team created a neural network that could predict material properties — but then inverted it so that they could . “Instead of taking a material and predicting its given properties, we wanted to choose the ideal properties for our purpose and work backward to design for those properties quickly and efficiently with a high degree of confidence. That’s known as inverse design,” said ORNL’s Victor Fung. It seems to have worked — but you can check for yourself by running . ETHZ Concerned with physical predictions on an entirely different scale, estimates the heights of tree canopies around the globe using data from ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites (for optical imagery) and NASA’s GEDI (orbital laser ranging). Combining the two in a convolutional neural network results in an accurate global map of tree heights up to 55 meters tall. Being able to do this kind of regular survey of biomass at a global scale is important for climate monitoring, as NASA’s Ralph Dubayah explains: “We simply do not know how tall trees are globally. We need good global maps of where trees are. Because whenever we cut down trees, we release carbon into the atmosphere, and we don’t know how much carbon we are releasing.” You can easily . Also pertaining to landscapes is this DARPA project all about creating extremely large-scale simulated environments for virtual autonomous vehicles to traverse. , though they might have saved some money by contacting the makers of the game , which basically does what DARPA wants for $30. Intel The goal of RACER-Sim is to develop off-road AVs that already know what it’s like to rumble over a rocky desert and other harsh terrain. The 4-year program will focus first on creating the environments, building models in the simulator, then later on transferring the skills to physical robotic systems. In the domain of AI pharmaceuticals, which has about 500 different companies right now, in a model that only suggests molecules that can actually be made. “Models often suggest new molecular structures that are difficult or impossible to produce in a laboratory. If a chemist can’t actually make the molecule, its disease-fighting properties can’t be tested.” Looks cool, but can you make it without powdered unicorn horn? The MIT model “guarantees that molecules are composed of materials that can be purchased and that the chemical reactions that occur between those materials follow the laws of chemistry.” It kind of sounds like , but integrated into the discovery process. It certainly would be nice to know that the miracle drug your AI is proposing doesn’t require any fairy dust or other exotic matter. Another bit of work from MIT, the University of Washington, and others is about teaching robots to interact with everyday objects — something we all hope becomes commonplace in the next couple decades, since some of us don’t have dishwashers. The problem is that it’s very difficult to tell exactly how people interact with objects, since we can’t relay our data in high fidelity to train a model with. So there’s lots of data annotation and manual labeling involved. focuses on observing and inferring 3D geometry very closely so that it only takes a few examples of a person grasping an object for the system to learn how to do it itself. Normally it might take hundreds of examples or thousands of repetitions in a simulator, but this one needed just 10 human demonstrations per object in order to effectively manipulate that object. MIT It achieved an 85 percent success rate with this minimal training, way better than the baseline model. It’s currently limited to a handful of categories but the researchers hope it can be generalized. Last up this week is some on a multimodal “visual language model” that combines visual knowledge with linguistic knowledge so that ideas like “three cats sitting on a fence” have a sort of crossover representation between grammar and imagery. That’s the way our own minds work, after all. Flamingo, their new “general purpose” model, can do visual identification but also engage in dialogue, not because it’s two models in one but because it marries language and visual understanding together. As we’ve seen from other research organizations, this kind of multimodal approach produces good results but is still highly experimental and computationally intense. |
This Week in Apps: Elon buys Twitter, Snap Summit recap and an App Store cleanup | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 4 | 30 | 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 . Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China 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 in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. 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 to try, too. Can you believe it’s only been a week since Elon Musk announced he was buying Twitter for around $44 billion? It’s felt like years! A lot has happened since Elon Musk first signaled his interest in Twitter by up Twitter shares, then later being a board seat, the seat, then deciding he’d rather just take the whole company. Initially, no one was quite sure how serious Musk’s offer was, but when and detailed how he planned to pay for Twitter, the offer had to be given a lot more consideration. On April 25, Twitter Musk’s offer, which includes a on both sides. The deal is a go. There’s a lot of curiosity over why Musk wanted Twitter in the first place. But it’s likely a combination of a power user thinking they can fix the service and a desire to use the network for the market-moving power it’s been shown to have. Now everyone’s . Twitter was never a great business in Wall Street’s eyes, so going private is not the worst choice for the company to make. But going private under a free speech absolutionist already has advertisers wary. If Twitter were to lighten its content moderation rules, it could allow more online abuse and hate speech to thrive. the immediate reaction from advertisers was one of anxiety and confusion. Brands began reaching out to agencies to help them understand and prepare, it said. One agency exec said advertisers are preparing to stop spending after Musk’s takeover if things go south. Looking to quell worries, Twitter emailed reassurances to advertisers, reported. But brands know Twitter can’t make any promises about the nature of free speech on Twitter once Musk is in charge. Advertisers can pull out of Twitter if need be — there are a number of other social networks hungry for their dollars beyond Meta. Snap and TikTok, for instance, could benefit from a potential ad budget shift, as they also reach a younger demographic and have growing user bases. While Musk in other ways in the future, Twitter’s business today is advertising-dependent. To what extent Musk understands the nuances of that complication is less clear. But unless the billionaire wants to self-fund Twitter, he should probably give it some thought. Global consumer spending in apps saw relatively flat growth year-over-year, according to new data from . The company found that worldwide app revenue growth from in-app purchases, premium apps and subscriptions grew just 0.6% from $32.3 billion in Q1 2021 to $32.5 billion in Q1 2022. However, when looked at individually, the App Store and Google Play saw different trends. Google’s Play Store lack of growth pulled the combined growth rate down, as it saw approximately $10.7 billion in consumer spending, down 8.5% year-over-year from $11.7 billion in Q1 2021. Meanwhile, Apple’s App Store revenue, which was double that of Google Play’s, grew 5.8% year-over-year from $20.6 billion to $21.8 billion. Sensor Tower Top grossing apps in the quarter included TikTok (iOS) and Google One (Android), as well as streamers like YouTube, Disney+, Tencent Video, HBO Max, and others. Dating app Tinder was also the No. 5 top grossing app overall. Sensor Tower Among app categories seeing increased usage in Q1, medical apps led the market with 102% year-over-year growth, followed by navigation (+24%), travel (+19%), business (+15%), shopping (+14%), finance (+13%) and education (+13%) Snap held its Partner Summit this week, where the company announced a number of new features in areas like AR Shopping, 3D asset creation, AR development tools and more. It also a drone for taking photos, but that’s not really an app! Snap It was a busy week for tech company earnings. Apple had a stellar quarter, with revenue increasing 9% to $97.3 billion, and quarterly profit growing 6% to $25 billion, but shares on warnings of possible supply chain constraints impacting the business in the future. But the standout news for the app economy was the record revenue reported , which includes the App Store and other subscription-based business lines, like Apple TV+, Apple Music, cloud services and more. The company said services revenue grew 17% year over year to reach $19.8 billion and it now has 825 million paid subscriptions. That means services is Apple’s Mac ($10.44 billion) and iPad ($7.65 billion) divisions combined. Google Sensor Tower YouTube in a round led by Fiat Ventures. The app has grown to more than 800,000 users, up from 350,000 last October, and offers a combination of personalized debit cards, access to 50,000 ATMs, support for digital wallets, parental monitoring of teen spending, P2P, finance advice and more. investment round led by Xploration Capital. The Mirai Flights app is available in 63 countries and operates with eight private airlines. Mirai uses a last-mile model, matching supply and demand, utilizing empty flight legs to make it more efficient to return a jet to its base location. The round was led by Vulcan Capital. The company says its app is now used by over 40 million creators. round led by Teachers’ Venture Growth, valuing the business at over $1 billion. |
Affirm’s CTO talks transparency and the tech that makes BNPL possible | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,022 | 4 | 30 | a new concept; it’s just taken off in recent years and become . Buy now, pay later lets people do exactly what its name suggests — buy something and pay for it later. The difference between BNPL and credit cards is that rather than charge the full amount of a purchase on a card, consumers can choose to pay for an item in installments. However, there are some that argue BNPL is just another form of debt, which could lead to a discussion on whether companies that enable it are doing it responsibly. In the case of Affirm, one of the space’s largest players, co-founder Max Levchin (who also founded PayPal) has about what he describes as a “mission-based” approach. Ukraine-born Levchin started Affirm in January 2012. The fintech went public in 2021, and while it’s trading considerably lower than its 52-week-high (which stock isn’t?), Affirm is today valued at nearly $9 billion, and its executives remain bullish on the company’s future. TechCrunch sat down with , president of technology at Affirm, to understand just how the company differentiates itself from its plethora of competitors, what is unique about its technology and strategy, and why he thinks using BNPL is much better than using a credit card to pay for purchases. : Our main focus is doing right by the customer. And that really translates into this idea of aligning our interests with that of the customer. So if they get the unexpected or unwanted, then we share in the negative outcomes. The second pillar for us is building modern technology that enables us to do this. How do you deliver a financial product with no late fees, with no gimmicks and no deferred interest tricks? It’s really the ability to have access to real-time data, deliver it on the phone and do it at e-commerce sites in real time, and then bringing all that together to make real-time decisions and deliver those decisions clearly to the customer. Another advantage we have is the scale of our merchant network. We work with 170,000 merchants, which enhances our ability to provide access to à la carte credit wherever the customer might want it and need it. For us, the most important and biggest difference is that unlike a credit card, the customer knows how much interest in dollars they’re going to pay for that purchase. There’s no way for them to pay more for that purchase, and they will know it upfront before they click. We’ll communicate it to them obviously, as an interest rate as we’re legally required to, but also in dollars and cents. A lot of times people get surprised when I tell them that a $1,000 purchase at 15% for a year actually translates to $83 because of the amortization schedules. A on our website lets you play with all of those numbers. I think the transparency part is pretty key, because I feel like with credit cards, you do run that risk of — depending on how long it takes you to pay or what your minimum payments are — how much you pay in interest potentially ranging wildly. With us, it’s a fixed amount that’s communicated to the customer upfront. And even if they miss a payment, there are no late fees and nothing gets tacked on in any way that would ever result in a different outcome. In fact, if they pay early, the number can be lower, but it won’t ever exceed the figure we give them. |
India seizes $725 million assets from Xiaomi unit over illegal remittances | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 4 | 30 | India’s anti-money laundering agency said on Saturday it has seized assets worth about $725 million from Xiaomi India for breaching the country’s foreign exchange laws in a major blow to the Chinese phone maker that commands the Indian smartphone market. The Indian Enforcement Directorate said it had seized bank accounts of Xiaomi India after finding that the company had remitted $725 million to three foreign-based entities “in the guise of royalty” payments. “Such huge amounts in the name of royalties were remitted on the instructions of their Chinese parent group entities,” it said. The amount remitted to “other two US-based unrelated entities” were also for the “ultimate benefit of the Xiaomi group entities,” the agency added. Xiaomi India former head, Manu Jain, was summoned by the directorate earlier this year for questioning over tax related compliances and company structure. The directorate, which has been investigating Xiaomi as well as several other Chinese firms since December, said Xiaomi has “provided misleading information to the banks while remitting the money abroad.” Xiaomi said in a statement today that it believes its royalties payments are legit as they were made for the “in-licensed technologies and IPs used in our India version products.” The company, which refreshed its smartphone, smart TV and tablet lineups with new models in India earlier this week, commanded 23% of the local smartphone market share in the quarter that ended in March this year, according to market research firm Counterpoint. The company has taken a hit in its popularity in recent years following India’s ban on . For optics measures, Xiaomi rebranded several of its shops in India two years ago with “Made in India” banners in a move that analysts said was the company’s attempt to distance itself from its Chinese parent firm. |
The answers to real estate’s climate tech questions may be all around us | Dave Mullen | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | seen Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” starring Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, you should. The film speaks to an existential, albeit preventative, threat to our world, and well, no one seems to care. While an allegory, this political piece reflects the climate reality for many. For those who do care, there is no shortage of confusion on how to best tackle this looming threat. But what if an answer was lying right in front of us? Take that an astounding Forty percent is quite the figure in the context of what’s at stake. In this case, do look up — and to the right, and to the left, because the answer might be all around. Front and center come the estimated square feet of commercial real estate. Despite this sizable footprint and impact on climate, lack of awareness and the real estate industry’s sluggish pace of tech adoption have hampered action until recently. Adding to this have been misperceptions of returns on investments in climate investments, and frankly, information overload as the industry gets smart about carbon neutrality. Fortunately, evidence is emerging on the ROI of climate tech for both buyers and investors — evidence that could be crucial to usher the “Built World” into an era of carbon neutrality. As the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money. And when it comes to reducing real estate’s climate footprint, according to Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), the path starts with adopting technologies that enable green certifications such as LEED and BREEAM. Among a host of conclusions, JLL’s report cites that green certifications for commercial real estate and a sales premium of 8%. But acknowledgment of climate change and awareness of climate technologies’ efficacy is just the beginning. Knowing where to start brings its own challenges. To unlock this ROI, property owners have implemented a range of cost saving technologies such as efficient lighting, reimagined cooling and heating systems, and systems to reduce their electricity footprint. After all, to get a LEED certification, buildings must hit a performance score combining metrics across several categories including energy, water, waste, transportation and quality. To accommodate, technology has popped up transversely across the value chain of designing, constructing and retrofitting parts of the building life cycle to improve metrics across LEED’s target categories. To unpack the opportunity come specific considerations with investments at each point. Climate technology solutions across the real estate value chain. Estimated per Cove.Tool; New York Times “New York’s Real Climate Challenge: Fixing its Aging Buildings”; Department of Energy’s “ ”. SVB Capital. An ideal, carbon-neutral world might be built from the ground up. Proven technologies such as Cove.Tool and Juno Residential are popping up to enable this brave new world of energy efficiency, starting with just how buildings are designed and what materials they are built from. |
If the earliest investors keep going earlier, what will happen? | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 4 | 30 | happening in the early-stage market. In one world, late-stage investors are reacting to tech stonk corrections by clamoring toward the early-stage investment world, forcing seed investors to go even earlier to defend ownership and potential returns. This trend was underscored by firms like Andreessen Horowitz launching months after . Even more, Techstars, an accelerator literally launched to help startups get off the ground, debuted a fund to back companies While all that is going on, early-stage investors are enduring and portfolio markdowns. Some are admitting that they’re telling portfolio companies to refocus on cash conservation, profitability and discipline, not just growth. Let’s pretend these two vastly different worlds are in the same universe: Early-stage investors are getting more disciplined and cash rich, but at the same time, the earliest investors are going earlier. Investors are pushing founders to be lean but also green, but at the same time, offering them $10,000 to take PTO for a week and try their hand at entrepreneurship. Growth, gross margin and burn , but at the same time, venture capitalists are clamoring to offer more funds, earlier, in newly invented subcategories of early-stage investment. The tension between these two worlds looks different depending on if you’re a Stanford founder starting a SaaS company, or if you’re a bootstrapped, first-time entrepreneur trying to disrupt agtech. Regardless, the growing spotlight, and discipline, on the early stage just makes me wonder one broad thing: What’s left for early-stage investors to focus on? |
Landline wants to fully check you in for your flight — far from the airport | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | Running an airline is a grueling business, with many companies either folding shop or to survive. Being an airline passenger isn’t a walk in the park either, for a litany of reasons that anyone who has ever been in an airport can easily enumerate. , a four-year-old, Fort Collins, Colorado-based transportation startup, thinks it has struck on a way to create a better experience for both airlines and their passengers. The big idea? To distribute the check-in process by processing people in many smaller hubs, closer to their homes, well before they get to their departing gate. If all goes as planned, its customers will eventually get dropped off just a hop, skip and a jump from the plane they’re about to board. Of course, big ideas often start with the execution of smaller ones, and right now, Landline, founded by Stanford grad David Sunde, is largely a bus service, transporting people from regional hubs to major airports. It sprung up after Sunde spent nearly four years, on and off, with the aviation outfit , where he saw some of the challenges of regional airline carriers, from their expensive operations to pilot shortages. Still, Landline already does more than just punch tickets for passengers. It has already struck partnerships with American Airlines, United Airlines and Sun Country Airlines, whose passengers unknowingly book travel with Landline, which operates as a white-labeled service. As far as travelers are concerned, they’re hopping onto an American Airlines bus — if that’s the provider — replete with AA programming and appointments, and that ride to the airport from the hub nearer their home is simply built into the overall cost of their ticket. Meanwhile, because of these partnerships, Landline is able to check in both the passengers and their luggage so when they reach the airport, the last remaining step is walking through airport security. Of course, addressing that last step is not minor. The worst part of most passengers’ experiences are the long security lines. But Landline is working on this, too. Indeed, Sunde volunteers it would be “game-changing,” and says that not only would Landline become the first ground transportation company in the country to receive the blessing of the Transportation Security Administration, but that he expects its approval will come. “There’s a pre-existing regulatory approval for ; for us, when it happens, it will be an industry first, which is really cool,” says Sunde. “I always want to be respectful of the TSA, and they’re taking their time; we’ve been working with them for a long time. But I’m optimistic about it. We’ve successfully stepped into more complicated things.” Likely, the startup — which aims to bring passengers right to a nearby gate eventually — is receiving some help from investor Tusk Ventures, an outfit that has positioned itself as a kind of expert at the intersection of tech and policy. (Firm founder Bradley Tusk worked previously in politics and was an early advisor to Uber.) Others of Landline’s backers include Upfront Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Wildcat Capital and Drive Capital, which just led a $28 million round in the company that closed this week and brings its total funding to $38 million. In the meantime, the company is doing what it can to build infrastructure that puts it on solid footing for the future. For example, while it has its own ground transportation certificate, it also has the insurance requirements and the safety and security team that would be required of a regional airline. Now, with its newly raised capital, it can put the pedal to the metal, so to speak. While it operates in nine cities across Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Colorado, it will be adding to these as quickly as it’s able. It will also use some of that $28 million to add to its 100-person team, roughly a quarter of whom work in operations. (Many of the rest are drivers who are considered full-time employees of the company.) Sunde says the company is particularly focused on building up its own on-shore software development team to work on a door-to-door product that Landline is currently piloting, where travelers needn’t even drive to a nearby hub but could be picked up at home. It’s not a terribly sexy business, but it could be an overlooked opportunity, especially considering the overly congested state of airports right now, as well as customer frustration with most airlines. “The future of the motorcoach business is very much the idea that the airport no longer needs to be next to the runway,” says Sunde. “It can be in the basement of the building or in a shopping mall. And we can distribute the check-in and load away from these places where it’s really hard to improve infrastructure.” “I 100% see that in our future someday,” he adds. |
Daily Crunch: After 16 months on the job, Better.com CTO Diane Yu steps down | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | Welcome to the Daily Crunch for Friday, April 8, 2022! Today, Haje has mostly been reading the most recent IPCC report and gobbling anti-anxiety meds by the fistful, while Christine was talking and writing all day. If it turns out that saving the planet is the wrong thing to do, we can always choose to burn it to cinders at a later date. Until then, ? On that cheerful note, may your weekend contain the appropriate amount of the right kind of surprises. – and Tesla is lovely and all, but the company cannot be accused of making EVs financially accessible. Great news for EV lovers, then: , promising a new generation of affordable electric vehicles alongside offerings from GM, Hyundai and Kia. I, for one, can’t wait until gas-guzzlers are a thing of the past. I’ve lived on four different continents, and I’m infuriated that in 2022, sending money internationally is still an industry full of “solutions” that make you wonder who’s in charge around here. to solve this problem once and for all, “making transactions simple.” Nobody tell them about Wise, Xe, Western Union, WorldRemit, HiFX, Remitly, OFX, MoneyGram, Xoom, or any of the other dozens of well-funded companies already out there. Let’s do a quick lap to see what else you may have missed: / Getty Images If your early-stage startup doesn’t have enough cash on hand to last until the fall of 2023, you might have a problem. As a general rule, “seed-stage and Series A-stage companies should plan to have at least 12 to 18 months of runway,” says angel investor Marjorie Radlo-Zandi. In a follow-up to her , she shares her burn rate calculator and five tips for managing cash on hand. “Projections are useful,” she says, “but you can’t account for unexpected problems or opportunities.” Put a tally in the Microsoft column. Six years into a broader investigation of Russian state-sponsored hacking group APT28, Microsoft announced this week that it the group, operated by Russian military intelligence, used to target institutions in Ukraine. Spotify gives us some TikTok vibes today. The streaming service is on a roll with yet another that it is testing. We report that this time it is “a on the app’s home screen, which introduces users to new music through a feed of (aka those GIFs that appear when you’re listening to certain songs — Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘Brutal’ is accompanied by loop of a cake being smashed, for example).” This follows last week’s test of an “ ” for podcasts. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter! We know Jan would be rolling her eyes at Marcia right now for discussing the social media giant this week, but there is just too much going on to not mention it. Twitter offered up new additions to its (images with alt text will contain an “ALT” badge in the corner of the image) and you can now (we’ll have to learn not to take that one personally). Here are some other stories to put on your reading list for today: |
TechCrunch+ roundup: Psychedelic biotech, Gogoro’s SPAC, H-1Bs for Ukrainians | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | You may not have heard of Amadeus, but if you’ve taken a trip, you’ve probably interacted with its tech stack. Launched in 1987, the company provides hundreds of transportation and hospitality providers with inventory management and booking services. “In short, it covers just about every aspect of travel IT imaginable,” writes enterprise reporter Ron Miller. For years, Amadeus managed its own infrastructure, but as the pandemic slowed global travel to a trickle, its executive team realized that . To learn more about its planned three-year migration to the public cloud, Ron interviewed Sébastien Pellisé, deputy lead for public cloud transformation, and Fredrik Odeen, Amadeus’ lead for public cloud transformation and corporate strategy, They shared their process for evaluating cloud vendors, described Amadeus’ shift to a DevOps model, and explained how they’re communicating the predicted benefits to customers. “Our engineers are excited about this move,” said Pellisé. Amadeus has 16,000 employees and earned more than $2 billion in revenue last year, but early-stage startups can learn from its digital transition, Ron writes. “As your technology becomes more dated, you too will have to make similar decisions.” Thanks very much for reading — have a great weekend! Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
If you can map every oasis in a desert, you’ve created a transportation network. Gogoro, which operates a battery-swapping platform for two-wheeled EVs in urban areas, is doing something similar: On Monday, it finalized a SPAC merger with Poema Global that will generate an estimated $335 million in cash. “Gogoro will use the fresh funds from its IPO to continue to expand in Taiwan as it branches outward to larger markets like China, India and Indonesia,” writes transportation reporter Rebecca Bellan. / Getty Images A few years ago, ingesting small quantities of psychedelics to elevate one’s mood or productivity was fodder for Silicon Valley small talk. Today, psychedelic therapeutics are being used to treat a variety of mental health issues. And as more regions decriminalize the use of plant-based substances, investors are taking notice. With plans to raise a $25 million fund and more than $15 million already invested, PsyMed Ventures focuses on early-stage startups developing psychedelic therapeutics. In a TC+ guest post, partners Matias Serebrinsky and Greg Kubin explore their investment thesis in detail: “We believe in a future where psychedelic therapy will be as common as going to the dentist, but the path won’t be easy.” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch With VCs pulling back on the reins, valuations slipping, and 2021’s hype fading, founders are finding themselves working harder to raise capital than they were in 2021, Alex Wilhelm found in his analysis of early data from DocSend. “When we consider that sentiment shift and the fact that totals fell from fourth-quarter levels, we can infer that Q2 2022 could easily report another sequential decline in global and U.S. venture capital activity,” he writes. / Getty Images After unknown parties stole $625 million from play-to-earn crypto game Axie Infinity last week, the studio behind the game announced that it had raised $150 million to compensate users. “What’s interesting about this funding round is that it was led by crypto exchange Binance — the highest-volume exchange globally — although Binance hadn’t participated in Sky Mavis’ prior raises,” writes Anita Ramaswamy. “Today’s investment showcases, if anything, how important Axie’s precedent is to the development of the broader ecosystem – and how willing VCs and crypto incumbents are to bend over backward to make sure it succeeds.” / Getty Images Because so many deep tech startups operate on the bleeding edge, founders in this space have a harder time raising funds, acquiring customers and reaching product-market fit. Many of these companies will stall early because they never move from pilot stage to a full-scale rollout. “This is a big, widespread, industry-specific problem,” says Champ Suthipongchai, co-founder and general partner at Creative Ventures. “While I don’t presume to have a silver bullet solution, I do know three ways deep tech founders can make sure their time in pilot purgatory ends in a rollout.” / Getty Images According to Marc Schröder, managing partner at MGV, “seed-stage investing is the best place for venture capital to deploy when global uncertainty sprouts up.” Instead of pouring money into “companies that required massive growth and scale to continue growing into their valuations,” investors are turning to smaller startups with “more reasonable scaling challenges.” Eventually, any extended chill in the public markets will start to shrink the amount of resources available for startups, “but that might not be the worst thing for investors looking to double down on their investments at attractive prices,” says Schröder. / Getty Images In an interview with reporter Jacquelyn Melinek, Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon explained how his plans to purchase $10 billion in bitcoin will help integrate the TerraUSD (UST) “stablecoin deeper into the crypto ecosystem.” Terra will back UST with additional Layer 1 blockchains as it expands its ecosystem, said Kwon. “We’re big believers of Bitcoin, so we’re just going to continue to buy whenever there’s an opportunity to.” |
What Glossier got wrong | Evan J. Zimmerman | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | , Glossier has laid off about 80 employees (or a third of its corporate workforce), most of whom were on its tech team. Although the company focused on technology when it was really a beauty business, it is not hard to see these layoffs in the light of the public market tech meltdown. Many venture-backed companies believe they are tech companies — indeed, they were born that way — when in fact they are not. Leaders at these companies need to learn the business they are actually in, what makes those companies good, and direct their technical efforts towards those ends. Technology companies get the richest valuations and are endowed with the highest multiples of any sector. Pursuing those higher multiples means going to great lengths to show, both operationally and financially, that you “look” like a tech company. For a firm like Glossier, looking like a tech company is the difference between having a price-to-sales ratio of 5.44, like Estée Lauder, or 31.6, like MongoDB. Glossier founder and CEO Emily Weiss knows it, and her investors do, too. Tech companies are highly valued for a reason: when they work, they have high growth rates and very high margins. Companies therefore often make product decisions to achieve a tech business profile — like investing in engineering or eschewing margin-hitting operations. Hunter Walk, for example, pointed out that pursuing software margins may be one reason social media companies . The difficulty with these types of decisions is that you will direct your technical talent at the wrong problems. But the narration changes once you go public. The markets work by taking companies, categorizing them, and then evaluating them on well-known metrics. You don’t get to decide what kind of company you are. You might market yourself as a tech company, and you may very well use technology, but if the public markets decide you’re a beauty company then, well, you’re a beauty company (at least for valuation purposes) until you prove otherwise. |
A newcomer to AI data labeling, Encord looks to ride a rising tidal wave | Emma Betuel | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | Before you can even think about building an algorithm to read an X-ray or interpret a blood smear, the machine has to know what’s what in an image. All of the promise of AI in healthcare — an area that has attracted in private investment in 2021, can’t be realized without that tell machines what exactly they’re looking for. Creating those labeled data sets is becoming an industry itself, boasting companies well north of unicorn status. Today, Encord, a small startup just out of Y Combinator, is looking to take a piece of the action. Aiming to generate labeled data sets for computer vision projects, Encord launched its own beta version of an AI-assisted labeling program called CordVision. The launch follows pilot programs at , and It has also been tested by and Encord has developed a set of tools that allow radiologists to zoom in on DICOM images, a format universally used to transmit medical images. And instead of having a radiologist sit down and annotate an entire image, the software is designed to ensure that only key portions of the image are labeled. Encord was founded in 2020 by Eric Landau, who has a background in applied physics, and Ulrik Stig Hansen. Hansen was working on a master’s thesis project at Imperial College London centered around visualizing large medical image data sets. It was Hansen who initially noticed how time-consuming it was to curate labeled data sets. Those labeled data sets are important because they provide “ground truths” which algorithms can learn from. There are some ways to build AI that don’t require labeled data sets, but largely AI (especially in healthcare) has relied on supervised learning, which requires them. To create a labeled data set, more than one doctor will literally go through the images one by one, drawing polygons around relevant features. Other times, it can be done with open source tools or sensors. But either way, scientific literature suggests this step is a major bottleneck in the healthcare AI world, especially when it comes to radiology, which is one area where AI has been predicted to make major strides, but has largely failed to deliver any major paradigm shifts. “I know there’s a lot of skepticism [of AI in the medical world]. We think the progress is really slow,” Landau told TechCrunch. “We think that transitioning to an approach where you really think about the training data in the first place will help accelerate the progression of these models.” As the authors of a 2021 in Frontiers in Radiology note, it takes human labelers as long as 24 years’ worth of work to label a data set of about 100,000 images. Another 2021 issued by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) notes that “obtaining labeled data in medical image analysis can be time-consuming and expensive.” But it also points out that new techniques are emerging that can speed things up. Encord DICOM labeling platform Ironically, those new techniques are themselves versions of artificial intelligence. That 2021 Frontiers in Radiology paper, for instance, showed that applying an active learning approach, the process could be 87% faster. It would take just 3.2 work-years, as opposed to the 24 years, to go back to the 100,000 images example. CordVision, basically, is a version of an active learning process called micro-modeling. That technique, broadly, works by having a team label a small, representative sample of the images. Then a specific AI is trained on those images and then applied to the wider pool, which the AI labels. Then human reviewers can check the AI’s work as opposed to doing the labeling from scratch. Landu in a blog post on his Medium page: Imagine making an algorithm designed to detect The Batman in Batman movies. Your micro-model would be trained on five images depicting the Christian Bale batman. Another might be trained to recognize Ben Affleck’s Batman, and so on. All together, you build the bigger algorithm using each small part, then set it free on the series as a whole. “That’s something that we found works quite well, because you could get away with doing very, very few annotations and bootstrapping the process,” he said. Encord has published data to back up Landau’s claims. For instance, conducted in conjunction with Kings College London compared CordVision with a labeling program developed by Intel. Five labelers addressed 25,744 endoscopy video frames. The gastroenterologists who used CordVision moved 6.4 times faster. The method was also effective when applied to a test set of 15,521 COVID-19 X-rays. People reviewed just 5% of the total images, and the final accuracy of an AI labeling model was 93.7%. That said, Enord is far from the only company that has identified this bottleneck and sought to use AI to smooth out the labeling process. Existing companies in this space are already reporting large valuations. For instance, Scale AI reached a in 2021 and Snorkel has . The company’s biggest competitor, by Landau’s admission, is probably Labelbox. Labelbox boasted about 50 customers when TechCrunch covered them at Series A stage. In January the company closed a $110 million Series D putting it within spitting distance of the $1 billion mark. CordVision is still a very small fish. But it’s caught up in a data labeling tidal wave. Landau says the company is going after places that are still using open-source or internal tools to do their own data labeling. So far, the company has raised $17.1 in seed and Series A funding since graduating from Y Combinator. The company has grown from its two founders to a team of 20 people. Encord, Landau says, isn’t burning through cash. The company isn’t seeking fundraising right now, and believes that the current raises will be enough to get this tool through the commercialization process. |
The album you’ve been waiting 24 years for is dropping exclusively on a paid podcasting service | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | At least you don’t have to spend to get your hands on Black Star’s second album. And hey, with 24 years between records, no one can accuse the duo of rushing “No Fear of Time,” unlike other projects. After years of failed attempts to drive subscriptions with album release exclusives, however, Black Star’s latest is arriving . The app arrived on the scene two years ago with a boatload of funding and the goal of becoming the Netflix of podcasting. Its debut was met with pushback from some of the industry’s biggest names with its “podcasts don’t need ads” messaging. As a result, it launched . Like Netflix before it, Luminary has pushed on with original content, signing on names like Trevor Noah, Roxane Gay and Russell Brand. As it happens, Black Star’s Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli co-host the show “The Midnight Miracle with Dave Chappelle on the podcast network (weird coincidence, I realize). Which will be serving up some supplementary content ahead of the album’s release. The duo’s first album, “Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star,” became a bona fide all-time hip-hop classic following its release in 1998. The duo have continued to collaborate over the years, including an appearance in Chappelle’s 2006 Michel Gondry-directed documentary “Block Party,” but ultimately a second album would prove more elusive than But unlike that album, the latest Black Star is produced by Madlib, not Axl Rose — a definite point in its favor. “About 3-4 years ago I was visiting Yasiin in Europe and we started to talk about songs to do on an album, so I flew an engineer out just to see what that would be,” Kweli says of the new album. Once I realized this conversation is starting to organically become a creative conversation, I started making sure to have the engineer around at all times. There was one day we were just in a hotel listening to Madlib beats, and he’s like ‘Play that Madlib tape again.’ I’m playing the beats and he starts doing rhymes to the beats. And that’s how we did the first song.” “No Fear of Time” arrives May 3, exclusively on Luminary. |
Nissan’s first solid-state EV planned for 2028 | Jaclyn Trop | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | Nissan unveiled Friday a prototype production facility for solid-state batteries, a critical step in the automaker’s bid to develop and deliver an EV powered by the next-generation battery technology by 2028. Battery technology is seen by Nissan — and many others — as the key to unlocking cheaper, longer-range EVs for the masses. It’s prompted a growing list of automakers, startups and investors to bet on solid-state batteries, a technology that uses a solid electrolyte and not a liquid or gel-based electrolyte found in lithium-ion batteries. “To further democratize EVs, the key innovation is the battery,” Kazuhiro Doi, head of Nissan Research Center, said in a briefing. Nissan said that refining solid-state battery technology can make EVs as affordable as gasoline-powered vehicles by the end of the decade. Specifically, Nissan said all-solid-state batteries can be reduced to $75 per kWh in fiscal 2028 and to $65 per kWh thereafter, placing EVs at the same cost level as gasoline-powered vehicles. Solid-state batteries have double the energy density of a conventional lithium-ion battery, which theoretically translates to longer range and faster charge times, all while using cheaper materials than other EVs on the road today. In addition to higher energy density, these batteries last longer and are considered safer than a lithium-ion battery. That’s why several automakers, including General Motors, , Mercedes-Benz , have invested in solid-state batteries startups as they race to electrify their portfolios. Volkswagen-backed QuantumScape aims to begin selling them in 2024, followed by a production model from Toyota in 2025. However, commercializing solid-state batteries for electric vehicles has proved challenging. Currently, the batteries are expensive to manufacture and difficult to scale. And while the benefits are plentiful, even Nissan acknowledges that even batteries with a solid electrolyte are not without risk. A liquid electrolyte, which is found in today’s lithium-ion batteries, can be a fire risk. But doubling the energy density into a . |
Netflix might buy a piece of NFL Films, report claims | Lauren Forristal | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | The NFL is in talks with media companies about selling equity in NFL Films, according to sources familiar with what occurred at last week’s annual owners’ meetings, reported this week. The most notable company that was mentioned was reportedly Netflix. While Netflix has given no indication that it will cover live sports any time soon, it has ventured down the road of sports documentaries and reality programming. This includes titles such as “The Last Dance,” “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” as well as the upcoming reality series around the PGA. “If you think about NFL Films … it’s a robust library with documentary power… You could see ‘Hard Knocks’ and all of those things being sold similar to Formula One or PGA right on a Netflix service,” said a team official who was in the room for the presentation, shared by The Athletic. The NFL did not respond to a request for comment. Netflix didn’t provide a comment. There’s no indication beyond The Athletic’s report that such discussions were taking place. But it is an interesting idea to consider. Today, there are no live games on Netflix, nor is there a ton of sports content. Such a move would give the streaming service a spot in the sports arena of the streaming world. The league has also reportedly spoken with Amazon, Apple, ESPN, Paramount, Peacock, Roku, Fubu, and DAZN regarding the NFL Media process, which were all represented on slide presentations at the meeting, The Athletic claimed. These media companies are all familiar with live sports and the benefits behind it. The process could ultimately result in a portion of NFL Films being sold separately from its long-marketed minority stake in NFL Media. In addition, The NFL is apparently on the hunt for a partner that can help distribute content. There’s also the question if the league will include an in NFL Media or NFL Films in the Sunday Ticket out-of-market games package. Currently, for the NFL Media stake, as well as Sunday Ticket. However, Amazon has , so there’s a big possibility it will be considered as well. The decision is still a ways away since DirecTV’s deal for Sunday Tickets has another season to go, and there is no ticking deadline for the equity piece. to drive a hard financial bargain and has become accustomed to its partners paying a premium for the privilege of doing business with . ESPN (ABC, ESPN+), Fox (Tubi), CBS (Paramount+), NBC (Peacock), and Amazon Prime Video (NFL Network) spent upwards of each on broadcasting rights last year for NFL packages. The National Football League, and sports leagues in general, are a necessity for networks as it is a driver of advertising and promotion, let alone one of the bigger reasons why audiences still turn to television, aside from news. While that may fly with networks, the NFL will have to try a little harder with streamers. Although Netflix may have no problem with the hefty price tag, being that it invested last year, the service also compensated for this by . The company raised the standard plan to $15.49/month (which used to be $13.99), its basic plan to $9.99/month (up from $8.99), and its 4K tier is now $19.99/month (compared to the previous $17.99). Will subscribers be able to afford Netflix’s newly added NFL content? A Mount Laurel, New Jersey-based company, NFL Films was founded by Ed Sabol as Blair Motion Pictures in 1962. Sabol notoriously won the rights to film the 1962 NFL championship game and Commissioner Pete Rozelle was impressed enough to buy the new production company a year later. His son, Steve Sabol, was running the company until his death ten years ago. Together, the Sabol men revolutionized sports TV, changing the way people view football as a sport. The cinematic slow-motion shots of players catching a spiraling football in the air, with dramatic narration, suspenseful music, and a crowd going wild, helps to grow suspense in an already riveting sport. Sport as a visual and audio art form was a foreign concept before NFL Films, which won over 100 Emmys under the Sabols, who are featured in the . NFL Films’ most popular docu-series is “Hard Knocks,” where one NFL team is shown going to training camp before the upcoming football season begins. Season 19 of “Hard Knocks” is set to debut in August 2022 and will feature the . While “Hard Knocks” may be produced by HBO, it’s not far out of the realm to imagine Netflix having a similar reality-style show about the NFL. Granted, the service has “Last Chance U,” a slightly amateur version featuring junior college football teams following their dreams. Netflix values a library of content differently than live rights, which it has no experience with at all. The service would pair nicely with NFL Films, which produces an array of sports content such as NFL-focused commercials, feature films, TV programs, documentaries, as well as major events, and awards shows. Unlike other specific NFL properties like NFL Network ( ) and the NFL RedZone channel — both of which need a much more strategic fit for interested media and tech companies — the production company doesn’t necessarily need to have a partner that is interested in the league. Netflix is already evolving into a broader entertainment hub with its video games venture, so adding more sports content to the mix would further add to its goal of reaching niche audiences. |
Apply to pitch your startup at TC Sessions: Mobility | Neesha A. Tambe | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | is back… in person! TechCrunch Editorial is on the hunt for six early stage startups to feature in a pitch-off on the Main Stage. On May 18-20, the industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies. Founders – you have what it takes. Get in the driver’s seat and head to the starting line – apply . This is a star-studded event. Founders will be on the same stage as Waymo co-CEO , Zoox co-founder , Joby Aviation’s and more. In addition to the opportunity to pitch, you’ll get training with TC’s Startup Battlefield Editor, two complimentary passes to the entire TC Sessions: Mobility event and an invitation to showcase on the Disrupt San Francisco 2022 show floor. The deadline to is April 21.
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Does your startup have enough runway? 5 factors to consider | Marjorie Radlo-Zandi | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | investor call, the CEO calmly said, “We only have two months of runway left.” The fact that we were on Zoom couldn’t hide the investors’ reactions — a few faces turned decidedly pale. As an angel investor, I’ve faced variations of this scenario, some more consequential than others. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often. Just as airplanes need a runway to be of a minimum length to safely take off and land, startups must have sufficient cash to reach product-market fit. I’m using “runway” as a metaphor to describe how much cash a company has at its disposal to operate before it runs out of money. A plane’s size and weight dictates how long a runway it requires. Likewise, the amount of cash runway a startup needs varies by what it is doing. A life science company that is looking for FDA approvals usually needs more than a SaaS startup. It’s critical to determine as accurately as possible the runway you’ll require, adding in contingency funds for unexpected challenges. Otherwise, if your company runs low on cash, you risk a “fire sale” price for the business. Or worse, your company could be forced to cease operations. Here are five ideas to consider and remember when you’re thinking about runway. Seed-stage and Series A-stage companies should plan to have at least 12 to 18 months of runway. Put as much cash on hand as possible specifically toward product development or growing revenues so you have more time to ramp up and make significant progress. Being cash-flow positive will benefit your next round of funding or boost your company’s self-reliance. It’s important to be capital efficient and only use funds to either expand revenue, increase product development or both. If your company earns one dollar for every dollar spent on growth or product development, it has a capital efficiency ratio of 1:1. Aiming for capital efficiency encourages you to make better business decisions about where to tweak expenses before increasing investments. A life science company I invested in had contracts with several organizations for specialized chemistry required for product development. Rather than pursue large contracts with each of these organizations, the company gave them smaller contracts, and based on performance, it awarded a larger contract to the firm that delivered the most value. To calculate how much runway your company requires, you should determine your burn rate: the amount of cash needed to run your business, offset by revenues. Specifically, calculate monthly costs: Think salaries, overhead, capital needs, marketing, R&D costs and other expenses, along with revenues. |
Like a frog in a pot on the stove, I am offering this slowly warming Hot Take | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | I’ve been writing about climate change for about 22 seconds. about how they see the world of climate change. I’ve read every report, spoken to scores of founders and, when the (IPCC) released the other day, I took a couple of deep breaths, popped a to (ineffectively) ward off an anxiety episode and got to reading. The thing to know about the IPCC is that while it ain’t perfect, it’s certainly thorough. More than 270 authors, more than 34,000 sources and a comprehensive peer-review process that yielded more than 62,000 comments and pieces of feedback mean that it’s one of the most comprehensively sourced and researched annual reports we have about climate change and what’s happening on this pale blue dot we’re on, careening around a molten ball of death and fire at 67,000 miles per hour. The major takeaway from the report is that “it isn’t too late, but we’re beyond prevention”. In other words, even if we somehow magically manage to curtail all new emissions, we’re still pretty fuxored, as I believe the kids say these days. It has been beyond frustrating, over the past few years, to hear the “discussion” regress to “is this even real?” and “it may be real but it wasn’t our fault”, and while the planet hangs its proverbial head in shame and despaiir over a blazing barbecue grill. The report doesn’t mince words: We are facing disruption to people, ecosystems and food supply, and we’re facing a deeply troubling and unknown future. In our lifetimes — in the next 20 years — we’re going to see some very significant shifts in the way the planet eats, sleeps and breathes. She’s a planet that’s been under observation for as long as I’ve been alive, and the doctors are scratching their heads as to whether it’s time to transfer her to the intensive care unit, because things ain’t looking good. “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC. “It shows that climate change is a grave and mounting threat to our wellbeing and a healthy planet. Our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks.” The truth is that the world faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards over the next two decades with global warming of 1.5°C. The cruel misfortune here is that even if we manage to stay under 1.4°C, that doesn’t mean we’re magically going to be okay. And the second kicker is that even temporarily exceeding this 1.5°C warming level will result in additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible. Risks for society will increase, including to infrastructure and low-lying coastal settlements. The tech exodus from California to Miami — famously one of the lowest-level cities, that will be — hurts my soul. To me, it’s an indication of the short-term thinking of tech bros, and, by extension, the venture capital industry itself. In a world where venture capital operates at 7-10 year timescales, but the event horizon for abject disaster is slightly beyond that time frame, we simply don’t have the financial incentives for the VCs to solve the biggest problems. When the event horizon gets close enough that venture capital have a meaningful impact on the issue, we’re already standing around with water up to our ankles and . That isn’t to say that is ineffectual. Nor that it’s not helpful to tackle some of the issues climate startups are tackling. But what’s lacking, overall, is a bold vision to actually want to roll our sleeves up and make a real difference. The number of VCs who — on the record — are willing to admit that they are in it for the money, and that it’s a nice perk to be saving the planet, is staggering. Perhaps I am needlessly upset about this, but , and for every time some famous millionaire slaps some other famous millionaire at a globally televised feel-good cavalcade for the Hollywood elite, we allow ourselves to be swept away with the tide and forget about the climate. Until the next hurricane causes all the local supermarkets to be sold out of cat food, or the next wildfire season burns down two-thirds of California and the pendulum swings back to caring about the environment again for a hot minute. “This report recognizes the interdependence of climate, biodiversity and people and integrates natural, social and economic sciences more strongly than earlier IPCC assessments,” said Lee. “It emphasizes the urgency of immediate and more ambitious action to address climate risks. Half measures are no longer an option.” In a country that gives the fewest number of shits it can get away with under late-stage capitalism, I grow more and more uneasy about our chances to be able to navigate our way through the upcoming storm. The COVID-19 pandemic fills me with equal measures of dread and hope. Dread, because on an individual responsibility level, it’s embarrassing that we can’t find it in our hearts to agree that wearing masks to look after each other — a $0.10 piece of cloth that can save a fellow human’s life — is a good idea. What are we even doing with ourselves? Hope, because it showed that when the world’s specialist scientists agree to rally around a common goal (okay, sure, with an enormous financial jackpot dangled in front of the scientific community), . The cynic in me thinks “sure, it’s easy to rally around a vaccine when people are being carted to hospital by the boatload,” but it does show that with the right incentives, humans truly can move mountains, one pebble at a time, if we must. The deep tragedy with climate change is that people dying, but we are all, collectively, a group of dim-witted, under-educated tadpoles in a giant vat on a slow burn. We aren’t going to get out alive, but the pot is warming up slowly enough that we may just enjoy the bath water until we perish, one by one. The poor and under-resourced first, of course. Does that sound like a world you want to live in? Yeah, me neither. So here’s my challenge: Do you have talent? Skills? Resources? A brain that works, a pair of hands that can help? Then stop making dog-walking apps, give web3 a miss and . We are, collectively, better than that. If you want to shift what you’re doing toward tackling an aspect of the climate crisis, do that. If you are happy where you are, use your social capital to influence how your company does business. Are you carbon neutral? Can your company recycle, use cleaner power, travel less, switch power providers, etc? Then do that. Set goals beyond the recommended minimums, and don’t let your communities — whether it’s your neighborhood, your company, your family or your friends — get away with not caring and not taking action. “The scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future,” said IPCC Working Group II Co-Chair Hans-Otto Pörtner. Listen to him, and the works of 34,000 groups of scientists. If it turns out that saving the planet is the wrong thing to do, we can always choose to burn it to cinders at a later date. For now, let’s keep our options open, eh? |
Study of Apple’s ATT impact highlights competition concerns | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | An interesting new of 1,759 iOS apps before and after Apple implemented a major privacy feature last year which required developers to ask permission to track app users — aka App Tracking Transparency (ATT) — has found the measure has made tracking more difficult by preventing the collection of the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), which can be used for cross-app user tracking. However, the researchers found little change to tracking libraries baked into apps and also saw many apps still collecting tracking data despite the user having asked the apps not to be tracked. Additionally, they found evidence of app makers engaging in privacy-hostile fingerprinting of users, through the use of server-side code, in a bid to circumvent Apple’s ATT — suggesting Cupertino’s move may be motivating a counter movement by developers to deploy other means to keep tracking iOS users. “We even found a real-world example of Umeng, a subsidiary of the Chinese tech company Alibaba, using their server-side code to provide apps with a fingerprinting-derived cross-app identifier,” they write. “The use of fingerprinting is in violation of Apple’s policies, and raises questions around to what extent the company is able to enforce its policies. ATT might ultimately encourage a shift of tracking technologies behind the scenes, so that they are outside of Apple’s reach. In other words, Apple’s new rules might lead to even less transparency around tracking than we currently have, including for academic researchers.” The research paper, which is entitled “Goodbye Tracking? Impact of iOS App Tracking Transparency and Privacy Labels”, is the work of four academics affiliated with the University of Oxford and a fifth independent U.S.-based researcher. It’s worth noting that it’s been published as a pre-print — meaning it has not yet been peer reviewed. Note that this is still a pre-print, and there might be minor changes of the paper until publication. We analysed two versions of 1,759 iOS apps from the UK App Store: one version from before iOS 14 and one that has been updated to comply with the new rules. — Konrad Kollnig (@FascinatingTech) Another component of the study looked at the “privacy nutrition labels” Apple introduced to iOS at the — with the researchers concluding that these labels are often inaccurate. Apple’s system, which aims to provide iOS users with an at-a-glance overview of how much data they’re giving up to use an app, requires app developers to self-declare how they process user data. And here the researchers found “notable discrepancies” between apps’ disclosed and actual data practices — which they suggest may be creating a false sense of security for consumers and misleading them over how much privacy they’re giving up to use an app. “Our findings suggest that tracking companies, especially larger ones with access to large troves of first party, still track users behind the scenes,” they write in a section discussing how continued, consentless tracking may be reinforcing both the power of gatekeepers and the opacity of the mobile data ecosystem. “They can do this through a range of methods, including using IP addresses to link installation-specific IDs across apps and through the sign-in functionality provided by individual apps (e.g. Google or Facebook sign-in, or email address). “Especially in combination with further user and device characteristics, which our data confirmed are still widely collected by tracking companies, it would be possible to analyse user behaviour across apps and websites (i.e. fingerprinting and cohort tracking). A direct result of the ATT could therefore be that existing power imbalances in the digital tracking ecosystem get reinforced.” The paper may add fuel to arguments that try to pitch competition law against privacy rights as the paper’s authors suggests their findings back the view that Apple and other large companies have been able to increase their market power as a result of implementing measures like ATT which give users more agency over their privacy. Apple was contacted for comment on the research paper but at the time of writing the company had not responded. Competition authorities have already fielded a of over Apple’s ATT. While a separate plan by Google to deprecate support for tracking cookies in its Chrome browser — and switch to alternative ad targeting technologies (which the tech giant has also ) — has similarly been targeted for antitrust complaints in recent months. As it stands, neither move by the pair of mobile gatekeepers, Apple’s ATT or Google’s self-styled “Privacy Sandbox”, has been outright blocked by competition regulators, although Google’s Sandbox plan remains under close monitoring in Europe following a U.K. antitrust intervention which led the company to offer over how it will develop the tech stack. The interventions have also very likely contributed to . The EU is also conducting a , which includes probing the Sandbox plan — although, at the time it announced the investigation, it stressed that any decision would need to consider user privacy too, writing that it would “take into account the need to protect user privacy, in accordance with EU laws in this respect, such as the General Data Protection Regulation”, and emphasizing that: “Competition law and data protection laws must work hand in hand to ensure that display advertising markets operate on a level playing field in which all market participants protect user privacy in the same manner.” Joint working by the U.K.’s competition (CMA) and privacy regulators (ICO) has also been the approach undertaken throughout the CMA’s Privacy Sandbox procedure. And in an , the outgoing U.K. information commissioner told the adtech industry it needed to move away from tracking and profiling-based ad targeting — urging the development of alternative ad targeting technologies that don’t require processing people’s data. In discussion in their research paper, the researchers go on to speculate that reduced access to permanent user identifiers as a result of Apple’s ATT could — over time — “substantially improve” app privacy, pointing exactly to these wider shifts underway to recast ad-targeting technologies (such as Google’s Sandbox) which claim to be better for privacy, although as the researchers also note those claims need to be interrogated — as having the potential to flip economic calculations away from privacy-hostile techniques like fingerprinting. However they predict that this migration away from tracking is further concentrating the market power of platform gatekeepers. “While in the short run, some companies might try to replace the IDFA with statistical identifiers, the reduced access to non-probabilistic cross-app identifiers might make it very hard for data brokers and other smaller tracker companies to compete. Techniques like fingerprinting and cohort tracking may end up not being competitive enough compared to more privacy-preserving, on-device solutions,” they suggest. “We are already seeing a shift of the advertising industry towards the adoption of such solutions, driven by decisions of platform gatekeepers (e.g. Google’s FloC / Topics API and Android Privacy Sandbox, Apple’s ATT and Privacy Nutrition Labels), though more discussion is needed if these new technologies protect privacy meaningfully. “The net result, however, of this shift towards more privacy preserving methods is likely going to be more concentration with the existing platform gatekeepers, as the early reports on the tripled marketing share of Apple, the planned overhaul of advertising technologies by Facebook/Meta and others, and the shifting spending patterns of advertisers suggest. At the end of the day, advertising to iOS users — being some of the wealthiest individuals — will be an opportunity that many advertisers cannot miss out on, and so they will rely on the advertising technologies of the larger tech companies to continue targeting the right audiences with their ads.” The paper also calls out the failure of European regulators and policymakers to crack down on tracking by enforcing privacy laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), writing that: “[I]t is worrying that a few changes by a private company (Apple) seem to have changed data protection in apps more than many years of high-level discussion and efforts by regulators, policymakers and others. This highlights the relative power of these gatekeeper companies, and the failure of regulators thus far to enforce the GDPR adequately. An effective approach to increase compliance with data protection law and privacy protections in practice might be more targeted regulation of the gatekeepers of the app ecosystem; so far, there exists no targeted regulation in the US, UK and EU.” Targeted regulation is coming down the pipe for internet gatekeepers, though. Albeit at a pace that’s orders of magnitude slower than the ads which get auctioned off and microtargeted at eyeballs every millisecond of every day. The European Union reached political agreement on its flagship ex ante competition reform for gatekeepers, aka the Digital Markets Act, just — and lawmakers said then that they expect the regime to come into force in October. (Although it’s unlikely to really kick in until 2023 at the earliest and there’s already debate over whether the Commission has adequate resources to enforce against some of the world’s most valuable companies with their expanding armies of in-house lawyers.) The U.K., meanwhile, has its own bespoke version of this sort of Big Tech competition reform. Its “pro-competition” regime was trailed but is still pending legislation to empower the . And recent have suggested the Digital Competition Bill won’t now be presented to parliament until next year — which would mean further delay. Germany is ahead of the curve here, having passed a competition reform at the start of last year. It has also — — identified Google as subject to this special abuse control regime. Although the country’s FCO still needs to complete the work of investigating the that are causing it competition concern. But it’s possible that we’ll see some gatekeeper targeted enforcements by the FCO this year. |
Discover how Samsung NEXT and Microsoft for Startups can help your business at TC Early Stage | Alexandra Ames | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | TechCrunch Brought to you by The goal of this roundtable is to discuss and learn how to utilize the Design Thinking methodology to create an experience that combines content, creativity and collaboration in building the first iteration of your product. In the end founders will be able to work through the common hurdles faced while transitioning from the idea to product phase. Sponsored by Today, many VCs offer founders more than just capital: They can provide useful counsel, open doors to the right partners, and help provide operational services that get your company off the ground and scale. Hear from Samsung Next alongside YC alumnus Kraftful and leading NFT marketplace SuperRare, as they share how the right investors on their cap table helped them supercharge their launch and growth efforts.
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Google adds self-repair options for Pixel phones | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | More positive news for phone owners looking to take matters into their own hands. Google this morning announced that it’s teaming with iFixit to offer a suite of tools for fixing Pixel handsets. At launch (later this year), kits will be available for common repairs like replacing batteries, displays and camera modules. Along with those bundles, the company says it’s opening up third-party repair options to include more hardware devices like Chromebooks. Currently Pixel owners who don’t want to crack the phones open themselves can take the device to one of around 750 uBreakiFix locations in the U.S. and Canada. Other options are available for those in Germany, Japan and the U.K. The move follows similar announcements — which also partnered with iFixit — and which turned heads given its longtime stance against user self-repair. Like others, Google’s focusing on sustainability messaging here. “When we built the first Pixel phone just five years ago, we made a commitment to design our hardware products in a way that’s sustainable and puts our customers first,” Google Consumer Hardware COO Ana Corrales said in announcing the news. “There’s more to do, including expanding our repair network and improving repairability across our products.” Sustainability is certainly a key concern in our throw-away, planned obsolescent culture. It’s precisely what’s driven companies like Fairphone to make user-repairability a centerpiece of their product design. It’s also, notably, what’s driving a lot of ongoing state and local right-to-repair legislation, which has no doubt played a role in these companies’ proactive embrace of repairability. |
Better.com CTO transitioning to advisory role in wake of mass layoffs | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | She will remain an “advisor” to the company, which will give her “more flexibility to spend more time with her family and additional time in Hong Kong,” according to the internal memo, which is signed by CEO Vishal Garg. Yu’s departure adds to the many questions surrounding the company’s fate. Without a technology head, and with engineering staff being offered voluntary exit packages, it’s not clear in which direction it plans to take its business moving forward. TechCrunch reached out to Yu for comment but had not heard back at the time of writing. |
Sequoia-backed SwooshTransfer raises millions of dollars to automate cross-border payments | Rita Liao | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | China’s export-oriented e-commerce has been flourishing over the last few years as the world demands its electronics, fast fashion, sporting gear and other everyday goods. While the country’s digital exporters revel in the boom, they also face challenges. One of their biggest pain points has been payments collection, which normally involves high costs, delays and insufficient transparency. , which recently received an angel funding round of “several million dollars” from investors, including Sequoia China and K2VC, is one of the new players trying to make international transactions easier for Chinese businesses and beyond. The company declined to disclose the exact funding amount. After a decade at Alibaba and its fintech affiliate giant Ant Group, Max Ma founded SwooshTransfer in 2021 to facilitate cross-border payments for small- and medium-sized enterprises, as well as individuals such as overseas students, for whom tuition payments are often a hassle. The firm’s main strength, Ma told TechCrunch, is applying technology to automate transactions, helping customers reduce costs as well as risks. For instance, rather than employing human employees, the startup uses privacy computing and blockchain to manage the regulatory paperwork needed for cross-border transactions. It also uses artificial intelligence to detect fraud and abnormal user behavior. “Chinese SMEs going global are rising, but there aren’t many friendly tools to support their business,” said Ma. “In international payments, the fees [charged by third-party services] are traditionally opaque, and users receive little or no customized service.” SwooshTransfer’s ambition doesn’t stop at outbound Chinese merchants and students. It has set up a base in the U.K., where it has hired a local executive to be the , a relatively rare decision for globalizing Chinese companies, which tend to be run by managers from China. The startup plans to tout its marketing tools and payments solutions to retailers in the U.K., which it sees as a stepping stone to entering other European markets down the road, said the founder. |
VCs, unicorn founders back Truora, a startup that helps LatAm businesses onboard users via WhatsApp | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | user authentication startup, has raised $15 million in Series A funding co-led by two Silicon Valley-based venture firms. Co-founder and CTO David Cuadrado spent nearly five years as an engineer at Twilio, while co-founder Cesar Pino worked as an engineer at the company for nearly three years. |
Just how much has late-stage venture capital slowed? | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | of 2022 brought a historically huge sum of investment for global startups, with the three-month period outclassing any quarter in 2018, 2019, and 2020, according to data. But despite the fact that Q1 2022 posted historically elevated results, venture capital investment from Q4 2021 levels. And it may be that late-stage startups are those under the most fundraising pressure, data indicates. Through the lens of the pace of unicorn creation, how frequently we’re seeing nine-figure rounds, and late-stage deal sizing more generally, we can see that the most mature startups — or at least the startups they were among the most mature technology upstarts — are seeing the market shifting underfoot. This is not a forecast of doom, mind. There isn’t anything that we can see in market data that indicates that the startup fundraising market is collapsing; indeed, there’s plenty of strength to be found in select markets and regions, something that . But for the huge cohort of startups worth $1 billion or more, new market conditions could force hard decisions in the quarters ahead. And if Q1 trends continue, we could see the pressure on late-stage startups ratchet higher. What is today a headache could become a migraine in short order. Let’s explore the data. To understand how the late-stage market is slowing, let’s observe trends in data that we tracked during the 2021 venture capital bonanza. From the , the following stood out as key metrics in flux: |
Spotify continues testing a TikTok-like discovery feed | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | Spotify is experimenting with yet another new discovery feature, following last week’s test of an “ ” for podcasts. Now, the streaming service is testing a on the app’s home screen, which introduces users to new music through a feed of (AKA, those GIFs that appear when you’re listening to certain songs — Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal” is accompanied by loop of a cake being smashed, for example). Like TikTok, these songs and accompanying canvas loops will be presented in a vertical video feed, which Spotify was first spotted (you can even now in a short-form, vertical video feed — are we okay?). Every day, this feed — which is testing in the U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada — will recommend 15 songs. If you see a track you like on this feed, you can add the song to a playlist, follow the artist or share it to your social channels. When Spotify launched in 2019, were mixed, but the company continued pushing the feature, even for artists to sell musicians looping illustrations. At the time, Spotify claimed that users were 145% more likely to share tracks that included a canvas loop. Now that canvas loops are continuing to be pushed front and center on the app, this probably means for musicians that if you want a better chance of being promoted by Spotify, you might want to make a GIF. |
Daily Crunch: Amazon says it’s ‘disappointed’ after Staten Island fulfillment center workers unionize | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | A fine day to you, and welcome to Daily Crunch for ! It was a slow news day at TC Towers because we double-checked every PR pitch for April Fools’ Day silliness and every PR agency in the world advised their clients to set embargoes to literally any other day of the year. Alex and Mary Ann in a particularly enjoyable episode covering – among other things – Instacart lowering its valuation. Now if you’ll forgive us, . Trick’s on you, 900 people who were trying to fool us into clicking on those links. – and P.S. Before we forget – TechCrunch Disrupt is back with an in-person event in October. Join us! , so you can bring a friend! A quiet news day today, but a few fun gems bubbled to the surface: As a startup nerd with a particular penchant for the art of VC pitching, in a couple of weeks. / Getty Images Operational technology, which allows critical infrastructure to operate 24/7, is one area facing significant cybersecurity risk, and with the U.S. government taking steps to mitigate the threat, security firms addressing this area stand to benefit the most, writes Matt Gatto, a managing director at Insight Partners. In a guest post for TC+, he explains how recent attacks on critical infrastructure, pending regulation, and rising concerns over Russian cyberattacks are creating new opportunities in OT. “It’s a good time for OT security providers to seek funding,” says Gatto. “The combination of increasing OT cyberattacks and the emergence of government regulations is fueling a funding frenzy.” Formlabs I don’t know about y’all, but I’m on my very last nerve, and between elections, pandemics, invasions, and the drummer of my favorite band passing away recently, I’ve lost at least 95% of my sense of humor over the last couple of years. Still, tech startups try to prank the ever-loving bejesus out of us every year. Here are the top five least cringe April Fools’ Day jokes this year. |
Garrett Camp on his startup studio, its new $200M fund and what he makes of ‘Super Pumped’ | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | When I first Garrett Camp in March 2007 on a reporting assignment, it was at the San Francisco-based offices of StumbleUpon, a web-discovery tool that had registered more than 2 million users and drawn attention to Camp, the startup’s twenty-something-year-old founder. Seed funded with $1.5 million by storied angel Ram Shriram among others, StumbleUpon would go on to be acquired several months later by eBay for $75 million. Then Camp’s career really took off. Within two years, Camp had bought StumbleUpon with a syndicate of investors (he later into a newer discovery app called ). Around that same time, in 2009, Camp began tinkering in earnest with his idea for an on-demand car service — one that famously became Uber and which made Camp, who still owned 4% of it when Uber went public in 2019, a . Nearly all the while, Camp, a Calgary native who now in Los Angeles, has churned out fresh company ideas. He can’t help himself, he suggests in a Zoom chat. Saying he recently realized he had “like, 3,500 notes” relating to company building in his iCloud account, he adds that “10% of those are ideas for new things — not all of them [that could be big companies] — but a solid 10” that could. Thankfully for him, he has a venture studio to turn those ideas into a reality, and it seems to be ticking along quite nicely. , established in 2013, has already worked with founders to launch companies like the challenger banking service (valued last year at ); a back-office platform for the self-employed called (it closed a Series A round last year); and an open source business intelligence tool called (it raised in Series B funding last year). Several startups with ties to Expa have also been acquired, including Cmd ( ), Kit ( ) and Reserve ( , which was itself by Amex). Now Camp is doubling down on Expa. For starters, while it originally launched with $50 million to invest, then raised $100 million in 2016, it is today taking the wraps off a new $200 million fund, more than half of which is Camp’s own capital. The rest is coming from multifamily offices like Iconiq and Epiq, individual family offices and wealthy investor friends. Among them is Shriram, who wrote one of the first checks to Google and remains on the board of Alphabet. Expa — which already had offices in San Francisco, LA and New York — also just opened an office in London headed up by David Clark, who headed up external affairs at Uber for two years and more recently worked for , a London-based logistics startup founded by two former Uber execs. (Beacon, with backing from Expa, raised in Series B funding last fall. Another Europe-based Expa deal is , a drone delivery company.) Accordingly, Expa’s team is more substantial than ever. In addition to Camp, Expa is now run by five partners, including its sole managing partner, Roberto Sanabria, who first worked for Camp back at StumbleUpon after logging a handful of years at Google. Its newest partner is Yuri Namikawa, who joined the firm in 2020 as a principal from Norwest Venture Partners. It could grow from here, given Camp’s personal resources — not to mention his track record. Though today Expa doesn’t take pension fund money or count any universities as limited partners, that could change down the road, says Camp. It’s easy to imagine a lot of demand should Expa move in that direction. While it invests in its own ideas — Mix.com is an example, as is Aero, a that Camp sees as a huge opportunity — it also prides itself on working closely with founders with ideas it likes and wants to help along. One example is , a startup that serves as as kind of financial aid advisor for students. Mos founder Amira Yahyaoui “had the idea,” Camp says, but not much else. “We met over dinner through friends, and we hit it off, and I knew she’d be successful. But she was starting from day one, so we helped her a little bit in getting the branding and with products and fundraising advice. We didn’t start the company ourselves but we were a partner.” Similarly, he says that Expa helped the digital freight network (now valued in the ) at its most nascent stages, even buying a company for Convoy founder Dan Lewis, and giving him the domain name as a loan. (Camp says when Lewis raised Convoy’s first round, he paid Camp back. Camp explains that more generally, Expa helps with “branding, product design, early strategy, hiring, product-market fit, how to raise your first round — just basically navigating that first two years.”) Of course, as impressive as Expa may appear, it still has plenty of competition as more funds spring up and heavy-hitters like Tiger move closer and closer to the company-formation stage. Asked about this, Camp suggests that nothing is as valuable as investors who’ve founded companies. He argues that Expa’s particular advantage centers on the fact that its partners were founders very recently and, in some cases, run companies right now. Partner Vítor Lourenço previously helped start the workplace platform ; partner Milun Tesovic founded Cmd, the security startup that Elastic later acquired. Camp is himself CEO of several still-stealth companies. Besides, there are only so many firms whose founders can boast that they helped launch a company as transformative as Uber — a company that looms so large in popular culture that entire books have been written about it — not to mention that new Showtime centered on its famously dramatic rise. Asked if Camp is still in touch with Travis Kalanick, who helped him co-found Uber and was its high-profile CEO until his ouster in 2017 — Camp that let employees know he was out — he says it has “been a while.” He meanwhile notes that Kalanick is “doing pretty well” with his new company, . (Asked if he is an investor in the outfit, which is reportedly valued right now at , Camp says he is not.) Uber founding CEO Travis Kalanick. Getty Images / Elijah Nouvelage As for whether he has read those books, Camp — who sat on Uber’s board until 2020 but was never actively involved in running it — says he met with longtime business reporters Brad Stone and Adam Lashinsky about their respective books involving Uber and that he participated in them but did not read them. He adds that “there are one or two other [books] that I have not [read or participated in].” (New York Times reporter Mike Isaac authored the book “ ” on which the Showtime series is based.) Regarding the TV show, Camp says he watched the first episode, calling it “just so inaccurate. The timing is off. They emphasize certain things so much,” including the swanky office where Uber is headquartered in the show. Camp acknowledges that Uber’s real-life headquarters in San Francisco — blocks from where the Golden State Warriors play — are pretty slick, but he notes the early days of the company were far less glamorous. “I thought [the show] might be a little closer to ‘The Social Network’ where it was a little more accurate,” says Camp, who thinks he will “probably watch” more of the series. Maybe when he finds more time. Right now, he’s still busy building his empire. Indeed, when I tell Camp that his trajectory since our initial sit-down sometimes blows my mind, he laughs. “I wasn’t expecting any of this either.” |
Hear from these amazing investors and founders on TechCrunch Live this April | Matt Burns | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | has an exciting slate of episodes scheduled for April. The speakers come from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds and locations. Like always, each episode features an entrepreneur presenting their early pitch deck along with the investor who funded the company. We want to know how the founder hooked the VC, what makes their partnership work and how other founders can improve their storytelling and pitching. TechCrunch Live helps founders build better venture-backed businesses. We do this by bringing together startup founders and the investors who back them to talk about what, precisely, helped close the deal. What metrics are the investors looking at? What questions did the founders answer that made the VCs want to learn more? How did the founders communicate their grand vision, and what was the step-by-step plan to get there? TechCrunch Live is also home to the TCL Pitch-off, where founders in the audience can get on our virtual stage to pitch their startup to our esteemed guests and get their live feedback. As with any TechCrunch event, this weekly series also features networking, so you can meet and greet other attendees. The event goes down every Wednesday at 11:30 am PT / 2:30 pm ET and is free to attend. Networking and the pitch-off submissions start at 11:30 am PT, followed by the interview at 12 pm PT and the live pitch feedback session at 12:30 pm PT. Only TechCrunch+ members get access to the complete library of on-demand content, so if you haven’t yet, And without any further ado, here is a look at the outstanding guests joining us on TechCrunch Live in April. Andreessen Horowitz / Deel |
TechCrunch+ roundup: YC demo days, pitching warm up drills, Kentucky’s Bitcoin miners | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | The sidewalks along University Avenue in Palo Alto used to be a great place to do business. For decades, there were several blocks where angels and VC partners camped out at café tables, taking pitches between lattes. The pandemic put a stop to that, however. These days, when you have an opportunity to sell an investor on your idea, it will likely be via a video call, not over a croissant or a shawarma. Considering how many calls investors take on a daily basis, “this new pitching model presents a new problem for founders,” says Flint Capital partner Andrew Gershfeld, whose firm reviews approximately “1,500 online pitches per year.” To cut through the noise, to share with their network before they begin approaching angels and VCs. Not a complete deck, but an embellished elevator pitch meant to whet investors’ appetites before you serve them the full meal. Says Gershfeld, “since we’re not getting the same in-person meeting opportunities, this is how founders can hook investors’ attention.” His post identifies the essential elements of a teaser trailer and includes a template for how to structure the presentation “for the best impact.” It’s remarkably detailed. I empathize with Palo Alto café owners, but remote pitching is a skill every founder needs, and it’s an effective way to level the playing field when it comes to fundraising. Start here. Have a great weekend, Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
On Tuesday, April 5 at 2:30 p.m. PT, I’m hosting a with Arvin Gupta, a partner at Mayfield Fund. We’ll discuss general pitching strategies and talk about what he’s looking for at the moment before we take questions from the audience, so please so you can join the conversation. / Getty Images Nothing beats experience like experience, which is why we were happy to run this article written by Zach DeWitt, winner of the 2013 TechCrunch Meetup and Pitch-off. DeWitt, who became a VC after selling Drop, Inc. to Snapchat in 2016, shares five essential lessons for first-time founders wandering in the wilderness in search of an investor who’ll be “a true partner.” There’s an inherent power imbalance when asking a stranger for money, but “VCs should work to earn your trust,” writes DeWitt. “In many ways, it’s like finding the right spouse.” TechCrunch With 18 of the 24 African startups in Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 batch hailing from Nigeria, the country is showing the depth and breadth of its technical talent. In a well-researched report, Tage Kene-Okafor examines how factors such as YC going remote, increased investor interest, and relationships with previous Nigerian YC graduates helped this bustling ecosystem direct more companies into the accelerator than many other tech markets this year. / Getty Images To extract fuel buried hundreds of feet below, the coal industry reshaped Kentucky’s landscape, flattening entire mountaintops and using the waste material to fill in creeks and valleys. But now that demand for coal is dropping as utilities shift to cleaner energy sources, the state is using incentives to attract Bitcoin miners, reports Jacquelyn Melinek. In 2022, Kentucky represents “18.7% of the United States’ total Bitcoin hashrate,” she writes. Today, Bitcoin miners are setting up shop in abandoned factories, warehouses and sure, former coal mines around Kentucky to use coal-generated power to run their rigs. “Bitcoin miners are buyers of last resort for energy,” said Nick Hansen, CEO of Bitcoin hashrate management platform Luxor. “They’ll buy any energy up to a certain price and they can do it anywhere the internet is available.” TechCrunch/Bryce Durbin Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 Demo Day this year featured 414 startups from 42 countries across over 80 sectors. That’s a lot of companies to consider, but in keeping with TechCrunch tradition, Alex Wilhelm, Natasha Mascarenhas, Devin Coldewey, Christine Hall and Mary Ann Azevedo list their favorite startups from day one. TechCrunch/Bryce Durbin Day two of Y Combinator’s W22 uncovered a few trends: many startups are building for the Southeast Asian market, fintech is still a winner, Nigerian startups are hitting it out of the park, and India was again well-represented. To wrap up our coverage, Christine Hall, Alex Wilhelm, Devin Coldewey and Mary Ann Azevedo selected a few companies to watch from the startups that presented on day two. / Getty Images Many online communities are looking to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) to raise funds so they can bring their ideas to life, but without tools and software to make it easier for people to participate, adoption has been slow. However, some investors and consumers are hopeful that as tooling develops, DAOs will generate more use cases than individuals pooling their resources to buy NFTs or objects of popular interest, reports Jacquelyn Melinek. “There will be a lot of evolution [for DAOs] as we start to fit the technology into human behavior,” Sarah Wood, head of operations at Upstream, said. “I see a world where you can use a DAO for your book club, or whatever you want.” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch Image Credits: Richard Drew/AP Goldman Sachs has been active in crypto for a while now, but its Bitcoin options trade last week may have paved the way for more institutional investment firms to begin exploring the cryptocurrency ecosystem, pending regulatory clarity, reports Jacquelyn Melinek. “The trade itself doesn’t mean much, but the fact that it happened and opens the ability for Goldman Sachs to trade this risk is massively significant, and this is just the beginning,” said Tim Grant, head of Europe at Galaxy Digital. “As soon as you get into that part, that set of hurdles, you’re intellectually and operationally free to do other things. It’s not the trade itself, it’s that this will allow us to go in a multitude of directions.” / Getty Images Operational technology, which allows critical infrastructure to operate 24×7, is one area facing significant cybersecurity risk, and with the U.S. government taking steps to mitigate the threat, security firms addressing this area stand to benefit the most, writes Matt Gatto, a managing director at Insight Partners. In a guest post for TC+, he explains how recent attacks on critical infrastructure, pending regulation, and rising concerns over Russian cyberattacks are creating new opportunities in OT. “It’s a good time for OT security providers to seek funding,” says Gatto. “The combination of increasing OT cyberattacks and the emergence of government regulations is fueling a funding frenzy.” Bryce Durbin Founded in 2014, e-bike startup Delfast has offices in Los Angeles and Kiev. But after Russia invaded Ukraine, co-founders Daniel Tonkopi and Serhiy Denysenko started relocating family members and employees, finding ways to support their country’s defense, and, “running a startup during a war,” reports Rebecca Bellan. We all work now in two shifts. The first shift is our usual work and the second shift is our voluntary work. In Kyiv, half of our engineers are at war now. They are in the Territorial Defense Forces, which is like an official civilian army. |
3 things you can do right now to support Ukraine’s IT sector | Emmy Gengler | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | texts started early, asking for power supplies and tools for fixing engines,” said Katia Ryzha, who lives and works in Ivano-Frankivsk, a small city in Western Ukraine. Since the war began, Ukrainian soldiers at the front line have requested tools and other hard-to-find items from their friends and colleagues around the country. “Our team coordinated scavenging garages, basements, and tool sheds, as most of these supplies are hard or impossible to find now in Ukraine,” Katia shared. Katia is the head of the projects and delivery management department of U.S.-based tech company, Softjourn, which has an R&D office and many employees in Western Ukraine. Although we were shocked when the war began, our team managed to unite efforts and organize support to guarantee the safety of our colleagues and their families. Our team, along with the greater tech community in Ukraine, has been united in helping the war efforts. This includes joining Ukraine’s IT army, planning trips to resupply soldiers on the front lines, and donating money and military gear to the army. Katia says that while volunteering is important for the war efforts, it is even more critical to fight on the economic front. Sergiy Fitsak, co-founder and managing director of Softjourn, said, “By working, we’re helping fuel the war effort. Each dollar we earn helps strengthen the Ukrainian economy at a time when it’s critically needed to fund military efforts, provide humanitarian relief to those most affected, protect our communities, and feed and care for our families and neighbors.” For Katia and many of our colleagues living in Ukraine, working has become an act of resistance. In a similar vein, when companies choose to purchase licenses for products built in the country, or to work with consulting companies that may have part or all of their teams there, they nurture the economy, which safeguards the future of Ukraine. As members of the global tech community, we are uniquely positioned to help at this critical juncture. Here are three ways you can pitch in: Prior to the war, Ukraine was home to a $6.8 billion tech industry, according to the IT Ukraine Association. While some companies have had to close or temporarily suspend operations, many are still working and even growing. Softjourn, like many other tech companies in Ukraine, has had contingency plans in place since 2014 to ensure that a Russian invasion wouldn’t stop our progress. We are not stopping our expansion in Ukraine, both in terms of hiring and gaining expertise. Ukraine’s IT sector excels in multiple industries. Fintech, banking, and e-commerce lead the country’s IT exports, but the country’s tech companies are also known for their services for the transportation, logistics, healthcare, education, retail and entertainment sectors, according to the 2021 Ukraine IT report. Ukraine is one of the largest exporters of IT services in Europe. Before this war began, the world was less aware of Ukraine’s position as a leading tech hub in Europe, and increasingly, the world. We can promote Ukraine’s role as a leader in tech to help the country now and in the months and years ahead. Ukraine continues to develop software and IT products for businesses and consumers around the world, which brings in resources to support the military effort, humanitarian aid, and lets companies care for their employees’ family, friends and communities. Ukraine and many firms working in the country have spent decades building industry and technical expertise, and this will not be destroyed by the war with Russia. The tech community has a unique opportunity to help Ukraine’s fight on the economic front. |
‘Mars is very quiet,’ but Perseverance rover still captures Martian sounds for science | Devin Coldewey | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | The microphone aboard Mars Rover Perseverance has in its explorations, but for the most part, “a deep silence prevails” on the red planet. You can still hear the “puff, whir, zap” of the rover’s tools, the hum of the Ingenuity helicopter and the woosh of a gentle Martian breeze in this collection of sounds from the expedition. We when researchers repurposed some sensors on the InSight Mars Lander, but this is a much more purposeful recording. By comparing how an action or event sounds on Mars to how it would sound on Earth, you can learn about the atmosphere and other factors that affect it. “It’s a new sense of investigation we’ve never used before on Mars,” said astrophysicist Sylvestre Maurice of the University of Toulouse, lead author on a study . As the abstract puts it: Prior to the Perseverance rover landing, the acoustic environment of Mars was unknown… theoretical models were uncertain because of a lack of experimental data at low pressure, and the difficulty to characterize turbulence or attenuation in a closed environment. Here using Perseverance microphone recordings, we present the first characterization of Mars’ acoustic environment and pressure fluctuations in the audible range and beyond… These results establish a ground truth for modelling of acoustic processes, which is critical for studies in atmospheres like Mars and Venus. The findings are essentially that sound on Mars is both slow to move and quick to attenuate, or fade out. The speed of sound at sea level on Earth is about 767 miles per hour. On Mars, it was measured at 537 MPH, though that will change with the seasons as the air pressure rises and falls. And while a medium-size sound like a voice drops off after perhaps 200 feet on Earth, that same sound will travel only 26 feet before becoming inaudible. That’s good practical knowledge for designing systems for work and life on Mars — now we know there’s no sense yelling to someone, or perhaps even having audible alarms. Among the sounds the rover’s microphone picked up are the snap of a tunneling laser, the puff of a blower that clears away dust and the steady hum of Ingenuity’s rotors when it takes off — even though it was some distance away. Listen to the sounds of Mars in the compilation below: |
Europe’s AI Act contains powers to order AI models destroyed or retrained, says legal expert | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | The European Union’s planned risk-based framework for regulating artificial intelligence includes powers for oversight bodies to order the withdrawal of a commercial AI system or require that an AI model be retrained if it’s deemed high risk, according to an analysis of the proposal by a legal expert. That suggests there’s significant enforcement firepower lurking in the EU’s (still not yet adopted) Artificial Intelligence Act — assuming the bloc’s patchwork of Member State-level oversight authorities can effectively direct it at harmful algorithms to force product change in the interests of fairness and the public good. The draft Act continues to face criticizm over a number of structural shortcomings — and may still fall far short of the goal of fostering broadly “trustworthy” and “human-centric” AI, which EU lawmakers have claimed for it. But, on paper at least, there looks to be some potent regulatory powers. The European Commission put out its proposal for an AI Act just over — presenting a framework that prohibits a tiny list of AI use cases (such as a China-style social credit scoring system), considered too dangerous to people’s safety or EU citizens’ fundamental rights to be allowed, while regulating other uses based on perceived risk — with a subset of “high risk” use cases subject to a regime of both ex ante (before) and ex post (after) market surveillance. In the draft Act, high-risk systems are explicitly defined as: Biometric identification and categorisation of natural persons; Management and operation of critical infrastructure; Education and vocational training; Employment, workers management and access to self-employment; Access to and enjoyment of essential private services and public services and benefits; Law enforcement; Migration, asylum and border control management; Administration of justice and democratic processes. Under the original proposal, almost nothing is banned outright — and most use cases for AI won’t face serious regulation under the Act as they would be judged to pose “low risk” so largely left to self regulate — with a voluntary code of standards and a certification scheme to recognize compliance AI systems. There is also another category of AIs, such as deepfakes and chatbots, which are judged to fall in the middle and are given some specific transparency requirements to limit their potential to be misused and cause harms. The Commission’s proposal has attracted a fair amount of criticism already — such as from civil society groups who that the proposal falls far short of protecting fundamental rights from AI-fuelled harms like scaled discrimination and blackbox bias. A number of EU institutions have also called explicitly for a than the Commission chose to include in the Act (which is limited to law enforcement used and riddled with caveats). Despite that, major revisions to the proposal seem unlikely at this relatively late stage of the EU’s co-legislative process. But the Council and Parliament are still debating their positions — and final agreement isn’t expected before 2023 — so there is potential for some detail (if not the entire legislative structure) to be tweaked. An of the Act for the U.K.-based by a leading internet law academic, Lilian Edwards, who holds a chair in law, innovation and society at Newcastle University, highlights some of the limitations of the framework — which she says derive from it being locked to existing EU internal market law; and, specifically, from the decision to model it along the lines of existing EU product regulations. Those EU-specific limitations mean it’s not necessarily the best template for other regions to looks to when thinking about how they should regulate AI, she suggests, despite the EU often having ambitions for translating its first mover legislator activity in the digital sphere into a global standards-setting role. (Other limitations on the EU’s competence means the Act can’t touch on military uses of AI at all, for example, most of which you’d expect to be risk-ridden by default.) Unsurprisingly, to anyone with a passing understanding of machine learning, physical product regs for things like washing machines and toys don’t scope well to AI — given the obviously large differences between a manufactured thing being put into the market versus an AI system which may be based on a model created by one entity for a certain purpose and deployed by a very different entity for an entirely distinct use (also after it may have been fed different training data along the way). Nonetheless, the AI Act puts the onus of duties and rights on an initial “provider” (aka “manufacturer”) of an AI system. Edwards argues that’s far too limited a way to oversee how AI is developed and deployed — joining others in recommending that the Act’s category of AI “users”, who only have a “highly limited” regulated role, should be renamed “deployers” and given duties commensurate to their actual responsibility for how the AI system is being applied, however complex that may be to figure out. “Translating this complex web of actors, data, models and services into a legal regime that places duties and rights on certain identifiable actors is extremely hard,” she writes. “The Act fails to take on the work, which is admittedly difficult, of determining what the distribution of sole and joint responsibility should be contextually throughout the AI lifecycle, to protect the fundamental rights of end users most practically and completely. It can be compared unfavourably to recent developments in GDPR case law, where courts are attempting to distribute responsibility for data protection among various controllers at the most relevant times.” Another major shortfall she discusses in the paper is the lack of any recourse in the Act for actual humans to raise complaints about the impact of an AI system upon them personally (or upon a group of people) — which stands in stark contrast to the EU’s existing data protection framework, GDPR, which both enables individual complaints and allows for collective remedy by empowering civil society to complain on behalf of affected individuals. “By deriving the design of the AI Act primarily from product safety and not from other instruments, the role of end users of AI systems as subjects of rights, not just as objects impacted, has been obscured and their human dignity neglected. This is incompatible with an instrument whose function is ostensibly to safeguard fundamental rights,” is her concise assessment there. She is also critical of the “arbitrary” — most likely politically informed — list of systems the Commission has said should be prohibited, without it proving an explanation of how it came up with this handful of banned items. Nor, she says, does the Act allow for changes/additions to prohibited list or for the creation of new top-level categories to be added to the high-risk section, which she assesses as another unfortunate limitation. In capping these prohibited and high-risk lists the Commission likely had its eye on creating certainty for the market — as it seeks to encourage AI ‘innovation’ in parallel. Yet its rhetoric around the Act has — — been heavy with highfalutin talk of fashioning ethical guardrails for “human-centric” AI that reflects European values. So its balance there looks dubious. While Edwards’ paper is framed as a critique she has plenty of praise for the EU Act too — describing it as “the world’s first comprehensive attempt to regulate AI, addressing issues such as data-driven or algorithmic social scoring, remote biometric identification and the use of AI systems in law enforcement, education and employment”. “[T]he AI Act is itself an excellent starting point for a holistic approach to AI regulation,” she also writes in the paper, before segueing into cautioning the rest of the world against copypasting an “ambitious, yet flawed, regime held in place by the twin constraints of the [EU’s] New Legislative Framework… and the legislative basis of EU law” (hence “in this paper, it seems important to flag the debates both EU policymakers and the world beyond the EU should be having at this crucial regulatory turning point”). Still, she believes that as it stands — assuming no substantial amendments to address key criticizms — the legislation will, most likely, have “relatively minimal” effect, she tells us. “In a funny kind of way what the EU has done is they’ve put most of their eggs in DSA [Digital Services Act], DMA [Digital Markets Act],” she suggests, referring to two other pieces of in-train EU digital legislation focused on updating e-commerce rules and reforming the EU’s competition regime, when asked how she thinks the Act will impact. “Because if you look at what’s in high risk, and this another obvious point but it can’t be said enough, high risk currently doesn’t include most of the AI that people meet every day of their lives. “It doesn’t include search, it doesn’t include social networking, it doesn’t include profiling — unless you’re basically the Chinese state! It’s really focusing on things that are already essentially regulated by the markets, which is things like credit scoring, where there’s a very long history of people checking to see if the algorithm seems fair, and things like that… And regulating the state, who again should have been susceptible to scrutiny forever. At least in the U.K. there would have been judicial review and so forth. But — in reality — we know that the state is doing bad things with algorithms… so in many ways that’s what it’s really aimed at. The recent scare stories, sentencing systems, crime prediction, all that kind of stuff.” Whether the AI Act will even be able to stop what are already in the public sector remains to be seen. Not least given how difficult it can be to understand how these AI systems work and how exactly they’re being deployed. “Do even campaigners understand the technology well enough to agitate against the state under the AI Act?” wonders Edwards. “So I wonder if its impact will actually be a lot less than people think.” But one bright spot for defenders of fundamental rights inside the EU — attached to aforementioned powers set out in Article 65 of the Act — is Edwards’ assessment that it empowers public oversight bodies to take decisive steps to prevent damage by high risk AI systems, enabling them to order the withdrawal of commercial AI systems from the market (which she argues is akin to ordering a model’s destruction). These powers could also let oversight authorities order retraining of AI models, per Edwards. Such a power isn’t a given under GDPR, in her view, where individual users have a right to request deletion of their personal data — but it’s less clear cut how (or whether) the DPA regulators are able to wield deletion powers. In a recent against the controversial AI applier, Clearview, the — but none of the could, seemingly, order the destruction of the underlying model trained on all those stolen selfies. (Whether Clearview, a U.S.-based entity with — seemingly — no EU place of establishment, could be made to comply with such an order to destroy its core algorithm is a separate question.) There’s also the case of the emergency procedure taken by the Italian DPA against TikTok last year, related to child safety concerns around viral challenges — which led to the social network which it said it could not confirm did not belong to people under age. Just imagine if the EU regulator had had the power to order TikTok to pull its algorithm or — at least — retrain its AI so that it no longer posed specific child safety concerns… Albeit, TikTok’s AI would be unlikely to fall under the AI Act’s high-risk scope — but Clearview’s AI, which is sold to law enforcement, very clearly would. “It’s incredibly wide-set powers [in the AI Act],” Edwards tells TechCrunch. “It says that the market surveillance authority — which is probably going to be the data protection authority in most EU states — it’s got lots of powers under the market surveillance legislation — but it also explicitly says they will be able to ‘take all appropriate corrective actions to bring the AI system into compliance including withdrawing it from the market, recalling it commensurate with the nature of the risk as it may prescribe’ — it’s incredibly wide! And they can see that ‘all appropriate corrective action is taken’ etc. “So I think this almost explicitly — and there are other places — says that you can require the system to be withdrawn from the market which is equivalent, really, to having it deleted. But also I think there is enough scope there to require it to be trained if data had been removed which I think is very interesting. Because we’re not getting that from the GDPR — at least I don’t think we are.” “The powers of market surveillance authorities are terribly wide,” she adds. “Obviously that’s going to have to be interpreted by individual, national authorities but obviously this is a regulation, not a directive, so it’s not simply up to the Member States. “I think this does give wider powers. If you think about it as like consumer products — which is what this is based on — you had the right to get dangerous toys recalled from the market or, in some EU countries, the right to get dangerous toys destroyed. You didn’t just say you could no longer import them. You actually had the right to get them destroyed and this is kind of parallel powers.” Current GDPR powers which may allow users to ask for their own data to be deleted and therefore removed from an AI model — or even potentially for a regulatory authority to ask for such deletion on their citizens’ behalf — don’t necessary mean the model itself would be affected, argues Edwards. Hence she sees the AI Act amping up the regulatory fire power. “What’s more likely [with the GDPR] is you’ll be able to ask for your data to be deleted from their database but that doesn’t really change the model — even if you ask for your data to be removed from the model it will probably not change the way it’s been trained. So these are not good remedies,” she argues. “What you actually want is for the model to be either deleted or you want it to be totally retrained — perhaps with better data. And that is exactly what the AI Act is about [as regards high risk AI systems]. So then you could argue that the market surveillance authority could say now you are the provider of a new model, a new AI system that falls in high risk you must meet [requirements in the Act, such as around data quality] and therefore you must do it all again — with your new data. “So that gives you a chance to produce a much better product — a much fairer product — at the end than simply the powers that [DPA regulators have] under GDPR.” |
Staten Island Amazon workers vote to unionize | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | A historic day in a hard-fought battle as workers at Amazon’s JFK8 fulfillment center have voted to unionize. Counting for the Staten Island, NY warehouse concluded this morning, approving the formation of a union: 2,654 to 2,131. A total of 4,785 votes were cast, out of a total of 8,325 voters. It’s a huge win for labor organizers at the retail giant, which had managed to stave off union efforts for its entire 27-year history. The vote comes after highlighting worker mistreatment at various locations across the country. Amazon has strongly pushed back against these stories, highlighting moves like its 2018 raise to a $15/hour minimum wage. The company has aggressively fought against union drives over fears that a single “yes” vote could lead to a cascading effect in warehouses across the country — echoing recent activities at Starbucks. The pro-union vote ended yesterday with a healthy lead, which has held through the second and final day of counting. There are likely to be challenges from Amazon. Following last year’s vote at a Bessemer, Alabama fulfillment center, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) filed a complaint, which led the National Labor Relations Board to conduct a recount by secret ballot. Counting was simultaneously . The “no” votes currently lead 993 to 875 — it’s a far slimmer margin than the first vote that hangs on the fate of 416 challenged ballots. The number of challenged ballots is far smaller in the Staten Island election at 67 — that’s 547 votes shy of closing the margin. A leaflet is discarded as workers make their way to cast their vote over whether or not to unionize, outside an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island on March 25, 2022. Under hazy skies and in the calm of morning, workers waited patiently in line outside the JFK8 warehouse Friday for a say on whether to establish Amazon’s first US labor union. (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images) The battle over working conditions at JFK8 hit a fever pitch in March 2020, when employee Christian Smalls helped . After he was fired by the company over what Amazon chalked up to COVID-19 protocol, Smalls has become a leading voice in the union push. In February of this year, he was along with two others. Smalls and the others said they were simply visiting JFK8 to deliver food for workers. New York City has a long, rich history of worker unions, so it’s not entirely surprising that it’s currently poised to be the home of Amazon’s first. The company has predictably invested a good deal of money to battle union efforts. Yesterday, that the company had hired Global Strategy Group, a Democratic Party-aligned consulting firm, to convince workers to cast a “no” vote. It’s a fight that has, understandably, been framed as David v. Goliath, as the company has worked to tamp down long-simmering grassroots efforts. All told, the company has spent around on anti-union efforts in the past year. Amazon has seven days from today (until Friday, April 8) to challenge the results. |
Late-stage software startups might be in the most valuation trouble | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | may be in the most trouble when it comes to changing valuation marks among technology companies, new data indicates. A (SVB) exploring first-quarter software startup trends details that late-stage SaaS valuations in the United States scaled the most rapidly in 2021, closing out the year with the highest revenue multiples of their peer set. It’s well-known that the rapid inflation of the value of software stocks in the wake of the pandemic’s onset in 2020 and through much of 2021 rocket fuel to late-stage startup valuations. But just how much damage late-stage SaaS startups may have ahead of them is only now coming clear. Recall that the market is already and for employee retention purposes. Is it ironic that the startups whose valuation rose the most appear set to endure the largest correction? No. It’s causal. Let’s talk about why. We’re on the precipice of first-quarter venture capital data, which means that it’s nearly time to retire 2021 results as temporally pertinent. But under the deadline, observe how SVB details how revenue multiples scaled for two subsets of the United States’ SaaS market — enterprise apps (lighter colors) and enterprise infrastructure (darker colors): Silicon Valley Bank. Used with permission. |
The US just announced that cars will have to be a lot more fuel efficient by 2026 | Jaclyn Trop | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced a dramatic change to domestic fuel economy standards, a crucial step toward putting more electric vehicles on the road while reducing dependence on other countries. The standards, which go into effect in 2024, aim to deliver on President for half of the vehicles sold in the U.S. to be battery-electric by 2030. They could also accelerate domestic development of battery packs and electric vehicles. The federal mandate to cut emissions supports “the freedom of our country to chart its future without being subject to other countries and to the decisions that are being made in the boardrooms of energy companies,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said on Friday at a press conference livestreamed from U.S. DOT headquarters. The new standards mean that automakers in the U.S. will be required to raise the corporate average fuel economy ( ) of their fleets to 49 mpg by the 2026 model year. The current standard is 37 mpg, compared with roughly 13 mpg when the first regulations went into effect in 1975. Buttigieg underscored the potential cost savings to the average consumer. “If you’re filling up four times a month, that would become three times a month by model year 2026, saving the typical American household hundreds of dollars,” he said. “The price of oil is still subject to powers and dynamics outside of the USA, which means that until we achieve a form of energy independence based on clean energy created here at home, American citizens will still be vulnerable to wild price hikes like we’re seeing right now.” The future of transportation has been top of mind here since Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. On Thursday, President Joe Biden invoked the to boost battery production amid rocketing fuel prices. The Act, which allows the president to allocate materials for national defense, is intended to help secure domestic sources for the minerals, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese, used to make batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage. The move could provide capital for automakers and other industries to produce the materials to make EVs and stationary grid storage batteries. Tesla produces batteries at its . Other automakers, including General Motors, Ford, Stellantis, Toyota and Volkswagen, have pledged to invest more than $330 billion to develop EVs and plan to build their own battery facilities in the U.S. |
VC Lotti Siniscalco shares dos and don’ts in the Pitch Deck Teardown at TC Early Stage | Jordan Crook | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | |
TechCrunch Disrupt returns in October — Get your 2-for-1 promo code now | Alexandra Ames | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | null |
null | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 4 | 8 | null |
5 crypto tax tools that could save your ass on Tax Day | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | the who transacted with or traded cryptocurrency last year, you’re probably breaking a sweat about the looming deadline to file your taxes (that’d be Monday, April 18). And if you’re an NFT aficionado who changed your Twitter profile picture to an image of a hexagonal, nonchalant monkey, chances are that you’ll want some professional advice while filing. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is likely to intensely scrutinize, and perhaps even audit, those who transacted with virtual currency this year, Alex Roytenberg, known on Twitter as , told TechCrunch. “I personally think the IRS was waiting for a big year of wealth and income to be generated, and 2021 was definitely that year,” Roytenberg said. He added that because of the lack of formal guidance from U.S. regulators on how to file taxes on various crypto products, the process requires the taxpayer to interpret how existing laws intended to regulate traditional assets might apply to entirely new technologies. Roytenberg, a certified public accountant, has been a tax accountant for nearly 20 years, working at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and PwC. Roytenberg first got exposure to the web3 space in 2018 after advising a number of Coinbase employees, and since then, has aimed to double down on the specialty, co-authoring the “ ” and speaking at industry events including NFT.NYC. While Roytenberg recommends that avid crypto traders seek professional, one-on-one tax advice to clear up any gray areas, he also shared his thoughts with TechCrunch on a number of crypto tax prep packages that can be useful for filers this year. Here’s a rundown of some of the more popular platforms available to crypto tax filers today. |
4 critical relationships that will help your startup succeed | Darshan Somashekar | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | that relationships are the key to success. It’s important to build relationships with mentors who can help you when the going gets tough, trustworthy investors who can fund your growth, and experts in your field who can serve as advisers. But there are many other relationships that you may be writing off as not that important. Developing relationships with certain, oft-untapped groups has served as a critical driver of success at my last two multimillion-dollar startups. Here are four groups of people I recommend spending more time with, starting today. Hiring engineers early in your startup’s life can be tough. You need top-quality help, but typically don’t have a top-quality budget. My secret for tapping the best entry-level talent out there is to get to know the folks who are educating the next generation. Obviously, if you have a computer science degree yourself, starting with your alumni connections is step one. But even if you don’t, you’re likely surrounded by local universities or community colleges with strong computer science programs. Larger cities also have that churn out engineers with solid project experience under their belts. By getting to know the leadership at these organizations, whether that’s department heads, career services directors, or even notable teachers and professors, you can get amazing benefits, such as invitations to career fairs, insider info, and introductions to rising stars who could be the perfect fit for your company. You likely already seek feedback from your customers. It can be tempting to focus on customers who are generally happy and offer incremental thoughts on how the product could improve. But if you want the most efficient and valuable feedback, spend most of your time talking with customers who truly need what you’re offering but are unhappy with your product. |
UK police charge 2 teenagers in connection with Lapsus$ hacks | Carly Page | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | Just a week after arresting seven individuals as part of its investigation into a series of cyberattacks conducted , U.K. authorities have charged two teenagers with multiple cyber offenses. In a on Friday, Detective Inspector Michael O’Sullivan from the City of London Police said that the two teenagers, aged 16 and 17, are charged with three counts of unauthorized access to a computer with the intent to impair the reliability of data, one count of fraud by false representation and one count of unauthorized access to a computer with intent to hinder access to data. The 16-year-old has also been charged with one count of causing a computer to perform a function to secure unauthorized access to a program. O’Sullivan said the pair remained in custody, and are due to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court later on Friday. When contacted by TechCrunch, City of London Police would not confirm the identities of the teenagers, whose names were not released as they are subject to U.K. reporting restrictions on identifying non-adults. However, a recent revealed that a teenager based in Oxford, U.K. is suspected of being the mastermind of the Lapsus$ hacking group. Reporters tracked down the 16-year-old, who uses the online moniker “White” or “Breachbase,” after his personal information was published online by rival hackers. This report was published just hours before City of London Police announced they had arrested seven people between the ages of 16 and 21 .The day after news of the arrests emerged, Lapsus$ told its 50,000-plus followers on Telegram that some of its members were taking “a vacation.” The group later denied that any of its members were arrested in March. The Lapsus$ hacking group, which first surfaced in December 2021, this week returned : Luxembourg-based software development consultancy Globant. The group published a 70 gigabyte torrent file on its Telegram channel that contained data allegedly stolen from the company, which the hackers claim includes its corporate customers’ source code. Other Lapsus$ victims include , , and . |
Instacart now delivers market trends | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | Hello and welcome back to , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. Welcome to our Friday show! Our regular co-host was off this time, so and linked arms with our producer to blast our way through the news of the week. As always, we had to pick and choose what seemed to matter the most. Here’s what we got into: Whew! What a , y’all. Chat Monday! |
London’s By Rotation is taking its P2P fashion rental app stateside | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | Fashion rental platforms had a tough time during the pandemic as in-person events evaporated and office workers ditched their smarts to collectively slip into comfy loungewear. But as the pandemic recedes (hopefully!) and focus grows on the environmental and social costs of fast fashion, the future for clothes rentals is looking rosier again. There are a number of rental models in play — from veteran U.S. giants like , which buys stock to rent and sells consumers subscription packages based on renting a certain number of pieces per month, to hybrid models that manage some stock themselves but also allow users to list and loan out their own designer pieces, to purely P2P “rent her wardrobe” plays. U.K. fashion rental startup — which sits in the latter P2P category — has sought to stand out in this colorful but rather cluttered field by taking a tech-first and community-focused approach, which it likens to building a social network. Crucially, it doesn’t hold any inventory itself; it’s truly and purely peer-to-peer, per founder Eshita Kabra, who said the app typically gets badged as the “Instagram of fashion rentals” — or the “Airbnb of fashion.” “There’s very much this social aspect to it — and it’s really about these repeat renters who rent from the same woman, over and over again. So they follow a woman and they end up essentially having twice as big a wardrobe,” she told TechCrunch. “They’re kind of living the life of someone else, essentially.” Domestically, By Rotation competes with the likes of My Wardrobe HQ and (as well as a number of U.K. high street fashion retailers branching out into rentals) — but Kabra, who is the sole founder, is unequivocal in claiming she’s built up the largest P2P fashion rental platform in the U.K. “We’re already the largest fashion rental platform by far when you look at our user count and our listing count versus these two [U.K.] players who’s actually been around longer than us and have probably a bit more funding than us. “It’s very interesting that the shortcuts always end up going back to managing or buying and fulfilling rental orders. Whereas for us we really spent time — I would say it’s been a very painstaking journey — building out the community grassroots in the beginning. And also obviously investing most of our resources into the tech, which is to build the social network-type platform. And you’ll notice that none of the other rental players in the U.K. — or again in the world — have built such a social network. “And I think that’s where we’re doing something with a very, very fresh perspective to sharing of fashion and fashion rental.” “I kind of see it as being the fashion app which serves more a purpose than just liking and saving,” she added. “That’s what Instagram and Pinterest are. But there’s no real commercial value to you when you use them — here you can actually make some money, or save money. “All of the other existing, incumbent fashion rental players in the U.K. and the U.S., maybe some in Europe — I know — have all been very much focused on the e-commerce type of approach. It’s very retail-heavy; it’s very much a focus on convenience. And access to designer brands. Often the inventory’s very outdated and it’s managed from a central location. We do none of that.” Since officially launching in October 2019, the app has grown to 200,000 users (mostly women) who are either listing items from their wardrobe for others to rent or vice versa. (The app does also include a men’s category but, naturally, it’s less popular.) Kabra said the site has 25,000 items listed for rent with a total value of more than £10 million, which can range from a plus-size Club M wrap dress (available to rent from £10) to a size 6 full-length (and black-as-night) Vampire’s Wife dress (from £75), to a silver Miu Miu clutch bag (from £24), Manolo Blahnik blue satin bridal shoes (from £150) or Tommy Hilfiger plaid trousers (from £4), and plenty more besides. Renting periods typically have a three-day minimum. The platform has some stipulations on what can be listed for rent — generally no high street fashion (unless it’s from an exclusive collection) — but less strict limits than some. Vintage pieces are allowed, for example, so the clothes don’t have to be from the most recent seasons’ fashion collections, which should be better from a sustainability point of view. Kabra said the top lender on the app — a 49-year-old professional woman and mother who works as the principal of a private school — is routinely mailing out over 10 pieces a week — and making in excess of £2,000 a month. The typical By Rotation user is slightly younger: a fashion-conscious female, aged between 25 and late 30s, with a desk job and who is “quite conscious of sustainability but she cares a lot about saving money and having access to designer, quality fashion,” said Kabra, who notes the app gets some Gen Z users renting things like graduation outfits, too. “And that’s why By Rotation is so great because she can access high-end designers that she probably wants to tag on Instagram and social media without being able to maybe afford them or wanting to spend £500 on a dress. “Our proposition is that you can rent a £500 contemporary branded dress for £50 — or £45 — the same price as Zara, for example. And you can return it back to the person who owns it after wearing it to your friend’s wedding and you get your photo with it and — look — you’ve been sustainable at the same time and you’ve made a new acquaintance on the By Rotation app. “There’s just a lot of reasons to rent, right? Saving money, making money, making new friends, looking good and saving the planet,” she added, describing the marketing vibe they’re striving for as intentionally more approachable than aspirational. “It’s cool, it’s fun to be a part of this vibrant and friendly community — it’s less aspirational, it’s just very approachable.” It follows that the intended By Rotation user is “not a fashion insider or a journalist or an editor or an influencer or a celebrity,” Kabra said. “It’s actually just regular working women, professional women, who have great taste — they’re quite conscious of their fashion consumption and they’re quite pragmatic; they know that if they’ve bought something that they have to share it and cover the cost of that investment.” So the focus is relatively broad, on renting fashion for more day-to-day needs (workwear, dinner dates, parties, etc.) — albeit with more glamor/expense than if you just stuck to your own wardrobe — instead of catering to extremely high society events. The individual user who is offering the fashion pieces for rent on By Rotation can get even more play in the app than the designer items themselves because its community-building work extends to producing glossy magazine-style mini-profiles of some of its top renters (it calls them “rotators” or even “super rotators”) who are opening their ample wardrobes for others’ sartorial scrolling pleasure and/or the chance to float around in designer gear for a few days. The intended social network feel extends to having an Instagram-ish feed of photos showing off the wares for rent and/or how their owners (or renters) have styled the pieces. Users can follow each other on the app — and there are handy “by size” filters for profiles so you’ll know the stranger’s clothes are at least likely to fit you, even if their taste may be a little outré — idea being to turn a vicarious admiration of another woman’s style into actually paying her to borrow that dress you’re thirsting on. Another feature By Rotation has in the app to pad out the experience — and try to avoid it feeling too nakedly transactional and e-commerce-y — is the ability to create Pinterest-style mood boards. It’s also working on more gamification features to keep users engaged, Kabra said. The overarching strategy is to dress the app with richer social content that can draw in visitors who may not feel ready to rent pieces or list their own stuff yet — encouraging them to tap around, be inspired by the fashion they see others sporting and get comfortable with the whole clothes/style sharing concept. Kabra is emphatic when she speaks about the app, stressing it’s a “proprietary” native app experience — not just a limited website wrapper, which she suggests is what some other fashion rental rivals offer. “We are the only [fashion rentals] app that’s offered in the U.K. Anyone else that has an app or claims they have an app has a website wrapper,” she said. “That’s one of the things that we’ve spent a lot of resources on technology. We’re tech-first; we’re a digital community. We’re also the only pure peer-to-peer for fashion rental. Anyone else who has done fashion rental or is doing fashion rental in a P2P model they’re usually doing it in a hybrid model where they end up managing items where they go on to subscription and full inventory management eventually — which is what we saw in some of the American startups.” Another distinguishing feature she points to is lender analytics — where By Rotation is providing tools for users to help maximize their renting revenue. “This is where the data and analytics piece really comes in,” Kabra said. “And there’s some real B2B potential here — not that we’re chasing it right now. But AI is something that we’ve thought about from day one, given our chief analytics officer — also my husband — has been very much our adviser. “What we’ve really been showing to our lenders, much like a professional creators dashboard on Instagram, you can see how much money you’ve made on the app since you started listing items, you can see the yield on all your listings — so kind of like, almost, your investment calculator. And you can also see the top performing brands for you, the top performing categories, the colors. So basically it’s kind of like a tool to help our top lenders become much more strategic when they go shopping. “We’ve actually been given this feedback from some of our top users that they’re just thinking twice whenever they buy a new Zara dress or something from Asos or whatever. They’ve now started moving onto buying more quality pieces and fewer of them, and then they always end up listing them on the app,” she added, giving a personal example where she has been able to make over £1,000 on a dress she bought on sale for £350. By Rotation is preparing to size up by launching in the U.S. this year — and today it’s announcing the close of a $3 million seed round to fund this international expansion — so its profile looks set to rise, even as it will be squaring up to a new set of fashion rental rivals over the pond (including ). The seed round is led by Redrice Ventures with other investors including Closed Loop Partners, True Global, Magnus Rausing, Bill Holroyd CBE, DL, June Angelides MBE, Dinika Mahtani (principal at Cherry VC) and Riccardo Pozzoli. Commenting on the raise in a statement, Tom March, the founder of Redrice, said: “By Rotation’s P2P focus allows for an obsessive commitment to serving its community. The result is a super loyal family of renters and lenders with the highest standard of user-led quality control. Above all, what truly binds this purpose-driven community is a shared thirst for joy — there is a deficit of hope out there, so time for ‘Rotators’ to spread the joy.” International expansion presents both opportunities and risks for a community-focused startup, of course. While Airbnb — the P2P platform to which Kabra said the app is often compared — began with a bewitching pitch about being able to “live like a local” in exotic foreign cities, the reality of scaling into a global travel juggernaut quickly saw that enticing facade slipping as professional landlords moved in, repurposing housing stock to list en masse and grab higher-yield short-term stays than they would get renting long term to local people, leading to regulatory blowback and a bunch of goodwill crushed. So the risk of scaling P2P communities can be the death of quirk alongside fake profiles and commercial transactions that feel far more clinical. (There was never any sign of the “flamenco dancer” called María who once rented me an Airbnb apartment in Sevilla, for example, only a graying middle-aged man in workwear who hastily handed over a set of keys.) How, then, will By Rotation scale its carefully cultivated and engaged grassroots community of professional women rotating wardrobes of beloved clothes while keeping things, well, real — and not feeling pressured to slip into inventory management and centralized subscriptions as other formerly P2P turned hybrid rental platforms have? “Growth is definitely very important to us and we’re going to continue doing the network effects piece where our renters are becoming our lenders. And our lenders are becoming super rotators,” Kabra said. “It’s kind of crazy how much [our top lender is] earning on the app. So we’re going to continue accelerating by all these sort of super users and converting our lenders into renters, renters into lenders. And tapping into their own networks. “Because we truly believe that anyone who’s been a customer of ours, they have the potential to convert other users to become customers. So it’s less so much about performance marketing, which anyone will do anyway, but for us, it’s using these network effect type of strategies to promote growth. So things like ambassador programs, which we already run, where you can see very, very diverse women who are our ambassadors promoting the app. “Even things like looking at your phone contact book and inviting everyone who’s not on the app already to come join the app because you liked your friend’s outfit last week at a party that you attended together. So really things like that is the way we’re going to be growing and scaling up.” It also sounds like By Rotation will be taking a targeted approach to crack the U.S. market — likely going after key cities such as New York, where it can tap into the same sorts of well-dressed, professionally driven communities of women it’s already been able to locate in hubs like London to further fire its growth. “If you look at who’s backing us — [New York-based] Closed Loop Partners, they only back circular business models and obviously [managing partner] Caroline Brown, who’s going to be on the board, is ex-DKNY … and I think you can pretty much guess where we would operate when we do expand to the U.S. first. But yeah, you’re right, there will be a very regional approach — even maybe a citywide approach to begin with, but we do think there are some really, really interesting cities over there where people have quite a lot of disposable income … where this would make a lot of sense. Where people are spending quite a lot of money going out for dinner and drinks and they would love to save a bit of money on their outfits.” “I think what’s really exciting about our completely scalable business model — since we’re not hybrid and we’re not inventory — is the fact that all we really need are local communities and local ambassadors who help kick start the By Rotation community locally,” she added. While the fashion rental field is already quite a competitive patchwork, it’s important to consider the secondhand fashion sales market, too — which at least indirectly competes for customers who may be weighing up whether they really want to splash £75 just to rent a designer piece for a couple of days versus spending rather less to buy and own a secondhand (albeit probably not designer) fashion item on or . Or shell out maybe a little more than £75 to wholly own a secondhand designer piece that’s been listed on a resale platform like Vestiaire Collective. In short, fashion lovers are spoiled for alternatives to buying new — and all these choices could be dressed up as more sustainable than consuming fast fashion at throwaway volumes. But Kabra argues that fashion rentals and resale are essentially different and potentially complementary markets. (By Rotation’s app does let renters offer pieces for sale, but she said there’s relatively low uptake of that feature.) “We’ve seen some of our top lenders’ Depop, Vestiaire, eBay and Vinted profiles. And the items they’re listing on these other marketplaces, they’re so different to what they’re listing on By Rotation. On By Rotation, they are listing items that are new season, that they still love, that they still want to wear and own. It’ll be the new season Réalisation Par or the last season Réalisation Par, for example,” she said. “And they don’t want to sell these pieces so we end up having nicer pieces, basically, than all these other resale platforms where, let’s face it, even if it’s Vestiaire, people are trying to get rid of their stuff. You won’t find old Gucci bags on By Rotation. You’re going to find the new desirable Gucci Marmont velvet bags. Or the Dionysus bag because everyone wants to rent it because it matches everything. So these are all the items that people are willing to hold onto while they’re not wearing it this weekend.” Plus, even if there is some overlap, Kabra suggests By Rotation’s particular fashion focus means it can slot neatly in as the place where a woman who maybe wouldn’t mind selling a designer piece (for the right price) on a resale platform like Vestiaire Collective can list it for renting on By Rotation’s app in the meanwhile — with the chance to make money loaning it out while she waits for a sale. “We launched a resale feature earlier this year on the app — it’s just so, so, so interesting that what people rent is very different from what people want to buy secondhand. Which is why we totally believe that we do exist alongside these resale platforms — it’s completely different, the product mix,” she added. Returning to the sustainability of fashion rentals point, this also bears some critical attention. The claim looks solid if you’re comparing renting versus purchasing a new item that you’re going to wear once or twice. However, rentals require energy to ship — unless you’re literally walking to meet the renter in person, which is likely only going to happen for a minority of transactions as the vagaries of taste mean you’re unlikely to love and fit into exactly the clothes of your closest rotators. Rentals also require energy for scrupulous cleaning after every single rental — which may well be more often than you’d clean your own clothes. Clearly renting is not a carbon-neutral activity in and of itself. It is still a form of consumption. So what the activity replaces (or doesn’t) is key to whether it’s actually shrinking someone’s carbon footprint or not. If a woman “rotates” an existing (long-held) piece from the back to the front of her own wardrobe, perhaps restyling it with a piece of vintage jewelry she also already owns to freshen the look, that might be a more sustainable twist on staying fashionable than all the procedural rigmarole entailed in sharing someone else’s relatively newly bought designer clothes, for example. So basically a sustainability claim boils down to a demand question: By making relatively high-end designer fashion more affordable (renting versus buying outright) is By Rotation helping to generate new (extra) consumer demand that wouldn’t otherwise exist — which implies a net increase in energy consumption? Again, if the rental demand that’s being stoked ends up supplanting multiple fast-fashion purchases (and helps shrink the size of the fast-fashion industry) it’s likely a net positive for shrinking the overall carbon footprint. But if the app is encouraging more people to do more energy-intensive dressing up than they otherwise would, it’s hard to see how that sums to the levels of sustainability required to actually save the planet. For that, we might all need to get a bit more comfortable with dressing in boring old Zoom pants most of the time. Asked about this, Kabra deflected the question onto the easier-to-answer comparison versus buying new — citing a study done by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a U.K. charity that’s focused on accelerating the global transition to a circular economy — which she said found the P2P fashion rental model to be 60% more efficient in relation to resource use than the production of new garments. “We do nudge people into realizing they’re doing something good by renting rather than buying,” she added, describing in-app features that seek to quantify estimated resource savings for the user (again, compared against if they were buying new). “But I would say that first and foremost people are using By Rotation — and any other rental service — for the affordability side of things. And I think that’s important to highlight because sustainability is still something that a lot of people cannot afford. “It’s a ‘nice to have’ but a lot of people cannot afford it, which is why By Rotation is making it so accessible. We’re saying you can still enjoy fashion but you can do that by spending the same amount that you would do at Zara or Asos anyway by putting that money towards borrowing it from somebody else. So I think it’s really about making the messaging very inclusive and not scaring people away and saying hey you can never go and buy fast fashion again — you can only rent. Or you can only buy sustainable brands. “We encourage vintage pieces on By Rotation,” she confirmed. “And they rent quite a bit. We recently had a bride — she rented a gown for her actual wedding, so not just a civil ceremony, from Molly Whitehall, she’s [comic] Jack Whitehall’s sister. And Molly wore a 1940s silk vintage gown that she then gave to us to rent out — so it’s doubly sustainable, right? It’s already vintage and this new bride is actually borrowing it from another bride. And it’s just really interesting the way that people actually value vintage much more — as long as there’s a story around it.” |
Coinbase debuts crypto trading in India | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | Coinbase is adding support for the popular UPI payment instrument in India, making its eponymous cryptocurrency exchange functional in the world’s second-largest internet market for the first time. The publicly listed firm, which began , made the official launch at its maiden event in India on Thursday, saying that it is working to broaden its product offerings in the country. UPI, a payments infrastructure developed by a coalition of retail banks, has become the most popular way Indians transact online. Coinbase users in India will be able to add money to their accounts by using the UPI network, a company executive said. To incentivize customers to try the Coinbase app, the company said it is offering $2.65 to everyone who signs up. The company notably did not disclose the names of its banking partners for the UPI payments rollout. The vast majority of banks in India continue to scoff at crypto-related transactions, following the local central bank’s . Even as India’s Supreme Court on crypto two years ago and the nation recently started to tax crypto transactions, banks are largely still following the central bank’s earlier direction. RBI officials have . T. Rabi Sankar, deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India, alleged to an audience at a banking conference in February that cryptocurrencies have been “specifically developed to bypass the regulated financial system,” and are not backed by any underlying cash flow. “They have no intrinsic value; that they are akin to Ponzi schemes, and may even be worse,” he said. “As a store of value, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have given impressive returns so far, but so did tulips in 17th-century Netherlands. Cryptocurrencies are very much like a speculative or gambling contract working like a Ponzi scheme. In fact, it has been argued that the original scheme devised by Charles Ponzi in 1920 is better than cryptocurrencies from a social perspective,” he said. Coinbase declined a request for an interview with its executives. The arrival of Coinbase, which operates in dozens of markets, comes at an interesting time in India. Coinbase is already an investor in two of the largest local crypto exchanges in the country (CoinSwitch Kuber and CoinDCX). New Delhi’s move to last week has prompted hundreds of thousands of people to cut down or halt crypto trading, according to sources familiar with the matter. Coinbase said it’s making a “long-term” bet on India. Brian Armstrong, co-founder and chief executive of Coinbase, said the firm has already invested $150 million in Indian startups and is planning to more than triple its headcount in the country to 1,000 this year. FTX, a much younger crypto exchange and increasingly a major rival of Coinbase, has also started to expand its presence in India. The firm’s venture arm is engaging with a handful of startups in the country, according to a source familiar with the matter. It is also in talks to , TechCrunch reported last week. |
Watch Rocket Lab send a pair of BlackSky satellites to space | Aria Alamalhodaei | 2,022 | 4 | 1 | Rocket Lab will embark on its 25th mission using the Electron rocket on Friday, this time to send two Earth-imaging spacecraft to orbit for BlackSky. The launch, the second of 2022 for Rocket Lab, will bring BlackSky’s high-resolution satellite constellation to 14. The mission, named “Without Mission A Beat,” will embark from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula at 12:35 UTC (8:35 a.m. ET). The pair of BlackSky satellites will be deployed at a 430-kilometer (270-mile) orbit. The company will not attempt to recover Electron’s first stage during this mission, though Rocket Lab has been working on first-stage reuse for Electron since 2018. The company’s long-term vision is to recover the first stage via a mid-air helicopter capture, a maneuver its been inching toward over the past few years. Last November, Rocket Lab executed its third recovery of the booster (the only other company besides SpaceX to achieve reusability), with a chopper to monitor the booster’s descent. Beck told reporters that the company the mid-air catch within the first half of this year. This is not the first time Rocket Lab has delivered a payload to space for BlackSky. The launch company has delivered the majority of BlackSky’s satellites currently in orbit, with the first launch for the geospatial intelligence company taking place in 2019. The launch will stream on the and on its YouTube channel, and TechCrunch will throw the stream at the top of this page once it goes live. |
Samsung’s upcoming Q1 earnings top estimates on solid chip demand | Kate Park | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | null |
The Parentinc raises $22M led by East Ventures for its parenting community and D2C brand | Catherine Shu | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | , a Singapore-based startup that runs a parenting community and direct-to-consumer product line, announced today it has raised $22 million. The round was led by East Ventures with undisclosed investors and included participation from Central Retail Corporation, a new backer, and returning investor WHG Holdings. Part of the round was venture debt financing from DBS. The Parentinc, formerly called Tickled Media, is best known for , its parenting community, and also runs , which manufactures and sells halal pregnancy, nursing and baby care products. TechCrunch last . Along with its headquarters in Singapore, the company also has offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Mumbai. The company originated as a blog by founder and CEO Roshni Mahtani Cheung. “It all started because there wasn’t ample parenting information that Asian parents can relate to. Questions like, ‘Is it safe to feed a 3-year-old durian?’ just weren’t covered in books and websites,” Mahtani Cheung told TechCrunch. The funding news comes a few weeks after The Parentinc said that it had . Other strategic investors in the company include JD.com and SCB 10X, which has helped build Mama’s Choice presence in Indonesia and Thailand. The new capital will be used to expand theAsianparent and Mama’s Choice into three new markets before the end of 2022, including Vietnam and a U.S. launch by the end of this year. In a statement, East Ventures co-founder and managing partner Willson Cuaca said, “We are impressed by The Parentinc’s incredible growth and successful transition from blog to becoming the unparalleled market leader across Southeast Asia in the parenting content, community and commerce space.” |
Grover grabs $330M to double down on circular economy with consumer electronics subscriptions | Ingrid Lunden | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | A growing number of people are looking for ways to live more sustainably amid increasing concerns over the environment and what we humans keep doing to pollute it. Today, a startup called which has built a business around one aspect of that — enticing people to buy and eventually discard fewer consumer electronics such as phones, monitors and electric scooters by offering them attractive subscriptions to use their stock of new or used gadgets instead — is announcing a big round of funding to expand its business. The round values Grover at over $1 billion, the company confirmed. Grover has been on a steady pace of growth in the last several years — CEO and founder Michael Cassau said that across its footprint of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and most recently the U.S., Grover doubled subscriptions and business in the last year, and it currently has half a million items in its catalog available for subscription, 2 million registered users and 250,000 active customers (some are subscribing to use more than one gadget). That growth has been riding on several concurrent market trends. The first of these is the push for more sustainability and a new appreciation for the so-called “circular economy” approach — spurred not just by a greater consciousness around environmental issues but a turn toward mutual support around COVID-19, where many people were communicating (sometimes for the first time) with those living close to them, sharing resources to get through the difficulties of the pandemic. Sometimes those resources were used goods being passed on or sold cheaply to others; it opened the door to a different way of thinking for a lot of people. That collective shift was also pushed along by a second trend, which was a tightening in the global economy, which has compelled consumers to consider spending less on some discretionary items. “We see ourselves as simplifying access to a part of your budget,” Cassau told TechCrunch in an interview. And the idea of spreading out an expense on a good that may be used but is still in good shape appears to be appealing more now than it might have in the past. “We see very strong demand for even second- or third-year products,” Cassau said. “Some want the latest items, and this applies particularly to brand new phones, but a huge body of individuals are happy with an iPhone 11 or even iPhone 10. You’re seeing that also in the secondary market,” he added, referring to the likes of Back Market (which itself ), where people can acquire refurbished devices. And it’s a movement that is playing out in other categories, too, with Vinted (out of Lithuania) now for its used-clothes marketplace. “It’s a huge business, one that is even overtaking primary in some markets.” Cassau said he sees Back Market as a key competitor in its area. On average a product sees at least four owners over “several years,” but some items are outliers — a GoPro camera in its stock, it said, circulated 27 times. Grover got its start with — and still counts — consumers as its primary customers, but it’s also seeing a burgeoning interest in the area of , where some consumers are now also picking up subscriptions for items to use in their business lives, and companies are also starting to engage with Grover to pick up multiple devices to equip their teams, offices and temporary staff as part of a bigger effort to reduce their overheads and fixed costs. The startup has also been building out a range of what Cassau described to me as “embedded finance” products — financial services it offers alongside its subscription business, which Grover has not built from the ground up but has customized by using fintech APIs built by others. In its case, it’s been offering users , built with Solaris Bank, which people can use as their payment card out in the world, which gives users 3% “cash back” earning money toward their monthly subscriptions each time they spend money on the card. Cassau said that the card adoption has had a strong correlation with people taking out more subscriptions with the company, often going from one to three items. Power users on Grover might spend as much as €60 each month on their subscriptions, he added. Grover has a one-year purchase option today, where users can buy an item they’re subscribing to for €1 after that time, and some 10% of its customers opt for that, he said, but most rent, return and exchange for their next items. You can also rent in segments of between one and 18 months. The funding is coming at an interesting time in the venture world: We and others have anecdotally been hearing that funding, especially later-stage and larger deals, has largely dried up in recent months, in part because of the slower rate of public listings and other exits and general caution trickling down over that and other issues like conflict in Europe, with the war in Ukraine and Russia’s actions hanging over us all. In that context, Cassau said that Grover hadn’t faced challenges in its own efforts to raise money, although he could definitely see the “change in the markets starting in January.” “I don’t think we have been a boom-and-bust raising kind of company,” he said. “We are naturally developing into this valuation, so we saw less of the effect of that backlash than others might have seen.” Indeed, one hopes that areas like attention to sustainability and services that are helping ordinary consumers live in a way that respects that concept with less and less friction are not “trends” but shifts that are here to stay. “Grover has succeeded in pioneering the subscription economy for consumer electronics, a move that is critically important as we build a net zero world,” Nazo Moosa, managing partner at Energy Impact Partners, said in a statement. “The intersection of society’s linear consumption habits and climate change is an important focus area for EIP’s second fund, which closed at one billion dollars last year. We believe Grover will reinvent society’s relationship with consumer tech, and as a result allow us to continue using the products we need while minimizing harm to our planet. Our investment in Grover is part of a mission to help scale startups from all over the world who have the ability to advance the transition to a more sustainable future, and we look forward to working closely with Grover as they move into this next exciting phase.” |
GM to pitch perks of Bolt EV to baseball fans on Opening Day | Jaclyn Trop | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | due to a fire risk, GM wants U.S. customers to know that Chevrolet is back in business. Chevy is announcing the return of the all-electric Bolt sedan and utility vehicle with a pair of national ad campaigns set to debut on Thursday to coincide with Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. that retail production for both the restarted on Monday after idling for eight months and that dealers have been given the green light to sell them. Chevy halted manufacturing the Bolt last August, with a brief reprise in November, to focus on replacing battery modules from . Now that production is underway, the hard work begins – winning back customers’ trust. “We don’t see massive broad reputational damage,” Steve Majoros, vice present of marketing for Chevrolet, said in a briefing. “We’re certainly going to stay humble. We’re going to think we’ve got a great product, and we’re just going to try to convince America that this is the right EV at the right time.” As the official vehicle of Major League Baseball, the brand will showcase the commercials on every MLB game nationwide. As part of the turnaround, Chevy is offering buyers of 2022 models free home installation for a 240-volt charging unit. The ads aim to put prospective buyers at ease, according to Majoros. “Frankly, they feel right for the kinds of people that we need to reach,” he said. “We have talked about bringing in early adopters, but those days are over, so we’ve got to have high volume.” But it remains to be seen whether two traditional TV spots timed to reach baseball fans can both convince customers to return to Chevy and attract new EV shoppers in an increasingly crowded segment expecting a bevy of new battery-electric models later this year. The first spot underscores that the Bolt’s 247-mile range outlasts a phone conversation from the 20-something driver’s loquacious mother. The second spot features a miscommunication between a nervous mother-to-be and the technician completing her home installation. “Oh, don’t worry, it’s a piece of cake,” the technician says, referring, of course, to the ease of owning a Bolt, not impending parenthood. Next quarter’s sales reports will show whether the commercials helped lure customers back to the Bolt. The brand’s decision last summer to focus on recalls rather than new sales “put the safety of our customers first and allowed us to put all of our energy into the limited battery supply we had at the time while ramping up battery production,” Majoros said. It’s been a really a herculean task.” He declined to comment on the rate at which Chevrolet is replacing batteries but said that there are still a lot of dealer and customer orders to fulfill. Priority goes to customers with orders for the 2022 model year, he added. The brand plans to change over to 2023 models in July. |
Lead Edge Capital just closed its newest fund with an astonishing $2 billion (nearly) | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | It used to take a while to amass $5 billion in assets under management. Not so for , a 12-year-old California- and New York-based growth-equity firm that just surpassed that amount, closing its sixth and newest fund with a whopping $1.95 billion in capital commitments from roughly 500 investors. The pool follows a fund that Lead Edge closed in October 2020 — also from around 500 investors — and which brought the firm’s assets at the time to $3 billion. (Lead Edge also runs a $150 million “public-only” fund that it created at the behest of its investors last year, according to firm founder Mitchell Green.) Even in a day and age where money is flowing freely to tech investors — as mentioned on Monday, venture firms are managing than outsiders may realize — the amount is notable. The firm credits recent exits in part, including the fashionable medical-wear retailer Figs, which last May; the of workplace collaboration software company Asana last September; the of dating service Bumble in February of last year; and the sale in October 2020 of the security monitoring company Signal Sciences to the publicly traded outfit Fastly for in cash and stock. (According to Crunchbase data, Signal Sciences had raised roughly from investors.) Earlier returns came via Alibaba’s IPO, Spotify’s IPO and the sale of Duo Security to Cisco. Green has said the firm invested $300 million into Alibaba in the years leading up to its IPO, more than $150 million into Spotify in the years leading up to its IPO, and more than $90 million into Duo. Big bets aren’t unusual for Lead Edge, which has long prided itself on leaning into the investments it makes. “In the private world, we’ll run a fund with, like, 20 investments in it,” Green told us during a in January. When it comes to public companies — which Lead Edge backs with its public company fund, the occasional special purpose vehicle, and also up to 25% of its main fund — the team takes an even more distilled approach. “You should think of our public fund as wanting to own five to 10 positions. We run it concentrated.” Not all of these investments have panned out as planned. Though Lead Edge poured $160 million over the years into the Alibaba affiliate Ant Group — which was expected to become the world’s largest IPO in the fall of 2020 — that offering was completely by China’s securities regulator and it’s unclear if Lead Edge will ever get its money out. Green, who cut his teeth as an associate at Bessemer Venture Partners and at a Tiger Fund affiliate called Eastern Advisors, said he isn’t concerned. When we talked in January, he said that Lead Edge had not sold any shares, had no interest in selling its shares, and was even thinking about “buying more of it.” Indeed, Green and his team see China-based startups as a massive buying opportunity precisely because they’ve been so hard hit by China’s tech crackdown. Accordingly, they’ve snapped up Clearly, the firm’s gun-slinging approach appeals to Lead Edge’s many (many) backers, including former Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, former Charles Schwab CEO David Pottruck, and former ESPN CEO Steve Bornstein. Even a neighbor of this editor, upon hearing that recent podcast, disclosed that Green is managing some of his money and said he has been happy with his returns. Said one particularly delighted limited partner, a former General Atlantic managing director, in a 2017 WSJ profile of Green that must have thrilled the firm: “It’s the energy, right? I have never met a guy that talks so fast and .” |
Fanatics reveals NFL was biggest backer in $1.5B round announced last month at $27B valuation | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | Fanatics has raised a total of $4.2 billion in funding, according to . |
Spanish scale-ups club together to shift the tech policy agenda | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | In the latest spark from its fast evolving tech ecosystem, Spain’s scale-ups are banding together to lobby lawmakers and press the economic case for their high-tech, high-growth business model more broadly. The new lobby group, called (aka ‘Es’ for España), had its official launch last week — when it unveiled nine founding company members spanning a range of industries, including gig platforms, B2B software, energy, entertainment and health tech — namely: , , , , , , , and . The group wants to create the conditions for a new IBEX35 based in tech as EsTech’s president told covering the launch — so the idea is for it to grow substantially in size too. The hope is that many more of Spain’s 400+ fast growing startups will soon get big and ambitious enough to join the program, according to Carina Szpilka, a general partner at the Madrid-based VC firm, , and president of the broader digital business association which is supporting EsTech’s launch, alongside another local trade group, Endeavor, and the Spanish VC association, Ascri. Other fast growing Spanish startups , , and are suggested as likely candidates to be next in line to join the club. “We are convinced that the contribution of these type of companies, especially the scale-ups, is super significant to the prosperity and to the economic growth of the country. That’s why we started to talk to them, we started to approach them and we started to also share the vision that we want for our country for the future and this is how this initiative was born,” Szpilka tells TechCrunch. Adigital expects Spain to have 20 unicorns by the end of the year. And, seeking to underscore the value to the economy of such high growth startups, Szpilka says that even just that handful of billion-dollar+ valuation tech firms would be contributing 1% of the country’s GDP. The wider ecosystem of circa 450 scale-ups that EsTech intends to represent will have a goal of reaching 40% tech GDP in 2030. “The [goal for EsTech] is to really facilitate the creation and the growth of these type of companies — becoming unicorns or not. I don’t care about the $1BN valuation; we care about job creation, sales, the ‘social cash flow’ that these type of companies can contribute,” she adds. Spain’s high growth startups have been a bit “under the radar” domestically when it comes to positive perception of their impact, Szpilka suggests. “People really didn’t realize the impact that these type of companies are having. And which we are convinced is huge. Last year — in terms of sales — this group of [nine EsTech founding] companies were more than €4 billion in sales and in terms of job creation they employ currently 10,000 people directly here in Spain.” She also cites job creation stats for the broader base of 400 or so scale-ups in the Spanish ecosystem which, in 2020, were responsible for creating 324,000 new jobs. “The expectation for 2021 — which is not confirmed yet — is going to be around 670,000 employments. So we are talking about a huge percentage already of the employed population in Spain.” “It’s really impressive the impact and we are convinced that by sharing and making the society be aware of the contribution this will create a positive impact,” Szpilka adds. EsTech’s three main objectives boil down to advocacy around 1) talent — both promoting talent development within Spain and attracting more international talent to the country (which means lobbying on related tax regimes); 2) regulation, seeking to influence domestic initiatives such as but also at an EU-level where regional digital policy gets set; and 3) raising the profile of scale-ups on the global tech stage and also locally where entrepreneurs don’t always get the warmest reception from wider Spanish society. On the regulation point, Spain’s first startup law — which was adopted in draft and presented to parliament in — has been well received by the local tech community. But there has also been some grumbling that the thresholds for qualifying for the package of tax breaks and other benefits are drawn too narrowly — and will exclude all but very early stage startups. EsTech seems likely to press that line of argument — although at the time of writing it was still preparing its policy plan. “We are leveraging on the new startup law and also trying to bring to the floor some of the best practices around Europe — some of them have already been presented in the new startup law, others no. So we are going to take this as a base scenario and try to propose different improvements,” says Szpilka. “Particularly because there are some things around the startup laws that are just for very small startups but here we are talking about scale ups and here we also want to be listened to.” “We need to work all around the different stages,” she adds — pointing to another draft law, called , which is more focused on SMEs than tech businesses, and saying EsTech’s mission is therefore “more to make sure and make everybody aware of how important the contribution of the tech world could also be”. “Many, many times I am complaining about the innovation capacity of Spain as a whole — the contribution to innovation around the percentage of the GDP in Spain is one of the lowest in Europe but at the same time we have this type of super innovate companies and this should also be an example for other companies in Spain of how you can innovate here and we would love others to see this as a mirror of the type of things that can be done here,” she adds. On the third objective — raising the profile and perhaps burnishing the image of scale-ups within Spain — the always vocal and by taxi associations in cities like Madrid and Barcelona, demonstrating against ride-hailing platforms such as EsTech member Cabify, which are seen as encroaching on rights and livelihoods, look instructive vis-a-vis some of the challenges the group may face in trying to push a positive message of disruption. “Sometimes in Spain the entrepreneurs — the how we call them — that are business people have a sort of a bad ‘image’,” says Szpilka. “The entrepreneurs are always looked at as super fancy and smart people but at the end of the day we are the same. So it’s trying to boost and trying to explain the role that entrepreneurs are playing and their capacity to impact, to transform and to change the society in which we are living.” EsTech’s lobbying will presumably seek to establish and/or reframe the narrative around high growth platforms to one of opportunity, job and wealth creation. Reframe because certain types of digital scaling in Spain have been fast-followed by negative stories — especially on the gig economy front, where public concern over issues like the rise of precarious jobs has already The country’s center-left government targeted at delivery platforms last year which requires them to recognize couriers as employees — although, months on, many local gig workers still haven’t been brought in-house by the platforms they deliver for. And when the labor reform came into force, Glovo — another of EsTech’s founding companies — said it would only hire around 1,800 couriers of the ~10,000 active on its platform in its home market. (As of , the company hadn’t even hired that fractional amount yet.) In just one example of synergies and aligned interests within EsTech’s club of scale-ups, another of the founding companies, the digital temping agency Jobandtalent, has seen its business valuation soar over the past decade — hitting — exactly on rising demand for what it bills as a workforce-as-a-service platform that essentially offers a fresh legal workaround for high growth platforms like Glovo which want to keep scaling an on-demand delivery business without having to directly employ thousands of couriers as Spain’s labor reform intends. The European Union also recently presented a — saying at the end of last year that it would establish a framework to tackle bogus self employment. The final shape of that pan-EU regulation is still pending the bloc’s co-legislative process so the opportunity for lobbying to influence the detail remains live. In Brussels, other major pieces of digital regulation are being fast slotted into place too, with political agreement on an ex ante reform of the bloc’s competition regime (aka, the DMA, which will apply only to the very largest tech giants) via EU trilogues — and a broader update of the bloc’s ecommerce rules (aka, the DSA) now going through this three-way negotiation process. The final shape of the DSA will certainly impact how Spain’s scale-ups operate in the future. While the DMA could bolster the chances of European tech giants being able to compete against global (i.e. mostly U.S.) Big Tech giants at the pan-EU level. Albeit, any one of these Spanish scale-ups could — in theory — grow big enough to, one day, end up designed a gatekeeper themselves — and face being subject to the DMA’s fixed regime of operational ‘dos and don’ts’. Which introduces a new type of cap that scale-ups and their investors may need to consider. “At the end, the EU has a lot to say in this economy,” agrees Szpilka, adding: “Of course we are talking to Spanish regulators and to the administration here in Spain but EU will be a focus for sure as most of the important things that are coming — Digital Markets Act and other regulations around Digital Services Act — are in Europe. “Sometimes we think that these regulations only affect the big guys in tech but it’s more frequent than we think that they are also affecting these scale up companies.” As more scale-ups join EsTech the opportunities to align their respective growth-focused agendas to better amplify shared interests to lawmakers will surely grow — although it’s less clear how successful the domestic bid to re-pitch high growth, high tech businesses to a sometimes sceptical Spanish public will be if socioeconomic divides persist. It’s notable that the government chain-linked its announcement of a to a very public commitment that no part of Spanish society would be left behind in the scramble to digitally transform its economic model. (Or “an ironclad principle that we leave no one behind”, as prime minister Pedro Sanchez put at his Web Summit announcement in December 2020.) So it is perhaps not so surprising that a handful of the largest, fastest growing Spanish scale-ups have responded, fairly quickly, to the government coming with a long term, socially inclusive digital strategy by organizing among themselves — with the goal of ensuring their own interests don’t get put on the backburner. Ana Maiques, founder of the health tech scale-up Neuroelectrics and president of EsTech, says the group wants to make sure the needs of these “new kids on the block” businesses are heard by Spain’s institutions and policymakers, while simultaneously shouting about scale-up successes internationally to raise the country’s profile on the global stage. “I’m spending most of my professional life in the US. There is no connection between ‘Es’ — Spain — and ‘tech’ so this is one of the things that we really want to shout about. We want to show to the world that there is high tech and amazing technology companies being born and growing from Spain,” she tells TechCrunch. “We really believe that the trade associations that exist today in Spain may not represent this new model. “Some societies — like my American colleagues — are really good on the selling and speaking and marketing side. I think that in Spain we are quite the opposite. There’s a lot of value, there is a lot of interesting things happening and we don’t speak enough about it — so this is also a recognition from my point of view to those hidden heroes that go under the radar but they are doing extraordinary things. “If you think of an example like Wallbox, they weren’t even created six years ago — they are 1,000 people today and they went into the Nasdaq. First Spanish company to go into the Nasdaq. They have factories in Texas and China and they are revolutionizing these new electric car plugs. This is a super clear example that we should be proud of. Born and created in Spain. So we want our society to understand that these things are happening here and we want to be part of that community and play the Champion’s League at the world level. We are as good as others so now is the moment to be proud of what’s happening already here.” “These companies regardless of who is in their cap table or who are their investors or whether they are at the Nasdaq or in the national stock market, they are bringing thousands of jobs into the countries,” Meiques continues. “So I think that’s one of our biggest social and economical impacts. I think we really have the power, these kind of companies, to transform the economy and the people we employ are high level employees, people with engineering degrees, highly technological.” She also points to the EU’s commitment, over ten years, to put €10 billion into investing in scale up companies across the bloc as an opportunity for EsTech to lean out towards regional policies as well as inwards to make the case for disruptive business models locally. “In these kind of associations you need to work both at local and global levels,” she adds. “We need to attract talent — which of course will be from Spain but it will be from all over the world because the war of this decade is going to be on talent. “The other thing that we need is investment. Here the legislators and the regulation has a lot to say to make also the process more streamlined for investors to help us scale up companies. All the tax incentives. It’s difficult, currently, to invest in Spain compared to other jurisdictions like the U.S.” The startup law by the government as part of its “ ” contains a package of reform measures aimed at attracting more tech talent, such as through changes to the visa system and tax regime, as well as interventions focused on pulling in more investment. But EsTech evidently wants to see more and deeper support — support that stretches with startups as they scale. “There are interesting initiatives — like the newest that the government launched [last summer] particularly for deeptech companies in Spain — but we need many more of these,” says Szpilka, suggesting Spain has major strengths and growth potential in data startups, clean tech and health. Connectivity is another area she highlights for further growth. “What makes us very unique is we have a very diverse culture in Spain and very entrepreneurial,” adds Meiques. “And that builds a different kind of view into the world — we’ve got this very perseverant, passionate, fighter character… So I think, as a culture, we have the ingredients of creativity and perseverance to be fantastic entrepreneurs. And on the science side I also believe there is a lot of strong universities and labs in Spain which are also under the radar. “So there’s this combination and I think that maybe what we are lacking is ambition — and a belief that we can be a player.” In the short term, the mission for EsTech is to scale itself by growing its membership. The group will need to add many more high growth tech businesses than its initial cohort of nine to turn up the volume on its claim to being the voice of scale-ups in Spain — so local founders’ appetites for agenda-setting ambition (or at least coordination) are set to be tested. “We already know there are at least ten more [fast growing startups] that are pretty similar to the nine founder members so those will be the first ones we’ll be calling up,” says Meiques. “And then of course we expect as companies grow and scale and comply with the association that they will join us. So as Carina was saying the idea is to grow our contribution to the economic model and the GDP of the country. The more the merrier.” The criteria for scale-ups to qualify to join EsTech includes being at least post-Series B or C in terms of funding stage; with a consolidated annual growth rate of more than 25%-50%; and an “international approach” — so doing business outside as well as inside Spain, per Szpilka, although the main base of the company’s operations or founders’ must be located in the country. An acquisition of an EsTech scale-up by a foreign giant wouldn’t necessarily cancel membership — hence Glovo, which was , can still claim a place as a founding member as it retains its local HQ and extensive operations in Spain. |
Daily Crunch: Citing ‘uncertain mortgage market,’ Better.com rolls out employee buyout plan | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | Welcome to the Daily Crunch for Wednesday, April 6, 2022! Today, , and can we just say … about time! May all other platforms follow. Also, while we’re on our little soapbox: The earth ain’t flat, and vaccines have little impact on your 5G reception. Which is unfortunate, because we can’t get more than a couple of bars in the supermarket. We wish you a delightful day and impeccable cell reception – and TechCrunch has gone Texas-sized today, with our inaugural City Spotlight for 2022, where we do what we can to help Keep Austin Wired. Connie talked to , Brian took a look at , Laura Lorek did a profile on , and Mary Ann summarized , earning its current reputation as a tech hub. Outside the Lone Star State, it was a big day of EV news. that put it on track to hit its 2022 goals, which is great news for me, because it may mean that I’ll at some point clear the waitlist and take delivery of one of the off-road pickup trucks because obviously that’s what I need to drive to my local Whole Foods. General Motors finally figured out its supply chain woes and the recall of 141,000 Bolts and . And the U.S. government finally figured out that if it wants to go fully electric, to energize all the vehicles it wants to run. Moar News, fresh from the TechCrunch firehose of tasty morsels of news and commentary: / Getty Images A few years ago, ingesting small quantities of psychedelics to elevate one’s mood or productivity was the subject of small talk in Silicon Valley. Today, psychedelic therapeutics are being used to treat a variety of mental health issues. And as more regions decriminalize the use of plant-based substances, investors are taking notice. With plans to raise a $25 million fund and more than $15 million already invested, PsyMed Ventures focuses on early-stage startups developing psychedelic therapeutics. In a TC+ guest post, partners Matias Serebrinsky and Greg Kubin explore their investment thesis in detail: “We believe in a future where psychedelic therapy will be as common as going to the dentist, but the path won’t be easy.” Intel has joined other Big Tech companies, like Apple, AMD, Adobe and General Electric, in . This follows its move of stopping shipments to customers in Russia and Belarus. And don’t miss the by reporter Vadim Smyslov, who is covering the impact the war is having on Russia’s tech workers. We also learned today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was able to take it down. Called the Cyclops Blink, this malware had apparently infiltrated thousands of devices, and we report “security researchers the botnet is capable of collecting information and conducting espionage, launching distributed that overload websites and servers with junk traffic, as well as destructive attacks that render the devices inoperable and causing system and network disruptions.” All of that makes us glad this one is out of commission. Here are two other news items for you to sink your teeth into: |
NordVPN raises its first money, $100M at a $1.6B valuation | Ingrid Lunden | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | VPN usage has surged in the last several years, with growing concerns over data privacy and security — and sometimes completely different motivations like people wanting to access content otherwise blocked in their regions — driving an of all internet consumers globally to use a VPN at some point this year. Now , the startup behind one of the bigger paid VPN providers, , is announcing significant funding at a “unicorn” valuation to build out both its consumer and enterprise business lines to capitalize on that growth. The company has raised $100 million in a round of funding led by Novator — the European firm that’s backed Deliveroo, Stripe and Tier, — with Burda Principal Investments and General Catalyst, and individuals including Ilkka Paananen of Supercell, Miki Kuusi of Wolt and Matt Mullenweg of Automattic also participating. This round values the startup at $1.6 billion. What’s notable here is that Vilnius, Lithuania-based Nord has been bootstrapped for the last 10 years (it was founded in 2012), a state that doesn’t seem to have held back its growth. NordVPN and the other security and identity management products that Nord sells — they include the NordPass password manager, NordLocker for cloud sync and storage, NordLayer for network access for businesses and developer tools to build custom VPNs — have collectively grown to 15 million users over the years. Alongside its organic expansion, it has also been expanding via M&A: in February Nord with Surfshark, another security company with Lithuanian roots (and more specifically, roots to the where Nord Security was also hatched, ). (Lithuania is also producing some interesting companies in the business of security and networking, such as the used-clothing marketplace , which was the country’s first startup to reach a $1 billion valuation.) So why raise now? Tom Okman, the co-CEO and co-founder with Eimantas Sabaliauskas, told TechCrunch that it made the decision to finally bite the funding bullet to keep up with the pace of the times, while also continuing to stay on course with its mission, which might best be summarized as embracing “We saw the changing landscape in digital privacy… and that the open internet was not working as intended,” he said. “Our mission is to build a radically different internet by securing consumer and enterprise accounts, and network information, against cyber threats around the world.” VPNs are often used by people to evade more restrictive internet policies (whether due to geoblocked content, or more controlling governments or something in between), or simply to keep their browsing more private, but the VPN industry hasn’t had a completely smooth ride in fulfilling those aims. Critics have decried how VPNs, those advertising themselves as “free” but also some that charge for their services, do not handle users’ data responsibly and . Some of that criticism has touched NordVPN, too. In the last three years, its name has been mentioned in connection with VPNs to block certain sites, a of one of its data centers and that some of its browser extensions to. Asked about these events and what the impact has been on Nord, Okman said that the company has been changing over the years to address the different points, and to do better. “We have learned our lesson and come a long way since 2019,” he said. The data center breach found that no data was compromised, he said, but it spurred the company to reconfigure its security and change how it handles data overall (the systems are now diskless, he said). Internal security teams were increased and the company now goes through regular audits, in partnership with U.S. firm Versprite. The tussle with Russia prompted the company to pull all of its business out of the country rather than comply, and he said that the NordVPN now has very few users in the country. Its main aim is to continue building out enterprise and consumer services as a paid offering, a business that Okman pointed out not only has seen it amass 100 patents, but a different kind of ethos to improve the product and answer to a different standard. “We prohibit any illegal activities and we define that in our terms of service,” he added. “That is the big difference, and a distinction between paid VPN and free VPN services.” The fact that Nord had been bootstrapped and quietly building and growing also meant that it was less easy to have much visibility around how it was run, and what it did. And having a customer base that was primarily consumers also meant potentially less due diligence around how the product worked. More recently, though, Nord’s growing enterprise business, along with this latest addition of high-profile investors and a big valuation, all give the startup not just more exposure, but potentially more oversight. |
Twitter is wiping embeds of deleted tweets from the web | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | The isn’t Twitter’s only new feature that can rewrite history. The company has apparently changed the way it handles embedded tweets that were deleted after the fact, littering web pages across the internet with holes. Previously, a deleted tweet embedded in a web page would still display the text content of a tweet. Now that text is gone, showing only a blank box. Twitter is altering web pages with deleted embedded tweets by hiding the text with JavaScript — a choice that has many developers and open web advocates up in arms. In a , IndieWeb developer and former Google Developer Advocate Kevin Marks slammed Twitter’s change, likening it to “tampering with the public record.” Marks cites former President Trump’s since-deleted tweets as an example of content in the public interest that should remain available, adding that Twitter’s new approach toward deleted embedded tweets is “disturbing.” In a replying to Marks’ concerns, Twitter Senior Product Manager Eleanor Harding said that Twitter is seeking to “better respect when people have chosen to delete their Tweets” with the change. Harding said that the deleted tweet embeds would soon display a message rather than just leaving a completely blank box, which is what’s happening right now. Marks isn’t the only one raising concerns that the ahistorical approach to old tweets will damage the web. “Twitter is doing more than just preserving the privacy of people who choose to delete their tweets: they’re using JavaScript to retroactively hide the quoted plain text in their embeds, even though it’s still there in the HTML,” said Andy Baio, who created the and previously served as the CTO of Kickstarter. “This is a huge problem for preserving the historical record.” “… Anyone writing on the web could have used a screenshot of a tweet or just quoted the text, but had the confidence of knowing that if an embedded tweet was deleted, the plain text would still remain. Twitter broke that pact by changing this behavior.” Twitter announced Tuesday that it would soon be , its premium subscription service. Between the change to embedded tweets and that controversial news, the company seems to be moving toward a philosophy that puts its users’ intentions first, well above any concerns around archiving historical content. But the feature’s critics argue that giving users free rein to change their tweets after the fact could , including harassment and misinformation. Much like public reception of the once-mythological edit tweet button, people are likely to be split on if Twitter deleting bits of the internet’s collective memory is a good move or an ominous step in the wrong direction. There’s a natural tension between the ethos of the “ ” movement, which seeks to empower people to have certain kinds of content about them deleted from the internet, and the researchers, developers and other open information advocates that view the web as a living document — one to be updated constantly but never altered outright. |
FabuLingua wins the TechCrunch City Spotlight: Austin pitch-off! | Matt Burns | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | It’s my pleasure to announce won today’s City Spotlight: Austin pitch-off! The company competed against and on today’s TechCrunch Live episode and won free exhibition space at TechCrunch Disrupt this October. Mark Begert pitched his company to three Austin-based investors who found his messaging and pitch to be clear, concise and easy to follow. Mark explained throughout his four-minute pitch that his company teaches kids Spanish through games and stories. He likened FabuLingua to Prodigy Education’s ultra-popular education product that teaches math through a similar gamification service. In FabuLingua, users (kids) interact with stories and games that unlock new functions as the child progresses. The company calls it invisible learning, where the text is in Spanish but read aloud in English. Along the way, the service drops the English helpers and presents the child with only Spanish instructions. As the child explores the FabuLingua world, more stories unlock, enabling more teaching opportunities. The service is available through a monthly subscription, and is available on Android and iOS devices. The company was founded by Leslie and Mark Bergert. While Mark is the CEO, he made it clear in his pitch that Leslie, as a polyglot, leads the direction of the company. It’s her passion of teaching languages, he says, that pushes the company forward. She was raised in a multicultural, bilingual environment and studied linguistics at Oxford University along her way to earning a psychology degree. She later earned her masters degree in social anthropology from Cambridge University. The company says it has more than 80,000 downloads, 15,000 registered users and over 1,000 families paying for the subscription. FabuLingua is based out of Austin, Texas, and raised $1.3 million in pre-seed funding rounds. The company is , where it raised $322,983 with a $7.5 million valuation cap. The campaign is active, and FabuLingua is still accepting new investors through Wefunder. Two other companies presented in the Austin pitch-off. David Franklin pitched , which connects with sponsors and collaborates with physicians and builds a community of patients for clinical research. Charlie Sarmiento pitched , a marketplace for athletes based in blockchain technology. Special thanks to the wonderful Austin-based judges: Krishna Srinivasan, co-founder of LiveOak Venture Partners; Bryan Chambers, president of Capital Factory; and Sarah Brand, founding general partner at True Wealth Ventures. |
Google Play will hide and block downloads for outdated apps starting later this year | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | Google is preparing to clear its Play Store of outdated apps. The company that starting on November 1, 2022, it will hide apps and block their installation to users’ devices if developers haven’t kept up with the latest Android OS releases. Specifically, Google said apps that don’t target an Android API within two years of the latest major Android release version will no longer be able to be discovered or installed by new users whose devices run Android OS versions that are higher than the apps’ target API level. In short, this means that Android users who are keeping up with the latest software or those who’ve just purchased new Android phones will no longer be able to find or download old, out-of-date apps. This should not be a significant adjustment for any active developers building for Android, as Google already requires new apps and app updates to target an Android API level within one year of the latest major Android OS version release. And any app updates submitted that also don’t meet this requirement can’t be published on Google Play. But the change would impact fully abandoned apps or those where the developer is still serving their users but no longer keeps up with the latest Android API updates. Since the apps aren’t entirely removed from Google Play, this won’t be a direct equivalent to the in years past where Apple pulled down tens of thousands of outdated, abandoned apps. In fact, Google explains that the existing users of the older apps impacted by the new policy will still be able to discover them, re-install them, and use them on any Android OS version the app supports. This is perhaps more consumer-friendly than simply yanking apps off the app store, as Apple had done. However, Google’s goal was similiar to Apple’s in that outdated apps not only offer a poor expeirence they’re also a potential security risk. As Google explained in its about the new policy, every Android OS update brings “privacy, security, and user experience improvements.” “Users with the latest devices or those who are fully caught up on Android updates expect to realize the full potential of all the privacy and security protections Android has to offer. Expanding our target level API requirements will protect users from installing older apps that may not have these protections in place,” the company stated. While there are ongoing issues with Andorid malware, including recenlty engaging in espionage, these malicous programs are not always found in outdated apps. Instead, they often prompt the user to allow it to use the high-level permissions it requires, and the user agrees. Google Google notes the “vast majority” of Google Play apps already meet the new requirements and won’t be impacted by the policy change. For other apps, this notification serves to allow reputable developers the time to make the necessary updates. To aid developers in the transition, Google published a to help migrate apps to the target API levels, along with which includes the exact timelines for the changes. It’s also offering developers the ability to request a six month extension if they need more time for their migration through a form that will be availalbe in the Play Console later this year. Google has been working to tighten up its app marketplace in recent days as regulations take closer aim at the mobile app ecosystem. This month, Google Play’s also went into effect. The company had announced back in 2020 that developers would need to come into compliance with Google’s policy that requires apps selling digital goods and services to use Google Play’s own billing system. Unless developers were approved for an extension, they’re no longer be able to submit app updates until they’re in compliance as of April 1, 2022, barring any critical security issues. On June 1, 2022, non-compliant apps will be removed from Google Play. Combined with this semi-purge of outdated apps, the Play Store will likely lose many apps in the months to come. |
Terra’s founder plans to back its stablecoin with a ‘basket’ of cryptocurrencies | Jacquelyn Melinek | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | many headlines in the past few weeks surrounding the choices of Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs, which created the crypto tokens LUNA and stablecoin TerraUSD (UST). Kwon previously announced plans to obtain $10 billion in bitcoin for reserves to “open a new monetary era of the Bitcoin standard.” The funds will be used to back UST in a decentralized foreign exchange reserve to keep the value of the stablecoin at a fixed rate. On Wednesday, a few hours before speaking to TechCrunch, he casually that he bought $230 million in bitcoin. Kwon told TechCrunch Terra has purchased $1.6 billion in bitcoin so far and plans to purchase an additional $1.4 billion with capital from . The Terra protocol will buy the remaining $7 billion of bitcoin through users wanting to mint UST. “Users would put bitcoin into the reserve and then get UST,” he explained. But what’s more interesting is that these bitcoin purchases are just the beginning of Kwon and Terra’s larger road map to expand and integrate the stablecoin deeper into the crypto ecosystem. Kwon plans to back UST with other Layer 1 (L1) blockchains like Solana and Avalanche, to name a few, in the short term. “We’re big believers of Bitcoin, so we’re just going to continue to buy whenever there’s an opportunity to,” Kwon said. “Overtime, Terra is going to be backed by a basket of the top Layer 1 assets.” He did not clearly note which L1s that would entail, but he said that bitcoin will remain the dominant reserve for UST. “I don’t think we’ll have covers of all the ecosystems within the next few weeks, but we’ll turn on reserves for a few of the popular ones,” Kwon said. There is a circulating supply of 16.72 billion UST in the market and the current volume of the stablecoin is $672 million, up 9.2% in the past 24 hours, according to on CoinMarketCap at the time of publication. UST is the 14th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. As the Terra ecosystem begins to grow substantially within other L1s like the Avalanche blockchain, for example, then there’s a possibility that UST will be backed by a lot of Avalanche’s token, AVAX, he said. “If you’re minting UST on Avalanche, you would trade in AVAX instead of bitcoin and that will in turn improve the size of AVAX reserves,” he said. By adding other types of collateral, it will expand the potential user base of Terra stablecoins, he said. “For example, if Terra stablecoins were the largest consumer of SOL [Solana] or AVAX and the reserves are that large, then there’s an inherent alignment with the user base from each of those ecosystems.” Even though the “share of the pie” that Luna takes home gets smaller, the approachable market will get significantly larger, he said. Stablecoins get their name from the fact that they are “stable” through a 1:1 ratio that pegs their value to an external reserve, typically U.S. dollars, but can also be tied to other assets, like UST is with bitcoin. This means every stablecoin in circulation is backed up by $1 held in its relative reserve, whether it be U.S. dollars or another asset. The stablecoin ecosystem has expanded dramatically over the past year, and even the U.S. Federal Reserve took note by saying in a January 2022 on the crypto assets that they “experienced tremendous growth in the past year” and that “stablecoins hold the potential to support next-generation innovations.” |
TikTok launches new program to help creative agencies reach its audience | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | TikTok is launching a new program that is designed to help creative agencies become “TikTok experts,” the company on Wednesday. The company says the five-week program will teach enrollees what they need to know about getting started on TikTok and how to use the platform to up their marketing game. “The goal of CAP University is to inspire next-level creative content on the world’s fastest-growing entertainment platform,” TikTok said in a blog post about the announcement. “After completing the program, enrollees will be able to lead conversations with their clients, concept and create for the platform, and continue driving their clients’ business forward. Most importantly, enrollees will have a newfound understanding of the creative possibilities on and off the platform.” The courses will be hosted as live webinar sessions and will begin on April 19. The sessions will focus on a variety of topics and will start off by helping creative agencies gain the baseline knowledge of TikTok and provide advice on how to begin leading client relationships. The final session is designed to help creative agencies dive deeper into the TikTok Creator Marketplace, the company’s in-house influencer marketing platform. TikTok’s new educational initiative will allow the company to create and form new creator partnerships while also enabling agencies to be better positioned to advertise on the platform. |
NASA finds two new space-based ways to track climate change | Stefanie Waldek | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | We often think of NASA as an agency that looks outward into space, but it’s the agency’s position in space that makes it such a powerful tool for observing the Earth itself. Today NASA announced the results of two space-based studies observing climate change across the planet. The first is a data set from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission, a high-resolution lidar instrument aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that has estimated the total amount of above-ground forest biomass and its carbon storage capacity. That information can now be used by researchers studying the role of forests in mitigating climate change. Over the past three years, GEDI has taken billions of laser measurements of vegetation around the globe. That data has been combined with airborne and ground-based lidar surveys to create detailed 3D biomass maps that indicate the total amount of vegetation in a one-square-kilometer area. With those maps, researchers will be able to better estimate the amount of carbon that is stored in forests. “Resolving the structure of different forest and woodland ecosystems with much more certainty will benefit not only carbon stock estimation, but also our understanding of their ecological condition and the impact of different land management practices,” John Armston, GEDI’s lead for validation and calibration and an associate research professor at the University of Maryland, . NASA The second item is a joint project between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, which used satellite data to develop a method of monitoring underground water loss, a serious matter for the agriculture industry. Researchers observed California’s Tulare Basin with the U.S.-European Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On satellites and a European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-1 satellite. The groundwater in the Tulare Basin is pumped to irrigate the state’s Central Valley, a major agricultural center in the United States, and its supply is dwindling. The satellite data provided the team the context to develop a model that monitors the rate and type of water loss underground. “The method sorts out how much underground water loss comes from aquifers confined in clay, which can be drained so dry that they will not recover, and how much comes from soil that’s not confined in an aquifer, which can be replenished by a few years of normal rains,” . Even as NASA looks to return to the moon, the agency has reiterated its commitment to Earth science missions. NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy addressed the agency’s prioritization of climate change research at the 37th annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this week. “This year with our international partners, we initiate the Earth System Observatory, a series of Earth-observing satellites that will measure key parameters to improve the world’s understanding of climate change,” she said at the conference. “As we have measured Earth in the past, we’ve discovered that the most important thing to quantify is not just water or weather or soil moisture or any individual thing, but actually to study Earth as a system. And so NASA’s work here in the Earth System Observatory is critical for the entire planet.” |
No more radar for Tesla EVs headed for Europe, Middle East | Kirsten Korosec | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | Tesla will start delivering Model Y and Model 3 vehicles without radar to customers in Europe and the Middle East, a continuation of the company’s plans and CEO Elon Musk’s desire to only use cameras combined with machine learning to support its advanced driver assistance system and other active safety features. Tesla first started to build its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in May 2021. Those vehicles were solely for the North American market. The company said in an that it will begin delivering its camera-only Model Y and Model 3 vehicles for Europe and the Middle East this month. The vehicles may be delivered with some functions temporarily limited or inactive, including a feature that keeps it within its lane, . The feature, called Autosteer, will be limited to a maximum speed of 80 mph and a longer minimum following distance. Tesla will slowly restore features via a series of over-the-air software updates in the weeks ahead. All other available Autopilot and Tesla Full Self-Driving features will be active at delivery, depending on order configuration. Tesla’s decision to stop using the sensor is a departure from the industry standard. Automakers typically use a combination of radar and cameras to provide the sensing required to deliver advanced driver assistance system features like adaptive cruise control, which matches the speed of a car to surrounding traffic, as well as lane keeping and automatic lane changes. Some automakers such as Mercedes-Benz and Volvo have even added a third sensor called lidar, or light detection and ranging sensor, to provide redundancy in ADAS systems. The move toward more — not less — sensors has been where most automakers are headed. Tesla, and its chief executive Musk, are the contrarians. Musk has long touted the potential of its branded “Tesla Vision” system, which only uses cameras and so-called neural net processing to detect and understand what is happening in the environment surrounding the vehicle and then respond appropriately. Neural nets are a form of machine learning that work similarly to how humans learn. It is a sophisticated form of artificial intelligence algorithm that allows a computer to learn by using a series of connected networks to identify patterns in data. Many companies developing autonomous vehicle technology for robotaxis or self-driving trucks use deep neural networks to handle specific problems. But they wall off the deep nets and use rules-based algorithms to tie into the broader system. These AV developers also use a combination of camera, radar and lidar to provide redundancy to the system. |
Tandem sketches out a remote-friendly hybrid work future | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | , a startup building corporate communications tools, has released a new product called Spaces, hoping to blend remote and in-office work so that all staff feels properly connected to their co-workers. The release of Spaces comes as many companies are digesting a return to offices and the question of how to manage a team that is working from multiple locations. Back in 2019, Tandem was the hottest company coming out of Y Combinator. At the time, “developing communication software for remote teams after pivoting from crypto” work. It landed $7.5 million before the pandemic hit. Talk about right place and right time, yeah? , Tandem’s CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch recently that things at his startup went vertical with the onset of COVID-19 and the ensuing mass move to working from home. The CEO said that his company grew by around 30x in a few weeks’ time. I went for a tour of Tandem’s current software to get a feel for its new service. Generally speaking, Tandem is an app that allows teams to communicate, track their meetings and collect in chat rooms. You’ve used related software. What I will say is that Tandem’s layout is pretty slick, meaning that it has a user experience that was easy to learn. It has some nice touches as well, like icons near user names so that you can see what software your co-workers are using at any given time. If you see a developer using an IDE, maybe you wait to ping them, right? But where Tandem is looking to break out from the pack of software products that allow for computer-to-computer communications is its Spaces product. In short, the service works with video-ready hardware inside of office spaces like conference rooms and general-use areas, allowing remote staff to connect to different parts of the office, listen in or actively participate. In a demo, I was taken around the Tandem office in real time, dropping in on meetings and generally being a nuisance for a little while. We showed up on TVs in conference rooms and what I think was some sort of lounge space. At this juncture, I need to establish my remote-work bona fides. I have been an on-again, off-again remote worker since my early college years. My first journalism job was for a company on a different continent. I never made it to the office in years of working there. At TechCrunch, I’ve been both remote and IRL, and my last gig was more in-person than not. So when it comes to Zooming into meetings, managing over the phone and generally using every piece of software out there over time, I am aware of the advantages and issues that remote work engenders. With that in mind, I like what Tandem has built. It works with a lot of hardware options, including cheap laptops, so even more frugal teams will be able to access the service. You don’t have to buy a huge rig to bridge the gap between staff in the office and those afar. Naturally, having a large screen with a good camera and mic will make Spaces better, but you can also throw a cheap laptop into the mix if you are on a budget. When you select a particular “space” in an office inside the app, you can connect quietly or with video and audio, depending on your needs. Does that feel creepy in practice, showing up on in-office screens? Not really, because remote staffers are tapping into the office — not the houses of their co-workers. The service launched on April 4. Naturally, we asked the company how its release is going. Per Ayyangar, it’s “too early to share numbers,” but the CEO did email over some positive customer comments that he said were disclosed “verbatim.” Both pieces of feedback highlighted the importance of community connection, which was likely music to Tandem’s ears. Tandem is a SaaS startup, meaning that its customers subscribe to its service on a recurring basis. Regular Tandem costs $8 per month per user, more for enterprise features. Spaces, in contrast, costs $50 per company per month, or more, again, for enterprise-grade accoutrements. Ayyangar said that around 800 companies use Tandem today, but we couldn’t drill more deeply to get a customer count. (The startup features a free tier, as many self-service products do in the modern software world.) Spaces could help Tandem drive more revenue from its existing customers, or perhaps attract new customers. Either way, it’s well timed. What we’re curious about next is how much the new product helps Tandem grow; it hasn’t raised more capital since that late 2019 round, , which means that it’s probably getting ready to do so. If Spaces performs well, perhaps we’ll hear from the company again sooner rather than later. |
Meta says it’s ‘pausing’ F8, won’t hold the developer conference this year | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | Meta today that it won’t be holding its F8 developer conference in 2022. In a blog post, the company said it’s “pausing” the conference this year while it focuses on new initiatives, such as the metaverse. “Similar to years past, we are taking a brief break in programming and will not hold F8 in 2022 while we gear up on new initiatives that are all tailored towards the next chapter of the internet, and the next chapter of our company too: building the metaverse,” said Meta’s Director of products and partnerships Diego Duarte Moreira in a blog post. “Similar to the early stages of the web, building the metaverse will be a collaborative effort at every stage — with other companies, creators and developers like you.” Instead, Moreira said Meta is looking forward to connecting with developers at the company’s other events this year, including the recently announced inaugural virtual event that’s taking place on May 19. The conference will be dedicated to businesses, developers and partners interested in building experiences on messaging platforms. Meta also plans to share new product updates at the conference. The company is still holding its annual Connect event later this year, where it plans to share the latest on its VR, AR and metaverse platform offerings. At last year’s Connect event, the company announced its , saying the new title captured more of its core ambition: to build the metaverse. |
6 questions investors should ask when evaluating psychedelic biotech companies | Matias Serebrinsky | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | firm that invests in psychedelics, we receive hundreds of pitches every month from founders developing psychedelic therapeutics. Startups are developing treatments for depression by combining psilocybin with psychotherapy, creating new delivery methods, like dissolving strips and patches, and even formulating compounds that rewire neural circuits without hallucinogenic effects. Once fringe, underground, illegal or just limited to ceremonial use by Indigenous cultures, psychedelics are going mainstream in medicinal form. Psychedelic medicine is spawning new companies in every part of the healthcare and life sciences ecosystem, including areas within drug discovery, manufacturing, clinics and retreats, telemedicine and other digital therapeutics, as well as consumer packaged goods. Our fund has invested more than $15 million in companies developing psychedelic therapeutics. We believe psychedelic medicine and progress in digital therapeutics, precision psychiatry and neurotechnology will revolutionize how mental health is treated. Unlike traditional antidepressants and pharmaceuticals, psychedelic medicine has the potential to help people address the root causes of their mental health concerns rather than just symptoms. A by Johns Hopkins found that psilocybin treatment for major depression is four times more effective than traditional antidepressants. Other benefits include their ability to promote the development of new neural pathways and increase empathy and openness, which can be beneficial states to facilitate healing. We believe in a future where psychedelic therapy will be as common as going to the dentist. But the path won’t be easy: Many biotech companies working with psychedelic compounds must complete multiyear clinical trials that can cost over $100 million before winning FDA approval, similar to any other biotech company. So how do we pick which companies to invest in? Here are six key questions we ask when evaluating psychedelic biotech companies: The most important factor that can make or break a psychedelic biotech company is its team. Psychedelic medicine is a multidisciplinary domain, so it’s important that the team has a strong foundation in psychedelics, biotechnology, neuropharmacology and/or psychiatry. That means in biotech, unlike traditional tech companies, it’s rare for a wunderkind first-time founder to start a successful company given the scientific expertise and network required, which may need decades of experience. It’s also important that the team shares our values when it comes to safety and patient well-being. We especially like teams that have psychedelic experience and are grounded in psychedelic history through academic research, field work or personal exploration. These companies will have a leg up on the competition in areas like product development, culture and recruitment. |
Zenda gets $9.4M to streamline school fee payment and management | Annie Njanja | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | , a UAE-based startup looking to change how parents pay school bills, and the way educational institutions manage fee collection, is eyeing Africa as its next frontier for growth. Zenda (formerly nexopay) told TechCrunch it plans to enter the continent through — its third market after India — in the coming months, as it embarks on a growth drive accelerated by a $9.4 million seed funding it has raised. Through its app, Zenda allows parents to pay fees directly to schools, all while streamlining collections by enabling schools to accept and manage payments online. This means that parents no longer need to provide bank deposit slips as proof of payment because all transactions on Zenda happen in real time. The startup also has an embedded financing option that extends tuition fee credit to parents on a flexible repayment structure. The startup, founded in June last year by and , both ex-McKinsey & Company staff, is the duo’s second venture. Thiagarajan said that Zenda borrows from their first social edtech startup, dubbed nexquare — a management and data analytics system for schools, educators and regulators. Thiagarajan, who previously led McKinsey’s financial services practice in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, told TechCrunch that their first startup helped them understand the education market at a granular level, enabling them to build a fintech solution that solves the challenges encountered by parents and the schools around fee payment and management. “Fee payments in schools are mostly manual, and where it is digital, it is cumbersome, expensive and has a manual aspect to it,” said Thiagarajan. “With all the knowledge we have from our previous venture, we understand the education sector. And so, we have a parent-facing app… we also deeply integrate into educational institutions to remove the friction for both the parents and the schools,” he said. Zenda plans to go beyond school fee payment by encompassing other personal financial management aspects. Zenda Among the investors that took part in the seed round were STV, COTU Ventures, Global Founders Capital and VentureSouq. The STV general partner Ihsan Jawad said, “Raman, Haseeb and the team have identified a compelling gap in the market and in supporting families on a topic that is very important to them. Seeing their strong traction over the past several months, we couldn’t be more excited about Zenda. The UAE itself is a $8+ billion market for private education fees and they are already well poised to capture leadership.” Since launch, Thiagarajan says, Zenda’s users have increased 20 times, with the app reaching over $100 million in annual contracted payment volumes by the close of last year. And the startup is eyeing greater growth this year as it accelerates its expansion beyond the UAE using the new funding, which will also support the refinement of its product. “Most of the funding is going to be used in the area of market development and customer experience,” Thiagarajan said. In the long term, Zenda is envisioned to go beyond school fee payment by encompassing other personal financial management aspects. “Our mission is to help families thrive. We aim to make it easier for families to manage their money, and to enable their financial wellness … We see a need for family-centric products that are simple and collaborative.” |
Arrow saves online shopping carts in Southeast Asia | Catherine Shu | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | Even in markets where credit card penetration is high, shopping cart abandonment is still a major source of concern for online vendors. Now imagine the situation in Southeast Asia, where many countries have scores of e-wallets, buy now, pay later services and other forms of payment. Bank transfers are also popular option for online purchases, but involve several steps, which increases the risk of cart abandonment. wants to make the checkout process easier by acting as a layer on top of payment gateways. It supports more than 50 payment methods, including all the major ones in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia (including Atome, GrabPay, Boost and GoPay). The company announced today that it has raised $4.8 million led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from Alpha JWC and Zinal Growth. Angel investors including AIG and Maxis board member Ooi Huey Tyng, Paysend chief operating officer Steve Vickers and Coinbase head of Southeast Asia Hassan Ahmed also participated in the round. Arrow’s CTO Sudhan Raj and founders Sebastian Roervig and Liat Beng Neo. Arrow Launched 15 months ago, Arrow was founded by Liat Beng Neo and Sebastian Roervig and is now used by 100 merchants. Liat Beng Neo told TechCrunch that a major reason for cart abandonment is that “the current checkout processes in the region do not account for its incredible diversity. Southeast Asia is made up of 11 different countries, each with their own unique e-commerce habits and nuances.” For example, he added that some regions have poor internet connectivity, so customers may drop out of the checkout process if it involves clicking multiple webpages. Even popular payments, like bank transfers, involve several steps, and each one means the risk of a customer changing their mind about a purchase. In addition to payment methods, Arrow also integrates shipping information and affiliated loyalty programs, so customers see everything on a single checkout page. Arrow can be integrated into shopping platforms like WooCommerce or Magneto or through APIs that let merchants replace their existing storefronts with Arrow. For social commerce, retailers get a checkout link they can message to their customers. Arrow can be used by all kinds of merchants, but is focused on FMCG and other discretionary goods and services, Liat Beng Neo said, because those tend to have high cart abandonment rates. It also caters in particular to merchants who deal in high order volumes, since they would benefit the most from improvements to cart abandonment rates, he added. Arrow is currently active in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and plans to focus on those three markets for now, while planning for expansion into the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. |
Elon Musk’s The Boring Company to take on hyperloop project | Kate Park | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | Elon Musk said Sunday via Twitter that his tunnel-building-for-urban-transport business The Boring Company will attempt to build a high-speed, and still theoretical, hyperloop in the coming years. In 2013, Musk put out a white paper that outlined the idea of a transport system that could send passengers and cargo in pods through a low-pressure tube at speed in access of 700 miles per hour. He never took on the project. Instead, Musk shared basic engineering plans and encouraged others to develop the concept. While several companies and researchers have been steadily working on hyperloop for nearly a decade, there is not yet a working example of the system anywhere in the world. Musk founded The Boring Company in December 2016 on the premise that finding fast and effective ways to dig networks of tunnels for vehicles and high-speed trains would end traffic congestion. The Boring Company has landed some contracts with cities, but nothing that uses hyperloop or high-speed transport. Its most mature project in Las Vegas uses Tesla vehicles to shuttle people along a 1.7-mile section of underground tunnels at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Last year, the company received initial approval for a special use permit and franchise agreement that will allow The its Vegas Loop system to a 29-mile route with 51 stations that would include stops at casinos along the Las Vegas Strip, the city’s football stadium and UNLV. It would eventually reach McCarran International Airport. Musk’s Sunday tweet, in which he was responding to another tweet listing cities with the worst traffic in the world, comes less than a week after The Boring Company raised $675 million in a Series C funding round that pushed its valuation to $5.7 billion. Cities with the worst traffic in the world: 1. London 🇬🇧
2. Paris 🇫🇷
3. Brussels 🇧🇪
4. Moscow 🇷🇺
5. New York City 🇺🇸
6. Chicago 🇺🇸
7. Rome 🇮🇹
8. Bogota 🇨🇴
9. Palermo 🇮🇹
10. Istanbul 🇹🇷 — World of Statistics (@stats_feed) In the coming years, Boring Co will attempt to build a working Hyperloop. From a known physics standpoint, this is the fastest possible way of getting from one city center to another for distances less than ~2000 miles. Starship is faster for longer journeys. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) He also claimed hyperloop, like other underground tunnels, will be immune to surface weather conditions such as hurricanes. However, there is well documented evidence of subways, which are located in underground tunnels, flooding. For instance, the New York subway flooded in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy hit the coast. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has since in 68 low-lying subway and Port Authority Trans-Hudson stations in Lower Manhattan. Underground tunnels are immune to surface weather conditions (subways are a good example), so it wouldn’t matter to Hyperloop if a hurricane was raging on the surface. You wouldn’t even notice. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) |
Fishy business: Rooser raises $23M for its seafood trading platform | Ingrid Lunden | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | The fishing market globally was worth in 2021, and despite the that swirls around the industry, that figure continues to grow. Today a startup that has built a platform to make the business of fishing more efficient — and thus the process overall more traceable and less prone to waste — is announcing a round of funding to ride that wave. , which provides a marketplace for sourcing fish aimed both at those fishing and those buying for wholesale, trade or retail, has raised $23 million — funding that it will be using both to expand into more markets, and to continue building more functionality into its platform. Today the company’s focus is on stock management, providing tools to help suppliers manage this, as well as to handle and track sales and assess the wider marketplace for their products. Soon, the plan will be to incorporate more quality control tools, supply chain finance, personalization for buyers and sellers to connect more likely trades; and, further down the line, the startup will also bring more business intelligence and analytics into the mix for its customers. It currently has some 45 “species” on sale totaling more than 71,000 kilograms, but does not disclose specific customer numbers apart from noting that it has more than 300 active users and has enabled some 50,000 transactions to date (its business model is to take a commission on each transaction). Index Ventures is leading this round, with participation also from GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Point Nine Capital, as well as Figma CEO and co-founder Dylan Field, and David Nothacker, co-founder and CEO of freight and cargo startup Sennder. Previous to this Series A, Point Nine and Eos Advisory — a Scottish firm based out of St Andrews — had funded Edinburgh-based Rooser with just over $3 million, bringing the total raised to around $26 million. Valuation is not being disclosed. The crux of the problem that Rooser is aiming to fix is that fishing is a huge and growing industry, but it’s been built on the back of major inefficiencies — inefficiencies that have time and again proven to be disastrous for more than just businesses, but for wider economic and ecological ecosystems. Joel Watt — the CEO who co-founded the company with chief commercial officer Nicolas Desormeaux, COO Erez Mathan and CTO Thomas Quiroga — saw this situation firsthand when he was running his own fishing business. Originally an accountant by training, Watt hails from the north of Scotland (with an accent my American ear sometimes found hard to penetrate to match), and after years working for a big firm, he returned to his roots and hometown to start a fishing business — not a tech-based marketplace and budding big-data analytics play, but an actual, wet-floors, cold-rooms and yellow boots fishing operation following in his family’s footsteps, with both his father and grandfather having also worked in fishing. In nearly 10 years of operations, he scaled that business to 50 people and £10 million in turnover, “and it was then that we started to see just how inefficient it was,” he said. Fishing business’s greatest problem, he said, is uncertainty. “You have the boats and fisheries, those turning the products into things you can eat, wholesalers and distributors, and then restaurants and fishmongers. All of those need one-to-one communication, but there are in reality many actors and many price points,” he said. The market is massive — 140,000 related business entities just in Europe — but typically those working without leaning on any platform to access wider customer bases and manage those relationships can only handle 20 contracts at a time, no matter how much fish they have to sell. On the subject of fish to sell, that too is an issue. There are 250 types of fish typically sold in the fishing trade, but when you add in the range of sizes and other variables, it comes out to what Watt said was 35,000 SKUs, and there is little consistency in pricing across that landscape. “No one knows how much anything costs.” Add to that the many layers of people in the chain, and stages that they each manage, and the delays that brings into what is a highly perishable product, and you have a messy situation. For every two fish or other seafood items pulled out from the water, only one gets eaten. So Watt did what any accountant who pivots into building and running a fishing business might do: He started to look into software that could help manage the business aspects of his operation. Rooser is a word from the Doric dialect used in Watt’s region of Scotland, and it means “watering can.” “A team member in my fishing business made a comment about how we seemed to always be fighting a fire somewhere,” Watt said. The idea is that Rooser the software is now helping to fight those fires. Indeed, that software, called Sea.Store, was effective and others started asking to use it, too. Buyers on the platform can source seafood from 13 countries, although Iceland, Watt said, is the biggest sourcing country at the moment. As for buyers, France currently accounts for 95% of all sales. France indeed is a very big market for seafood, but it’s not the only one. Boosting it as the main buyer was intentional on Rooser’s part, he said. “ Georgia Stevenson, the Index partner who led the investment, said that part of the interest for Index here was how successful Rooser has been so far in addressing this particular vertical’s needs and building a marketplace to match that. “It’s enabling less wastage, but it’s also just empowering seafood traders to do their jobs better,” she said. And while there have been plenty of critics lambasting the fishing industry for overreaching in their activities, depleting stocks and equally the industry itself seems to just get increasingly bureaucratic, Stevenson said she believed that Rooser addressed both of these issues. “We have been investing in categories and infrastructure to be more sustainable and we see Rooser as consistent with that.” |
Deep Science: AI simulates economies and predicts which startups receive funding | Kyle Wiggers | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | Research in the field of machine learning and AI, now a key technology in practically every industry and company, is far too voluminous for anyone to read it all. This column aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter. This week in AI, scientists conducted a fascinating experiment to how “market-driven” platforms like food delivery and ride-hailing businesses affect the overall economy when they’re optimized for different objectives, like maximizing revenue. Elsewhere, demonstrating the versatility of AI, a team hailing from ETH Zurich developed a system that can read tree heights from satellite images, while a separate group of researchers tested a system to predict a startup’s success from public web data. The market-driven platform work builds on Salesforce’s AI Economist, an open source research environment for understanding how AI could improve economic policy. In fact, some of the researchers behind the AI Economist were involved in the new work, which was detailed in a study originally published in March. As the co-authors explained to TechCrunch via email, the goal was to investigate two-sided marketplaces like Amazon, DoorDash, Uber and TaskRabbit that enjoy larger market power due to surging demand and supply. Using reinforcement learning — a type of AI system that learns to solve a multi-level problem by trial and error — the researchers trained a system to understand the impact of interactions between platforms (e.g. Lyft) and consumers (e.g. riders). “We use reinforcement learning to reason about how a platform would operate under different design objectives … [Our] simulator enables evaluating reinforcement learning policies in diverse settings under different objectives and model assumptions,” the co-authors told TechCrunch via email. “We explored a total of 15 different market settings — i.e. a combination of market structure, buyer knowledge about sellers, [economic] shock intensity and design objective.” Using their AI system, the researchers arrived at the conclusion that a platform designed to maximize revenue tends to raise fees and extract more profits from buyers and sellers during economic shocks at the expense of social welfare. When platform fees are fixed (e.g. due to regulation), they found a platform’s revenue-maximizing incentive generally aligns with the welfare considerations of the overall economy. The findings might not be Earth-shattering, but the coauthors believe the system — which they plan to open source — could provide a foundation for either a business or policymaker to analyze a platform economy under different conditions, designs and regulatory considerations. “We adopt reinforcement learning as a methodology to describe strategic operations of platform businesses that optimize their pricing and matching in response to changes in the environment, either the economic shock or some regulation,” they added. “This may give new insights about platform economies that go beyond this work or those that can be generated analytically.” Turning our attention from platform businesses to the venture capital that fuels them, researchers hailing from Skopai, a startup that uses AI to characterize companies based on criteria like technology, market and finances, claims to be able to predict the ability of a startup to attract investments using publicly available data. Relying on data from startup websites, social media, and company registries, the co-authors that they can obtain prediction results “comparable to the ones making also use of structured data available in private databases.” Applying AI to due diligence is nothing new. Correlation Ventures, EQT Ventures and SignalFire are among the firms currently using algorithms to inform their investments. Gartner that 75% of VCs will use AI to make investment decisions by 2025, up from less than 5% today. But while some see the value in the technology, dangers lurk beneath the surface. In 2020, Harvard Business Review (HBR) found that an investment algorithm outperformed novice investors but exhibited biases, for example frequently selecting white and male entrepreneurs. HBR noted that this , highlighting AI’s tendency to amplify existing prejudices. In more encouraging news, scientists at MIT, alongside researchers at Cornell and Microsoft, claim to have developed a computer vision algorithm — — that can identify images down to the individual pixel. While this might not sound significant, it’s a vast improvement over the conventional method of “teaching” an algorithm to spot and classify objects in pictures and videos. Traditionally, computer vision algorithms learn to recognize objects (e.g. trees, cars, tumors, etc.) by being shown many examples of the objects that have been labeled by humans. STEGO does away with this time-consuming, labor-intensive workflow by instead applying a class label to each pixel in the image. The system isn’t perfect — it sometimes confuses grits with pasta, for example — but STEGO can successfully segment out things like roads, people and street signs, the researchers say. On the topic of object recognition, it appears we’re approaching the day when academic work like DALL-E 2, OpenAI’s image-generating system, becomes productized. New research out of Columbia University shows a system called that’s designed to create featured images for news stories from text descriptions, guiding users through the process with visual prompts. When they tested it with a group of users, the researchers said that those who tried Opal were “more efficient” at creating featured images for articles, creating over two times more “usable” results than users without. It’s not difficult to imagine a tool like Opal eventually making its way into content management systems like WordPress, perhaps as a plugin or extension. “Given an article text, Opal guides users through a structured search for visual concepts and provides pipelines allowing users to illustrate based on an article’s tone, subjects and intended illustration style,” the co-authors wrote. “[Opal] generates diverse sets of editorial illustrations, graphic assets and concept ideas.” |
Why a16z pitched Deel to lead its Series A | Matt Burns | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | Live for founders to talk about fundraising while flipping through their last pitch deck. But Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz didn’t have a pitch deck to share. That’s because Deel raised a total of $629 million without one. Rather, Andreessen Horowitz partner Anish Acharya pitched Deel to let a16z lead the company’s Series A, Acharya explained alongside Bouaziz on TechCrunch Live on Wednesday. Throughout the chat, we touched on a few key takeaways, including how to raise without a pitch deck. For Acharya, a serial founder with extensive fundraising and investing experience, Deel’s momentum comes from Bouaziz. “I think it’s hard to meet Alex and not get the feeling of inevitability,” Acharya said. “And that’s how a lot of the best founders are. There’s just this feeling of momentum, and they’re in a hurry — Alex is always in a hurry.'” Acharya came back to this point several times throughout the discussion. “There’s a feeling as if it’s going to happen, whether I’m a part of it or not.” This FOMO led Acharya to pitch a16z so that Deel’s founding team understood the investment firm knew how to leverage the market. When asked what a16z’s pitch deck looks like, Acharya smiled and said he couldn’t reveal all his secrets. |
A complete timeline of the Elon Musk-Twitter saga | Alyssa Stringer | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | Before Musk even placed a bid for Twitter, SEC regulators said they have authority to subpoena the Tesla CEO about his tweets and even urged a federal judge not to let the executive get away with tweeting with abandon. Shortly after U.S. regulators urged a judge to monitor Musk’s tweets, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO expressed he was giving serious thought to build the “next Twitter.” Twitter confirming that the SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur has taken a 9.2% share of the company, working out to around $2.9 billion based on Friday’s (March 4th) share price. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that Elon Musk was appointed to Twitter’s board in a series of tweets: I’m excited to share that we’re appointing to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board. — Parag Agrawal (@paraga) Later that same week, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced he would not be joining the social media firm’s board. The disclosure from Agrawal follows a series of unusual tweets from Elon Musk over the same weekend in which he wondered aloud to his over 80 million followers if Twitter was dying, citing low frequency of tweets from some of the most popular personalities on the social network. A Twitter shareholder sued Musk in a federal securities class action lawsuit because Musk failed to disclose his 5% stake in Twitter when he was required to do so. The delay allowed Musk to buy more shares of Twitter at a lower price and cheat sellers of Twitter stock out of increased profits, the plaintiff claims. The billionaire said he is willing to pay $54.20 per share to buy 100% of the company. It would be an all-cash offer that values the social network at $43.4 billion. He filed the offer with the SEC and tweeted it out hours before he was interviewed on TED. I made an offer — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) The controversial CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was already preparing to speak at the TED2022 conference for a conversation that was in such high demand that TED made the livestream . Twitter’s board of directors announced in that the company is adopting a limited-duration shareholder rights plan — a “poison pill” in merger and acquisition lingo. While the company doesn’t name Elon Musk directly, Twitter is clearly trying to prevent the billionaire from buying the social network. To summarize: Musk intends to borrow around $13 billion in various fashions; borrow $12.5 billion against his own equity holdings; and pay around $21 billion from his own holdings. It’s a somewhat complicated collection of funding sources, but Musk’s bid is hardly small, so the path to collecting the needed cash in one pile is understandably convoluted. Twitter’s board met on Sunday to discuss Musk’s offer, and the NYT reports that they then entered into negotiations with Musk early on Monday morning to hammer out additional details, including the timeline for close and what, if any, financial protections Twitter would enjoy were any potential deal to go south post-announcement. Both reports stress that the deal is not yet final and could still fall apart. Twitter has that it has accepted Musk’s offer to acquire the publicly traded company at $54.20/share, valuing the social media platform at $44 billion. Moments after the news broke that Twitter trading was halted, the company issued a press release confirming that it was accepting Musk’s offer to take the social network private. Elon Musk will have to pay Twitter a $1 billion termination fee if he doesn’t go through with his $44 billion acquisition of the social network, on Monday, per a . The filing, which details the terms of the agreement, indicates Twitter would have to pay the same fee under specific circumstances. Twitter locked down its source code to prevent unauthorized changes, sources familiar with the matter told . The reports say that this change was made to prevent employees from “going rogue” and sabotaging the platform after Elon Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company. Currently, a vice president must approve any changes. Enterprise Reporter Ron Miller outlines possible outcomes from the deal, while acknowledging we truly don’t know what could happen next. He writes: In the worst case, Musk could make Twitter his own personal social playground. In the best, he will work to improve some of the longstanding problems that have plagued the platform for years. In a statement on the deal Musk said that he wants to “make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.” Audio from Twitter’s company wide call about its drastic change from being a publicly traded company to a billionaire-owned, private entity was leaked on April 27 by the conservative group, Project Veritas, on YouTube. The days following the news of the Twitter acquisition had . Then, ahead of Twitter’s presentation to media ad buyers during the 2022 NewFronts in early May of this year, that its core advertising business could now be at risk as a result of the Elon Musk takeover, in addition to employee hiring and retention efforts and other factors. Twitter GM of Consumer, Keyvon Beykpour, on May 12 he will be leaving the company after seven years. Beykpour said in a tweet he was asked to leave by CEO Parag Agrawal, who wants to take the team in another direction. , Twitter’s revenue product lead, is also departing, Twitter confirmed to TechCrunch. Elon Musk on May 13 that his to buy the company is “on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users”. He later followed up with a — in which he writes that he is “still committed to the acquisition”. Twitter is full of bots, this much we know. But how full, and what kinds of bots? With estimates ranging from Twitter’s own “under 5 percent” to independent researchers suggesting 20% or more, it’s clearly a tricky number to nail down, as the company’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, explained in a thread on May 16. Prospective buyer Elon Musk with a poo emoji. This begged the question, does In a , Twitter shareholders are suing Elon Musk, alleging that he manipulated the price of the company’s stock for his own benefit in the . Twitter’s board wants the $44 billion Elon Musk takeover completed, which is why it’s asking its shareholders to approve the deal, according to . This comes after , and after his first company-wide Twitter call. After that he no longer wanted the company in tweets attacking Twitter over its bot calculations and an reflecting his thinking, Musk’s legal team is to terminate his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. However, The company issued a brief formal statement regarding , which relies on the ‘s assertion that Twitter misled him about the extent of its bot problem when he entered into the deal. Twitter followed through on its promise to , suing the SpaceX and Tesla CEO in a Delaware court on July 12. On July 19, a judge ruled that . In a filing on July 18, Twitter argued that the company is harmed each day that its dispute with Musk continues, so the case needs to be tried as soon as possible. The company also stated that Musk’s proposed schedule, slating the trial for February, was “calculated to complicate and obfuscate.” |
Fintech Roundup: Founders reinventing, startups buying and round sizes growing | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | Photo courtesy of Sextant Stays In Su’s own words: He told me that he really loves what Pry is doing and thinks it could do really well within Brex. And I thought he was just being nice, you know? And just being encouraging to another fellow founder. But it turns out, he really meant it. Gotta love it. Pry Financials Fintech NovoPayment’s founder and CEO Anabel Perez. NovoPayment |
3 questions about Coinbase’s NFT push | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 4 | 24 | , . The U.S. cryptocurrency trading giant’s entry into the market for non-fungible tokens has been a long time coming and lands at an important time for the public company. Shares of Coinbase are trading near all-time lows today ahead of its earnings that will land in early May. Coinbase has proven that it can build a by helping both individuals and institutions buy, sell and stake crypto. But as its revenues — and, therefore, net income — oscillate with the macro health of the crypto market itself, the company has taken on the valuation profile of a bank more than a technology company. Indeed, if we observe the company’s , and we compare an annualized version of that number against Coinbase’s current market valuation of $36.3 billion, we can see that the company is trading for a revenue multiple of less than 4x. The NFT effort from Coinbase, then, is at once its entry into a market that already has an incumbent — the — and a shot at a new vein of growth to tap. Growth that could help Coinbase move its valuation, and resulting multiples, closer to the range that it enjoyed while private. Sadly, data on the Coinbase NFT push is de minimis today. This is not a huge surprise, really, as the new service from the former unicorn is well, new. So instead of trying to parse what appear to be the first dribs and drabs of numbers from third-party analytics services, let’s ask a few questions. Today we’re outlining our three top head-scratchers concerning the new Coinbase NFT project. In basic terms, we want to know how fast Coinbase’s NFT marketplace can scale in the near term, its potential economic profile, and, finally, its long-term growth prospects. We’ll take them in order. Let’s have some fun! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be curious to see how much volume there is in terms of total trades, as well as the value of those trades driven by Coinbase’s NFT marketplace. The company has an enormous waitlist and has a simply massive user base to shuttle into its new product. How well that waitlist converts into active users, and then activity, is a critical question. And after the waitlist is chewed through, the fraction of Coinbase that heads over to the NFT product will help us determine volume growth at the company in the immediate future. So far , and, frankly, incomplete. So we don’t know much today, but the strength of Coinbase’s start in the NFT game will perhaps give us a vibe for how quickly it may scale volume over the next few quarters, a key period for the company if it wants to regain some of the value it lost over the last few months. Naturally, however, volume is just one part of the trading revenue equation. The other is fees. In the long term? Good. In the near term? Weird! Here’s an excerpt from our coverage of the Coinbase NFT launch from earlier in the week: There will also be no transaction fees on NFTs on its marketplace “for a limited time.” Over time, the fee will increase, but will be a “low single-digit fee,” Sanchan Saxena, vice president of product at Coinbase, said during the meeting. Users can either use a Coinbase wallet or any self-custody wallet they own to trade NFTs on the platform. By charging no fees to start, Coinbase is flexing the fact that it is incredibly wealthy and profitable. It can afford to forgo fees to encourage volume. Once its marketplace reaches a healthy level of supply and demand, it can begin to extract revenues. |
This Week in Apps: Google bans call-recording apps, Snap’s Q1 and BeReal hype | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | 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 . Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China 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 in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. 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 to try, too. Google updated its Play Store to ban third-party call-recording apps from the Play Store, effective as of May 11. Developers had been using the Accessibility API to enable remote call audio recording as a workaround to make these apps work after Google call recording on Android 6 and via the microphone on Android 10. The change was on April 6, but drove new awareness of the crackdown. Google also a policy update this week where it explained this was not actually a “new” policy, necessarily, but rather a clarification to an existing one. (The video is labeled April 2020 but this appears to be a mislabel, because YouTube shows it was streamed April 2022 — and commenters are also noting the typo.) While that may be true, the company had not taken action on apps using the Accessibility API in this way. In the webinar, Moun Choi, who works on the Trust & Safety Play Regional Ops team for Google Play, explained the focus of the policy was directed toward third-party apps where the call recording was taking place without the other user’s awareness. The default dialer on the phone would not be impacted by this, as it doesn’t need the accessible capability to get access to the incoming audio stream, he said. The company didn’t clarify if existing apps would be removed from the Play Store when the policy goes into effect, however. An app called , founded by former GoPro employee Alexis Barreyat along with Kévin Perreau, launched in December 2019 with the idea to ask users to post an unedited photo once per day after receiving a notification. The user then has up to 2 minutes to share what they’re up to and see the photos their friends also posted. The app has recently gained a lot of attention amid rapid growth and a daily active user base that’s now reached nearly 3 million, according to data from . But when an app grows this quickly, there are usually some paid user acquisition efforts involved. This week, may be capitalizing on its newer features and college ambassador program to drive installs and its five-star reviews. The verdict: It’s too soon to know if BeReal can self-sustain when the funds run out. Elon Musk this week to acquire Twitter, per an SEC filing. The Telsa and SpaceX chief’s offer for the social network includes $25.5 billion in debt financing from Morgan Stanley and other firms, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, Societe Generale, Mizuho Bank and BNP Paribas. Musk said he’s committed to about $21 billion in equity financing. Previously, Musk hadn’t been specific about how he would pay for the investment, so these financial commitments make the deal more serious. The tech CEO hasn’t yet said if he will make a tender offer, however. Twitter had already defense of its equity as a result of Musk’s unsolicited bid. Apptopia Disney Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images valuing the business at $300 million. The company had previously offered services to 25,000 beta testers but plans to expand internationally this year. led by Benchmark with participation from YC Continuity, First Round, SV Angel and others. The company says 500,000 users have built 1 million apps with its platform. a London-based app for trading bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The deal could help Robinhood gain growth in the competitive European market. , topping a $2.1 billion valuation. Steadview and existing backer Pantera co-led CoinDCX’s Series D financing. at a $1.3 billion valuation. |
If everything is the metaverse then the metaverse is nothing | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | Happy Saturday! A few notes from the house before we get to work. TechCrunch’s new launched this week, which I am excited about. And, the TechCrunch+ team is Tuesday, April 26 with Silicon Valley-based attorney and TechCrunch+ columnist Sophie Alcorn who will discuss immigration-related issues and answer questions relevant to startup founders and workers. I think that’s it. Now, to work! Ever since Facebook decided to , even changing its name to mark the shift, the term has become ubiquitous. Myriad startups and public companies are slathering themselves with the term in hopes of catching the wave. I have no real beef with companies tuning their marketing for the current moment. What I do struggle with is just what the metaverse . For example, back in January this newsletter : The most fun that I had this week was . In short, I was in edit and trying to distract myself so that I wouldn’t bother the editing team while they worked, so I fired up the social-crypto environment – metaverse, in other words – and went for a tour. Rocking a mohawk and some pretty cool pants I managed to get lost, visit an NFT gallery, and fail to gain access to an arena. Is the metaverse a social-crypto environment, bringing together human interaction and decentralized ledgers? Perhaps that’s part of it, but it doesn’t feel sufficiently complete a definition. The definitional nuance of the term came up this week in a piece on how artists both musical and visual are tapping into crypto products to connect with fans, and make money: ‘s version of the metaverse consists mainly of virtual reality or augmented reality for friends to interact with one another, while web3’s take on the metaverse is more centered around how users will experience the internet in a digital world. What’s good about this particular riff from Melinek is that she’s correct. There several definitions of what the metaverse is. This is the precise gray area that has allowed anyone working with digital communities, or really digital assets more generally, to claim the label. The result is that everything is the metaverse, which is the same thing as saying that precisely nothing is. As Melinek notes, there are two main thrusts toward building the metaverse. The Meta approach appears to start from the perspective of personal representation inside a persistent, video-game like environment. This means that the ‘metaverse’ is akin to an MMORPG, but without a genre-specific quest focus; it’s more open-ended, and thus more open to continued thematic expansion. The more crypto, or web3, approach is to consider digital assets that can be viewed as an extension of one’s self as the metaverse, or at least part of it. A “PFP NFT” being, for example, how you want to display yourself in a digital environment. That sort of thing. It’s possible to imagine a hybridization of the two definitions. A place where you and I might have a persistent avatar of sorts and digital goods are recorded on some sort of decentralized ledger. The issue with that vision is that it’s not super possible to build at the moment. Why? Because there isn’t a way to build an MMORPG atop the blockchain, and companies able to build such a platform don’t want to allow for decentralized asset creation and management, as it would limit their ability to or digital living environment. Yes, this is tension between decentralized and centralized systems, but in this case it’s a useful divide to note as it appears to be keeping what could be the metaverse from reach. It is not hard to come up with a way forward. For example: Is that a compelling metaverse? I guess at this juncture if that then we need to entirely rewrite what we mean when we say the word. Because that’s as close as I can smush things together without literally dropping all current definitions and starting over from scratch. Good luck, Facebook! |
Super fans, franchises and unique content could be the answer to reducing streaming churn | Lauren Forristal | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | In today’s highly competitive streaming market, streaming services don’t just have to figure out how to attract users — they also have to find ways to keep them. “2022 State of Streaming” report may be able to offer some new insights on this front. The report examines fan behavior to uncover key findings such as the reason behind churn, how streaming services can increase retention and ways to boost subscriber loyalty by differentiating themselves from competitors. This analysis was conducted by Fandom, a home to entertainment fan communities across TV, mobiles, games and more. The company coupled its sizable user data alongside a custom global study. Fandom has more than 300 million monthly visitors and over 250,000 fan-powered wikis. According to the recent study, 62% of viewers claim that genre is the key differentiator, with Disney+ being the leader in this area. Also, 73% of viewers valued streaming services way more if it had films and shows they can’t find anywhere else. Fandom Nineteen percent of consumers don’t have a strong allegiance to one streaming service over the other, as viewer behavior is mainly driven by content, not provider loyalty. This finding indicates that customer retention may live or die based on where they find their next favorite show. (Ask !) And when the market is increasingly expanding with offerings that barely differentiate from each other, it is hardly surprising that consumers become frustrated with the oversaturation. Another key driver for retention is having a large library, according to 76% of subscribers. Fifty-five percent of users desire original shows and movies. According to , although Amazon’s catalog is the largest, with 2,161 TV shows and 14,670 movies, it has the least number of exclusives out of the major streaming services, with just 38%. Netflix, on the other hand, is in second place, with 83% of its catalog being exclusive to the platform. Disney+ has the most exclusive content, as 89% of its content can’t be streamed elsewhere. Disney+ has its established reputation of Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, National Geographic and Disney properties, while other major streaming services such as Apple TV+, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video aren’t yet riddled with franchises or superhero-sized universes. Subscribers also want more than just a single show to keep them tuning in. IP universes are intellectual property that can easily lead to sequels, prequels and spin-offs. , for instance, is releasing two other spin-offs of “Yellowstone” called “6666” and “1932.” Fandom notes that “Yellowstone” was among its most popular communities. Consumers are no longer just watching their favorite shows and moving on to the next. In a world of binge-watching and social media, casual fan behavior has evolved into super-fan behavior. Forty-six percent of dedicated fans look for community and culture around their entertainment interests, and 60% dive into online fictional universes. There are tons of communities online dedicated to fictional universes. In particular, Fandom users placed “Star Wars,” Disney, “Harry Potter” and Marvel in the top four and considered them as franchises that “foster always-on fan exploration outside of releases,” per the report. Disney The majority of Disney’s most popular originals have come from the Marvel and “Star Wars” universes, with shows like “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett,” “Loki,” “WandaVision,” “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and “Hawkeye.” The success of “The Mandalorian,” mainly fueled by the cuteness of Grogu, became one of the most in-demand series in the world. On December 1, 2021, stated that “The Mandalorian” was 31.9 times more in-demand than the average title on a global basis. Fandom’s user data shows that Disney+ has a +30% higher value than an average video streaming service. Disney’s huge umbrella of universes and characters has resulted in a fanfiction community unlike any other. Disney adults could single-handedly take over the internet. OK, not actually. But it is amusing to think about all those Mickey hats. In addition, Disney’s grew +45% during the “Encanto” release, with the Encanto FanFiction page ranking as the No. 1 trending page during the week of its streaming release. The soundtrack, in particular, was a hit everywhere, especially on TikTok, and if you didn’t have “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” stuck in your head for a week, well then, you’re one of the lucky ones. The popular song, written and composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, became to top the U.K. Singles Chart. It is also Billboard’s highest-charting Disney song, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Meanwhile, Netflix is desperately trying to find new IP. Last year, the company acquired the y in hopes of creating “a unique universe across animated and live-action films and TV, publishing, games, immersive experiences, live theatre, consumer products and more,” . Amazon is also focused on IP with universe potential. The company has heavily invested in “The Lord of the Rings” and its ownership of the “James Bond” franchise through its $8.5 billion . Karol Severin, co-founder and entertainment/tech analyst at research company MIDiA : It is easier for competitors to commission ‘something similar‘ to a single film or a TV Show than it is to replicate the depth of an IP universe. For these reasons, we believe IP universes will continue to play an increasing role. Streaming services have the opportunity to reduce churn and potentially “win” the streaming wars by driving loyalty and creating a full fan experience with unique content and franchises. Thus, streaming services need to increase the titles that lend themselves to additional storytelling, rather than independent stories which only work as a one-off movies or series. |
Deal terms feel like dart boards these days | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | , which has been in the works for over a year, my eyes searched for two things: check size and ownership target. I care about value-add services and micro-focuses, such as a goal to back diverse founders or a Web 2.5 track, but I first care about how new programs, such as A16z START, are advertising their money. The reason? The standard deal of an accelerator says a lot about which founders they plan to attract. Some programs may tout their check size, others may highlight the non-dilutive nature of their cash and a select few are claiming that equity in exchange for access is an outdated way to work. In this case, a16z is going to decide deal terms on a case by case basis for founders who get to the final round of the interview process. The max that a founder can get is $1 million in initial funding. The vagueness, and general focus, seemingly piggybacks off of Sequoia’s recently announced program, which will invest a check size of $1 million into founders for an undisclosed equity stake. While I’m pro more money going into early-stage founders, I’m also pro tell me how much equity I’ll be giving up before I dedicate time to the interview process. So, I thought the vagueness was kind of weird. Not malicious, necessarily, but weird! it is weird that neither a16z or sequoia have publicly disclosed what ownership they're targeting in their new accelerator efforts, right? — natasha (@nmasc_) Of course, tech Twitter had some thoughts! One of my followers said that wiggle room is helpful, especially for a firm like A16z for which it’s their first formal foray into backing startups as early as possible. I don’t disagree with that, similar to traditional demo days, which assume that every startup in a batch is ready to raise money on the same day; a standard deal assumes that every startup’s monetary needs are created equally, regardless of solution, background or sector. Another said the deals are quiet so other accelerators can’t copy their terms. A lot of folks thought they’re going after Y Combinator, because why leave all the upside to one Index-fund-lookin’ institution. One day startups may be asking themselves: Y9r or a16z? For more thoughts, read my TechCrunch+ piece: t, which got into this topic and much, much more. In this newsletter, we’ll talk about Opendoor alumni, a post-layoff pivot and JOKR’s interview. As always, you can support me by forwarding this newsletter to a friend, or ! reported this week that Opendoor alums Justine Palefsky and Tasneem Amina founded Kindred, a startup that wants to make traveling more accessible through home swapping. So far, the duo has raised $7.75 million to help make the option available to more people. The Opendoor alumni network is certainly making moves, with Kindred being the latest entrepreneurial haunt to come out of residential real estate company. This upstart particularly stands out because of its focus on accessibility, which the proptech sector could always use more of. , in which she describes the “aha moment” of the startup: “We started Kindred after we struggled with the problem ourselves. We were both working remotely and we wanted to take advantage of that flexibility to travel more and work from elsewhere. But none of the existing solutions or ways to do that really made sense for us and for our lives,” Palefsky said. “We felt like we had three options. One, we could get an Airbnb somewhere, which became too expensive for trips longer than just a few nights. Or you could give up your home and become a nomad. Or you could run your home like a hotel and put it on Airbnb to finance your travel. None of those options felt right for us because they are inconvenient and a little scary.” / Getty Images Months after cutting half its staff, edtech startup : start from the inside, out. CEO Shaan Hathiramani opened up about the pivot, the cuts and what he learned when he tried to build a bootcamp and eventually landed on a SaaS tool. The company most recently raised venture funding in an $11 million Series A in January 2021, per Crunchbase data. Hathiramani said the growth pace made it feel like Flockjay was “running about six or seven businesses at once.” He went on to say that the team was running an admissions and selection business, a training business, a coaching and placement business and an alumni community, something that caused burnout among the less than 100-person team. More problematic, perhaps, was the fact that Flockjay was not “growing at the speed that you want it too.” So, he turned to his board and decided to scale back programming — announced today. The entire series: / Getty Images sat down with Ralf Wenzel, JOKR’s founder and CEO, to talk about the Despite growing pains, the company went on to raise $260 million in December to become a billion-dollar company. So, how did it convince people that something as unprofitable and hard to scale as grocery delivery is worth more investment money? In the interview, Wenzel talks about building a “proposition out more toward fresh” products like fruits, vegetables and meat cuts. The CEO says by not just focusing on convenience store goods, the company hit “fully gross profit positive on a group level for our local business across all of our countries after 12 months of operations.” To me, this signals that customer habits have matured so much that they want more than convenience from delivery services. Instead of a last-minute crutch, folks want help with everyday needs — which means startups can differentiate if they think of authentic services ahead of everyone else. JOKR / JOKR founder and CEO Ralf Wenzel Until next time, |
Reliance calls off $3.4 billion deal with Future Group | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | Reliance Industries “cannot implement” its to acquire core parts of retail chain Future Group after the latter’s secured creditors rejected the offer earlier this week, India’s most valuable firm said in a stock exchange filing on Saturday. “The Future Group companies comprising Future Retail Limited (FRL) and other listed companies involved in the scheme have intimated the results of the voting on the scheme of arrangement by their shareholders and creditors at their respective meetings. As per these results, the shareholders and unsecured creditors of FRL have voted in favour of the scheme. But the secured creditors of FRL have voted against the scheme. In view thereof, the subject scheme of arrangement cannot be implemented,” the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-controlled firm (PDF). The announcement is the latest in a two-year-long battle between Reliance and Future — that run two of India’s largest retail chains — and e-commerce giant Amazon, which has sought to block the deal. Amazon, which had invested in one of Future Group’s units three years ago, last month accused Future Group and Reliance Industries of , saying the Indian firms did not comply with court orders and have attempted to “remove the substratum of the dispute.” Amazon has argued that Future Group has violated its contract by doing a deal with Reliance and earlier approached the Singapore arbitrator to halt the deal between the Indian firms. The ensuing legal battle delayed the completion of the deal, during which Future Group’s debt piled up and earned a once-iconic Indian company a “non-performing asset” evaluation from lenders. The setback may be minimal to Reliance, however. As Amazon and Future fought in courts, Reliance began taking over several of Future stores starting in February after brokering deals with landowners in a move that stunningly blindsided and outwitted the U.S. firm. Cash-strapped Future said in a filing that it . The episode further lowered the confidence many bankers had on Future. Without secured lenders’s backing, Future Group, which has more than $4 billion in debt on its books, cannot proceed with the deal, and now is unlikely to survive. Last year, the National Company Law Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body in India that adjudicates issues relating to Indian companies, permitted Future Retail and other group companies to convene meetings of shareholders and creditors to take a vote on the proposed acquisition to Reliance Industries. |
DJ and crypto startup founder 3LAU explains the value behind music NFTs | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | When people think of NFTs, the first use case most of them likely think of is visual art. From Beeple’s $69 million sale of a digital collage at Christie’s to the Bored Apes Yacht Club collection, visual art has seemed to be the most prominent use case for NFTs due to close similarities with traditional fine art investing. The fact that digital art can be viewed and replicated endlessly online has led to some confusion for plenty of consumers with what exactly they’re buying, however. “ DJ and NFT art collector Justin Blau explained in an interview on the . Blau, who is better known by his stage name, 3LAU, co-founded , a startup that allows users to invest in tokens through its marketplace, which enables them to earn streaming royalties on their favorite songs. The company from Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto investment arm last November, less than three months after led by Founders Fund and Paradigm. Blau sees utility in use cases for NFTs beyond the visual art world, but said he doesn’t think the same form factor and manifestation for those NFTs will apply to every different form of media. Music, for example, is invisible, so it wouldn’t make sense for music NFTs to be applied the same way as NFTs for visual art, he said. That’s why at Royal, Blau and his co-founder JD Ross (who also co-founded homebuying startup Opendoor) have chosen to apply NFTs to the copyrights behind songs. The copyright of a song is what’s scarce, not the audio itself, which can be streamed by any user, Blau explained. Streaming income represents about 84% of all income generated by music, he added. The reason artists receive so little of that income, in Blau’s view, is because of middlemen like record labels taking a cut, not because streaming itself is not lucrative. As an independent artist himself, Blau shared the example of his song “Is It Love,” saying that he turned down a deal that would have paid him $15,000 for 50% ownership of the song, which he said ended up taking off and generating upwards of $700,000 in revenue. “M Royal’s platform will eventually allow digital asset holders to be able to engage directly with artists and access exclusive perks, such as token-gated shows, he noted. |
null | Devin Coldewey | 2,022 | 4 | 6 | null |
Scammers snatch up expired domains, vexing Google | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | thing — ever-evolving, ever-changing. This goes beyond just the content on websites; whole domains can expire and be taken over, allowing corners of the internet to become a little like your hometown: Wait, wasn’t there a Dairy Queen here? For example, if TechCrunch forgets to pay its domain registrar, TechCrunch.com would eventually expire ( ). At that point, some enterprising human could snap up the domain and do nefarious things with it. Now, if TechCrunch.com was suddenly red instead of green and sold penis enhancement pills instead of dicking around with great news and awful puns in equal measure, you’d probably figure out that something is up. But tricksters are subtler than that. When they seize a domain, they’ll often point the web domain to a new IP address, resurrect the site, restore it to as close as it can to the original and leave it for a while. When the IP address changes, SEO experts claim that Google temporarily “punishes” the domain by dropping it in the rankings. This is called “sandboxing,” or “the sandbox period,” and during this time, Google puts the domain on notice. Once Google determines — sometimes erroneously — that the IP address change underneath the domain was just part of a move from one web host to another, the theory is that the domain will start climbing in the rankings again. That’s when the new owner of the domain can start their sneaky business: Updating links to send traffic to new places for example, or keeping the traffic as it is and adding affiliate links to make money off its visitors. At the far end of the scamming spectrum, they can use the good name and reputation of the original business to scam or trick users. Since the invention of in 1996, Google has been relying in part on the transferability of trust to determine what makes a good website. A site that is linked to by a lot of high-trust websites can, generally, be trusted. Links from that page can, in turn, be used as a measure of trust as well. Massively simplified, it boils down to this: The more links from high-quality sites a page has, the more it is trusted, and the better it ranks in the search engines. While bad actors can take advantage of this fact, it’s also just something that happens on the internet — sites move from one host to another all the time for perfectly legitimate reasons. As Google’s Search Liaison, pointed out when I talked to him about expired domains last week, TechCrunch itself has had a few changes of owners over the years, from AOL, to Oath, to Verizon Media, to Yahoo, which itself was last year. Every time that that happens, there’s a chance that the new corporate overlords want to move stuff to new servers or new technology, which means that the IP addresses will change. “If you were to purchase a site — even TechCrunch; I think it was AOL who bought you guys — the domain registry would have changed, but the site itself didn’t change the nature of what it was doing, the content that it was presenting or the way that it was operating. [Google] can understand if domain names change ownership,” Sullivan said, pointing out that it’s also possible for the content to change without the underlying architecture or network topography shifting. “The site could rebrand, but just because it rebranded itself doesn’t mean that the basic functions of what it was doing had changed.” You don’t have to look far to find places to buy expired domains. , , and are some of the most active in the business. (As a side note, I stuck a on all three of those links in the HTML of this article. They ain’t getting TechCrunch’s sweet, sweet link juice on my watch; as Google notes ; “Use the value when … you’d rather Google not associate your site with … the linked page.”) A screenshot from Serp Domains, which lists around a hundred sites for sale, noting that “aged expired domains are not affected by the sandbox effect.” The company lists prices from $350 to $5,500, with original registration years ranging from 1998 to 2018. Serp Domains “Get expired domains that have naturally gained (almost impossible to get) authoritative backlinks since they were actual businesses,” Odys advertises on its site, adding that they “are aged and out of the sandbox period by a mile, [and] already have organic, referral & direct, type-in traffic.” These domains are listed for sale for anything from a few hundred bucks to thousands of dollars. Seeing the sites disappear from the “for sale” list and then pop up on the internet shows that some of these domains end up ethically dubious at best and scams at worst. It’s pretty easy to determine why so-called “black hat SEO” folks are willing to go through all the trouble: Building a domain from scratch, filling it with high-quality content, waiting for people to link to it and doing everything by the book takes for-flippin’-ever. Finding a shortcut that shaves months, if not years, off the process and adds the ability to make a quick buck? There will always be people who are willing to go for that sort of thing. “Google has named inbound links as one of their top three ranking factors,” explained Patrick Stox, a product adviser at . “Content is going to be the most important, but your relevant links will provide a strength metric for them.” The spammers buy a domain that was recently expired and use a search engine optimization (SEO) tool like to gauge how valuable the site is; it checks how many links are going to the site and how valuable those links are. A link from TechCrunch or the BBC or WhiteHouse.gov would be highly valuable, for example. A link from a random blog post on Medium.com is probably less so. Once they’ve found and bought a domain, they’ll use something like to copy an old version of the site, stick it on a server somewhere, and — voila! — the site is back. Obviously, that’s both trademark and copyright infringement, but if you’re in the market of spamming or scamming, that’s probably the least of your crimes against human decency, never mind the letter of the law. Over time — sometimes weeks, sometimes months — Google un-sandboxes the domain and is effectively tricked into accepting the domain as the original. Traffic will start picking up, and black-hat SEO wizards are ready for the next phase of their plan: selling stuff or tricking people. in order to use these domains, including checking whether there are trademarks registered and redirecting either the full domain or specific pages on the domain using a so-called 301 redirect (“moved permanently”). “When a site drops off the internet [Google is] just going to drop all the signals from the links. That typically happens anyway when a page expires. Where it’s more complicated is going to be whether any of those signals will come back for a new owner. I don’t think [Google has] ever really answered this in a very clear way,” Stox explained. “But if the same site with the same type of content — or very similar content — comes back, it is more than likely the links are going to start counting again. If you were a site about technology and now suddenly you’re a food blog, all of the previous stuff will likely be ignored.” As with all things in SEO, however, not everything is cut and dried; it turns out that negative signals continue on expired domains, so it stands to reason that positive signals do, too. “It’s interesting because sometimes penalties will still carry over, regardless of the content of the new site,” Stox said. “So certain things may still factor in. There’s a giant list of Google penalties — such as backlink spam, content spam, paid links, etc. They can carry on to the new site, and sometimes people will buy … an expired domain and put a new site up. Nothing is ranking, and on closer inspection, they’ll find a penalty set in inside Google Search Console.” Sullivan reassured us that the search engine giant knows what’s going on and that it has a handle on things. “It’s not just fair to say that all purchased sites are spam and that they, therefore, should be treated as spam,” said Sullivan, pointing out that the company’s robust spam filters are there to protect searchers. “W There’s no doubt that Google does a lot to defend us from spam, and yet there’s a thriving industry for high-value expired domains that are available, whether for honest attempts at corner-cutting or more nefarious deeds. You don’t have to dig very deep to find examples of domains that, at first glance, look legitimate, but that have been sneakily shifted to another purpose. Here are a few I came across. One example is the Paid Leave Project, which used to live on paidleaveproject.org, but moved its site to at some point. Unfortunately, someone at the org didn’t renew and/or redirect the old domain, and the site that used to work hard to ensure that workers in the U.S. can get paid family leave is now, well … helping families grow in different ways: A screenshot of paidleaveproject.org, which now appears to be some sort of affiliate site for erectile dysfunction pills. paidleaveproject.org Another tragic story is Genome Mag, which ran from 2013 to 2016, expired, and then came back online as a different magazine that the original owner doesn’t have control over. |
Europe seals a deal on tighter rules for digital services | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 4 | 23 | In the small hours local time, European Union lawmakers secured a provisional deal on a landmark update to rules for digital services operating in the region — grabbing political agreement after a final late night/early morning of compromise talks on the detail of what is a major retooling of the bloc’s existing e-commerce rulebook. The political agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA) paves the way for formal adoption in the coming weeks and the legislation entering into force — likely later this year. Although the full set of rules won’t start to apply until 15 months after that — so there’s a fairly long lead in time to allow companies to adapt. The regulation is wide ranging — setting out to harmonize content moderation and other governance rules to speed up the removal of illegal content and products. It addresses a grab-bag of consumer protection and privacy concerns, as well as introducing algorithmic accountability requirements for large platforms to dial up societal accountability around their services. While ‘KYC’ requirements are intended to do the same for online marketplaces. How effective the package will be is of course but the legislation that’s was agreed today goes further than the Commission proposal in a number of areas — with, for example, the European Parliament pushing to add in limits on tracking-based advertising. The DSA was presented as a draft proposal by the Commission back in which means it’s taken some 16 months of discussion — looping in the other branches of the EU: the directly elected European Parliament and the Council, which represents EU Member States’ governments — to reach this morning’s accord. After last month’s deal on the (DMA), which selectively targets the most powerful intermediating platforms (aka gatekeepers) with an ex ante, pro-competition regime, EU policy watchers may be forgiven for a little euphoria at the (relative) speed with which substantial updates to digital rules are being agreed. Big Tech’s lobbying of the EU over this period has been of an unprecedented scale in monetary terms. Notably, giants like Google have also sought to insert themselves into the ‘last mile’ stage of discussions where EU institutions are supposed to shut themselves off from external pressures to reach a compromise, as a published earlier today by Corporate Europe Observatory underlines. That illustrates what they believe is at stake. The full impact of Google ‘s lobbying won’t be clear for months or even years. But, at the least, Big Tech’s lobbyists were not success in entirely blocking the passage of the two major digital regulations — so the EU is saved from an embarrassing repeat of which may indicate that regional lawmakers are wising up to the tech industry’s tactics. Or, well, that Big Tech’s promises are not as shiny and popular as they used to be. The Commission’s mantra for the DSA has always been that the goal is to ensure that what’s illegal offline will be illegal online. And in a video message tweeted out in the small hours local time, a tired but happy looking EVP, Margrethe Vestager, said it’s “not a slogan anymore that’s what illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with online”. “Now it is a real thing,” she added. “Democracy’s back.” It’s a wrap! We have a deal on the ! Two years after we tabled the proposal 🙏 and – and our amazing teams – for great cooperation 🇪🇺 — Margrethe Vestager (@vestager) In a statement, Commission president Ursula von der Leyen added: “Today’s agreement on the Digital Services Act is historic, both in terms of speed and of substance. The DSA will upgrade the ground-rules for all online services in the EU. It will ensure that the online environment remains a safe space, safeguarding freedom of expression and opportunities for digital businesses. It gives practical effect to the principle that what is illegal offline, should be illegal online. The greater the size, the greater the responsibilities of online platforms. Today’s agreement — complementing the — sends a strong signal: to all Europeans, to all EU businesses, and to our international counterparts.” In its own press release, the called the DSA “a world first in the field of digital regulation”. While the said the “landmark rules… effectively tackle the spread of illegal content online and protect people’s fundamental rights in the digital sphere”. In a statement, its rapporteur for the file, MEP Christel Schaldemose, further suggested the DSA will “set new global standards”, adding: “Citizens will have better control over how their data are used by online platforms and big tech-companies. We have finally made sure that what is illegal offline is also illegal online. For the European Parliament, additional obligations on algorithmic transparency and disinformation are important achievements. These new rules also guarantee more choice for users and new obligations for platforms on targeted ads, including bans to target minors and restricting data harvesting for profiling.” Other EU lawmakers are fast dubbing the DSA a “European constitution for the Internet”. And it’s hard not to see the gap between the EU and the US on comprehensive digital lawmaking as increasingly gaping. Vestager’s victory message notably echoes encouragement by the former US secretary of state, senator, first lady and presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who urged Europe to get the DSA across the line and “bolster global democracy before it’s too late”, as she put it, adding: “For too long, tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism with no accountability. The EU is poised to do something about it.” In their respective press releases trumpeting the deal, the and have provided an overview of areas of key elements of the regulation they’ve agreed. It’s worth emphasizing that the full and final text hasn’t been published yet — and won’t be for a while. It’s pending legal checks and translation into the bloc’s many languages — which means the full detail of the regulation and the implication of all its nuance remains tbc. But here’s an overview of what we know so far… On scope, the Council says the DSA will apply to all online intermediaries providing services in the EU. The regulation’s obligations are intended to be proportionate to the nature of the services concerned and the number of users — with extra, “more stringent” requirements for “very large online platforms” (aka VLOPs) and very large online search engines (VLOSEs). Services with more than 45M monthly active users in the EU will be considered VLOPs or VLOSEs. So plenty of services will reach that bar — including, for example, the homegrown music streaming giant Spotify. “To safeguard the development of start-ups and smaller enterprises in the internal market, micro and small enterprises with under 45 million monthly active users in the EU will be exempted from certain new obligations,” the Council adds. The Commission itself will be responsible for supervising VLOPs and VLOSEs for the obligations that are specific to them — which is intended to avoid bottlenecks in oversight and enforcements of larger platforms (such as happened with the EU’s GDPR). But national agencies at the Member State level will supervise the wider scope of the DSA — so EU lawmakers say this arrangement maintains the country-of-origin principle that’s baked into existing digital rules. Penalties for breaches of the DSA can scale up to 6% of global annual turnover. Per the parliament, there will also be a right for recipients of digital services to seek redress for any damages or loss suffered due to infringements by platforms. The content moderation measures are focused on harmonizing rules to ensure “swift” removal of illegal content. This is being done through what the parliament describes as a “clearer ‘notice and action’ procedure” — where “users will be empowered to report illegal content online and online platforms will have to act quickly”, as it puts it. It also flags support for victims of cyber violence — who it says will be “better protected especially against non-consensual sharing (revenge porn) with immediate takedowns”. MEPs say fundamental rights are protected from the risk of over-removal of content from the regulation putting pressure on platforms to act quickly through “stronger safeguards to ensure notices are processed in a non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory manner and with respect for fundamental rights, including the freedom of expression and data protection”. The regulation is also intended to ensure swift removal of illegal products/services from online marketplaces. So there are new requirements incoming for e-commerce players. On this, the Council says the DSA will impose a “duty of care” on marketplaces vis-à-vis sellers who sell products or services on their online platforms. “Marketplaces will in particular have to collect and display information on the products and services sold in order to ensure that consumers are properly informed,” it notes, although there will be plenty of devil in the detail of the exact provisions. On this, the parliament says marketplaces will “have to ensure that consumers can purchase safe products or services online by strengthening checks to prove that the information provided by traders is reliable (‘Know Your Business Customer’ principle) and make efforts to prevent illegal content appearing on their platforms, including through random checks”. Random checks on traders/goods had been — who had been concerned the measure would be dropped during trilogues — so EU lawmakers appear to have listened to those concerns. These larger platform entities will face scrutiny of how their algorithms work from the European Commission and Member State agencies — which the parliament says will both have access to the algorithms of VLOPs. The DSA also introduces an obligation for very large digital platforms and services to analyse “systemic risks they create” and to carry out “risk reduction analysis”, per the Council. The analysis must be done annually — which the Council suggests will allow for monitoring of and reduced risks in areas such as the dissemination of illegal content; adverse effects on fundamental rights; manipulation of services having an impact on democratic processes and public security; adverse effects on gender-based violence, and on minors and serious consequences for the physical or mental health of users. Additionally, VLOPs/VLOSEs will be subject to independent audits each year, per the parliament. Large platforms that use algorithms to determine what content users see (aka “recommender systems”) will have to provide at least one option that is not based on profiling. Albeit, many already do — although they often also undermine these choices by applying dark pattern techniques to nudge users away from control over their feeds so holistic supervision will be needed to meaningfully improve user agency. There will also be transparency requirements for the parameters of these recommender systems with the goal of improving information for users and any choices they make. Again, the detail will be interesting to see there. Restrictions on tracking-based advertising appear to have survived the trilogue process with all sides reaching agreement on a ban on processing minors’ data for targeted ads. This applies to platforms accessible to minors “when they are aware that a user is a minor”, per the Council. “Platforms will be prohibited from presenting targeted advertising based on the use of minors’ personal data as defined in EU law,” it adds. A final compromise text shared with TechCrunch by our sources suggests the DSA will stipulate that providers of online platforms should not do profile based advertising “when they are aware with reasonable certainty that the recipient of the service is a minor”. A restriction on the use of sensitive data for targets ads has also made it into the text. The parliament sums this up by saying “targeted advertising is banned when it comes to sensitive data (e.g. based on sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity)”. The wording of the final compromise text which we’ve seen states that: “Providers of online platforms shall not present advertising to recipients of the service based on profiling within the meaning of Article 4(4) of Regulation 2016/679 [aka, the GDPR] using special categories of personal data as referred to in article 9(1) of Regulation 2016/679.” Article 4(4) of the GDPR defines ‘profiling’ as: “any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements;”. While the GDPR defines special category data as personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, as well as biometric and health data, data on sex life and/or sexual orientation. So targeting ads based on tracking or inferring users’ sensitive interests is — on paper — facing a hard ban in the DSA. A prohibition on dark patterns also made it into the text. But, as we understand it, this only applies to “online platforms” — so it does not look like a blanket ban across all types of apps and digital services. That is unfortunate. Unethical practices shouldn’t be acceptable no matter the size of the business. On dark patterns, the parliament says: “Online platforms and marketplaces should not nudge people into using their services, for example by giving more prominence to a particular choice or urging the recipient to change their choice via interfering pop-ups. Moreover, cancelling a subscription for a service should become as easy as subscribing to it.” The wording of the final compromise text that we’ve seen says that: “Providers of online platforms shall not design, organize or operate their online interfaces in a way that deceives, manipulates or otherwise materially distorts or impairs the ability of recipients of their service to make free and informed decisions” — after which there’s an exemption for practices already covered by Directive 2005/29/EC [aka the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive] and by the GDPR. The final compromise text we reviewed further notes that the Commission may issue guidance on specific practices — such as platforms giving more prominence to certain choices, repeatedly requesting a user makes a choice after they already have and making it harder to terminate a service than sign up. So the effectiveness of the dark pattern ban could well come down to how much attention the Commission is willing to give to a massively widespread online problem. The wording of the associated recital in the final compromise we saw also specifies that the dark pattern ban (only) applies for “intermediary services”. An entirely new article was also added to the DSA following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and in connection with rising concern around the impact of online disinformation — that creates a crisis response mechanism which will give the Commission extra powers to scrutinize VLOPs/VLOSEs in order to analyze the impact of their activities to the crisis in question. The EU’s executive will also be able to come up with what the Council bills as “proportionate and effective measures to be put in place for the respect of fundamental rights”. The mechanism will be activated by the Commission on the recommendation of the board of national Digital Services Coordinators. |
D&D Beyond comes under the wing of Wizards of the Coast in $146 million deal | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | The parent company of Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast will buy , the role-playing game’s popular digital suite of tools. The company announced the news this week in a press release, disclosing that it would buy D&D Beyond from current owner Fandom in a . Wizards of the Coast is a subsidiary of toy-maker Hasbro, which bought the company in 1999. Fandom, which hosts fan sites for popular titles across movies, games and TV, bought D&D Beyond and the rest of the company’s media assets back in 2017 from game mod and community tool Curse, which was in the process of being absorbed into a deal with Twitch. “D&D Beyond has been one of our most valuable partners in the digital space for the past six years and we’re excited to bring their best-in-class talent onto our team,” Wizards of the Coast and Digital President Cynthia Williams said. “The team at D&D Beyond has built an incredible digital platform, and together we will deliver the best-possible Dungeons & Dragons experience for players around the world.” Big news to share! D&D Beyond will become part of the Wizards of the Coast family! You’ll continue to have all of the tools, features and content you know and love from the heart & home of Dungeons & Dragons. More to come – excited to join the party! ➡️ — D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) D&D Beyond is a digital game companion that’s ubiquitous enough in the scene that you couldn’t be blamed for thinking Wizards already owned it. The company’s website and app serve as a sort of digital Swiss Army knife for D&D players, offering everything from character creation and encounter building to digital dice (use these at your own risk of being judged by your table). The app, which offers paid subscription tiers alongside basic free access, already boasts more than 10 million users. Prior to the deal, Wizards and D&D Beyond already collaborated closely, with the latter hosting digital access to all of the official D&D source books. This arrangement has long been a source of consternation among players reluctant to re-buy a digital copy of a physical book they already own, and some are hopeful that pairing digital access with paper source books could be in the cards with the acquisition. Wizards is hosting a across YouTube and Twitch on April 21 at 9 AM PT, so it’s possible we’ll learn more about its plans then. The teaser trailer shows a game map, minis and a somewhat out-of-place Xbox controller, so it’s possible we’ll also be hearing about new gaming titles or a proper launch date for Baldur’s Gate 3, the upcoming role-playing adventure developed by Divinity: Original Sin maker Larian. Business is booming for Wizards of the Coast, which also publishes strategy card game Magic: The Gathering. Between the pandemic forcing people to get creative about long-distance socializing and the broad exposure from hit live-play games like Critical Role — Twitch’s top earner — Wizards looks to be expanding the role-playing game’s audience by an order of magnitude. The company brought in more than , and with movie and TV spin-offs of the sprawling tabletop fantasy multiverse in the works, that’s only set to grow. |
Daily Crunch: To complicate Musk’s attempt to swallow Twitter, board approves ‘poison pill’ strategy | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | Welcome to the Daily Crunch for Friday, April 15, 2022, where we are continuing to stick our heads in the sand regarding the war in Ukraine and the Earth slowly roasting itself to a crisp in favor of … a loudmouthed billionaire wanting to buy a deranged bird sanctuary. On our Equity podcast today, which we recorded at our amazing, fully sold-out Early Stage event, . A propos events – are you coming to our mobility event? If you want to pitch, it’s . A propos podcasts – , the TechCrunch podcast where founders talk about the stories behind their startups, is nominated for a Webby for best technology podcast! ! – and You’ll be forgiven for a bit of Aloe Blacc under your breath as you file your expenses. Those on the other side of those expense reports tend to be more prone to swearing than whistling a tune – and . One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go, cat, go, and don’t you, step on my shrewd, weighed views: Alex Trautwig / Getty Images Baseball has come a long way since 1897, when a Princeton math professor designed a pitching machine that ran on gunpowder. Today, baseball is a technology-driven enterprise where team owners, players, media organizations and individual fans have access to reams of raw statistics. To learn more about Major League Baseball’s tech stack, enterprise reporter Ron Miller interviewed its CPO and head of engineering, Vasanth Williams. “MLB has a long history of leveraging data and technology, and being an early adopter of a lot of the technologies, which I love doing,” he said. |
Announcing the agenda for TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility 2022 | Kirsten Korosec | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | Autonomous vehicle technology has evolved from the confines of academic research to living labs — aka testing on closed tracks and public roads. Now, a handful of companies, including Cruise and Motional, are trying to turn their innovations into a product that not only has the technical capability to navigate city streets, but is approachable and easy for people to use. Cruise VP of product and former Voyage co-founder Oliver Cameron and Motional CTO Laura Major will cover the technical and deployment challenges to creating a product people can and will want to use. Zoox first debuted its custom-built robotaxi vehicle in December 2020 in a virtual event. That vehicle has been largely under wraps ever since, with testing occurring in areas away from the public. Now, the Zoox vehicle is ready for an up-close and personal debut at TC Sessions: Mobility. Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson will discuss the vehicle, the company’s progress and where we might see Zoox next. Despite the vast sums of venture capital that has gone into shared micromobility, the industry has yet to reach unit economics favorable enough to turn a profit. But it’s getting close. We’ll sit down with Drover AI’s Alex Nesic, Acton’s Janelle Wang and one other panelist to talk about the new methods, and the new tech, that’s being deployed to help micromobility companies unlock profits. The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies. Founders — apply . Aurora has been running a pilot program with FedEx to haul goods between Dallas and Houston via self-driving Paccar trucks since September 2021. As with most other autonomous freight pilots, human safety operators are present in the vehicles, but Aurora’s goal is to operate its trucks fully autonomously by the end of next year. We’ll check in with Aurora co-founder Sterling Anderson and FedEx’s head of robotics and autonomous vehicle technology Rebecca Yeung, and discuss the pilot’s progress and implications for the future of autonomous trucking. The capital markets have a way of distracting even the most scrappy founders. However, as we’re starting to see, a well-priced funding round isn’t a replacement for a well-oiled operation. And startups should think more about strategic opportunities, and collaborations, when giving up those coveted cap table spots. We’re bringing together GM Ventures’ John Du, Snow Bull Capital’s Taylor Ogan and Intel Capital’s Trina Van Pelt to talk about partnerships in the mobility world – especially the ones that you’re probably not thinking about. The industry’s brightest entrepreneurs will take the stage in front of a live audience and a panel of industry experts, pitching revolutionary technologies. Founders – apply .
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The 10 EVs and plug-in hybrids that stood out at the New York Auto Show | Jaclyn Trop | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | Electric vehicles took center stage at the New York International Auto Show this year, with an indoor track as part of the show’s 250,000-square-foot EV display leaving no doubt that EVs are part of the mainstream — at least on the auto show circuit. Nearly every automaker that participated in the New York International Auto Show had an EV or plug-in hybrid at its display. Many were ones we’ve seen before, including the , Ford F-150 Lightning, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Chevrolet Bolt EV and Chevrolet Bolt EUV, Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup, the , which took top honors at the World Car Awards, the Kia EV6 and the VW ID Buzz and ID 4 crossover. Heck, even the Nissan Leaf came back with a refresh. Amongst all of the battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models and concepts that were revealed, a handful stood out. Here are the ones that got our attention. Screenshot/Alfa Romeo reveal Alfa Romeo’s first compact crossover is the 2023 Alfa Romeo Tonale, which The Tonale is a plug-in hybrid that can travel 30 miles on a fully charged battery before switching to its gas engine. The SUV’s gas-engine variant comes with a 256-horsepower, turbo-four engine. Chrysler Airflow Graphite Concept. Stellantis The could set the direction for parent company Stellantis’ $35 billion investment in bringing new electric vehicles to market. The all-electric crossover features 22-inch wheels, a sleek silhouette and a 400-mile range. It also comes with Stellantis’ STLA AutoDrive system with Level 3 automated driving capabilities. Jeep Grand Cherokee High Altitude 4xe. Stellantis The Jeep brand showed off its 4xe vehicles, including newcomer Grand Cherokee High Altitude 4xe. The latest 4xe plug-in hybrid model, which made its debut with a hydro blue exterior paint, will be available to order in the second half of the year. The Grand Cherokee 4xe delivers 25 miles of all-electric range and 56 miles per gallon equivalent. according to the company. The 4xe propulsion system combines two electric motors, a 400-volt battery pack, 2.0-liter turbocharged, four-cylinder engine and an eight-speed automatic transmission. Deus Vayanne Electric Supercar. Getty The Austrian automaker unveiled its Vayanne EV hypercar, a curvy roadster with slim headlights and oversized air intakes. Deus claims that the 2,200-horsepower Vayanne can zip from 0 to 60 mph in 1.99 seconds, on its way to a top speed of 250 mph. Those figures would put the Vayanne’s performance near the top of the $1 million-plus hypercar segment. Its price has not been disclosed. Indi EV The California-based startup is displaying the Indi One, an all-electric, five-passenger crossover with a 300-mile range. Positioned as a Tesla Model Y rival, the “lifestyle-focused” crossover boasts a built-in gaming computer through its Vehicle Integrated Computer (VIC). The infotainment unit is supported by open source software that enables a range of customizations from the sound of its horn to a specialized virtual assistant. Starting at $45,000, the Indi One is slated to begin deliveries spring 2023. Kia Niro EV. Getty Kia is using the New York show as a launchpad for its next-generation Niro subcompact SUV. The 2023 Niro will be offered with a hybrid, PHEV or EV powertrain. The new model showcases more futuristic design elements such as boomerang-shaped taillights and a more aggressive grille. It also boasts better range — 253 miles to last generation’s 239. The automaker also showed off its EV9 concept, which first debuted in 2021 at the Los Angeles Auto Show. We care about this boxy SUV that will use the same E-GMP electric car platform as the smaller EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5, because it’s actually going into production. Kia confirmed at the New York Auto Show that the EV9 will come to the U.S. market in the second half of 2023. Kia Concept EV9. Getty via Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency Genesis Kia’s upscale sister brand brought its all-electric Genesis X Speedium Concept as a hint of what’s to come as Genesis ramps up its EV offerings to go all-electric by 2030. The coupe flaunts Genesis’ bold design: a low, long fastback body style with wraparound headlights and an oversize, triangular grille worn by the automaker’s gas engine cars. The design derives from the X Concept Genesis unveiled last year and is named after South Korea’s Inje Speedium race track where it was developed. The VinFast VF 9. Getty Vinfast, Vietnam’s first-ever domestic car manufacturer, brought its all-electric VF8 and VF9 SUVs to the New York show. The automaker also announced at the show that it plans to from the utility vehicles themselves, charging a monthly fee based on battery usage. Without the battery, the five-passenger VF8 and seven-passenger VF9 SUVs start at $40,700 and $55,500, respectively. |
Uniswap Labs COO says mainstream crypto adoption hinges on accessibility and ease | Jacquelyn Melinek | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | world, companies, protocols and projects alike are pushing to onboard a billion users — what they see as the tipping point for cryptocurrency use to grow exponentially. But that number is only possible — obviously — through increased adoption. That means major players in the space must make improvements regarding ease and accessibility for the non-crypto natives who want to use crypto. , a company building upon the decentralized protocol Uniswap, aims to do just that. Although it may seem like “web3” is little more than a buzzword, people in the space believe that there’s a deeper meaning to it. “Web3 is revolutionizing financial technology and financial infrastructure in one,” Uniswap Labs COO Mary-Catherine Lader said to TechCrunch. “Web3 allows any app, any website, to invent value in a digital economy without having to ask for permission or paying for that service.” Uniswap Labs COO Mary-Catherine Lader. Uniswap Labs Today, crypto users don’t have to go to the bank or work with a payments company every time they want to make a transaction online because they’re able to link their crypto wallets and pay through a decentralized permissionless protocol like Uniswap. “This has never been possible before,” Lader said. Uniswap is an open source permissionless protocol that developers can use and embed into their platforms so crypto users can swap tokens, while Uniswap Labs is a business that builds products on top of the protocol. Earlier this week, Uniswap Labs launched , which allows users on marketplace OpenSea and other web3-based applications to exchange or “swap” cryptocurrency on the platform without having to leave the site. Widgets like this are already implemented into Web 2.0 sites like Amazon, where you can easily pay for items when you check out, but given web3’s nascent stage, a task as simple as making a payment is more complex and involves a number of steps to successfully utilize crypto products and services. “There are too many steps today [to use crypto],” Lader said. “You should be able to join a in one click. You should be able to support your favorite NFT artists in one click.” There’s a sizable — and growing — market for one-click web3 use. In December 2021, there were 295 million crypto users globally, up 178% from 106 million at the beginning of the year, according to a January 2022 by cryptocurrency exchange app Crypto.com. The firm reported that it expects the number of global crypto owners to reach 1 billion users by the end of this year. |
Youth sports app TeamSnap launches a new system designed for clubs and leagues | Lauren Forristal | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | , a web service for managing recreational and competitive sports teams and groups, announced the launch of its all-in-one multi-program management system for youth sports organizations. With the new system, clubs and leagues will be able to register players as well as take advantage of new scheduling and team management tools. The launch is set to go live on Tuesday, April 26, and the offering will include the TeamSnap . Peter Frintzilas, CEO of TeamSnap , “With this rollout, our platform that connects more than 25 million youth sports users and over 19,000 organizations can now seamlessly, securely, and efficiently meet every business management need of a sports organization, while also empowering them to spend more time doing what they love – and that is focusing on game time.” TeamSnap was founded in 2009 and has come a long way over the past decade or so, now with more than 4 million monthly active users, and approaching 2 million daily active users. The app also caters to customers in 135 countries, with teams representing over 100 different sports, according to the company’s . Frintzilas spoke with TechCrunch about the new release as well as the benefits of a team sports app and the company’s overall goal. “We provide easy-to-use tools for communication scheduling, payment collection, registration. [Youth sports] is a complicated and disorganized industry. And our goal is really to help organize some of that chaos,” he said, “by providing a management platform that brings together leagues, coaches, parents, players, fans all in one place and building out that community.” TeamSnap has a convenient mobile experience for consumers, whether that be independent coaches, parents, families or even fans. Parents of multiple kids can probably count how many times they’ve gone to the wrong field, had the time of a game wrong or forgot it was their turn to bring the orange slices and water bottles. While these may seem like small issues, avoiding the disappointment of missing a game is important to a child. In the same vein, TeamSnap aims to bring a valuable user experience for clubs and organizers as well. “At the end of the day, our club elite customers are really small businesses, and so getting them the level of insights to their financials to cash flow reports across all their programs is essential to the success. This new club and league release includes all-new kind of in-depth financial reporting, tracking, allowing them to kind of manage the finances overall,” said the CEO. TeamSnap for clubs and leagues integrates the online registration process with roster management, payment, scheduling, event editing tools and more. The offering also provides a way for clubs and leagues to simply start a new season or new club offering without starting all over once the year ends. Quick registration of multiple players is a major plus, since TeamSnap removes the need to retype the same information over and over. It even helps keep track of players who are family members. TeamSnap “With our new system, we’re really focused on allowing those organizers to support these types of setups, enabling their coordinators with the right level of access to tools, and most importantly, data, all in one place,” Frintzilas added. One customer, in particular, the North Bay Minor Hockey Association, experienced terrible support via an anonymous technology provider. “Communication was poor, support was poor, and this was the last straw,” Matt Duquette, the club’s secretary and treasurer, in a testimonial for TeamSnap. He added, “Before, we’d put registrations and tryouts on our website and hope people looked. We’d email coaches and ask them to email the team. We’d post on Facebook. It was a shot in the dark, hoping we’d reach everyone.” Just by doing a brief search, there are a good amount of apps that offer communication and scheduling tools for coaches, such as Sports Illustrated Play, LeagueApps (which just raised ), Teamer and StackSports, among others. While there could be sports teams organizing themselves through a Facebook group or maybe soon, via the new , these are only used for communication purposes. “Unfortunately, in the industry and sports tech as a whole, we’ve seen providers cut back on that live support for organizations and for coaches and we’ve done the opposite, and have moved well beyond the industry standard Monday-through-Friday support and put in full 12-hour support across all time zones, seven days a week. Our responsive live chat represents over 50% of our interactions,” said Frintzilas. He also told TechCrunch that the company is looking to bring video into the user experience, whether that’s through livestreaming of games or the ability to create highlight reels. User experience is vital to an app’s success and as TeamSnap evolves, the value will hopefully continue to increase for customers. It’s also important to touch base on the pandemic and how youth sports teams have declined over the past two years. COVID-19 shut down a lot of games and delayed seasons. TeamSnap ran a with The Aspen Institute and Utah State University to look at how the loss of sports impacted athletes and families. More than half of parent respondents reported that their children’s mental health (52%) and physical fitness (53%) decreased during the pandemic. With TeamSnap’s new health check function and overall advocacy for improving youth sports, this will hopefully improve over time. |
An inside look at a Ukrainian fintech startup adapting to life during wartime | Nelia Holovina | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | against Ukraine has been going on for almost two months, and during this time, all sectors of the economy, including IT, have had to stand by the military. Ukrainian IT did not break down — it shrank a little, but it is standing firmly, providing employment to people, paying taxes, organizing humanitarian help and assisting the Ukrainian army. Here are a few key factors that have helped Ukrainian IT, and us as a company, survive: The media was discussing the possibility of war long before it actually started. Even though everyone hoped for the better, Ukrainians acknowledged that they had a neighbor who could attack at any moment. With this in mind, many IT companies started to plan for emergencies and set up contingency teams. Preparation significantly helped us maintain cohesion when the war started on February 24. Our company created an emergency team, whose main responsibilities were to ensure the accommodation and transportation of our employees from dangerous zones. The ability to work remotely considerably helped IT specialists in wartime. People worked in bomb shelters, in basements, and in cars and trains during evacuations. We were used to working online, so when the war began, it was not a big problem for our employees. Thanks to the availability of numerous digital tools and programs, our workflow was not heavily disrupted. 42Flows.Tech It is difficult to leave your country and quickly integrate into life elsewhere, so staying in safe parts of Ukraine was very important for many people. Several million Ukrainians relocated from the east to the western parts of the country, concentrating in cities like Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Lutsk, Rivne and Uzhhorod. IT companies did their best to help their employees relocate. Some covered the cost of moving, while others rented accommodations. The biggest businesses even opened 24-hour hotlines to help with evacuation procedures and psychological assistance. In the first weeks of war, we helped employees from the east to relocate, rented a hostel in Lviv and invited people to live there with their families. We also transformed part of the office into temporary accommodations and helped employees find and rent flats, which wasn’t easy due to the huge increase in demand for housing in Western Ukraine once the war began. Some people decided to temporarily leave the country until the situation improved and go to countries where they could feel safe. Only women, children and retired people could do this and all men aged 18 to 60 stayed back in Ukraine. The war is still raging, but many people who had left Ukraine are coming back now. Some IT companies relocated their offices to the neighboring countries, mainly Poland, Romania and Hungary. Others helped their employees’ families with relocation, bureaucratic procedures and accommodation. Only some of our employees left Ukraine. Our emergency plan included accommodation for employees and their families in Slovakia, but in the end, everybody decided to stay back, and we did not have use it. Despite the risks and the vulnerability, many foreign customers continued their projects in our country. This trust and support is extremely important for Ukraine’s IT sector, since it helps businesses survive. However, the level of productivity at companies did not decline. People feel extremely motivated to work and demonstrate good performance to foreign clients. Many employees who lived in the safer parts of the country went over and above, covering for and supporting their colleagues who were relocating from the war zones. Overall, the Ukrainian IT sector managed to ensure secure and uninterrupted project delivery. 42Flows.Tech Many IT companies in the safer parts of the country have transformed part of their offices to accommodate employees and their families from other regions. Many offices were temporarily turned into humanitarian centers, which provided people support and assistance in the initial weeks of war. Our own office today serves three functions. It serves as Thanks to the immense efforts of the Ukrainian army, many cities are now safe and allow people to live and work relatively calmly. Many IT specialists signed up to protect their land. People who were coding, managing and working on complex technology before the war put down their laptops and picked up weapons. Other IT specialists remained to maintain the IT front, which is no less important. IT companies are actively involved in volunteering at the corporate level to organize funds and initiatives to help the army financially. Our CRO and co-founder, Igor Luzhanskiy, joined the Territorial Defenсe Forces at the beginning of the war. His battalion is protecting our land and ensuring public safety. We try to constantly support him and his battalion with technical and material means. 42Flows.Tech COO Maxym Popov with CRO Igor Luzhanskiy, who joined the Territorial Defence Force. 42Flows.Tech The motivation to help one’s own country can do miracles. IT companies have been working on volunteering projects from the first days of the war. Screenshot of the TacticMedAid app, which provides information on tactical medicine. 42Flows.Tech Some develop apps for the military while others develop solutions for civilians. Today, there are hundreds of different initiatives, and their existence shows the unity of business for a common purpose — the victory of Ukraine. IT companies have acknowledged the complexity of operating in conditions of war, which has led to many businesses uniting and helping each other. In less than a month after the war began of war, we have made five fully operational social, humanitarian and medical chatbots, as well as an informational that explains the war in Ukraine to the international community. Our co-founder and strategy board member, Andriy Sabanskiy, has united professionals and companies from Ukraine and the U.S. to work with local, national, governmental and international professional medical organizations to provide information and training to the military. More than a thousand military professionals have already passed the training. The app, TacticMedAid, was downloaded by more than 43,000 users on the iOS/Android stores. Our Telegram chatbot of the same name is actively used by the military and civil population to learn about tactical medicine. It is believed that demand for IT will remain high, and the IT sector itself may become the new driver of the economy. The situation depends entirely on how long this war will last and how it will end. Despite the level of support for Ukraine, businesses are very reluctant to take risks and function in unpredictable conditions. Unfortunately, due to the vulnerability of the market, many IT companies lost customers at a time when they need support more than ever. You can help! If you have a new project and are searching for possibilities to implement it, work with Ukrainian companies.You will get quality work at a decent deadline, and you’ll be helping the Ukrainian economy as well. |
TechCrunch+ roundup: Musk’s Twitter bid, European cannabis survey, borrowing against NFTs | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | The United States is the world’s largest cannabis market, but as more European countries consider legalizing recreational use, investors are looking for opportunities in production, distribution and retail. Much like the U.S., laws governing this plant-based drug differ across the EU, which means entrepreneurs must navigate complicated legal frameworks even as they compete with an enormous black market. But for those with a high tolerance for risk, starting up in a largely unregulated industry is an easy choice: Europeans spend an estimated €9 billion per year on illegal cannabis, and the market for unlicensed medical cannabis is predicted to reach €354 million in 2022. For our latest investor survey, and asked them to tell us what they’re looking for, how they measure success, and the best way founders can get their attention. Thanks very much to Frederique Dame at GV and Glen Evans from Greylock for joining me yesterday at TechCrunch Early Stage in San Francisco. I spoke to Frederique about the journey to finding product-market fit, and Glen and I discussed hiring top talent in a competitive environment. I’ll share a recap of both conversations on TechCrunch+ next week. Great day at Early Stage talking with about how founders can find product-market fit! — Frederique Dame (@fffabulous) On Tuesday, April 26, at 2:30 PT/5:30 PT, I’m hosting a Twitter Space with Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley-based immigration law attorney who writes the weekly “Dear Sophie” column for TechCrunch+. We’ll discuss recent developments in U.S. immigration law, H-1B visas and other issues that are relevant to the tech industry before taking audience questions, so I hope you’ll join us. Thanks very much for reading, and have a fantastic weekend. Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
/ Getty Images Southeast Asia is home to the world’s fastest growing e-commerce markets, but even as mobile and internet penetration in the region explodes, large portions of many countries’ rural areas are left grossly underserved. Due to the varied landscape, in some rural towns, infrastructure is so fragmented and poor that basic necessities can cost three times as much as in urban areas. One answer to this is social commerce, which leverages social media to let businesses liaise with local resellers to market and sell their products while also empowering smaller businesses and underserved communities, writes Amit Anand, founding partner at Jungle Ventures. “Most social commerce platforms don’t require any upfront investment, and resellers can rely on startups’ supply chains, payments infrastructure and logistics networks. This lets them focus on leveraging the assets they do have: their social circles.” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch Elon Musk’s $43.4 billion offer to take Twitter private didn’t paint a target on a struggling company: the social media platform’s revenue on track to hit $6 billion in 2022. That progress, taken together with the fact that its stock traded above $60 for most of 2021, might mean Musk’s $54.20 per share offer could disappoint many long-term shareholders, reported Alex Wilhelm. “If you already owned Twitter stock, you believed in its growth story, else you would have left when the CEO chair turned over last year,” writes Alex. “That means that Musk is effectively arguing that current Twitter shareholders are sad and want to cash out, not expecting to see 2021 prices for their company return anytime soon.” / Getty Images It’s clear why so many EV startups merged with special purpose acquisition companies: SPAC cash can be used to scale up operations and fund R&D, key considerations for electric vehicle companies. But since their debuts, Nikola, Canoo, Lucid Motors, Lordstown Motors and Faraday Future have seen their valuations deflate like a punctured tire. Making matters worse, they’ve also drawn the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “When you fail to live up to your projections, you really get hammered,” said John Loehr, a managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners. “That’s when investors start filing lawsuits.” / Getty Images Blue-chip NFT projects like Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Azuki and Bored Ape Yacht Club are soaring in value, but the global sales volume for non-fungible tokens fell from $4.6 billion in January to $2.4 billion in March. Many lesser-known projects have become stranded assets, but owners of high-value NFTs are borrowing against their tokens “to gain liquidity and, in turn, generate additional yield elsewhere or purchase more assets,” reports Jacquelyn Melinek. “While overall NFT sales might be down, the top-tier projects still retain considerable value,” said Stephen Young, CEO of marketplace NFTfi. Found, TechCrunch’s podcast where founders share the stories behind their startups, has been nominated for a Webby in the best technology podcast category. before April 21 to help it win the People’s Voice Award! |
China further limits access to unauthorized foreign games | Rita Liao | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | For years, China has left a loophole open for people to access unauthorized video games, but it’s ready to close it. Many foreign titles lack a Chinese publishing partner like Tencent to help them obtain the government-issued license needed to operate in the country, so players normally rely on an “accelerator” to reduce delays of overseas-hosted games. On Wednesday, Tencent, the world’s largest online gaming company, it will terminate its gaming booster that allows users to play overseas games. Though not explicitly said in the notice, some users see the decision as the authorities’ stepping up to limit access to foreign gameplay. Tencent’s rival NetEase also runs a similar service, which is still operating. The other signal of enhanced control came on Friday when China’s National Radio and Television Administration, the regulator granting video games licenses platforms will be “strictly prohibited” from livestreaming games that have not been authorized by the government. Platforms, including their individual and business accounts, should gain approval before broadcasting overseas games or matches, the notice said. This will substantially shrink the number of games that China’s livestreaming hosts can discuss, which could put many of them out of work, as China has for new games over the last few years. Many foreign titles may not be officially available in China, but a big market exists where commentary and matches of blockbuster international games are featured on the country’s live broadcasting platforms like Huya and Douyu. The government has issued similar warnings in the past. For instance, in 2016, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which partakes in gaming regulation but doesn’t issue licenses, in a blanket regulation for “internet performances” that platforms “should not” include commentary on unlicensed games, less strong wording compared to the latest document. |
The Toyota bZ4X: Solidly middling EV | Abigail Bassett | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | first automotive brand that pops to mind when it comes to battery electric vehicles. Toyota might be the largest automaker in the world — reportedly selling more than 9.5 million vehicles globally and stealing the crown from Volkswagen Group — but the company has been markedly absent from the battery electric vehicle (BEV) space. That is, until the 2023 Toyota bZ4X came along. Toyota has shown off in everything from a pickup to a sports car and has promised to deliver them all by 2030. The company has even committed a whooping $17.6 billion investment in battery technology and announced that it will build a battery plant in North Carolina. For now, the 2023 Toyota bZ4X is the lone representative of the company’s EV plans — an awkwardly named crossover that raises some questions about what the company really believes to be the future of battery-electric vehicles and just how committed they are to the entire thing. TechCrunch, along with other media, had a chance to get a first drive of the Toyota bZ4X. Here’s what we found. 2023 Toyota bZ4X XLE. Toyota The all-electric Toyota bZ4X is the fraternal twin to the ; both vehicles were born out of a joint development project between the two companies. Toyota designed the battery architecture, body, and cabin, while Subaru handled the all-wheel-drive system. The big difference between the two? For potential customers, it is going to be the cost. Subaru customers will still qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit, while Toyota only has a few left for qualified buyers to use after most of the company’s incentives went to the popular Toyota Prius. Beyond that, the two vehicles are essentially the same, minus the name on the badge. Toyota says that pricing for the for the XLE model and $46,700 for the Limited models, plus a $2,000 addition to each if you want all-wheel drive, plus a delivery fee of $1,215. All in you’re looking at a price tag that’s just $5 shy of $50,000 on the all-wheel-drive version before you add any packages that include an upgraded stereo, split rear spoiler or the better looking two-tone exterior colors. That’s a lot of money for a crossover buyer, and after spending a short three hours tooling around Encinitas in a pair of prototype Toyota bZ4X crossovers, in front-wheel and all-wheel-drive configuration, there’s not a truly compelling reason to shell out that much money for the version with the Toyota badge. I’ll have a second opportunity to spend a full week in the bZ4X in the next month to learn if spending more time in it might change my mind. The front-wheel-drive XLE model puts out 201 horsepower and 196 lb-ft of torque and, according to Toyota will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 7.1 seconds. That’s on par with most gasoline-powered crossovers on the road today. It’s neither impressive nor disappointing — but solidly average. Toyota says that the bZ4X XLE with front-wheel drive will get an EPA estimated 252 miles of range, which is the most of either variant. Again, a solidly average rating. When I hopped into the car in the morning, I started with an impressive 294 miles of range on the odometer. After an hour and a half of stop-and-go traffic and a quick jaunt down the freeway to test the driver assistance systems (ADAS), I landed back at the hotel with an estimated 200 miles of range remaining, which is more than sufficient given the weather, traffic conditions and the way I drove. When Toyota launched the bZ4X at the last year, the company said it would reach 300 miles of range in the front-wheel-drive model. As the bZ4X comes to market, those EPA estimates put it just shy of that target, yet still well within the long-range estimate (252 miles of range in the front-wheel-drive XLE version and 222 miles for the Limited all-wheel-drive version.) That’s not unheard of in automotive circles since the testing process for vehicle range differs from country to country, and many manufacturers, like Toyota, base estimates on their home country’s testing processes, in this case, Japan. It’s important to note, however, that the EPA range is less than some of the other electric vehicles in the competitive set, like the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Tesla Model Y and Chevrolet Bolt EV. Toyota spokespeople at the event said that both the front-wheel and all-wheel-drive versions of the bZ4X will charge from “low to 80% within an hour” on DC Fast charging. More concretely, the company says that a 2023 bZ4X all-wheel-drive version will add 90 miles of range in 30 minutes. The front-wheel-drive version will add 180 miles in 30 minutes, according to Toyota. That’s stacks up with competitors like the Chevy Bolt, which can add up to 100 miles in about 30 minutes of charging on a DC Fast charger. The spec sheet provided by Toyota shows that the all-wheel-drive version of the bZ4X is capped at 100 kW of maximum charging input while the front-wheel-drive version is capped at 150 kW. That’s because, according to Toyota, the two batteries are made by different suppliers: The front-wheel-drive version is made by PPES and the all-wheel-drive version is made by CATL. That means that the all-wheel-drive version will charge slightly slower than the front-wheel-drive version at maximum charge. The bZX4 comes with a standard Level 1 charging cable. Again, all this is solidly middling. We’ll have to wait and see if Toyota customers will be satisfied with the battery choices and range offered in the bZ4X. Toyota says that these battery and architecture design decisions were made based on the preferences of their current customer base. As Lisa Materazzo, the group vice president of marketing at Toyota Motor North America said during her presentation at the event, “Simply put this vehicle is well positioned to be a success because it offers what customers expect in a BEV.” Later in the presentation, she continued, “We believe that bZ4X will be successful because it is purpose-built for our customers.” This raises some questions: Who is going to shell out $50,000 for a Toyota that’s rather meh? While the bZ4X isn’t Toyota’s very first production, all-electric crossover (they did make an all-electric RAV4 from 1997 to 2003 to comply with California’s zero-emissions mandates), it’s the first one that Toyota is planning to sell through “normal distribution and normal sales process,” according to Materazzo. According to Toyota, the bZ4X will be available to buy in ZEV states this month, followed by a 50-state rollout in the fall of this year. No matter what Elon Musk promises (and doesn’t deliver on) it’s not likely that you’ll ever be able to buy an EV for less than $40,000. The average transaction price of a new ICE-engined vehicle is currently hovering around $47,000 as of March 2022, thanks to a variety of factors including supply chain issues and chip shortages. While it might seem that the target demographic for the bZ4X would be RAV4 and RAV4 Prime buyers, the $50,000-plus price tag for the all-electric ute may keep many of those customers away. Considering that the average household income for a RAV4 household is around $86,000 a year, RAV4 buyers are unlikely to make the transition to an all-electric crossover. So perhaps the RAV4 buyer isn’t the target buyer. What about Prius Prime customers? The average income of Prius and Prius Prime owners hovers just under $100,000 a year, which would make a 2023 bZ4X an attainable purchase. But will Prius owners who love their strangely shaped, fuel-efficient hybrid cars decide to abandon their ways and hop into an all-electric crossover? Probably not, though Toyota representatives said during the presentation that their target customer is a family with an income of more than $100,000. So who is this vehicle really for? Toyota Then there’s the home charging installation (a cost of around $600-$2,000) that Toyota said it will allow buyers of the 2023 bZ4X to roll into their car payment. That’s convenient (even if it isn’t the best financial decision a customer can make) considering that one of the best places to charge your EV is at home. But, it’s important to note that other automakers like Chevrolet offer to cover the costs of installing a level 2 charger at home with the purchase or lease of a new Bolt. Toyota says that in its first year, it’s targeting around 7,000 projected sales for the bZ4X. For context, Toyota sold more than 300,000 Camrys in 2021 alone. Such a small number of BEVs won’t dent the environmental impact those 300,000 Camrys have. The company expects around 35% of the bZ4X sales to be XLE trims and 65% to be Limited, with a 40/60 split between front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive models. Even if Toyota is marketing itself as moving into the BEV space, it’s clearly doing it in very limited volumes and with very limited incentives for both current and potential Toyota buyers. Toyota is currently the largest auto manufacturer in the world and sells everything from ICE-engined vehicles to electrics, but its all-electric strategy has been slow to take shape, compared to other automakers like GM, Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, Audi and others. Toyota’s top executive Akio Toyoda, has, in the past, been outspoken about his concerns around battery-electric vehicles (while spreading false information using the rhetoric that oil companies use). In December of 2020, during his annual year-end address at the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Toyoda criticized EVs as being “overhyped” according to the Wall Street Journal and said that the transition from gasoline to electric cars could cause a loss of millions of jobs and cause the collapse of the car industry. At the time, his comments were specifically directed at the Japanese government, which was still considering banning the sale of gasoline vehicles by mid-2030, following similar bans in places like California, Quebec and Washington state. In spite of Toyoda’s comments, the later passed, though it left room for hybrids to continue to be sold. More recently, Toyota also threatened to over net-zero plans for the country, according to the Times of London. At the heart of the issue is the U.K.’s green mandates, which Toyota wants to see “watered down,” so it won’t have to pay significant penalties if it fails to reach the country’s requirements for the number of battery and hybrid vehicles sales. While vociferously resisting the much-touted transition to battery-electric cars may seem like a strange strategy for a company like Toyota, a closer look indicates that some of it is well-founded considering the limited resources the world can produce to create enough battery-electric vehicles. At the same time, it’s important to note that a lot of the noise Toyota is making around battery-electric vehicles is mostly marketing. The company continues to market its “Beyond Zero” (which is where the bZ nomenclature comes from) plans and has also tried to get alternative fuel vehicles into consumers’ hands, like the very good hydrogen-hybrid-powered Toyota Mirai. Toyota knows and recognizes that there’s not enough lithium in the world to replace all the ICE engines in its customers’ hands. Battery-electric vehicles, in their current form (powered by lithium-ion batteries), are simply not a viable alternative to replace all of the ICE-powered vehicles on the road today, let alone replace just those currently owned by Toyota customers. Which is why the 2023 Toyota bZ4X makes sense. The vehicle offers a way for Toyota consumers to get into an all-electric crossover built by a company known for reliability and safety, while Toyota continues to leave room for the development and adoption of alternative powertrains, which won’t require the consumption of all the rare-earth elements in the world and allows the company to meet the increasing worldwide pressure to become more green. But is the Toyota bZ4X a compelling enough product to get people into the company’s first battery-electric vehicle? On first drive: Not really. Between the cost, the architecture and the mixed messages on the future of alternative powertrains in Toyota vehicles from the very top levels of the company, it seems Toyota is making more of a marketing play with the bZ4X than anything. We’ll have to wait and see if consumers are willing to buy into that marketing message with their hard-earned cash. |
Twitter adopts poison pill defense to block Elon Musk takeover | Romain Dillet | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | Twitter’s board of directors announced in that the company is adopting a limited duration shareholder rights plan — a “poison pill” in merger and acquisition lingo. While the company doesn’t name Elon Musk directly, Twitter is clearly trying to prevent the billionaire from buying the social network. Elon Musk currently owns 9.2% of Twitter. Yesterday, he to acquire 100% of the company’s shares as revealed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk has said he is willing to pay $54.20 per share. It would be an all-cash offer that values the social network at $43.4 billion. While that seems like a big number, Musk’s offer isn’t that generous. Twitter’s stock was trading north of $60 just a few months ago. Sure, tech stocks are currently experiencing a massive selloff, but Twitter’s business seems to be right now. “I think it’s very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech. Twitter has become kind of a de facto town square, so it’s really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,” Musk said yesterday. “I don’t care about the economics at all,” he added later in the interview. TechCrunch’s Kyle Wiggers how hostile takeovers usually come down. And implementing a poison pill is one way to counter a takeover attempt. The eventual goal of a poison pill is to dilute Musk’s ownership stake. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal that Twitter was weighing adopting a poison pill. For a limited time, existing Twitter shareholders will be able to purchase additional shares at a discount under certain circumstances. If an entity, person or group crosses a threshold, in that case a 15% stake in Twitter, other shareholders can buy more shares. This way, it would stagger plans to buy more than 15% of the company. “The Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders,” Twitter wrote. Of course, if the company’s board wants to go forward and approve an acquisition offer, board members can vote to approve an ownership of more than 15% of the company. The poison pill remains valid until April 14, 2023. |
How to make trees better | Jesse Klein | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | report and the make it clear: It’s crunch time to start working on something to combat the amount of CO in our atmosphere. There are hundreds of startups working on that “something.” Some are working on direct air capture technologies, like , which raised in April. These engineered solutions pull carbon from the atmosphere using expensive and complicated machinery and inject it back into the ground for long-term storage. But there is a more efficient way of capturing carbon that has been around for much longer: photosynthesis. Nature-based solutions tend to be focused around this approach; think tree planting or soil restoration. These have been championed by nonprofits like and . In the world of climate mitigation, nature-based solutions are cheap and bountiful, but are seen as short-term carbon removals because much of the carbon is at risk of being released back into the atmosphere if a fire burns through a forest, or a human cuts down the trees. Engineered solutions are much more durable and quantifiable, but are expensive and in short supply. , a San Francisco-based startup that exited stealth mode in March, is working at the intersection of nature and engineered solutions to climate change. The company is genetically engineering trees so they can store more carbon. “Plants have the unique power of fixing carbon from the atmosphere: photosynthesis,” said chief science officer at Living Carbon, Yumin Tao. The startup wants to enhance that power by creating trees with higher photosynthesis capability. The idea is to “utilize that natural process… with the added storage and the added durability of an engineered solution,” CEO Maddie Hall said of her company. Breeding and engineering plants to be bigger and stronger isn’t new. It’s something the food and agriculture world has been doing for a long time. Even the specific scientific innovation that Living Carbon is using — enzymes to bypass the inefficient biological pathway called photorespiration, which causes plants to release some CO back into the atmosphere, wasting some of the energy produced by photosynthesis — has been a field of research for decades. But instead of using those tools to grow more food, more easily and cheaply, Living Carbon is turning that biological innovation toward carbon sequestration. Courtesy of Living Carbon “I was fascinated with this idea of, could you orient a lot of the plant biotechnology work that is specifically used to focus on food supply, could you orient that around solving a new problem: carbon removal?” Hall said. Living Carbon’s real innovation was taking the genetically engineered process of suppressing photorespiration that was developed for tobacco plants and putting it in trees like the hybrid poplar and Loblolly pine trees. According to Tao, Living Carbon has spliced genes for enzymes from pumpkins and algae into the trees so the carbon dioxide is broken down inside the chloroplast and results in a more efficient process of converting CO into sugar with less released back into the atmosphere. This process is based on a naturally occurring one found in certain more photosynthetically efficient plants called C4 plants, which include corn and sorghum. “More carbon fixed means there is faster growth and bigger plants,” Tao said. And because, according to Tao, about 50% of the biomass of a plant is carbon, bigger plants mean less carbon in the atmosphere. In a research paper that is yet to be peer-reviewed released by Living Carbon, an experiment in an indoor controlled growing environment found that over five months, trees genetically engineered with Living Carbon’s technology had a increase in above-ground weight than the control plants. The next step is for Living Carbon to field test its genetically engineered trees. It has a four-year partnership with Oregon State University to continue researching its trees, and this month the company started planting with private landowners in Pennsylvania, Georgia and California. Living Carbon is working in the new burgeoning carbon economy. It won’t be making money by selling the genetically engineered trees to landowners, but will instead provide the trees free and retain the rights to the carbon credits generated from the planting projects. It can then sell those credits to corporate buyers like Microsoft and Salesforce that have net-zero ambitions for their companies. The landowners also get a revenue share of the sales. Organizations like and are used to verify, evaluate and award carbon credits to projects. Because of the genetic enhancements that cause Living Carbon’s trees to be bigger, and thus have more carbon, they will get more credits than a project using regular trees if this stays consistent. “Landowners right now can plant trees that have elite genetics and grow faster than traditional trees,” Hall said. “It’s enhancing growth for carbon removal purposes.” Living Carbon is also working to reduce CO emissions from the other side by finding genes that slow down the decomposition process. Carbon stored in trees can never be truly permanent because the trees are living organisms that will eventually die and will always be at risk of unpredictable wildfires, but slowing decomposition is a way to make the life cycle longer, reducing the CO released during this process and the amount of highly flammable kindling in the forest. Courtesy of Living Carbon “When you globally reduce the rate of decomposition, you also globally increase the carbon pool in soil and keep that carbon out of the atmosphere for longer,” said Patrick Mellor, co-founder of Living Carbon. It’s also exploring if it can engineer trees to grow on land previously unable to support them, like old mining areas, by creating trees that have a higher tolerance for nickel or other heavy metals. According to Mellor, Living Carbon has demonstrated that some of the trees in its research have a higher nickel tolerance and lower decomposition rate, but those studies are still in the indoor growth testing phase. Trees are one of our greatest and most popular tools for combating the climate crisis. Using human innovation to make them even more powerful has attracted a for the three-year-old company, led by Felicis Ventures, with participation from Lowercarbon Capital, Goat Capital, Prelude Ventures and others. “The ability for us to utilize biology’s highly energy-efficient nature, and do so in a way that’s permanently able to sequester carbon, that’s the Holy Grail,” Hall said. |
European startups elude global VC funding slowdown in Q1 2022 | Anna Heim | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | Europe (including the U.K.) was up in the first quarter of 2022, CB Insights and Crunchbase data show. In other words, the region escaped the global in startup investment. But Europe isn’t the only place where VC funding didn’t decline. As we noted earlier this week, this was also – unlike the U.S., Asia, and . But Europe’s situation is perhaps more curious; after all, it is the closest to Russia and its war on Ukraine. It is also worth noting that Europe accounts for a much larger portion of global funding than Africa. As we reported, African startups only accounted for a 2% deal share last quarter, while their European counterparts typically account for one-fifth of global activity, both in terms of funding and deal volume. Q1 2022 was no different in that regard. Do the quarterly numbers perhaps simply reflect activity that peaked in January, or even at the very tail end of 2021, when announcements were delayed by the holiday break? It is certainly a possibility. For instance, “ ” were announced in the first days of the year. However, there are also more recent signs of optimism that contrast with the general climate in the U.S. and Latin American startup scenes. Just yesterday, we heard rumors that . Ill-advised in the current IPO freeze and unicorn stampede? Maybe not. According to , “there may be no better time for the streamer’s investors to cash out.” And while this also refers to the company’s specific circumstances, it shows that exit worries are still somewhat back of mind – thanks in part to Q1’s unexpected resilience. European startups attracted $26.8 billion in funding during the first quarter of 2022, according to . That’s a 20% quarter-on-quarter increase, and 33% more than the same quarter of 2021. Per the same dataset, here’s how deal and dollar volume evolved in some key countries between Q4 2021 and Q1 2022: |
Meta is developing a web version of Horizon Worlds | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | Meta is working on a web version of its social virtual reality Horizon Worlds platform, the company’s CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth in a tweet. The expansion would allow users to try out Horizon Worlds without having to use Quest VR headsets, which is currently the only way to access the virtual world. Bosworth’s tweet about the web version of the platform was part of a thread defending Meta’s in Horizon Worlds. The 47.5% figure includes a platform fee of 30% for purchases made through Meta’s Quest Store. Bosworth tweeted that when the web version of Horizon Worlds launches, the fee for sales would be 25% because it would avoid the Quest Store’s 30% cut. He noted that this percentage is “a much lower rate compared to other similar world-building platforms.” This means that if you were to purchase in the web version of Horizon Worlds, the designer you’re buying from would get a larger portion of the sale than if you were to make the same purchase in the VR version. When Horizon’s web version launches, the Horizon platform fee will only be 25%—a much lower rate compared to other similar world-building platforms. — Boz (@boztank) “We’re making good on our goal to ensure that developers have a path to real financial success on our platform,” Bosworth said in a tweet. “It’s early days, there is still a lot of work to be done and we continue to partner closely with our creators and developers to enable them to earn meaningful revenue.” Bosworth didn’t say more about the web version of the virtual world or reveal any details about how it would work or when it may be released. The news comes as reported a few days ago that Meta is also working on a bringing Horizon Worlds to mobile phones later this year. Meta’s plans to launch web and mobile versions of its virtual world could be seen as a way for the company to get more people to join Horizon Worlds by avoiding the need for a Quest VR headset. But, there’s also the question of whether a web and mobile version of the platform would defeat the purpose of Meta’s vision of the metaverse. Considering Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees the metaverse as a ,” where you’ll be able to do things you can’t do in the physical world, it’s unclear how a web and mobile version of Horizon Worlds would fit into this vision. Bosworth’s comments come a few days after Meta revealed that a feature that will let creators sell virtual items and effects within their worlds. The new feature is rolling out to a small group of creators to start, and marks a significant next step in the company’s mission of building the foundation of virtual reality social networking. All users with access to Horizon Worlds will be able to make these in-world purchases. Meta is also beginning to test a Horizon Worlds Creator Bonus program for participants in the U.S. Horizon Worlds opened up to all users over 18 years old in the U.S. and Canada after the platform was in 2019. |
Opera brings its Crypto Browser to iPhones and iPads | Aliya Chaudhry | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | the of their Crypto Browser, designed for accessing web3, with a non-custodial crypto wallet built-in. The browser was on Windows, Mac and Android devices. Opera says they built this browser for those who are familiar with cryptocurrencies already as well as newcomers. The app’s built-in crypto wallet supports Ethereum, Polygon and Celo blockchain technology and Opera plans to integrate more ecosystems. Users can purchase crypto using fiat currency and exchange, and send and receive supported tokens. Users can also integrate their existing crypto wallets, provided they’re compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine, into the browser’s built-in wallet. The Crypto Browser app also includes a feature called Crypto Corner, which rounds up news and information about crypto, along with events, airdrops and podcasts, to help users stay up to date on the technology. One of the aims of the Crypto Browser is to make navigating web3 as easy as Web 2, says Opera. With the Crypto Browser, users can access web3 NFTs and decentralized apps, including 7,000 Polygon-supported services. “The interest in Web3 is continuing to grow,” Jorgen Arnesen, executive vice president of Mobile at Opera, said in a statement. “The Opera Crypto Browser Project was built to simplify the Web3 user experience that has often been bewildering for mainstream users. Opera believes Web3 has to be easy to use in order to reach its full potential and a mass adoption.” The browser also comes with security features like an ad tracker, pop-up blocker and cookie dialogue blocking. It also uses cryptocurrency mining protection to block cryptojacking scripts. To address environmental concerns about the high energy usage of blockchain, integrating Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, which are supposed to reduce the environmental impact of the technology. In February, Opera announced that it had into the Crypto Browser Android app. The iOS app also implements Layer 2 technology. |
US officials link North Korean Lazarus hackers to $625M Axie Infinity crypto theft | Carly Page | 2,022 | 4 | 15 | U.S. officials have linked North Korean state-backed hacking group to the recent theft of $625 million in cryptocurrency from the Ronin Network, an -based sidechain made for the popular play-to-earn game . The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday new sanctions against an Ethereum wallet belonging to Lazarus. Blockchain analysis firms Elliptic and Chainalysis have both confirmed that the U.S. Treasury’s wallet address is identical to the one used in the , which saw the attackers exploit the network for 173,600 ether, or about $597 million, and $25.5 million worth of the stablecoin USDC. The heist, which totaled $625 million at the time, is the largest decentralized finance hack to date, according to the DeFiYield REKT , which tracks DeFi scams, hacks and exploits. The wallet itself — which held 148,000 ether as of Thursday — was discovered by the FBI as part of its ongoing investigation of the threat posed by North Korea and state-sponsored actors like Lazarus Group. Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic that 14% of the stolen funds had already been laundered, while another $9.7 million worth is in intermediary wallets in preparation for laundering. The newly announced sanctions prohibit U.S. individuals and entities from making transactions with the identified Ethereum account. This ensures the state-sponsored group — which has previously been linked to a 2014 hack on Sony Pictures and the 2017 ransomware attacks — can’t cash out through U.S.-based crypto exchanges any further funds they continue to hold. “Many commentators believe that crypto assets stolen by Lazarus Group are used to fund the state’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” Elliptic said. “With recent reports that North Korea may be again preparing for nuclear testing, today’s sanctions activity highlights the importance of ensuring that Lazarus Group is not able to successfully launder the proceeds of these attacks.” In about the incident, the Ronin Network, which is owned by developer group Sky Mavis, said it expects to deliver a full post-mortem of the crypto-heist by the end of the month. “We are still in the process of adding additional security measures before redeploying the Ronin Bridge to mitigate future risk,” Ronin says, adding that will bring its bridge back online “by the end of the month.” The bridge allows users to transfer funds between other blockchains and Axie Infinity and has been blocked off since the attack. According to a recent report , North Korean hackers launched at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms last year to steal almost $400 million worth of digital assets. As per the report, the Lazarus Group is suspected of carrying out the attacks. |
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