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Apple TV+’s ‘For All Mankind’ season three trailer drops, teasing a space race to Mars | Lauren Forristal | 2,022 | 5 | 16 | Apple TV+ released the trailer for season three of “For All Mankind,” which returns to the service on Friday, June 10, featuring 10 weekly episodes. By altering historical events, the drama imagines a global space race occurring after the 1969 moon landing. In an epic pursuit for resources on the red planet, the third season jumps to the early 1990s, when the U.S. and Russia target Mars as their next mission. As seen in the trailer, NASA seizes the historic opportunity to accomplish the first mission to Mars. However, when the astronauts land, they discover a serious lack of water could be detrimental to the crew’s survival… The alternate-reality sci-fi series was created by Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert, and stars Joel Kinnaman, Shantel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, Sonya Walger, Krys Marshall, Cynthy Wu, Casey Johnson, Coral Peña and Wrenn Schmidt. Plus, new series regular Edi Gathegi will play Dev Ayesa this season, who wants to invest in the space race and believes private citizens should also have a stake. |
Google faces fresh class action-style suit in UK over DeepMind NHS patient data scandal | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 5 | 16 | Google is facing a new class-action style lawsuit in the U.K. in relation to a health data scandal that , when it emerged that its AI division, DeepMind, had been passed data on more than a million patients as part of an app development project by the Royal Free NHS Trust in London — without the patients’ knowledge or consent. The Trust was later sanctioned by the U.K.’s data protection watchdog which found, in mid 2017, that it had when it signed the 2015 data-sharing deal with DeepMind. However the tech firm — which had been engaged by the Trust to help develop an app wrapper for an NHS algorithm to alert clinicians to the early signs of acute kidney injury (aka the Streams app) — avoided sanction since the Trust had been directly responsible for sending it the patients’ data. So it’s interesting that this private litigation is targeting Google and DeepMind Technologies, several years later. (Albeit, if a claim seeking damages against one of the world’s most valuable companies prevails there is likely to be considerably more upside vs litigation aimed at a publicly funded healthcare Trust.) Mishcon de Reya, the law firm that’s been engaged to represent the sole named claimant, a man called Andrew Prismall — who says he’s bringing the suit on behalf of approximately 1.6 million individuals whose records were passed to DeepMind — said the litigation will seek damages for unlawful use of patients’ confidential medical records. The claim is being brought in the High Court of Justice of England & Wales. The law firm also confirmed that the Royal Free is not being sued. “The claim is for Misuse of Private Information by Google and DeepMind. This is under common law,” a spokeswoman for Mishcon de Reya told us. “We can also confirm this is a damages claim.” A similar claim, announced , was discontinued, according to the spokeswoman — who confirmed: “This is a new claim for the misuse of private information.” In a statement on why he’s suing Google/DeepMind, Prismall said: “I hope that this case can achieve a fair outcome and closure for the many patients whose confidential records were — without the patients’ knowledge — obtained and used by these large tech companies.” “This claim is particularly important as it should provide some much-needed clarity as to the proper parameters in which technology companies can be allowed to access and make use of private health information,” added Ben Lasserson, partner at Mishcon de Reya, in another supporting statement. The firm notes that the litigation is being funded by a , a Sydney, Australia headquartered entity which it describes as an alternative asset manager specialising in dispute financing solutions internationally. Google was contacted for comment on the new suit but at the time of writing the adtech giant had not responded. There has been an uptake in class-action style litigations , although a number have focused on trying to bring claims under data protection law. One such case, a long-running consumer class action-style suit in the U.K. against Google related to a historic overriding of Safari users’ privacy settings, failed in the U.K. Supreme Court . However Prismall is (now) suing for damages under the common law tort of misuse of private information so the failure of that earlier U.K. case does not necessarily have strong relevance here. It does appear to explain why the earlier suit was discontinued and a fresh one filed, though. “I While the DeepMind NHS patient data scandal may seem like (very) old news, there was plenty of criticism of the regulatory response at the time — as the Trust itself did not face anything more than reputational damage. It was not, for example, ordered to tell DeepMind to delete patient data — and DeepMind was able to carry on inking deals with other NHS Trusts to roll out the app despite it having been developed without a valid legal basis to use the patient data in the first place. And while DeepMind had defended itself against privacy concerns attached to its adtech parent Google, claiming the latter would have no access to the sensitive medical data after the scandal broke, it subsequently handed off its health division to Google, in , meaning the adtech giant directly took over the role of supplying and supporting the app for NHS Trusts and processing patients’ data… (Which may be why both Google and DeepMind Technologies are named in the suit.) There was also the issue of the inked between DeepMind and the Royal Free which set out a five-year plan to build AI models using NHS patient data. Though DeepMind always claimed no patient data had been processed for AI. In a further twist to the saga , Google announced it would be shuttering the Streams app — which, at the time, was still being used by the Royal Free NHS Trust. The Trust claimed it would continue using the app despite Google announcing its intention to decommission it — raising questions over the security of patient data once support (e.g. security patching) got withdrawn by Google. While the tech giant may have been hoping to put the whole saga behind it by quietly shuttering Streams it will now either have to defend itself in court, generating fresh publicity for the 2015 NHS data misuse scandal — or offer to settle in order to make the suit go away quietly. (And the litigation funders are, presumably, sniffing enough opportunity either way.) The backlash against market-dominating tech giants continues to fuel other types of class-action style lawsuits. , for example, a major suit was launched against Facebook’s parent, Meta, seeking billions in damages for alleged abuse of U.K. competition law. But the jury is out on which — or whether — representative actions targeting tech giants’ data processing habits will prevail. |
Sony confirms its new PlayStation Plus tiers will launch on June 13, reveals list of games | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 5 | 16 | Sony that its revamped subscription tiers will launch in the United States on June 13th. The new PlayStation Plus tiers offer similar benefits to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, which gives users access to a library of rotating games for a monthly fee. Sony has also released a list of games that will be available during the launch time frame. It’s worth noting that Sony’s new subscription tiers won’t include new first-party games, such as “Horizon Zero Dawn and “Horizon Forbidden West,” at least not at launch. The lowest tier of the subscription service is called “PlayStation Plus Essential” and comes with the same benefits that PlayStation Plus members have today and costs $9.99 per month. The middle tier, which is called “PlayStation Plus Extra,” comes with all the same perks as the Essential tier but includes a selection of up to 400 PS4 and PS5 games. Sony notes that games in the Extra tier can be downloaded for online play. The Extra tier costs $14.99 per month. The top tier of the subscription service is called “PlayStation Plus Premium” and comes with access to everything in the Essential and Extra tiers along with 340 games, including PS3 titles you can stream via the cloud. The tier will also have classic games available in both streaming and download options, including original PlayStation, PS2 and PSP games. The tier, which costs $17.99 per month, also includes time-limited game trials, so customers will be able to try select games before buying them. Sony revealed that some of the titles that will be part of the trials include “Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection,” “Horizon Forbidden West,” “Cyberpunk 2077,” “Farming Simulator 2022,” “Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands” and “WWE 2K22.” Sony also revealed that Ubisoft is bringing its subscription package to PlayStation as Ubisoft Plus Classics. Access to Ubisoft+ Classics games is a benefit for PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium members. The company also notes that the games available in its PlayStation Plus games catalog will continue to refresh. PlayStation Plus Essential players will see a monthly refresh on the first Tuesday of the month, whereas Playstation Plus Extra and Premium players will see a monthly refresh in the middle of each month. Here’s a list of the first-party PS5 and PS4 games that will be available at launch for PlayStation Plus Extra and Plus Premium players: Here’s a list of the third-party PS5 and PS4 games that will be available at launch for PlayStation Plus Extra and Plus Premium players: Here’s a list of the classic games that will be available to PlayStation Plus Premium members: PlayStation Plus Premium members will also get access to the following selection of remastered games: Lastly, here’s the list of the PS3 games that will be available to stream and play on PS4, PS5 and PC. Sony notes that title availability may vary by local market and that some games may not be available to stream until after launch, but they will be available to download and play. The new subscription offerings will launch in Asia on May 24th, in Japan on June 2nd, North and South America on June 13th, and in Europe, Australia and New Zealand on June 23rd. |
Yes! More tickets released for TechCrunch’s Annual Summer Party next month | Lauren Simonds | 2,022 | 5 | 16 | Plus if you are an early stage startup and want to maximize your exposure to Menlo Park’s investors, you can for the evening! Sign up for our newsletter on the Summer Party event page,
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Samsung reportedly cutting smartphone production by 30M | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | All is not well in smartphone land. The industry was headed for a slowdown well before SARS-CoV-2 entered the picture. The glory days of expanding markets and bi-annual upgrades are seemingly at an end, and things have only been exacerbated by two years of financial hardships and supply chain constraints. For all these reasons, it’s not surprising that manufacturers are pulling back on manufacturing. A from has the world’s leading smartphone maker ramping production down by 30 million units for 2022. The news comes as sales are further hampered by the conflict in Ukraine. In March, the company followed fellow tech giants Microsoft and Apple by . Apple, too, has been feeling the pain. noted that the iPhone maker is throttling plans to manufacture an additional 20 million phones in 2022. Instead, its numbers are reportedly going to remain flat from 2021. Those reports follow several quarters of iPhone sales that had managed to buck many of the industry’s macro trends, but the company might be coming back down to Earth, even with the imminent arrival of the iPhone 14. It’s a perfect storm of industry and global factors that have gotten us to this place. It’s not panic time for the larger manufactures — they’ll almost certainly come out of the dip unscathed. But there are broader questions that remain about the industry going forward. Biggest of all is whether this is a lull following a decade of explosive smartphones sales, or whether not even the arrival of new technologies like foldable screens will kickstart a return to the mobile golden age. Samsung declined to comment on the reports. |
Hydrogen startup ZeroAvia has a zero-emission vision, but its next plane is a hybrid | Mark Harris | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | ZeroAvia has raised $115 million from United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, British Airways and Amazon on a promise to fly a zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell regional passenger plane as soon as next year. Now the startup has set itself a slightly less high-flying goal: building a hybrid aircraft. This new experimental plane, which is under construction in California, is a 19-seat Dornier 228 that will have “a hybrid engine configuration that incorporates both the company’s hydrogen-electric powertrain and a conventional engine,” according to a recent . ZeroAvia declined to tell TechCrunch why it had altered its plans. A hybrid system could reassure regulators that the Dornier can fly safely for tests, while the company continues to develop the world’s largest aviation hydrogen fuel cells. The decision to build a hybrid plane follows a previously unreported from the U.K.’s Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) into the April 2021 crash of the moonshot project that caught the attention of investors: a smaller fuel-cell and battery-powered prototype near Cranfield Airport. The AAIB found that the crash near Cranfield airport occurred after the five-seater Piper Malibu lost power when its battery was turned off, leaving the electrical motors powered by the hydrogen fuel cell. The subsequent forced landing severely damaged the plane, although its pilot and passenger escaped injury. TechCrunch that the Piper Malibu relied heavily on batteries, using them throughout what ZeroAvia called an historic first flight of the Malibu in September 2020. The company’s only other flying prototype, another Piper Malibu, was damaged during the installation of a hydrogen fuel tank at ZeroAvia’s U.S. base in Hollister, California in 2019 and has not flown since. Following the crash at Cranfield, ZeroAvia relocated its U.K. operation to Kemble airfield in Gloucestershire, which provided financial incentives to the startup. ZeroAvia now has two Dornier 228 aircraft, one at Kemble and one at Hollister. ZeroAvia previously said it would power the Dorniers using a newly developed 600 kW hydrogen fuel cell. ZeroAvia has received over £14 million ($17 million) in grants from the U.K. government to build its aircraft there, as part of a flagship “Jet Zero” net zero carbon aviation pledge by 2050. The crash of its smaller prototype ended any chance of ZeroAvia fulfilling a commitment to fly that specific aircraft 300 miles using hydrogen. ZeroAvia received £1.6 million ($2.02 million) to go toward that goal. ZeroAvia’s in the U.K., HyFlyer II, promises to operate a similar 300-mile zero-carbon flight by February next year, powered by the 600 kW fuel cell. It is unclear whether the Kemble Dornier will now also be a hybrid. ZeroAvia declined to answer detailed questions about its progress, and spokesperson Sarah Malpeli told TechCrunch that the company could not comment on the Cranfield crash until the final AAIB report is published later this summer. The U.K. funding body, the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), provided this statement: The ATI does not comment on the progress of live projects due to commercial confidentiality. We continue to work closely with ZeroAvia and look forward to the contribution of HyFlyer and HyFlyer II to the understanding and development of zero-carbon emission aircraft technologies in the U.K. The construction of a hybrid aircraft with a conventional engine is a big change for the company, as ZeroAvia has always called its systems . As recently as last week, ZeroAvia’s CEO Val Miftakhov that even a hybrid powertrain using batteries was “too incremental.” Other companies however, including , are pursuing hybrid solutions for hydrogen aviation. There are many challenges to developing a purely hydrogen-powered aircraft, ranging from the storage of fuel, to cooling the system so that it does not overheat during flight. The most advanced hydrogen fuel cell aircraft to date is likely the . This four-seat experimental aircraft completed a 124-kilometer flight last month between Stuttgart and Friedrichshafen, at an altitude of over 7,300 feet. Earlier this year, ZeroAvia showing a “complete propulsion system” mounted on a “HyperTruck” ground vehicle and powering a propeller. That configuration had two fuel cells and a number of batteries and is likely around one third the size of the system needed for the Dornier to take off. It did not include a conventional engine. The company’s ultimate aim is to build a fuel cell capable of generating between 2,000 and 5,000kW (2 to 5 MW). Earlier this year, ZeroAvia received a from the state of Washington to start work there on a 76-seat De Havilland Dash-8 Q400 aircraft from Alaska Airlines. The company hasn’t always been successful in landing public money though. ZeroAvia is suing the U.S. government, in a previously unreported case filed at the U.S. Federal Claims court. Most filings in the case are sealed, but it appears to relate to a failed bid by ZeroAvia for a federal contract. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, ZeroAvia’s path still seemed solely focused on fuel cells. For instance, the company spent over 23 million Swedish kroner (about $2.2 million) on fuel cells since the accident, according to press releases from PowerCell Sweden AB, the manufacturer of the fuel cell used in the aircraft that crashed. This likely equates to between 10 and 13 100 kW fuel cells. ZeroAvia is also from New York startup Hyzon. ZeroAvia does not have an operational aircraft powered by hydrogen. However, the company continues to forge new commercial partnerships and promise evermore ambitious projects and timelines. Miftakhov, who is at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, posted a blog that claims the U.K.-based Dornier plane is “on the verge of flying” and would go into service in 2024. ZeroAvia claimed this week that the larger Dash would fly by 2026 and to convert a regional jet to hydrogen fuel-cell operation “as early as the late 2020s.” |
The week Jack stepped back | Greg Kumparak | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | Hey all. Welcome back to Week in Review, the where we recap some of the top stories to cross TC’s front page over the last 7 days. The most read story on our site this week was about Flowcarbon — a new company and “blockchain-based redemption story” (as Anita put it) launched by WeWork founder Adam Neumann. The goal, writes Anita, is to “sell tokenized carbon credits to companies looking to reduce their carbon footprint,” to which the only response I can think of is that . Why is it on the blockchain? What’s a “Goddess Nature Token”? Find out in Anita’s , then listen to Lucas and Anita go deep on the topic For the first time since its founding in 2006, co-founder Jack Dorsey is no longer officially involved in the operation of Twitter. Late last year, he stepped away from the CEO role but remained on the company’s board of directors. As of May 25, he has exited the board as well. After a few days of rumors, Broadcom announced its plans to acquire VMware for a wild $61 billion. Ron’s got all the details of the deal — and as for why the chipmaker would drop that much on the virtualization company? Ron and Alex The parent company behind games like Grand Theft Auto and BioShock now owns the company behind games like FarmVille and Words With Friends. We’ve known for a while that this was in the works, but the $12.7 billion deal was all finalized this week. Another week of companies announcing or confirming layoffs — including cuts , and grocery delivery companies and . Just last month, OpenAI — its AI model capable of taking a text prompt like “Shiba Inu wearing a beret” and generating an entirely new image from it. Now Google says they’ve got their own algorithm that’s even better — but, outside of comparison images Google provides (which, naturally, include more Shiba Inu in hats), we’ll have to take the company’s word for it. Citing “potential risks of misuse,” Google isn’t currently releasing any code or public demos. Google Research Got a solid business and a polished pitch deck, but still getting turned down by investors? “A lot of the time, it doesn’t matter how good your company is,” writes Haje. “What matters is whether it matches up with your investor’s investment thesis.” Recreational cannabis use is slowly becoming legal in more and more states — but it’s still illegal at a federal level, which deeply complicates things when it’s the core of your business. Anna Heim checked in with four U.S. cannabis investors for their thoughts on the state of the industry, and what’s keeping it from really catching fire. After suggesting founders “plan for the worst” in the months ahead, investors are echoing that sentiment in memos of their own. Natasha Mascarenhas takes a look at memos from Reach Capital, Lightspeed ventures and more. |
Footnotes on Sequoia’s startup memo | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | Sequoia takes things seriously. The storied venture firm is known to react to macro-economic events with grand memos aimed at portfolio companies, and sometimes the entrepreneurship scene at large. Most recently, Sequoia created a 52-slide deck, first reported by The Information, titled Adapting to Endure; the document reads like a follow-up course to its infamously ill-timed “Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020” memo of March 2020. The firm is not always right in its prognostications — which is maybe why it stuck to internal musings instead of a Medium post this time — but it does do a service in providing a snapshot of how one of the most weathered, and successful, firms of all time thinks about a looming downturn. “Our intention in gathering today is not to be a beacon of gloom,” the deck reads. “But we also believe that winning in the years ahead is going to depend on making hard, decisive choices confronting uncomfortable challenges that may have been masked during the exuberance and distortions of free capital over the past two years.” Sequoia’s advice largely followed the same script that other venture firms have been using: extend runway, focus on sustainable growth and recognize that an economic recovery may be a ways away. There were, however, some tidbits that stood out, such as a subtweet I’m guessing is for Tiger Global and a precise explanation of how founders should define fluff these days. For my full take on this topic, read my TechCrunch+ column, In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll bring in a founder’s perspective on this moment in tech, a pitch deck teardown and a deal that may have flown under your radar this week. As always, you can support me by forwarding this newsletter to a friend or or subscribing to On Equity this week, Heart to Heart CEO joined us to talk about . Ogundu told us what he’s rethinking, the importance of honesty and what to do before considering a layoff. It’s not too often that we have guests on the show, so when we do, you know it’s going to be a good one. So much of the advice, as this newsletter’s intro shows, . Yet, founders are the ones living the change and making the hard decisions, so consider this episode Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch Our own has started a weekly series in which he reviews a startup’s pitch deck in the shape of a witty column. Most recently, he reviewed that helped the startup land a $29 million round. Here’s why it’s important, in his words: “I’ve been coaching startups for a long time, and the No. 1 challenge we always run into is that there’s no shortage of advice for how to do a good pitch deck (hell, ), but the thing that’s always been missing is a good library of actual, real pitch decks that were successful in raising money. When I rejoined TechCrunch and started talking to founders about fundraising rounds, I realized this might be my chance. In this week’s teardown, . This is info that isn’t available anywhere else, and it’s been such a fun project so far!” It certainly feels like layoff announcements are the new funding round stories, but I do think it’s helpful to balance the doom and gloom with some growth-focused news. And no, I’m not just This week, Planet FWD announced that it has secured $10 million No biggie. Time is of the essence in reducing emissions, with [CEO Julia Collins] noting that there are less than 100 months left to reach the 2030 global goal of cutting at least 40% of greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. Household consumption of things like food, which impacts land, energy and water, account for 60% of global emissions, she added.” / Getty Images Until next time, |
This Week in Apps: Mobile gaming’s market share hit, web3 app growth, Niantic’s new AR tools | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | 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. Apptopia A report from Apptopia has found the number of mobile applications describing themselves as “web3” apps has continued to grow from 2020 through 2022. So far this year, the number of web3 apps available for download is growing nearly 5x faster compared with 2021, and year-to-date, the number of apps available for download is up by 88%. The firm analyzed data across the App Store and Google play, looking for any apps with “web3” in the title, subtitle or app description. Many of these apps — around 46% — were those in the finance space. This has to do with the large number of mobile wallets, NFT apps and the like now crowding the app stores. Much smaller percentages were found in apps in the social, tools/utilities, business and gaming categories. However, despite the growth in the availability of web3 apps, the number of downloads the apps are seeing seems to ebb and flow, Apptopia noted. In addition, it found that NFT marketplace apps OpenSea and Veve were down 90%+ off their highs, and the top 50 crypto apps have seen downloads fall 64% since November. Meanwhile, web3 apps seeing growth currently include the circular economy app Twig and running app STEPN, which lets users collect NFTs by running outdoors. In what’s becoming a regular occurrence, it was another tumultuous week for the deal that would see Elon Musk acquire Twitter. This week, Musk decided to put up more of his own money for Twitter — just days after it looked like the tech exec was trying to get out of the deal by alleging Twitter lied about the on the platform. In a filing, Musk said his , up from . The Telsa and SpaceX exec had previously said he would execute a margin loan of $12.5 billion against his other holdings, like his Tesla shares. But Tesla shares had seen a sharp decline after news of Musk’s acquisition plans for Twitter back in April, potentially prompting this move. If you’re sick of all the deal shenanigans, you’re not alone. , alleging he manipulated Twitter stock for his own benefit throughout the course of buying the company. The suit says Musk’s complaint about the percentage of bots on the platform was likely an attempt to drive down the price of the deal. It also cites issues with how he claimed the deal was “on hold,” when there was no such mechanism in place to stop the deal from proceeding; and it points out that Musk delayed filing a disclosure when his stake in the company exceeded 5%, allowing him to buy shares at a discount, in violation of securities law. While a select group of Twitter investors is behind the lawsuit, it’s open to any shareholders who are looking to receive financial compensation from the Twitter chaos the deal has caused. Musk’s move to buy Twitter is certainly shaking things up. This week of directors. And, at Wednesday’s shareholder meeting, the board voted to oust board member — and Musk ally — Egon Durban, CEO of private equity firm Silver Lake. Durban has backed Musk’s companies, including SolarCity, before it was acquired by Tesla. that the two biggest shareholder advisers, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, cited concerns with Durban serving on too many other boards. (The FT said he was on seven this year, but a Twitter SEC filing said it was six.) Twitter , two days after shareholders had blocked his re-election. The company because of his director role on so many other boards (six), but Durban had agreed to reduce the number to five by May 25, 2023. Also during the shareholder meeting, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal faced a number of questions about the deal, what it means for free speech on Twitter, content moderation and other issues. But Twitter about the deal and said work at Twitter was continuing as usual. (Which hardly seems true, given the of and exec following Dorsey’s exit and Musk’s takeover attempt!). Twitter’s troubles also extended beyond the acquisition, as this week Twitter as part of its settlement with regulators over user data privacy. The FTC and Department of Justice said that between May 2013 and September 2019, Twitter asked users for personal information — including phone numbers and emails — to secure their accounts, but then used that information to target users with ads. More than 140 million Twitter users were impacted, the FTC said. Apple Niantic Snap TikTok Snapchat screenshot via Watchful Instagram Sensor Tower The new Real Tone filters in Google Photos are starting to roll out today on Android, iOS, and web. These filters were designed by professional image makers to work well across skin tones, so you can choose the filter that reflects your style. — Google Photos (@googlephotos) Bumble screenshot via Watchful data.ai Proton to accelerate its work building out an AR game featuring 3D NFT avatars from Deadfellaz, CyberKongz, FLUFs, VOIDs, ChibiApes, Meebits and other collections. The company has raised $45 million+ to date. The near-term future of the Metaverse is AR not VR and is building it. 1/13 – 🧵 — AJM • Jadu (@AsadJMalik) from BoxGroup, Weekend Fund, Shrug Capital, Day One Ventures, Betaworks Ventures, SRB Ventures, 305 Ventures, CoreVentures and other angels. The startup hails from longtime engineer and product designer Michael Sayman, who has been building apps since he was a kid, landing him roles at Facebook, Google, Roblox, and, most recently, Twitter. Having joined Facebook at just 17, he’s often been tasked with developing products aimed at a teenage audience. Now he’s planning to leverage his understanding of what users want from their apps with his own startup. round led by Zeev Ventures. Also participating was Lior Ron, head of Uber Freight, along with existing investors NFX, Flint Capital and Sir Ronald Cohen. The company said it has backed TRIPP, an award-winning leader in XR wellness, and music metaverse startup Pixelynx, from musicians deadmau5 and Plastikman. The latter’s first mobile game is called Elynxir and is using Niantic’s new Lightship AR platform to combine musical experiences and AR. Deal terms weren’t disclosed. |
The TechCrunch Podcast: Why do people keep giving Adam Neumann money? | Darrell Etherington | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | Welcome to the second episode of The TechCrunch Podcast, our weekly news show bringing you all the top stories in tech. This week, we sat down with TC writers Natasha Mascarenhas, Anita Ramaswamy and Devin Coldewey to talk about the continued, troubling trend of layoffs in tech; Adam Neumann’s new crypto carbon credit startup (?!) and the one-upmanship among AI image generation technologies happening between OpenAI and Google. Listen below, and subscribe in or to get new episodes delivered weekly on Saturdays! Articles from the episode: Other news from the week: Extras: |
Cannabis, sex tech and psychedelics startups deserve more than stigma | Anna Heim | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | Cannabis, sex tech and psychedelics are often lumped together under the “vice” category — a characterization that prevents many VCs from investing in these spaces. But does that make sense? Let’s explore. — Isn’t cannabis actually similar to coffee, wine and spirits? That’s the argument Emily Paxhia made on a Twitter Space hosted by TechCrunch+ earlier this week to discuss our latest U.S. cannabis investor survey. A managing director at cannabis-focused hedge fund Poseidon Asset Management, Paxhia argued that marijuana-derived products have a lot more to do with wellness than with the “sin” category they often fall under. “Sin clause” and “vice clause” are terms that venture capitalists use to refer to their inability to invest in certain business categories, from porn and gambling to alcohol and tobacco. When I explored earlier this year, I found out that this veto typically comes from the fund’s limited partners, or LPs. It is understandable why investors wouldn’t want to put their money in certain types of businesses, let alone be known for doing so. But there’s a fine line between moral stances and stigma. “I don’t identify with the word ‘vice’ at all,” Andrea Barrica told me. Barrica is the founder of O.School, which she describes as a media platform for sexual wellness. “Wellness” is a popular term in both the sex tech and cannabis industries — because it makes them more palatable, sure, but also because it truly reflects the impact that entrepreneurs are hoping to have. It is worth keeping in mind that cannabis isn’t just about providing a recreational high. In Europe, we , it is medical cannabis that has most of the momentum. It is the perspective of health benefits that drives many entrepreneurs, who deserve better than cheap laughs. Similarly, a deep dive into psychedelics taught me that this is about much more than drugs and fun. With investors sometimes getting into this space after personal journeys with depression or burnout, and founders hoping to make a dent on the global mental health crisis, easy jokes quickly feel out of place. The vice clause applies only to certain types of investors, which is also problematic. The fund that is handling your pension might pass on cannabis investments, but many family offices aren’t. This means that returns from these potentially lucrative bets will be concentrated in the hands of the already-wealthy. Some fund managers are also investing as individuals, Paxhia said — and it’s them who will get the upside. Meanwhile, fiduciaries are missing out on the returns and the impact they could have, for arbitrary reasons. After all, what’s legal is not always moral, and vice versa. The most glaring paradox is that the tobacco, nicotine and alcohol industries are actually and whether consumption might shift. Would the shift be a net negative for society? Perhaps not. As for psychedelics, there’s research ongoing to use nonhallucinogenic derivatives . With overdose deaths involving fentanyl and methamphetamine , is this vice? I don’t think so. Do you? |
Why Convoy’s Dan Lewis expects digital freight to go mainstream within the year | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | and CEO of digital freight company , didn’t start his company because he had a deep and abiding passion for trucking. At least, not at first. The executive has a background in strategy and management consulting that progressed into a career in product development for top tech companies like Google and Amazon. But when he was struck by the urge to start a company, he researched the money-attracting industries of the world, and then, using AngelList, saw how many companies were trying to disrupt those industries. His search yielded thousands of companies that were working on industries ranging from telecommunications and fashion to video games and food. Billions of dollars were going into trucking each year but fewer than 30 startups showed an interest in the field. “I saw a massive opportunity and few people going after it,” Lewis told TechCrunch. Lewis and Grant Goodale , and since then, have brought on a series of high-profile investors. A couple of years after Convoy was founded, in a pivotal turn of events, , a fund that was usually geared toward earlier-stage companies. More recently, , led by Baillie Gifford and T. Rowe Price, that brought the company’s valuation up to $3.8 billion. To date, the company has raised almost $1 billion to scale its platform, which connects the fragmented network of shippers, carriers and brokers across the United States. We sat down with Lewis to talk about the importance of being customer-obsessed when starting a company, why compensation packages in the early days can help you avoid diluting your company too much in future fundraises, and how to set boundaries on the compromises you’ll make as a founder. The YC culture is a really curious one, so they didn’t feel like they needed to stay in a particular lane, especially with the Continuity Fund, which was geared toward early growth-stage companies. When we met, I think the breakthrough was just the unique story. People don’t usually realize how fragmented, how large, how offline the trucking industry is. So YC viewed this as a major disruptive play. We were excited to work with them because they’re an incubator and accelerator, so their whole system is designed around helping founders succeed. They had so many unique programs that helped us be successful and grow that I had never seen from other investors at the time. I think it is a really good method. It would be interesting to pull a list of industries and find out how much money is spent in those industries, and then see how many companies are going after those industries. AngelList is a great resource to find the newest, most innovative companies that are going after these spaces. Before I ever started the company, I wrote this article in Quora that went viral and . It was an answer to the question: How to come up with a startup idea. I wrote this really extensive theory, basically a playbook. So when I was going to start my own company, I was like, I should eat my own dog food. I went back and used my own process, and I can now say it’s credible because it works. |
Coinbase is testing a real-time employee feedback system. It sounds rough | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | The crypto exchange Coinbase is testing a real-time workplace feedback tool called , created by hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates. Slack your colleague to say hello? Perhaps you’ll be rated as being off-task. Babbling too much in a meeting? You’ll get a low rating in efficiency. Tired after a night awake with your sleepless toddler? That’s a low enthusiasm rating. At any moment of the work day, you can rate and be rated, watching as your scores fluctuate up and down. Per a report from , Coinbase has been using Dot Collector since the first quarter of the year, emulating a less intense version of the practices at Bridgewater. Dalio is notorious for promoting a culture of “ ” at Bridgewater. The fund has been known to videotape almost everything that happens at the office for reference, and employees to grade each other on their adherence to Dalio’s Principles, a collection of over 200 rules for business and life. With the Dot Collector program and Zoom plug-in, any company (like Coinbase) can invite their employees to judge each other’s performance in real time, even while working remotely. “It’s hard to have an objective, open-minded, emotion-free conversation about performance if there is no data to discuss. It’s also hard to track progress,” Dalio wrote in a about the product. “This is part of the reason I created the Dot Collector.” But this data-driven, “emotion-free” approach to management ignores the humanity of the people behind products. Using Dalio’s Dot Collector app, Coinbase employees rate their colleagues based on how well they adhere to Coinbase’s cultural tenets, which include “positive energy,” “efficient execution” and “clear communication.” An assistant management professor at the Wharton School, Samir Nurmohamed, told TechCrunch that there hasn’t been much research conducted on these kinds of feedback systems — but if a system works in one workplace, that doesn’t guarantee it will translate effectively in others. Plus, different workplaces and industries have different standards for churn. At Bridgewater, leave within 18 months of their start date. While Dalio might be okay with that, other managers might find that concerning. Bridgewater aims to “ ,” but Nurmohamed says that in the workplace, people are more likely to think favorably about people who share similar views, which may impact the way they rate their colleagues. “So, if people from marginalized backgrounds are making comments that are not in line with my own values or ideology, I might suddenly penalize them when it comes to these rating systems,” he explains. “The question becomes then, how are these ratings being looked at? If there’s systemic bias across the board, how will they evaluate that data?” Proponents of Dot Collector argue that the system levels the playing field, since it allows lower-level employees to provide honest feedback to managers. But that transparency comes at the cost of constant surveillance. “From a managerial standpoint, it might be helpful, right? We know that sometimes, those with more power are more likely to dominate the conversation in meetings, rather than listen,” Nurmohamed says. “But those with less power are already getting worried about what kind of impression they’re giving off. It could induce a sense of fear in the organization.” These systems may also cause a feeling of “feedback fatigue,” where workers become desensitized to criticism and are less likely to benefit from such constant feedback. “Sometimes people just have a bad day — something went wrong at home last night, or maybe it’s a virtual meeting and their technology wasn’t good,” Nurmohamed adds. “It could be very exhausting for people at work to constantly get this feedback.” Dalio credits Bridgewater’s unique and divisive corporate culture as its secret to success — his hedge fund is the largest in the world. Coinbase is similarly known for its company culture, which controversially bars employees from . In June 2020, a group of Coinbase employees staged a in response to CEO Brian Armstrong’s refusal to support Black Lives Matter. Then, weeks before the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, he instituted this apolitical policy and offered for those who didn’t want to stay. Over at Bridgewater, Dalio’s “radical transparency” isn’t always effective in practice either. In one high-profile case, an employee filed a complaint against the company, calling it “ .” That doesn’t seem too surprising a description of a workplace where workers are given iPads for the explicit purpose of judging each other. According to a 2016 in the New York Times, this employee that he experienced sexual harassment from his supervisor but kept this a secret out of fear that he wouldn’t be promoted. He suddenly withdrew the complaint jointly with Bridgewater, but then the National Labor Relations Board filed a separate complaint, arguing that Bridgewater was preventing employees from speaking about negative treatment due to the rigorous NDAs they sign upon employment. Bridgewater reached a resolution with the National Labor Relations Board over the complaint, but like most of what goes on at the hedge fund, the final agreement is . Dalio has denied these claims, that “If Bridgewater was really as bad as the New York Times describes, then why would anyone want to work here?” (Money, probably.) “It can sound mean, crazy or like a cult to people who don’t know what it’s really like,” Dalio to Business Insider in 2016. “Some people describe it as being like an intellectual Navy SEAL. Others describe it as being like spending time with the Dalai Lama to obtain self-discovery. To me, it’s a wonderful community of people who bust their asses to be excellent.” It’s still up in the air whether Coinbase will continue using Dot Collector. For now, companies using the tool must decide whether they hope to emulate Bridgewater — a profitable, yet intense company — or hone a culture where employee happiness is a priority. |
Sequoia is the latest VC firm telling you to take the downturn seriously | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | seriously. The storied venture firm is known to react to macroeconomic events with grand memos aimed at portfolio companies and sometimes the entrepreneurship scene at large. Most recently, Sequoia created a 52-slide deck, , titled “Adapting to Endure.” The document reads like a follow-up course to its infamously ill-timed “Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020” memo of March 2020. The firm is not always right in its prognostications — maybe why it stuck to internal musings instead of a Medium post this time — but it does do a service in providing a snapshot of how one of the most weathered, and successful, VC firms of all time thinks about a looming downturn. “Our intention in gathering today is not to be a beacon of gloom,” the deck reads. “But we also believe that winning in the years ahead is going to depend on making hard, decisive choices confronting uncomfortable challenges that may have been masked during the exuberance and distortions of free capital over the past two years.” Sequoia’s advice largely followed the same script that other venture firms have been using: extend runway, focus on sustainable growth and recognize that an economic recovery may be a ways away. There were, however, some tidbits that stood out, such as a subtweet that I’m guessing is meant for Tiger Global and a precise explanation of how founders should define fluff these days. One of the clearest subtweets within the deck is Sequoia’s commentary on cross-over funds. The firm says that “cheap capital is not coming to the rescue” at this moment: |
Can Andreessen Horowitz prevent the next crypto winter? | Lucas Matney | 2,022 | 5 | 28 | Hey everyone, and welcome back to Last week, we talked about the rough road ahead for Coinbase. This week, we’re talking a bit about Andreessen Horowitz’s multibillion-dollar bet on web3’s continued viability. Read on to check out the latest episode of the as well. To get this in your inbox every Thursday afternoon, you can subscribe on May hasn’t been the kindest month to crypto. Consecutive weeks of drops have left whispers of the “buy the dip” going cold as industry players buckle down for winter. A brief moment of warmth came this week, when Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced that it has raised $4.5 billion for its fourth crypto fund, more than doubling the size of its last fund. It’s the largest institutional crypto firm to date and comes at an interesting time. While VC firms the world over have been pressing their portfolio companies to cut burn rates and buckle down for bad times, many crypto founders were already prepared for this moment, having raised stupid amounts of money from VCs solely for the purpose of not having to raise cash later. While tech broadly has not suffered a prolonged recession since the early 2000s, crypto startups have endured much tighter windows of boom and bust. Despite plenty of coffers being full, it’s fair to assume that a crypto winter will put plenty of venture-backed startups on ice. A16z didn’t let too many details fly on their exact plans for this fund, but they did interestingly detail that they’re planning to devote at least $1.5 billion of the fund to seed deals. That’s an awful lot of seed deals — likely hundreds of them — coming from a single fund. The question is whether the rest of the venture ecosystem around crypto sticks around. Plenty of hedge fund entrants to the markets have gotten burned and other traditional venture firms seemed to sheepishly poke their head into this cycle and may already be close to the door. For a market that’s been frothing with dumb money for a couple years, any sort of pullback is going to leave startups in a lurch, and a16z’s focus on young companies with their new fund may be tough for companies eyeing growth dollars. Now that Lucas has given you the breakdown on a16z, it’s Anita here to get you up to speed on the latest episode of the Chain Reaction podcast, where we unpack the latest web3 news, block-by-block for the crypto-curious. We talked plenty about Andreessen Horowitz, which really said “what downturn?” this week, announcing the largest dedicated crypto venture fund ever. Granted, much of that capital was probably raised before the crypto markets started tanking, but we unpacked the storied firm’s strategy and discussed a somewhat questionable investment it just made in a well-known grifter’s new blockchain startup. (Hint: He kinda looks like Jared Leto.) For our guest, we had investor Grace Isford join us from Lux Capital to talk about the infrastructure that works behind the scenes to make web3 tech run smoothly. Subscribe to Chain Reaction on , or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week. Everyone’s been talking about a cool down in the crypto markets, but as reporters covering the space, we’ve felt busy as ever. It seems like venture investors are keeping busy, too, trying to put massive amounts of capital to work that they raised largely before the markets went south. As for the firms currently raising new funds, they seem to have conviction that there are still lucrative opportunities out there in the crypto startup world, and that this downturn will simply separate the winners from the losers. (They’re hoping their portfolios already contain the winners.)
Nine days ago, Terraform Labs (TFL) founder Do Kwon shared a plan to revive the Terra Ecosystem after its stablecoin and cryptocurrency nosedived earlier this month and brought down the crypto markets with it. Now, the plan has passed approval from Terra’s community for a new Terra 2.0, which not everyone is certain will succeed. Will history repeat itself?
Crypto markets may be choppy right now, but big players are still raising capital as demand for scalable blockchain infrastructure remains strong. The most recent example of that fact is StarkWare Industries, which just raised $100 million at a valuation of $8 billion, the company shared on Wednesday. The new capital came just six months after the unicorn closed a $50 million Series C, quadrupling its valuation from $2 billion to $8 billion.
Both large and small companies are retaining their crypto optimism despite the recent market correction in the developing technology space. Mass adoption of blockchain technology and digital assets is going to happen sooner rather than later, according to Mastercard’s VP of new product development and innovation, Harold Bossé. But there are a number of challenges right now stopping corporations from entering the market, Bossé said, like lack of senior management understanding and regulatory concerns, among other aspects. There seems to be no shortage of news around Terraform Labs’ cryptocurrency LUNA and algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) imploding. Last Friday, one of the four advisers to Luna Foundation Guard (which Terra’s Singapore-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting UST), told TechCrunch there have been no meetings with Terra founder Do Kwon since UST crashed. How does the adviser keep up with the Terra situation? Through Twitter like everyone else, he said. Thanks for reading and please subscribe to Chain Reaction on , and |
CyberConnect raises $15M Series A to put data back in the hands of users | Rita Liao | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | One of the promises made by web3 entrepreneurs is putting data back in the hands of owners through decentralization. Palo Alto-based CyberConnect is among a handful of blockchain startups working to fulfill this vision, and it has recently closed a Series A financing round totaling $15 million. The lead co-investor of the round is Animoca Brands, the Hong Kong-based company that has in recent years risen from an underdog in game development to an investment juggernaut in the web3 world. The other co-investor is Sky9 Capital, a Shanghai-based venture capital firm founded by Ron Cao, who is known for helping Lightspeed Venture Partners set up shop in China back in the day. “In web2, companies with the largest social network own users’ social graphs and build walls around them to stem competition and advance corporate interests,” says CyberConnect CEO and co-founder Wilson Wei. As such, Wei and his team are building a social graph “protocol,” the underlying rules that allow data to be shared between computers, for applications, and An app experience powered by CyberConnect will look like this: Users connect their crypto wallet — which has become a universal gateway to any web3 app — to a social platform, upon which they will be shown all their existing connections. They will get recommended user addresses to follow, which is based on CyberConnect’s indexing. Once they follow someone, that piece of information will be added to CyberConnect’s network and become “portable and self-sovereign.” To date, CyberConnect has supported 23 projects including Project Galaxy and Mask Network, reaching a total of 710,000 users. Other companies are building similar infrastructure to allow follower interoperability, such as Lens, which is operated by Aave, a decentralized lending protocol backed by Blockchain Capital. CyberConnect’s solution, Wei tells TechCrunch, consists of two components. Similar to Lens, it offers a software development kit (SDK), a piece of software for developers to create custom apps that let end users manage their social graphs and a “social data network” that aggregates users’ behavior in web3, such as what tokens and NFTs they bought. Rather than using smart contracts like Lens, CyberConnect’s SDK is built on top of InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a peer to peer data storing and sharing network, and Ceramic, a network that manages mutable data without centralized servers, which Wei claims is a more “economic and gas-efficient solution.” Smart contracts are computer programs that execute automatically according to the terms of contracts and incur “gas fees,” the payments made by users to compensate for the computing power required to process transactions. “Smart contract-based protocols are creating value from scarce items while any data stored on-chain costs a nontrivial amount of gas fee. There are only 10,000 NFTs in one collection and a limited amount of bitcoins,” Wei explains. “In contrast, social context welcomes data abundance. There’s only an ever-increasing number of new users, new connections, and new content and that data will be by nature dynamic and need constant updates.” CyberConnect plans to generate revenues through the social data network, which include different participants like data contributors, indexers and recommenders, curators and users. The network will be permissionless, meaning anyone can join, and include incentive mechanisms revolving around query fees, according to Wei. The startup, headquartered in Palo Alto, operates with a team of 27 across the U.S., China, Canada and Europe. Several venture investment firms, including , have recently warned web3 startups to brace for a cooling industry in the wake of the and wider macroeconomic complications. Wei is undeterred, saying “bear markets are a great time for us to focus on building.” “As a serial entrepreneurial team, with more than seven years in social, web3 and blockchain, previous experiences taught us that it is crucial to keep building during the downturns,” he says. “It will also be easier for truly visionary and value-creating projects to be properly recognized as the noise will die down together with the market hype.” |
ZMO.ai secures $8M led by Hillhouse to create AI generated fashion models | Rita Liao | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | With breakthroughs in machine learning, it’s no longer uncommon to see algorithmically generated bodies that can move and talk authentically like real humans. The question is now down to whether startups offering such products can achieve a sustainable business model. Some of them have demonstrated that potential and attracted investors. ZMO.ai, founded by a team of Chinese entrepreneurs who have spent years studying and working abroad, just closed an $8 million Series A financing round led by GL Ventures. GGV Capital and GSR Ventures also participated in the round. The startup has found a healthy demand from fashion e-commerce companies that are struggling to hire and afford models due to their growing number of stock-keeping units (SKUs), or styles, as consumer tastes become more changeable. Using the generative adversarial network (GAN), ZMO has created a piece of software to help them create virtual full bodies of models by defining simple parameters like face, height, skin color, body shape and pose. “Traditionally, the entire cycle of garment manufacturing may take two to three months, from design, fabric selection, pattern making, modeling, to actually hitting the shelves,” says Ella Zhang, ZMO’s CEO and co-founder, a former engineer at Google and Apple. “We are flipping and shortening that process. [Customers] can now test a piece of clothing by putting it on a virtual model, which can go on the website. Once orders come in, the e-commerce customer can start manufacturing,” she tells TechCrunch. “They can also test what type of people would suit a certain product by trying it out on different virtual models.” It’s unsurprising that fashion e-commerce operators would find ZMO and its likes a cost-saving tool. Zhang says her company is in early discussion with fast-fashion giant Shein, which rolls out 2,000-3,000 new products per day, about potential collaborations. Screen capture of ZMO’s AI-generated video. ZMO We previously covered , a Sequoia-backed, Shenzhen-based startup also working on synthetic media to replace humans in lifestyle photos and other commercial scenarios. The business attracted a surge in interest as the COVID-19 pandemic hit China’s e-commerce exporters, who were having a hard time finding foreign models as the country went into strict border controls. Going forward, ZMO is also planning to apply GPT-3, which uses big data and deep learning to imitate the natural language patterns of humans, to create speeches for models. As spooky as it may sound, the feature would make it breezy for e-commerce companies to churn out TikTok videos quickly and cheaply for product promotion. On average, e-commerce companies spend around 3%-5% of their annual gross merchandise value (a rough metric measuring sales, usually excluding returns and refunds) on photoshoots, according to Roger Yin, who worked at Evernote and ran his own cross-border e-commerce business before co-founding ZMO with Zhang. “Images play a big role in driving e-commerce sales. The problem is that the [sales] cycle is short but the cost of images is high,” Yin observes, adding that costs can be even higher for fashion companies with a quick turnover of styles. The goal of ZMO is to reduce the costs of photoshoots to 1% of GMV. Right now, 80% of ZMO’s customers are based in China, but it’s working to attract more overseas users this year using its new financial infusion. Operating with a team of 30 staff, the startup boasts 30 “medium and large-sized” customers, including Tencent-backed Chicv, one of Shein’s numerous challengers, and over 100 “small and medium” customers, such as dropshipping sellers. ZMO’s other co-founders include Ma Liqian, a Ph.D. in computer vision who graduated from Belgium’s KU Leuven, and Yang Han, who previously worked on AI-powered styling at Tencent and SenseTime. |
Starting up remotely? Keep these labor laws and tax guidelines in mind | Ardy Esmaeili | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | to remote employment, employees and employers both face a plethora of benefits and pitfalls. While the cultural pros and cons have been covered, considerations from a setup and maintenance standpoint largely haven’t been addressed. There are important legal and tax implications to keep in mind when it comes to a remote workforce. Virtual teams existed well before COVID-19, but over the last two years, employees turned not being able to go into an office into a benefit by moving out of their employer’s state. For startups, hiring out-of-state employees became common, as remote-first businesses were created from scratch and talent was vastly more critical than location. Should your startup start or go remote, keep the following in mind. Remote workforces have tax implications for their companies. Specifically, there is a state payroll withholding tax. This is generally required for the state where an employee works or provides services, regardless of an employer’s location. This means your startup may need to register and withhold income taxes in several states. Here are the questions we ask clients: Dollar amounts and property locations matter because each state has a different threshold when it comes to defining whether a nexus (more on that in a moment) has been established or not. This isn’t something you can ignore. States do pay attention. When you register with a government agency, the state receives your tax ID number and other identifying information. This means you’ve got a presence in that state, and your business will be monitored and pursued for any resulting tax liabilities. For example, one of our clients was stalled during an acquisition last year because they were discovered to be out of compliance with their remote workforce. So, it’s critical to register in each state where you have employees. |
Jungle Ventures closes a $600M fund, bringing its total assets under management to over $1B | Catherine Shu | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Singapore-based venture firm is digging deeper into Southeast Asia and India with the close of its fourth fund. Fund IV totals $600 million, with $450 million for new investments and $150 million earmarked for follow-up investments in its portfolio companies. The fund’s close brings Jungle Ventures’ total assets under management to over $1 billion, which it says makes it the first independent, Singapore-headquartered venture firm that invests across Southeast Asia and India to hit this milestone. Fund IV’s limited partners are split equally between returning investors and new ones. Returning backers include Temasek, IFC, FMO and DEG, while new LPs include StepStone Group. TechCrunch covered the fund’s in September 2021. Jungle Ventures was founded in 2012 by Amit Anand and Anurag Srivastava, launching with a $10 million debut fund. Jungle Ventures has about 60 portfolio companies and says its enterprise value is over $12 billion on $250 million of invested capital, with a loss ratio of less than 5%. Some of Jungle Ventures’ most notable investments include unicorns Kredivo, Livspace and Moglix. It looks for companies that can expand between Southeast Asia and India; for example, Livspace was founded in India and now operates in Southeast Asia, too. Fund IV will continue Jungle Ventures’ “concentrated portfolio” approach, making a projected 15 to 18 key investments out of India and Southeast Asia. It makes many follow-up investments and has invested about $30 million to $40 million in some companies, across multiple rounds. “We’ve been investing with that philosophy since our inception in 2012. It’s driven by two major factors that influenced our thinking. Factor number one is that most founders in this region, are first-time founders, and you need a lot of help and support to give to these founders to help them grow their business, help them grow as a leader as well,” Anand told TechCrunch. “From a founder to becoming a CEO is a very long journey, a very painful journey, and not many people become successful CEOs.” He added, “This region has been completely under-penetrated in every sector and we would rather focus our time and energy and our capital on fewer investments an make them larger.” Fund IV has already backed Vietnamese digital bank Timo; Singapore back office operating system Sleek; Indian D2C consumer electronics brand Atomberg; web3-based social-crypo-community platform for women Eveworld; and inFeedo, an employee retention SaaS platform. “If I take a step back and just think of one singular overarching thesis, I would say we are now very, very inspired by the whole decentralization and equitable internet movement that’s happening around the world, whether it’s concepts like web3, whether its concepts like even social commerce, whether it’s the SME technology digitalization,” Anand said. “Essentially, bringing the power of the internet to that smallest participant in the internet economy is what’s the most exciting aspect of this fund.” |
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Legl, a SaaS for law firm workflows, tops up with $18M | Natasha Lomas | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | While valuations of public software-as-a-service businesses have been as amid a wider, post-pandemic tech stock sell-off, SaaS startups still need to raise funding to scale their budding businesses — or, well, they hope they’ll be able to do so on reasonable terms despite these wider market bumps. Today, London-based — a 2019-founded SaaS startup that sells tools to law firms wanting to digitize processes and automate workflows in areas like client onboarding, payments and compliance to support a more modern customer experience — is announcing the close of an $18 million Series B round, just over a year after it raised a . The Series B was led by several technology investors, including existing investor Octopus Ventures (which led its Series A), although Legl isn’t specifying the round’s other backers. Previously disclosed investors in the business include Backed, Samaipata and First Round Capital, plus a number of angels. The startup says it has grown its customer base from around 100 UK-based law firms back in March 2021 to 170+ now — which it specifies includes 20 of the Top 200 firms in the country. It’ll be using the Series B to kick off planned international expansion, focusing on other markets where its UK client base has offices and ploughing cash into product dev and hiring. “There is a global opportunity for law firms to run their businesses in a more modern, efficient, revenue-driving and client-friendly way. We are working with our client base to start expanding out to their international offices which lie across multiple different geographies,” says founder and CEO, Julia Salasky. “Over the past year, we’ve built out our vision of a new category in the legal space — client lifecycle management — by investing in the underlying CRM that enables law firms not only to digitize previously manual business workflows across the client lifecycle but to understand their client base better. We’ve leaned into our core competencies in risk management, compliance and payments and finance, enabling law firms to both undertake activities that touch on their regulated business processes but also improve cashflow and drive better client experience. “With the new funding we will expand our workflow driven approach to managing business operations and in particular focus on how law firms can drive faster revenue, better and de-risked financial management and a better client experience. We already enable law firms to manage a large proportion of their client base and payment stack and plan to drive more capabilities for more firms over the coming months,” she adds. Salasky, whose name may also be familiar as prior founder of the platform, tells us Legl has seen 3x revenue growth over the past year and 150% net revenue retention, suggesting its SaaS is proving a sticky hit with law firms. She declines to disclose the startup’s valuation for the Series B but confirms the raise was certainly a down round. “This is a big up round for us! Last round, last year we raised $7M and this is an $18M round (closed in this new funding climate!), building on the revenue growth and momentum we’ve had,” she notes. Discussing whether the SaaS startup is feeling any impact from a wider market cooling on tech and SaaS stocks, she adds: “Law firms are notoriously counter-cyclical businesses, so they don’t tend to suffer as much as traditional corporates in a downturn. But in general what we see is that as we demonstrate increased value to law firms and drive better core business operations, we become more, not less valuable, irrespective of market conditions.” Legl founder and CEO, Julia Salasky ( Legl) Legal and compliance tech has been an increasingly active category for startups in recent years. But Salasky suggests most of the action has focused on contract management or other targeted ‘point solutions,’ whereas Legl aims to stand apart by offering a more holistic platform for law firms to power up their ability to serve clients by providing them with a suite of digital tools that can automate and support their business operations. This frees up in-house expertise to focus on more of the core legal work. “There is an explosion of investment in contract management and other areas where the substantive legal work could be improved. But what we are doing at takes a different approach — we are focused on the business of law, on the running of a complex regulated business that has clients at its heart, and where to date there has been very little in the way of cloud-based technology,” she suggests. Commenting on the Series B in a statement, Malcolm Ferguson, investor at Octopus Ventures, added: “We’re delighted to continue to support Julia and the team on their mission to free up lawyers’ time so they focus on creating value for their clients. The company has grown really strongly over the last 12 months, and is positioning itself to become the go-to solution for law firms looking to modernise and automate their non-core work. Not only does this improve a law firm’s revenues, and margins, but [it] also means they can deliver a meaningfully better experience to their clients. We’re excited to see what Julia can achieve with this funding over the coming years.” |
At the first UFO hearing in 50 years, the Pentagon says unexplained reports are way up | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | An unusual hearing in Congress posed unusual questions to government officials Tuesday, marking the first congressional hearing on UFOs — now called UAPs or “unidentified aerial phenomena” — in half a century. The House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and Counterproliferation held the question and answer session, hosting two Pentagon officials in a rare public discussion of one of the most controversial, conspiracy-prone subjects that intersects with the federal government. “UAPs are unexplained; it’s true,” Indiana representative Andre Carson, the subcommittee’s chair, observed in his opening remarks. “But they are real. They need to be investigated, and many threats they pose need to be mitigated.” During the hearing, U.S. Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence Scott Bray shared a declassified video of a reflective, unidentified sphere-shaped object that “zooms” by a pilot flying in a Navy training range, visible only for a few short frames. That clip is viewable around 46:40 in the video below. “I do not have an explanation for what this specific object is,” Bray said of the recording. The open discussion was followed by a classified hearing in which Pentagon officials were able to discuss the technical specifics of how the U.S. military collects UAP data. During the public session, the officials took the opportunity to throw some cold water on one popular conspiracy: that the U.S. military secretly has evidence of crashed aircraft that didn’t originate on Earth. In response to a question about mysterious wreckage from Illinois representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Bray said that the military does not have any material that “isn’t explainable, that isn’t consistent with being of terrestrial origin.” “We have no material,” Bray said in response to a different question about unexplainable evidence. “We have detected no emanations within the UAP task force that would suggest it’s anything nonterrestrial in origin.” The Department of Defense to investigate UAPs in 2020, a milestone in recent government efforts to be more transparent on a topic it once refused to discuss outright. The task force describes its mission as an effort “to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.” The Pentagon’s UAP task force maintains a database of reports of unexplained aerial sightings, and Bray noted that it now contains 400 reports, less than a year ago. In the hearing, Pentagon officials and lawmakers alike made efforts to legitimize discussions of UAPs, encouraging service members who observe such phenomena to come forward. “Reports of sightings are frequent and continuing,” Bray said. “The stigma has been reduced.” Tuesday’s hearing provided little fodder for the most exotic, extraplanetary explanations that UFO followers love to speculate about, pushing the conversation instead into more grounded territory concerning national defense. One possible explanation — still considered a longshot — is that some UAPs observed by U.S. service members could be hypersonic technology from American adversaries like China and Russia designed to spy on military activities. If that theory is ever confirmed, it would indicate that other nations have advanced technological capabilities that far exceed those of the U.S. military in some respects. But, unfortunately for true believers, more mundane explanations are still in play. Those include stray weather balloons and visual distortions produced in the equipment used to record the mysterious images. |
Facebook and Twitter still can’t contain the Buffalo shooting video | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Ten people were murdered this weekend in on a Buffalo, New York supermarket. The eighteen-year-old white supremacist shooter livestreamed his attack on Twitch, the Amazon-owned video game streaming platform. Even though Twitch removed the video two minutes after the violence began, it was still too late — now, gruesome footage of the terrorist attack is openly circulating on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, even after the companies have vowed to take down the video. On Facebook, some users who flagged the video were notified that . The company told TechCrunch that this was a mistake, adding that it has teams working around the clock to take down videos of the shooting, as well as links to the video hosted on other sites. Facebook said that it is also removing copies of the shooter’s racist screed and content that praises him. But when we searched a term as simple as “footage of buffalo shooting” on Facebook, one of the first results featured a 54-second screen recording of the terrorist’s footage. TechCrunch encountered the video an hour after it had been uploaded and reported it immediately. The video wasn’t taken down until three hours after posting, when it had already been viewed over a thousand times. In theory, this shouldn’t happen. A representative for Facebook told TechCrunch that it added multiple versions of the video, as well as the shooter’s racist writings, to a database of violating content, which helps the platform identify, remove and block such content. We asked Facebook about this particular incident, but they did not provide additional details. Reposts of the shooter’s stream were also easy to find on Twitter. In fact, when we typed “buffalo video” into the search bar, Twitter suggested searches like “buffalo video full video graphic,” “buffalo video leaked” and “buffalo video graphic.” Twitter, screenshot by TechCrunch We encountered multiple videos of the attack that have been circulating on Twitter for over two days. One such video had over 261,000 views when we reviewed it on Tuesday afternoon. In April, Twitter that bans individual perpetrators of violent attacks from Twitter. Under this policy, the platform also reserves the right to take down multimedia related to attacks, as well as language from terrorist “manifestos.” “We are removing videos and media related to the incident. In addition, we may remove Tweets disseminating the manifesto or other content produced by perpetrators,” a spokesperson from Twitter told TechCrunch. The company called this “hateful and discriminatory” content “harmful for society.” Twitter also claims that some users are attempting to circumvent takedowns by uploading altered or manipulated content related to the attack. Twitch, Twitter and Facebook have stated that they are working with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to limit the spread of the video. Twitch and Discord have also confirmed that they are working with government authorities that are investigating the situation. The shooter described his plans for the shooting in detail in a private Discord server prior to the attack. According to documents reviewed by TechCrunch, the Buffalo shooter decided to broadcast his attack on Twitch because a 2019 anti-semitic shooting at Halle Synagogue remained live on Twitch for before it was taken down. The shooter considered streaming to Facebook but opted not to use the platform because he thought users needed to be logged in to watch livestreams. Facebook has also inadvertently hosted mass shootings that evaded algorithmic detection. The same year as the Halle Synagogue shooting, 50 people were killed in an on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which . At least of mass shootings, including the suspect in Buffalo, have cited the livestreamed Christchurch massacre as a source of inspiration for their racist attacks. Facebook noted the day after the Christchurch shootings that it had removed 1.5 million videos of the attack, 1.2 million of which were blocked upon upload. Of course, this begged the question of why Facebook was unable to immediately detect 300,000 of those videos, marking a . Judging by how easy it was to locate videos of the Buffalo shooting on Facebook, it seems the platform still has a long way to go. |
Daily Crunch: Musk pauses Twitter buy until platform proves less than 5% of users are spambots | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | / Getty Images |
Coinbase backtracks on its hiring plans, citing crypto market turmoil | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Coinbase, the by volume, has changed its tune on hiring amid a market downturn. “Heading into this year, we planned to triple the size of the company. Given current market conditions, we feel it’s prudent to slow hiring and reassess our headcount needs against our highest-priority business goals,” Emilie Choi, Coinbase’s president and COO on the company’s website today. Choi noted that headcount growth is a key input in the company’s financial model, and that slowing the rate of hiring is important in ensuring Coinbase can reach the profitability guidance it has set for investors. The news comes as cryptocurrency markets take a beating more broadly, catalyzed by uncertainty in the equity markets as a whole as well as the recent collapse of the Terra UST stablecoin. Coinbase’s stock is down nearly 80% today compared to its IPO price, though it’s worth noting the company’s top line had already been suffering from a decline in crypto trading volumes since the beginning of the year. The company, which depends on trading activity for most of its revenue, reported a loss of $430 million during the first quarter of 2022. Coinbase also drew controversy last week for a disclosure in its quarterly report saying that shareholders could lose the funds they have deposited in the exchange in the event it goes bankrupt. CEO Brian Armstrong a clarification after the fact, reassuring users that Coinbase has “no risk of bankruptcy” but adding that “it is possible, however unlikely, that a court would decide to consider customer assets as part of the company in bankruptcy proceedings even if it harmed consumers.” |
Candle Media, the new media company co-backed by former Disney execs, acquires Gen Z-focused ATTN: for $100M | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Candle Media, the new media company headed by former Disney execs, Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, has made another acquisition — this time with an eye on social storytelling and reaching a Gen Z to millennial audience. The company announced today it will become the new owner of , a media company that uses entertainment to discuss topical issues that help explain the world to a younger audience — particularly those who consume content on social media. Of note, ATTN: also last year to provide production services for brands that wanted to reach the TikTok user base. Clients on that effort have included big name brands like Google, Madewell, MTV and even TikTok itself, which partnered with ATTN: to manage its own “TikTok for Good” channel. That deal was recently renewed for a second year. Candle explained its interest in ATTN: had to do with the company’s ability to effectively engage a social audience. “ATTN: has a deep, digital-native understanding for how to cut through the noise and reach today’s audiences through engaging content on social media. We are excited for them to join Candle and provide the benefits of their talented team’s expertise across our brands and franchises,” read a statement by Candle co-CEOs, Mayer and Staggs. Launched in 2014, ATTN: has created original series for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitch, in addition to networks ABC, NBC, CBS, MTV, Freeform and Discovery as well as for streaming services like Hulu and Apple TV. Its brand studio and agency have relationships with companies like Amazon, Ford, Google, Intel, Mattel, P&G, Target and T-Mobile. The acquisition offers ATTN: scale, capital and expertise to accelerate its growth, Candle Media said in a press release. ATTN: co-founders Matthew Segal and Jarrett Moreno, along with the existing senior management team, will continue to oversee day-to-day operations, original content, production and studio work, the announcement said. for ATTN: is around $100 million in both cash and stock but could be worth up to $150 million with additional earn-out provisions. Candle confirmed this figure to TechCrunch as well. Blackstone-backed, L.A.-based Candle Media was founded with an eye on aggregating brands to build an independent media operation — a rarity at a time when most media companies are now running their own streaming services. In an interview with , Mayer explained that Candle’s lack of a streamer was an important part of its strategy, as it believes demand for content itself is going to grow “extremely robustly” in the months ahead. After coming onto the scene last year, the company has been making several high-profile acquisitions, including that of kids content company and “CoComelon” owner ; “Fauda” maker Faraway Road Productions for ; and Reese Witherspoon’s . This year, it also in Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s media company, Westbrook, and was said to be . Candle , having recently added former UTA and Disney execs as its chief development officer and CFO. The company says it expects the deal for ATTN: to close in about 30 days. |
Electric Mercedes G-Class will go the distance with Sila’s energy-dense silicon anodes | Tim De Chant | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Mercedes-Benz announced today that Sila’s energy-dense silicon anode is slated for an extended-range version of the electric G-Class that’s due out in 2025. Sila said that its silicon anode material can boost energy density by 20% to 40% over existing cells, enabling a longer range from battery packs that occupy the same physical space. That extra density will come in handy when powering Mercedes’ blocky, brawny . Mercedes first invested in Sila in 2019 as part of a $219 million Series E round. Earlier this month, the startup that it had purchased a 600,000 square-foot factory in Moses Lake, Washington. The plant is expected to start cranking out battery materials in late 2024 before reaching full production in early 2025, just in time for the G-Class. It should make enough silicon anode material for 100,000 to 500,000 EVs, depending on how automakers want to incorporate it into their cells. Today, Sila’s technology is in the Whoop 4.0 fitness tracker, a small device with a battery that’s a tiny fraction of what’s needed for an EV. Still, the smaller scale will allow Sila to perfect its manufacturing technique, working out the kinks before scaling up 100x to reach the volumes needed by automakers. The first phase of the company’s Washington plant will make 10 GWh of battery materials per year, but CEO Gene Berdichevsky that the second phase will expand production to 150 GWh. Getting to that point won’t be cheap. Berdichevsky estimated that it’ll cost another $1 billion to $2 billion to get the second phase of the factory into production. The company has raised $933 million in total, according to PitchBook, including a $590 million round that closed in January 2021. While raising a couple billion is never an easy task, Sila may benefit from a tailwind: As automakers have ramped up their commitments to EVs, VCs and private equity firms have been investing larger and larger sums into battery companies — some alone. |
Netflix lays off 150 staffers, citing slowing revenue growth | Lauren Forristal | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Netflix confirmed it’s laid off approximately 150 primarily U.S.-based staffers as it works to rein in costs as its top-line growth has slowed down. A Netflix representative wrote in an emailed statement, “As we explained on earnings, our slowing revenue growth means we are also having to slow our cost growth as a company. So sadly, we are letting around 150 employees go today, mostly U.S.-based. These changes are primarily driven by business needs rather than individual performance, which makes them especially tough as none of us want to say goodbye to such great colleagues. We’re working hard to support them through this very difficult transition.” had reported that some of those let go were in creative, including in original content. Reportedly, directors from the original series area, such as Sebastian Gibbs and Negin Salmasi, were among those let go, its report said. Separately, TechCrunch learned that there have been some changes to animated projects, which could impact around 70 employees in the animation division. These were not included in the 150 figure. We asked Netflix about the allegations shared on Twitter that the layoffs had targeted social channels designed to bring marginalized viewers to the service. One such had named channels like Strong Black Lead, Golden, Most, and Con Todo as being impacted by this headcount reduction. Netflix clarified that of its social channels — including those mentioned on Twitter and others (eg. Geeked, Netflix Family, Netflix is a Joke, etc.) — would be shut down. The company said those channels would continue to be staffed and run by full-time Netflix employees as they had before. What did happen, however, is that Netflix decided not to renew contracts with select agencies that it previously used to source contractors for its publishing and social arms. With those deals terminated, there was a reduction in the number of contractors working across all Netflix’s social channels. These contractors are not included in Netflix’s count of 150 roles terminated as that figure is specifically related to Netflix’s employee numbers. As such, the layoffs have not changed Netflix’s makeup from a DEI perspective, as its reporting here looks at full-time staff. The company says people of color continue to make up about 50% of its U.S. and Canadian full-time workforce and women make up around 48% of staff. The company declined to say how many contractors were impacted by the agency contract terminations. After publication, the Netflix Twitter account that none of the social channels were closing and would continue with “voices celebrating — and from — those communities.” Your favorite Black, LGBTQ+, API, and Latinx stories will always have a home on & , with voices celebrating – and from – those communities. — Netflix (@netflix) In a statement, a Netflix spokesperson said “We are making changes to how we support our publishing efforts, including bringing some of this important work in-house. Our social channels continue to grow and innovate, and we are investing heavily in them.” The agency contract terminations had also impacted Netflix’s when 25 full-time employees people were let go. Netflix’s newer site Tudum had been impacted by the marketing cuts, as were other marketing roles. (This round of layoffs had also included a mix of full-time employees and contractors, but 25 was the number of full-time employees impacted.) Staff reductions had been expected, as the company said in its quarterly , “Our revenue growth has slowed considerably as our results and forecast below show.” Netflix reported revenue of $7.87 billion for the first quarter of 2022 and a significant loss of . Analysts had predicted $7.93 billion and 2.7 million subscribers. A belt-tightening was on the horizon as soon as those quarterly figures hit. Cost-cutting measures were also addressed by Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann during the latest earnings call. He said, “ … presumably, for the next 18, 24 months, call it the next two years, we’re kind of operating to roughly that operating margin, which does mean that we’re pulling back on some of our spend growth across both content and non-content spend, but still growing our spend and still investing aggressively into that long-term opportunity.” Neumann added, “We’re trying to be smart about it and prudent in terms of pulling back on some of that spending growth to reflect the realities of the revenue growth of the business.” Netflix has been scrambling as of late, cracking down on and announcing a in hopes of gaining new subscribers and driving further growth. |
Fable funds quest for accessibility-inclusive development with $10M A round | Devin Coldewey | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | The importance of designing accessibility in software from the ground up has only been emphasized by the pandemic, and as a consequence Fable’s on-demand accessibility experts have proven their value many times over. The company has raised $10.5 million to scale up and pursue its goal to “make Inclusive Product Development the status quo,” as CEO Alwar Pillai put it. Fable in the summer of 2020 (it was founded in 2018), in response to increasing demand for firsthand expertise in accessibility — essentially, people with disabilities and software experience who could be tapped to provide testing and advice to developers. If you’re designing your app to be usable by blind folks, you should probably have blind folks testing it, right? Fable makes that sort of thing easy. But the point of the company isn’t just to provide a diverse group of testers and experts — it’s to ensure that accessibility can be on the roadmap at any company and any project from the start. The last couple years have driven that message home. “With the onset of COVID-19 the physical world ground to a halt and everything went online. This put a spotlight on the importance of ensuring that everyone can access digital products and services,” said Pillai. “While this spotlight has helped bring awareness of the problem to more organizations, our mission has always been, and continues to be, to empower people with disabilities to participate, contribute and shape society.” The new funding round, led by Five Elms Capital with participation from Difference Partners, Disruption Ventures and several angels, will of course help scale and improve the products they already offer. Companies like Microsoft, Shopify, Slack and Meta are already customers. But now the company is also going to dip its toe into the world of corporate training. “While we’ve seen an explosion in the practice of accessibility across organizations, knowledge and skill sets have not kept up,” Pillai said. “Our second product, Fable Upskill, was developed in response to overwhelming customer demand for accessibility training.” Upskill will be “video-based courses designed by accessibility experts specifically for each team,” including the actual products and processes the customer already uses. So not just a standard one-size-fits-all “How to do accessibility” video (we probably have enough of those already). Of course, given Fable’s core strength of a widespread community of professionals with disabilities, the content will also put those experts and their voices front and center so the advice doesn’t come across as abstract. Upskill will be getting a shot in the arm with this $10 million infusion, so don’t be surprised if you see one of Fable’s videos in your own training materials sometime soon. |
Three senior Twitter employees leave amid potential Musk takeover | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | As Elon Musk tweets at Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, it appears that some of the platform’s executives are ready to move on. According to a Bloomberg , three senior employees are voluntarily leaving the company: Ilya Brown, a VP of product management for health, conversation and growth; Katrina Lane, VP of Twitter Service; and Max Schmeiser, head of data science. Per LinkedIn, Lane and Schmeiser had worked at Twitter for about one and two years respectively, while Brown had been at the company for six years. Twitter confirmed these departures. “We continue to be focused on providing the very best experience to the people on Twitter. We can confirm that they will be leaving Twitter for new opportunities. We are thankful for all of their hard work and leadership,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. There’s been plenty of shakeups at Twitter’s senior level in recent weeks, and not just because of Musk’s about his potential $44 billion purchase. Just last week, Agrawal : revenue product lead Bruce Falck and head of product Kayvon Beykpour, who was on parental leave at the time. Beykpour said that Agrawal, who has been CEO for , because he wants to “take the team in a different direction.” Musk has stated that if he does acquire Twitter, he would , meaning that Agrawal’s days in the role are numbered. “Some have been asking why a ‘lame-duck’ CEO would make these changes if we’re getting acquired anyway,” Agrawal on Twitter. “While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter. I’m accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day.” At this point, Musk is dragging his feet on his acquisition of Twitter, claiming that the deal is “ ” over the issue of spam bots. |
TechCrunch+ roundup: DTC data strategy, starting up solo, insuretech growth versus risk | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Because solo founders don’t have to run decisions past anyone, they exert near-total control over their startup’s mission. But you’ve got to pay the cost to be the boss: A shot-caller must be comfortable with making decisions under pressure and needs to be adept at fundraising, recruiting, onboarding, managing … well, everything. According to Russ Heddleston, who founded DocSend before it was acquired by Dropbox, lone wolves tend to fare better with investors: His analysis found that one person can raise an average of $3.22 million after 42 meetings, but teams of four or more need to book 30 meetings to raise $1.7 million. But fundraising is only one part of a founder’s journey. If you can’t connect with an investor who can help you find and fill in your gaps with regard to talent or expertise, you can’t build a sustainable company. Speaking as a veteran of multiple early-stage startups — I would much rather work at a company that is led by a team. This tends to foster a collaborative work culture, but it also makes it easier to pivot when needed, and the work is less ego-driven. In a TC+ guest post, Heddleston identifies , along with some ideas for solo founders who need to build support systems. On Tuesday, May 24, at 11:30 a.m., I’m hosting a Twitter Space with Silicon Valley-based immigration attorney . If you have questions about working and living legally in the U.S. while you pursue a career in tech, please join the conversation. To get a reminder before the chat, . Thanks very much for reading, and have a great week! Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
/ Getty Images Most e-commerce startups use the same major platforms and analytics tools to gather data for the dashboards that measure the health of their businesses. As a result, most direct-to-consumer companies make the same mistakes when it comes to refining raw transactional data, according to Michael Perez, director of growth and data at M13. The calculation errors hard-wired into platform data can lead teams to miscalculate key metrics, “drastically overestimate their customer lifetime value, and overspend on marketing campaigns,” says Perez. He identifies two common data mistakes: creating metrics at the wrong level of granularity and using downstream metrics that usually result in data silos. “We’re generally big fans of plug-and-play business intelligence tools, but they won’t scale with your business.” / Getty Images SaaS startups have seen smooth sailing, but in this ongoing downturn, stormy weather is on the horizon. The days of double-digit revenue multiples are soon coming to an end — public software companies barely growing at 40% are trading at about 10x revenue, which means startups who can’t sustain that pace may see their valuation multiples dip to the single digits, Alex Wilhelm found in his analysis of data from the Bessemer Cloud Index. “The future likely holds down rounds, flat rounds and what I expect will be some dramatic implosions.” / Getty Images According to Jamie Hale, CEO and co-founder of Ladder, the first wave of insurtech startups have focused on driving growth at the expense of managing their underlying risk. “Focusing on customer experience on the front end leads to rapid growth indeed,” says Hale, “but failing to focus on underwriting on the back end can lead to a very large number of claims, very quickly.” Hale offers five tips that insurtech startups can employ to improve underwriting innovation, and consequently, the overall customer experience. Natalia_80 / Getty Images The “Star Wars” saga is based on a storytelling structure developed by Joseph Campbell, a writer and literary professor who conceived of “the hero’s journey.” Consisting of 12 stages, his archetype calls for a protagonist who leaves ordinary life behind after hearing the call to adventure — you can imagine why it’s a popular metaphor among tech investors. According to Touchdown Ventures President Scott Lenet, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi offers five discrete lessons for founders and investors. For example, “’I have a bad feeling about this’ is a recurring joke in the franchise — nearly every major character utters the line at one point or another,” writes Lenet. “These are also words to live by for corporate and startup leaders, because they are an emblem of awareness and proactivity.” |
YouTube Music for Wear OS now lets users stream content over Wi-Fi and LTE | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Google today that the YouTube Music app on Wear OS is rolling out the ability for users to stream music over LTE or WiFi. The new feature will let users discover new music without having to download content beforehand. In a community about the new feature, the company positions it as a way to “listen to your favorite playlists wherever you go, even when your phone isn’t nearby.” The feature was first teased at Samsung’s Unpacked event earlier this year. Users will need a YouTube Music Premium subscription to access the new streaming support. Google notes that you need an LTE plan from your provider to use a cellular connection. The company also outlines that cellular streaming is not supported on iOS. To stream YouTube Music content without a paired device nearby, you can open YouTube Music on your watch and select the song or playlist you want to listen to. After that, the content will stream and play over the available connection. Google also introduced a new YouTube Music tile for Wear OS that users can add to their watch. The new tile will allow users to access recently played content quickly and navigate to the “browse” page of the app. The company notes that YouTube Music Premium subscribers get access to more than 80 million songs and thousands of playlists on the YouTube Music app. It outlines that the standalone app allows YouTube Music Premium subscribers to download and stream music for ad-free listening without needing to have their phones nearby. The app also includes a Smart Downloads feature that refreshes the songs you’ve downloaded to your watch whenever it’s connected to Wi-Fi. |
Tusk Venture Partners just closed its third fund with $140M, double its predecessor fund | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Tusk Venture Partners, the now six-year-old, New York-based early-stage venture firm co-founded by longtime political strategist Bradley Tusk and former Blackstone director Jordan Nof, has closed its third fund with $140 million in capital commitments. That’s double the that the outfit raised for its second flagship fund, which closed in late 2019. (The firm subsequently closed its first opportunity-style fund to further invest in its breakout portfolio companies late last year with .) The outfit says it has now invested in more than 50 startups altogether, leading 20% of those rounds and seeing 12 exits in the process. A few of its greatest hits include the crypto exchange Coinbase, which via a direct listing last year; insurance platform Lemonade, which in the summer of 2020; and FanDuel, which was in 2020 by the sports betting, gaming and entertainment company Flutter. Tusk Venture Partners has been enjoying enough momentum that the firm recently doubled the size of its investment team. In addition to Tusk and Nof, Michaela Balderston, a communications pro who joined the firm at its outset, has been promoted to partner and has joined the firm’s investment committee. Tusk Venture Partners also brought aboard Brad Welch, who recently joined as a partner from Morpheus Ventures in L.A., where he was a partner. All four are now based in New York, though Tusk Venture Partners is very much a bicoastal firm. Nof says that 40% of the firms bets are on the West Coast, 40% are on the East Coast and 20% are elsewhere, with portfolio companies in Boulder, Colorado and Austin, Texas, among other spots. Among those portfolio companies, Tusk Venture Partners — like every other venture firm right now — has stakes in buzzy startups whose valuations may be in flux as markets zig and zag. One of those bets is Circle Internet Financial. In February, the crypto company agreed to a new merger with a SPAC that valued the business at $9 billion, double its valuation under the terms of the previous deal agreement. But crypto valuations have been in free fall across the board in recent weeks, and that deal is still “in process,” notes Nof. The firm also has a stake in the telemedicine company Ro, which was valued by its backers at in February but that has been having its ups and downs internally, as TechCrunch has reported previously and . With close rival Hims, which through a SPAC in January 2021, now boasting a market cap of $800 million (down from $1.6 billion at the time of the SPAC merger), it’s conceivable that Ro will be impacted by both these internal and external factors. Tusk Venture Partners — which says it routinely uses its political expertise to help startups break regulatory barriers — was an early investor, too, in the micromobility company Bird, which captured the country’s attention with its rentable electric scooters in 2017 and was valued at as of early 2020. The company, which late last year through a SPAC, has seen its market cap slump to $290 million, with shares that are trading at $1 as we type. For his part, Nof says he’s neither surprised nor overly concerned by the current downturn. “I think the market is having the moment that it has needed for a long time.” Tusk himself adds that market gyrations aside, the plan is continuing to invest in the firm’s four favorite categories broadly, writing initial checks of up to $7 million from its new fund into “fintech, which can range from all the crypto, NFT, DeFi stuff to insurance; digital health; transportation; and gaming. We’ll occasionally invest in something outside those four areas,” he adds, “but if you went through all of our investments, almost all of them fit into these categories.” Among Tusk Venture Partners’s most recent deals is Allocate, a San Francisco-based digital investment platform for investors to access venture funds and co-investments that announced in Series A funding earlier this month led by M13. In March, the firm also led a deal in , a New York-based healthcare platform for municipal governments and midsize businesses, that raised $4 million in seed funding. TechCrunch also recently covered another Tusk Venture Partners investment: , a four-year-old, Fort Collins, Colorado-based transportation startup that’s aiming to distribute the airline check-in process by processing people in many smaller hubs closer to their homes well before they get to their departing gate. More on that company . |
Founders should be honest about their failures according to Forage CEO | Maggie Stamets | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | Welcome back to Found, the weekly TechCrunch podcast where we get the stories behind the startups. This week and talked with Justin Intal from Forage on Found Live. He talks about how profound struggles in her personal life motivated him to create a way for online grocers to accept EBT and SNAP benefits. He also talked about the importance of vulnerability and transparency as a CEO. Each failure is learning, so he is not about hiding his past failed companies or ideas — in fact, he has them written out on his Linkedin. and let us know a bit about yourself and what you think of FOUND. Connect with us: |
Koyeb is a serverless platform that integrates with your GitHub repository | Romain Dillet | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | has evolved quite a lot since I first the startup. The company is still focused on serverless infrastructure. But it now offers a general purpose serverless platform that you can configure through a simple “git push” command or by using Docker containers. The company’s serverless platform is now with a free tier to get started and try out the service — the free tier lets you run two nano apps on the platform. It has already been tested by 10,000 developers during the private beta phase. There are currently 3,000 applications running on Koyeb’s infrastructure. Koyeb wants to abstract your server infrastructure as much as possible so that you can focus on development instead of system administration. You can use it to host a web app, an API or event-driven workloads. Behind the scenes, the startup doesn’t use Kubernetes. Instead, it has built its based on Firecracker microVMs, Nomad and Kuma. It runs on bare-metal servers with recent Intel and AMD chips. There are two ways to deploy your apps to Koyeb. You can deploy from your git repository (currently limited to GitHub repositories) or from any public or private container registry. Koyeb has a web interface but also offers a command-line interface and an API. When you deploy a new app, Koyeb gives your app a “.koyeb.app” subdomain and automatically secures the app with TLS. You can also configure your own domain name. If you need more resources, you can easily scale your app from a slider. In that case, Koyeb launches your app on several new instances and traffic is automatically load balanced between those instances. All of this is transparent for the development team. Every time there’s a new git commit, Koyeb automatically starts building and deploying your app. Koyeb plans to offer a global edge network. The service is currently live in one core location in Paris and 250 edge locations for native load balancing, TLS encryption and CDN-like caching. By the end of the year, your app will be simultaneously deployed to 10 core locations around the world. It’s clear that Koyeb is still a work in progress. But it sounds like a promising start for lean development teams who don’t want to spend too much time on managing a cloud infrastructure. |
Robinhood lets users manage their own crypto wallets in push to spur trading | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 5 | 17 | After a difficult first quarter, investing app Robinhood is , particularly in its crypto unit, in hopes they will help buoy the business. CEO Vlad Tenev announced the company’s plans to roll out non-custodial crypto wallets at the Permissionless DeFi conference in Florida today, starting with . The market environment has posed challenges for the company as trading volumes have plummeted. Robinhood’s net revenue dipped 43% to $299 million in Q1, with crypto trading revenue specifically falling 39% to $54 million (meaning crypto trading accounted for about 18% of Robinhood’s total revenue before the end of March). Robinhood has been actively growing its crypto arm since the end of Q1 in a bid to attract users and boost trading volume. In the last month or so, the exchange has rolled out custodial crypto wallets to its users, listed four new coins including Solana and Shiba Inu, and to enable faster, lower-fee transactions. 22 million customers interact with its crypto products today, Robinhood CTO Johann Kerbrat told TechCrunch in an interview. With a custodial wallet, Robinhood holds the private key on behalf of a user, meaning that users can invest in crypto by tracking its price movements but they cannot directly transact with their crypto funds. Now that it’s launching a non-custodial wallet, users will be able to access and manage their own digital assets, including cryptocurrencies and decentralized apps (dApps) including NFTs, Kerbrat said. Kerbrat sees two key areas of differentiation for Robinhood’s non-custodial wallet, which he said will support multiple blockchains — its user-friendly design and no-fee setup for customers. The rollout will start at the end of the summer, he added. The company’s goal is to have the wallet available to all users across the globe by the end of 2022. Coinbase, another popular crypto exchange, also offers two types of wallets — custodial and non-custodial — in two different apps, the latter being Coinbase Wallet. Coinbase Wallet is free to use but does pass on individual transaction fees to its users. Robinhood, in contrast, won’t charge its customers any fees for using its non-custodial wallet, including network fees for trading and swapping crypto, Kerbrat said. The Robinhood non-custodial wallet, which Kerbrat said still hasn’t been officially named, will operate as a standalone app. In addition to allowing users to store NFTs in the wallet, it will also serve as a point of connectivity to the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, giving customers access to DeFi protocols through which they can earn a yield on their coins by lending or staking them, Kerbrat said. To set up an account, users won’t need to share any personal information with the exchange unless they choose to connect their non-custodial wallet with their Robinhood app, he added. “We want to make sure that there’s still a good tie between the two products. If you want an on-ramp or off-ramp from fiat to crypto, you can use Robinhood, but you’re not forced to do it,” Kerbrat said. Kerbrat hopes the announcement today will encourage dApp developers and protocols to integrate with Robinhood’s wallet. “We still think that the main reason why many people are not using non-custodial wallets is that it’s too complicated on top of the fees everywhere. And so we don’t want to just do a project — we actually want to really help understand what’s going on and integrate to dApps. Robinhood’s shares soared over 20% last week after FTX, a crypto exchange , disclosed that it had bought a 7.6% stake in the company. The stock was trading around $10 per share as of noon EST on Tuesday, still markedly below its 52-week high of $85. |
Egypt’s Mylerz raises $9.6M for its e-commerce fulfillment service, eyes Africa-wide growth | Annie Njanja | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | , a Cairo-based e-commerce fulfillment startup, plans to enter three new markets in North Africa and expand over the next three months against the backdrop of the $9.6 million funding it has just secured. The startup also has its eyes on the growing e-commerce market in East Africa, with the long-term goal of growing into a pan-African shipping logistics provider — by tapping the e-commerce market in Africa, which has experienced 18% annual growth since 2014. Mylerz growth funding round was led by Lorax Capital Partners, an Egypt-based private equity firm with participation from Fawry, one of the biggest e-payment companies in Egypt. As Mylerz expands to Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, Fawry, its payments partner, will come along to provide electronic payment and cash collection services. “Our immediate plan is expanding across Egypt, opening new markets and facilitating cross-border trade for our customers. We have the right partners to make this happen and to grow our end-to-end logistics platform,” Mylerz Founder and CEO, , told TechCrunch. “Fawry’s over 250,000 agents will help us deposit cash collected from buyers since cash on delivery is still the preferred method of payment in Egypt. This will make our business less risky, and the reduced risk means that we can grow much faster,” said Gharaibeh. Ashraf Sabry, CEO of Fawry, said the investment in Mylerz is part of its strategy “to build an integrated commerce ecosystem in Egypt and explore international expansion opportunities with strong partners like Mylerz and Lorax.” Gharaibeh founded Mylerz in November 2019 borrowing from his experience at Aramex, a UAE-based multinational logistics and fulfillment company, where he worked for 23 years with his last role being head of Africa. “Because of my experience at Aramex, I understand the regulations of different countries in Africa and know the right kind of partnerships to have, to be successful. I’m using this knowledge and experiences to make Mylerz the preferred pan-African logistics provider and e-commerce partner,” said Gharaibeh. Mylerz The Mylerz platform allows its partners to track the orders sent out for delivery, change destination or delivery time and generate business insights like consumer behavior and demographics. The startup says it provides same-day deliveries on behalf of hundreds of its partners. Gharaibeh told TechCrunch that Mylerz has 21 fulfillments centers and plans to open a 25,000 sq. meter hub, its biggest so far, to keep up with the growing demand for storage, order processing and last-mile deliveries. The fulfillment hubs, Gharaibeh said, are spread out to ensure that they are in close proximity to customers for faster deliveries. To date, Mylerz has delivered 2 million packages. “We operate a decentralized system, and these hubs, which are close to our customers, help us to consolidate the packages and dispatch for deliveries fast enough to meet our promise of same day delivery,” he said. Mylerz also operates a fleet of over 350 eco-friendly vehicles powered by compressed natural gas (CNG). The initial cost of these vehicles is higher when compared to conventional ones but this is offset by their less fuel demand. Ashraf Zaki, managing partner at Lorax Capital Partners, said, “Mylerz has leveraged its know-how and premium technology offering to address several problems associated with last-mile delivery in Egypt including complex routes, the prevalence of cash, and diverse merchants with diverse needs. Lorax is backing Mylerz to become the continent’s first fully integrated e-commerce logistics player, bringing a unique blend of premium customer service and efficient delivery services to regional businesses and consumers alike.” |
Crypto forensics startup Chainalysis raises $170M at $8.6B valuation | Rita Liao | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Chainalysis, a startup that provides crypto investigation and compliance services, has secured $170 million in a Series F funding round led by GIC, a sovereign wealth fund of Singapore. The company, which is known for helping law enforcement nab illicit crypto activities, saw its valuation double to $8.6 billion from its round last June. The funding news was first reported by citing a source and comes at a time when investors are scrambling to come to terms with the . Total crypto market capitalization has plummeted to a 10-month low, with bitcoin trading below the $30,000 mark on Monday. Prior to this new round, the firm from investors including Benchmark, Accel, Paradigm and Coatue. It opened offices in Singapore and Tokyo in 2020 to “ ” on its APAC presence, and as of today, it serves more than 750 customers including government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions and cybersecurity companies across over 70 countries. Growth has been rosy. Over the past year, Chainalysis has more than doubled its staff to 700 employees. And more clients are paying larger checks — the number of companies that account for more than $100k in annual recurring revenue increased by 75% to 150. Most recently, Chainalysis was as helping journalist Laura Shin track down the suspect behind the DAO hack in 2016 that involved a loss of $11 billion of ether. Some investors worry the crypto crash might chill the funding craze in the space, but as of the first quarter, things were still looking bright. Cointelegraph Research over $14.6 billion was poured into crypto infrastructure, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi) and other web3 startups in Q1, which accounted for nearly half of last year’s total funding. Indeed, we’ve seen some mega funding rounds in recent times. Singapore-based crypto trading and asset management startup Amber Group is reportedly raising a new round at a ; 11 months ago it had just reached the unicorn status in a . Crypto exchange KuCoin’s valuation surged to $10 billion in a announced this week. |
Berlin’s GetHenry breaks into last-mile delivery e-bike scene with $17.4M seed | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Berlin-based , a startup that provides electric last-mile delivery bikes to couriers and logistics companies, has raised a $17.4 million (€16.5 million) seed round to expand its business across Europe. The startup currently operates in Germany, Austria, Italy and France, but plans to use its latest funding to move into Spain, the Netherlands and the U.K. over the next two quarters, according to a GetHenry spokesperson. GetHenry, which supplies e-bike fleets to enterprise customers like Gorillas, Flink and JustEatTakeaway.com, is coming to market at a time when on-demand grocery, food and convenience store delivery is becoming increasingly popular. At the same time, more traditional logistics companies are getting wise to the fact that an army of electric bikes is an efficient way to address emissions and reach corporate climate goals, particularly for last-mile. A range of electric utility bike companies, like , and are sprouting up to address these coinciding trends with what is becoming a classic combination of fleets for larger companies and weekly or monthly subscriptions for couriers. “We’ve seen in the last 12 months just how important providing sustainable last-mile delivery solutions has become,” said Luis Orsini-Rosenberg, co-founder and CEO of GetHenry, in a statement. “While logistics companies struggle to meet the ever-increasing demand for ever-faster deliveries, GetHenry is here to provide a quality fleet of electric utility vehicles that can cater for the current climate. We allow delivery companies to get on with what they do best — delivering — by providing round-the-clock maintenance and service, with up-to-the-minute data on the status of their delivery vehicles at their fingertips to ensure peace of mind.” GetHenry provides fleet and courier customers with on-demand maintenance. Xos Like some of its competitors, GetHenry’s subscriptions and service include everything from the production of vehicles and finance of high end e-bikes to on-demand maintenance and fleet management software services. GetHenry’s subscription product, which averages out at around €100 per month ($105) depending on the country, is on par with the costs from competitors. Zoomo, for example, charges anywhere form $20 to $35 per week for its gig worker subscriptions in the U.S. GetHenry’s bikes, which are German-engineered and manufactured in partnership with a French e-bike manufacturer, are built to handle the 80 kilometers per day that delivery couriers tend to travel, accounting for any additional weight for parcels, according to the company. “We decided to manufacture our own bike because there was no e-bike on the market for the grocery delivery use case at the time, and we wanted to build the best bike for these customers,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch. “In manufacturing our own e-bike, we also have full control over costs and supply chain.” GetHenry also plans to use the fresh capital to diversify its product portfolio, with plans to develop and deploy cargo bikes and electric mopeds in the near future. The funding round, a combination of €10 million equity and €6.5 million debt, was led by LocalGlobe, with participation from Visionaries Club, Founder Collective, EnBW New Ventures, GreenPoint Partners, SpeedUp Ventures and Third Sphere. Angel investors including Voi CEO Fredrik Hjelm, former Tier COO Roger Hassan and Everphone CEO Jan Dzulko also participated in the round. |
Xos shows off two new EVs as diesel-guzzling fleets inch toward electrification | Harri Weber | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | , an EV company that specializes in commercial trucks, took the wraps off two new vehicles this evening as it looks to become a leading provider and “operating system” for battery-powered fleets. On top of its existing battery-electric stepvan and powertrain, Xos expanded its offering on Tuesday with a new heavy-duty tractor, dubbed the HDXT, and a medium-duty truck, the MDXT. Xos made the HDXT for regional-haul fleets, claiming it can go as far as 230 miles per charge. (For the numbers nerds, Xos said the HDXT also features 36,583 ft lbs of torque, the most “currently offered by a commercial vehicle on the market today.”) As for the smaller MDXT — which can take the form of a box truck, refrigerated truck or flatbed — it can deliver as much as 270 miles per charge, per Xos. Though these ranges sit far below the promised 500-mile range for Tesla’s long-delayed , they still offer enough juice to cover . Anyhow, Xos may never steal the spotlight quite like the consumer-focused Teslas and Rivians of the world, but the Los Angeles-based company’s goal — to supplant some of the vehicles on roads today — is arguably just as sexy. Imagine your typical tractor-trailer: If I close my eyes, I see one humming beside a Vons grocery store, packed full of something like cases of Pepsi, with exhaust so strong I could taste it from the curb. As essential as they are, commercial trucks such as these are terrible for the environment. In the U.S. alone, they’re responsible for upward of “420 million tons of climate pollution each year – more than the entire country of Australia,” per a 2021 report from the . The resulting air pollution disproportionately burdens communities of color. These harmful effects drove Dakota Semler to co-found Xos some six years ago, the CEO said in a call with TechCrunch. “For every truck we’re putting on the road, we’re doing something positive,” said Semler, adding: “It’s exciting to say that we can actually make a difference in cleaning local air quality, not just CO2 emissions, but actually making the air that we live in cleaner to breathe.” In addition to the new vehicles, Xos announced a software platform called Xosphere, which the company says was designed to shrink the cost of running an electric fleet. “Now we can do charge scheduling, charge management and vehicle charging, all from the same platform that you’re doing your service ticketing, your telematics and driver monitoring, safety monitoring and driver awareness,” said Semler. Currently, “several dozen” Xos vehicles operate on roads today, the company told TechCrunch, were delivered during the first quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, some big names in trucking are shifting gears and investing in EVs. That includes , whose first heavy-duty electric trucks are slated to go into production , and Volvo Trucks, which announced the of its electrified big rigs earlier this year. |
Coinbase CEO says India central bank’s ‘informal pressure’ prompted trading halt | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Coinbase halted trading service in India because of “informal pressure” from the Reserve Bank of India, the crypto exchange’s chief executive said on Tuesday, addressing the notable Indian episode for the first time in a month. The Nasdaq-listed firm to much fanfare on April 7. The app allowed users in the world’s second largest internet market to buy crypto tokens using UPI, a highly popular Indian payments infrastructure built by a coalition of retail banks. But just three days after the launch, the firm without an explanation. The move followed a strange statement made by the National Payments Corporation of India, the governing body that oversees UPI in the country, in which it . Asked about the Indian episode on the company’s earnings call, Coinbase co-founder and chief executive Brian Armstrong said Coinbase disabled UPI “because of some informal pressure from the Reserve Bank of India.” Armstrong pointed out that cryptocurrency trading is — in fact, the South Asian nation — but there are “elements in the government there, including at Reserve Bank of India, who don’t seem to be as positive on it. And so they — in the press, it’s been called a ‘shadow ban,’ basically, they’re applying soft pressure behind the scenes to try to disable some of these payments, which might be going through UPI,” he said. The Reserve Bank of India’s action “may be actually in violation of the Supreme Court ruling, which would be interesting to find out if it were to go there. But I think our preference is really just to work with them and focus on relaunching. I think there’s a number of path that we have to relaunch with other payment methods there. And that’s the default path going forward,” he said. The Reserve Bank of India had earlier banned cryptocurrency — a decision overturned by the nation’s apex court over two years ago — but the central bank continues to informally exert pressure on banks from engaging with cryptocurrency exchanges, TechCrunch reported earlier. This pressure — and the banks’ compliance — is the reason why popular cryptocurrency exchanges in India periodically face issues with supporting fiat currency in the country. An executive at one of the cryptocurrency exchanges told TechCrunch that they too may challenge the central bank’s action in the court, but cautioned that such a court battle may take years and their businesses might get obliterated in that time, which is why the crypto players in India are hopeful that the central bank will relax its stance on its own in some time. Armstrong added: I guess just to zoom out for a minute, one of our theories here and my theory is that action produces information. So it’s not always clear as we go to these countries all over the world, everybody is in varying states of kind of education or lack thereof about crypto. And there’s a lot of work to go meet with policymakers around the world and kind of teach them about what the AML capabilities are and what are the positive benefits. The people of these countries generally really want crypto. And so to me, that says that most places in the free world and democracies, crypto is going to eventually be regulated and legal, but it’s going to take time for them to get comfortable with this. And the way that we push the conversation forward is by taking action. That’s why we’re going to go launch, even if we’re not exactly sure how it’s going to — the reaction is going to be received, we’re going to launch because it forces the discussion to be had. Now the press is talking about it in India. Now there’s meetings happening that are going to talk about how we get to the next step. So that’s generally our approach with international expansion. |
Canoo warns it may not have enough funds to bring EVs to market | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Canoo’s first-quarter earnings shows a company burning through cash, no near-term revenue and a warning that it may not have enough money to stay in business. Shares of Canoo, which were down 5% Tuesday, fell another 17.5% in after-market trading following the release of its earnings. It has since recovered and is now down more than 11%. Canoo has had a tumultuous and short history. The company’s vehicle designs, the first of which debuted in spring 2019, garnered praise and made it a buzzy EV startup. Just last month, Canoo was even selected by NASA to build the ground crew transportation vehicles for the Artemis space exploration program. But Canoo has also suffered from a long string of problems and controversies, including internal drama, the exit of its co-founders, legal issues, an and production delays. This latest earnings report paints an increasingly grim picture for Canoo’s future. The EV startup, which earlier this week in an attempt to reclaim $61 million in profits from allegedly suspicious stock trades, closed out the quarter with $104.9 million in cash and cash equivalents. That means the company, which currently has no revenue, burned through about $120 million since the fourth quarter. Canoo’s net loss reached $125.4 million, compared to $15.2 million in the same quarter last year, with net cash used in operating activities totaling $120.3 million compared to $53.9 million in Q1 2021. “Our business plans require a significant amount of capital,” reads a from Canoo. “If we are unable to obtain sufficient funding or do not have access to capital, we will be unable to execute our business plans and could be required to terminate or significantly curtail our operations and our prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.” Canoo announced in August 2020 that it had reached an agreement to Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp., with a market valuation of $2.4 billion. At the time, Canoo said it was able to raise $300 million in private investment in public equity, or PIPE, including investments from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. That PIPE investment appears to have not yet been realized. Canoo said during a call with investors Tuesday that it expected a $300 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) related to its merger to go through this week, and the company has filed a $300 million universal shelf. That $600 million is necessary to make it to start of production, Canoo CEO Tony Aquila said. Despite that impending money, Canoo still issued a “going concern” warning. A going concern qualification means the company may not have enough funds or cannot generate sufficient revenue to satisfy its obligations as it comes due. Among other looming production deadlines, including more than 17,500 pre-orders, Canoo it would deliver multiple customized models for NASA, which are to be based on its lifestyle vehicle model, by June 2023. Canoo’s financial concerns call the EV maker’s ability to meet that commitment into question. NASA did not immediately respond to requests for more information. When an investor asked about production guidelines for the NASA vehicles, Aquila dodged, saying that information was confidential, but that Canoo was hyper-focused on building up the factory in Bentonville, Arkansas, which is expected to produce “20,000-ish vehicles” for Canoo, said Aquila. Canoo first announced the , saying at the time that it would also move up the start of production of the lifestyle vehicle from early 2023 to the fourth quarter of 2022. That guidance was not updated during Tuesday’s earnings call. Perhaps the only bright spot in Canoo’s earnings was it that received $30.4 million as part of a settlement agreement with Dutch automotive manufacturing company VDL Nedcar. Canoo had prepaid VDL Nedcar the money as part of a vehicle manufacturing contract to build its “lifestyle EV.” The partnership as Canoo explored a new deal with VDL Groep. |
European micromobility startup Reby acquired by PE player House of Lithium for $100M | Mike Butcher | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Founded in 2018, European micromobility startup took an interesting path. It deployed e-scooters in the city of Zaragoza (Spain), during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also created a SaaS-oriented “MaaS” (mobility-as-a-service) platform. It then won 18 agreements with public administrations for e-mobility across Italy and Spain, slightly under the radar compared with large, well-funded players like Tier, Voi and Bolt. In other words, without needing to become a large player, it secured the kinds of European municipal licenses coveted by micromobility players. Founded by four entrepreneurs (Pep Gómez, Kiran Thomas, Cristina Castillo and Guillem Pagès), Reby has now been acquired by , a Canadian private equity firm, which was already a large shareholder in the company. The firm invests in private and publicly listed entities involved in or connected with the electric mobility value chain. The transaction is priced at $100 million. The company’s founder, Pep Gómez, with the rest of the management team, will continue managing Reby. The company says it closed the year with approximately $15 million of revenue with approximately $3 million EBITDA. Reby had raised a total of $17.9 million from EXOR, 14W Ventures, Neo Fund, Fuel Capital, Hard Yaka, Day One Ventures and some angels such as like Simon Rothman (Founder of eBay Motors and board member to Tesla and Lyft), Marcelo Gigliani (APAX Digital) and Hugo Arevalo (Jobandtalent). In a statement, Kevin Taylor, chairman of House of Lithium, said: Combining Reby’s leading IoT technology and proven ride-sharing business model with House of Lithium’s manufacturing, distribution, e-commerce and retail assets will contribute to creating an end-to-end mobility platform to maximize top-line opportunities and bottom-line results. Reby made a point of manufacturing its own vehicles, eschewing Chinese-made scooters; operating only under exclusivity with city hall agreements; and financing vehicle investments largely with asset-backed debt. Gomez added: The financial capacity and capital markets expertise of the House of Lithium team makes this a great partnership with the extra power that Reby needs to continue its growth … The time for EV companies burning money with artificial growth is over, giving us a massive opportunity to win in an untapped market focusing on infrastructure regulation and R&D development in security and public space occupation, which is imperative for cities. Reby is the second venture for Gomez, who at 19 years old was the sole founder of the Fever experiences app, which has raised $298.8 million to date and was backed by Goldman Sachs, Accel Partners and Rakuten, among others. |
Tiger Global, hit by $17B in hedge fund losses, has nearly depleted its latest VC fund | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Tiger Global is having a year. According to a new report from Financial Times, the low-flying-yet-seemingly-ubiquitous 21-year-old outfit has seen during this year’s tech stock sell-off. FT notes that’s one of the biggest dollar declines for a hedge fund in history. As shocking, per FT, according to the calculations of a fund of hedge funds run by the Edmond de Rothschild Group, Tiger Global’s hedge fund assets have been so hard hit that the outfit has in four months erased about since its launch in 2001. (Ouch.) The question is whether that trouncing will impact the firm’s venture business, which — like that of many other venture businesses — has ballooned rapidly in recent years. In 2020, the firm closed its twelfth venture fund with $3.75 billion in capital commitments. Early last year, it closed its thirteenth venture fund (titled XIV for superstitious reasons) with before closing its newest fund, fund XV, with a massive in capital commitments in March of this year. Yet even new fund — which reportedly took less than six months to raise and includes $1.5 billion in commitments from Tiger Global’s own employees — is almost fully invested already, according to a source close to the firm. On the one hand, it’s not entirely astonishing to anyone paying attention that Tiger Global has put so much money to work already. It added to its list of portfolio companies last year, according to Crunchbase News, and it continued to outpace every other investor in the first quarter of this year. Those rounds, at least until earlier this year, were not small. In December, Tiger Global led a investment into the nuclear fusion startup . It November, it led a for the electric vehicle company Nuro. The 78 deals it led in the first quarter of this year — including a $768 million Series E round for Getir, the Istanbul-based on-demand delivery service, a $530 million Series D round for the Paris-based online bank Qonto and a $273 million Series C round for French wholesale marketplace Ankorstore — wound up in companies that collectively raised , Crunchbase News reported last month. Still, $12.7 billion is a of money, and it’s not even June. (It’s not even mid-May.) The question begged, naturally, is how much money Tiger Global can collect for its next fund — and by when. In all likelihood, the firm — which declined to comment — has soft commitments in place already based on its recent performance. According to a letter to investors obtained by TechCrunch, the firm’s private portfolio funds — as of the end of the first quarter of this year — had generated a 25% net IRR since inception in 2003. In the first quarter this year, wrote the firm, “remaining value in the funds decreased by 9%, following an increase of 54% in 2021.” (Presumably, that value has sunk further in Q2, as valuations begin to drop broadly across the startup ecosystem.) According to that same investor letter, Tiger Global boasts of stakes in 38 companies that went public last year — including Coinbase, Freshworks, SentinelOne and Toast — and says it distributed $3.7 billion to investors last year. Either way, there could hardly be a worse time to be raising another enormous venture fund. Almost every institutional investor in the world has seen its stock portfolio hammered. And it isn’t like venture firms set aside money inside a giant piggy bank; they call down committed capital from their investors as they need it. That process allows VCs to begin the clock on each investment as soon as a check is written, but it also subjects them to extreme market volatility. When public shares start to nosedive as now, university endowments, pension funds and other institutional investors grow loath to fulfill their capital obligations because it means having to sell public company shares that are underwater. These same institutions also typically pull back from their new fund commitments, because as their public market portfolios shrink, they become overweighted by their private market allocations. (Most have targets they’re supposed to meet to ensure that they’re sufficiently diversified.) Current trends will begin impacting everyone if the market doesn’t bounce back, but with Tiger Global’s performance so dramatically changed from even four months ago, the terrain could prove especially tricky for its team. It certainly has a weaker case to make. According to FT, hedge fund investors who invested at Tiger Global’s 2001 launch have made more than 20 times their initial investment — despite its massive new losses. But that’s just twice the return they would have received by investing in the S&P 500 over the same 21-year period, and that’s not taking into account Tiger Global’s management fees. Meanwhile, Tiger Global’s venture bets could go sideways — along with many other firms’ investments — if the market for exits doesn’t improve. Tiger Global apparently saw what was coming. Its team, which works as one unit to make both hedge fund and venture bets, had already all but abandoned late-stage venture deals by early February, as The Information . Venture capitalist Keith Rabois, whose firm, Founders Fund sometimes competes with hedge funds, told The Information at the time that some pullback from those giant rounds was inevitable given the plummeting share price of publicly traded tech companies. “If you have a high burn rate and have raised money at high prices, you’re going to run into a brick wall very fast,” he’d said of late-stage startups. “There’s no free money anymore.” It’s easy to wonder if Tiger Global’s own strategy shift to earlier-stage startups has come too late, and there are no fast answers on this front. Unlike with its hedge fund business, Tiger Global has the luxury of some time before its more recent venture bets can be judged. (The firm has historically enjoyed some big venture wins, including bets on Facebook, Linkedin, Airbnb and Peloton.) In the meantime, Tiger Global, which prides itself on its due diligence, may be celebrating a separate apparent win right now. It passed on the one-click-checkout company Bolt, which is currently being sued by its biggest customer for having “utterly failed to deliver on the technological capabilities that it held itself out as possessing,” says the customer; as bad, Bolt’s former employees say it had a tendency to overstate its metrics. As The New York Times in a piece about Bolt, after Tiger Global executives met with the company, they weren’t convinced the merchants to which Bolt pointed them would use Bolt beyond a trial, and they deemed Bolt’s revenue projections overly bullish. While a lot of heavy-hitting firms proceeded to fund Bolt, including General Atlantic, WestCap and Untitled Investments — a firm founded by a former Tiger Global investor who left the outfit in 2017 — Tiger Global passed on the deal. |
VW aims to launch Scout, an EV off-roading brand | Kirsten Korosec | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | precipice of launching a new dedicated EV company in the United States called Scout that will produce an all-electric pickup and a rugged off-roading SUV geared toward the American consumer. The company’s supervisory board, which is chaired by Hans Dieter Pötsch, is expected to vote and approve a proposal to create the new brand at its May 11th meeting, sources familiar with the company’s plans told TechCrunch. Launching the Scout brand will amplify VW’s presence in the U.S., a market where several other automakers, including Ford, GM, Tesla and newcomer Rivian, either plan to, or already are, producing electric pickup trucks. VW is strategically sidestepping the increasingly competitive full-sized pickup market, which is dominated by the Ford F-150, GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado. Instead, the plan is to build a C-segment truck, which is smaller and comparable to the Ford Maverick. The new brand, named after the iconic International Harvester Scout that came to market in the early 1960s, would begin producing the two EVs by 2026, according to sources who asked not to be named because they’re not authorized to talk publicly about the proposal. VW intends to make an initial $100 million investment in spinning up the new company with more investment to follow, according to sources. That initial funding will be used to create the structure of the company, set up management and begin bringing employees on board. It’s possible that some future investment could come from external sources and may not be limited to institutional investors, according to sources. That could open the door to private equity or individuals to fund such an effort. The Scout brand could help VW Group CEO Herbert Diess hit a couple of ambitious targets. VW is aiming to become the largest global seller of EVs by 2025 and to double its market share in the U.S. to 10% by the end of the decade. VW has other plans to boost its market share in the U.S., including bringing a long-wheelbase passenger model of its electric ID Buzz to . However, creating an entirely new unit signals VW’s desire to tap into a market that languished for the company for years, that is until the all-electric ID.4 arrived in 2021. Speculation that VW might resurrect Scout as an EV off-roader first after Volkswagen Group of America Chief Operating Officer Johan De Nysschen brought up the idea during a conversation with media. VW gained the naming rights to Scout after its commercial trucking unit Traton with Navistar. International Harvester stopped making the Scout in 1980 and went out of business five years later. At the time, the COO envisioned a Rivian-like SUV that would be priced at $40,000 — a steep discount from the actual Rivian R1S SUV. A rendering shared with TechCrunch shows two proposed designs for the SUV and pickup that mixes the old classic Scout with some sprinkles of Rivian’s aesthetic. Rendering from VW shared with TechCrunch from an unnamed source Notably, Scout will have its own underlying platform designed for off-road, higher clearance vehicles, according to sources. It’s unclear where Scout will be located or where the vehicles will be assembled. It would be unusual for an independent brand to set up shop at VW’s Chattanooga plant, particularly considering these new vehicles will not be built off of VW’s modular electric drive kit, or MEB, platform. The MEB, is flexible modular system — really a matrix of common parts — that VW Group brands including Audi, Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen use to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of producing electric vehicles. About 30% of all electric vehicles in the VW Group are already based on the MEB, including the Volkswagen ID.3, an electric hatchback that is only sold in Europe and the and , along with various variants of the Audi Q4 e-tron. By 2025, the automaker expects more than 80%. The Scout-branded vehicles will initially be built for the U.S. market. However the platform could be used by other brands later and globally, sources said. The smaller C-segmented-sized truck would be ideal for other markets, including Europe and South America. |
Daily Crunch: Peloton CEO to shareholders: ‘Turnarounds are hard work’ | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | It is Tuesday the 10th of May, and the end of an era as after a 20-year run of swinging our tushes, white earbuds dangling against brightly colored backgrounds. – and It’s a hardware feast this news cycle on Ye Olde TechCrunch: . Remarkable raised at a unicorn valuation, and to further develop its Eureka controller. We loved this piece from about Bonobos footwear company founder Andy Dunn and his , speaking out about his “secret battle” against bipolar disorder. Moar newz: / Getty Images Globally, sluggish wage growth and rising inflation have encouraged shoppers to defer payments on everything from groceries to durable goods. Affirm, Afterpay and Klarna own 75% of the sector in the U.S., which leaves little room for startups hoping to join the fray. Founders who target emerging markets like Latin America and India may have an easier time, but only if their products and services are clearly differentiated. To learn more about the state of the industry, Karan Bhasin interviewed four fintech investors: In addition to sharing their direct advice for fintech founders, they talked about managing fraud and default risk, BNPL’s growing popularity as a point-of-sale option, and what kinds of investment opportunities they’re looking for. It looks like EU internal market commissioner , hopefully crossing a few things off of his bucket list, including meeting Elon Musk and essentially getting his OK on the EU’s Digital Services Act, which aims to provide more governance rules around “harmonizing content” and consumer protections while also fining those who breach them. Meanwhile, the . Some other Tuesday tidbits: |
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Musk talks Tesla demand, EV startups and scooters in expansive interview | Jaclyn Trop | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Elon Musk weighed in on Tesla, SpaceX and his multitude of other companies — including that social media business he’s trying to purchase — during a wide-reaching 80-minute interview Tuesday that covered demand for EVs, the need for raw materials, the problem with hydrogen and the most promising EV startups. While much of what Musk talked about at the Financial Times’ Future of the Car conference in London has been shared before, there were a few items that stood out, including that Tesla could stop taking customer orders for its vehicles. For Tesla, the issue is . “Right now demand is exceeding production to a ridiculous degree,” Musk said. “We’re actually probably going to limit [or] stop taking orders for anything beyond a certain period of time.” The automaker still aims to produce 20 million cars annually by 2030, a figure Musk said he chose because it represents 1% of the global fleet. “But it’s not a promise,” he noted. “It’s an aspiration. I think we’ve got a good chance of getting there.” That compares with the 930,000 vehicles Tesla produced last year, a figure that’s been “roughly equally difficult” to reach as getting to 20 million. When asked to name the most impressive EV startup operating today, Musk named Volkswagen, just one day after Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess said from the same conference stage that Tesla proved stronger than the German juggernaut expected. “I think the company making the most progress besides Tesla is actually VW, which is not a startup but can be viewed in some ways as a startup from an electric vehicle standpoint,” Musk said. He also said that there are several strong companies coming out of China, which accounts for more than a quarter of Tesla’s global sales and where Tesla plans to expand its Shanghai Gigafactory. “There’s just a lot of super talented, hardworking people in China that strongly believe in manufacturing. They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they’ll be burning the 3 a.m. oil. They won’t even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America, people are trying to avoid going to work at all.” Musk reiterated his to automakers to make use of Tesla’s patents to build upon its Autopilot system. “We only patent things in order to prevent others from creating this minefield of patents that inhibit progress with electric vehicles,” he said. “But we’re never going to really prosecute anyone for using our patents. So let’s just say you can use any Tesla patents for free, so I think hopefully that’s helpful to others.” But Tesla needs a year to prove itself before automakers may consider it, Musk said. “The traditional car makers will solve electrification. It’s not fundamentally difficult at this point to make electric cars. The thing that I think they may be interested in licensing is Tesla Autopilot full self-driving, and I think that would save a lot of lives.” As EV makers face a to make lithium-ion batteries, Tesla has been signing long-term deals with mining companies worldwide to secure its supply. But the automaker is not above becoming more involved with the earth-moving business. “It’s not that we wish to buy mining companies, but if that’s the only way to accelerate the transition then we will do that,” Musk said. “There’s no arbitrary limitations on what’s needed to accelerate. We’ll just tackle whatever set of things are needed to accelerate sustainable energy, and doing mining and refining or buying a mining company provided we think we can do it.” When asked if Tesla plans to make a vehicle smaller and more affordable than the Model 3, such as a scooter, Musk spoke against the micromobility device. “Scooters are very dangerous,” he said. “I don’t recommend anyone drive a scooter. If there’s ever an argument between a scooter and a car, it will lose.” |
a16z, Coatue, USV invest in $725M developer fund for Dapper’s Flow blockchain | Lucas Matney | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | The web3 world is continuing to discover that it’s a lot harder to build a developer ecosystem than it is to build a platform. The Flow blockchain launched by NBA Top Shot creator Dapper Labs is looking to onboard more crypto developers and it’s built up a dedicated ecosystem fund to coax more builders onboard. The fund, which is backed by Dapper’s venture arm and Dapper investors Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Union Square Ventures, Coinfund, Digital Currency Group and Cadenza Ventures, among others, is aiming to incentivize more crypto devs to choose Flow as the blockchain they build their projects on with investments, token grants and development support. Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou says that more 7,500 people are building on the platform. One of the fund’s major challenges will be ensuring that popular projects choose Flow over more popular alternatives like Ethereum, which have usability shortcomings but offer projects a vast network of crypto rich NFT buyers. Dapper has been one of the bigger venture successes in the crypto ecosystem, the startup raised $250 million at a $7.6 billion valuation in September. But Dapper’s fortunes haven’t played out as loudly as other NFT firms in the year since its NBA Top Shot product caught fire. After an initial flood of interest a little over a year ago brought transaction volumes surging on the platform setting a one-day sales record last February of over $45 million, things have grown quieter on the platform. Last month, the platform did $26 million in sales according to tracker , still a healthy sum but a far cry from the $3.5 billion that OpenSea pulled in during the same period. Flow has brought a number of other projects to its platform from outside developers and Dapper itself, but even the company’s hyped NFL All Day marketplace has struggled to find the reach of Top Shot — last month, the football NFT project recorded around $7.5 million in sales according to . Flow’s success largely relies on more novice consumer attention landing in the crypto collectibles space. The Ethereum NFT ecosystem is flush with cash, but offers a number of usability pitfalls that make onboarding a steep challenge for the lightly technical. Flow’s blockchain is built around trade-offs that over-index on reducing friction for users. Among Dapper’s challenges is ensuring that other popular NFT platforms don’t better capitalize on consumer interest and build out their own consumer-grade blockchains — Bored Apes maker Yuga Labs recently hinted that it may build out its own blockchain as it expands its metaverse ambitions. |
EV startup Canoo sues major investor over sketchy share sales | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Electric vehicle startup Canoo has filed suit against one of its largest shareholders, demanding that the firm pay back more than $61 million in “short-swing profits.” The short-swing profit rule states that company insiders, like large shareholders, must return profits realized from buying and selling securities within a period of six months. Canoo alleges that the firm, DD Global Holdings, wrongfully benefited from its recent share sales, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan on Monday. was the first to report. Pak Tim Li, the beneficial owner of DD Global, was one of the three original investors in Canoo in late 2017. He is also the son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, who until 2012 was the of the Communist Party in China. When the startup merged with a SPAC in 2020, Li owned more than 26% of Canoo’s shares through DD and other affiliates. This significant ownership stake called in the oversight of the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, which set up a national security agreement that stated DD Global must own 10% or less of Canoo by February 28, 2022, or it would have to transfer all shares to a voting trust. In November 2021, DD Global transferred about 35 million Canoo shares to Canoo CEO Tony Aquila’s LLC. On that day, the stock price closed at $11.43 per share with a volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of $11.26, according to the lawsuit. By this point, DD Global still owned 18.5% of Canoo, so in March 2022 it sold off 10.5 additional shares to Bank J. Safra Sarasin AG on behalf of an unidentified buyer. On that day, Canoo’s stock closed at $5.57 per share and had a VWAP of $5.44. Canoo is now alleging that DD Global acquired the same number of shares — 10.5 million — at the same time that it sold them off through an equity swap transaction, according to the lawsuit. The EV startup is seeking to uncover the identified buyer of the shares sold in March, as well as any other transactions by DD Global that went unreported. At the same time, Canoo is alleging that, as of March 15, 2022, DD Global remained the beneficial owner of more than 10% of Canoo’s total outstanding common stock, which would put it in violation of the national security agreement. |
Catching up with Indiegogo’s new CEO | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | announced a new CEO. Becky Center — formerly of Healthjoy and Groupon — following quiet exit in late-2021. From the outside, at least, the crowdfunding service looks to be on more solid ground than when Yang took the reigns amid layoffs two years ago. Indiegogo appears to have largely weathered the crowdfunding cycle. And there’s some opportunity to grow its presence, as its largest rival — Kickstarter — battles user blowback amid union struggles and blockchain concerns. Its own CEO, Aziz Hasan, in April after three years with the company. There’s still a lot of work to be done, of course. Questions remain, including how to address growing concerns around user trust issues from one too many unfulfilled campaigns. Center joined us to discuss why she took the gig — and what the future looks like for Indiegogo. BC: Day one for me — and this is already part of the Indiegogo culture — it was authenticity. That means me, in my role, being authentic to who I am, as a leader, as a human, as a team member, as a part of the company and as the CEO. Encourage the team to bring their whole selves to work, to be authentic to who they are. And then, authenticity through our brand, through our site and through what we do. Part of what has kept crowfunding around for so long is that connection. You’re not just shopping from anywhere, you are connecting with someone who has a great idea, a passion and who is being open and transparent with what they’re trying to accomplish. I think it all ties in. What we’re looking at is prioritizing around value add for our users — which are two-sided — we have entrepreneurs and backers. And then, of course, value add for the company. Coming in, my goal for the company — as most CEOs — is growth and figuring out how to grow a great company and where we can go. My priorities, in terms of expansion, are across categories. We’ve become very successful in tech and innovation. That’s almost what we’re know for, at this point. But we have other categories that do very well and our audience is interested in. That expansion comes back to allowing the audience to have space to find what they’re looking for and the entrepreneurs to bring in what they’re passionate about. The second is support across the business journey. People think of the 30-60 crowdfunding campaign. And that’s, of course, the main thing, but there’s actually quite a bit leading up to that that we as Indiegogo have differentiated ourselves from other platforms. We really help the entrepreneur think through the best way to launch that campaign and think through their strategy in terms of audience building and market. We provide marketing services, and we can do advertising on your behalf. It’s a bad experience when you’re looking for a perk and it doesn’t deliver. That’s a bad backer experience. It’s absolutely in everyone’s best interests to have good backer experiences as much as possible. There are a couple of ways we can prevent that. First of all, unfortunately, there are sometimes bad actors and people who come to the site with bad intentions. I think our site has done a really good job filtering out fraud and continues to improve on that. The crowdfunding trust alliance, as well, has been an area where we’ve been able to be thought leaders, as well and work with companies like GoFundMe and identify areas of fraud and ways of detecting new fraud tactics. To the extent that we can prevent those from getting on the site, the more the better. Sometimes they’re identified later. Beyond intentional fraud, these are entrepreneurs who are taking a risk. We all know it’s hard. They’re all trying to build and create something. And sometimes it doesn’t work out for a number of reasons — materials cost more than expected, or the logistics are difficult. Yeah. We’re seeing delays with the global supply now, for sure. But that inherent risk of crowdfunding is that whatever someone is trying to accomplish, they haven’t done it yet. That is a risk of the industry. I think where we can do better is that feeling that it never materialized, and I don’t know what happened. Right. What we’ve found is that the entrepreneur really wanted it to work and it failed. They’re feeling bad or they’re in over their heads, or whatever it might be. There’s a natural response to flight and not communicating. That’s a space where we’re really trying to encourage communication and to let the backers know that, ‘hey, this is what tried to do. This is what didn’t work out. And this is where we’re realistically at.’ Yeah, and that’s really difficult. You’re in the industry, I’m in the industry. That’s not necessarily everyone’s vernacular. I do think we can do better there. We try. We’ve got disclaimers. But yeah, making sure the expectations are set upfront and that the communication is following up, as well. I think it’s a really pivotal moment. It’s the moment where we say some of the things we just talked about. Can we communicate this in a way that people understand? Maybe when there’s a lot of hype, you can get past some of those things, because you’re excited to be a part of something new, but we’re trying to make this sustainable for the long run. So things that maybe people were able to get past in the early days, that stuff has to evolve. We have to mature, we have to grow up, and we have to be a sustainable business and a sustainable way of funding ideas, funding businesses, funding creative endeavors. It’s super interesting. I think some people look and say, my idea’s not right for VC, it’s not fitting that profile. Scale, how profitable it’s going to be at the end of the day. What’s your rationale for doing it? What does your audience look like in terms of [total addressable market]. There’s lifestyle businesses that are not going to be good VC investments, but they’re perfectly reasonable businesses for someone to get into. It’s super interesting. It’s not on our platform right now. It kind of comes back to how we can add the most value to our audience of backers and our audience of entrepreneurs and if that’s what they’re looking for. We’re constantly evaluating that, but it’s not on our platform right now. |
Robinhood aims to court users by offering attractive 1% interest rate on cash | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Investing app Robinhood is on a roll with announcing new features as it looks to appeal to more customers amid dwindling transaction revenue. Less than a week after , the company announced that it has introduced a “revamped” brokerage cash sweep program that will be rolled out to customers today. What that means is that all “eligible” Robinhood users will be able to earn 1% interest on cash sitting uninvested in their accounts (though the company did not define which customers are eligible). 1% APY (annual percentage yield) may not sound like a particularly sexy return, but compared to the average rate a U.S. investor earns on cash in a savings account of 0.06% today , it looks like a pretty sweet deal –16 times higher than average. The interest, which will accrue on funds users have in their accounts from depositing cash or from proceeds they earn after selling a stock, will be paid out monthly, the company says. The cash from these customer accounts will be “swept,” or transferred into deposit accounts at one of six partner banks, according to Robinhood. Any cash deposited made will be covered by FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per bank, they noted. Robinhood’s brokerage cash sweep program used to offer an interest rate of 0.5% to customers that were enrolled for its Cash Management feature, according to the company. Those previously enrolled for that Cash Management program will be automatically transitioned into the new one and see their interest rate increase to 1%. New customers can opt into the feature as long as they have the latest version of the Robinhood app, the company says. |
AboveBoard’s $6 million seed will help place underrepresented folks in executive roles | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | CEO and founder of , knows that she’s not the first to try to disrupt hiring pipelines in order to better position diverse candidates. But, the seasoned entrepreneur is optimistic that the angle her company is taking will make a difference, anyways. The traditional executive hiring world is built in two main strategies: word of mouth or expensive headhunters. AboveBoard aims to tweak that by creating a two-sided marketplace in which employers can post job listings on a platform that they know has a diverse set of candidates. “There’s a reason that executive hiring has traditionally had a professional services approach and been highly specific, it’s because only 40 people in the world can do that job,” she said. “The trick is to find the additional 10 that can.” Therefore, instead of working as a top of the funnel platform that finds smart people to put into roles, AboveBoard wants to play more at the end of the funnel; finding people who are already qualified and placing them into the jobs they deserve. “It’s pretty easy to top the funnel to ensure diversity at the junior levels,” she added. “It gets harder with each step you go up.” To help historically overlooked individuals get executive jobs, AboveBoard tells TechCrunch that it has raised $6 million. The fresh funding comes from True, a global talent market placement platform. The platform has incubated AboveBoard along with Synthesis, a leadership assessment technology and, in the past, Thrive TRM, a hiring software company. Today’s check is in the form of a SAFE note, a capital instrument that allows investors to purchase a number of shares at an agreed upon price in a future financing. Aka, it’s a capital injection without a set valuation, that will be turned into shares upon future raises. In short, it’s a simplified capital raising instrument that is normally issued at a discount, and that helps boost investor returns whilst speeding up the capital raise for the company. To date, AboveBoard’s financing is $9 million, with the first tranche of capital closed in July 2021. The true challenge for the startup is if it can get strong, top tier companies to change their ways and consider a platform – not a friend – as a sourcing engine for their next top hire. Duncalfe says she’s noticed that one dynamic within companies is that their first diverse executive hire may be a head of diversity and inclusion; AboveBoard wants to broaden how companies view the role of diverse individuals, beyond in representing the interests of their own. The competition is steep and well capitalized. Canvas, launched in 2017, raised $20 million The startup’s moat is its avoidance of AI and ability to built a recruiting platform based solely on reported data. Companies can turn to Canvas and filter down what priority groups to hire. Seekout, another diverse recruitment startup, . Unlike Canvas, Seekout finds diverse talent by “scouring public data and using natural-language and machine-learning technologies to understand the expertise of each candidate to build a complete 360-degree view of each potential employee,” TechCrunch’s Mary Ann Azevedo reports. AboveBoard differentiates, in its view, by explicitly focusing on executive roles. Only a handful of large companies handle the executive recruitment role, and Aboveboard has one of those companies – True – on its team (literally). True helped kickstart AboveBoard by posting client searches and sharing partnerships, a necessary influx of info for a startup aiming to build a marketplace. Duncalfe thinks that the Black Lives Matter movement has played a massive role in getting companies to take diversity more seriously. One side effect of a louder conversation on representation in decision-making roles is that limited partners are requiring diversity metrics to be reported of their portfolio companies. Quantitative analysis has a way of getting companies to wake up. So far, AboveBoard says that the most in demand roles are heads of HR, marketing and sales. After launching in October 2020, AboveBoard landed over 6,000 executives and 400 companies by July 2021. Now, in May 2022, the company has over 30,000 approved members – who are all on the platform free of charge – and 1,300 companies. “We overrepresented the underrepresented,” Duncalfe said. |
Carvana to cut 2,500 staff as it struggles with overcapacity | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Carvana, a used-car retailer in the United States that raised at least while private before going public, announced 2,500 layoffs today. The staffing cuts, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are part of the company’s “previously announced plans to better align staffing and expense levels with sales volumes,” Carvana wrote. Per the same filing, the company will offer “impacted team members” the “opportunity to receive four weeks of pay plus an additional week for every year they have been with Carvana,” along with “the opportunity to receive extended healthcare,” among other things. Carvana also said that its “executive team is forgoing their salaries for the remainder of the year to help contribute to the severance pay for departing team members.” That the company is cutting staff is not a surprise given its recent financial performance; the scale of the layoffs, however, is eye-catching. Let’s talk about how Carvana got to this point. Carvana is a deeply unprofitable company, losing money in the first quarter even on an EBITDA basis, a heavily-adjusted profit metric. In numerical terms, Carvana had of $3.497 billion, up 56% compared to its year-ago result. Despite its top-line gains, Carvana’s gross profit fell to $298 million in the three-month period, leading to a net loss of $506 million, far worse than its $82 million net deficit in Q1 2021. The company’s EBITDA margin also declined from -1.3% in the first quarter of 2021 to -11.6% in the first three months of 2022. How did Carvana wind up growing its revenues while shrinking its gross profit at the same time, thus boosting its losses? Here’s how the company explained the matter in its earnings report: We generally prepare for sales volume 6-12 months in advance, meaning we built capacity in most of our business functions for significantly more volume than we fulfilled in Q1. With our costs relatively fixed in the short-term, the lower retail unit volume led to higher cost of goods sold per unit (e.g., reconditioning and inbound transport costs), leading to lower GPU, and higher SG&A per unit. These effects combined with rapidly rising interest rates and widening credit spreads led to lower EBITDA margin. Carvana overbuilt for volume it didn’t reach, leading to higher fixed costs and worse profitability. The issue led to the company writing in its Q1 2022 report that it intends to “better align sales with expense levels through a combination of higher sales and expense efficiencies” in the “next several quarters.” Given that timeline, more staffing cuts could be on deck. It’s worth mentioning that the company had an entire section in its Q1 report detailing its expansion plans, noting that it had opened one new inspection and reconditioning center, or IRC, in Q4 2021 and three in Q1 2022, adding that it expected open three more this year. (That Carvana is is another matter.) In its SEC filing, Carvana said that “[i]n connection with these right-sizing initiatives, over the next several weeks Carvana will be transitioning operations away from its Euclid, OH IRC and a few logistics hubs,” making its April comments feel odd in retrospect. Still, the company has to make changes. It missed every single one of its long-term financial goals in Q1 2022: Carvana shareholder letter Even more, Carvana’s operations consumed $593 million in cash during the first quarter, a huge sum for a company that reported cash and equivalents of $247 million at the end of Q1 2022. Carvana’s cuts come as a number of startups also cut staff; companies of all shapes and sizes are reducing staff where they perhaps overhired or expected more demand than materialized. It’s a tough time for business, in a sense, with a yet-tight labor market coupled with above-average inflation and uneven market performance. This won’t be the last set of layoffs that we report on in the second quarter. |
Move over Picasso, watching this robot paint a car is mesmerizing | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | I come across “neat tricks” performed by industrial robots all the time, and many of them are about as interesting as watching paint dry. ABB Robotics’ newest trick is literally that, and somehow it is mesmerizing beyond words. The industry giant released a video of its robot painting an art car. It’s a flex for the precision and flexibility of its robotics products, of course, but , it’s extraordinary. For this PR stunt, the company collaborated with eight-year-old Indian child prodigy and Dubai-based digital design collective Illusorr, to create the world’s first robot-painted art car. The project is showing off the company’s PixelPaint technology, which is basically an inkjet printer with 1,000 nozzles mounted on an industrial robot. There’s a lot of marketing-speak mumbo jumbo attached with this, and I could write about it, but I’m just not gonna. Instead, watch this mini documentary the company produced. It’s three minutes well spent. ABB’s ultimate pitch is for PixelPaint to make manufacturing more sustainable, removing the need for masking materials and extra ventilation, which in turn, the company suggests, lowers emissions while saving water and energy. The paint head tracks very closely to the vehicle, ensuring that all the paint goes on the actual car, rather than spraying all over the place. Different paint colors are applied quickly, and the item being painted only runs through the paint shop once. ABB claims that this can halve the production time and reduce costs by up to 60%. |
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pushes for stablecoin regulation by end of year | Jacquelyn Melinek | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Stablecoins have been a hot topic both on and off Capitol Hill. Earlier today, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pushed for regulation during an annual testimony in front of the Senate Banking Committee, at a time where Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin . “New products and technology may present opportunities to promote innovation and increase efficiencies,” Yellen said. “However, digital assets may present risks to the financial system and increased and coordinated regulatory attention is necessary.” In response to questions from Senator Pat Toomey and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Yellen said it would be “highly appropriate” for stablecoin regulation to occur by the end of 2022 because there are “many risks associated with cryptocurrencies.” “We really need a consistent federal framework,” Yellen commented. “I really look forward to working with [Toomey] and members of Congress to devise legislation that would accomplish that.” by definition are supposed to be stable and hold their value through a 1:1 ratio that is fixed to an external peg like the U.S. dollar or it can be tied to other assets like UST, which is backed by dollars, but also cryptocurrencies like . While every stablecoin in circulation is backed by $1 equivalent in a reserve, there have been concerns recently about the validity of some stablecoins. For example, the algorithmic-based stablecoin UST fell as much as 35% from its 1:1 dollar peg on May 9, when it should technically never be away from the $1 amount. “A stablecoin known as TerraUSD experienced a run and declined in value,” Yellen said. “I think that this simply illustrates that this is a rapidly growing product and there are rapidly growing risks.” Although UST has almost fully rebounded from its steep drop on May 9, back near its $1 levels to about , it’s still not fully back to its “stable” state. Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs, which the organization behind UST, cryptocurrency LUNA, and Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), that he was “close to announcing a recovery plan for $UST,” but hasn’t provided further details by the time of publication. “The stablecoin sector continued to grow rapidly and remains exposed to liquidity risks,” the U.S. Federal Reserve said in a on May 9. The aggregate value of stablecoins spiked over the past year to about $180 billion in March 2022 and the three largest stablecoins – Tether, USD Coin ( ) and Binance USD – make up over 80% of the total market value, the report added. The U.S. Treasury plans to release a report on cryptocurrencies and stablecoins “shortly” and plans to create “highly appropriate” legislation for the pegged asset by the end of 2022, Yellen said. |
TechCrunch+ roundup: Drive growth with Q5 data, BNPL investor survey, calculating CAC/LTV | Walter Thompson | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | Consumers in every country are getting squeezed on all sides. Globally, sluggish wage growth and rising inflation has encouraged shoppers to defer payments on everything from groceries to durable goods. Affirm, Afterpay and Klarna own 75% of the sector in the U.S., which leaves little room for startups hoping to join the fray. Founders who target emerging markets like Latin America and India may have a slightly easier time, but only if their products and services are clearly differentiated. To learn more about the state of the industry, : In addition to sharing direct advice for fintech founders, the investors talked about managing fraud and default risk, BNPL’s growing popularity as a point-of-sale option, and what kinds of investment opportunities they’re looking for. Several predicted that consumers will soon be able to make installment payments on recurring expenses like rent and subscription services, along with healthcare expenses. Now that so many millennials and Gen Z have embraced the option, “we also see opportunities for new BNPL products for small businesses that are looking to reduce cash flow strains or avoid maxing out credit lines,” said Jason Brown, partner at Victory Park Capital. This is a maturing market, so it won’t be easy for new players to buy into the game, no matter how strong their idea. According to Melissa Guzy, co-founder and managing partner at Arbor Ventures, “a new entrant will need a significant amount of capital from the start for marketing and winning a position on the checkout page.” Thanks very much for reading TechCrunch+ this week, Walter Thompson
Senior Editor, TechCrunch+
/ Getty Images When Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee coined the term “unicorn” in 2013, startups valued at $1 billion were rare creatures: there were just 39 of them at the time. Nine years later, “it only takes one eager investor at a $1 billion valuation to confer unicorn status on a startup,” write Bessemer partners Mary D’Onofrio and Adam Fisher. Now that the metaphorical hoofbeats of a herd of unicorns has grown deafening, they suggest a new creature is needed: “Centaurs,” or companies that have reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue. “At $100 million ARR, the startup is an undeniable success. It is impossible to build a $100 million ARR business without strong product-market fit, a scalable sales and marketing organization, and a critical mass of customer traction that allows the company to plan its next steps well into the future.” / Getty Images How fluent are you when it comes to your company’s key metrics? Round sizes are getting smaller, but investors are raising their expectations. According to Blair Silverberg, CEO and co-founder of Hum Capital, founders need to get a firm handle on LTV (lifetime value) and customer acquisition cost (CAC) before they start sending out pitch decks. “While founders with an eye on high valuations may hesitate to follow a conservative approach, doing so can be pivotal for building trust with investors,” says Silverberg. This post identifies several factors that will help calculate LTV/CAC accurately and increase transparency for potential investors. “As a former venture capitalist, I always tell founders that the most powerful tool they can employ while fundraising is a data-driven pitch.” / Getty Images For mobile app developers, data gathered during the slow period that starts right after Christmas and lasts until mid-January can fine-tune their marketing strategy for the upcoming year. After the holidays, advertising rates drop and user engagement rates spike, which makes it the best time to “enhance your ad creative strategy, transform hypotheses into proven facts, personalize your product and increase lifetime value,” says Vladyslav Strykun, head of marketing at Ukraininan edtech app Headway. / Getty Images The last time the U.S. Federal Reserve hiked the interest rate more than 0.5%, Netscape was the most popular web browser, and Napster was driving the music industry apoplectic. Today, investors are trying to manage a win in an environment that doesn’t favor short-term, risky bets. To find out how VCs are thinking as investment priorities change, Kyle Wiggers and Alex Wilhelm spoke to Brian Aoaeh, co-founder and general partner at REFASHIOND Ventures, and Dell Technologies Capital’s Ryan Wexler. “For the majority of companies that are starting to show traction and now raising Series B/C, we see investors starting to focus much more on public comps and path to profitability versus previous questions focused on market sizing and how large of an exit opportunity there may be,” Wexler said. Sequoia Capital It’s important to sell your solutions to customers, but when pitching to an investor, founders should instead try selling the problem, said Sequoia Capital partner Jess Lee. Speaking at TechCrunch Early Stage, Lee said that with so many demands on investors’ time, the best thing a founder can do is “not sell your solution and [talk about] why you’re going to beat your competitors, but to sell why this problem you’re solving is worthy in the first place.” |
Swyft Cities is the winner of the TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility 2022 pitch-off! | Matt Burns | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | TechCrunch is excited to announce won the TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility 2022 pitch-off and is fast-tracked into the Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt in October. Beyond Aero is runner-up. The Mountain View-based company is committed to improving transportation through the use of autonomous, lightweight, fixed-cable vehicles. The company says that its solution offers a lower cost per mile with fewer carbon emissions than conventional transportation alternatives. The platform is novel in that the vehicles move on a stationary cable, allowing for new connections , based out of Paris/Toulouse, France, is building long-range aircraft powered by hydrogen-electric propulsion. The first aircraft is a zero emission private aircraft (6-9 seat), designed for hydrogen propulsion, flying 1,000 miles in range. Swyft Cities The judges for the pitch-off — Yoon Choi (Muirwoods Ventures), Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) and Gabriel Scheer (Elemental Excelerator) on day one; and Sven Strohband (Khosla Ventures), Victoria Beasley (Prelude Ventures) and John Du (GM Ventures) on day two — largely thought Swyft Cities had a good direction and a very capable team. The judges said Swyft is approaching a growing problem with a novel solution and a competent go-to-market strategy. Swyft Cities was founded in 2019 by some of the Google alums who were behind transportation and real estate programs at Google’s campuses. They were tasked with investigating new forms of mobility that could help achieve what the startup now calls “district-scale transportation” in a way that both reduced car usage and created a better campus environment. The team, which included Swyft founder and CEO Jeral Poskey, reviewed ideas like underground tunnels and autonomous shuttles, but found that most infrastructure solutions existing today are built for long distance commutes, not short distance movement in dense environments. “As you look to densify things, you have a lot of congestion and difficulty moving around, and this applies to a lot of universities, airports and other places within a one to five mile scale,” Poskey told TechCrunch, noting that it’s these closed campus environments that Swyft is targeting first. “Given the growth that we were looking at and all the market opportunities around the world, we took a chance, started a R&D project to see what we could come up with, and what we came up with was Swyft.” Swyft tapped into Google’s existing partnership with Holmes Solutions in Christchurch, New Zealand for R&D, and since its founding has come up with a minimum viable product and secured its first customer agreement. The startup is now working with Remarkables Park in Queenstown, a large office, retail and residential space, to develop a network of autonomous gondolas. Swyft is aiming to have the first vehicles up and running by around August 2024, according to Poskey. “[The team at Remarkables Park] have a first small leg that connects a few buildings and a carpark, and the goal is to test it out and prove it,” said Poskey. “They then have subsequent phases that will see this growing bigger and bigger, eventually expanding beyond their property until it becomes a public transit system that can go on top of or supplement what’s currently a difficult public transit environment down there, and really feed people from these dispersed areas on the edge of town into the bus system that can bring people into the core part of town.” This model is how Swyft sees itself scaling in other environments and cities, as well. By starting small, it’s easy to expand, says Poskey, who explained that the Swyft system doesn’t have an endpoint like a train or even a traditional gondola system, but rather operates on a network that can grow outward from any node, thus adding additional value. So while those connections might begin in smaller environments, as they grow outwards, they’ll be able to connect to other forms of public transit more easily. From a price perspective, these gondolas cost dramatically less than other public transit alternatives, like expanding roads and building more parking, according to Poskey. “We hit the price point and the value proposition to say this is cheaper than building parking and you get a better campus experience out of it,” said Poskey. “You get a better property that’s more valuable, and you spent less money to make that happen.” Swyft’s target cost point is $10 million per mile or less for the infrastructure, which Poskey says allows for the private sector to build it themselves rather than wait for government funding. “That was the real trigger to say this is bigger than just something Google’s should develop on its own campuses,” said Poskey. “This is something that has a huge potential, is highly sustainable and just needs to be spun out to pursue the broader market on its own.” |
AI’s role is poised to change monumentally in 2022 and beyond | Shashank Srivastava | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | in technology make it clear that we are on the precipice of a monumental shift in how artificial intelligence (AI) is employed in our lives and businesses. First, let me address the misconception that AI is synonymous with algorithms and automation. This misconception exists because of marketing. Think about it: When was the last time you previewed a new SaaS or tech product that “fueled by” AI? This term is becoming something like “all-natural” on food packaging: ever-present and practically meaningless. Real AI, however, is foundational to supporting the future of how businesses and individuals function in the world, and a huge advance in AI frameworks is accelerating progress. As a product manager in the deep learning space, I know that current commercial and business uses of AI don’t come close to representing its full or future potential. In fact, I contend that we’ve only scratched the surface. The next generation of AI products will extend the applications for ambient computing. We’ve all grown accustomed to asking Siri for directions or having Alexa manage our calendar notifications, and these systems can also be used to automate tasks or settings. That is probably the most accessible illustration of a form of ambient computing. Ambient computing involves a device performing tasks without direct commands — hence the “ambient,” or the concept of it being “in the background.” In ambient computing, the gap between human intelligence and artificial intelligence narrows considerably. Some of the technologies used to achieve this include motion tracking, wearables, speech-recognition software and gesture recognition. All of this serves to create an experience in which humans wish and machines execute. The Internet of Things (IoT) has unlocked continuous connectivity and data transference, meaning devices and systems can communicate with each other. With a network of connected devices, it’s easy to envision a future in which human experiences are effortlessly supported by machines at every turn. But ambient computing is not nearly as useful without AI, which provides the patterning, helping software “learn” the norms and trends well enough to anticipate our routines and accomplish tasks that support our daily lives. On an individual level, this is interesting and makes life easier. But as professionals and entrepreneurs, it’s important to see the broader market realities of how ambient computing and AI will support future innovation. |
Daily Crunch: ‘Things don’t look good’: Y Combinator sends founders a 10-point survival strategy | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Thursday May 19, 2022, and it’s the last day of our in-person Mobility event. Tomorrow we take the journey to the mean streets of the world wide web, and ! — and The team at Y Combinator just waded in and told its founders to strap in and prepare for the worst. “If your plan is to raise money in the next 6–12 months, you might be raising at the peak of the downturn. ,” reports. We’ve spent the last couple of days immersing ourselves in the world of mobility at TC Sessions. , as distilled by . For TechCrunch Plus, Haje did a teardown of . It has some really elegant storytelling and some fixable quirks; we think you’ll pick up a tip or two from this story for your own fundraising efforts, so come check it out! A smattering more: Dear Sophie, I’m on an L-2 visa as a dependent spouse to my husband’s L-1A. My EAD (work permit) is expiring in May — we filed for the extension of both my visa and EAD a few months ago. How long is the current process? Might there be anything I can do so my employment isn’t affected? — Career Centered should have companies on cloud nine. The new version of the Business API is not only free, which will attract smaller businesses, but will also take minutes instead of weeks to implement and reduce some of those pesky server costs. In Netflix news, we were initially excited at the prospect of a . Granted, maybe we put too much on a pedestal. As it turns out, it’s a way for children to rewatch their favorite shows more easily. In addition, Netflix is also rolling out some additional features so that — think subtitles and languages. that will slap a warning on tweets that are deemed “misleading” during times of crisis and will prioritize those on high-profile accounts or tweets that have gone viral. Here are a few more for your Thursday: More information is being uncovered regarding the in the days leading up to the incident that left 10 people dead and three injured. |
Arrival unveils prototype of dedicated ride-hail vehicle at TC Sessions: Mobility | Rebecca Bellan | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Arrival, the U.K.-founded commercial electric vehicle company, unveiled the first prototype of its purpose-built electric vehicle for ride-hailing on the stage on Thursday. The company, which is perhaps best known for its potentially revolutionary goal of building multiple automated microfactories to produce vehicles regionally and locally rather than one big production line, is building the vehicles in partnership with Uber in the U.K. Arrival president Avinash Rugoobur, who joined TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec onstage on Wednesday, also shared that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Breathe, a U.K. car subscription company, to make the its ride-hail cars available to drivers. In addition to selling vehicles through Breathe, Arrival will also sell the vehicle through its own channels, said Rugoobur, noting that the vehicle isn’t limited to ride-hail. The partnership with Uber was , and Arrival of the boxy-yet-sleek electric vehicle, which looks like something between a small van and a hatchback, at the end of 2021, although Rugoobur said the design has changed somewhat since then. Arrival has previously said it hopes to . “We’ve partnered with Uber, and we have the Uber drivers coming in and giving us feedback on the type of vehicles that they want to use and really going through the aches and pains,” said Rugoobur on Thursday. “Right now what happens is you have to buy a vehicle that’s not designed for ride-sharing at all, right? So you buy a regular retail vehicle and then use it as your earner. It’s an asset to you as an Uber driver, but it’s not really built around, it’s not easy to clean, not easy to maintain. The way you think about adding new experiences to that, it’s actually quite limited.” Rendering of Arrival’s ride-hail car. Arrival The vehicle, which Arrival says has over 200 miles of range, was built with feedback from over a hundred Uber drivers, said Rugoobur, and it shows in the design — huge windows and a massive windshield optimize visibility for the driver, as does a short front overhang and angled nose. The materials Arrival used on the interior, as well as the shapes of the interior components, are all designed around being easy to clean as quickly as possible, according to Rugoobur. In addition, while there is a touchscreen near the steering wheel that plugs into Uber’s back end (or that of any other ride-hail organization), Arrival’s design is all about simplifying the “sheer amount of digital equipment” that drivers said is “distracting and confusing … and wastes a lot of their time,” said Rugoobur. The passenger experience is also taken highly into account here, with space for luggage, plenty of legroom and a high-ceilinged moonroof that provides a feeling of airiness. [gallery ids="2322074,2322075,2322070"] “Why the shape and size of the vehicle? So the footprint is almost of a Golf but it’s got the seating room of a Maybach,” said Rugoobur. “The reason for that was mobility inside cities where a lot of rides are occurring so having a vehicle that’s a little bit smaller footprint with the right amount of space for the driver and the passenger was critical.” Rugoobur pointed to the fact that form follows function with the Arrival car. For example, Arrival optimizes for space with design choices like allowing the front passenger seat to fold down and putting all of the components, like the drivetrain, in the center under the fully flat floor of the vehicle. “We use new composite materials. So we use polypropylene glass fiber instead of metal,” said Rugoobur. “No metal stamping, no paint shops, 100% recyclable material … and then we write all the software, so we get all the data and the code even from the components level.” Rendering of interior of Arrival’s ride-hail car showing steering wheel and touchscreen display for drivers. Arrival Being able to collect data from the back end of the vehicle is one of Arrival’s biggest selling points, says Rugoobur, who noted that all information about every component of the vehicle can go to the driver so they can operate their vehicle better and learn how their driver behavior affects things like battery life and total cost of ownership. The data will also be shared with Uber so the ride-hailing company can better optimize its fleet and, of course, back to Arrival so the company can get insights into the performance of things like its battery management system. Because there’s “two-way communication” between Arrival and the vehicles, the EV startup can use information about how different components are performing and, if necessary, swap in and out damaged hardware or simply upgrade it to keep up with the innovations of tomorrow. Arrival’s ride-hail van will be priced somewhere between an internal combustion engine and a competitive electric vehicle, according to Rugoobur. When reminded that most EVs are branded as luxury vehicles and have a steep upfront price, Rugoobur said the target is to make the car “affordable, affordable, not affordable through [total cost of ownership].” For comparison, , which would go for around $30,000. Earlier this month, Arrival said its has and is conducting closed course trials, with customer models expected to be produced by the second half of this year. The startup also said its Van model is almost through its own certification process and expected to enter production in Q3 of this year. Arrival expects to produce 400 to 600 Vans plus low-volume production of Buses in the second half of 2022, according to . The report also notes that Arrival has collected a total of 143,000 non-binding letters of intent and orders for its vehicles as of May, including the commitment from UPS to from the startup in the U.S. and Europe. |
God of War: Ragnarök sets a strong example for next-gen gaming accessibility options | Devin Coldewey | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Sony and Microsoft have been rivals in gaming for decades, but one positive aspect that has come out of that recently is a renewed focus on accessibility that has seen both companies pushing the boundaries of how games can be played and by whom. It looks like God of War: Ragnarök , and that’s saying something. I don’t mean to say that Microsoft is lagging — its hardware options for gamers with physical disabilities are remarkable. But Sony’s in-house and exclusive developers have set a new standard for accessibility options that make their games the most flexible in the business. Ragnarök is no exception. Its predecessor, the 2018 reboot of this venerable franchise, was a blockbuster hit and fairly accessible in its own right, but since then new options have appeared in titles like Ratchet & Clank and The Last of Us: Part Two that really change the game. Some of these are features that will be helpful to people with certain specific disabilities, like a visual or hearing impairment. But others are just ways to make the game fit your specific playstyle better. For instance, there are now tons of options for customizing the subtitles and audio descriptions — both what gets subtitled and how it looks. Pick your text size, background, etc. to be readable from across the room, and change the colors so that speakers, dialogue and captions for actions and descriptions appear differently. Santa Monica Studio There are also more captions to choose from: We’ve added captions to both cinematics and gameplay to provide a rich understanding of the soundscape of the world. You can also enable captions for critical gameplay information to assist with puzzles and narrative understanding. You can see here, if you’re curious: This is very helpful for situations where (as in the first game) you pull a lever and hear a door grind open behind you. But if you can’t hear that, there’s no indication the lever did anything at all! So having a caption like “Door grinds open” appear is helpful whether you’re hard of hearing or just playing with the volume down so you don’t wake the kids. And a directional indicator tells you which way the sound came from — all able to be independently toggled, because maybe you have great hearing but only in one ear, so dialogue is fine but stereo cues don’t work. Here it is in action: You can also change the size of the UI, menu and even the little icons that come up when you can interact with something. Plus interactive prompts now make unique sounds so if you can’t tell which icon is which quickly, you have extra data to work with. One feature I fully intend to take advantage of is “Navigation Assist,” which lets you hit a button to have the camera point in the general direction of the next objective. I’ve got a pretty good spatial sense but after playing with Ghost of Tsushima’s genius wind mechanic (stroke the touchpad and the wind blows toward your objective) I feel more comfortable using these helpful, subtle reminders. Then there are options for people with low vision, for instance replacing detailed textures with color maps — you’re one color, allies are another, enemies a third and so on. This is something I encountered in a way in Genshin Impact, where chests all glow with a very specific shade of orange — nothing else is that color, and for good reason. A bit of that in God of War, where the treasure is frequently easy to miss, could be really helpful for those who (unlike me) don’t want to scour every corner up close for goodies. Of course it takes a lot of work to provide these options, and the God of War series is top tier even among AAA titles and developers, so no one is saying it’s easy. But hopefully features like this will continue to trickle down to smaller games so they’re as easy to access as the big ones. |
A round, acquisition and revenue later, Bravado’s sales network wants you to know it’s #growing | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | , a sales guy, doesn’t want his industry to be defined by sales guys. The founder began in 2017 to see what happens when you bring together sales professionals into an online community for trading notes, horror stories and secrets. It took the startup four years to hit 10,000 users, and then quickly hit 200,000 members just 12 months after the milestone. The strength of the platform, in his eyes, is that it’s not trying to answer sales challenges with software. Instead of building yet another sales enablement tool, it is building a community where people can exchange information and actually train. Think less optimization on how many deals can get done in a day and more about transparency on pay rates in the industry. “You show up, you get a quota, you get a leadlist and a pat on the shoulder and get told to figure it out,” Mansuri said. “That’s literally how you get training.” “I didn’t want to make sales people better at their job, I wanted to uplift the entire profession and change the ways it was perceived and the way it’s done,” he said. Today, the company has three main products: a private community about advice, a seller portfolio to showcase work like top deals, and, most recently, a marketplace to find next jobs and compare compensation. To grow its resources both internally and externally, Bravado tells TechCrunch that it has raised a $26 million Series B led by Tiger Global and with participation from 250 angels including Zynga founder Mark Pincus, Lenny Rachitsky, Packy McCormick and Sahil Bloom. Existing investors Redpoint Ventures, XYZ Ventures, Freestyle Capital and Precursor all participated, as well. The round is notable for two reasons: Bravado’s cap table and lead investor. Let’s start with the former: Since the startup’s goal is to diversify sales and get a wider range of people thriving within the profession, it’s smart that the startup took money from over 100 first-time angel investors who are women or people of color. Now, let’s address the Tiger in the room. The fresh influx comes at a time when startups are reorienting themselves amid the market downturn. Raising a next round isn’t a given, and for those lucky to land a term sheet, it likely won’t be on the same terms that they could have gotten even just a few months ago. Some founders say that they accepted valuations at a discount of up to 50%. While Mansuri declined to provide Bravado’s specific valuation for this round, he said that he went with Tiger Global even though it was a 20% lower valuation offer compared to other term sheets being offered by “top-tier VCs.” (If anyone else did the same, I want to know, Bravado’s new funding and acquisition comes just months after the years-old company made its first dollar of revenue. At the end of 2021, Bravado launched its job marketplace to help enterprise companies land new talent. The startup tells me that it made its first acquisition in a deal to buy CompGauge, a platform that provides salary data to sales professionals. It will add that insight to its marketplace product so people don’t only discover new gigs but also decide if that starting offer is any good. Bravado’s marketplace helps it make 20% of base salary per hire it helps get a job and charges the 30,000 employers a platform fee to access the technology. This model in mind, the startup scaled from $0 to $4 million in annual recurring revenue in the first seven months, a trajectory that Mansuri said came from Bravado spending years building up a free user base of sales folks. The startup is not yet profitable. Bravado is significantly reliant on its marketplace for monetization, which could expose it to some risk amid the market downturn. In the early wave of COVID-19 tech layoffs, sales and customer success roles were the most affected by reductions. A lack of demand means a lack of need for salespeople to answer that demand. Mansuri thinks that, as revenue becomes more of a priority, sales roles will remain important. “There’s basically two really important jobs in any company, which is that you either build the product or you sell the product,” he added. |
null | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,022 | 5 | 10 | null |
Snapchat’s parental control features spotted in development | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Snapchat is preparing to introduce a new parental control feature dubbed “Family Center,” which will allow parents to see who their teen is friends with on the app as well as who they’ve been messaging with over the past seven days, and more. Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel first teased the planned offering , where he explained the feature would give parents better visibility into how teens use its service and, hopefully, make them feel more comfortable with the app. Snap is one of the last Big Tech social platforms to address the need for parental monitoring tools, though its app sees heavy use among younger users. At Snap’s to advertisers earlier this month, the company noted the Snapchat app now reaches more than 75% of 13-34-year-olds in over 20 countries, and 80% of the U.S. Gen Z population had watched at least one of its Snap Original shows. According to new screenshots of Snapchat’s forthcoming Family Center shared with TechCrunch by the product intelligence firm , the new Family Center feature allows parents to see who their teen is friends with on the app. This is useful for parents because, unlike many social networks, Snapchat’s friend lists aren’t public. Parents will also have visibility into who their teen has chatted with over the past seven days — but not the contents of those conversations. The screenshots additionally explain that parents will be able to assist their teen in reporting abuse and harassment, if needed. Snapchat screenshot via Watchful The parental control feature works by allowing parents to invite their teen (or teens) to the new in-app Family Center in order to begin the monitoring. The recipient of that invitation has the option of either accepting or declining the invitation. This is, arguably, an appropriate approach to parental controls involving teens, as it respects their privacy. Instead of allowing parents to surreptitiously spy on their teens, it ensures the parent and child will instead have a conversation about parental monitoring, where they agree to a set of rules appropriate for their own household. The images provided by Watchful represent early designs of Snapchat’s feature, which is still in development and not yet live or being tested. We should note that products at this stage often change before their launch to the general public. That means the final product could look quite different. (The U.K. spelling of the word “Center,” too, suggests that we’re not seeing a global version of the Family Center product here.) Snapchat screenshot via Watchful Other large social platforms have already launched their parental control features and other age-appropriate experiences for their younger users. Snap is running a little behind. TikTok, for example, has its parental controls offerings following the back in 2020. The tool allows parents to pair their TikTok account with a child’s in order to control the account’s privacy, whether it’s suggested to other TikTok users, whether the child can use search, and who, if anyone, can view, comment or interact with the child’s content, among other things. There’s also a toggle to put the account into an even safer mode for under-13 users. YouTube also into testing last year that allow parents to select between different levels of YouTube access for teen or tween users. And Instagram arrived even later with its , also called Family Center, which didn’t roll out until March 2022. Its tools let parents monitor time spent on the app, who has followed the child’s account and more. Although all platforms compete broadly in the social media space, they all operate a bit differently, which informs what type of parental control features are actually needed. In Snapchat’s case, minors on the app have to mutually accept each other as friends before they can begin messaging. Minors’ accounts also aren’t shown in search results or as friend suggestions to another user — unless they have friends in common. And minors are not able to have public profiles. That means Snap wouldn’t need to roll out parental control features to control these types of experiences. Snap declined to comment on the Family Center screenshots, but the company had previously said the offering would arrive in the coming months. |
3 things to remember when diversifying your startup’s cap table | Oriana Papin-Zoghbi | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | on diversity and inclusion in the workplace goes beyond simply building your team. As a minority female entrepreneur and co-founder of a women’s health startup, ensuring diversity within our cap table has been a must — and has proven instrumental to our success. Breaking down your cap table to diversify your investors based on a variety of criteria will provide far more value than funding alone. I have spent the last 10 years working in women’s health, and the lack of diversity in investors and leadership baffles me. From the inception of my company until now, diversifying our cap table has been a top priority that will continue to serve as a key factor when bringing in investment. Prioritizing diversity will bring a wealth of knowledge, perspective and expertise to the table. We knew that to make this happen, we had to focus on building a product and team that people wanted to invest in. Many startups talk about wanting to adding diversity to their cap table, but how should you go about it? My co-founders and I were all in agreement that we would select our investors based on a variety of factors, such as type of investor (VC, angel, family office, etc.), gender, race, expertise and a deep passion for our mission. While arriving at these criteria, my co-founders and I wrote down reasons why each factor was important to us. As a startup tackling a problem that affects women globally, it was particularly important for us to have women investors, racially diverse investors and industry professionals who understood the magnitude of the problem we were trying to solve. Recent studies have shown that women and people of color disproportionately experience medical gaslighting. Seeking out investors who fit this profile was critical to onboarding people who we felt would share our passion for our work and be supportive along the way. When setting your criteria, you should define your goals clearly and identify the value each investor will bring to the table. As a team, think about what you would want if you could have it your way and why. |
Pokémon GO trainers who use Amazon Prime can snag some bonus items | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Let’s say we have a Venn diagram with two circles: Pokémon GO players and Amazon Prime members. If you fall in the middle, congrats! Here’s . Niantic’s flagship Pokémon GO app has with Prime Gaming and Prime Student to release bonus item bundles every two weeks. Starting today, Amazon Prime subscribers can visit Prime Gaming’s to claim this fortnight’s bonus. Once you log in to Prime, you’ll get a code, which you can on Niantic’s rewards page. Soon, your items should appear in the game. This is far from the first time that Pokémon GO has partnered with large businesses — they’ve run promotions with brands like Starbucks, T-Mobile, Sprint and more in the past. If we make the middle of our Venn diagram even smaller by adding a circle of “people who attend Seattle University or a few of the UCs,” then cool, you can also on Saturday during the global, in-game event, which features Alolan Geodude. If not, happy pokéballs! P.S.: Speaking of things that you get for free via Prime Gaming, did you know that you get a free Twitch subscription once per month? So, if you want to rebel against the tyranny of ubiquitous, e-commerce by giving your favorite streamer a few bucks, jump on that. |
Second-largest crypto exchange FTX expands its empire with launch of stock trading feature | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Cryptocurrency exchange FTX is launching stock trading capabilities for its customers through its U.S. division. The company, helmed by co-founder and billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, that its launch will start in private beta mode for a select group of customers chosen from a waitlist before a full rollout in late 2022. FTX, which is the second-largest crypto exchange in the world, says it will offer “hundreds of U.S. exchange-listed securities, including common stocks and ETFs,” including fractional shares in certain securities. Notably, FTX plans to route all orders through Nasdaq rather than a third-party market maker. The exchange says it will not receive , a method for order fulfillment Robinhood became notorious for that involves the exchange receiving payment from market makers for directing orders their way. It’s a controversial way of clearing trades because it often means the investor doesn’t receive their shares at the best possible price since the market maker profits from the spread. Robinhood continues to employ PFOF because it can bring in substantial revenue from the third-party market makers. FTX, in contrast, will be foregoing profits from its stock trading offering because it is offering the service to users with no fee or commission charged in exchange. FTX also says it will allow users to fund their brokerage accounts on the platform with fiat-backed stablecoins such as USDC (these are different from algorithmic stablecoins like Terra (UST), which are backed by other cryptocurrencies and don’t hold reserves in the traditional sense). The exchange says it will be the first to offer this capability, though users can also fund their accounts by standard means through wire transfers, ACH transfers and credit card deposits. FTX also won’t require customers to hold any minimum balance in order to qualify for the no-fee account, it said. The announcement marks a pivotal moment in Bankman-Fried’s vision to expand FTX from an institutionally focused platform with deep trading roots to an exchange that serves the broad range of needs of retail investors. Bankman-Fried revealed in a filing last week that he had bought shares in Robinhood worth 7.6% of the company, which could mark another move toward that end. “What we eventually want to offer is an everything app for financial services,” Brett Harrison, FTX.US’s president, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. |
Belong secures $80M to take the pain out of rental property management | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Historically, the relationship between landlords and tenants can be a contentious one. At the same time, the experiences of managing a property, and renting one, are not always smooth. , a startup that aims to address both these issues while giving renters a way to save toward home ownership, has just raised $50 million in equity and secured $30 million in debt to expand its offerings and markets it serves. Fifth Wall led the equity financing with returning backers Battery Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and GGV Capital. The round was preempted by Fifth Wall, noted Belong co-founder and president Owen Savir. Founded in 2019 by Argentine-born Ale Resnik, Savir and Tyler Infelise, Belong is a three-sided marketplace that provides services for both homeowners that are landlords and renters. From the homeowner perspective, Belong offers home management services that it says makes owning a rental home easier. For example, if a rental property needs a repair, the startup has an in-house maintenance team that can handle those on a landlord’s behalf. It also provides the homeowners with financial tools to manage their investment, as well as guaranteed rent on the first of each month. And it will also help an owner fix up a property and get it in rental-ready shape. On the renters side, Belong says it has created a system that gives them a way to build home ownership themselves. For example, with each one-time rent payment, residents get around 3% of the price of rent back, which accumulates in an account with the aim of being used toward a down payment on the purchase of a home — but only if it’s used to buy a home through its platform. You see, the company serves as a real estate brokerage as well. The mission is similar to that of Divvy’s, a proptech unicorn, but with a different model. Divvy, which raised $200 million in funding last August at a $2 billion valuation, buys homes on behalf of renters and helps them become homeowners. For its part, Belong differs from other offerings in the space in that it addresses the property management piece, according to Resnik, a former entrepreneur-in-residence at a16z, who previously founded three other startups. Resnik said the concept for Belong was inspired by the “pain” he and one of his co-founders had when renting homes. “We’re painfully aware of all the pains that people go through when they need to rent a home,” he told TechCrunch, “and how difficult it is to be able to afford a home.” As they studied the problem, they discovered a “concerning” trend that more institutional investors were increasingly owning a share of the housing stock market. “We dug into why there were not more individual homeowners, which would be net positive for the economy,” Resnik said. “And we realized it wasn’t easy to buy a home and manage it and do it in a way that’s stress free.” Belong Put simply, Belong wants to take residents out of “second-class citizen status” and connect them with homeowners “that want to give them a great experience” while those homeowners turn over management to the startup. While Resnik declined to reveal valuation or hard revenue figures, he did say that San Mateo, California-based Belong grew its revenue by nearly 3x in 2021. With the latest financing, it has raised a total of $95 million in equity and secured $30 million in debt to date. The startup has a variety of revenue streams, according to Resnik. For one, homeowners pay 8% of the rent that Belong collects for the service of “managing their home end to end.” It has a built-in payments infrastructure so that renters pay through the platform so the money comes out of that automatically. Every time the startup sources a resident for a home, they get a 6% share of the rent. It also allows homeowners to finance any maintenance or repairs that need to be conducted in a home. Today, Belong operates in the Bay Area, Southern California, Miami and Seattle with an engineering team distributed across LatAm, a source of pride for Resnik. Thousands of homeowners and nearly 7,000 renters are on its platform currently. The company is looking to expand to new markets with the new capital as well as do more hiring and focus on product development. Lead investor Fifth Wall has made investments in companies that help streamline the home buying and selling process for consumers. But Partner Dan Wenhold believes that Belong fills “an important gap in the market through its technology offering that serves consumers after they become homeowners or renters.” “We believe Belong’s people-first model raises the bar for the future state of home rentals and ownership,” he said, noting that Belong’s focus on the retail segment of single family residential owners and renters is “a key differentiator.” “These groups have been traditionally underserved by offline property managers who do not use technology or a tech-first approach to solving problems,” Wenhold told TechCrunch. “With in-house operations and service professionals in each market in which they operate, Belong brings a full-stack approach to property management.” Generally, we’re seeing an increased number of companies focused on renters. Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported on Arrived’s . That startup raised capital from Forerunner Ventures and Bezos Expeditions (Jeff Bezos’ private investment fund) to give people the ability to buy shares in single-family rentals with “as little as $100.” |
The lowdown on the slowdown | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | this week with some data culled by the folks over at Crunchbase that’s very much in line with what we’ve been saying on Actuator all along. The past couple of years have been genuinely transformational for robotics. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the conversations I’ve been having with startups and VCs about an automated future have shifted to the now. A highly transmittable virus coupled with an ongoing labor crisis has a way of moving mountains. That said, there are certain external forces and unavoidable realities to investing. As Alex and Anna noted late last month in a pieced titled, (TechCrunch+ subscription required): The value of technology stocks began to decline in late 2021, a slide that continued into 2022, leaving many tech shops trading at a stiff discount to their recent valuation highs. Given that late-stage startup valuations are the most easily compared to those of public companies, it was expected that growth-stage investors would shake up their pricing models and perhaps reduce their risk appetite. These forces appear to have had some impact on robotics — but given the tailwinds of the past couple of years, the sector is still performing strongly. Automation is something companies invest in to steel themselves for bleak times — be it labor issues, supply chain crises, competition or keeping up with increased demand. The current moment is a reminder of how important it is to prepare oneself for future issues. Crunchbase All of these factors are borne out by on the category, Last year more than $17 billion poured into VC-backed robotic startups, nearly triple the investment in 2020. This year is a little behind that pace, but the sector already has seen more than $5 billion flow to startups. Anecdotally, I’d say that’s well in line with what we’ve been seeing on our end: a big, pandemic-fueled spike in investments, followed by a slight slowdown. But that slowdown is nothing compared to the broader funding issues startups are currently facing. As ever, certain sub-categories within robotics are going to regress to the mean, but warehouse/fulfillment, manufacturing, agtech, medical and food appear well positioned here. GreyOrange An extremely small sample size, I realize, but another flurry of activity this week points to sustained interest among investors. The first comes to us , which recently struck a partnership with Walmart Canada. Though the company went the less traditional debt financing round here, with backing from Mithril Capital Management and BlackRock. The $110 million raise follows rumors last year that the India/Denver-based firm was planning an IPO (which, again, given current market conditions, might not have been the wisest move). On that note, CEO Samay Kohli tells me: Success for us looks like solving big challenges in fulfillment for as many customers as possible globally. We’re firmly focused on how we can deliver on surging demand from our customers as quickly and efficiently as possible. An IPO is certainly a viable option to make that happen in the future. Flexxbotics founders Haje has the latest on Boston-based Flexxbotics, which is working to deliver work-cell manufacturing to the cloud. The firm raised for software solutions to connect robots with other manufacturing tools. “Flexxbotics is focused on the mission of helping discrete manufacturing companies complete the digital transformation,” CEO Tyler Bouchard tells TechCrunch. “These companies have struggled with the challenge of connecting ERP, MES and other modern business systems with the legacy production equipment on the shop floor,” says Bouchard. “Our vision is to change that by providing a turnkey tool kit to seamlessly connect robots, CNC machines, PLCs and other manufacturing with each other through a shop floor communications mesh.” Some , as well. The Alphabet-owned firm unveiled Gato, a “general purpose” AI system that’s made some pretty amazing leaps. The system is capable of a wide range of different tasks, from captioning images to stacking blocks with robotic arms. “Most current AI systems work on a single task or narrow domain at a time,” co-creator Scott Reed tells TechCrunch. “The significance of this work is mainly that one agent with one [model] can do hundreds of very different tasks, including to control a real robot and do basic captioning and chat.” Serve Robotics is partnering with Uber Eats on an autonomous delivery pilot in Los Angeles. Uber a pair of deals to pilot last-mile delivery in the Los Angeles area. The partners are autonomous driving company Motional and Serve Robotics, an Uber spinout that makes sidewalk delivery robots. “We’ll be able to learn from both of those pilots what customers actually want, what merchants actually want and what makes sense for delivery as we start to integrate our platform with AV companies,” an Uber Eats spokesperson told TechCrunch. “The hope is that they’re successful and that we learn over the coming months, and then figure out how to scale.” The companies will start with a select number of merchants, with Serve handling shorter trips to West Hollywood and Motional traveling out to Santa Monica, hungry and hollow for all the things you took away. about the construction space and the role robotics and automation will play in shaping the industry, going forward. Here’s PSP Growth Managing Director Momei Qu: In the long run (five to 10 years), there will be game-changing innovations around new materials, automation techniques and robotics that could fundamentally change how things are built and create a better, safer environment for those in the industry, which will hopefully also help with the labor shortage. I often look out my window at construction sites and think: ‘Humans should not be doing that.’ AMD Last week we discussed how Qualcomm is aggressively pushing into the robotics development space alongside companies like Nvidia. Now , with the announcement of the new Kria KR260 Robotics Starter Kit. Says senior director, Chetan Khona, “Roboticists will now be able to work in their standard development environment on a platform that has all the interfaces and capabilities needed to be up and running in less than an hour. The KR260 Starter Kit is an ideal platform to accelerate robotics innovation and easily take ideas to production at scale.” The system is available now, priced at $349. Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch |
Class buys tech from its own founder’s first edtech company for $210 million | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | , a Zoom-friendly virtual instruction tool, Michael Chasen was the founder of Blackboard, one of the first cloud solutions for education on the market. While Class has some nods toward Chasen’s previous gig — such as the ability to integrate CMS systems right into the classroom tool — today it is announcing a much closer integration. Class tells TechCrunch that it has acquired Collaborate, Blackboard’s virtual class tool for an undisclosed price. An investor close to the deal, however, said the deal closed for $210 million. They also confirmed that Class raised a financing round solely to fund this deal but didn’t share specific terms other than that it was an up round. Class’ last public fundraise was a $105 million round led by SoftBank Vision Fund II at an $804 post-money valuation, so we can assume it’s at least a smidge (or a sizable chunk) higher than that disclosed number. Class’ move comes as the startup market, edtech especially, is battered in the public and private world. The fact that the startup is not just buying startups but is also raising money at a higher valuation stands out more than it would’ve just last year. Chasen declined to confirm these financial details but did say about 50 to 60 people from Collaborate are joining his company. “It’s a full-circle moment and unexpected opportunity to bring the whole family back together,” Chasen said during an interview with TechCrunch. He added later that “certainly this was never the long-term plan” but that it was a great collaboration. Blackboard’s main product it’s most well known for is its learning management system. Collaborate is more like Zoom or Google Meet and traditionally was an add-on offered with LMS contracts. Over 13,000 institutions used the web-based portal around the world. Class, meanwhile, got started during the heart of the pandemic as a more interactive meeting tool with a focus on teaching. The startup, which is nearing unicorn status, boldly bet on solely building atop Zoom, basically integrating into the platform that was already on everyone’s computer. Now, with Collaborate, Class may be entering a new chapter. After the deal closes, Class customers can either use Class’ Zoom client or use Collaborate’s standalone product. That expanded support could be great for accessibility and help de-risk the startup for entirely depending on one platform. That said, Chasen said that Zoom is still the “long-term” play for the company, because its back end works well with his scale goals. Zoom exclusivity aside, Class’ new buy does give it that kind of key partnership it needs to be taken more seriously from risk-averse institutions. Chasen said that the company is already bringing in significant revenue across its 350 clients, and now will be expanding to 1,750 customers with Collaborate. Blackboard got acquired in October 2021 by Anthology, that ended Blackboard’s run as an independent education company. Today’s sale — a startup buying a chunk of a behemoth — kind of feels like a soft landing for Blackboard, but Chasen says it’s “quite the opposite.” Blackboard is making more investments in its LMS tool, Learn, and was thus interested in selling off its virtual classroom tool, he says. |
Twitter will hide false tweets from high-profile accounts during times of crisis | Amanda Silberling | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | In its ongoing effort to combat misinformation about breaking news, Twitter is rolling out a to ensure that it doesn’t amplify falsehoods during times of widespread strife. To determine whether a tweet is misleading, Twitter will require verification from credible, public sources, including conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, open source investigators, journalists and more. If the platform finds that the tweet is misleading, it’ll slap a warning notice on the tweet, turn off likes, retweets and shares, and link to more details about the policy. These tweets will also stop surfacing on the home page, search or explore. Notably, Twitter will “preserve this content for accountability purposes,” so it will remain online. Users will just have to click through the warning to view the tweet. In the past, some warnings about have simply been notices that appear in line beneath the tweet, rather than covering it up entirely. Twitter Twitter says it will prioritize adding warning notices to viral tweets or posts from high-profile accounts, which may include verified users, state-affiliated media and government accounts. This strategy makes a lot of sense, since a tweet from a prominent figure is more likely to go viral than a tweet from an ordinary person with 50 followers — but it’s a wonder that more platforms haven’t taken this approach already. Some examples of tweets that might be flagged under this policy include false on-the-ground event reporting, misleading allegations of war crimes, atrocities, or use of weapons and misinformation about international community response, sanctions, defensive operations and more. Personal anecdotes don’t fall under the policy, nor do people’s strong opinions, commentary or satire. Tweets that call attention to a false claim in order to refute it are allowed, too. Twitter began working on a crisis misinformation framework last year alongside human rights organizations, it says. This policy may come into effect under circumstances like public health emergencies or natural disasters, but to start, the platform will use these tactics to mitigate misinformation about international armed conflict — particularly, the ongoing . Most social networks have with amid the war in Ukraine, and Twitter is . In one circumstance, Twitter made the decision to remove the Russian Embassy’s false claim that a pregnant bombing victim in Ukraine was a crisis actor. Twitter also that spread a false conspiracy theory that the U.S. holds biological weapons in Ukraine. It seems like there’s a fine line between what kind of content would be taken down entirely or what posts would result in a deletion or ban. This policy might have applied to the Russian Embassy’s misleading tweet, for example, but at what point is an account so violative that it earns a ban? Our approach to mitigating the effects of harmful misinformation continues to move beyond the leave-up/take-down binary of moderation. We’ve seen that not amplifying harmful content can reduce its spread by 30-50%. We’ll continue to invest in these interventions going forward. — Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) “Content moderation is more than just leaving up or taking down content,” Twitter’s head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth in a blog post. “We’ve found that not amplifying or recommending certain content, adding context through labels, and in severe cases, disabling engagement with the Tweets, are effective ways to mitigate harm, while still preserving speech and records of critical global events.” Roth added in a thread that Twitter found that not amplifying this content can reduce its spread by 30% to 50%. But depending on whether Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to buy Twitter , these policies may not be around for long. Musk believes that content moderation should mirror the rules of the state, AKA, Twitter’s community guidelines basically just with no added nuance. While that may be appealing to the kinds of people who are never on the receiving end of hateful messages, that approach could , including efforts like this that halt the spread of harmful misinformation. Even so, these policies are never 100% effective, and much content that violates guidelines escapes detection anyway. This week, we encountered of the Buffalo shooter’s terrorist attack on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, which were left online for days without removal. One video of the gruesome shooting, which we sent to Twitter directly, still remains online. So while these policies might be well intentioned, they can only function as effectively as they’re enforced. |
North American and European insurtechs are recalibrating after a blockbuster 2021 | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | a year makes. In April 2021, TechCrunch published a venture capitalist’s take that “ .” At the time, the perspective made some sense. After all, just last June, this column explored the rapid-fire fundraising in the insurance technology startup market, declaring that “ .” At the time, WeFox had recently a $650 million round, putting big points on the board for European insurtech. Since then, we’ve seen the technology market correct and public-market investors spit up the insurtech IPOs from late 2020 and early 2021, essentially repricing the value of if we deduct cash from their market caps. The change in sentiment led The Exchange to ask in February and . Since then, tech stocks, including the most recent insurtech IPOs, have continued to correct, bleeding value across the Nasdaq and NYSE. Now, roughly a year past when it seemed a period of hyperactivity was going to send a host of European insurtechs to the public markets, we’re examining just how different the market is. With venture capital data collected for TechCrunch by and notes from active insurtech venture capitalist of , we now know a lot more. While the 2022 data tells a stark story, the rest of Q2 could prove pivotal for insurtech this year. Let’s explore insurtech activity in both North America and Europe, compare recent results and look at what could lie ahead. The optimism around insurtech outcomes last year fits neatly with the data that we can now see with the benefit of hindsight. In North America, PitchBook reports that insurtech venture capital activity rose to $2.21 billion across 83 rounds in the second quarter from $1.67 billion across 78 rounds in Q1 2021. It peaked in Q3 2021 with $2.51 billion invested in 66 deals before falling to $1.80 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 and to $1.52 billion in the first quarter of 2022. The number of deals also slipped to just 54 in the first quarter of 2022 from 67 in Q4 2021. Insurtech’s story in Europe has been a little different. Investment has been largely flat from Q1 2021 through the first quarter of 2022, per PitchBook, with one exception: the second quarter of last year. Apart from Q2 2021, European insurtech investments mostly floated between $450 million and $550 million from the start of last year through the first quarter of 2022. In Q2 2021, however, some $1.76 billion was invested across 57 rounds, setting a both deal and dollar peak for the recent past. (More shortly on why Q2 2021 is key to understanding insurtech’s future in Europe.) |
Netflix continues accessibility push with badges for audio and subtitle descriptions | Devin Coldewey | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Netflix is expanding its audio descriptions, subtitles and dubbing in dozens of languages, doubling down on an effort that has been both helpful and successful. Shows will now also feature badges so that users can easily see whether those options are available without drilling down into the options. I chatted with Netflix’s director of accessibility, Heather Dowdy, about the company’s efforts to make its content more accessible. “This work started long ago and will continue on. The impact is we’re more able to see just how many fans we have with disabilities,” she said, noting the company relies on member feedback to guide new features and content. “In the U.S. alone we have at least 500,000 hours of ‘Lucifer’ watched with audio descriptions. And over 40% of our members watch content with subtitles on — that’s more than just our members with disabilities — [so] we can extend these benefits to all our members.” Dowdy, , said building these features makes sense for the business — but also, “It gives me a good feeling. It’s what drives me. I’m a CODA and I’ve seen technology evolve and seen how people are using it,” she said. “It’s definitely a collaboration with the disability community in terms of how it drives us on what to prioritize.” The new badges are a small concession like that — reflecting a UI obstacle that many experienced where you had to start watching a show in order to turn on subtitles and search for audio descriptions and so on. Now there are icons, as you see in the image at top. The volume of content is also increasing, with over 11,000 hours of audio description available now in more than 30 languages. Originally shows only had subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) and other extra info available only in their own language, but the localization teams are working on expanding those so a deaf person in Poland can watch a Mexican blockbuster with Polish SDH. Dowdy noted that she is especially proud of the “intentionality” of the scene descriptions Netflix is making, beyond simple narration of locations and objects. “I recommend you turn it on on ‘Bridgerton’ … it’s very steamy,” she said. “At the end of the day we know we’ve set the bar in terms of quality, so whatever we consider going forward it’s in light of making sure we continue to deliver on that quality,” she added. While the company is ( ) after the pandemic boom in streaming services, it has indeed led from early days on some accessibility fronts and that shows no sign of slowing. As part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day Netflix has also collected some 50 shows and films from its catalog that feature people with disabilities and will be hosting accessible screenings across the country. |
A blockchain billionaire’s big bet | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Hello and welcome back to the podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious. Although we’re in a crypto market pullback, (SBF) managed to scrounge up over $600 million to buy 7.6% of trading platform Robinhood. Anita and Lucas talked about why the investment made financial sense for SBF even in this market, and what he might be scheming up for the company now that he has voting rights. Robinhood has had a rough first half of the year and has launched a bunch of new products in a push to attract users to stick it out through a bear market. One of those products is a non-custodial crypto wallet, which CEO Vlad Tenev at the Permissionless conference in Florida, so we took some time to go over what a non-custodial wallet actually is, what types of users tend to like it and how Robinhood’s offering stacks up against competitors’ like Coinbase. Speaking of, Coinbase said this week that it would be slowing its hiring plans because of the crypto market crash, so we talked about what that means for companies and job seekers. We also gave listeners an update on the latest drama surrounding the disgraced UST — the stablecoin that (kind of) started it all. Our guest this week was Mercedes Bent, a consumer and crypto investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners who helped us unpack the loaded term that is the “metaverse” and why she thinks it’s already here. We also talked about what crypto companies need to do to appeal to consumers and build out their user experience at this early stage of development. Mercedes shared some of the long-term potential she’s seeing in consumer-focused web3 products such as video games. |
TikTok is gearing up for games, including interactive minigames for TikTok LIVE | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | TikTok is already one of the social media platforms, where it’s even on watch time in select markets and sports . Now, the company is looking to expand the range of activities its users can do when they tire of flipping through short videos. A report from today indicates the company is further investing in HTML5 games and has already begun tests. But we understand there may be more to TikTok’s gaming strategy than web-based gaming. It appears TikTok is also working on a LIVE mobile gaming feature that would allow creators to better engage fans while livestreaming. Reuters said TikTok planned to draw on parent company ByteDance’s suite of games, beginning with minigames that have simple mechanisms and a shorter playing time. It claimed tests had begun in Vietnam. But TikTok told TechCrunch that was inaccurate, saying that Vietnam gaming testing is not something it’s currently doing. The social video app’s move into HTML5 gaming was already known, as TikTok had previously announced its plans alongside its Zynga partnership last year. The two companies had teamed up to launch the HTML5 game Disco Loco 3D exclusively on TikTok. And at the time, TikTok confirmed it was with other game makers for similar deals, telegraphing a larger gaming expansion was still to come. TikTok says it doesn’t have any new partners to name on this front as of now. Zynga Ahead of the Zynga deal, TikTok had also already launched its own game, Garden of Good, built in partnership with nonprofit Feeding America and focused on charitable fundraising. This one felt more like an experiment to see if TikTok users would play an in-app game. While still a smaller effort today, gaming could grow to become a significant monetization tool for TikTok, if the games end up being ad-supported or later add paid components, like in-app purchases. In addition to its previously announced efforts to delve into HTML5 games, TechCrunch has also learned TikTok is looking to explore LIVE games in a separate effort. According to an investigation by , based in Tel Aviv, TikTok is working to add minigames to LIVE videos in its app to enhance the livestreaming experience between creators and their fans. One LIVE game Watchful uncovered is called Draw & Guess, which is designed specifically to encourage interaction between creators and viewers. In this Pictionary-like game, players are given words that they then draw on the screen, and viewers try to guess what they’re drawing. The correct guesses are shown on the screen. Watchful also noted the mobile gaming feature may allow screen-sharing, so creators could share their screen with viewers in real time, including their camera, audio, notifications and other alerts. Their games could be shown in either landscape mode or portrait mode, the firm said. While today, a handful of reverse engineers publicly share details of unannounced, still-in-development features they find in popular consumer apps, Watchful has productized this type of investigation and enhanced it with technology. The company uses a combination of computer vision and flow analysis to identify and emulate app changes. Its differential analysis engine compares application versions using real user data and proprietary computer vision algorithms, it says. The studies are also backed by the firm’s mobile device labs deployed around the world. Reached for comment, TikTok did not have anything more to share about the LIVE gaming efforts but told us it was a totally unrelated development from the HTML5 games Reuters had described. Games aren’t the only way TikTok is looking to enhance the TikTok LIVE Platform. Watchful also flagged another in-development feature that feels like a cross between a game and a virtual gifting experience. It allows users to add a “Treasure Box” to LIVE videos which doles out coins after a timer is up to a random set of users. TikTok app image via Watchful It found TikTok was working on the in-app shopping experience, TikTok Shop, which is offered today in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, mainland China, Hong Kong and the U.K. Here, TikTok appears to be looking at adding a shopping bag icon to LIVE shopping videos which, when clicked, opens up a window where viewers can browse through available products with the option to click to add them to a cart for immediate purchase. TikTok app image via Watchful TikTok declined to comment on these other LIVE platform plans. |
WhatsApp ramps up revenue with global launch of Cloud API and soon, a paid tier for its Business App | Sarah Perez | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | WhatsApp is continuing its push into the business market with today’s news it’s launching the WhatsApp Cloud API to all businesses worldwide. last November, the new developer tool is a cloud-based version of the WhatsApp Business API — WhatsApp’s — but hosted on parent company Meta’s infrastructure. The company had been building out its Business API platform over the past several years as one of the key ways the otherwise free messaging app would make money. Businesses pay WhatsApp on a per-message basis, with rates that vary based on the region and number of messages sent. As of late last year, tens of thousands of businesses were set up on the non-cloud-based version of the Business API including brands like Vodafone, Coppel, Sears Mexico, BMW, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Itau Brazil, iFood, Bank Mandiri and others. This on-premise version of the API is free to use. The cloud-based version, however, aims to attract a market of smaller businesses and reduces the integration time from weeks to only minutes, the company had said. It is also free. Businesses integrate the API with their back-end systems, where WhatsApp communication is usually just one part of their messaging and communication strategy. They may also want to direct their communications to SMS, other messaging apps, emails and more. Typically, businesses would work with a solutions provider like Zendeks or Twilio to help facilitate these integrations. Providers during the cloud API beta tests had included Zendesk in the U.S., Take in Brazil and MessageBird in the E.U. During Meta’s messaging-focused today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the global, public availability of the cloud-based platform, now called the WhatsApp Cloud API. “The best business experiences meet people where they are. Already more than 1 billion users connect with a business account across our messaging services every week. They’re reaching out for help, to find products and services, and to buy anything from big-ticket items to everyday goods. And today, I am excited to announce that we’re opening WhatsApp to any business of any size around the world with WhatsApp Cloud API,” he said. He said the company believes the new API will help businesses, both big and small, be able to connect with more people. In addition to helping businesses and developers get set up faster than with the on-premise version, Meta says the Cloud API will help partners to eliminate costly server expenses and help them provide customers with quick access to new features as they arrive. Some businesses may choose to forgo the API and use the dedicated WhatsApp Business app instead. Launched in 2018, the WhatsApp Business App is aimed at smaller businesses that want to establish an official presence on WhatsApp’s service and connect with customers. It provides a set of features that wouldn’t be available to users of the free WhatsApp messaging app, like support automated quick replies, greeting messages, FAQs, away messaging, statistics and more. Today, Meta is also introducing new power features for its WhatsApp Business app that will be offered for a fee — like the ability to manage chats across up to 10 devices. The company will also provide new customizable WhatsApp click-to-chat links that help businesses attract customers across their online presence, including of course, Meta’s other applications like Facebook and Instagram. These will be a part of a forthcoming Premium service for WhatsApp Business app users. Further details, including pricing, will be announced at a later date. |
Announcing the early-stage startups exhibiting at TC Sessions: Climate 2022 | Lauren Simonds | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | Examining the role that technology and startups play in fighting climate change is the raison d’être for (featuring the Extreme Tech Challenge 2022 Global Finals), which takes place on June 14 at UC Berkeley (with an online day June 16). , and you’ll save $200. Prices go up at the door. One of our favorite aspects of this event takes place on the exhibition floor. That’s where you’ll meet, connect — and maybe even find opportunities to collaborate — with early-stage startups showcasing a wide range of climate tech solutions. Based on the companies listed below, it promises to be an impressive display of innovative products and solutions designed to help humanity mitigate and adapt to climate change. And don’t miss the interviews, presentations and breakouts with the leading minds and makers who are dedicated to creating or investing in saving our planet and its inhabitants. Check out and plan your strategy. Alrighty then and without further ado, here are the early-stage climate tech startups exhibiting at TC Sessions: Climate 2022. : Algeon Materials is on a mission to fight climate change and reduce plastic pollution by creating sustainable and biodegradable plastic alternatives from kelp. : SaaS for energy optimization in the real estate sector. Through precise and proactive management of individual HVAC (heating, ventilation, A/C) devices at a granular level, our solution instantly delivers up to 40% reduction in utilities consumption and carbon footprint. We operate a gain-share model that requires no capital expenditure and no upfront payments from our customers. : Atmo builds AI-based climate computers for governments and enterprises. : ChargeNet democratizes electric vehicle access, makes charging clean and convenient, prevents greenhouse gas emissions and transforms restaurant parking lots into profit centers. : The multisignature, notarization, blockchain and identity suite that streamlines the life cycle of signing documents with legal and technological compliance. : A carbon-removal company that converts crop waste into regenerative agricultural inputs and carbon sequestration solutions. The first plant is up and running in Merced, California. : A polymeric hydrogen separation membrane for H2 separation from CO and other harsh gasses. Powers gray/blue/green hydrogen use cases and billions of dollars in industrial products. : Planetary-scale ecological regeneration. : Climate change affects pest impact on crops. FarmSense provides real-time autonomous pest monitoring that reduces labor and unnecessary broad-spectrum pesticide sprays. : Innovates in disruptive, decarbonizing material technologies aimed at sustainable living, for the construction tech and energy storage sectors. : NovoNutrients will capture hundreds of megatons of carbon and feed the world. We are the biotech company that’s cleanly turning hydrogen and industrial carbon dioxide emissions into microbial, alternative protein ingredients. : Cell-cultured premium meat. Working with butchers and chefs, our proprietary tech lets them develop four different heritage meats 18 times faster and 10 times cheaper than competitors. : Actionable data insights to help green infrastructure developers, operators and investors to build more projects. : Creates sustainable medication packaging for the pharmaceutical industry. : Superior substitute to roof-top solar, capable of scaling residential and business solar so fast that utility companies and governments are pressed to accelerate their own green footprint, mitigating climate change. : Values-based financial services platform. : A novel plastic material — with all the functionality and benefits of traditional plastic — that completely dissolves in water at ambient temperatures. After a predetermined time delay, it bio-degrades to natural and eco-friendly components with no microplastic residue. : Sphere makes it easy for employers to offer authentic climate-friendly investment options in their 401(k) retirement plans. : Capturing carbon, 100% driven with renewable solar energy; curating forests; cleaning water; deserts. : To respond to urgent causes, advance essential solutions and invest for a flourishing future, we will consider giving away a lot [of money] to bold and effective organizations. takes place at UC Berkley’s Zellerbach Auditorium in Berkeley on June 14 with an online event on June 16. Don’t miss your opportunity to meet, connect and collaborate with some of the leading early-stage climate tech startups. and save $200. . |
Report: Substack, the highly hyped newsletter platform, has ditched plans for a Series C | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | , the five-year-old newsletter platform that has aggressively positioned itself as a disruptive force in media, has abandoned efforts to raise a Series C round, The New York Times is . According to its sources, Substack held discussions with potential investors in recent months about raising $75 million to $100 million at a valuation of between $750 million and $1 billion. Substack, based in San Francisco, was most recently valued at after closing a $65 million Series B round in March of last year led by earlier investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). It had earlier raised a $15.3 million Series A round led by a16z in 2019. Substack originally launched as a way to turn newsletters into a paid subscription business, inviting anyone with an interest to hop on the platform and start writing for however much they want to charge their readers. Writers were — and still are — encouraged to write for free; those who charge a subscription pay 10% of what they collect to Substack, with Stripe, its payment processor, collecting another 3%. The company later added support for podcasts and, , it rolled out its own podcast player, along with new moderation tools, leaderboard categories and more. As CEO Chris Best told TechCrunch several years ago, Substack’s goal has always been to allow its users to create their own “ .” While that ambition has made Substack a point of fascination for traditional media companies — in addition to the Times, Substack has attracted extensive coverage in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and many others over the years — investors may be wondering whether the business is capable of generating meaningful revenue. Substack late last year that the top 10 writers on the platform collectively generate $20 million in annual revenue. According to the Times, Substack separately told investors that it saw revenue of just $9 million last year. (It told the Times directly in a story last month that it has of paid newsletters now on the platform.) That’s not a lot of revenue for a company boasting a $650 million valuation. Substack also faces churn, with some writers leaving the platform owing to Substack’s hands-off content moderation policy or for competing platforms that take a smaller cut. Other writers discover the economics aren’t compelling or simply burn out. The Times notes that Substack is one of many outfits right now facing new headwinds as investors snap their checkbooks shut amid rising interest rates that have severely dented tech stocks and slowed growth in the U.S. and global economies. Still, if Substack’s broader fortunes should change, it would be the second high-flying consumer company in a16z’s recent portfolio to have truly captured the public’s imagination, then lost momentum. Like Substack, the audio-based social network Clubhouse has gathered the bulk of its funding across . Like Substack, Clubhouse also dominated the headlines during the pandemic, thanks in part to appearances on the platform by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and a16z’s high-powered partners themselves. Still, with the worst of COVID seemingly past and those who were once drawn to the service back to socializing in person, Clubhouse has reportedly seen sign-ups . Andrew Chen, a general partner focused on consumer tech for a16z, led both deals. He shared his vision for both companies with TechCrunch , saying that each will “light up, vertical by vertical” different categories, from cooking to graphic novels, making them “more powerful and more compelling to a wider number of people.” Time will tell. Substack has raised $86 million over three rounds of funding, according to PitchBook. In addition to a16z, it is backed by Fifty Years, Y Combinator and entrepreneur Audrey Gelman, who co-founded the co-working startup The Wing. Substack declined to comment when reached earlier this afternoon. In the meantime, a spokesperson for the company told The New York Times that the change in the company’s fundraising strategy does not impact its hiring plans.”My comment is ,” she told the outlet. |
FlexID gets Algorand funding to offer self-sovereign IDs to Africa’s unbanked | Tage Kene-Okafor | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | Much of the world’s attention around blockchain is on the highs and lows of cryptocurrency values. Startups like remind us that distributed ledger technology has the potential to play other roles, including without the need for a centralized authority. One of the startups working toward this vision is Zimbabwe’s FlexID, which is building a blockchain-based identity system for those excluded from the banking system due to their lack of identity documents. FlexID’s idea has , a blockchain protocol created by Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Micali. The two parties didn’t disclose the size of the investment. African countries have made great strides in promoting financial inclusion over the past decade, but it’s still early days. More than 60% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa are unbanked, according to World Bank estimates for 2021. Several years ago the numbers were starker. In Zimbabwe, for instance, only 30% of the adult population had access to any financial services as of 2014. The number of bank accounts in the country stood at 1.5 million in 2016. There’s a general conception that increasing access to financial services in a country leads to improvement in people’s economic welfare. And that’s what the Zimbabwean government sought to accomplish when it introduced a . The effort achieved some success: The percentage of the Zimbabwean adult population with access to financial services increased to 55% while the number of bank accounts . However, there’s still plenty of work to be done in this regard. When people have little or no confidence in the financial system, or they don’t know certain financial services that meet their needs exist or they don’t have formal identification documents to seek these services, achieving optimal financial inclusion can prove herculean. These are issues that affect Africa and emerging markets, not just Zimbabwe. FlexID’s self-sovereign identity (SSI) platform takes a decentralized approach and gives users control over their personal information — not common in Africa, where other upstarts provide centralized solutions, such as , YC-backed and . With funding from Algorand, FlexID aims to make its decentralized identity network available in emerging markets where over one billion people are estimated to lack formal identification, the startup said in an . Zimbabwean serial entrepreneur founded FlexID in 2018 out of his frustration with the banking system. FlexID is giving users a blockchain wallet that stores their verificable credentials. Verification is done on-chain through Algorand, which bills itself as a solution to the of security, scalability and decentralization. FlexID will also be integrating with other Algorand decentralized apps (dApps). FlexID’s investment from Algorand comes at a time when African blockchain startups are pulling in huge sums from investors. said over 40 African blockchain startups raised a total of $127 million in 2021. This year has already seen some eye-popping investments, such as Mara’s from investors like crypto exchange giants Coinbase and FTX. Though FlexID provides service in the identity space, the overarching sector its solution and most blockchain platforms fall under is fintech. Companies like FlexID are reducing people’s dependency on cash and remittance fees via crypto, lowering barriers to setting up an account via crypto wallets, and addressing the continent’s documentation challenge. |
After buying Bungie, Sony goes all in on live service games | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | After buying Bungie earlier this year, Sony is moving fast to integrate the company’s expertise into its broader vision. In an Thursday, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan outlined a near future for the company that focuses heavily on continually updated online games inspired by Destiny, Bungie’s long-running hit. Sony expects to spend 49% of its PlayStation Studios development budget on live service games by the end of the year. By 2025, Sony plans to bump that to 55%, up from just 12% in 2019. By the end of 2025, Sony projects that it will have 12 different live service games of its own, up from just one now. The company declined to answer questions from TechCrunch about which of its franchises might get the live service treatment, but the presentation cited God of War, Horizon Forbidden West, Spider-Man, The Last of Us and Uncharted in a list of its noteworthy single-player first-party titles. Sony-owned studio Naughty Dog has been , so a new game could indeed emerge out of The Last of Us or Uncharted’s virtual worlds. Bungie is best known for creating the , though most recently the studio has become synonymous with Destiny, a fresh sci-fi series the company developed after . Like Halo, Destiny is a futuristic first-person shooter with precise, satisfying mechanics. But Destiny’s real appeal is Bungie’s impressively seamless online multiplayer experience that brings players into central hubs where they can explore and run missions together, making it more akin to World of Warcraft than a traditional FPS like Call of Duty. Three years after splitting with Microsoft, Bungie signed onto a 10-year partnership with Activision. The company eventually split with Activision, too, paving the way for Sony to snap it up earlier this year for $3.6 billion. Bungie will remain a standalone game studio on the other side of the deal, à la Naughty Dog. Just after the Bungie acquisition was made public, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki confirmed the company’s plan to weave Bungie’s live game service know-how into its broader gaming offerings. “The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space,” Totoki said. In bringing Bungie under its wing, Sony is buying a lot of knowledge about how to build online multiplayer games that expand over time, keeping players coming back for more. This kind of experience, usually called a “live service game,” explains how Fortnite is still one of the world’s most popular games years after it first made headlines for luring casual gamers and hardcore streamers alike into its colorful, chaotic world. It’s also an extremely lucrative business model. Live service games generally have an in-game storefront that invites dedicated players to buy digital goods like character skins and clothing. Those assets cycle in and out, creating scarcity and nudging players to spend real cash to collect them. In a given content season, players in games like Destiny 2 and Fortnite can pay to earn a special set of these cosmetic virtual goods with a Some live service games, like Final Fantasy XIV, require players to pay for a monthly subscription to access the most recent content, while others are free to play. Happily, these days, most free-to-play games no longer require a paid subscription through Microsoft or Sony’s own premium subscription services. Live service games add expansion content over time, and players often pay to access the new stuff, even while the core game remains mostly the same. For game makers, the real allure is maintaining a game that can live and grow over time, raking in revenue for years rather than burning bright and fizzling out a few months postlaunch. |
Canon takes another stab at the mirrorless market, with R7 and R10 | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | Camera giant Canon has had an impressive SLR camera lineup since the mid-’70s and has made a successful transition from film-based SLR cameras to the digital realm. The company has been less successful in the mirrorless space but recently picked up the sales numbers. The company claims that it took the top spot for market share for mirrorless cameras in Q1 this year. It just launched two new cameras — both with APS-C imaging sensors — that the company hopes will solidify its position in the market. The R10 packs 24 million pixels into its large APS-C sized imaging sensor, while the R7 ups that number to 32 million. Both cameras can shoot at an impressive 15 frames per second running on the mechanical shutters and include optical imaging stabilization into its diminutive bodies. The R7 can shoot 4K video at up to 60 frames per second, while both cameras can shoot at 30p and 24p as well. Shooting with electronic shutter only, the R7 can shoot 30 frames per second worth of stills — very impressive indeed. It opens up a number of new workflows that make it possible to capture every critical moment. EOS R7 and EOS R10 provide enhanced video functions and accessories, such as the new multifunction shoe with EOS R7, while still maintaining ease of use. With a robust mirrorless system at their core, these cameras provide users with a powerful telephoto reach through both still images and video, by virtue of the 1.6x crop factor that comes with APS-C sensor cameras. Alongside the camera bodies, Canon is releasing a couple of new RF-S lenses. With names that really roll off the tongue (the RF-S18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM and RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM), these will be the standard zoom lenses for the EOS R7 and EOS R10 cameras. The RF-S 18-45mm provides an 18-45 mm focal length, but users will experience a field of view equivalent to 29-72 mm lens coverage on a full-frame camera. The RF-S18-150mm lens is a longer-range standard zoom, equivalent to 29-240 mm lens coverage on a full frame. While ideal for the new EOS R10 and EOS R7 APS-C sized sensor bodies, these lenses can be used for any R-series camera. The Canon EOS R10 camera body will be available for $979, and the Canon EOS R7 camera body will be available for $1,499. The lenses are $499 for the 18-150 mm and $299 for the 18-45 mm. All products will be available in late 2022. |
Foursquare founder banks funding for mystery 3D social network startup | Lucas Matney | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | The excitement around web3 and the metaverse have pulled plenty of entrepreneurs who defined the first generation of native mobile apps to begin questioning what’s next. Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley is on the co-founding team of a new startup called , alongside Matt Miesnieks, who sold his most recent startup 6D.ai to Niantic for an undisclosed sum, as well as designer John Gaeta, who best known for his work on the Matrix Trilogy. The trio say they have banked $4 million in early funding led by DCVC for their project. Other backers include Eniac Ventures, Anorak and Matthew Ball. “The big opportunity in the early days of Foursquare was really like, ‘Okay, let’s make some software that changes the way that people use physical space,’ and the way that we executed that is we tried to turn life into a game, we tried to turn spaces into a game, we tried to make it easier to meet up with people, and a lot of that was successful. But that was like 13 or 14 years ago, and technology has changed,” Crowley tells TechCrunch. “I think that the core idea that software can change the way that people interact with the world is still meaningful and unsolved in many ways, and that’s what keeps drawing me back to the challenge.” The founding team doesn’t have an awful lot to say about what exactly they’re building, except that it’s a “social layer” for consumers based around interacting with virtual spaces that capture the “spirit” of real-life geographies and cities. The “mirror-world” platform will integrate elements of web3, though the team says they hope to build without succumbing to the “rampant speculation” that many associate with crypto. CEO Miesnieks says the team is largely interested in building out a network that exists only on the web and mobile web, potentially sidestepping app stores and their associated fees, but that he’s not looking to build out another augmented reality startup or compete with mapping players like Niantic or Snap. “We think that if you’re going to build something for consumers, you need to build on technology that’s widely available today,” Miesnieks says. Just under a year ago, Crowley stepped down from his full-time role at Foursquare after more than a decade at the company. He tells TechCrunch that starting his new company has been the product of him and his co-founders asking themselves questions about what role new technology can play in bringing people closer together. “What are the things that we want to see exist in the world? What are experiences that are only now recently possible because of what’s changed in how people use their phones or other devices? It has always seemed like there’s an opportunity to do more, to bring the digital and real world together in an interesting way,” Crowley says. |
Meta and Google’s Gradient back LatAm startup OlaClick | Manish Singh | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | More than 80% of food delivery orders in Latin America are still made over phone calls and settled with cash. OlaClick, a young startup that is helping these restaurants sell online and collect money digitally, announced on Thursday it has received backing from scores of investors, including Gradient, Meta and Delivery Hero. Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund, led OlaClick’s $4.4 million seed financing round. Meta, Delivery Hero, Tribe Capital, Caffeinated Capital and Graph Ventures also participated in the round. enables restaurants to facilitate direct-to-consumer e-commerce by providing them with point of sale (POS) and customer management (CRM) services and the ability to digitize menus. Customers are then able to interact with these restaurants on WhatsApp and Instagram and place their orders, explained José Rico, co-founder of OlaClick, in an interview with TechCrunch. “We are trying to solve a D2C problem in Latin America. There’s a huge space for restaurants in this region to sell directly to consumers,” he said. “We also have an administration panel that allows restaurants to offer discounts and run campaigns. And WhatsApp is the app we are using to reach consumers.” As is the case in many emerging markets such as India, WhatsApp is widely popular in the Latin American region. “Everything happens on WhatsApp here,” said Rico, on a WhatsApp call. “In Brazil, Instagram is very popular, too, so many restaurants are using Instagram as a channel with us,” he said. Rico co-founded OlaClick with three other entrepreneurs in 2020, all of whom are European immigrants (and pictured above). He said they all moved to, and have been living in Latin America, for over 10 years now and this startup is their attempt to give back to the region and create jobs for many. “With OlaClick’s hassle-free technology, any restaurant can instantly open a digital storefront and leverage social media to sell their products online. This opens up a new revenue stream for businesses across Latin America and represents a huge opportunity for OlaClick,” said Zachary Bratun-Glennon, partner at Gradient Ventures, in a statement. OlaClick, which also counts Y Combinator among its backers, today has a presence in more than 20 nations, but identifies Brazil, Mexico and Colombia as their core markets. Its platform is processing over 1 million orders each month from more than 45,000 restaurants. Rico said the startup will deploy the fresh funds to expand its engineering and product team and broaden the offerings to restaurant partners. OlaClick currently allows restaurants to either use their own logistics to make the deliveries or customers pick them up from the eatery. The startup plans to partner with logistics startups to offer delivery services to restaurants. OlaClick — which last year processed $35 million in commission-free orders, a figure it hopes to scale to $200 million this year — is also Meta’s maiden startup investment in Latin America. “We’re thrilled to support OlaClick’s passionate and talented team as they help restaurants of all sizes across Latin America reach their customers directly, and optimize orders, on WhatsApp,” said Sunita Parasuraman, head of New Product Experimentation Investments at Meta, in a statement. |
Daily Crunch: In one of the largest tech deals ever struck, Broadcom will buy VMware for $61B | Christine Hall | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | It’s Thursday, May 26, 2022, and we have a busy day of news on the site today. Here are the gems sparkling in the spotlight of our journalistic gaze. For later in the year, we’re pretty excited about this panel at TechCrunch Disrupt, when you’re not at one of the major tech hubs. We’re , so you can get your ticket and bring a friend this weekend! — and What is a reporter to do when they get a pitch from a company that had its name “stolen” by Apple, but it turns out the company failed to register a trademark because they thought it would be pointless? Well, if that reporter is , he to see what other startups can learn from the experience. Spoiler: It boils down to “just get a damn trademark, you fools.” We keep being surprised whenever another company raises money to do asteroid mining, but reports that Y Combinator alum AstroForge thinks it has a fresh take on the trope, . And a smattering of other goodies for you to snack on this afternoon. ! / Getty Images Product managers transform customer needs and business requirements into services and features that make money, but it’s a limited role. Even though PMs interact with customers and internal stakeholders from sales, marketing and engineering, they’re rarely empowered to implement best practices, select tools or manage operational aspects of the product pipeline. That’s changing as more companies carve out roles for product operations, writes Todd Olson, co-founder and CEO of software platform Pendo. “It’s similar to how sales and marketing ops help their departments,” he says, and “it’s a critical function for any company that wants to make its product the ‘center of the wheel.’” There was a lot of “big tech news” today, so let’s jump in and start with a little regulatory and government intervention. so, dare we say, we can understand it. , U.K. officials are taking a look under the hood to determine Google’s role in some potential antitrust abuses around adtech. Meanwhile, with U.S. regulators over “allegations that the social media company misrepresented the ‘security and privacy’ of user data over several years.” Continuing with the Twitter train for a moment, yesterday we brought you the news that , AND news that the when Elon Musk said he still has plans to buy Twitter and finance more of the deal himself. Today, and are suing him over what they perceive as manipulation of the stock price in his favor. We’ll keep on this one. In vroom, vroom news, from the likes of Apple, Nvidia and Tesla to continue developing its autonomous technology. of becoming a commercial aerial ridesharing service after receiving certification from the FAA to operate a commercial air-taxi operation. Do you give up, or are you thirsty for more? |
A look at the nine teams that just presented at Pear’s latest demo day | Connie Loizos | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | TechCrunch has been covering the demo days of the seed-stage venture firm since . (There we are in the front row in , surrounded by investors, typing away.) A few things have remained true since that time. There are typically 10 or so companies that present and not many more. A lot of top firms show up, including from NEA, Lux Capital and Sequoia Capital. And the energy in the room reflects that of Pear’s founders, Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson, who year after year project the cheery demeanor of people eager to win you over. (They’re winning over investors, certainly; as we last Friday, Pear appears close to raising its biggest fund ever.) Notably, the terms that Pear offers startups haven’t changed much over the years, either. In exchange for 14 weeks of help with everything from product-market fit to the go-to-market strategy a team should employ, the startups in Pear’s accelerator program give Pear the right to invest from For the rest of you who missed Pear’s demo day this year, which took place last week in person at the outfit’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, California (Pear has taken over a former beer garden), herewith are the nine teams that presented.
A marketplace to book short-term space rentals for corporate events, meetings and productions
(CEO), (CTO)
2020
Barcelona, Spain
Spathios says it’s a marketplace to book short-term venues and spaces. Its platform aims to enable businesses to host meetings and events in some of the world’s most unique venues. It also says it allows multiple stakeholders to manage bookings, collaborate across teams and simplify their accounting. The market for corporate events is an estimated $600 billion, but most of the spend is currently through hotels and conference centers; Spathios thinks it can bring the untapped supply of unique venues like museums, historic locations and even palaces online for the first time. Already, it says, it has worked with large customers like Conde Nast, Sony Music and Google.
Software platform powering independent Medicare agents
(CEO), (CTO)
2021
San Francisco
FairStreet aims to help seniors enroll in the right health insurance by providing the software platform that independent Medicare agents can use to run and scale their businesses. Apparently, independent agents enroll 60% of all seniors into Medicare and are the fastest growing segment, and FairStreet is building what it describes as a full-stack software platform to cut their work in half and enable them to scale. As for traction, FairStreet says that in two months’ time, it has acquired 12 experienced Medicare agents, and that it has 90 more on its waitlist. FairStreet earns a recurring commission paid by the insurance company whenever one of their agents enrolls a senior into a Medicare plan.
Embedded payments and financial infrastructure for B2B companies in LatAm
(CEO), (CMO), (CTO)
late 2021
Argentina
Menta says its tech infrastructure enables B2B companies to offer their own payment and financial services to retail merchants in their ecosystems. It says its network offers network effects, too — customers have access to all of the retailers on the platform. The service just launched, but its founders say it’s already live with three customers in Argentina and Mexico and that it has 10 other agreements signed.
Fintech and supply chain software for micro-enterprises in commodity supply chains
(CEO), (CTO)
late 2021
Montreal, Quebec
PemPem is building mobile supply chain management software for micro-enterprises in commodity supply chains. They’ve built a mobile platform that provides full-stack financial and commercial solutions for the 500 million micro-enterprises that produce and trade the world’s commodities at an annual value of $2.7 trillion. With PemPem, micro-enterprises can discover prices, access supply chain financing for inputs, and soon, it says, be able to trade their commodities through PemPem’s marketplace. Already, it says, 5,000 monthly active enterprises have been using PemPem’s price discovery product. Its marketplace is launching this summer.
Membership-based healthcare plans for pets
(CEO)
2020
San Francisco
Snout is building a full coverage health plan for pets to address what it says is a big need in the market for it. According to Snout, there are 200 million pets in the U.S. and 47% of pet owners report having pet-related debt. Only 2% of these pets are insured because pet insurance doesn’t cover routine expenses — only paying out when catastrophic events occur — and while veterinary practices want to help pets and ease the financial burden on pet parents, as relatively small, cash-based businesses, they struggle to defer revenue. Snout’s solution is to provide both capital and software to veterinary practices to make healthcare plans financially feasible for both vets and pets. It’s launching this month and says it already has a waitlist of customers representing $1 million in annual recurring revenue.
Helping software teams build products faster by automating design code
(CEO), (CTO)
2020
San Francisco
Rendition is an AI assistant for building user interfaces from designs. Why does that matter? The team says its product is five times faster than writing code by hand. Since launching last month, Rendition has onboarded five customers and is doing $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue; the plan (naturally) is to capture much more of the $100 billion annual front-end development market by automating the more than 1 billion hours of developer work that goes into UI development every year.
Stablecoin payments infrastructure for web3
(CEO), (CTO)
late 2021
Stanford, California
Supercharge builds stablecoin payments infrastructure for web3, allowing developers and merchants to access the $5 trillion stablecoin transaction market. In fact, it gives developers simple APIs to accept stablecoins in minutes, it says. Supercharge is launching next month in the Binance, Polkadot and Polygon ecosystems; the (immodest? laudable?) goal is to be the base layer that seamlessly brings all of web3 to the mainstream.
A vertical SaaS platform powering SMB trucking companies with workflow automation, smart data and embedded financial solutions
(CEO), (COO)
2019
San Mateo, California
BeyondTrucks is building a vertical SaaS platform for SMB trucking companies to make growing their businesses easier. They’re focused on powering trucking companies with workflow automation, smart data and embedded financial services, helping them build their businesses in a more data-centric way. The company is chasing after what it says is a $1.7 trillion fleet-payments market, and it says it’s seeing traction. Launched in January, the outfit claims to be already serving 45 fleets with 280 trucks.
Virtual neurology clinic for patients suffering from neurologic conditions
Elizabeth Burstein (CEO), Sameer Madan (CTO)
2020
New York
Neura Health is a virtual neurology clinic with a mission to improve the access and quality of neurological care: increase convenience, improve outcomes and lower costs. There is a severe lack of neurologists in the U.S., resulting in wait times of up to six months, says the outfit. Meanwhile, Neura Health’s platform connects patients to neurologists with built-in neurology-specific symptom monitoring and condition-specific diagnostic tests. Patients also receive a mobile app with a dedicated concierge to ensure that all their care needs are met, creating (hopefully) a highly effective patient-provider relationship. The company’s longer-term vision, notably, is to find cures by learning from the experience of every neurology patient. |
Longtime Bitcoiner Dan Held says this ‘crypto winter’ won’t be as harsh as others | Jacquelyn Melinek | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | over its 52-week lows as the cryptocurrency markets continue their bearish posture. But some longtime market participants, like , director of growth marketing at crypto exchange Kraken, aren’t worried. Held got into Bitcoin in 2012, which is about 100 years ago in crypto time (because time moves so quickly but also feels so, long in crypto). “Back in the early era, it was just Bitcoin — there weren’t even [alternative] coins, or there were very, very few,” Held said during a fireside chat with Decrypt editor-in-chief at CoinMarketCap’s conference. Even though there is circulating through the community, Held said the sentiment for this current market cycle is different. While he – and many others – persisted through major market cycles over the years, the narratives have shifted a lot. “It was primarily retail [investors] up until 2019, 2020, when you started to have the institutional players come in,” Held said. “It almost feels unreal to see big institutional folks like JP Morgan talk positively about Bitcoin; that’s just weird to see because back in 2013, we were regarded as lunatics.” Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a big shift in the macro environment of a lot of people going risk-off, and crypto markets have been bucketed into the larger market’s bearishness, Held said. “Crypto right now is being considered risk-on, so bitcoin and other crypto assets are being sold off as people are trying to de-risk.” But while there is fear in crypto markets, there is also fear across traditional and tech equities, too, Held noted. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average are down about and , respectively, for the year to date, MarketWatch showed at the time of publication. Aside from broad indices, there have been a number of individual stocks that have plummeted as well, including Snapchat and Netflix, which have both dropped 68% year to date. Well-known video-calling app Zoom isn’t zooming up the leader board, either, with its stock down 42% year to date. And yet, the conversations around traditional stocks tanking aren’t nearly as aggressive or prominent as the commentary surrounding crypto markets movement. “We certainly see these narratives have been ebb and flow,” Held said, from people being extremely risk-on, levered, having peak FOMO or excitement, to resetting and holding as markets pull back. In the 2018 bear market, almost $700 billion in total market capitalization was wiped out from that year’s peak of about $800 billion, pushing the aggregate value of cryptocurrencies to the lowest point of about $100 billion, according to on CoinMarketCap. While about $500 billion has been flushed out of the value of crypto assets today from the year-ago date, this bearish market is different from the last cycle because there are thousands of players across all of tech wanting to come into the crypto world and build things in the ecosystem, Held said. “We’ve got VC funds raising tens of billions of dollars to go deploy into this system,” Held said. “I don’t think this [crypto] winter is going to be as harsh as the other ones. I think you’ve got a lot of players combined with a lot of funding and they’re going to go find and build products that deliver value.” |
Making room at the cap table: A new plan for promoting diversity in tech | Heather Fernandez | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | that the tech world struggles with diversity. Women, African Americans and Latinos respectively comprise 33%, 8% and 7% of the total tech workforce and just 20%, 5% and 5% of its leadership, despite between diversity and success. As an industry, tech has succeeded in normalizing the topic of workforce diversity, and while the results are slow coming, there is movement, and that’s worth acknowledging. But there are other ways we should be thinking about increasing diversity in tech, and that’s on the cap table. The secret is that it’s not actually hard to do, but it isn’t the norm yet. We did it at my company, and it’s worth demystifying the process so you can do it, too. Before we get into it, it is important to understand something often called “people like me” bias. Human beings unconsciously relate to, and therefore choose to work with, people that look and think like they do. It’s a cognitive bias that is hard-wired into our evolution, and it’s extremely hard to overcome. Investing in female- and minority-led startups will naturally create more diversity in startup cultures because “people like me” will start to reflect the diversity of those companies’ founders. It’s not particularly shocking, then, that according to Solv’s 2021 EEO report, we are 45% female, including roughly 33% of our technical teams. The problem is that “people like me” also affects who gets funded in the first place, not just who gets hired and promoted within a startup. Among venture capital partners, are men, and they are overwhelmingly white. Women represent just 13% of U.S. venture capital partners, and African Americans and Latinos make up just 3% each. Unsurprisingly, while 40% of new startups had female founders, they received just . As it turns out, we don’t just have a diversity problem in tech employment. We have a diversity problem in tech investment as well. What if the key to achieving diversity in the startup world was extending tech investing opportunities to more women and minority investors? Let me spell it out: Making room at the (cap) table for those who typically have not had such access enables wealth creation. And with wealth creation comes the capacity to invest in other companies and founders, or to become entrepreneurs themselves. At the closing of our last financing round, I called a longtime friend, investor and thought partner, Kara Nortman, to celebrate the moment. I was emotionally done with fundraising and ready to get back to building my company, but she was direct and unapologetic: “We’ve talked about cap table diversity for a long time. You have an opportunity to open up some space in this round to women and especially women of color. If you say yes, I’ll help you make it happen.” With her push and inspiration, that’s exactly what we did over 10 days. We set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) focused on female investors. We reached out through emails and text messages to the female angel investors in our network and asked everyone to invite at least one woman of color who is an accredited investor to consider investing in our round. Then we held two Zoom meetings and delivered our pitch, just like we would for any other investor. Looking at this group, I saw the people who actually use our platform, and I knew immediately how powerful this approach could be. To be clear, this was not just a publicity stunt or token gesture of corporate social responsibility: We raised $3.5 million from this group over the course of those 10 days. Sixty percent of the SPV investors were women of color and one-third of them had never made a venture investment before. So you care about cap table diversity and want to make it happen? Good! We’ve already “won some and learned some” on this, so here’s my advice to help you get started: |
null | Alexandra Ames | 2,022 | 5 | 19 | null |
Disney+ releases trailer and premiere date for latest ‘Star Wars’ series ‘Andor,’ starring ‘Rogue One’ rebel hero | Lauren Forristal | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | Disney+ released its first trailer for the upcoming series “Andor,” a prequel to “Rogue One.” It will premiere on the service on August 31 with two episodes to start. In total, the series will have 12 episodes, which was confirmed by Lucasfilm at today’s Star Wars Celebration at the Anaheim Convention Center. Diego Luna will reprise his role as “Rogue One” hero, Cassian Andor. “Star Wars” fans will know that the 2016 film “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is indeed the conclusion of Cassian Andor’s story, set just before the events of the original 1977 “Star Wars.” “Rogue One” grossed more than worldwide. The upcoming series, “Andor,” will be set five years before “Rogue One” and will also include flashbacks from Cassian’s childhood. “Andor” will reveal how and why Cassian joined the rebellion. Joining Luna is Felicity Jones, who will play Jyn Erso again, leader of the ragtag group of Rebel spies, as well as Forest Whitaker playing Clone Wars veteran, Saw Gerrera; Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma; plus Stellan Skarsgård, Adria Arjona, Fiona Shaw, Denise Gough and Kyle Soller. Also revealed at today’s panel was that Nicholas Britell will score the series. The live-action series will be the longest “Star Wars” show on Disney+ yet, as it is double the length of the newest six-episode series, “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” five episodes longer than “The Book of Boba Fett,” and four longer than “The Mandalorian.” A few days ago, creator/showrunner Tony Gilroy revealed to that not only will there be multiple surprises, but also there will, in fact, be a second season. “This first season is about him becoming a revolutionary, and the second 12 episodes take him into ” Gilroy said. Also, despite the rumors, the showrunner makes it clear that Alan Tudyk will not be in the series, “Not yet, anyway,” he said. Tony Gilroy co-wrote the “Rogue One” screenplay and was the uncredited director on reshoots for the film. Streaming on Disney+ tomorrow, May 27, is “ ,” one of the many other “Star Wars” shows aside from “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett” and “Star Wars: The Bad Batch,” as well as upcoming titles “Ahsoka,” “The Acolyte,” and “Lando.” |
Twitter investors sue Elon Musk over acquisition shenanigans | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | The isn’t above trying to get a discount, apparently. 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 . The lawsuit represents a group of Twitter investors but would allow any shareholders to receive financial compensation. The suit was filed Wednesday in federal district court for Northern California and argues that Musk intentionally drove down the company’s stock to secure a better deal. “The fair market value of Twitter securities has been adversely affected by Musk’s false statements and wrongful conduct,” the complaint states. The lawsuit cites Musk’s decision to waive due diligence as a condition of the acquisition and his subsequent suspiciously timed claim that Twitter had misrepresented the number of bots on its platform. “At the time, Musk was well aware that Twitter had a certain amount of ‘fake accounts’ and accounts controlled by ‘bots’ and had in fact settled a lawsuit based on the fake accounts for millions of dollars,” the complaint states. “Musk had tweeted about that issue at Twitter several times in the past, prior to making his offer to acquire Twitter with full knowledge of the bots.” Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) The suit alleges, as many people observed at the time, that Musk was likely trying to secure a discount by casting doubt on his commitment and disparaging the company. Since was announced, — including Tesla, which accounts for the vast majority of Musk’s wealth — took a dive. Following Musk’s comments, Twitter shares also dipped significantly, a phenomenon that the suit alleges is “highly unusual” given the company’s agreed-upon buyout price. While Musk claimed the deal was on hold, there was no formal mechanism in place that would back up that claim. Even within Twitter, company leaders encouraged employees to proceed as though nothing had changed, noting that there was as casually pausing a binding agreement to buy the company. The suit also alleges that Musk deliberately delayed filing a disclosure form when his stake in the company exceeded 5%, allowing him to continue to buy shares at a discount. After the form was filed and Musk’s purchases became public knowledge, by nearly a third. “Musk’s disregard for securities laws demonstrates how one can flaunt the law and the tax code to build their wealth at the expense of the other Americans,” the complaint states. |
Does WeWork’s Adam Neumann really deserve his second chance? | Lucas Matney | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | TechCrunch Plenty of entrepreneurs have used the crypto boom to plot the next step of their Silicon Valley character arcs, but few of them have an active television series chronicling their misdeeds. This week, Adam Neumann made his post-WeWork debut, co-founding a blockchain-based carbon credits market, and — more impressively — raising $70 million in funding for it, about half of which came from VCs with the other portion coming from a private token sale. The news of the deal, led by Andreessen Horowitz, made waves on Twitter, so naturally we had to discuss it this week… Hello and welcome back to the podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious. This week, we dove into the Neumann news while also dissecting Andreessen Horowitz’s latest crypto mega-fund, which has quite a few zeroes. The $4.5 billion Crypto Fund IV doubles the size of the firm’s last fund, which launched less than a year ago. It comes at a pretty turbulent time for the industry — tokens are crashing, blockchains are imploding, investors are getting liquidated and the outlook is grim. But crypto companies are looking to find ways to weather the storm; this week we talked a bit about FTX which announced its foray into stock trading. In our interview this week, we sat down with Grace Isford. Isford is an investor at Lux Capital where she backs crypto startups focused on scalability and security. In our wide-ranging conversation, we talked about this biggest scaling issues facing web3 and how consumers can stay safe and embrace risk at the same time. |
Instagram is currently down for some users | Aisha Malik | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | If you’re having problems accessing Instagram today, you’re not alone. The social media giant is currently experiencing some problems, according to reports on third-party web monitoring service . The website indicates that issues began at around 12:30 p.m. EDT. NetBlocks, which tracks global internet usage and disruptions, has also that Instagram is facing intermittent international service outages. “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing Instagram. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience.” a spokesperson from Meta told TechCrunch. Reports indicate that users are experiencing various issues with the service, including not being able to log back in after being logged out. Some users also reporting seeing a “Welcome to Instagram” message when logging on as though they have a new account. Others are unable see past a few posts or only seeing posts that were uploaded weeks ago. Some users are also reporting that they’re unable to refresh their home screen and are seeing a “we’re sorry, but something went wrong” notice. Update 05/26/2022 3:20 PM ET: Meta told TechCrunch that the company is working on a fix for the issues. Update 05/26/2022 10:00 PM ET: The issues have been resolved. |
Lab, crab and robotic rehab | Brian Heater | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | of a number of projects I hope to share with you in the newsletter soon, but one that really caught my eye was , which was just announced as part of the latest ROS (robot operating system) rollout. Beyond a punny name that is simultaneously a reference to the cloud element (fog/cloud — not to mention the fact that the new department has killer views of San Francisco and frequent visitor, ) and problematic French cuisine, there’s some really compelling potential here. I’ve been thinking about the potential impact of cloud-based processing quite a bit the last several years, independent of my writing about robots. Specifically, a number of companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google) have been betting big on cloud gaming. What do you do when you’ve seemingly pushed a piece of hardware to its limit? If you’ve got low enough latency, you can harness remote servers to do the heavy lifting. It’s something that’s been tried for at least a decade, to varying effect. ROS Latency is, of course, a major factor in gaming, where being off by a millisecond can dramatically impact the experience. I’m not fully convinced that experience is where it ought to be quite yet, but it does seem the tech has graduated to a point where off-board processing makes practical sense for robotics. You can currently play a console game on a smartphone with one of those services, so surely we can produce smaller, lighter-weight and lower-cost robots that rely on a remote server to complete resource-intensive tasks like SLAM processing. The initial application will focus on AWS, with plans to reach additional services like Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Watch this space. There are many reasons to be excited. Honestly, there’s a lot to be excited about in robotics generally right now. This was one of the more fun weeks in recent memory. V Bionic Let’s start with the ExoHeal . The device, created by Saudi Arabian V Bionic, nabbed this year’s Microsoft Imagine Cup. The early-stage team is part of a proud tradition of healthcare exoskeletons. In this case, it’s an attempt to rehab the hand following muscle and tendon injuries. Team leader Zain Samdani told TechCrunch: Flexor linkage-driven movement gives us the flexibility to individually actuate different parts of each finger (phalanges) whilst keeping the device portable. We’re currently developing our production-ready prototype that utilizes a modular design to fit the hand sizes of different patients. Walmart This is the third week in a row Walmart gets a mention here. First it was funding for GreyOrange, which it partnered with in Canada. Last week we noted a big expansion of the retail giant’s deal with warehouse automation firm, Symbotic. Now it’s another big expansion of an existing deal — this time dealing with the company’s delivery ambitions. Like Walmart’s work with robotics, drone delivery success has been…spotty, at best. Still, it’s apparently ready to put its money where its mouth is on this one, with a deal that brings DroneUp delivery . Quoting myself here: The retailer announced an investment in the 6-year-old startup late last year, following trial deliveries of COVID-19 testing kits. Early trials were conducted in Bentonville, Arkansas. This year, Arizona, Florida, Texas and DroneUp’s native Virginia are being added to the list. Once online, customers will be able to choose from tens of thousands of products, from Tylenol to hot dog buns, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Freigegeben für die Berichterstattung über das Unternehemn Wingcopter bis zum 25.01.2026. Mit Bitte um Urhebervermerk v.l.: Jonathan Hesselbarth, Tom Plümmer und Ansgar Kadura von Wingcopter GmbH. © Jonas Wresch / KfW There are still more question marks around this stuff than anything, and I’ve long contended that drone delivery makes the most sense in remote and otherwise hard to reach areas. That’s why something like this . Over the next five years, the company plans to bring 12,000 of its fixed-wing UAVs to 49 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa. It will cover spots that have traditionally struggled with infrastructural issues that have made it difficult to deliver food and medical supplies through more traditional means. “With the looming food crisis on the African continent triggered by the war in Ukraine, we see great potential and strong social impact that drone-delivery networks can bring to people in all the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by getting food to where it is needed most,” CEO Tom Plümmer told TechCrunch. “Especially in remote areas with weak infrastructure and those areas that are additionally affected by droughts and other plagues, Wingcopter’s delivery drones will build an air bridge and provide food from the sky on a winch to exactly where it is needed.” Legitimately exciting stuff, that. Dyson In more cautiously optimistic news, , announcing that it has been (and will continue) pumping a lot of money into robotic research. Part of the rollout includes refitting an aircraft hangar at Hullavington Airfield, a former RAF station in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England that the company purchased back in 2016. Some numbers from the company: Dyson is halfway through the largest engineering recruitment drive in its history. Two thousand people have joined the tech company this year, of which 50% are engineers, scientists, and coders. Dyson is supercharging its robotics ambitions, recruiting 250 robotics engineers across disciplines including computer vision, machine learning, sensors and mechatronics, and expects to hire 700 more in the robotics field over the next five years. The master plan: to create the UK’s largest, most advanced, robotics center at Hullavington Airfield and to bring the technology into our homes by the end of the decade. The primary project highlighted is a robot arm with a number of attachments, including a vacuum and a human-like robot hand, which are designed to perform various household tasks. Dyson has some experience building robots, primarily through its vacuums, which rely on things like computer vision to autonomously navigate. Still, I say “cautiously optimistic,” because I’ve seen plenty of non-robotics companies showcase the technology as more of a vanity project. But I’m more than happy to have Dyson change my mind. Hyundai Hyundai, of course, has been quite aggressive in its own robotics dreams, including its 2020 acquisition of Boston Dynamics. The carmaker this week announced that part of its massive new will include robotics, with a focus of actually bringing some of its far-out concepts to market. Another week, another big round for logistics/fulfillment robotics, as Polish firm Nomagic to expand its offerings. The company’s primary offering is a pick and place arm that can move and sort small goods. Khosla Ventures and Almaz Capital led the round, which also featured European Investment Bank, Hoxton Ventures, Capnamic Ventures, DN Capital and Manta Ray. The periscope camera pops out and extends telescopically, enabling Astro to look over obstacles and on counter tops. A very elegant design choice. for TechCrunch We finally Amazon’s limited-edition home robot, Astro, and Haje’s feelings were…mixed: It’s been fun to have Astro wandering about my apartment for a few days, and most of the time I seemed to use it as a roving boom box that also has Alexa capabilities. That’s cute, and all, but $1,000 would buy Alexa devices for every thinkable surface in my room and leave me with enough cash left over to cover the house in cameras. I simply continue to struggle with why Astro makes sense. But then, that’s true for any product that is trying to carve out a brand new product category. A tiny robot crab scuttles across the frame. Northwestern University And finally, from Northwestern University. The little guy can be controlled remotely using lasers and is small enough to sit on the side of a penny. “Our technology enables a variety of controlled motion modalities and can walk with an average speed of half its body length per second,” says lead researcher, Yonggang Huang. “This is very challenging to achieve at such small scales for terrestrial robots.” Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch |
To fully embrace product-led growth, build a strong product ops team | Todd Olson | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | economy, you can tell a lot about a company by looking at how well they leverage their product. If you’re a forward-thinking business, your product can’t only be the means by which you deliver services and value to customers (although it certainly has to be that). With the rise of the product-led movement, your product is now at the center of all your business functions. It’s a sales tool. It’s a marketing channel. It’s a support desk. A product-led approach has both empowered product teams and required them to collaborate better with other departments. This can be difficult to accomplish smoothly, since the areas in which much of that collaboration needs to happen have traditionally operated in silos. Luckily, there’s a way forward, and it involves embracing a new function that can serve as the convener and organizer in a product-led organization. Called product operations (often product ops for short), this function is becoming prevalent among the most forward-thinking companies. Typically part of the product team, product ops sits at the intersection of product, engineering and customer success. This function helps drive business outcomes for product by building non-tangible features and value into the product, as well as improving processes, alignment and communication around the product. It’s similar to how sales and marketing ops help their departments. It’s a critical function for any company that wants to make its product the “center of the wheel.” Think about the ways a product-led approach fundamentally transforms the customer experience — the self-guided tours, free trials and freemium versions that companies offer. They’ve made it so the software does the talking more than the sales rep. Customers and prospects can now demonstrate a product’s value to themselves. Or from a marketing perspective, consider how product analytics capabilities give teams unprecedented insight into the best cross-selling and upselling opportunities for customers. In countless ways, being product-led revolutionizes how companies and customers engage with one another. |
Pitch Deck Teardown: Lumigo’s $29M Series A deck | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | year, wrote about ‘s led by Redline Capital. The company makes a cloud-native application monitoring and debugging platform and has raised a total of $38 million since its launch in 2019. In the most recent installment of my Pitch Deck Teardown series, I am beyond excited to share the deck it used when it raised its Series A last year. We’ll take a look at the full deck and break down the three things I love, three things that could be improved and discuss a few other highlights that founders can learn from when they are raising a Series A in the current fundraising climate. Lumigo was gracious enough to let me share its full 20-slide deck, with only two notable redactions: The team told me that its market analysis (slide 15) and financial projections (slide 17) were commercially sensitive. That makes perfect sense. The rest of the deck is a masterclass in storytelling, with a slew of really elegant little details for how to tell the story of a very complex company in a highly competitive market. I loved how Lumigo made the story come to life by using a case study to drive the narrative (slides 11 to 14). Let’s dive in and look at some specific slides: [Slide 3] The story of Lumigo’s founders meeting and working together is very well done. Lumigo |
VCs will discuss how to find funding when you’re not in a major tech hub at TC Disrupt | Lauren Simonds | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | Silicon Valley — it’s synonymous with tech startups. Other big cities, such as Beijing, Berlin, London and New York City to name a few, built their own growing startup ecosystems. For years, conventional wisdom said startup success required relocating to a traditional, big-city innovation hub with extensive networks of tech talent and startup investors. But more young tech companies are migrating away from the maddening crowds and the higher cost of living to build startups outside of the big hubs. Then COVID-19 turned the migration into an exodus as work went virtual and made geography a moot point. However, this non-traditional route comes with different challenges. It often requires non-traditional fundraising methods, because some of these founders lack a network of investors beyond the friends and family variety. It’s an interesting and exciting trend, which is why we’re thrilled to have this trio of investors — Mike Asem, general partner, M25; Rich Wong, partner, Accel and Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and general partner, Hustle Fund — join us on stage at on October 18-20. During this panel discussion, these experts will share tips and strategies for founders who are building outside of the traditional hubs — whether in small U.S. cities and towns or in other countries. They’ll talk about ways founders can make some noise, get noticed and navigate the fundraising process. They’ll also weigh in on the public market downturn and how that’s impacted early-stage fundraising for startups. You’ll have questions, and here are the people who can provide the answers. Chicago-based Mike Asem has managed more than 100 investments in early-stage companies such as Cheddar, FanBox and Nexus.AI. Outside of his responsibilities at M25, Ansem is a Kauffman Fellow and a national board member of BLCK VC where he leads initiatives in the Midwest to connect, engage, empower and advance Black venture investors. Prior to M25, Ansem founded The Anvil, a co-working space and startup incubator on Purdue University’s campus, where he helped launch the first Purdue startup accepted to Y Combinator and many more that have gone on to raise venture capital and get acquired. Rich Wong joined Accel as a partner in 2006, and he currently serves on the boards of Atlassian, UiPath, Checkr, Instabug, Pyn, Process St, Middesk and Qwilt. Rich also served on the National Venture Capital Association board of directors. Wong led Accel’s investments in AirWatch (acquired by VMware), Angry Birds/Rovio, MoPub (acquired by Twitter), AdMob (acquired by Google), Dealer.com (acquired by Cox), Osmo (acquired by BYJUs), Parature (acquired by Microsoft), ServiceChannel (acquired by Fortive), Sunrun, SwiftKey (acquired by Microsoft) and 3LM (acquired by Motorola). Wong previously served as executive vice president and general manager of products for Openwave Systems and as CMO of Covad Communications. He began his career as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble and at McKinsey. Yin is a co-founder and general partner at Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund for software entrepreneurs. Its portfolio includes companies such as Possible Finance, Dat Bike and Sydecar. Previously, Yin was a partner at 500 Startups where she invested in seed-stage companies and ran the Mountain View accelerator. In her prior life, she co-founded and ran an adtech company called LaunchBit (acquired by BuySellAds). Yin has reviewed more than 20,000 startup pitches from around the world and has helped numerous portfolio founders raise hundreds of millions of dollars. When you don’t live near a traditional startup hub, understanding the different options to secure funding is essential. It’s especially true in the midst of economic uncertainty when raising could become even more challenging. Whether you’re an early-stage startup founder, planning to start your own enterprise or bracing for an economic downturn, this panel is designed with you in mind. Join Mike Asem, Rich Wong and Elizabeth Yin for solid advice on ways to improve your fundraising potential. is back in person to reengage the startup ecosystem on October 18-20 in San Francisco. to get access to our Memorial Day 2-for-1 savings!
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Memorial Day sale: Save 50% on TechCrunch+ | Alex Wilhelm | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | Hello, TechCrunch community! I’m writing with some good news: We are doubling down on this year, staffing up ( , , , , with more to come) and publishing more than ever before. This means that you might’ve hit the paywall a bit more frequently than in the past. To help ameliorate the matter, from today until May 30, you can snag an annual pass to TechCrunch+ for 50% off as part of our . If you aren’t familiar with TechCrunch+ yet, no worries. It’s the analytical and hands-on wing of the TechCrunch house, where we publish in-depth pieces from experts on , and other core startup topics; investor surveys covering critical startup verticals (lately that’s included , and ), and more. Another perk of being a TechCrunch+ member: You save 20% on TechCrunch events, which are back in person this year and . ( ) So if you need access and want to save some money. Have a great long weekend! — |
OnlyFans founder makes crypto debut selling influencer trading cards | Anita Ramaswamy | 2,022 | 5 | 26 | OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely with a new NFT startup, , launching this summer. On Zoop, people can buy, sell, and trade 3D NFT “playing cards” of their favorite influencers and celebrities. The limited-edition digital cards on Zoop will be officially licensed, according to the company, though it wasn’t clear whether the celebrities themselves would be directly involved in their creation. Zoop said the platform will foster “a closer connection between fan and influencer” in its announcement. As is the trend in entertainment NFTs today, the cards will give users special perks such as exclusive airdrops and access to communities that share their interests. Stokely will serve as co-CEO of the company alongside RJ Phillips, another former OnlyFans exec joining Zoop this summer. They’ve chosen to launch Zoop on the Polygon blockchain because of its low transaction costs and sustainability in comparison to other chains, according to the company. Zoop plans to release 500 cards per influencer for its initial drops and has long-term plans to launch its own token, Phillips . He added that the platform would be “family friendly,” in contrast with OnlyFans, which decided to continue hosting NSFW content after creators on the platform pushed back against its proposal to ban porn in 2021. The OnlyFans platform itself is also experimenting with NFTs. It was testing an NFT profile picture feature earlier this year, . “This feature is the first step in exploring the role that NFTs can play on our platform,” OnlyFans CEO Ami Gan said of the profile picture update in February. |
YC’s letter to founders, Apple’s folding device and the DOJ’s new stance on hackers | Greg Kumparak | 2,022 | 5 | 21 | Hi all! Welcome back to Week in Review, our where we wrap up many of the top stories to hit TechCrunch over the last seven days. The this week, based on what people were reading most, were the details of a memo sent from Y Combinator to its portfolio founders. As the markets continue to slide,YC is telling its portfolio founders that it’s time to batten down the hatches — cut costs, extend runway and get to a “default alive” state. “For those of you who have started your company within the last 5 years,” YC writes, “question what you believe to be the normal fundraising environment.” Manish has the Is Apple tinkering with the idea of folding phones and/or tablets? Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple is testing E-Ink displays for the secondary display on an as-of-yet-unseen “future foldable”. As Brian points out, though, “there’s a big gulf between testing and releasing” — in other words, don’t be too surprised if this one never sees the light of day. Earlier this month, a Tesla Model S “hit a curb and slammed into construction equipment”, killing three. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now looking into the accident to determine if Tesla’s Autopilot system could’ve been involved. After way, way, way too long, the U.S. Justice Department is re-evaluating how it looks at hacking cases, for the first time outright stating that “good-faith security research should not be charged” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. “When [Coke] sends out a hand-wringing press release about how awesome they are for launching a bottle cap where the cap stays attached to the bottle ‘for environmental reasons,'” writes Haje, “I’m sorry, my blood just boils.” Within a few months of parting ways with PayPal Ventures, these three alums had raised a huge new fund of their own. The focus? Fintech, and backing “startups that address ‘the biggest hurdles’ in today’s financial infrastructure: access, utility, flexibility, and cost.” You’re starting a company. Do you do it alone, or find a co-founder? It’s a question I’ve heard asked pretty much every time I’ve been on a panel with VCs or founders. In this post, co-founder of DocSend (acquired by Dropbox in 2021) Russ Heddleston shares his thoughts. It feels like we’re hearing about new layoffs every other day. How quickly are startup layoffs accelerating? Alex Wilhelm dives into the data. Lithium-ion batteries, as the name suggests, require lithium. But “today’s lithium mines can’t hope to meet the skyrocketing demand,” writes Tim De Chant. So where will we get it moving forward? Tim takes a look at some potential solutions. |
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